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our holiuess ought to be sincere and blameless.—That our obedience ought to abound in all fruits of righteousness, and to continue until the day of Chi-ist, . , 131

Book II.—The demeanour of a Christian, as it is expressed under the notion of friendship with God.—The example of Abraham's being the friend of God.—How, in the sense of the apostle James, he was justified by works.—How great, excellent, and kind a friend God is to us.—How this consideration should engage us in a sincere friendship to him.—What are the duties and offices to be performed by us, as proper and owing to such a friendship.—Of the behaviour of a Christian, as it is named service to God, 178

Book III.—Evangelical motives to obedience, drawn from the obligation which God hath laid upon us, by his appointing us unto good words, in his election of us, and by the greatness of his love manifested in the several instances of it.—Other motives urged from the consideration, that Christ having by his death conquered the devil, and destroyed his kingdom, we are by our Christian profession engaged to hate him, and fight against him as a public enemy to Christ and us, and by all our actions to endeavour the ruin of his dark kingdom of sin.—Other motives deduced from the divine presence and majesty apparent in our holy services and performances ; and also from God's design in the revelation of his word, that 1 we should not only read and know it, but practise it too. 23.3

Book IV.—The danger of a loose, careless, and unfruitful profession; or the danger of men's living under the dispensation and enjoyment of the ordinances of the gospel; viz., the preaching of the word, the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and church communion, if they live in sin,

CONTENTS. Vll

Paob

indulge their Insts, or bo unfruitful.—Two cases resolved : 1. How fur a regenerate man is capable of sinning against knowledge ; 2, Wherein the sin against the Holy Ghost differs from other sins against knowledge. . . 296

OF THK BLKSSlll) STATI<: OF GLORY WHICH THE

SAIxXTS POSSESS AFTEli DEATH. ... 837

THREE SEVERAL AGES OF CHRISTIANS IN FAITH

AND OBEDIENCE. 473

MAN'S RESTORATION BY GRACE. ... 619

OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION OF THEIR STATE BY CREATION

[ORIGINAL TITLE.]

OF THE

CREATURES,

AND THE

CONDITION

OF THEIR

STATE

BY

CREATION.

BY

THOMAS GOODWIN, D.D.

LONDON,

Printed in tlie Tear, MDCLXXXII.

PROPElrP^^^.

OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION OF THEIR STATE BY CREATION.

BOOK I.

TJiat the creatures are not God, hut the trorks of his potver. — Theij were not co-eternal uith God. — The infimte distance betu-een him and them.

One God, . . of ivhom are all things. —1 Cob. YIII. 6.

CHAPTER I.

The creatures are not God. — The absurdities of those ranting opinions ivhich assert it exposed.

There hath risen up from out of the bottomless pit, in this age, a prodigious opinion, which hath been ventured and maintained with more daring impudence than men of themselves could have assumed, had not the devil inspired and blown up their fancies thereunto, viz., that all things which God hath made, are indeed but pieces and parcels of God himself; and that that which is caUed by the creation is but a turquoising of God, or God translated, as you do a great and large whole cloth when you cut it forth into garments of several fashions, as some of them have spoken; whereas it is the creatures that are the ' garment that waxeth old,' Heb. i., but God is without so much as a ' shadow of turning.' If in his love to us (whereof that place speaks), much more in his essence, which is the ground of the unchangeableness of his love. They say, the visible appearance is indeed as of creatures, but really, materially, and substantially, they are all but God. So as I may rightly express this opinion of theirs, they would make a transubstantiation of the great God, such as the papists (though they in a contrary way to this) make a transubstantiated Christ. For what say they but that the creatures, or elements of bread and wine, are changed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ substantially; yea, into Chi'ist himself, soul and body present, and lying veiled under the appearance of

bread and wine. But these men would have the divine essence of God transubstantiated into the outward a^jpearance of several shapes of creatures, the substance of which is God, lying, as they would have it, hidden under that outward visibility. Thus they cursedly crumble the indivisible, simple nature of God into little fragments and parcels; whereas that infinite, vast distance between him and us is, that *we are the clay, and he the potter.' They would have God to turn part of himself into clay, and become that clay; and then the rest of himself, to become the potter over himself, and to metamorphose himself into shapes, as the heathens did their gods ; and to please himself in making himself, as children do their clay into clay pies, or the shapes of dogs, or lambs, and the like, as their fancies lead them. And yet forsooth they would seem to allow him the main bulk of his Godhead, to live abstracted from the creatures, and separate from their creature existence and appearance. For I do not find that they affirm the whole of God to be no other than what is shrouded under the appearance of the creature, and adequate to it; yet they do make up some part of him, dispersed into creature appearance (as hath been said), and so as both make up together but one God, partly visible and partly invisible; even like as Peter says of the earth that now is, that it ' partly stands out of the water and partly in the water,' 2 Pet. iii. 5, and both making but one globe, so here they frame one God; whereas the Scriptures set him forth as a Being ' eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God,' 1 Tim. i. 17, ' who dwelleth in hght inaccessible, whom no man hath seen, nor can see,' 1 Tim. vi. 16; and again, Isa. xlii. 8, * I am Jehovah, and my glory I will not give to another.' Now, that other is not, nor can be, any other but the creature, for it is only God and the creature that have any being, or pretence thereto; when therefore God says, 'he will not give his glory to another,' the meaning is, he will not in any sort allow or endure the glory that is proper unto him as God to be given unto his creatures, any of them, in any respect; much less hath he himself given that glory to them, that they should be God with himself, who are a different, yea, infinitely different, sort of being from him. And again, in Isa. xl. 15, having said 'that all nations before him are as nothing, and are counted to him less than nothing and vanity,' the prophet's inference from thence is this, ' To whom then will ye liken me ?' His next and immediate scope is, to confound their imaginations and outward lineaments made of him in graven images; but then his argument for this runs higher and reacheth deeper: My being is such and so transcendent that you cannot match me with all nations or the souls of men, much less therefore draw any outward shape in graven images; for ' who hath seen his shape at any time ?' Therefore also his being, wisdom, power, holiness is of another kind than ours; the souls of men made wise and holy cannot match him. As thei'efore God is called the only good, and only wise, and only immortal, so by the same reason only is or hath a heinrj. And therefore the glory of his nature is, that it is incommunicable. Take his essence: we cannot attain to dwell in it, as he dwells in himself, that inhabiteth eternity—1 Tim. vi. 16, ' Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see'—much less therefore can reach to the participation of him in his being and glory, so as to be himself. His being is proper to himself, and entire with himself.

The devil of this opinion, that the creature is God, or at least a piece of him, hath haunted the world in former ages as well as it walks now. The

philosophers had it up,- the poets amongst the heathen, and heretics among the Christians, downwards in all ages. My brethren, consider what Paul hath uttered, llom. i. 25; speaking of the heathen, he saith, ' They changed the truth of God into a lie' (that is, the essence and being of God), ' and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.' In which speech at once he puts a bar and wall of separation between God's being and that of the creatures, and also adores the infinite blessedness of that his being entire within itself, as is not communicable to the creature; and also speaks in opposition to the worshipping of creatures as God upon any account, much less as if they were essentially God. The Jews indeed, they would narrow God, by confining him to their temple; and therefore God vindicates himself against that restraint by this, Isa. Ixvi. 1, ' I made all things : and where will you find me an house ?' But the heathen, they fancied God was like the creatures, and under that notion worshipped him in the creatures ; and in opposition thereunto said Isaiah also, ' To whom will ye liken me ?' speaking of heathenish idolatry. And Paul had an eye to both : Acts xvii. 24, ' God, that made the world, and all things therein, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;' and again, ver. 29, ' We ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.' The idolatry of the heathen did rise no higher (whatever the opinion of some of them was) than this, that ','they changed the truth' (or essence) 'of God into this lie,' by worshipping the creature as like unto God; and yet thereby (whilst they knew it not) * they worshipped the creature more than God.' If God found fault with these, how must his jealousy rise up in fury against those that not only make the creature like to God, but make every creature to be God himself! To these he might not only say, as to them, ' To whom will ye liken me ?' but who, more impiously, do make the creature the same that I am. This is an idolatry which the generality of the heathen practised not.

Are not we, as was said, the clay, and he the potter ? And are not those two distant enough, if we take but the distance between a man that is the potter and his clay, when yet the man himself, who is that potter, is made, as well as his pots are by him ? You find the comparison, Jer. xviii. 6, and Rom. ix. 21. But, to make God the potter, to turn himself to clay, and then to make vessels out of himself, and then for him to say

* Hermes Trismegistus, 1. 5, ad filiam Tatium. ' Nihil est in universo mundo qnod non sit ipse. Deus est totum quod vides, totum quod non vides.'—Seneca. August. 1. contra Secundinum Manicheum, speaking against the opinion of the Manichees, argues thus: ' Si Dominus ejusdeni substantife Creator et Creatura essent, non reprehenderentur qui servi erant Creaturse potius quam Creatoris, quo-niam cuique serviissent ah eadem natura et substantia non recessissent; cum vero reprehenduntur ab apostolo, et detestabiles habentur qui et servierunt Creaturis potius quam Creatori, satis ostenditur, illius et hujus diversas esse substantias,' Again, in Gerson's time, Gerhard: ' Qaidam se imaginati sunt per contemplationem ita uniri Deo, ut reipsa ipsorum natura in abyssali profundo submergantur; pura humanitas annihiletur, et toto transeat in Divinitatem.' "Which also the Anabaptists, which are called Methiists in Holland, have held of the humanity of Christ. Also Servetus, as Calvin hath it, held ' Deitatem in omnibus Creaturis esse sub-stantialiter.' So Calvin, Tract. Theolog., page 609 and 657. Also Sebastianus Franck, ' In trunco, Deum esse truncum, in porco porcum, in diabolo diabolum': Calvin, cap. 13, speaking of Lucretinus, one of them, ' Sum Deus,' saith he._ And since then, Wigelius; and of old, Dionysius: ' Esse omnium est ipsa Divinitas, omne quod vides, et quod non vides.' Lucan, 1. 3, 'Jupiter is est quodcunque vides quocunqu© moveris.'

again unto his pots as made out of himself, ' Return, je sons of men, into God again' (as their fancies are), is not this a goodly religion ? A goodly religion indeed ! ' 0 ye potsherds of the earth,' know your distance from your Creator ; you are of a diflering metal! * Let the potsherds of the earth rant it against their fellow-potsherds of the earth,' as Isaiah hath it, chap. xlv. 9, and not think to vie with your Creator, as if you were pieces of him, yea, fellow-mates with him, whenas you are less than nothing : Isa. si. 17, ' They are nothing; yea, less than nothing.' He hatli much ado to keep himself from denying them a name of being; and even that vanisheth whilst compared with him. And if they had been a drop of him, taken altogether they could not have added to this ocean ; but if they be nothing, and less than nothing, then sure they are no parts of him ; of which afterwards.

Again, To argue this from invincible reason. If all things were God, all difierence of good and evil would be taken away, and God should sin in all that is acted in and by the creature, which is that these men do aim at, to have their consciences discharged of all obligations. If they can once persuade their souls that they are God, then as God sins not, so nor do they.

Again, If so, then there would be no obligation between the Creator and the creature, nor any law which they are obliged unto ; which also they would obliterate out of their own and other men's consciences, in saying that it proceeds from the degenerate ignorance of the creature, and their unbelief of what they truly are, that they think themselves subject to a law.

Again, There could be no redemption, the creature needed it not; for it could never be lost from God, it being substantially a piece of himself. Nor God could make no election nor reprobation among his creatures ; for himself were both that which is chosen, and what is condemned; and he would then be condemning himself, or self-condemned. And God should hate part of himself; whereas ' no man ever yet hated his own flesh,' Eph. V. 29 ; but the Scripture says in the name of God, ' Esau have I hated,' &c., Rom. ix. 13.

Again, All the idolatry of the nations would be justified by this; yea, even such idolatiy as the light of the wisest of them condemned. ' Oil sanctas gentes, quibus hsec nascuntur in hortis, Nuruina!'— Juven. Condemning the Egyptians worshipping herbs for gods ; yea, not only herbs, but serpents, * four-footed beasts and creeping things ; 'which the apostle, Rom. i. 23 (' And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to con'uptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things'), toucheth upon. Oh! * these are the gods, 0 Israel;' and not only these, but the devil himself, that old sei*pent, for he is a creature too. Yea, men might worship their own draught, and so make a god of that, which God himself, in so much scorn, speaks of the heathens' gods by the prophet, a dunghill god,* I)ii stercorarii. It might further be said that God creates himself, and creates nothing but himself; that oijus est artifex, himself the work of his own hand, and yet the maker too.

It is true indeed, the Scripture says, that ' all things are of him,' and * all things are thine,' as David in his panegyric made to God. It is also said of him, that he is ' above all, and in you all, and through all,' Eph. iv. 6. It is also said, that * God is all in all'; but it is nowhere said, that God is all things, or that all things are God himself.

* See Deut. xxix. 17, marginal reading.— Ed.

CHAPTER n.

The creatures u-ere not from eternity existing in God.

Some Platonic divines have fancied the creatures to have been existent in God, and with God, from eternity; and their creation to have been but God's putting them forth of himself into a visibihty, who yet when they thus lay hid, were then in as true a way of being as now they are.

I will not enter into that controversy which the schoolmen have stirred, whether a creatui-e might have been from eternity or no.

Only first we say, that it is an incommunicable attribute of God, that he ' inhabits eternity,' as it imports ; that he both dwelt himself alone from eternity, when there were none of these made things to dwell in, or with him, no heavens or earth to fill; as also, that he is eternity alone to himself, and dwelt in himself.

We do thus far acknowledge, that all things were in God's foreknowledge and decree; in esse volito, as Aquinas speaks. So also in Acts xv. 18 : ' Ivnown unto God are all his works from the beginning.' And to say that all things were in God virtually (as they would mince it, and distinguish upon it) is but to say they have a being in the power of God, as worms have in the sun, which it will bring forth to-morrow ; and so all things that never were, and that never shall be, but were and remain mere possibilia, things only possible, may be said to be in God. But to the point itself.

Eternity in God, and the creatures' being in time, is made a vast and broad distinction between God and them. Ps. xc. 2: ' Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.' His arms spanned both eternities. They are called ' the everlasting arms,' Deut. xxxiii. 27. Whereas the best of creatures have but half an eternity, they are to everlasting, but noi from everlasting. This is proper to God only, in opposition to the creatures, for it was before they were brought fox-th. And their being to everlasting is derived from God, for of him it is said, 1 Tim. vi. 16, ' T\Tio only hath immortality,' that is, of himself.

2. Upon the same account it is made the difference between Christ and the creatures, that he is from eternity, not they; and this because he is God. Ps. cii. 24, 25 (which, in the first of the Hebrews, is apphed by Paul unto Chi-ist): ' I said, 0 my God, take me not away in the midst of my days : thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth.' Others read it, ' before thou laidst the foundations of the earth.' The word Lepanim* or ' of old,' refers to the words afore, thus, ' Thy years are throughout all generations, afore thou laidst the foundations of the earth.' And here also is found a general opposition to all creatm-es; for as he had mentioned the earth, so he mentions ^the heavens, as it follows, ' and the heavens are the work of thy hands.' Now the heavens and the earth comprehend all.

Again, 3dly, This very same difference and distinction of the creatures and Christ is held forth in John i. 1, compared with Hebrews i., where these words of the psahnist are cited. In John i. ver. 1, shewing Christ's pecuUar dignity, and his being God, he says, ' He was in the beginning:' the same beginning which Moses meant, when he said, ' In the begmning • That is, ' □''is'?.'— Ed.

God created,' which notes out existence afore; and it is spoken in opposition to the world as made. So ver. 10, * the world was made by him ;' which that in that first of the Hebrews fully clears and explains, answering both to John and the psalmist: Heb. i. 10, ' And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of thy hands;' that is, he was so in the beginning of the making of all things whatsoever, so as to be the founder of them, and therefore existing afore them. In which place of John, two things are said of him in difference from creatures: first, that he was * with God' before, which the creatures were not, nor existent in him as he was; and further, secondly, much less were they God before, as he was, but they all were made by him. Add to this (to shew it was his pecuHar privilege above the creation, that he thus was with God) that in Prov. viii. ver. 24, ' When there was no depths, I was brought forth; when there was no fountains abounding with water: before the mountains were settled ; before the hills was I brought forth : while as yet he had not made the earth,' &c. So on to the 30th verse, * Then was I with him as one brought up with him.' This Wisdom makes her boast of, as a prerogative no creature had; and Wisdom, in the Proverbs, is put for the person of Christ himself. So Luke xi. 49, compared with Luke vii. 34, 35, wherein Christ, speaking of himself, says in that 11th chap. 49, ' Therefore also said the Wisdom of God, I will send them prophets and apostles,' &c. And in Luke vii. 35 he expressly says, ' This Wisdom is he who was the Son of man;' ver. 34, ' The Son of man is come eating and drinking, and ye say. Behold a gluttonous man,' &c. * But Wisdom is justified of her children': so plainly afiirming of himself, I myself am that Wisdom spoken of, which is justified of my children ; and in Mat. xi. 19, he says the same. And that speech, ' The Wisdom of God said, I will send prophets and apostles,' &c., as it must refer in general to some speech or other, somewhere in the Old Testament, uttered by one that takes on him to be a person, as the I imports, and that person styled ' the Wisdom of God,' so particularly it refers unto what Wisdom had said of herself in the book of the Proverbs, chap, i., from ver. 29 to the end, of * sending forth preachers,' by whom she ' utters her voice in the streets, and cries in the chief places of concourse.' And when our Saviom' Christ speaks of that union which he had with the Father in that his prayer, John xvii., he says, that he had a * glory with the Father before the world was;' and this he makes a peculiar privilege of himself, as being then a person who was then existing, and so were* that glory afore God the Father. Whereas, if all the elect had existed in God actually then, as well as Christ, this had not been peculiar unto him ; and yet there also he speaks of their existence in God's decree and election, ' Thine they were,' John xvii. 6. And, therefore, what he says of himself, of the glory that he had before the world was, must be spoken by reason of an existence besides that which he had in decree, which existence the elect had not.

Thirdly, By this God doth set forth his own greatness to humble Job, and in him the whole creation ; and how poor a Job doth he make of him ! And if that God himself should speak unto these blasphemers of our days, as he did to Job there, how would they instantly shake and tremble, and fall to nothing, unless he supported them! You have Job xxxviii. 2, 3, God steps in from behind the hangings, as one that had, undiscerned, overheard Job's rantings and standings upon his points : ' Who is this,' says God, ' that darkens counsel by words without knowledge ? Gird up now ■* Qu. ' wore ?'— Ed.

thy loins like a man,' if thou hast any mettle, or the spirit of a man in thee; and to confound thee, I will ask thee but one question : * For I will demand of thee, and answer thou me but this one thing : "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? declare, if thou hast understanding. Nay; canst thou tell who hath laid the measures thereof? or who hath stretched the line upon it ? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened ? or who hath laid the corner-stone thereof ?' God hereby shook up Job so, and gave him such a rattling, and yet appeared not as he is in himself, but speaks all this out of a whirlwind, which he took to cover him. And the issue with Job of all this was, as in chap. xlii. 6, ' I abhor myself in dust and ashes.' You see this once and first query, which is home to the point in hand, and point-blank, as we say, against that wicked opinion, which asserts all things to be co-eternal with God. These God chose out of all other weapons, to overthrow Job with ; * Where wert thou ?' Alas ! thou hadst no being then, much less knowledge of these things. But according to this wretched opinion, risen up in these days, if true. Job might have answered boldly, ' I was with thee,' and ' I was in thee,' and in a happier state of union with thee than I am in now: not in a state of union with flesh and blood, but one in spirit with thee. Ay, indeed, says God (speaking ironically to him), * Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born?' ver. 21. Thou art very old. Job, and of great standing, and ' the number of thy days is great,' as it follows there.

Now, if the creatures, or the souls of men, had really been existent in God, and as truly as Chi-ist himself, as to his existence, no otherwise than they affirm themselves to have been, then God might as well have said to Christ, * Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ?' But such a question Christ hath prevented, and put out of question, saying, Prov. viii. 29. ' Then I was by him;' yea, and * was his counsellor,' as Isa. xl. 13. Both which are spoken there of Christ.

And whereas it is objected by those men, that in that Proverbs viii. it is also affirmed, that the sons of men, who were his elect, did then exist in God, in a sportful life in God, together with Christ, because it is said, ver. 31, that he was ' rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth : and,' it follows, ' my delights were with the sons of men ;' and that therefore, though men did not exist under the appearance of flesh and blood as now, yet they were existing in spirit in him and with him ; and that they being put out of God, into the veil of flesh and blood, therefore it was that Christ came forth from God after them, and took flesh and blood also; for so they apply that of the Hebrews ii. 13, 14.

The answer is clear, that it proves the clear contrary out of the very text; for Christ's rejoicing then is said to have been ' in the habitable parts of his earth.' Therefore it must be meant of men as inhabiting the earth, and not as existing with him from eternity. Ver. 26 of Prov. viii. tells us that they ' were not then made.' Hence, therefore, his rejoicing in them must necessarily be spoken in respect of the foresight of what they should be, and so as existing afore the world, but in God's decree, in respect of what he would after make them to be, and thereby presented to him beforehand as foreviewing what those children should be whom God hath given to him, when once they should come to inhabit this earth; and such, to be sure, they were not actually then, for he expressly saith, ver. 23, these his delights were afore the earth itself was.

And had there been, as then, any other existence of them but in foresight and decree, as the cause of that he delighted in them, he would much

rather have mentioned that as the object of his present delight, than this other -which was so long after to come, when they should inhabit and dwell here on earth below. And if alUhad been in God before in being, why then all might pray as well as Christ, ' Glorify us with that glory we had with thee before the world was ;' and then they might say of themselves, even as Christ saith of himself, ' You shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before.'

And then likewise, that had not been true which the apostle says, 1 Cor. sv. 46, where, speaking of David's* creation, he says, ' That was not fii'st which is spmtual, but that which is natural, and afterwards, that which is spii-itual;' whereas, had they had an 'existence in God in spirit' before the world was, then he had first been that which is spiritual, and afterwards that which is natural.

And then, again, that benefit of creation, which yet we are taught to praise God so much for, had been a worsting of the condition of these elect ones, a shooting them out of a spiritual condition into a natural, without any sin of theirs.

CHAPTER in.

The infinite distance hetiveen God and the creatures, in res2-)ect that he is the maker and preserver of them; in that also he is eternal, and so before they had being he dwelt alone in himself, and possessed all things in himself. — He is the high and lofty One, and is so supiremely excellent, as it transcends all other; his name is holy, and so is above the creatures, and separated from them. — The true name of Being is proper only to God: the creatures are but the shadows and appearances of being.

For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, ichose name is holy: I dwell in the high and holy jAace, ivith him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones. — Isaiah LVII. 15.

Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me ? and ivhere is the place of my rest ? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man icill I look, even to him that is j^oor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. — Isaiah LXVI. 1, 2.

Here is the highest and the lowest met dwelling together : the highest God, and the lowest and poorest of his creatui'es.

The prophet had just in the chapter afore, the 65th, ver. 25, foretold a like wonder to this : ' the wolf and the lamb shall feed together ;' which, in chap. xi. 6, is varied thus, ' The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the calf and the young lion,' &c., which, if literally understood, were a wonder in nature. But behold, a greater is here : ' the high and lofty One that inhabits eternity, whose name is holy,' dwells with the sinner who is ' contrite' and ' broken' in heart for it. This is a wonder in grace ; or rather, the wonder of grace.

The language the words are penned in is God's, and could be no other's for him. The thoughts of the creature could not have invented such a * Qu. ' Adam's ' ?— Ed.

style to speak to him in ; and God's scope therein is by Ufting up and exalting his ovra greatness above all creatures, withal to discover the height and depth of his grace in so condescending to the meanest of creatures, than which himself accounts nothing more his glory.

As to my presently scope, it is not to enlarge upon the description of a broken heart, or of God's aflfecting and delighting therein to dwell, or his grace shewn thereby ; but my present design is to enlarge upon the height and distance which God bears above us and his whole creation, considered as we are creatures. Nor is my scope simply to set forth what God is in himself, but as here he is set out comparatively with his creatures ; limiting my discourse herein, also, only unto what description he makes of himself here in the text. And the use I shall put it to will be, to humble us as creatures, even in our best estate, and not as sinners only.

This comparative distance of this height above us, is set forth in these particulars :

I. * I, the maker and preserver.' And these things were made and do exist by me.

First, The maker. So in both places : in Isa. Ixvi. 2, ' All these have my hands made.' The very tenor of this speech is a slighting them as creatures : and being ' they are but made things, and will ye compare them to me ?' It is as if an artificer should speak of his works made by him, that are different from himself. These are the clay and my pots, and I am the potter. He speaks of them as a potter would do of his potsherds, so distant from himself, the maker. Or he speaks thus of them, with difference from his own internal acts of his mind within himself; whereas these are utterly external, and out of himself. * These have my hands made,' as an artificer would speak of his manufactures and works without him. And then in Isa. Ivii., the other scripture, ver. 16, ' The souls' (the subjects of this my grace) * which I have made.' In both, he speaks of them as made by him, and the souls made altogether, i.e., the whole of their being, as Ps. xxxiii. 15, for creation is productio totius entis; Acts xvii. 25, ' He giveth to all life and all things;' and ver. 28, being itself; * In him we live, and have our being ;' and Rom. xi. 36, ' Of him are all things ;' and therefore, not so much as a first matter was existing to his hands. But ' all these have my hands made.'

Secondly, The preserver, as giving and continuing. To give them existence ; as those words in chap. Ixvi. 2, ' And all these things have been, saith the Lord,' Piscator renders. Per eum existunt omnia; to which that of Acts xvii. 28 corresponds, ' In him we live, and move, and have our being,' i.e., as the original, so the continuance of them. He gives life, ver. 25, and then preserves it. In him we continue to have it; thus both Paul and Isaiah.

II. ' Inhabiting eternity,' which he speaks, first, with exclusion of all things made, as things that have not, de facto, been from eternity ; and notes out an eminent distinction put thereby between them and him, Ps. xc. 2 : * Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting thou art God.' And whereas some creatures, as angels and men's souls, have an eternity of existence to come, yet that is but derived. It is he is said only to have ' immortality,' 1 Tim. vi., and therefore he is called the last as well as the first. That though they be eternal for time to come, yet he is after them all; which could not have been said but in respect that creatures their eternity doth depend on him ; and so he is the last, though they

continue with liim foi' ever. God hath eternity, both past and to come ; and this is proper to him.

Secondly, The phrase here, * inliahitinrj eternity,' is unusual, and significant of far more than simplj' that God is eternal in both respects aforesaid. It imports, over and besides, 1, That he hath dwelt alone, and shall dwell alone for ever apart, by and in himself; whether afore any creature were or since, it is all one as to this. For himself is that eternity which he dwelt in, and shall dwell in : 1 Sam. xv. 29, ' The Eternity of Israel will not lie,' so it is varied in the margin. And since the creatui'es was, he is bis own proper mansion-house, even as he was before.

First, That afore any creature was, he dwelt alone, that is evident; for they not being or existing, he must needs have had an eternity past alone to himself, which he says he dwelt in, and no creature with him. Not only there was no other God with him (as Moses), but no creature with him (as Solomon), Prov. viii. from verse 23 to 32. So that what was said of Israel, that they were a people that dwelt alone, Deut. xxxiii. 28, the same may be said of the God of Israel; he was utterly without all society of any creature.

And secondly, It is all one after he hath made the creatures; ho still dwells in his own eternity, apart by himself.* It is one of the attributes which Paul gives him, 1 Tim. vi. 16, ' Who only hath immortaUty, dweUing in the light which no man can approach unto.' And therefore you see in Isa. Ixvi., that since he hath made heaven and earth, how yet he speaks of the whole creation : * Where will ye fiaid me a place for my rest ?' which imports, that since he made the world, he dwells by himself apart in the same eternity he did. His making of creatures was not to add to or enlarge his dwelling, that he might inhabit more commodiously (as it is with man, whose person is one thing, and whose house is another). No. Their building is not a new piece of an house to him who alone inhabits eternity, that is, himself.

It is true, that now he hath made all these things, if he should not be everywhere, where any of them are, and ' through them all,' as Paul's phrase is, Eph. iv., he should not be God, the immense God : ' I fill heaven and earth,' saith he, Jer. xxiii. 24 ; seeing they are made, he fills them also, yet so as still he is not beholding to them for room or place. As the sun filleth the air, but is not beholding to it for the place it afibrds it, but the air to the sun that fills it.

Thirdly, That he inhabiteth eternity shews that he possesseth all things in himself, for himself is his own eternity to himself; and that eternity being an house to himself, is furnished with all things within himself. He went not then out of himself for anything, nor needs he yet to do so — as Acts xvii. 25, 'He needs not anything' — but was abundantly supplied with all things within himself, as a gi-eat man in his own house, whose glory it is to have all things sufficiently about him therein and therewith.

Fourthly, That he inhabiteth eternity imports that his being is so infinite, as he fills the immense expanse of all or both eternities in one moment. He comprehends and compasseth the whole, and all within himself, and extends himself through it all; he is the king of ages, that is, of the courses of times, 1 Tim. i. 17 ; and so as a king hath all ages as subjects always extant afore him. In the 40th of Isaiah it is said, he ' spanneth the heavens,'

* The Jews call him MaJcom [i. e., DipQ— Ed.], place, because he is place to himself—his own centre and his own circumference.

and it is a good grasp that, you will say ; but that is spoken only of a thing that is now at present existing ; but in Dcut. xxxiii. 27 ye read, he hatli • everlasting arms :' a right arm to environ eternity, a parte ante, eternity past, and another that to come, and so encircles both eternities, past and to come, without succession of time to him. Eternity is but a moment to bim ; a to viiv atemitatis, as the schoolmen speak; for he comprehends it within the arms of his infinitely extensive being. As he subsists not in place per partes, so nor in time by parts. He runs not through a time past, present, and to come. His duration is not measured by the differences of time ; for then it might be said, as to time to come, he as yet is not. By the same reason that a ' thousand years are but as one day to him,' by the same j'ou may say, that eternity is but one instant. He inhabits, that is, possesseth even the whole continually ; he builds not one part of his eternity in one age, and another part in another, so that he should dwell in it by piecemeal and successively ; nor yet removes he his habitation, as men that have gi-eat houses do, from one part of their house, as in winter (suppose), and to another in summer, and the other part standing empty the while. No ; but from eternity to eternity is but one entire individual and complete house for the whole of him at once to fill, who is fulness of being in the intenseness of perfection. And hence he enjoyeth all blessedness in an instant ;* not as we, one part this moment, and another piece in another, which, when put together, do make a complete happiness, but in a succession.

Fifthly, His house is always one and the same, and never hath any decay, or needs the least reparation in any part of it. His eternity is an immutability and unchangeableness. He is semj^er idem; his style is always I am, and I will he, Ehieh, that is, always the same, and the cause of my own being. And by this also his eternity is differenced from the creatures ; all of them ' wax old as a garment,' and of themselves they ■would do so, did not God renew their being eveiy moment. The angels would wax old, as the children of Israel's garments in the wilderness did not, but it was because God perpetually kept them as new. But of God it follows, * Thou art the same,' Ps. cii. 27 ; and therefore us and our years he compareth to a flood, Ps. xc. 5, that is always running and in succession, but him to a rock of ages that stands (as the phrase in the original is, Ps. cii. 26) immoveable.

III. ' The high and lofty One.'

The high One : for the transcendency and supreme excellency of his being. The lofty One : for the sovereignty and dominion of it.

The high. It is a common title given him in the Old and New Testament, the ' high God,' and the ' Lord on high,' ' God most high ;' Ps. Ixxxiii. 18, ' The most High over all the earth.' And in the New, * the Highest,' three times in one chapter, Luke i.

And to take the height of him, let us first take into consideration the course and way the Scripture (as condescending to our sense) useth to set this forth by, which is by a comparative, and rising up fi:om one degree to another ; and it begins thus :

1. In respect of place, which yet is the lowest kind of height. And for this take EHphaz his staff in Job xxii. 12, * Behold the height of the stars, how high they are.' (How high is God then ? so riseth he,) * Is not God in the height of the heavens ?' as it immediately follows thereupon.

2. In dignity and dominion, he is said to be ' higher than all nations on ♦ The philosopher said of him, that God doth aiu cc^rX^v ^al^nv Tjbovrjv.

earth' (which are in dignity exceeding, and more high than the stars), ' higher than all the people,' Ps. xcis. 2, whom (as elsewhere it is said), ' he rules and stills at his pleasure.' And Ps. cxiii. 4, ' The Lord is high above all nations.'

3. But yet you will say. So are kings that are set over the nations. And if you do suppose but one man to be king of all the world (as the Koman emperors once), it may be said that he is higher than all the nations.

But thirdly. He is over all the kings of the earth ; that is another ascent. ' He is higher than the highest, and there are higher than they,' i. e., who are between him and them: Eccles. v. 8, For he is ' higher than the highest, and there be higher than they.' The iheij are the rulers of this earth, whom he there speaks of; and those that are ' higher than they' are the angels. But he is the highest absolutely, singularly, higher than the highest, above the angels themselves. All principalities and powers, both in heaven and earth, they are under his feet. ' He is the blessed and only potentate,' 1 Tim. vi. 15 ; and so in Ps. xcvii. 9, * Thou, Lord, art high above all the earth ;' it follows, ' Thou art exalted above all the gods,' i. e., angels, whether good or bad, which the heathens worshipped.

4. To shew the height and super-excellency of his dignity and dominion, he was pleased to give this demonstration ; he did on purpose build a place for himself, separate from and far ' above all things' else which he had made, and calls it here, * The high and holy place,' in this 57th chapter, and * heaven is my throne,' in the 66th chapter; and that is the ' highest of heavens,' as a place separate, and an apartment for himself to dwell in after he had made creatures, until Christ, that was made higher than the heavens, pierced (as the phrase in Heb. iv. is), and broke up that separate place ' prepared from the foundation of the world,' which is to the rest of heaven as the * holy of hoUes' was to the other parts of the temple, which the high priest only went into ; which the angels by the law of their creation, and right of their creatureship, did not enjoy as the first place of their habitation, and in which, had the angels that fell been inhabitants, they had never fallen. For as it is the high, so the holy place, wherein the immutable glory of God so shiueth, as would immutably have fixed them in holiness unto God, that they should never have departed from him. God's height, even as in respect to this high place, is often set out thereby, as that he is ' higher than the highest heaven :' Ps. cxiii. 5, ' His glory is above the heavens ; who is like unto the Lord, who dwelleth on high ?'

5. Let us rise one ascent yet higher, which the gospel afi"ords us of the man Jesus united personally to the Son of God, who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God, angels, and authorities, and powers being made subject to him, as they are said to be under his feet, Eph. i, 21, 22, and who therefore is said by that personal union to ' be made higher than the heavens,' Heb vii. 26; and all this is spoken of the man Jesus, for it is said he was made thus high. And yet, lo, how afore this high and lofty One he humbleth himself; ' I am a worm,' which is lower than the footstool man treads on : Ps. xxii. 3, 6, * Thou art holy; but I am a worm, and no man.' Thus he speaks of himself before he ascended, and did thus humble himself at God's command. And now when he is ascended • far above all heavens,' as Eph. iv. 10, ' He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that he might fill all things,' he is yet but at God's right hand ; the throne is God's, who is higher than this highest. ' My Father is gi-eater than I.'

But all this hath been but a comparative way of shewing his highness.

His being the high and lofty One, notes forth the transcendency and super-excellency of his divine being itself in itself, and that it is utterly of another kind from creatures, and indeed that it only is being. In Ps. Ixxxiii. 18, * That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High over all the earth,' he thereby argues his height from his name, that his name is alone Jehovah, and therefore he is most high, and in that very respect. Now Jehovah, we know, is the name of his essence, ' I am,' and here it is that men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High ; and therefore most high in respect of such a glorious being as is proper alone unto him. In Eph. iv. 6 he is said to be ' above all,' and yet to be ' through all,' i. e., his creatures. His being above all shews the transcendency of his being, spoken of separate from all ours, not intercommuning with ours, nor intermingled, although it is said he is through all too ; but as the sunbeams intermingle not with the air, though they shine through the air, so nor doth God with creatures.

Here I might amplify upon the glory of this his title, that he is the most High in respect of his being, that he alone hath the name Jehovah, as the Psalmist saith, and also of being ; that all the creatures are but the shadow of being, but he only is. But I shall defer it unto the use.

IV. ' T^Tiose name is Holy.' ' First, It is a name that is proper to God, as Christ saith : Mat. xix. 17, * There is none good but God,' so nor holy. He is separate and alone in his holiness, as he is alone in his being. And if he only be good, then much more is he only holy, for holiness is the height and perfection of goodness ; so in man, and so in God. And Kev. xv. 4 you have it express, ' who only is holy,' and * the holy One,' as elsewhere. Now of all that could have been said or attributed to him, this sets up God the highest, and as most sovereign. And this, of all others, layeth us low, both as we are creatures and as we are sinners. Holiness is said to be his dreadful name : Ps. xcix. 2, 3, * The Lord is high above all people ;' it follows, ' Let them praise thy great and terrible name ; for it is holy,' and that makes him high. Aid again, at the 5th verse, ' Exalt ye tlae Lord our God, and worship at his footstool;' for he is holy ; nay, the margin varieth it, ' his footstool is holy,' i. e., the ground he sets his feet on. The like you have in the 9th verse.

Secondly, This separates him fi-om the creatures ; for holiness imports a separation, as it is in common applied to anything, person, place, or time. Christ was separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens, but God from creatures.

Thirdly, Holiness is that whereby God aims at his own glory, as the angels' cry shews in that 6th of Isaiah ver. 3, ' Holy, holy, holy : the whole earth is filled with thy glory;' as being that which the attribute of holiness in him aims at from his creatures. And that being the only attribute mentioned when his glory doth there appear, ver. 1, and is beheld by Isaiah and the angels, this and the single conjunction to holiness and glory argues it. Now he being so great a God, his desii*es of glory fi-om the creature are so vast and so intensive, as the creatm'es cannot come up unto, nor satisfy; for as Kom. i. 21 hath it, he would be glorified as God, which the creatures cannot reach to the height of. Two scriptures put together do shew this: Job xv. 15, ' Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight;' and he means the angels, who are called heavens. And they are the good angels he means is manifest, those who have kept their station in heaven ; and yet all their holiness, you

see, makes tliem not clean in his pure eyes. Thus Joh iv. 17, 18, ' Shall mortal man be more just than God ? shall a man be more pure than his Maker ? Behold, he put no trust in his servants ; and his angels he charged with folly.' We sinners are unclean privatively, wanting that holiness we were created in, and positively defiled ; but the best of his creatures are negatively not clean, because they answer not, nor come up unto his immense desires of glory from them. He would have more, though it cannot be had. But of this deficiency and falling short of creature holiness as to God, I shall speak in the use.

Use. To humble you, as you are creatures, afore this Majesty on high. I would humble ye, I say, as you are creatm-es, as well as that you are sinners ; which latter, I know, you do every day. I do not say that you are to humble yourselves as much simply as you are creatures as that you are sinners, yet you are to do it as truly. It is to be an humbling of ourselves this, though in another way. We humble ourselves as sinners by way of mom-ning and godly soitow ; but this as creatures by way of self-emptiness and sense of our own nothingness and vanity. They are both in the text; he speaks of the humble considering themselves as creatures, and the contrite ones as sinners. And God is therefore represented, first, as the high and lofty One inhabiting eternity, to humble us as creatures ; and secondly, as holy, to humble us as sinners, though that will humble us as creatures too. I enforce this use from this, that to teach you to humble yourselves as creatm-es is a piece of the gospel; and where you have the gospel spoken of, there you have this also. As in Isa. xl. 3, the beginning of the preaching of the gospel is prophesied of: ' The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness,' &c., which was John Baptist's ministry; and then follows the prophecy of all the apostles' preaching which succeeded John, * 0 Zion, that bringeth good tidings,' ver. 9. Now among other things, what was it John was to cry and the apostles to preach ? Even this, ' All flesh is grass,' &c. Verses 6-8, ' The voice said. Cry. And he said. What shall I cry ? All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field : the grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it: surely the people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; but the word of our God shall stand for ever.' Which the apostle Peter applieth unto that very word and gospel which was spoken by himself and the other apostles : 1 Peter i. 25, * But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached unto you.' And this was done by the ' revealing of the glory of the Lord Christ,' namely, discovered in the gospel: Isa. xl. 5, ' And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.' Now observe that there is in that chapter a setting forth of God in his greatness, to the end thus to humble the creature, such as you have not in all the Scriptures. So as indeed we should lose a piece of our rehgion if we do not attend to this ; and I will here suppose myself to have a congregation of Adams and Eves, men and women, in that pure and first estate; yea, and I will take the angels in also before they fell, and some angels are here at present this day; but if all were here in their original estate, or those that are now in their confirmed estate, I might preach this seiTuon to them, reminding them ©f their estate by creation, to humble them as they are cre9,tures in that estate.

And to enforce this the more, I take in that additional to my text, Ps. cxiii. 5, 6, ' Who is like unto the Lord our God, who dwelleth on high,

irho humbh'th himself to behold the things that aro in heaven, and in the earth ?' He represents him as so great a God, as it is an humbling to him so much as to cast an eye upon any creature now he hath made it; and yet he were not God if he did not behold tlic least motion of every creature, to the falling of a sparrow to the ground without his cognisance. Further, observe it, it is not only spoken of things on earth, but of things in heaven— his best saints, and angels, or whatever that high and holy place is furnished with. Now my inference is, that if it be an humbling to God to behold the best of these, it may much more be an humbling to us when we appear before this God. And that we may do so, let us take these considerations.

1. Whereas God had the ideas of infinite worlds he could have made, and so of creatures reasonable, which lay before his eternal counsels, as candidates, and as fair to have been made existent as we that are made ; for not only all things were once nothing (that will afford a second consideration), but there was yet an higher remoteness from nothing,.and that is, of things possible to be, which in respect of God's not willing to create them, never did, nor ever shall, come into being, although when they should have done so it would have been out of nothing ; yet God said of us. Stand you forth, I decree and will you to exist afore me, whenas an infinite number of like creatures slept still, and to eternity shall sleep in darkness and non-existence.

2. After God had decreed to make thee, and to give thee an existence and actual being, yet thou wert in reahty still nothing, pure nothing in entity. Thy pedigree is from nothing; thy ancestry, and that not far removed, is nothing. Job, in the view of his own rottenness and corruption, humbles himself, chap. xvii. 14: ' I have said to corruption. Thou art my father ; to the worm, Thou art my mother, and my sister.' But in rehearsing thy original from whence thou camest, I may say that nothing, pure nothing, was thy great grandmother. Thy body was immediately made of dust, that was thy next mother by that line ; but that dust was made of the first rude earth, without form, and that was thy grandmother; but that earth was made purely of nothing; so then nothing was thy great grandmother. Thus of thy body. Then for thy soul, that was immediately created by God out of nothing, and so by that line thy next mother was nothing. And whfft was thy soul twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, and so many years upwards ? Plain nothing. It is observable how, in the Scriptures, when God's confounding the creatures is expressed, the threatening runs in these terms, a bringing them to nothing. So in 1 Cor. i. 28, he takes /MYj ovra, things that are not (that is, are as if they were not, as to such an effect as God useth them for), even to bring to nought things that are, that is, to nothing, as the opposition shews. In these terms the sentence of confusion, and the destruction of things that are, is penned, as thereby reminding them, how that their first root and original was nothing ; and so does speak in a way of reflection upon what once they were; even as when he threatened Adam to turn him to dust: ' Out of dust thou earnest,' says he ; in a way of debasing of him, minds him of his descent and original. And in like phrase of speech Job utters their destruction: aheunt in nihilum, they go away, or vanish to nothing; that is, ^:)C)-6;(7i^, they perish. The like in Isa. xli. 11, and xxxiv. 12, and xl.^23, ' He bringeth the judges to nothing.' And further, as if the creatures had by instinct a common sense of their nothingness, if God do but chastise them, presently we cry out to God, Bring me not to nothing,—so afraid are they of becoming nothing; yea, and in extremities of distress are apt to wish they were

VOL. VII. B

/ r

nothing, nor had ever been. And in this language the prophet Jeremiah utters his fears : Jer. x. 24, ' Correct me not in thine anger, lest thou turn me to nothing.' If we are but touched, we apprehend that we are in danger of becoming nothing. All miseries are smaller vacillations or reelings of the creature towards their first nothing; we are like those sHght, small green flies that creep upon leaves in summer ; we men cannot touch them so gently but they die. The whole creation is built upon a quagmire of nothing, and is continually ready to sink into it, and to be swallowed up by it, which maketh the whole or any part of it to quake and quiver when God is angry, as Jeremiah there did. The foundation of the creatures' changeability to sin (whenas at first made near to holy) is by our divines put upon this, that we being made out of nothing, are apt to verge and sink into nothing, and so fall towards it in sinning. And truly sin is a great leap, or fall rather, and tottering towards it, and we may view our own nothingness most by it. And did not God, in the just act of our reeling towards sinning, put a stop, and uphold our beings, we should fall to nothing. But then he should want an object or a subject to punish for sin, or to be sensible of sin.

Humble yourselves therefore in the apprehension of this, and look, as in point of sanctification, although God giveth so great a measure of it to his children, and maketh them very holy, yet in the point of justifying them he would have them for ever to look upon themselves as ungodly, because once they were such, as Rom. iv. 5. And Paul, whilst he did never so much, saith, ' Yet I am nothing.' Thus here, though he hath given us a being and existence, yet because we once were nothing, and that was the state (if a state) he found us in, he would ever have us account ourselves as nothing, though now by his grace ' having all things,' as the apostle says.

3. This made being of ours, when it is made and termed being (as it is in Acts xvii. 28, 'In him we live, and move, and have our being'), yet that being is not only derived purely from him, and his efficiency, but farther, it is but equivocally and falsely called being, as the apostle speaks of the knowledge the Gnostics boasted of, * science falsely so called.' It hath but the name of being, but in reality is but the shadow of being; even as the shadow or picture of a man is falsely and'equivocally termed a man. All of a picture is but a shadow of the man.

4. God and Christ only have the name of substance, as Prov. viii. 21. Being, both name and thing, is proper only unto God, who is o dv, as the Septuagint still renders the name Jehovah ; or as Plato from thence, to ov, in truth is said of God alone. For which here the psalmist, Ps. Ixxxiii. 18, ' That men may know that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High over all the earth.' And what other is the Scripture language of man, and the greatest of men ? All of man, and about man, are therein compared to a shadow; his actions, and courses, a shadow : Ps. xxxix. 6, ' Surely every man walketh in a vain show' (or image, as in the Hebrew); leads an imaginary Hfe, rather than life itself; so Ainsworth. And as his ways, so is himself; and that in his best and most flourishing estate. Thus in the 5th verse of that Psalm, ' Verily, every man' (both in his person, his being, the circumstances of his life), take him at the best, every way, he and his best estate, ' is altogether vanity, all vanity,' which vanity is all one in account with nothing, or no being. As in the same verse. My worldly * time is as nothing before thee ;' ' my substance,' so the Septuagint renders it; 'my body,' as the Chaldee. As nothing, not only as

compared with God, but aforo God, and in his judgment and valuation of him. And that he says it of his time in this world, ' that his days are nothing,' it imports that his existence and himself are such. For to say a man's time in this world is such or such, connotates his existence and being in the world. And to say a shadow is all one as to say it is but a being in show, and not in reality. And that we find abundantly said. Job xiv. 2, and chap, viii, 9, and Ps. cxxii. 11, and cxliv. 5, and make the best you can of it, a shadow is but a middle between nonentity and true being. The Platonists said,* God only in truth is, and all things else seem but to be, which answers unto David's expression, ' in a show.' And truly God himself speaks of all the whole creation at no other rate. And his valuation and judgment is a righteous judgment: Isa. xl. 15, ' Behold, the nations iire as a drop of a bucket, and are counted (namely, by God) as the small dust of the balance.' He first, in the balance wherein he weighs them, lessens them, and compares them to things that are of no value or regard with men—things neither here nor there, as we say. The drop of a bucket, when it falls from the bucket upon the earth, the matter thereof is so swallowed up into the earth and the dust of it, as it is not so much as seen any more, but vanisheth away as it were to nothing. The small dust of the balance hath no sway at all on the beam to stir it one way or other ; it makes it neither ligTater nor heavier. And if they be severed from the bucket and the balance, they are not missed ; they make no vacuum, no emptiness in either.

But yet you will say, that however these speak some entity or being, though but small, and though of no moment or consequence, yet of entity they partake something. He goeth on, ver. 17, casting them yet lower, ' All nations before him are as nothing,' &c. And yet still you will say, that particle as nothing, is but a diminutive; that though in esteem and regard they are as nothing, yet still in some smaller kind of reality they are something, though compared with a greater they are as nothing. But I answer, that that kind of speech speaks what a thing is in deed and in truth. As in that speech John i. 14, ' The glory as of the only begotten Son of God,' the import of that as is not a diminution, as if it were not in reahty what is said of it, the excelling glory of the Son of God in truth; but that it was truly and indeed such a glory as was proper to him, and proportionable to him that was the Son of God. And that he might here yet speak the reality of their nothingness more plainly, he adds, * they are counted to him less than nothing,' plusquam nihil, as the Hebrews hath it; concerning which, if it be again said, that they were but nothing at the worst, but why less than nothing ? The account to me is this, that now when he made them, and had been at the expense and power to make them and uphold them, yet they hud, for anything he acquires by them, been as good have been nothing still; and so are less than nothing by reason of the cost he hath been at, and expectation (as speaking after the manner of

* Solum Deum revera esse, csetera vero videri.—Marsilius Ficinus, Epist. viii. Dr Twiss in his opposition to Dr Jackson on the Attributes, who discourseth this equivocal being of creatures at large, objects this, that yet a picture is a true picture, although not the man ; and so the creatures, though but shadows, and the best of them the image of God, yet still withal they are vere entia, truly beings. But I reply, If God only be said to be being itself, and to have both being, name, and thing proper to him alone, as the Scriptures speak, then by the same reason that the picture of a man is not the man, allowing it to be a true picture; so the creatures are not true being, but barely the shadow of it. And it is not enough to say they are not God ; but if to be God be only to have being, then they are but the shadows of being.

men) he miglit look from them, they were not worth his producing out of nothing ; yea, it had been better they had been nothing still. Another account is, that this being a comparative of what the creatures are unto the great God, there is, now that they are made, a less distance and disproportion between the creatures and nothing than is between God and the whole creation. For if you measure the distance between the creatures, now they are made, and nothing, if God should return them unto it, it were but a finite distance privatively considered ; for their annihilation would be hut jJrivat to Jiniti, the depriving them of a finite good and being; but the distance between God's being and theirs is infinite, yea, and in excellency and transcendency more distant than was betwixt nothing and the creatures before they were made, though philosophers would ascribe an infinite distance negatively considered, yet no such as that wherein God is above us ; and so they are less eveiy way to God than nothing is to themselves. And therefore to conclude this, if there could have been supposed a greater distance any way imaginable, whereby to have expressed the distance of God and the creature, which should have cast them down lower than this of being less than nothing, God would have expressed it thereby. But take them barely as creatures, and you cannot speak lower of them. Oh the infinite height and depth of God, which Zophar speaks of. Job xi. 8, to whom the creatures are less than nothing.

Our divines, therefore, reckon not God, in point of arithmetic, together with us. They cast not God and us into the same numbering. They do not say of him, that he is unus, or one, though he be the first and great one, and so go on to number the rest of things. No ; they suffer not creatures to bear or sustain the repute and account of number after him, or when he is spoken of. They say of him that he is nnicus, the only one, that stands apart by himself out of all arithmetic, as his transcendent being comes not under our logic ; which is in eftect the same that God, by the prophet Isaiah, speaks. Our acuter commentators on those passages in chapters iii. iv. v., wherein God sets himself out alone the true God— ' I am Jehovah, and there is none else ; there is no God besides me ; I am the fii'st and the last'—and the like to these, which you find up and down in those chapters, do observe, that though his dispute, or rather an over-disputing discovery of his creatures, be pitched for the confusion of the idol gods of heathens, that yet his arguings do rise higher than simply against those idols their being gods, but involves, in the confutation thereof, that as creatures they had no being, much less as gods. Thus chap, xliii. 10, compared with ver. 13, ' Before the day was, I am he ;' * and therefore, accordingly, still mentions his name Jehovah—his name that assures wholly the name of being to him ; and as of them, speaks up and down of his being the creator and former of them, as merely out of nothing ; and will you take them, and make gods of them ? Thus his argument lies. And when, in chap. xlv. 5, as in the conclusion of that discourse, he speaks thus, vers. 5-7, ' I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God besides me : I ghded thee, though thou hast not known me ; that they may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me : I am the Lord, and there is none else. I form the light, and create darkness ; I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.' He manifestly points the dint of his speech in relation to them as creatures, and not as gods only set up by men. And he was the creator of all things, who only had therefore being in himself, and so did or made all those * See Gataker in the English Annot. on the words.

things, as his saying is, ver. 7. And that, therefore, there was not only no God besides him, but that their gods, as creatures, had no being, but he alone whose name was Being, or Jehovah. As to such a sense as this, I understand the order of those words in ver. 5 (taking in all these things that stand round about it), * I am Jehovah, and none else,nhere is no God besides me,' that the fore part of that speech is applied to the point of being and existence : ' I am Jehovah,' that is, being itself only, and none else. For then, over and above besides, he adds, ' There is no God besides me ;' that is, no creature is, no God, to be sure, besides him. So as their swelling words, used of the creatures to be styled ' all things' besides him, doth, in reality and effect, come but just to the same account as if you would set down a multitude of cyphers apart by themselves, and then say of the account of them, there is a million or many thousands of them, which is a vast number in sound of words, and reacheth a long way in figures, but yet still they are but a million of cyphers, and what comes that to ? Even to just nothing, because there is not so much as one real number of their rank or kind to set afore them. All and every creature being miUiiis numeri, as we say, bearing no account, all of them make not so much as an unit, an one in truth ; but they are empty shadows, appearances of being, all and every one of them.

To apply all this to humble you as creatures : look as this false and fictitious name of idols, their being gods, is but an imposed and equivocal title, whereas an idol is really nothing—1 Cor. viii. 4,5,' We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, as there be gods many and lords many,' it is no such thing—so in like manner we may say of the creatures. There are creatures many, that have the title of being, the name, yea, are styled 'all things' in that following 16th verse, yet in reahty and truth they are nothing, as and afore God ; and humble yourselves, therefore, for your idolatry, and too high valuation of yourselves. All is as nothing. This parallel of ourselves with idols, in this respect to humble us, is not mine, but the prophet Isaiah's, chap. xli. 29, ' Behold, you are as nothing, and your works are nothing.' He speaks there of their idols. They had made gods for themselves, and his intent and meaning is thereby to humble them, as if he had said, Lo, here the idols you make your gods, and give a being to : such, as such, are really nothing, though fictitiously, in your imaginations, made your gods. Even so your very selves, though you assume and arrogate the name of being and greatness to yourselves, yourselves are nothing if you be compared with the great God, whose glory you corrupt and turn into a lie, in your setting those creatures like yourselves up for gods. And his speech is similar unto that of the psalmist, ' They that made them are like unto them.' Even so Isaiah here : ' They are nothing, and you are nothing.'

BOOK 11.

Of the first estate of men and angels hy their creation. — What were the laics and rights of creation; and uhat uas equitably due between the Creator and his creature. — Of the state of the first man Adam in innocence, and what were his circumstances in that his primitive condition.

CHAPTER I.

What was the law of creation on God's part? — It ivas hut what became and was worthy of the great Creator to do all for his creatures that such a religion* required. — This consisted in two things : First, To endow them with the image of holiness, to qualify them to attain their designed end, which was to know, love, and enjoy him ; Secondly, To continue his goodness and favour to them as long as they continued in their duty and obedience. — The condition of both angels and men by the law of their creation common and equal for substance.

My design in this discourse is, in tlie end, to magnify the supercreation grace of God in election, and the glory of Christ as our head and a Saviour, ■which was to be revealed upon our fallen condition, though ordained afore all worlds. And I judged it greatly couducible to this end to begin next to set out the right and true measure of our state and condition by virtue of our first creation, as we came forth out of God's hands first, with the dues and privileges belonging to it, and not of ours only, but of the angels by their first creation ; by the view and compare of which we shall be capacitated and enabled to destroy! an infinite weight of that supercreation grace added by election, that was ordained us, as it were, over the head of mere natural or creation goodness. And we shall find that it is not only that we are sinful and fallen, that afibrds matter and occasion to exalt supernatural grace, but even our first original and best estate that preceded it.

This first estate I would term, upon many accounts, the estate of pure nature by creation-law; and as rightly as our di\-ines do call the covenant we were by creation brought into fedus natnne, the covenant of nature, which is founded upon an equitable intercourse set up betwixt God the Creator and his intelligent unfallen creatures, by vu'tue of the law of his creating them, and as by then- creation they came forth of his hands ; God dealing with the creature singly and simply upon the terms thereof, and the creature being bound to deal with God according to that bond and obligation which God's having created him in his image, with sufficient power to stand, and having raised him up thereunto out of pure nothing, lays upon him,

* Qu. ' relation ''?— Ed. f Qu. ' descry ' ?— Ed.

And in the substance of it the law was one and the same in common to us men, and the angels, in and by their creation.

Now, that estate of the angels the apostle Jude calls their first, or rather original estate, which they were endowed with from their very beginning, and was by original justice their due, or their natural estate; that is, which they had from, by, or with their creation, and by the law thereof; which estate being alike common to the good angels as well as the bad, before they left it, as the apostle Jude says, is one part of the distinction between the estate which the angels, which are still good and standing, have by election, as in Timothy, and this other part, of the original estate of goodness which in common they had by creation.

And according to the true intent and import of the same distinction, I may style this goodness by creation man's original estate, and ours and Adam's first natural estate, in that holiness and righteousness, as we did come forth of God's hands. And if Adam had stood, and his children had been begotten holy of him (which is supposable by the law of creation they might have been), it might have been said of them, that they had been holy and righteous by nature, as truly as the apostle doth the contrary, speaking of men now fallen, that they are * children of wrath by nature ;' yea, this latter is founded upon the former. Now, what estate we his children should have had (in that supposal) by generation, the same, and no other, Adam he had by creation. And as of us it would have been said, that we had that holiness by our creation, although we had received it by natural generation from him, yet it would have been the same every way, and no other (as to the state itself), which we his children should have had ; only the way of production should have diftered, that his was by creation, ours by birth. Yea, and it was given him by creation to convey it to us by birth, and in that respect it might and should have been termed their primitive, first, original, natural condition in him, and his children to be begotten by him.

The first covenant of works under which Adam was created is tenned by divines ficdus naturae, the covenant of nature ; that is, of man's condition, which from and by his creation was natural to him ; yet I would rather call it the creation law, jus creationis, or of what was equitable between God considered merely as a Creator on one part, and his intelligent creatures that were endued with understanding and will on the other, simply considered as such creatures, whether angels or men,—the measure of which law, in general, lay in an equitable transaction between God and them, a congruity, dueness, meetness on either part.

On God's part, I would call it a dueness, remembering how Paul prohibits the word ' recompence' as any way challengeable by any or all the creatures: Rom. xi. 35, ' Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ?' And he says it to exclude all recompence. So that this dueness imports only what it became God to do, and was worthy of him, in such or such a case; as he useth the word Heb. ii. 10, 'For it became him,' &c., so as the meaning is in this only respect, that if God would please to create two such ranks of creatures, angels and man, it became him to do to and for them what was worthy of such a relation, of a bountiful Creator, to each in their kind, not yet exceeding what that relation of a Creator, considered simplj' as such, required; so as if he did exceed it, it was but what was an overplus, as his assisting them, in causing them to stand so long as they did ; otherwise God himself condescended to make an equity the rule of his will in that covenant of works, condescend-

ing to mitigate the absolute rigidity of it, and to moderate it unto the Jews (who clamoured him in Ezekiel), yielding from his ' Cursed is every one that obeys not in every thing.' Upon this he answers the clamours of the Jews : Ezek. xviii. 17, 29, ' Are not my ways equal ?' saith he ; when he offered that if one, who had been never so great a sinner, would ' turn from his evil ways,' and the like, he would receive him, and abundantly pardon. As on the contrary, if, having been so righteous before, he begins to turn away from it, he must lose the benefit of all his former obedience. This was fair for God to ofier, and his ways therein equal. Yet God knew that this was impracticable by them; but to convince them, he tried them by that offer, as Christ did the j'oung man in the Gospel, when he put him upon keeping the commandments, and there left him.

And such like equity may be considered in God's fii-st founding the covenant of creation : first, in what he would bestow in and by the act of creation itself, in them. He gave all that was due, or convenient and meet for the natures of such creatures, to attain their end of happiness in a proportioned communion with himself. And although it was free for him, whether to have created them or not created them, yet, if he resolved so to create such, his will regulated itself by what was meet for their natm-es, as such, to receive from him, and for him as a Creator to give.

In every work of God's, he observeth a dueness or becomingness according to the kind of it. So in the work of redemption in its kind, in which he was yet at a far greater fi-eedom than in this of the first creation. And in this sense the apostle is bold to use the phrase of what becomes God in such or such a sphere to do. Thus (Heb. ii. 10) ' It became him, for whom are all thmgs, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto gloi-y, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.' Now, in the work of creation in its kind, as in other works in their kind, God regulates himself by the measm'e of a dueness and becomingness between him and the creature. And although there could be no obhgation, simply considered, in him ' that works all according to the counsel of his will' freely, yet his will regulated itself by what that same counsel judged most becoming him to do, as that which his counsel judged so to be. And so in this work of creation, God would bestow such facukies and powers as the creature itself could any way judge requisite to his perfoiTaing the work of a creature of an intelligent nature. Thus, in case God resolved to do such or such a thing, he would do it suitably to the matter of it, and what the nature of the thing required; and worthy and like himself, and the relation he takes upon him, by doing such or such a work. The truth is, he observes it as his rule in all things, as that text forementioned insinuates ; and of all other works, let no man be offended to say, God set himself an equitable rule or law in this his first and bottom work of creation, wherein yet he was most free to have begun it, or not begun it. Thus in general.

For the particular requisites on God's part, and but so far as is now enough to my present scope, I shall mention but tw^o.

First, That if God would create intelligent natures out of nothing, it became him to endow them with his own image of holiness, &c., whereby they might be able to know, to love, and to enjoy a communion with him, and happiness fi'om himself, as their chiefest good : which, as it was God's bountiful gift to bestow, so the very nature of such a creature required it as convenient, meet, and suitable to its nature, and without which it had been imperfect, yea, miserable ; for otherwise those vast faculties of under-

standing and will had been left empty, and like an hungry stomach (of a giant, suppose) continually craving, when it hath only crumbs of food, and drops of weak water. Nor could they otherwise have attained their main end, or arrived at their convenient happiness, which the very natures of them were constituted and fitted for, which can be filled with nothing but a communion with God. And all creatures, and creature comforts, if alone vouchsafed without an intelligent communion with God himself, had been but as a drop to a cistern. That whereas God had provided for every sensitive or other faculty in man himself, and other creatures, a meet object suited in nature to them ; and for man's bodily person, all comfort, a meet help, &c., as the woman is teiined, he had left men's souls, and in them those noble powers of understanding and will, deprived of their chief object; they had been shut out from the communication of the life of God, in which their happiness lay: which blessedness also must arise from a natural ' suitableness concreated in those faculties, and with them, whereby they might be enabled to know, love, and delight in God. And in such a convenient meetness to enjoy God must this holiness consist; as also in an inward principle, and divine disposition in every faculty suited to, and agreeing with every law God had, as a creator, commanded ; naturally carrying, and wholly inclining them to fulfil it, which was the law of God written in their hearts, in the full perfection of it, and as the due perfection of them; and thereby it did become their natural perfection by this creation law. And surely, if the things of the law are said, by nature, to be written in man's heart, now fallen, this is but a shadow of that full and perfect, exact copy of the whole and holy law, which was then man's nature much more. These things, therefore, were to intelligent natures a creation-due; and in that respect natural to them, or which the nature of them required; and it became God as a creator to give them when he would create them.

2. And, secondly, on God's part as a creator, it was requisite to continue his favour and goodness to them, and that happy estate he had set them in, whilst he did continue their being, whether of Adam in paradise, or the angels in the paradise above, the place of their creation, which they should enjoy, if they continued to keep their first estate of holiness, &c. This was also a meet and equitable due, for God, as a faithful creator, to give, and was correspondent to this their begun happy condition, and was all the promise that I know of, made to such obedience.

That whereas God, in the view of his own heights of holiness and sovereignty, might, after some time and experiment, have said, I see at best you are but unprofitable servants, and so not have regarded their low creature-services, as anyway coming up to the immense desires and aims of his great holiness, yet he would continue his love and favour at the same height which he prosecuted them withal at their first creation, and so they should live in keeping his commandments.

And this alone was of itself a great promise, and an abundant reward, though they had never been advanced to an higher glory or privilege. And this was all the promise we read of, ' If thou do these things, thou shalt live,' namely, in doing of them; and this was their life, and yet suitably but creation-dues, and an equity by creation-law. For if providence be a continual creation, then a providential law from God, and the continuation of our first parents, and so of us, in that first creation-life and happy estate, whilst they continued obedient, was but an extension of that first creation goodness out of which God first put them in that estate; and so, but a

continuation of the same law, and but a repeating, every moment they stood, that complacency he had at first in them when he made them; and it was but the like, in its proportion, unto what he continues to all his other creatures in their sphere, that keep his ordinances to this day. And it is a dueness that in meetness and equitableness is to be dispensed to him that worketh and continueth therein, out of that justice that is in God, as a creator, to his unsinning creature continuing holy.

This condition of angels by the law of their creation, and of man, for substance, is common to them both. However men and angels might and do differ in degrees of excellencies in respect of their mere creation-holiness, even as they diflfer in their strength (the excelling wherein is given to the angels), as also in their habitation proper to each, as Jude 6, the one created on earth, the other in some of the heavens, yet it is a difference but of rank or degree, such as between nobles and commons, in an higher and lower house. God ' made man a little lower than the angels ;' that is, in respect of degrees, so far as that psalm is to be understood of Adam's or man's condition by creation. Though it hath an higher reference unto Christ Jesus as man, yet still this degree of lowness in the one, and height in the other, had for the substratum of it, in either, the same common law of creation-perfections, and the rules thereof do take hold of both alike in their several ranks, and with their several degrees. I will not therefore now debate what differing excellencies each of these had proper to themselves in their several capacities and spheres; or the differences of the original condition of both these, angels and men, from what their now present standing in grace, and hereafter in glory, do afford.

This we may safely say, that the difference of their condition was not so gi-eat, as that they should see God's face in that manner as Christ doth. The angels, though created in one of the heavens, by their creation did not so enjoy God. It is Christ's sole honour to bring that first up. ' Who hath seen God at am^ time ? No man hath seen God at any time ; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him,' John i. 18. This * gi'ace and truth came only by Jesus Christ,' verse 17.

The law was the same for substance that ours [isj. That under a law they were made is evident, for else there had not been sin in them that fell; but it is express they did, 2 Pet. ii. 4; and sin is a transgression of not only a law, as Eom. v. 13, but of the law, as being one in common to all creatures : 1 John iii. 3, 4, ' And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law : for sin is the transgression of the law.' That the first commandment duty is the common law to angels and men, as to love God, fear God, &c., this is so plain as none may deny it.

2. The third, * Not to take God's name in vain.' The devil is a blasphemer, and so breaks this command.

3. If there be superior and inferior ranks of angels, as Michael an archangel, thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Col. i. 16, then a reverence from the inferior orders to all their superiors must be due ; and so the fifth commandment is an obligation upon them.

4. The sixth command, ' Thou shalt not kill,' binds the angels as a law. For ' Satan is a murderer from the beginning ;' which could not have been said, if that command had not been violated by him in seeking man's destruction.

0. The ninth command, ' Thou shalt not bear false witness,' reaches

the angels themselves. For the devil, as a breaker of this law, is * a liar from the beginning ;' and Michael, in Jude 9, as obliged by this command, * durst not bring a railing accusation' against Satan.

C. The tenth, ' Thou shalt not lust,' has a respect to the angels ; else why does Chi-ist charge lust on the devil as his sin ? John viii. 4-4, ' You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.' What are they but pride, envy, hatred, malice, &c. And the good angels, in obedience to this command, have a love to the saints. * 0 Daniel, greatly beloved,' says Gabriel to that prophet, Dan. x. 11. They have also a zeal for the saints, and joy in their conversion, Luke xv. 7. But if they should not have the same laws in all things that we men have, yet it must needs be said, that they are under very many laws that are given to us men.

Yet it is enough for what I intend, that their covenant by creation ran upon the same terms that ours of works does ; the tenor or terms of the law is the same. So as, suppose they had not altogether the same law, yet they were under the same fundamental sanction of punishment and reward. Upon one sin, all their happiness was to be forfeited, as upon ours it was. Their estate was changed by sinning, as ours also was.

The same punishments take hold upon them, though not the same bodily, as death, unto which the angels are not obnoxious, for they can never die. But what death spirits are capable of, we and they undergo the same. We were both alike cast off from God ; we were expelled paradise, they were thrown down out of heaven into hell; and at the last day, the same sentence shall be pronounced against both, ' Go, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,' Mat. xxv. 41. As in a state there may be different laws, yea, variety of privileges to nobles and others in a kingdom, and yet the fundamental maxims for life, death, and forfeiture, be the same to them all.

They had also the same mutability that was in our condition, and stood upon the same gi'ounds and terms that we did. It was their being made out of nothing, and so mere creatures as well as we, that was the cause of their fall; so that we are sure they stood as ticklishly as we, no more assistance in their state and proportion than Adam in his. We are sure that God took the forfeiture upon one act of sin committed by the angels that sinned, for ' God spared not the angels that fell,' but threw them immediately to hell, as well as he doth us men. Nor had they such an high way of knowing God or the enjoyment of him ; as it is the highest heavens that might have kept them infallibly from sinning, for that Christ only hath brought up to behold God's face in such a perfection of righteousness, as to exclude all sin acted, or the possibility of it.

CHAPTER II.

The mutahility of that first estate. — By its constitution and their own weakness, both anfjels and men ivere liable to fall from it. — God teas not at all obliged, as Creator, to preservehis creatures in that first condition effectually by his grace. — The causes of their mutability. — To be changeable is the nature of a creature, with difference from God, who only is immutable. — That the creature being made of nothing, tends to a deficiency.

There needs no other nor more certain proof, both of the foregone and of those following assertions, than the event.

1. That these two sorts of creatures, angels and men, might fall from their original estate of perfect holiness ; for, de facto, of both sorts did fall, and the angels that did not were of the same frame, of the same brittle metal with the other of their creation, and the dues thereof were common to both : * The angels that sinned,' saj^s Peter, 2 Pet. ii. 4. ' The angels that kept not their first state, but left their own habitation,' says Jude, verse 6. How much more might this befall man, ' who dwells in houses of clay ?' as it is argued in Job, from the stronger, the angels, unto the weaker: Job iv. 18, 19, ' Behold, he put no trust in his servants ; and his angels he charged with folly: how much less on them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth ?' And that, de facto, we are fallen, we all by sad and woeful experience have found.

2. The second is. That no obligation was upon God to keep either of them from so falling, by any law of his having created them. This the event also is a sufficient demonstration of; for if there had been such an obligation upon him, his faithfulness is such, and love unto his creature is such, as he would then certainly have kept them. That title of faithfulness is annexed to his being Creator : 1 Pet. iv. 19, * Wherefore let them that sufier according to the will of Grod commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing, as unto a faithful Creator.' The argument, then, from that he did not keep them, is invincible, that he was, as a Creator, absolutely free and disengaged from keeping them (without any breach of any due unto his creature by the law of his creation), and doth sufficiently confirm all that is foregone in the former chapter concerning that intercourse settled betwixt God and us by creation. Nor would the holy God have put that high sarcasm, or bitter (yet just) retortion upon man when he had sinned, which struck at the very spirit of his sin, * Man is become like one of us,' which had been the very inward pith and substance of his sinning, which compared together with the tentation—' ye shall be as gods,'—shews that that was it had taken them. God, I say, would not have upbraided them with that severe sarcasm, if he had been engaged to preserve them from sinning, and yet was wanting to do it.

3. Nor must we lay upon God any influence of his, into either of their falls. ' As God is not himself tempted with evil; so, nor tempteth he his creature unto evil.' James i. 13,14, ' Let no man say, when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: but every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.' He carried himself in that matter precisely according to the exact dues of creation. He dispensed all the influence that was due thereby, and more he did not vouchsafe, merely because, as a Creator, he was not obliged thereto. And God ordered it thus, that the difi'erence between that creation influence and assistance, and the efficacious assistance of grace which he gave the angels that stood, and meant to give to his elect, ' called ones,' might be manifest from that which was by creation due only; that what was God's might be given to God and his grace, and what was the creature's might be given the creature ; for it is certain that, had God either inhibited the devil from tempting, or had cast in but a grain of assistance, more than by creation was due, into man's heart and will when tempted, and prevented but a mere negligence or non-attendancy to God and his word (for their sin began with these at first, and they were the ])rimiim momentum of their verging), they had not sinned. If when the eyes of their minds were next door towards a wink, God had given but

the least jog, it had kept them awake. Likewise, but bo was not bound to give, and it was free for him to do or not to do. And unto this, of God's not being bound thereto, as on his part, doth Arminius himself put it.* Nor had, nor could man be aforchand with God by anything he had or could do. For all must be only by virtue of what he had received by creation from God. And so, the apostle's general proclamation made on God's behalf, unto all his creatures, reached Adam in that estate : * Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again ?' The sense whereof is, that God stands free, not upon prerogative, but equity, a debtorf unto man; but at a perfect liberty to give, or not to give, what ho had not compacted for. And Christ says the same, on his behalf, to him that murmured, Mat. xx. 13, 'I do thee no wrong : didst not thou agree with mo for a penny ?' And that I have paid thee.

But besides this argument from the event, the Scripture says the same, with a Behold prefaced unto it, in two places: Job xv. 15, 'Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints.' And that he had put no trust in them is directly spoken in respect unto their mutability, and the hazard of their failing him, in their serving him, if left unto themselves. So as we have God's judgment declared, that they were such unstable creatures, that he had no confidence in them as such. Which, if it be understood in the present tense, that now, since the fall, he putteth no trust in his angels that stood, yet still it relates unto what in themselves they are, and were by nature, and would be, if God did not continue to uphold them. The same is said in chap. iv. 18, with another ' behold' again, * Behold, he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly.' Which latter is spoken as of the time past, upon an experience of the fall of some of them, that shewed the same ehangeableness to be incident to the rest that stood; and that if God should deal with them only according to that law of their creation, and leave them into the hands of their own counsels, they w^ould be as foolish as the rest had been.

But the greater task of the tw'o is, to evince what this mutability was and what the rise of it was, in the creature.

I begin with the latter, the rise or ground of it.

1. This ehangeableness in the creature is the condition of the creature as a creature, with difference from God. Of God it is said, James i. 13, that ' God cannot be tempted with evil;' and evil there is the evil of sin, with which the creature is tempted, and is an opposite to that goodness which is essential to God, whereof Christ speaks. Mat. xix. 17, * God only is good,' and thereby differenceth God's goodness from the creature's goodness, by declaring that God alone is essentially good; and it riseth to such a consistency in his nature, and height of transcendent perfection, that it cannot admit of the least impression, touch, or tincture of evil to stain, yea, not to discolour it; and therefore James expresseth it by this, ' He cannot be tempted,' James i. 13, it being a contradiction to his nature as being God; as elsewhere, that ' he cannot lie,' Titus i. 2, and * cannot deny himself,' 2 Tim. ii. 13. Now, if these things be said of God as he is God, then the opposite (a capacity of being tempted with evil) must be intended thereby of the creature considered in its creatureship.

If any one say, James speaks in the words afore and after, of and unto man fallen, that is, tempted^with * his own lust,' ver. 14. And so it is not

* Hoc impedimentum Deus prsestare non tenebatur. Thes. de primo hominis peccato. t Qi^' ' not a debtor' ?— Ed.

an argument to prove that the creature, in its original estate, was thus liable to temptation with difference from God,

Ans. 1. His saying, ' God cannot be tempted,' being a setting forth an attribute proper unto God, therefore however, in the occasion of it, it may bo an exhortation unto men 'fallen, &c., yet the maxim extends further, and is not to be narrowed unto a comparison of God's nature, in this respect, with corrupted man; but in that it is made proper unto God, it must needs, in its opposition, express the difference from all creatures as creatures.

2. It had been short of the glory which is due unto God, in this purity of his, yea, dishonourable, to have intended it as a comparison only between a man fallen that hath lust in him already, that may tempt him, and the infinitely holy nature of God, that hath no such principle in him, as thereby to set out the perfection of God. For it might be said, that a creature uufallen hath nothing in him to tempt him neither. Therefore God his cannot be tempted must extend further, in full opposition to, and exclusion of, any creature in its best estate considered.

3. It may be said of the strongest mere creature in its best estate, that it is liable to be tempted of its own lust that may arise up in him, though he have no sinful lust as yet in him. The first sin of our first parents was a lust inordinate, * to be as gods.' Self-love grew into a tumour when once it heard, but afar off, of such a preferment. And so of Satan it is said, that when he sinned, he sinned ' of his own.' John viii. 44, ' Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do ; he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own : for he is a liar, and the father of it'—thereby also utterly exempting God from any the least influence into his sin.

The Socinians, who hold man's nature in his first creation not to have been holy, but only indifferent unto good and evil, when we urge, ' that man was created after God's image,' &c., they would retort this absurdity upon us, ' that then he must have been made immutably holy, for God's holiness is an immutable hoHness in him; and therefore, if man had the image of it by creation, then he should have had it immutably.'

But, we easily answer, God could not communicate to us his essential holiness, whereby he is differenced from the creatures. That must be communicated only so far as it is communicable to a creature. And all the images that are made of a man do not import a communication of his nature, but of his likeness ; that is, a communication accidental, artificial, and not substantial. And so God begat his Son indeed, who is his substantial image, but the image of God in creatures is not so; we had, and have, but the lineaments of his holiness.

A second ground of mutability in the creatures' actings with difference from God, and his unchangeableness in acting, is, that God is not compounded of a power to act differing from himself, i. e., his essence; but himself is the power wherewith he acts. He is actus pnrus et simpUcissi-mus; and therefore there is nothing can fall out or come between himself and his power in acting, to weaken or hinder him in acting, nor to cause any failure in his acting, and specially in his activity of holiness, which ia in Scripture termed himself. And therefore, whereas in one scripture you read, he sweareth by himself, in another you find, he sweareth by his holiness: these are all one. His holiness also is that in him whereby himself is his own end to himself. God's own good and happiness is his

ultimate end, and therefore be can never but act bolily, for bo acts by bim-self and for bimself; and so cannot foil in acting, but is holy in all his ways and works, and cannot be otherwise. For all in his acting is himself, both his power and his end, and all; yea, and are all one and the same. But the creature, his power to do or act, is one thing, and himself is another. lie acts not immediately by himself, but by a power given him to act; and which is differing from himself, an accident in him, far differing from himself. Neither is himself his own end in acting, but God, by his creature, is to be his end to act for, and by which he is to be moved in acting ; and God, that is his end, is without him and far above him. And therefore himself, with all these his powers or faculties, may falter in acting when they come to be used 'and put forth; there may some deficiency come between his power to act and his act itself; as either a cessation to act (for he is but agens in 2>otentia) when he ought; a falling short, in not putting forth all its power to the utmost; a remissness, a slackness, may befall it: as in a line stretched to the utmost, a waggling may fall out. As particulax'ly, to instance, Jirst, the creature's understanding may fall into an incogitancy unawares, or a non-advertency, or the want of consideration ; in the twinkling of an eye it may be diverted from a stedfast act of eyeing God as its truest good. And though God gave assistance according to the due of creation, whereby he had power within himself to have kept attentive to God, yet take what was to be its own doing, its act thereupon, or duty ; there a cessation might fall out, an unattendancy, a failing in its acting. Secondly, also his will, whose voice and office still is, ' Who will shew us any good ?' And thereupon it is stedfastly to cleave to God ; yet upon a buzz or hearsay, of being put into a better condition, even as gods, knowing good and evil, the will, to which it is innate to aim at its own good (though then in subordination to God it might), did, by as sudden deficiency and remiss station, make an halt in his way and tendency towards happiness. As one that, in the putting forth of his hand unto what is as high above him, as is possible for him to reach, takes hold by the way of something that is lower and short, through a finding some present ease to its motion in reaching unto what is higher, and the lower to suit his lower and inferior aims. And the will was agog upon it, and it fell into a tumour of seeking its own excellency. And then the will might influence the understanding to take in the consideration, whether there might not be something in that new proposed way of happiness ; and the appearance of it was so represented as the yielding to the temptation is plainly put upon this, that the woman's understanding was deceived; so the apostle in 2 Cor. xi. 3, and 1 Tim. ii. 14.

And this defectibility may well be supposed, seeing it is granted by all that there was that difference between the condition of saints and angels now in glory, and of the angels and Adam in their creation estate ; that in that of glory, the manifestation of God to the understanding of the creatm-es, and the communication of his goodness to the will, is so superabundantly full, filling them with all the fulness of God, that these faculties and powers are swallowed up into God. God his being all in all, as it chains up and unchangeably fixeth the whole of the soul unto him, that it cannot cease or suspend to cleave immutably to him who is their incommutable happiness, and so they cannot sin. And had the angels (who yet we cannot say were in the highest heaven of all) so enjoyed God, they could not have sinned. But the law and measure, both for angels and men by creation, was that God should be so represented to them, as to give them a power to cleave

to God as their chiefest good, as thej began to do ; yet in comparison of the former, in so inferior a way of manifestation, that as for the understanding, in its own ampHtudc, and that variety of objects it might meet with, and that might be presented unto it, a room was left for a possibility, in its creature activit}^, to cast an unhappy glance towards the entertainment of a consideration of them. And that concourse was such with the will, as the will was still left to a possibility to cease its going out from itself up unto God, who was without itself, and to begin to afiect some other excellency proper unto itself, and as that which was suited unto that lower aim of self-love and self-excellency. And the evidence that they were so left (besides the evidence the event gives) is, that God applied legal threaten-ings—' Thou shalt die the death,'—which in the life of glory have no place nor influence ; and all this might and did proceed from this, that according to the necessary constitution of a creator,* they were but agents in jwtentid; they were not pure act, and so might cease to act holily, whilst yet they had the posse, the power from God to act holily. And by the law of creation, God was not obliged to give the act of willing holily, but the power to will; and therefore, also, he might not will when yet he ought, and so Binned. The act of willing what was holy and good was not necessary in them, and therefore it might fall out he might not will it. And the first sin lay, not in an act of willing something else than God, nor in a positive act of refusing God, but a not willing, a ceasing to will, as it had hitherto done. And yet this was not chance or contingency, but accompanied with an act of will, to cease or forbear to will that holy good thing it did. So as the first sinning began not with a motion of the will, but with a defect, or ceasing to move as it ought to have done : upon which the understanding was, withal, deprived of its spii'itual light to guide the will; in that leaven was in the will, which, though but one faculty, yet was the proper seat of sin, the whole lump was leavened, and that small speck of taint, begun in the will, fumed up into the understanding, and darkened it; and that spiritual light being gone, it began to judge what the devil proposed to be their best happiness, and was deceived, as the apostle says. And then the will, having been averted from cleaving to its true and only good, fell into a tumour, as I said, of affecting to be as gods ; and so sin grew irrecoverably more and more upon them. This for a second gi'ound of this mutability. 3. Add unto this, that farther ground which the fathers (Austin especially) have run upon, viz., that these creatures, though excellent, were made out of mere nothing ; their root was nothing, and the sap would be drawing down towards the root and withering, if not continually watered by efiicacious grace. The creature, as a creature, would be mouldering towards nothing again, and would do it every moment, if by the word of God's power it did not consist. And although God hath by charter endowed them with an immortality, which is an immutability as to the substance of their being, which yet is by a mere participation, God by essence having only immortality, 1 Tim. vi. 16 ; j-et still he left this token of mutability, that they might lose their well-being, which sin only could dispossess them of. And sin is but an imperfect tendency, or verging or reeling towards nothing; only, in the falling, God keeps them in substantial being still, that they might live to find and know their frailty, &c. To sin, and to fail that way, is not indeed, says Austin, that which we call nothing; but, says he, it is a tendency unto nothing.f And he gives this reason, that by how

* Qu. 'creature"?— Ed.

t Deficere, non est nihil; sed tendit in niliilum.

much any thing is excellent, and falls or declines unto what is worse, or by how much a thing is become worse than God made it, by so much it is become nearer unto nothing, and so is, in its degree, a foiling towards nothing. I would express it thus, that sin is not a falling into pure nothing for entity, but a falling besides, or sideways, into it; and yet, into what is worse than nothing, the perfect destruction of the well-being of it. And God thought meet to preserve the substance of their being, that those he rejects might have a being continued, to feel the demerit of sin ; and in them he meant to recover, separating in the end their sin and their persons ; yet, that all might see their original and the defectibility, might see an experiment of their first nothingness (which also they know not but by faith), in that so many of both sorts are cast into sin, which is, if not lower than nothing, yet next degree unto it; and know themselves to be but creatures that were nothing ; and that because, by the law of God's creation, he was not bound to have preserved them in being, he therefore suffered the holiness he had endowed them with, and which was concreated with them, and yet was the flower, the excellency and perfection of their being, and of more worth than all their beings without it, utterly to come to nothing.

But yet further, the holiness which, by creation, both angels and men had, were but adjuncts, accidents, and endowments, perfecting the well-being of them, and bestowed upon them to perfect their nature, as noble qualities and dispositions use to do. But they were not ingredients constitutive of the natures of them, or any part or ingredient into the essence of them, and yet natural to them, as perfectives of their nature. And such creatures, or rather concreateds with their nature, may cease and be lost, without the ceasing of the subject itself that is endowed with them.

In the controversy we have with the papists, we rightly affirm that the image of God, in true holiness, was natural to man at his first creation. But then, they put this absurdity upon our assertion, that what is natural cannot be lost; and that what was, by a supernatural act of God's, given the angels and us, must be supernatural.

We answer to the first, that there were three things in man and angels at the first, that made up theirs and our nature : the substance of the soul, which was that it was a spirit, and the seat or subject of these other two that follow. As (2.) the faculties of that soul, that are essential to it in this sense, that they are principia natura constitiitiva, principles that do constitute the nature of a man, and which, if taken away, a man ceaseth to be a man ; and such are the understanding, and will, and affections in the soul; and so in an angel, understanding and will. 3. There were, further, such ornaments and dispositions in those faculties, as were for the perfecting the nature of the soul, and whereby it might attain and be preserved in happiness and blessedness. The two first are, through God's ordination, immutably bestowed, both in angels and men ; so as if either the souls of men should cease to be spiritual substances, or the angels to be spirits, or come not to have an understanding or will, they would cease to be either angels or men ; and therefore, these two they retain, in omni statu, in all states, both fallen and unfallen angels, good and bad. But the third, which was this of holiness, which perfected their natures, they were and are liable to a mutation in. For it was and is but a perfection in the soul or angel, which may, abesse vel adesse sine siibjecti interitu, be lost, and cease without the ceasing of the subject they belonged unto, as precious stones or herbs may lose their virtue, and yet be stones and herbs still.

VOL. VIT. C

To the second we answer, that though the image of God were concreated with the soul by a supernatural operation of God's, that hinders not at all that it should be a natural perfection to man's nature, and natural in that very respect objected ; that because man came forth of God's hands by immediate creation, even therefore it was meet and requisite, yea, necessary, that those his rational creatm-es should have this image, as an endowment which was to enter into the composition of their nature. He had not else had that perfection, which, to the nature of their being intelligent creatures, was due ; and so, though it were supernatural in the production of it by God as the efficient, yet natural to the subject that was made by God. It hinders this no more, than that, because the creation of the soul and the faculties of it, and the union of it with the body, were by a supernatural operation of God's, that therefore he was not naturally a man.

But this last demonstration proceeds upon this, that if these creatures themselves are, in the substance of them as creatures, mutable and apt to be changed, and would sink into their nothing, if God upheld them not by the word of his power (and this mutability, or aptness to perish, at least is affirmed of them, with difference from Christ, as [hej is God, Heb. i. 10-12: ' And, Thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thine hands : they shall perish, but thou remainest; and they all shall was old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed : but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail'), then much more are these accidental perfections mutable and apt to be changed, further than as God shall put a stability into them.

CHAPTER III.

Of the first stale men run through, viz., that of innocency. — A brief draft of all those several states or conditions through ivhich God leadeth the elect of mankind. — Together with a comparison of those states together.

Our most holy, wise, and gracious God had, in his everlasting pui-poses, (as by the event appears) fore-ordained several estates and dispensations (whereof some are inferior and subordinate one unto the other, and whereof one is utterly contrary and perfectly opposite to that happiness he intended) which he would lead his elect of men through, as so many several degrees they take; yea, and oppositions and hazards they are to pass through, ere the last and most royal crown of glory be set upon their heads. And this he chose to do, to the end to magnify and set forth the glory of his own grace at last, as also to carry and lead us still on with wonder from one unto the other, and to prepare us to entertain that consummate happiness at last with unalterable* astonishment and adoration. God hath not dealt thus with the elect angels, who have had no changes; but us, the sons of men, he shifteth from vessel to vessel, and shifteth us first from one condition, then another, till he hath brought us to that utmost refinement which may render us in the highest manner meet and capable of himself immediately. To this end he at first created us in a pure and natural condition in Adam, and he the first of mankind; to let ns see our iinum or bottom, what by the law of creation it was that was our due, and how remote we were by that due from that glory he supernaturally in Christ, * Qu. ' unutterable ' ?— Ed.

the second Adam, bad intended; that since fjraco freely had designed us an higher, the disproportion might appear, that so what was the gift of grace might rise up to its full glory. Then ho lets us fill into sin and wrath, which utterly spoiled and defaced that first native beauty we bad by creation, and plunged us into a contrary depth of misery. But then, after that again, ho gives forth the gospel, which discovers Christ as a redeemer from sin and wrath, who withal brings a life and immortality to light, which by faith apprehended by us, puts us into the state of grace, and a participation of Christ, such as is suitable to the relation of the gospel in this life, far excelling Adam's state.

But then, last of all, and after all this, God hath a resei've, a surpassing weight of glory to be revealed in us, and that also admits of its degrees, of which anon.

And these I thought best in this place to give the brief entire view of, not only for the pleasantness of the prospect when in brief set together, but because it will serve as the clearest introduction or general preface unto all the treatises that are to follow, which have for their particular and set subjects these several estates and conditions. This discourse being to handle the state of Adam in his purest naturals, with a comparison between him and Christ, and his state and our state of grace under the gospel, in other discourses which are to follow, I shall, 1, treat of man's Binful and corrupt estate, and the misery thereof, which serves further, by way of contraries, to magnify the glory of God's grace, and his Christ, as revealed in the gospel; then, 2dly, the state of salvation by Christ, which the elect are brought and raised up into by the grace and work of all three persons, which is rendered to us the more illustrious, both by the immediately preceding misery which we are delivered from, and then by its surpassingly excelling that first and best estate ; then, 3dly, I shall discourse of the last and best condition of the elect, which is the state of glory.

That which at present I am to do is only,

1. To give an account of God's dispensations herein.

2. Shortly to enumerate the particular states, and compare them in their comely gradations or subordinations of each to other.

For the first, the account hereof consists in two things :

1. That it is and hath been the manner of God, in other works of his, to proceed by like steps and degrees ; to proceed from less perfect to more perfect; and to put great distances and disproportions, yea, from contraries.

2. The reasons of it.

The first contains two things in it.

1. That it hath been his manner in other works, which will help ns to understand his proceeding in these. Thus, in making this visible world, he first began with a rude lump, that ' had no form,' Gen. i. 2, neither essential nor accidental; which was actually nothing, potentially all things, therefore called earth and waters, but in truth a darkness and deep confusion without form. Then he divides that lump into four lofts and rooms, and puts in forms thereto to perfect that mass, and so makes the four elements; then he finisheth and fits up those several lofts and chambers with inhabitants, garnisheth the fiery heavens with stars, fills the waters with fishes, the air with birds, the earth with beasts. And of these, those that had a more perfect kind of life were still created in order, after the other more imperfect, and still the latter containing in them the perfections of the former; and then, last of all, man, the end, the existence, the lord of

all, that hath the excellency of angels, sun, moon, and stars in him, as Eccles. xii. 2.

And whereas God had another man to come, the Lord from heaven, who is God and man, and for him to make another world, a new heaven and a new earth, which he intended more than this, yet his ordination in his decrees was to make this first world more imperfect, as the prehuUum and preparative to this new world of Christ's; which ordination and method of his the apostle hath expressly set before us, as heedfully to be noticed by us, 1 Cor. XV. 46, where, speaking of both these men, Adams, and their worlds, ' That was not first which was spiritual;' that is, that man Christ, and that estate of spiritual perfection he brings in, was not to be first, but last; ' but first that which was natural, and afterwards that which is spiritual.' God laid that estate of Adam but as the first rude draught, the gi'oundwork to be filled up. God proceeded ab imperfectiore ad perfectius, by degrees fi'om natural to spiritual. And in the framing and rearing up this new second world, he observes the same method.

1. In the very prophecy and foresignifying of it aforehand, God proceeded c&Au/z.£g&;;, by several parcels, and cast the revelation of him into several shapes and representations, 'rro/.vrpo'rrug, Heb. i. 1, proceeding from more imperfect to what is perfect, as a preludium thereunto.

First. He makes a covenant with the Jews, in outward appearance little better than a covenant of works (whereof it bears the name), then brings in that of gi-ace, established upon better principles and promises. The first at best, as the best of the Jews understood it, but imperfect to the end ; as Heb. xi. 40, ' That they without us should not be made perfect.

And that first covenant, how doth he deliver it with all possible state and majesty ! brings down heaven to earth, and makes an heaven upon a dusty mountain in Sinai ! How gloriously speaks he in thunder ! By angels how terribly! Makes Moses, a mediator, approach to him with his face shining, how brightly ! Erects a ministry, how richly clothed ! A tabernacle, after that a temple, how magnificent! A worship therein, how costly ! And intends all this but as an imperfect show. For he finds fault with this covenant, ministi-y, worship, and all, Heb. viii; disannuls it for the weakness and improfitableness of it, Heb. vii. 9, and then brings in * a better covenant,' ' a more excellent ministry,' Heb. viii. 7, 'a greater and more perfect tabernacle,' Heb. ix. 11. And even in that carnal way he proceeded by degrees : fii'st, there was but altars, then a tabernacle, then a temple. And then again, in that worldly temple, how was there first that which was imperfect! and then comes that which was holy and more perfect. Three courts there w^ere. The outward court for the people, Rev. xi. 1, less glorious ; the second for the priests, wherein was the candlestick, and the table, and the shew-bread ; and after the second veil a third, * the holiest of all,' Heb. ix. 2-4, &c., which had the golden censer, the ark overlaid with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and the cherubims of glory; and this was eminently called the ylonj, the type of heaven. And then, when God came indeed to erect the new world under the gospel, Heb. ii. 4, 5, how still doth he proceed from the more imperfect to what is perfect, ere he hath brought us to the height of all perfection! Into how many heavens, one after the other, will he bring us I

1. He makes a new creation in his people's hearts, a new work there ; so 2 Cor. V. 17, * Old things are passed away, all things are become new' in a believer's heart; and this out of a darkness, a chaos, 2 Cor. iv. 6.

And 2. Then he brings that new creature into a new world of the ordi-

I

nances and things revealed and fitted to this new creature, which are deservedly called, ' The kingdom of heaven;' whereby a man is said to have a being lift up to heaven, &c., as Capernaum. And all the glory of that revelation made on Sinai is called but earth to this, which is truly a heaven in comparison of it, Heb. xii. 25, 26, yet this heaven he will shake as he did that earth, and remove this heaven as he did that earth (so Heb. xii. 20, 27), and bring his elect into a new heaven—new in comparison to this now. Rev. xxi., whenas once again all is to become new, ver. 4, 5. And then, after that new heaven and new earth, where righteousness dwells, the epistles of Paul and Peter tell us that he will bring us into an ' heaven of heavens,' so called, not in relation only to natural heavens, but spiritual heavens foregoing it, which shall be the end, the perfection of all; and so, Rom. vi. 22, is called rsXog [from rsXiu, perficio], the end, the perfection; even as Christ is called ' the end of the law,' Rom. x. 4. And as the law made nothing perfect, but Christ, so even all these foregoing heavens are (though in themselves, some of them comparatively to others foregoing, perfect, yet) compared to this last and utmost, but imperfect, which is the end of ail.

The second is, that in all these gradual representations of his, he so orders it, that the latter shall still exceed the former, and so exceed, as the former shall hold no comparison therewith; and therefore, the more of them -we can find out the better. Thus how did the world, ordered, garnished, and adorned, exceed the chaos, which was darkness and confusion? The second day's work exceeded the first; the third the work of the second. And as much did the little world, man, the epitome of all the great world, excel all, so as heathens stood astonished at it. But infinitely more doth Christ, the second Adam, exceed the first, 1 Cor. xv. 45-47, &c., and his world, this of Adam's ; and likewise the ministration of the second covenant, the gospel, that of the first, the law, that, 2 Cor. iii. 10, '.it had no glory in comparison of this which excelleth.' And then the new heavens and the new earth to come, will so exceed this heaven, even this kingdom of heaven we now, or the saints, enjoy, that ' the former shall not be remembered,' Isa. Ixv. 17. And as it was prophesied that the ark and service of the temple, Jer. iii. 16, should be so exceeded by the gospel, that it should be remembered no more, so will the new heavens exceed these, that all here shall be remembered no more, nor come into mind— an expression shewing how much the former should be excelled by the latter, even so much, that as it useth to fall out in things and objects eminently excelling, they so swallow up the mind that all other things are not thought on, but forgotten, as if they had never been. As the glory of the sun puts out the glory of the moon, so shall this exceed that former, that it shall not come to mind.

Now, to add a true reason why God is pleased thus in his works to proceed in general:

1. To shew the perfection of his efficiency and workmanship. It argues a weakness in an efficient to do worse, when it hath done better; but perfection, still so to exceed, and put down the former.

2. It shews his various and manifold wisdom, -roXuffo/x/Xo; cop/a, or his much or mighty varying wisdom, as Chrysostom expounds that phrase, Eph. iii. 11. His wisdom is in itself one, but we could not see it in itself at once. Therefore he shews it by several representations of it and himself, in several efiects ; and that shews wisdom also not simply various, but much, mightily difiering and excelling, to shew the vastness of his

wisdom, who could cast himself into so many forms, and frame so many several patterns of worlds and conditions, not only infinitely differing from, but as much excelling each other.

And thirdly. This is a -way and course he knew would take the creature most, for unto its capacity hath God herein applied himself. Kow we find that our spirits are taken and led on with much more pleasure, and brought into a greater wonderment and admiration of a thing transcendently excellent, when things of less worth, yet to our apprehensions (whilst wc see no better) most excellent, are presented first. So we have heard, in entertainment of great ones, their cunning suitors have led them into stately rooms, where sumptuous banquets have been prepared, and from thence earned them into other far more exceeding, to set off' the latter so much the more, and make it great indeed. So it is in masques and shows, in which there are several presentments involved one beyond another. And thus doth and will God entertain his children. And what can be more to draw the creatm-es into wonderment, than first to present them with such a work, so perfect in their apprehensions as they know not where anything should be added to it, to make it more perfect, or taken away, as Solomon speaks of God's works, Eccles. iii. 14 (though haply in a further sense also), and yet then to bring them unto another frame and building differing, infinitely exceeding, the other. T\Tiat is there will wrap up in more astonishments ! Now, never did the art of man present such a prospective piece which, as you know, carries the eye through several rooms, one beyond another, as is this which God hath made, and the world=;= reveals unto us.

As for the second head propounded, the scheme of these several estates, and the subordination of them.

1. The scheme of them.

(1.) There is the estate of pure nature wherein Adam was created, and in him we, which he and we should have enjoyed on earth, which had an happiness in its kind most perfect and complete.

(2.) The second is the estate of grace we are brought into here by the second Adam under the gospel, and the privileges enjoyed by faith and hope, which, if it were made up complete (though but within its own sphere, without addition of gloi^), would afford an higher and super-excelling happiness than that of Adam.

(3.) The third is the estate of glory hereafter, in which there might haply be found out in Scriptm-e three degrees; whereof two are but steps to the highest throne we shall be set in.

[1.] That of the souls of men separate, till joined to the body, during which time, though made perfect in grace, and with addition of glory, yet not with that degree which at the resurrection soul and body shall receive.

[2.] That estate of the soul and body, when first joined in Christ's visible kingdom, and the day of judgment, which transcends that of the soul's alone.

[3.] That of the soul and body, when Christ shall have given up his kingdom to his Father, when God shall be all in all.

All which may further be cast into this series : that whereas God, known and enjoyed, is the supreme happiness of man in all conditions, God hath ordained several ways, difl'ering not only in degrees, but kind, of knowing and enjoying of him. All which the apostle reduceth to a dichotomy, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, either, 1, in a glass, or in a riddle, darkly, now « Qu. ' word ' ?— Ed.

in this world ; or, 2, face to face in that to come. The one we may call specidaris corf)iilio; the other, intuitiva: the one mediate and merely in alio, in another thing; that other immediate in se, as in himself, face to face. And answerable to each of these knowledges of him, is there an enjoyment of him by the will, goes along therewith, to delight and rest satisfied in him. For the understanding and the will are commensurated and proportioned each to other, according to that known rule, in quantum co(jnuscimus, in tanlum amamus; in quantum ainamus, in tantum r/audemus. So much, or so far as we know God aright, we love him; so far as we love him, we rejoice in and are made happy by him.

This specular or mediate knowledge of God in this world, is either, 1, such as that which Adam had, seeing and enjoying him in the creatures, which was his glass, as it was said of old, speculum creature:; or enjoying him in and by the covenant of works, the glass of the law, accompanied with peace of conscience following the doing his will; or at the best, but seeing and enjoying him in visions and apparitions, as the fathers of old did. Or else, 2, it is that knowledge which we have of him by revelation iu the glass of the gospel, this covenant of grace, in which the glory of God shines forth in the face of Jesus Christ as in a glass, as 2 Cor. iii. 18 and chap. iv. 6 compared. Which is accompanied often with, ' peace which passeth understanding,' 'joy unspeakable and glorious,' as 1 Peter i., and but only as in this glass. And if we compare either this knowledge of God in Christ presented in this glass with that of Adam, his will be found to be but as in a riddle, darker and obscurer far, for the kind and way of knowing him, though for degrees in its own kind it was more complete. And in like manner, the least drop of joy of the Holy Ghost, the droppings of heaven, which he puts into the heart, will be found more than all Adam's full springs of peace, which arose but out of his own conscience, which was but as a spring on earth in comparison of this other. And both these ways of knowing and enjoying God, which a believer in part here hath, I take it to be the apostle aims at, ver. 8, calling the one, namely, that by relation* in the gospel, prophesying, which is the means of revealing God in Christ by the Scriptures, which are the glass and ordinance that present God in Christ most lively to us ; the other, knowledge, namely, that obtained by the creatures, as some have differenced these two.

But then there is a knowledge which is ' face to face,' as being more immediate, after this life ; whereof, I take it, there are two degrees also, whereof the one shall exceed the other. The first is, the seeing and enjoying Christ the Lord personally in glory, face to face^ and so the Godhead in him. So as still the chiefest and eminentest way of knowing and enjoying the Godhead should be in Christ only, which I take is the chiefest way both for the souls separate, both before and at the resurrection, till the day of judgment be over, when * we shall see him as he is, and be made hke him ;' which infinitely transcends our seeing God in Christ here ; when Christ himself is made known but imperfectly in a glass, in ordinances of grace, and is truly a seeing face to face, namely, of the Lord Christ, being compared with our way of seeing him here absent, by faith, and not by sight, as Cor. v. 6-8. Yet so as there is a second and farther degree of seeing God in himself, face to face, far more exceeding, that is, for us to see him face to face, as Christ himself now doth; when he shall have given his kingdom up, by which only, as by him administered, God is more eminently to be known, till the,day of judgment is over. Then * Qu. ' revelation ' ?— Ed

shall God become all in all immediately himself, which must needs exceed all else, as God himself exceeds all these ways of revealing him.

Thus hath God ordained to bring us by steps and degrees to that participation of himself which creatures are capable of. And in bringing us into his immediate presence and conjunction, to entertain us first with lower, though all most glorious representations of himself; even as kings are wont to do, in admitting ambassadors into their presence, so God admits us, 1, by creatures and visible apparitions ; 2, in his Son revealed absent in a glass ; then, 3dly, by his Son's own personal entertainment of us ; who, 4thly, shall deliver us up to God, to enjoy God, as himself doth.

And as I have given a brief delineation thus of the particulars, so I will make the like brief comparison of them each with other.

1. If we compare the first branch of that last division given with the latter, how doth the latter way exceed it! For to see God, and enjoy him but in creatures, as Adam did, and in the ordinances and revelations of the gospel, is as in a glass, and makes it at best but as an accidental happiness, as comparatively divines calls it. That only of seeing God and Christ face to face, as in himself essentially, is the truest happiness. The one is but the shadow ; the other, the substance in which true happiness consists.

But, 2dly, more particularly, the distance between each of these four degrees is such, that, 1, all the knowledge which Adam had of God in the creatures, the law and apparitions, was but as seeing one in his footsteps and shadow, and in types and resemblances, as all these were semlum speculi, as was said of old. As in like manner were these revelations under the law, which were but the shadow, Heb. x. 1, and not the image. 2. That knowledge by revelation in the glass of the gospel, in seeing Christ therein, which is said to be the knowledge of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Cor. iii. 18 and chap. iv. 6 compared, as yet but as seeing the image of one that is absent in a glass, and so but the representation of him in his Son, who is his image, and that but as presented in a glass absent, which though nearer than the other, yet how remote from the real communication of himself!

8. That after this life ended, till after the day of judgment, will be but the enjoying God more eminently in his Son, who is not absent any more, but personally present in his glory : ' That they may see my glory,' John xvii. 24. Which adds infinitely to both the former, and is the seeing and enjoying the substance of that image of God, the image only of which we here enjoy. It is to view face to face the brightness of God's glory shining in Christ, of which but the glimpse or reflection we here could see. But then, 4thly, to behold that glory as in itself, and as this his Son, that before represented it to us, himself sees it; and for God himself to be his own presenter of himself, will infinitely yet more transcend.

And thus each of these are to what succeed them but as perfectibilla ad perfectivwn, as groundworks and foundations laid for the other still to perfect them and swallow them up; that still, as that which is more perfect succeeds that which was before (and in comparison thereunto was but imperfect), is done away. And as the knowledge of God in the creatures is swallowed up, and vanisheth, as it were, in the presence of God in Christ presented in the gospel—and so indeed would Adam's certainly have done, if Christ had been propounded to him; and so doth all Old Testament knowledge of God vanish before this same, as the shadow, as Col. ii. 17, or as the morning star, as 2 Peter i. 19, when the sun appears—so will.

much more, this of Christ now be swallowed up, and vanish afore the enjoyment of God in Christ, in his glory and his kingdom. And so the apostle tells us, that ' knowledge and prophecy shall cease and fail; and this, ' that is but in part, shall be done away,' 1 Cor. xiii. 10. And so in hke manner, the same apostle tells us, 1 Cor. xv., that the kingdom or eminency of Christ himself shall in comparison cease, and be given up to the presence of his Father, when God shall be all in all. 1 Cor. xv. 24-28, ' Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith, All things are put under him, it is manifest that he is excepted which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.'

CHAPTER IV. Containing a short view of the happiness of Adam's condition.

Adam's best estate was but a type and shadow of that which Christ was to bring in, and according to the law and proportion of that type, an excelling difference must needs be in the latter above the former.

Let us but consider the height and true elevation of his state, simply and plainly, what it was in itself, without considering it as a shadow or type of the state of grace by Christ, and it will appear how short, and low, and mean his condition was, in comparison of what even the state of grace, now under the gospel, brings us into, and makes us the subjects of.

Many things are written concerning the image of God in Adam, both internal, in hoHness and righteousness, and in knowledge, &c., as also external, in dominion over the works of God's hands. My scope is only so to speak of these things, as may serve to the illustration of Christ, and our estate of grace and glory by him.

The blessed condition that Adam was created in, and estated into in paradise, is, in the general apprehensions of all men, made the object of their envy, and conceived to have been such, as their hearts know not how to desire a happier: and ordinarily we can still scarce think of it as lost, but with a secret kind of regret, that it did so unhappily fall out that Adam, and we in him, should fall from it, and, like great men's heirs, be disinherited for their father's treason ; we use to say within ourselves. Oh, what men should we have been, if Adam had not sinned!

To give, therefore, a small taste of this happiness of Adam :

No sooner did he open his eyes, but he saw himself most happy. He had a world about him new made, and in its freshness and best hue, and furnished with all sorts of creatures, and all of them suited to his body (the epitome of them all), and to his senses, as well inward as outward, so to estate him in the fulness of all contentment. And he was made the centre of all the goodness that was in those creatures ; unto whom each of them, as unto their Lord, was fitted to pay a tribute of comfort: so suited was this little and great world together. There was not a desire could arise in him, but something or other he might find to satisfy it; nor was

there a creature in the universe towards -which he might not find something in himself to be well pleased in it; God having placed the world in man's heart, as man in the world. And for this first man, God seated him in a garden planted by himself, in the richest and most pleasant soil in the world, Eden, near Babylon, as the court and royal seat of the king of this great world—a garden, of all nature's pleasures the most delightful (and therefore affected so by Solomon, Eccles. ii. 5), planted by God himself, the best gardener for skill that ever was (and therefore often called in Ezekiel ' the garden of God'), and so furnished with all the choicest rarities and glories of the whole earth brought thither together (which in all other places were but thinly sprinkled), seated in a soil fertile and pleasant beyond expression, and therefore called Paradise, -/.ar e^oy^rjv, as being the garden of gardens. And the greatest monarch of Assyria is compared but to one of the trees of this garden, as other princes that envied him are compared to other trees, Ezek. sxxi. 6-8. And then God gave him a soul, able to search into, and so to know the natures of all creatures (for he gave names to them all), which, as Plato said of him who first did this, argued him to be sapieutissimus; and much more able than Solomon was he to discern of all things, and so to see God clearly in each of them ; whom then, looking into his heart, he found by the covenant of works (as before he had tasted his favour in all the creatures) to be his God; from whence issued an unmixed peace and joy, such as fully satisfied his heart in fellowship with him, as thus known to be his chiefest good, joined with a promise of having this God to be for ever his, whilst he should thus continue to obey him. The promise to him was, that he should live by doing; by which was meant, not only not to die, but to live to a life made up of nothing but of comforts and contentments. His heart did live, as the phrase is, Ps. Ixix. 32. And besides this, he seeing and tasting God's love and goodness in and by all the creatures, he was made capable of a superadded fellowship with God, which at times he was pleased to vouchsafe him by revelations, in visions and apparitions, wherein God ' talked with him' (as he did with the patriarchs after him), as appeareth in his story, Gen. 2d and 3d chapters : by which he was refreshed and cheered, and also instructed further, than simply by God enjoyed in and by the creatures. And surely we have now taken the height of that his happiness.

Now this condition of his infinitely surpassed the best state that since the fall ever was, or can be supposed to be, on earth. Since sin subjected both the creature to vanity, and us to vexation of spirit, there never was the like enjoyed ,by any son of man. Yea, take but the contentment he took in the creatures, and his pleasures must needs as much exceed these which now men have, as the pleasures of a man, sound and in perfect health, do exceed those of a desperately sick man, who wants aU relish, as we now are said to be, Eccles. v. 17, by reason of lusts within us (as Solomon compares it). But, besides, the creatures now are but a husk, as they were to the prodigal, who was the type of sinners, Luke xv., whereas then God was as the kernel of them, and with his favour tasted in them, filled them with a transcendent sweetness. Neither was there then any gross accident added to this emptiness : no stings of conscience to cause any sadness in the midst of mhth; no contrary passions to allay the pleasures then enjoyed ; but all in man was subjected unto reason, and that unto God. He enjoyed a perfect peace and security, and a condition so happy, that God delighted himself therein when accomplished, and kept a day of rest in memory thereof, which estate of his the fallen angels did

envy and malign. And man liimself could not lut iLink tLis uorld, and his condition in it, good enough; nor knew he how any thing could bo beyond it.

Now, notwithstanding all this that hath or may be said of it, this is the position which I shall endeavour to assert and establish:

That Adam's best knowledge and enjoyment was inferior, and of a lower rank, than is that knowledge and fellowship with God, which we in Christ, through faith, do hero enjoy, in that estate of grace which the gospel putteth us into.

Than which (if well established) nothing will more tend to magnify the grace of God in Christ, and will abundantly serve to heighten our apprehensions about heaven's glory, when we shall consider how infinitely transcendent that happiness must needs be, which God in the end doth beyond all this advance us unto.

Now, to prevent mistakes, and to clear my meaning, that I be not misunderstood in casting Adam's condition thus low, I premise these two cautious:

1. My meaning is not, as if his condition did not then afford him a m.ore sensible, constant felicity, and a more actual quiet ease and contentment, than a believer's in any constant way doth, now under the estate of grace : which falls out so to them, because their happiness is disadvantaged by two things (whatever else there may be) by which his was not. As,

(1.) From the annoyance of outward afflictions from men and the creatures, and the chastisements from God for sin: in which respect our condition now is rendered more miserable than other men's, and much more than Adam's, who had a fulness of contentment in God, and all the creatures, and a perfect freedom from all miseries whatever.

(2.) In that, even that fellowship a believer hath with God in Christ (which should counterpoise these outward miseries), is for the degrees of it so imperfect, and allayed with the contrary admixture of ignorance, unbelief, guilt, and distress, and so often interrupted by these, that it cannot be supposed always to bring in that full and constant happiness, and the enjoyment of contentment, that Adam's fellowship with God did, which was sincere, without any such admixture or private imperfection, and was ordained to rise to a full perfection in its own sphere, and was ever constant and uninterrapted, whilst he sinned not. God not having ordained the state of grace to give us that quietness, and security, and contentment, in a constant way here, hath left it on purpose thus imperfect, that so "we might rather breathe after that bliss to come, whereof this is to be but the taste and earnest.

2. Yet so as, if the way and manner of Adam's knowing and enjoying God (though in its kind complete) be compared with the way and manner of our knowing and enjoying God, thus imperfect, this of ours is unspeakably more divine, heavenly, glorious, and surpassing, and his more low and earthly.

So that now, would we make a supposition (as for this purpose in hand we may), that a believer's knowledge and enjoyment of God were but completed and filled up, though but within its own sphere, without the addition of glory and the beatifical vision of God (so it be without this mixture of sin and miseries which are the punishment of sin); and it would render us infinitely more happy, and more replete with glorious contentment, than ever entered into Adam's heart, and would make this estate of grace below a heaven in comparison of his paradise.

CHAPTER V.

The image of God in Adam, how it was natural, how explained, and hoit faith is supernatural. — That hnowledge of God natural which is due and fit for a reasonable creature to have, and which he acquires by the exercise of his rational faculties. — That knowiedge supernatural which goes beyond ivhat man by the right of his creation was to have. — Adam's knowledge of God was in a natural icay, though it sanctified him, and ivas joined with holiness.

Now, to state the true difference and give the true disproportion between these two estates, I must explain that known distinction (so much used of all sides, both schoolmen and our own divines) of natural righteousness and supernatural grace; or the knowing and enjoying God in a way natural to man, and tending to a natural happiness in God, and the knowledge of and fellowship with God in a way supernatural or above nature, which tends to a supernatural happiness to be had in him.

Now when it is said that there is a natural way of knowing God, the meaning is not of that natural knowledge in corrupt nature which heathens have of God ; but it hath reference to the pure nature of man in Adam uncorrupted, whereof that natural light left even in corrupt nature is but the shadow. Which shews that there was such a kind of knowledge of God in Adam, in an holy and perfect way, which knowledge of his the schoolmen call Adam's theologia naturalis, his natural divinity and knowledge.

And, oppositely, a supernatural knowing God, is not so called in respect of corrupt nature, as being supernatural to it, but in respect to pure nature, as being above even the natural way thereof.

Now the most radical and exact difference between these two, that I can search out, lies in these two things :

1. That way of knowing God in pure nature, is so far called natural, as it may be supposed a natural due, meet and requisite to be in man by the law of nature, if God would at all make such a creature endued with reason and understanding ; for if God meant to make two such faculties, as are our wills and understandings, in their nature and capacities so unlimited, the law of nature required that God himself should become the object of them, and so to give man a power to know and delight in him; for otherwise it had been to make those faculties in that vastness in vain, and without their due end, seeing they could not rest or be satisfied with all the particular truth and goodness in the creatures (as the senses can), they being vaster and more general faculties ; and therefore in a way that was due to the nature of man, if God would make him reasonable, God was to be both known and enjoyed by man, so as to satisfy both his understanding and will, and thereby to make him happy. And a happiness in God, so far proportioned thus to the nature of man, is called natural happiness.

And so, oppositely, that which was vouchsafed to man over and above this natural due, and supra cxigentiam creatunr, more than it was simply meet for God to give him upon and with his creating him reasonable,—that, I say, is supernatural, and is therefore called grace, as being a free gift over and above that which was necessai'ily due to such a creature.

Now for the present, to clear this in general by an instance ; for God to have for ever confirmed man whom he thus made in that goodness, and to

have held him so to himself that he should not sin or fall, this had been a supernatural grace, because it is more than is due to any creature as reasonable ; for as it is a creature, it is defectible and may fail, and it is natural to the creature of itself so to be, God alone being ' without shadow of turning.' And therefore, though it was man's due (if God would make him reasonable) for God himself to become his happiness, yet to keep him from failing was above the due that the creature, as a creature, could challenge ; yea rather, it might become God to leave the creature, to shew itself to be but a creature that would fall.

The second difierence is, that that knowledge and enjoyment of God was natural, which w^as suited, fitted, and proportioned to the natural way of man in his knowledge of things. So as that light that enabled him to know God was suited and made apt to close with the natural way and his understanding, only it did withal sanctify it.

> But that knowledge, oppositely, is supernatural, which is by a light above the way of nature, and the way of man's understanding things, as the light of our faith is.

Now then, to bring down this distinction unto the thing in hand, I conceive that the ordinary way of Adam's knowing and enjoying God lay, if not wholly, yet for the most part, within the sphere and compass of a natural way; that is, so far as was simply due to a creature reasonable, and was such as was also suited to the natural way of man's understanding and knowledge, though withal sanctifying of him. And accordingly, the happiness thence arising was, comparatively, but a natural kind of happiness ; so much as was due to the satisfying of man's understanding and will in God in their natural desires and appetites, so far as might become their object in such a natural way.

For the clearing of which,

1. You know that the image of God, which consisted in knowledge and holiness, wherein man was at first created, is by our divines (in opposition to the Romanists) argued to have been natural to him, then in that state considered : natural, not that it simply flowed from the principles of nature, it being from God, who adorned man's nature with it, but natural in this respect, that it was a requisite and due, even in the order of nature, that man should be created with it; and so as you could not suppose him created by God reasonable, but he must withal know God as his chiefest good, and love God above all, and in that knowledge and love of him be happy. And this was the law of nature in his creation, unto which, if he had not been framed, he had not had that natural goodness in his kind which other creatures had in their kind. And such was the image of God wherein he was created.

This point I will not now dispute, but may well take for granted, it being fundamental to all the protestant opinions about original sin, &c., wherein we difier from the papists.

And 2. If thus the image of God was natural to Adam, then was it also such as was suited to that way of man's knowledge and desires, running along therewith in the same channel and way that man's nature was to take in knowing of other things. For otherwise, so far as it had been carried above its own way, it had been supernatural.

Now then, let us consider what is the natural way of man's knowing things, and so of his knowing God. The way and progress of man's knowledge naturally lieth thus :

In having at first a glimmering light, and common, yet obscure principles

and glimpses of the notions of things sown in the mind by nature, which then by observation and laying things together, and so gathering one thing from another, the mind improveth and enlargeth, till it arise to a particular, clear, distinct, and perfect knowledge of those things which it seeks to know. This is the natural way of man's understanding in both estates, both of innocent and corrupt nature ; and that in all things that are known by him in either of these estates wherein common principles (as that the whole is greater than its parts, &c.), -/.olvai hvoiai, as the Grecians call them, hints, glimpses, as I call them, many of which are even in the minds of children, and as it were connate with them ; these, I say, are as the seed sown, and reason and obseiwation are as the tillage and watering of them ; and a full knowledge arising from both is as the crop or harvest that springs from both, and is reaped by us.

Now when God stamped his imago upon the understanding of man, that thereby he might know God himself, and so enjoy him, he so framed it, as that it might suit with this natural way of man's proceeding in his knowledge in other things ; so as the mind of man might proceed its own way in the knowledge of God himself, and walk therein after the rule of nature. And unto that end God, in the instant of his creation, did sow in his mind holy and sanctifying notions and principles, both concerning his own nature, what a God he was, and also concerning his will, even as he did the like common notions of the knowledge of other things ; which principles were by rectified reason to be improved, enlarged, and confirmed, made clear and illustrious, out of his observations from the creatures and the works of providence, as also from the covenant of works, till it arise to a full, clear, and distinct knowledge of God, whom, as thus known, he should have enjoyed and delighted in, even as now we see man's mind hath the principles of other knowledge in it, which observation and reason do improve. And thus, as he was to till the garden of Eden, so was he to till and manure his own mind.

Two things it then concerned man to know of God :—

1. The nature and attributes of God ; what a God he was : how wise, powerful, eternal, &c.

2. The will and mind of God towards man ; both what God would have him do, and what God was, and would be to him, even his God, if he did his will.

And of both these he had the knowledge through natural infused principles, which sanctified his whole man then, as the knowledge of Christ, by faith, doth our whole man now.

1. He had inbred, obscure notions of the attributes of God, which yet were not so full and distinct, but that from the creatures and works of God, he was to enlarge and confirm his knowledge of them ; and out of all laid together, to make up a perfect knowledge of God and of all his attributes : ' For the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the creation of the world,' Eom. i. 20. And if thus to be seen by heathens, as the apostle there argues, then much more by Adam, for whom they were ordained. Those holy principles, or glimpses of the knowledge of God in him, were like letters written with the juice of lemon or the like, which, when they are held to the fire, do become legible and apparent; so these, when he came once to view the creatures, presented God clearly to him : * The heavens declare the glory of God,' &c., says the psalmist, Psa. xix. 1.

' Prseseutemque refert qusBlibet herba Deum,* says the poet. Adam's reason was able, through the light of those prin-

ciples sown, to take God np as the cause from these effects, and so to attain a perfect knowledge of him, perfect, that is, in its kind, and in that sense, complete.

2. He had, in like manner, the principles of God's whole mind and will sown in his heart; even the seeds of all that moral law which we find in the Scriptures, Adam had then sown in him in the utmost spirituality thereof: the notions of it grew up naturally in his heart. So as, upon all occasions when ho was to practise any part of it, he might come fully to know what he was to do ; and it needed not to bo revealed, or ho to receive it by faith. But the whole law was to him even a law of nature written in his heart, naturally known to him by common dictates inbred in him. And thus in like manner was that promise known to him, that by doimi he should live, together with that threatening, that by transgression of the law, or any part of it, he should die the death. These were known to him by principles written in his heart, though further confirmed to him by two sacraments, the tree of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, even as his other notions of God were helped and enlarged by the works of God ; yet so as the knowledge of this covenant, and of the promise and threatening annexed to it, was natural, though it were strengthened and enlarged by those two sacraments.

And as an evidence to us that this was the natural primitive way of man's knowing God in the estate of innocency, God hath put into corrupt nature a shadow hereof, and an imperfect counterfeit of it in all mankind, to remain as a witness what an one his image in man at first was, and how stamped on him. He hath, I say, left some instances, prints, and footsteps of either kind of knowledge above-mentioned still in us ; both concerning the nature of God, and concerning his will, as we find them, the one in the first to the Eomans, and the other in the second.

1. There are still in us some rude notions of a God, which the apostle shews the heathens to have had, Rom. i., which he calls ri yvwffrii/ rou 0£oD, ver. 19, 'that which might be known of God;' that is, whereby thev might have seen, as some of them did, ' the invisible things' (or attributes) of God, ver. 20.

And, 2dly, there are still like notions and engrafted principles, concerning some parts of the will and law of God, written in our hearts. So Rom. ii. 15, they have ' the work of the law writtten in their hearts,' and so ' are a law to themselves,' as is in the foregoing verse ; and have also some glimmering of the threatening, and so, by consequence, of the promise, if they walk according to it. For, ver. 32 of chap, i., they are said to * know the judgment of God' (thus by instinct), ' that they who commit such things are worthy of death,' and by the rule of contraries, that they who obey the law are worthy of life ; and therefore, their thoughts do as well ' excuse' in hope of life, as ' accuse' in respect of condemnation, as you have it, ver. 15.

Now these common principles engrafted, some divines call the relics of that former image, thinking them to be the same for substance with those more perfect ones which were in Adam ; as the sparks of a bigger fire, or as the rains of an house razed and disordered, which, for the matter, are the same that at first.

But I shall shew elsewhere, that these are rather wholly renewed, and again put into us by Christ, who ' lighteneth' (with this light, more or less) ' every man that comes into the world,' as it is in John i. 9 ; and so, that they do in reahty differ firom those in Adam, of which we have spoken.

For those principles of the knowledge of God and of his law, written in Adam's heart, and Hkewise the improvement of them by reason, &e., were all holy in themselves and spiritual, and made his heart holy and sanctified him. For the most spiritual part of the law was no otherwise known to him, than by being thus written in his heart by natural principles, as the rest also was, and not by faith, as in us it is; and so were as natural then to him, as moral principles are now in heathens. And thus, to love God above all, to believe on him, &c., was to Adam but the dictate of pure nature, by a way of common principles, which met with answerable holy dispositions, -which accompanied these dictates in his will and aflfections ; all which together made up true holiness and righteousness in a natural way. And in like manner, those notions which he had of God and of his attributes by nature, and that acquired knowledge which was to rise out of them by observation of God's works, were all holy and sanctifying. Why else are the Gentiles blamed for that, knowing God in a natural way, even from his works, they ' glorified not God as God,' Rom. i.; and for that they, knowing the law, walked not according to it, but because the knowledge of both these which Adam once had, and they in him, and which he should have acquired, enabled him thus to love God above all, and to glorify God as God ! And on purpose did God put this imperfect natural knowledge into corrupt nature, to shew us what was the way of knowing and glorifying God, one* in nature pure and innocent. And this is the first demonstration of it.

A second demonstration that the way of Adam's knowledge was thus natural, and by the light of common infused principles, and by observation of God's works to be improved, may be taken from the use and end of the Sabbath, which God himself sanctified, and upon it rested, to contemplate his works of creation ; and this to be taken as an example unto Adam, how his mind upon this day was to be up, even in the contemplation of the works of God. And that that was the principal duty of the Sabbath, under the covenant of works, appears by Psa. xcii.

And therefore, thirdly, the best of Adam's condition (for of his condition when first created the apostle, 1 Cor. xv. 45, quotes that speech in Genesis, 'The first man, Adam, was made a living soul') is called animal and natural in the 46th verse of the aforesaid 15th to the Corinthians ; but that state unto which Christ brings us, is there called spiritual or supernatural. Both the condition of our souls here, and of our bodies and souls hereafter, is spiritual and supernatural. And such is Christ's whole image, ■whereas Adam's was but natural.

CHAPTER VI.

That the covenant of works, the justification of Adam by that covenant, and the reward of his obedience, ivere all natural. — And that by covenant he should not have gone to heaven.

As the way of his knowing God, and the image of God in him, were thus natural, and no higher than was due unto nature, and suited unto man as man, so were all things else which any way concerned him; they were of the same elevation also, and reached no higher than the sphere of nature, in the sense explained ; namely, they were such as were due unto man's nature, or were founded upon the law of nature. For instance, » Qu. ' onco • ?— Ed.

1. The covenant ho stood under was hi\if(cdHS natimr, the covenant of nature, and such as, for the conditions of it, was duo unto such a creature, and such as it became the Creator to make with him, if he at all mado him. And therefore the foundation of that covenant was but the title of creation, and the primitive integrity in which God fii-st mado man, and there was nothing at all supernatural in it.

2. The righteousness whereby ho was justified was no other than that natural righteousness in which he was created, and which was conserved and preserved by continuing to act holily, and by doing good according to the principles of holiness at first implanted in him. And so it was but such a justification as was a natural due to the creature so obeying, that God should pronounce him just upon it; for it was but God's giving him such an approbation, that he both was, and did continue, * good in his kind,' as he pronounced of all the other creatures in their kind. Gen. i. 31, when God saw that they were all good. Then likewise he viewed Adam, and pronounced him good also in holiness and righteousness, which was the proper goodness of his creation. So that his approbation of him was but natural, and according to a rule of nature common to other creatures, and so a due. Which may be the meaning of that place in Rom. iv. 4, where the apostle, speaking of the difierence between the justification under the covenant of works, and that under grace, he says the one is -/.ara rh ofiiXri/Ma, ' of debt,' the other, y.ara yji-oiv, merely ' of free gi'ace.' It is evident that he intends to afiirm, that by the first covenant of works the reward was in a just sense due (of debt) unto the creature, and that from God, whereas this new covenant is of grace. Now how is that other said to be of debt ? Not that God can owe anything, or be obliged unto his creature for anything received from it; nor is it to be understood as if the holiness that Adam had was not from God's gift, as well as ours under the new covenant is ; but because, in a way of natural justice, or rather comeliness and dueness, such as is by the law of creation to be between a just creator and an holy creature, there is an approbation due unto him from God whilst that creature obeys him, and that as a deVitum naturale, a debt of nature, and not a debt of retribution in a mercenary way: * Who hath given unto him, and it shall be recompensed again?' Eom. xi. 35, as the apostle speaks.

3. Answerably, the reward, the promised life and happiness that he should have had for doing and obeying, was but the continuance of the ■ same happy life which he enjoyed in paradise, together with God's favour towards him. Which continuance in happiness was natural to him ; even as our divines say that mortality* was, namely, in this sense, that it was a natural due unto him whilst he should keep from sin, for God to preserve him in that state wherein at first he stood ; and this preservation of him in that state, and in the favour of God, was the life promised, when God said, ' Do this, and thou shalt live;' and not the translating him, in the end, unto that spiritual life in heaven, which the angels have, and which the saints shall have. And for this my reasons are—

1. Because Christ, in 1 Cor. sv, 47, 48, is called ' the heavenly man,' and the ' Lord from heaven ;' and that in opposition to Adam, when at the best, whom the apostle calls but an earthly man. And this difi'erenee in their condition he there evidently mentions, to shew that Christ was the first and only author of that heavenly life which the saints in heaven do enjoy, and he himself coming from heaven he carries us thither. But * Qu. 'immortality'?— Ed.

VOL. VU. D

on the contrary, Adam, as be was of earth, so he was but an earthly man, (so ver. 47), and his happiness should have reached no higher. The place fore-cited expressly sets the bounds between what the one Adam should, and the other doth convey unto his posterity. Yea, and the apostle doth put our carrying to heaven, as he there argues it, not so much upon the merit of Christ's death, as upon his being ' the Lord from heaven,' because heaven was his natural due, and he descended from his right when he came down upon earth. And so, because he was thus from heaven, therefore he is now gone thither himself, as unto his natural place, and advanceth us up thither also; whereas Adam was but a 'man from the earth,' and therefore could never have come to heaven. And that place, John iii. 13, doth further back this argument, ' No man hath ascended up to heaven, but ho that came down from heaven, even the Son of man who is in heaven.' Christ there speaks of his revealing the mysteries of heaven, which no man ever could do, because no man had ascended up to heaven but himself, who came down from heaven, and now is in heaven, and this as Son of man. Now he is said to be ' in heaven,' through the communication of properties and privileges of the Son of God, and to ' come down from heaven,' because his due was ip have been incarnate there. And he expressly says, that no man ascends up thither, except he who came down from thence, and others by virtue of him. And so that text evidently holds forth this as the reason why none went up thither, because none came down from thence ; which reason makes against Adam, as well as against any son of his now in corrupt estate. For he came not from heaven—that was not his natural place—but he was of the earth, and therefore but earthly, 1 Cor. XV. 48. And if no man but he who came down from heaven was able to know the mysteries of heaven—for that is the ascension there meant —then much less to enjoy the glory of heaven. And therefore our going to heaven is put upon his ascension as the fruit of it: John xiv. 2, 3, ' I go to prepare a place for you,' though it were ' prepared from the foundation of the world,' God having made heaven perfect the first day, and reserved it for his elect in Christ.

2. That paradise that Adam enjoyed was but the type of the paradise above, and his Sabbath a type of heaven, as himself was of Christ. And therefore he was not to have entered into the heavenly paradise, except by this second Adam, Christ, whose paradise alone it was. So that, take away the second Adam that was to come, and there had been no second paradise for Adam to come into, which that paradise of his was the type of. Thus, Luke xxiii. 43, Christ foundeth the thief's going to paradise upon his own going thither: ' This day,' says he, ' shalt thou be with me in paradise.' With me; that is, in my right. Even as also we are said to ' sit together with him in heavenly places,' Eph. ii. 6. With him, namely, as our head. And the aforesaid thief, answerably speaking of heaven, says, ' Remember me when thou comest into thy kinffdom ;' and Christ, in his answer unto him, owns it as his, only he calls it paradise ; for this is Christ's paradise, as the other was Adam's. And therefore when Christ was first inaugurated into his office, and his Father himself from heaven first preached him unto men, saying, * This is my Son, hear him,' then did the heavens fii'st open, and not till then, for men by hearing and obeying him to come thither.

8. I observe, that the moral law (which was the law of nature) makes mention of no such promise as of going to heaven. It speaks no such language; but only, * Do this, and thou shalt live;' that is, live as thou

dost, in God's favour, but yet still as on earth enjoyed. And that is the reason why so little mention is made of heaven in the Old Testament; and but only when the gospel is promulgated in that Old Testament, never when the pure law of nature is taught. And therefore Christ, in the 16th Psalm, speaks of heaven as being the purchase of his death, and as bestowed only by his righteousness, not that of the law: Ps. xvi. 10, 11, ' For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt shew me the path of life : in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.' And therefore, Luke xviii. 18, when a certain ruler asked our Saviour what he should do to inherit eternal life, says Christ, ' Thou knowest the commandments,' &c; and his replying, ' All these have I kept,' ' Yet,' says Christ, ' thou lackest one thing ; sell all that thou hast, and follow me, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven.' Concerning which place observe,

(1.) That it may be, here is a distinction intimated between 'treasure in heaven' and 'eternal life,' and that right to treasure in heaven comes by following Christ; but a life eternal, that is, a living for ever in God's favour, is promised to keeping the commandments. And this life is here spoken of as a thing differing from heaven.

(2.) If the ruler did here, in his question, intend heaven in that phrase ' eternal life,' yet it may be observed out of Mat. xix. 17, that Christ diminisheth it yet more in his answer there : * If thou wilt enter into life,' says he, ' keep the commandments;' that is, into a state of life; Christ in that speech dealing with him upon his own principles, who thought by the commandments to live. Yet he says not, * Thou shalt enter into eternal life' (if by that phrase heaven should be meant), but into life; for, ' Do this, and thou shalt live,' was the tenor of the covenant of works. And ' the commandment is ordained for life,' saith the apostle, Rom. vii. 10.

(3.) Or else, if the ruler in this question should by 'eternal life' mean heaven, Christ answers him. Though thou hast kept all the commandments, yet thou art to sell all, and follow me, or else thou canst not have treasure in heaven.

Reason 4. This accords with the like law of nature towards all the creatures besides, who, by observing their laws, obtain not a higher station than they were created in, only thereby they keep their own. The moon, by all the constancy of her motion, attains not to the glory of the sun. Nor should man, by the moral law (which was to him but the law of nature), have attained the condition of the angels, had he fully complied with it, as neither should the angels have attained a higher condition than their owa., though they had been exact ministers of God's will, according to the law of their creation, the fall of whom is expressed by theii* ' not keeping their first estate, but leaving their own habitation,' Jude 6; and for affecting an higher estate they lost all.

Yea, 5thly, I think that Adam's covenant, and the obedience unto it, was not able to do so much as confirm him, and secure him in that condition he was created in, so far was it from being able to have transplanted him into heaven. For,

(1.) I know no promise for it, that after such a time, and so long obedience performed, he should stand perpetually. And without such a promise, we have no warrant so to think or judge of it.

And (2.) Surely a creature being defectible, the covenant of nature with

that creature, uliicb proceedeth according to its due, and the obedience of that creature, could never have procured indefectibilitj', for that must be of grace; and he w^as more than a creature that did that for elect angels and men, even Christ, God-man.

And if men will say, that the elect men in Christ (and so Adam among the rest) should in the end have been translated to heaven by Christ, although man had never fallen, I shall not gainsay it; but then it is by another's right and covenant, and would have required a supernatural grace first wrought in them, to have owned and taken Christ for their head.

And if it be objected, that hell, which the devils are in, was the reward of the disobedience of that covenant of works, and therefore oppositely, the heavens, where the angels are, should be the reward of the obedience of the same covenant.

The answer is ready—even that which we give the papists in the like case, in the point of merit, who argued, that because sin deserves hell, grace therefore should merit heaven—That thei'e is not a like proportion between the sin of the creature, which is an undue act against the great God, and the grace of the creature, which is a due act from the creature unto God, and so that gi'ace deserveth not well like as sin doth ill: ' The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord,' Eom vi. 23.

And if it be asked, What reward should Adam then have had if he had stood ? I answer, Much every way. As, namely, that blessed life in paradise, which God planted for him; communion with God in a natural way, through the creatures, and by the light of the law of nature ; frequent apparitions of God, and communications with him (of which I am yet to speak) ; and also immortality in that his state of blessedness, which immortality arose not out of the inward constitution of his body, which still was dependent on God's preservation and protection. And further, in bis conscience he should have had a persuasion of God's favour, through obedience, which was his life. His heart should have lived in the sense of God's love; so as indeed much fruit he should have had in holiness, but still not 'the end, everlasting hfe,' namely, heaven, which is not ex dehito, is not due to nature under the covenant of works. Heaven is the gift of God through Jesus Christ, Kom. vi. 23, and is the sole fruit of election. And therefore the voice at the great day will be, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father.'

But it may haply be objected, that the beatifical vision being the highest perfection of bliss, and the understanding of man being of capacity for it, the mind therefore would have desired it, and not have been satisfied without it; and wanting such a satisfaction, it had consequently been not fully blessed.

I answer, 1. That it is true that Adam was capable of that bliss (for so are sinners), but yet, by a way above his sphere ; his body and soul must first have been changed, for his flesh and blood could not have borne the glory of it; and therefore in that state he was in he could not have desired it, as being a condition that would destroy him, even as for the same reason the eje hath no desire to look upon the sun, it being excellent sensihile, such a transcendent object, that it does destruere sensimi, it destroys the sight.

2. If in that state he stood he was not ordained to it, though it was a higher perfection, and so desirable, yet it had been an unlawful and an inordinate desire in him, if ever he had'put it forth, even as that ambition of his was, to be as God; and as that of the angels that fell was, when they

affected and aspired to a higher station than God had set them in. Had Adam desired this kind of happiness, he had gone out of his rank, and sat quite beside the cushion. And what angel or saint in heaven dares desire the hypostatical union, the most transcendent of all perfections, even to be joined to the Godhead, as the manhood of Christ was ? And yet they arc capable of it, say some. Those things which we know by God's ordinance to be impossible, we are not to affect; nor do we desire them, when we conceive they are such. Who among the crowd of common people has any vehement desire to be a king, when he looks upon himself as one so inferior to, and far off from, such a state ?

3. Neither had he been miserable, or his blessedness at all lessened by the want of it. He had not been in statu violento, had he not had it; but i)i naturali, in his natural condition, wherein he had all things suited to his natural desire. He had rested as a stone in its centre, which desires not to go upward. His state had been perfect, and though not so absolutely perfect as theirs in heaven, yet in his own sphere it had been such. His happiness had been suitable to his condition on earth, as ours shall be to the heavenly condition of our souls and bodies in heaven. He had been perfect, jjeifectione competente, though not ahsoluta ; with a perfection suitable and fit for him, though not with a perfection transcendent and absolute. And as a higher degree of glory lessens not the blessedness of any saint inferior in heaven itself, for he is full, so nor would nor ought this higher order of blessedness have at all diminished that competent happiness which he enjoyed, for it was full to him whilst in that earthly state. So that, to conclude, as Adam's covenant was fcedus nature, so his happiness should have been a perfect contentment in God, enjoyed per modum natur<B; not in God himself immediately, neither should he have tasted this heavenly contentment by faith, which is a prelibation of heaven and of its beatifical vision, but only in effects. The creatures should have revealed God unto him, and been as testimonies of his favour, which he should have apprehended as justifying and approvifag him in a covenant of works; which apprehension would have wrought peace of conscience, joy, and security therein through well-doing, so far as the persuasion of God's love, which conscience and his own spirit begat in him, which was his comforter, could work. And this love apprehended was but hypothetical, and in a way of common providence, namely, whilst he should continue in his good behaviour. The creator and author of nature in that relation loving him, a3 being made righteous by him, he had not an assurance of a peculiar, unchangeable, and everlasting love, without ifs and cuids; he had not the taste and earnest of heaven by faith supernatural, which is that heavenly gift that gives a taste of what it is to enjoy God in himself, which Adam did not; neither had he the testimony of the Spirit working in him 'joy unspeakable and glorious,' in the hope of heaven.

CHAPTER VII.

Whether Adavi l-neic God by the light of faith and S7ipernatural revelation, superadded to the light of reason. — His faith ivas natwaJ, both in its motives and grounds, being an assent to God's testimony as true, xchose veracity he knew by the light of nature. — Nor did his faith discover to him things that were above his then present natural state. — This proved by several arguments. — Our nay of knoiiing God by faith is supernatural, and in. what respect it is so.

All that I have hitherto spoken of as appertaining unto Adam's condition we have seen to have been but natural, according to those limits which at first I did set, namely, no other than what was due to the nature of man, and what was suitable also unto that his nature.

There remains only one thing which may seem to have been supernatural in him in both these respects, and whereby he is judged to have been elevated to the same way of knowing God that we under the state of grace are, and that is, a principle of faith, which principle is wholly supernatural, both,

1. In that the objects or things apprehended by it are such as are made known by revelation from God, and therefore over and above the due of nature.

And 2dly, In that the light by which faith is enabled to apprehend things is above the light of nature, or of common principles or reason, it being infused. And so divines account it, and do therefore call it supernatural. Now it may also seem as evident, that besides that inbred hght of nature and of sanctified reason in Adam to know God by, he had another window and inlet of knowledge, even revelation from, and communication with, God. For we read of God's speaking to him, and reveahng his will unto him by word of mouth, both at his giving him dominion over all the creatures, Gen. i. 28, and also at his giving him those precepts about the tree of knowledge and of life, which also were sacraments to him of his condition. Thus also he knew the law of the Sabbath ; and likewise, when his wife was made, he knew it either by inspiration or revelation from God that she was made by God, of his bone and flesh. And he believing the word and threatening of God, that was the matter in which he was tempted, and in which he failed. So that, besides that fore-mentioned light of nature, he had also, as may seem by all this, a revelation, and that of faith.

I confess it is like to appear an hard and bold assertion, to deny that Adam had a supernatural knowledge of God by revelation, or by the same light and principle of faith by which we take God in, under the gospel. Yet I find some divines to have affirmed it, and I shall adventure it unto the disquisition in the fear of God, and with submission to cogent reason to the contrary. And,

First, I would propound it to be considered, That all this concerning his faith, and the things revealed to him, were still but within the compass of nature, and those limits which at first I set to bound the natural knowledge of God with ; so as it was neither above the due to nature, nor the way and sphere of it.

For, first, in the nature of man there is such an act to believe and to trust one that is faithful, as well as there is to think, and to be. We find it in corrupt nature : a disposition of believing another man, so as to believe is not simply and wholly a supernatural act.

And, secondly, that man in his first creation should have a principle in him to converse with that God whom ho knew to bo God out of natural light, and to have made heaven and earth, whensoever that God should speak and communicate anything to him that might express his will to him, so for as might concern his present condition, was also natural in\\thi8 sense, that it was a due to the nature of man. For man being a sociable creature, in that ho was reasonable, made in the imago of God, which was natural, it was meet he should be able to converse with that great God by mutual speech, as well as with his wife, or any other intelligent nature. Speech is the ground of fellowship. And therefore both prayer, which is speech to God, and to hear God speaking to us, are made natural duties by our divines, as well as to love him.

And, thirdly, when God did thus speak, that man should believe, and receive the testimony of God as true, whatever it was that was revealed, was not above the due of nature, nor the way of nature : not above the due of nature, for else God had spoke in vain ; nor above the light of nature to'assent to it, for the ground of faith's assent is resolved into the light of this, that God is true. For he knew, out of the same principles and dictates of nature, that God was true, faithful, and just in his word, aSjWell as he knew he was powerful in his works ; for it was part of the ' law written in his heart' in which the image of God consisted ; he should not lie, but speak truth ; therefore that God much more should be true. Truth was part of God's image in him, therefore, Eph. iv. 24, truth being made a part of God's image, it follows, ver, 25, * Wherefore put away lying.' Therefore in God much more truth is essential to his nature. He might take that attribute up out of his own heart by a natural light, as well as God's hoH-ness out of the righteous image of it in himself, so as he needed not that to be laid in his heart by faith. Therefore now to believe God when he speaks to him, and to receive his testimony, was but from the power of an inbred light; yea, and although, suppose the thing revealed should have been above the light of nature, yet the divine authority upon which his belief was to receive was acknowledged by no other light than nature, and the dictate of it: that God must needs be true in what he speaks. And yet this is the greatest thing in faith, the receiving God's testimony. John iii. 33, ' He that hath received his testimony, hath set to his seal that God is true.'

And then, fourthly, whereas the question might still be. By what light he should know it was God that spake, when God did speak ? I take it, In the way God used then to speak, it was but the natural light of sanctified reason, which might discern that also. It was with some such evidence as he might know it was God in the voice given, as truly as he knew it was God by his works ; such were the visible apparitions and visions made. For otherwise it had been easier for Satan to have counterfeited God's voice and appearance, and have sooner deceived Eve thereby (as the old prophet deceived the other with a false command*), than in that way he took. And it is more evident by this, that after his fall, when all holy light was extinguished, yet he knew and discerned the voice of God in the garden, and was afraid ; therefore much more afore. And it was a due to nature, that if God did speak, he should so speak as might evidence unto nature it was he that spake, which was easy for God to do some way or other, for Balaam discerned the difference and wondered at it, when at first he thought to have conversed with his devils.

* See 1 Kings x-iii. 18.— Ed.

And then, fifthly, the objects propounded to him to believe were of themselves no way supernatural; they were nothing more of God's nature or attributes, but about some precepts of his will, or privileges granted to Adam ; only such things as first concerned his condition, and were within his own sphere of that world he was made in, and so suitable to his apprehension to take in, though confirmed to him by divine authority. And therefore, secondly, such as he might have some hint of by the light of nature ; besides the revelation, they were realised to him by instinct or sanctified reason, though revealed and confirmed by divine testimony. Such were the precepts about the two trees, which were two sacraments. The things which they confirmed were the promises of life, and the mutability of his condition ; both which, as I shewed, the light of nature taught him, and made real to him ; as also was that acknowledgment and law promulged concerning his wife, that being flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, a man should cleave to his wife ; natural light gave in the equity of such a conjugal aflection.

So as, put all these five considerations together, the conclusion is that all the faith which Adam had may well be resolved into natural light, as the first principle and foundation of it, although further revealing and confirming what else the light of nature could not, or would not so easily have known ; and though we suppose the things had been such as were out of the reach of natural light, yet still the bottom of his assent to divine authority had been but such a natural light aforesaid, and the principles of nature sown in his heart, which made him capable so to converse with God and believe his word, as to understand God out of his works. But it is otherwise in our faith. And so far I conceive it is that wicked men are blamed now for not believing the word of the law and gospel, so far as such natural light as was in Adam would have enabled them thereunto, seeing the law given was confirmed at first by such works and voices, as evidently would have argued to that first natural light that it was God that spake it, and they, if they had that light remaining, would have owned in their hearts. And the gospel also dehvered by Christ was confirmed by signs and wonders: Heb. ii. 3, 4, * How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him ; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will ?' And the whole word written derived to us, and then delivered, hath such peculiar characters of divine authority engraven upon it, so as even to natural light (if we had it pure as Adam had) would evidence itself to be of God, and so bind all men to believe it. And therefore men are both justly commanded to believe it, and justly blamed for not believing it.

I am now to afiix some reasons and demonstrations that have prevailed with me to think that the way of Adam's faith (call it so if you please) was in the sense declared but natural, and ours comparatively supernatural.

For the first. That his was but natural.

1. Seeing all other things belonging to him were natural, his covenant, the covenant of works, was but fccdus natunn, founded upon the title of •what, as a reasonable creature, was due to his nature, his justification answerable, his reward also, and all things else appertaining to him ; and that the whole image of God is aflirmed so generally by our divines to have been natural, it were strange if the principle of faith in him, which then was not of general use neither, should alone be supernatural; that the

image of God in him should consist of one part so heterogeneal to the other, of an higher niuk than its fellows. Yea, and seeing it is manifest that the main foundation of that his faith might he, and indeed was, but that natural Hght, that God was true, which was inbred in him as fully as that God was holy, as I shewed, it is strange if his faith should be made Bupernatural by some other small addition only, when the foundation was but natural light.

Fwason 2. For him to have had such a supernatural principle of faith as we have, was in him superlluous, and to no end. The end that I find any divines, either popish or others, fix upon, for which they ascribe a superadded Bupernatural grace, is in relation to his translation to heaven, for which that supernatural grace should fit him and prepare him. Popish divines, who contend for a natural way of knowing God, and a natural righteousness in Adam, yet with a superadded supernatural one also, they make the use of that supernatural addition for him to merit heaven by, and make this the difference between natural righteousness and supernatural grace and faith ; that supernatural was given him to merit heaven by. But I find them not so distinctly explaining any different acts of natural or supernatural grace in themselves. Borne of ours, though not in relation to meriting heaven, yet ascribe it to him to fit him to know God, so as to long after heaven (as faith doth), which they make the reward of his obedience. And I confess, if the promise given him had been that of heaven, and the vision of God, as there, then it had been necessary for him to have such a supernatural faith as we. But seeing it hath been proved, and I think sufficiently, that his covenant would not have brought him thither, neither that it was intended in that his promise of life, therefore I know no use at all of such a supernatural principle, as an optic glass, added to supernatural light, to help it to see further into another world, when he was in his condition and desires to be confined to this. For faith supernatural is given to prepare for heaven, and to supply sight or vision, till we come thither, to support us whilst absent from the Lord : 2 Cor. V. 5-7, ' Now he that hath wrought us for heaven is God, who hath given us the earnest of his Spirit also. Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, not by sight.' The meaning is, God here by his Spirit works us and prepares us for heaven, and that by giving us light of faith, which in this our absence supplies the room of sight, and so he gives us a confidence of our coming thither. And so it is to be an evidence of things absent and not seen, and to give a present subsistence of things but in hopes further to be enjo^-ed. So Heb. xi. 1, * Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' Now Adam not being ordained to sight, and always to be at home in his body, and so at no time to be absent from his body, to be present with the Lord, —as we are to be, 2 Cor. v. 8, ' We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord'—for his body and earthly tabernacle was his natural only home. Neither was God absent to him, nor presented as absent, as in relation to a further way to bo enjoyed, not yet attained. And therefore to what end he should have faith, that faith which thus prepares for heaven, whose essence and definition lies in giving an evidence of things not seen, or enjoyed, but hoped for, I know not.

Yea, thirdly, it would not only have been of no use, but have made him miserable. For the use and end of this supernatural faith being to give

ns a taste of that way of knowing God in himself, as in heaven, and so to Btir up groans and desires after sight and vision of him, as 2 Cor. v. 4 : ' For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened : not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.' We do groan, &c., and a confidence of it, as verses 6, 7, ' Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord : for we walk by faith, not by sight.* So that it is such a faith as gives a taste of what it is to enjoy God by sight, and so stirs up groans and longings after it. And so it is a ' following after' to comprehend, as Phil, iii. 12, a ' looking for, and hastening to,' as in 2 Pet. iii. 12. Now if Adam had had such a principle and light thus to know God, and should have had desires thus to know him, and not have gone to heaven, and so there, by a full vision, to have had this groaning satisfied, the addition of such a way of knowing God not satisfied and filled up, as by faith it could never have been, this had been to have stirred up desires in vain, and to have made his condition, not in its own sphere perfect and complete, yea, miserable in this, that he should have wanted that confidence which our faith stirs up in us, together with our longings, which stills our desires ; yea, it had left him despairing of ever doing so.

And therefore, fourthly, our way of faith must needs be supernatural, and altioris ordinis to his, and so our knowing God above his; because it is thus a prelibation or taste of that vision which is ordained to us in heaven. Faith is an imperfect prelibation of that knowledge of God we shall have hereafter, and the inchoation of it; so as by faith, we come at least to know what an happiness it is to know God in his essence, as in heaven, and so to long after it. And therefore, according as we have more faith, so there comes to be greater degrees of glory in heaven given, even in a like proportion as men's faith was more stirring up earnest groanings, happiness being expletio ajipetituion, the satisfying our desires. And therefore faith doth, in an imperfect obscure way, know God in himself; for it helps us to see and taste the happiness of knowing God so as he is, and 60 stirs up desires accordingly. Now that knowledge of God in heaven is acknowledged by all to be so transcendently supernatural, that it is no way, in any respect, natural to any creature, but only to Jesus Christ; as I shall shew hereafter. And therefore our faith, that is the inchoation of it, and is a beholding the glory of the Lord Christ, 2 Cor. iii. 18, and eternal life begun, must needs be ejusdem ordinis, of the same rank, and so doth difier from natural faith and knowledge of God in this, that the one is a seeing him in his work and efl'ects only from an inbred light of his attributes ; the other is a seeing God, though obscurely, as in himself; though as presented in another, yet with a taste imperfect of what it is to see God in himself, which stirs up the heart to long after it. Which puts the truest difference between knowing God naturally and supernaturally, and between Adam's way and ours.

And therefore, as an evidence of this our way, God hath ordained a temporary faith in men enlightened, as the counterfeit of our way, as he doth and did that natural knowledge in heathens, and the vision of old to the forefathers, as the representation of what Adam's way of knowing God was. And therefore these temporaries are said to be enlightened, and to partake of the heavenly gift of faith, and the Holy Ghost, and to taste of the powers of the world to come, Heb. vi. 4, 5, as a counterfeit of that enhghtening and spirit of wisdom and revelation through the Holy Ghost, whereby believers know the hope of their caUing, Eph. i. 17, 18; which

work, even in them, is not supernatural only to corrupt nature, but to pure nature, though not sanctifying as Adam's was, yet working an assent to, and taste of the things of that world, such as Adam should never have had, into which world Adam should never have come, and therefore ho no ways tasted it. And therefoye it is called ' the heavenly gift,' and wrought by the Holy Ghost in a way above nature.

To conclude.—Thus learned Cameron, though he gives but a touch in a word, yet his judgment falls this way : when differencing the faith in Adam and in us, he says. Fides in/a'dere natura; est a Deo, nt loquuntur in scholis, per modian iiaturcc: at fides qucc requiritxr in fccdere (jratict, a Deo est, sed per modum r/ratia siiper)iati(ralis (Thes. xiv. defmlere).

Now, as to the opposite branch, that our faith, and God's revelation to us, is supernatural, this will appear in three or four respects :

1. In respect of the objects revealed to our faith, which his mind should never have arrived at.

2. In regard to the light by which our minds are acted and elevated, compared with that inbred light by which he knew things, that candle which the Lord set up in his heart, and was inbred in him.

3. In respect of the way or manner of knowledge, or assent raised up thereby.

1. For the objects revealed to us. They are such as were utterly above the due and right of pure nature in Adam. This comparison you have made (take in the whole context from fu'st to last) 1 Cor. ii, 7, 9, 10, and 11 verses, where, setting forth and commending the excellency of the things revealed in the gospel, (1.) he calls it * the wisdom of God,' to shew how it excels human wisdom, which he had called ' the wisdom of men,' ver, 4, and ' of the world,' ver. 6, this by the way of excellency, the wisdom of God; and so excelleth man's wisdom, as God doth man. Neither is it termed God's wisdom in a general sense; such the law is, and the natural knowledge of God given to the heathen, chap. i. 21, where also he had shewed the inefficacy of it; but this is in a transcendent manner, so transcendent, as God appropriates it to himself. It is a wisdom, proper and pecuhar to God, which he arrogateth and taketh the glory of, as having been hid and concealed in his own breast, not in any creature's; and therefore is above the reach of the wisdom of any creature, man or angel, and so merely divine, and of God, and no way natural to any creature, as due to be revealed unto it. And therefore, Eph. iii. 9, it is ' the mystery of his will, made known according to his good pleasure,' freely, and of mere grace, no way as connatural to the understanding of any creature, man or angel. And in this sense, 1 Cor. ii. 11, they are called ' the things of God,' even as the proper peculiar thoughts in a man's heart, which are secret to himself alone, are the things of a man. For so he doth compare them in that 11th verse, ' For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.' They are all God's notions, proper to him, the light of which were not to become inbred in any creature's heart; for then it might have been called their wisdom, as the things naturally known by men or angels is, and may be called. And therefore, though he mentions only the corrupt wisdom of man in opposition to it, yet in that, upon occasion thereof, he particularly attributes it to God, he calls it his, in opposition to all wisdom attainable by the strength of nature in men or angels, fallen or not. It is merely divine.

(2.) Further also, 2dly, he calls it a * mystery,' which implies a thing

CO OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BoOK. II.

BO hidden as cannot be known but by revelation : Mat, xi. 25, ' At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' As none can know the things of a man, but the spirit of a man, so nor these deep things of God, none but his Spirit; 1 Cor. ii. 11, ' For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him ? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.' He argues from the lesser to the greater, that if a man's peculiar thoughts cannot be known by another, then surely not God's private cabinet-council thoughts, as these were. The heart of a man is a deep well, but a man of understanding will draw it out. But God's heart is so infinitely deep, as no understanding could, by any inbred light proper to it, have sounded it; so deep, that the phrase of searching the deep things of God is used of the Spirit himself, ver. 10: ' But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.' This is to shew these depths, spjaking after the manner of men.

(3.) He says it is a * wisdom hid :' Eph. iii. 10, ' To the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God ;' to shew it was no way attainable by the light even of angels, he says, ' From the beginning of the world it was hid in God;' and then from the angels, who knew it but by the church. And then the apostle proves all this, 1 Cor. ii. 9, for that proof there brought out of Isaiah may refer, as interpreters refer, to the seventh verse, as well as to the eighth and ninth, and indeed to both: ' As it is written. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for those that love him.' If it refers to exclude the knowledge of the wise of the world, yet it is an argument fetched d majori, not a bare opposition only. For they are so far from having entered into the hearts of corrupt men, that not into innocent man; for him the words will reach. For, first, if we consult the prophet Isaiah, chap. Isiv. 4, whence the words are quoted, you shall find he says, ' From the beginning of the world, ear hath not heard,' &c., instead of which the apostle puts in, ' nor hath entered into the heart of man,' that is, not of innocent man, no man, from the beginning of the world -when man was made. Secondhj, The apostle, in the phrases he enumerates, excludes all the light, and power, and means of the knowledge of innocent man by nature, by reckoning up all the means of knowledge. For his knowledge came in, either from the inbred light of nature in him, as was said, and so ascended out of his own heart, as the phrase is here, which notes out the natural way of man's knowledge from inbred principles; or else, was improved either by observation of the creatures by the eye, or by communication with God to the ear. Now none of these ways should the things of the gospel have been known and received by him ; but it is merely supernatural, and so is said not to ascend, but to * descend from the Father of lights' by revelation. So James i. 5, 17, ' If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. Every good gift and eveiy perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.' He speaks of this wisdom, and so it is above the way of nature also. Thirdly, He excludes not the knowledge of man only, but of angels also, though lie names man only. For in Isaiah you have it, Isa. kiv. 4, ' None besides thee have seen, 0 God, what

he hath prepared for him that waits for him.' The prophet speaks unto Christ, whom ho calls God, as a person distinct from the Father, that prepared these things ; therefore he changeth the person, Besides thee, what he ? No man or creature, hut he that was God as well as man, and so was in God's bosom, could naturally have known these things. Therefore he says, ' No man besides thee, 0 God,' whom therefore he calls God and man, whom, verse the first, he had called upon to come down, and be incarnate, and deliver this gospel, as once the law, when the mountains melted, verses 1-3, ' Oh that thou wouldest rend the heavens, that thou wouldest come down, that the mountains might flow down at thy presence ; as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth the waters to boil; to make thy name known to thine adversaries, that the nations may tremble at thy presence ! When thou didst terrible things which we looked not for, thou camest down, the mountains flowed down at thy presence.' And he threw the enemies out of Canaan, the type of spiritual enemies to bo destroyed by Christ, and by the revelation of the gospel; so that those truths are supernatural every way to the knowledge of any creature but to Christ, as the vision of God also is. And therefore, the apostle concludes, there is no knowing them but by a revelation of the^Spirit, 1 Cor. ii. 10 :

* But God hath revealed them to us by his Spirit,' over and above the Hght of natural faith and natural principles.

But of this head I have treated moi'e largely, in shewing the glory and riches of the mystery of the gospel. To which I refer the reader.

2. The second thing, wherein our state excels Adam's, is, that heavenly light wherewith our minds are acted and elevated to those supernatural objects ; so far as the light we are assisted with excels, so far must be the knowledge. It is light which makes all things manifest, as Eph. v. 13. The foundation of all Adam's knowledge of God was an inbred light, or candle setup by the Lord in the ' chambers of the belly,' as Solomon speaks of the relics of it, Prov. xx. 27, which, though holy, was but natural. But that light whereby we see the ' things of the gospel' is termed glorious, and so wholly supernatural. When Christ converted Paul, Acts xxii., Christ surrounded his body with a light which dazzled, yea, blinded his eyes with the glory of it, ver. 11 : ' I could not see for the glory of that light,' says he, which was but an outward sign to shew the glory of that light by which Christ did shine into his mind now at his conversion; even as 2 Cor. iv. 6,

* For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' The light of the glory of God in the face of Christ is a further glory than what shined in the creation, and therefore requires a further light to see it. As is the object, such is the light we see it with. Any object that is light itself, held forth in its glory, cannot be seen but by a light answerably glorious ; for the light it is seen by is but the splendour of it, as the beams are of the sun, which is seen in itself only by its own beams and light. And so is God in Christ. Which therefore, 1 Peter ii. 9, is called a ' marvellous light,' yea, ' his marvellous light': marvellous or wonderful, because superexcelling; for that is wonderful that is such which nature cannot comprehend, and is above the course of nature, Sai/zaffT-oi/ fojc, and it is also called his hght, that is, Christ. Not only which he gives, as Eph. v. 14, ' Arise, and Christ shall give thee light;' nor his only, that is, of him as the object of it; but his as the same which resides in him, and was in his heart, by which he saw things here when below; for, 1 Cor. ii. 16, ♦ We have the mind of Christ,'

having the same spirit with Christ, only he above measure. It is called * his light,' as ' his inheritance,' Eph. i. 18. And Adam's light, though lighted at this sun, j'et but as the eiBcient cause of it, as John i. 4. It was but the light of men as they are human, and proceeded, 7twdo humano, and so lower. His was not the same with Christ's ; but this light of the gospel, the light of the Spirit that is in Christ, whose Spirit, so working, he had not. And so it was lower, as that light of the moon is to the sun, or as the light of glory will be to this of grace. Not as an optic glass only, which strengthens not the sight only, but brings down the object lower, but such as was added to Stephen's eyes, ' being full of the Holy Ghost; * when he saw Christ in heaven, there was added a further light and ability than the inbred light of sight or of the sun, to see Christ by in heaven, Acts vii. 55, 56 ; as also to Paul in his conversion. Such is this light of faith to the mind, to see heavenly objects by, superadded to natural light, and that of reason. So as if j'ou could suppose Adam now alive, as in innocency, for him to see these things there must be an elevation of his light by the access of another light supernatural of the Spirit, as there was to Stephen's eye. And therefore our believing is attributed to the Spirit, as was said, and is called ' the spirit of wisdom and revelation,' and ' the spirit of faith,' 2 Cor. iv. 13. And 1 John ii. 20, 27, ' The unction that teacheth all things ;' not only clearing the sight, but teaching it. Neither need it be strange that there should be several ranks of light from God to gee himself by. That as in heaven we ' see light in God's light,' Ps. xxxvi. 9, and so a further light than any here, so here we see Christ and God by the Spirit's light and representation, though of a lower kind than that whereby we shall see him in heaven, and not by natural light as it would present God to us, or take God up from the creatures. And the more immediate the light is from God, the more supernatural, the higher is it, and we the more passive in it. The light of glory will be God's light immediately; he both is the object and efficient, ' all in all,' and so we shall be swallowed up with it, as when the sun is seen by its own light. This of the Spirit in us is efficiently his, and thei'ein we are more passive than active, though the subject of it, and that of Adam's inbred light had less of God's light in it, he not being enlightened by his spirit of revelation, but left to that inbred light to judge and give an assent to the things objected afore him.

Add to these that place, Eph. i, 17, where he prays, ' that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in (or for) the knowledge of him.' Every word and circumstance makes to demonstrate what I intend.

[1.] His scope is to reckon up in this chapter the blessings heavenly, which we are blessed with in Christ, the second Adam, peculiar to the elect. So Eph. i. 3, they are all blessings heavenly, which we are blessed with in Christ, the second Adam. The blessings we were blessed with in the first Adam were but earthy, and served but for a life on earth; as the opposition, 1 Cor. XV. 47, 48, evidently shews: ' The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.' Now after election, adoption, redemption, he mentions the wisdom and the prudence which is in Christ, the second Adam, as one of those heavenly and spiritual blessings peculiar to the elect, ' God hath abounded to us in, when he made known the gospel, the mystery of his will,' that is, the secrets of his will, * which he purposed in himself,' Eph. i, 8, 9.

And then hero in his prayer he shews the heavenly supernatural rise and cause of it, even all the three persons. The vouchsafer of it is God the Father, [l.J not as the author of nature, but as the God of our Lord Jesus Christ; for it is a blessing in Christ peculiar to his, and therefore called * the faith of God's elect,' Titus i. 1. None ever had it but the elect, and therefore Adam had it not; seeing men not elected had all he had once in him. And therefore, though he was elect, yet he had not what he had then as elect, but as the common root of all, both elect and others.

[2.] And 2dly, He makes the Father the fountain of it, as he is * the Father of glory.' He praying for his peculiar wisdom, mentions such attributes (as the manner of the apostles in their prayers is) as have a more proper relation of efficiency to the things prayed for. Elsewhere, when James bids them seek wisdom, he directs them to God as the ' Father of lights,' and here as the * Father of glory.' For this wisdom is so far from being the same in our primitive nature, that it is glory, a glorious gift, and therefore supernatural, not to corrupt but pure nature, and is of that rank comparatively to nature as glory in heaven is of, it being the beginning of glory, and therefore is called eternal life to know God, even as a behever doth: John xvii. 3, * And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' It raiseth the mind up to take in a taste or hint, a glimpse, a prelibation of glory, as it follows in the next verse, 18th of Eph. i., ' The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,' and so to desire and breathe after it. Now Adam's was not such.

[3.J It is from the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of Christ given to us, and so working above the power of nature. And in that respect he is called here ' The Spirit of wisdom and revelation,' as also elsewhere ' The Spirit of faith,' 2 Cor. iv. 13. The way of natural faith I conceive to have been, that the object being provided with evidence suitable to convince and persuade the light of nature of the truth of itself, through an ordinary concurrence of the Holy Ghost to a natural free agent, it was left to the spirit of man to give its assent, so as then it was of and for that spirit in man rather. But now it is attributed more to the Spirit of Christ in us, who both works wisdom, the principle capable of it, and revealeth and draws out an acknowledgment by an overpowering Hght. For I take it, that the faith of God's elect is not resolved into principles inbred and begotten, as I said Adam's was, but into a prevailing work of the Spirit working wisdom, and a testimony of the Spirit giving light, and sealing up what he would have us beheve. A prevailing testimony of the Spirit is the ground of all our faith, of what kind soever it be. Not only when a persuasion is begotten of a man's interest in Christ, which is because the Spirit witnesseth with his spirit, which yet alone carries the name of the ' testimony of the Spirit; ' but when a man's spirit prevailingly assents to any spiritual truth, it is from the like overpowering testimony of the Spirit, sealing up that truth with a light beyond the light pure nature had, which was left to itself to give consent out of its own light, which was suited to the object. But here a divine light is superadded that casts the balance, and this in believing there is a God, or that Christ is the Son of God, as well as in believing the interest of a Christian in him. This I find, 1 John V. 5, 6, speaking of believing not only a man's self to be the son of God, but this truth, that Christ is the Son of God, ver. 5, he says that ' the Spirit bears witness' to it; and ver. 10, ' He that believes hatii the witness

in himself.' Now his scope there is to speak of the witness, not only to a man's interest in Christ, of which ver. 12, but also of Christ's being ordained the fountain of life : vers. 10, 11, ' He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the witness in himself; he that believeth not God, hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is his Son.'

It is necessary, upon occasion of this discourse, to add a caution in this place, which is, that all this is not so to be understood as if the light of supernatural faith in us destroys that of reason and nature ; yea, it subordinates it to itself, and restoreth it again, and rectifies it, and then makes use of it, even as the light of reason doth subordinate and make use of sense. God possesseth and clotheth the natural powers of the mind with an higher light than ever inbred in us, through the revelation of the Spirit, and converts them all, as its engines, to get a further knowledge by. We see it by this, that the word written, unto which the light of faith is suited, as colours to the eye, though it reveals things beyond reason and light natural, as are the principles of the gospel, yet it reveals them in such a way as reason, enlightened by faith, may see the greatest harmony and correspondency in them, and receive as much satisfaction as ever in that other natural knowledge. And the principles being taken for granted once by faith, there is use of reason, to see the dependence of all things revealed one with another, and the collecting one thing from another; so as God hath writ the Scriptures as to men endowed with reason, yea, and applied it to the way of human arts and sciences. Yet still so as the light of faith is a light beyond that of reason, which appears,

First, In that the first principles of the gospel, as the apostle calls them, Heb. vi. 1, laid in the mind, are wholly above reason, and made evident by this supernatural light wholly. They are wholly new, and reason is incapable of them. So that there is much the same difierence between the principles inbred, and these by faith revealed in the gospel, that is, between the principles of sciences. Some sciences take their principles out of nature, being sucli as are known by nature, as philosophy doth ; and so did Adam's divinity and knowledge of God, the principles of it were inbred. But others take their principles from other sciences, as music, having use of numbers, borrows its skill in them from arithmetic. So faith doth fetch its principles about Christ, &c., from heaven, the bosom of God, the Spirit laying in the deep things of God's counsel, as principles wholly new and wholly above nature. And these it sees no other way than by a supernatural light and revelation of the Spirit : at first it is so, though reason may confirm them. Therein faith and reason differ, that )ii}t.U est in inteUectu, quod non prius in sensii but here many things are in faith which were never in reason.

And, secondhj, it appears from this, that though faith useth reason to discuss the truth of deductions from those principles, and to gather conclusions from these principles laid ; as for example, the word hath motives which faith makes use of in a way of reason too, and it argues things in a rational w^ay. It argues the cause from the eflect, God's love from signs. In interpreting the Scriptures, we use reason to gather from the connection and dependence the meaning of the Holy Ghost. Yet still, even in these arguings and deductions, there accompanies a light that faith strikes in with, a light beyond the force in the reason. It seals up the truth collected by reason, beyond the power of reason. It superadds a light which casts the balance. It not only reveals the principles we reason from by an higher

Chap. VII.] of their state by creation. G5

light than natural, but it confirms tho reasonings and conclusions from thcnco by a light more tlian natural, of bare reason : as tho phrase in Job is, ' He sealeth instruction,' Job xxxiii. IG. If we be moved to any duty by a practical reason or motive, the spiritual makes it effectual beyond what the moral or rational force that is in it can set it on. If we be comforted from any signs, tho Spu-it gives a light of revelation to cast the balance, and ' witnesseth with our spirits,' as Rom. viii. 16, beyond the power of the sign. If we read the Scriptures, and to get the moaning of them, observe the connection of one thing with another by reason, yet there comes often a light of the Spirit beyond the height of reason, which, by that observation of the connection, seals up this to be the Holy Ghost's meaning ; so as the Holy Ghost is to faith still his own intei-preter. For else the Scripture were of private interpretation, which it is not, 2 Pet. i. 20. For such is ratio humana to the Spirit. Yet as the Holy Ghost, in writing the Scriptures, writ them in a rational way, because unto men reasonable, so in giving us light to understand them, he useth reason, but joins a light bej'ond it. ' Some beheve,' says Christ to Thomas, ' that have not seen.' And though God used sense to confirm his faith, yet his faith was a light beyond the light of sense or reason from thence.

And, thirdly, that this light of faith is above that of reason rectified, appears in this, that it depends not on the natural way of man's understanding necessarily, but often proceeds above it. We see those that have low understandings, little reason in them, and are ignorant of the notional connection of one truth with another, cannot dispute for it, yet see further into things heavenly, see more in them than the greatest doctors. What is the reason ? A supernatural light of faith, a higher light abounds in them; and being a light above the way of nature and reason, reveals things to them beyond the power of reason.

"Yea, we may all see it in ourselves, at several times, that the same reasons, motives, and signs, considered by us at one time, persuade us not, as at another time they do, by reason of a superadded light of revelation that casts the balance. So that, as the light of vision in heaven is argued to be supernatural, because it depends not on the light of nature, or power or strength of reason, but taking the lowest, meanest idiot, raiseth and elevateth his mind above one of a larger understanding naturally, to see God more in heaven ; because the light there is above the light of nature, and proceeds without it, it raiseth not the mind according to the proportion of its understanding, but according to the measure of its light received, which is so glorious, as it wraps up the meanest understanding to the highest intention. Yea, natural understanding contributes no advancement unto it, but only an obediential faculty; so the hght of faith also doth in a proportion. And that argues it supernatural. Strength of natural principles and of reason may help forward that knowledge, which is, of its own sphere, notional and rational; and in a believer, it may help to advance knowledge of spiritual things in a rational way ; but it contributes nothing to the light of revelation by the Spirit, who works how much and when he pleaseth. But in Adam's children, their light and knowledge of God, being natural, would have been proportioned to the strength of inbred light and reason, so as stronger souls would have had more, and weaker less, for it ran in a natural way ; but not so here.

3. The third particular propounded was this, wherein our_ knowledge of God, &c., excels that of Adam's, and so is supernatural to it, in the manner or way of knowledge. This third flows from the former.

VOL. VII. E

The liglit of faith is more intuitivo, and so more comprehensive. But the way of Adam's knowledge was discursive, hy way of gathering one thing from another, which is more imperfect and further about, and more at second hand. The perfection of the angels' knowledge of things is expressed above that of man's in this, that theirs is intuitive : they use not reason to gather one thing from another ; so much intuitive, say some, as they see at once the effect and the cause together, therefore called intelli-gentia. The one is as knowing of a man by his works and hearsay of him, whereby the mind gathers what an one he is by way of discourse. So did Adam what God was by his works, and visions, and revelations made. But this is the ' beholding the glory of the Lord,' John vi. 40 ; * seeing the Son, and believing on him;' and, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, though it be but darkly, and in a glass, yet it is said, ' we see as in a glass.' So 1 John iii. 6, the like phrase is used: ' He that sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him;' that is, not known him with this knowledge of sight. And thus faith is a knowledge of God, as he is in himself, though in the face of Christ, and the glass of the gospel. But Adam's was but in his works by collection. They gathered Hercules by his footsteps ; so Adam collected God's power, &c., from the works of creation. But this is the presenting God himself, though as in a glass, in the gospel. So it is not knowing God ex alio, by collection from another thing, but knowing God himself in alio, in another thing, wherein by his own light he presents himself, as a man doth in a glass.

The difference may be'expressed by way of similitude, by the several ways of assurance of God's love. Look what difference there is between that way, when we know God's love to us but by signs only: this is knowing and gathering his love ex alio, by effect, collecting it from another thing, and so is but discursive ; as when the cause is known by the effects, though the Spirit secretly joins a testimony in the conclusion; and that other which comes from an immediate light of the Spirit's sealing up that light, and the taste of it, and revealing God's heart and mind in itself towards us. This is so transcendent, as it works joy unspeakable and glorious ; it is intuitive ; not so the other : such difference is there between Adam's knowing God and ours. Or to set out the diflerence by another instance. When Job at last, in the winding up of God's dealings with him, had a more distinct intuitive representation of God to his faith, comparing it with many of his former apprehensions wrought, Job xlii. 5, he compares them to second-hand knowledge, a hearsay, ' by the hearing of the ear ;' ' but now,' says he, ' mine eyes have seen him.' How distinct and differing is sight to hearsay ! And it may be, that hearsay knowledge Job meant was, that knowing God by the works of creation and providence, and by visions, &c. He may compare that way of knowledge which was familiar in those times even to believers, God training them up, though they had a principle of faith beyond it, in the elements of the world before the law, to study him in his works and ordinary visions, which is called comparatively but the hearing with the ear; botla because the manner of the godly then was to talk together of God out of his works, and communicate such observations. And, as I find some interpreters observe on chap, xxxvi. 24, where Elihu, going about to instruct Job wdth a sense of the greatness of God's majesty, he calls upon him to look into his * works which men have sung ;' so Sanctius renders it. He minds him of the common songs men made of the works of God; or else, because the heavens, and day and night, are said to have a voice, and utter speech,

Chap. VILJ of their state by creation. G7

Ps. xix. 1, 2, fis man an car to hear their sound, to declare the glory of God, to whoso voice Job had lent his mind to study God out.

Add unto this that phrase used in that 3Gth chap. ver. 25, when Elihu calls upon Job to see God's greatness in his works, which Sanctius makes the beginning of that song which Elihu minds Job of, that holy men did sing. Every man may see what is the work of God. ' Man beholds afar off;' so it is in the original: that is, God afar off in his works. It is a remote, and but an obscure knowledge, and yet how great doth it arguo him 1 So it follows, ' Behold, God is great, and we know not;' or, but little of him thus by his works. And therefore, Rom. i. 19, 20, that knowledge gotten by the works of God Paul calls rb yvoJATov roZ 0£oy, something that may be known of God, rather than the knowledge of him in himself, as indeed it is not. And though the godly then had faith, as well as we now, yet the covenant of works and nature being more predominately the dispensation under the law of nature, they were in that very first infancy of the world very much kept to that school, at least in that form.

As the conclusion of this discourse, because I would not maintain a dispute against a multitude of divines who are of another mind in their writings, if we will grant and suppose that there was such a light of faith vouchsafed to Adam as was superior to the law of nature specified (whereby he knew God in his works, and such revelations as externally carried their own evidence with them), even unto natural faith, and to have been as supernatural as ours, yet still the assertion I aim at will hold true, that a believer's knowing of God, and enjoying of him, doth infinitely transcend that of his in many respects.

For, 1. If we consider the uses of his faith then to him, and of ours to us now, there is a vast difference, for even the apostle lived not always* by faith, as a Christian, Gal. ii. 20, * The life I now lead is by faith,' &c. And Heb. X. 38, the just are said to do so. And it is spoken of a Christian, in opposition to a legal life, as appears by the coherence, ver. 19, of that Gal. ii., 'I am dead to the law,' &c. So not all, or the most of Adam's knowledge or enjoyment of God came in that way; but the ordinary way he lived, knew, and enjoyed God by, was by that sanctified light of nature, joined with observation out of his works. And, therefore, although he might have another principle of faith, for particular occasions extraordinary, to know God's mind by, whenever God would now and then communicate himself to him; as also in case of temptation, when any part of God's will was questioned, or reasoned against, as it was by Satan to Eve, tken there was use of faith above reason to stick to the word; but still he walked by nature's light, not that of faith ; whereas the apostle says of us, that ' we walk by faith, not sight,' 2 Cor. v. 7. Faith was then (whatever it was, whether natural or supernatural) but a private grace, which at times he had use of, as he had of the rest; but now to us it is a general grace. All knowledge is let in by it; every truth is sealed by it; it is advanced to the supreme office, to be the general instructor; whereas the light of nature and sanctified reason was then the predominant principle : for reason is predominant in man's nature as he is a man, as faith is in a Christian. The just now lives by faith; not so Adam then. Again, faith is now the bond of the covenant between God and us, because it is a receiving grace, Rom iv. 13, 14, 16. But love and obedience from man was then the bond of his covenant, because the covenant was founded upon what man returned to God, and continued upon his doing homage. In a * Qu. ' lived always ' ?—Ed.

word, faitli was then (supposing him to have had the same principle with us) but as sense and joy in the Holy Ghost is now to believers. It is true, such a communion a believer hath with God at times, when God will appear to him in an extraordinai-y manner ; but he ordinarily lives by faith, without such sense. So Adam, whereas he lived in the works of God, studying God in them, conversing with God in them, his task being, by observation, to till the seeds of light sowti in his mind, as well as to till the earth, ordinarily thus knowing and enjoying God but by the light of nature, and accordingly obeying and loving of him, God did now and then make an apparition to utter some word to his faith. Now, therefore, if the comparison be made between his estate and ours (if it be granted he had like faith with us), it must withal be granted, that the difference is as great as between a man that once a-week makes a meal of more than ordinary fare, and a king that fares deliciously every day; for we ordinarily do, or might (if the fault were not our own) live by the faith of the Son of God, in the revelations of the word, as our proper element: he ordinarily, but in the works of God, and his own works. "What was extraordinary in him is ordinary with us ; his exceedings, our commons ; which if it were complete, and sin and unbelief fully subdued, how happy must it make us above him ! Look what difference there may be conceived now in the estate of grace, in respect of happy communion with God, between the present comfort of a believer, that always lives in joy unspeakable and glorious, and another that wants it, and lives merely by faith. Such, if not more, will be found to be in Adam, who lived ordinarily by the light of nature, and but sometimes had a revelation by faith, and us, who live all our lives by faith, and communicate with God wholly by the light thereof.

2. Consider that yet in respect of the objects of his knowledge and ours whereby God was known to him and to us, we infinitely transcend him and his way, if our faith were made complete. For, first, the things revealed to him and to his faith were but some matters of precepts and duty, which being for the most part positivi juris, arbitrary, and so were not so clearly written in his heart, as that of the Sabbath ; and about the tree of life (which was a sacrament, and so must be instituted, and else he had not a second commandment), so it was to be known by revelation necessarily, neither could more have been revealed than was necessary, and what could be known no other way. But still all the knowledge he was to have of God himself, and what a God he was, &c., which is the knowledge wherein happiness lies, this was still left to be obtained in that natural way fore-mentioned. We read not of any descriptions God made of himself to Adam, as to us and Moses. For what might be known more clearly by natural light out of the works or written in his heart, God revealed not to faith. But we know all these attributes by revelation unto faith ; and so in a clearer, distincter, and indeed a more immediate manner we take in by faith that description which God makes of himself, and hear what himself says of himself, and this by the hght of faith; whereas he had the knowledge of these attributes no such way but from the light of nature, to be improved out of the works of God, as God had manifested himself therein. Again, secondly, consider that all that he knew whatsoever by such a natural light, or by faith either, whether of the nature of God or the love of God in his heai't, we know it all by faith ; and so to have the knowledge of all he had, in an higher way than he, and so more evident and clear, whereas he had the knowledge of faith but about some few particulars. And the reason why we know all by faith, which he any way knew, is because

those things of God and the law which he knew by inbred Hght, that light being now extinct in us, it is necessary to be revealed by revelation, and so to be let in by faith. First, he by natural inbred light knew that there was a God, but wo by faith believe that God is, Heb. xi. 6, and a rewarder of them that seek him. And so all that theulogia naturalis, that natural divinity to pick God out of his works, and to see how the works of creation and providence shew God forth and argue him and his attributes, the rules hereof we have now revealed and written. The book of Job and the Psalms teach us how to fetch God out of the creation and to praise him, so as God reads to us his own logic, and a lecture on his own works ; whereas Adam was left to study the bare text but by natural light, yea, and this lecture is read to faith, a higher principle, more capable than nature is, God teaching us by faith how to interpret his works. So as out of the word, if we had faith enough, might we learn more of God, even in his works, reading the text with that God's own comment, than Adam ever could have done by his plodding and poring on them, and using his reason and natural light.

3. By natural light he knew out of the creatures that God made the world, Rom. i. 20. But we know it by the light of faith and revelation from God how it was, &c. Heb. xi. 3, * By faith we understand the worlds were made by the word of God.' He, for aught we read, knew but of a new world made, that which he saw; and whether he should ever have heard of heaven or angels is a question ; but we understand the worlds were made, the heaven of heavens, and this visible world.

4. And then, last of all, add unto all that we have over and above what he had, a new edition of God and all his attributes, and all his mind bound up in one volume in Christ; and the revelation of the gospel, the mystexy of his will, the least tittle whereof Adam should never have known. Faith brings us into another world, and the things of it infinitely transcending Adam's, and revealing more of God in the least creature of it than is in all his volume, and is as much vaster than his as heaven is above earth; as much exceeds it as the second Adam, Christ, doth him, who was the epitome of his world, as Christ is of ours. We have the addition of new objects, and those glorious, heavenly, wholly supernatural. In Chiist, a new Indies is discovered, a new treasure broken up which Adam should never have heard of.

CHAPTER VIII.

How Adam and his state, according to the law of his first creation, was intended by God as a type of one ivho was to be a second Adam, Jesus Christ, and the founder of a supernatural condition. — Some things premised of the nature, and various division of a type. — Wherein Adam was a type of Christ, as he was in his state of innocency a public perso)i and the head of mankind, and so derived to his posterity the imputation of his disobedience ; so he was a type of Christ, as pre-ordained before the world was, and ivithout consideration of the fall, to be the root and head of the elect, and to convey to them the supernatural benefits of grace.

Who is the type of him that was to come. — Rom. V. 14.

When I first considered this, and other scriptures in the New Testament which make the first Adam, and the whole story of him both before and after,

land] in, his sinning or falling, to be the type and lively shadow of Christ, the second Adam ; likewise observing that the apostle Paul stands admiring at the greatness of this mystery or mystical type, that Christ the second Adam should so wonderfully be shadowed forth therein, as, Eph. v. 32, he cries out, ' This is a great mystery,' which he speaks applying and fitting some passages about Adam and Eve unto Christ and his church ; it made me more to consider an interpretation of a passage in Heb. x. 7 out of Ps. xl. 7, which I before had not only not regarded, but wholly rejected, as being too like a postil gloss. The passage is, that ' when Christ came into the world ' to take our nature on him, he alleged the reason of it to be the fulfilling of a Scripture written in ' the beginning of God's book,' ev xs^aX/3/ BilSxicv, so out of the original the words maybe, and are by many interpreters, translated, though our translation reads them only thus, ' In the volume of thy book it is written of me.' It is true, indeed, that in that 40th Psalm, whence they are quoted, the words in the Hebrew may signify no more than that in God's book (the manner of writing Avhich was anciently in rolls of parchment, folded up in a volume) Christ was everywhere written and spoken of. Yet the word xiipaAlg, which out of the Septuagint's translation the apostle took, signifying, as all know, the beginning of a book ; and we finding such an emphasis set by the apostle in the 5th chapter of the Ephe-sians, upon the history of Adam in the beginning of Genesis, as containing the myster}', yea, the great mysteiy about Christ, it did somewhat induce, though not so fully persuade, me to think, that the Holy Ghost in those words might have some glance at the story of Adam in the first of the first book of Moses. And withal the rather because so, the words so understood do intimate a higher and further inducement to Christ to assume our nature, the scope of the speech, Heb. x., being to render the reason why he so willingly took man's nature : not only because God liked not sacrifice and burnt ofi'ering, which came in but upon occasion of sin and after the fall, and could not take sins away, but further, that he was prophesied of, and his assuming a body prophetically foresignified, as in the 40th Psalm, so even by Adam's stoiy before the fall, recorded in the very beginning of Genesis, which many other scriptures do expressly apply it unto. As in his first formation, and the condition of his person, 1 Cor. xv. 45, &c., ' And so it is written. The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit;' so in his marriage with Eve, Eph. V. '62, ' This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.' And then in his sovereignty over all, Ps. viii. G, ' Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet.' And Heb. ii. 8, * Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him.' So likewise in the communication of his sin he typified out the communication of Christ's obedience, as Kom. v.

I shall choose to begin with this last place of Piom. v., as laying the general foundation for all the rest. The words there do (as you see) plainly affirm, that Adam was a type of Christ to come, ver. 14 ; and the occasion of uttering them was the comparing of Adam and Christ together (which the apostle in this chapter doth at large), as they were both of them public persons—the one conveying sin, the other righteousness, to all their posterity. And as the groundwork of that his comparing of them, he brings in this maxim, that Adam was a type of Christ to come ; that is, Christ being as surely to come after him as Adam was then come

I

Chap. VIII.] of their state by creation. 71

already. Therefore God appointed Adam, as to be a public person to convey to bis posterity what be sbould do or be, so further also, to be a type of another Adam who was to come after him, namely, Jesus Christ; and said to be to come, not because that proved to be the event of it, that Christ did do so, but because it was foreseen, aimed at, and appointed by God, even by the history of Adam. And hereupon it is the apostle sets the one against the other as the type and antitype, exactly comparing them in what he hod propounded to compare them in. And although in that place it be but one particular wherein he doth compare them, namely, in Adam's conveying sin, wherein he typified out Christ to come, who should convey righteousness; yet this axiom he brings as the warrant for it. For this collation is more general, and so extendeth to all particulars else of Adam's story, as wherein he was also a type as well as in this. For it is usual with the apostles (as it is with all other discoursers) in arguing, to bring general axioms for the proof of some one particular. Thus for the comfort of the saints in afflictions, Rom. viii. 25, 28, &c., he brings in a general axiom which I'eacheth to all things else, namely, that ' all things work together for their good,' ver. 28; and another, ver. 29, * We are predestinated to be conformed to the image of his Son,' which conformation reacheth to all things both of grace and glory; but he there allegeth it only in point of afflictions, and for a conformity to his sufferings, which is but one particular. And so here, when he calls Adam a type of him who was to come, he applies it indeed but to one particular in this place; but it is a general maxim, extendible to many things more, wherein Christ was typified out by Adam, as by other scriptures doth appear. . But before I explain any of those scriptures, I will first shew what is meant by type as here it is taken.

A type of a thing to come is a prophetical resemblance, wherein something more imperfect going before is intended by God to signify some other thing more noble and perfect to follow after. In the proper signification of the word, it signifies a print, stamp, or impression, bearing the resemblance of that which made it. As the letters wherewith men print are called r'oirot {Typis mandetur, says the privilege), because they leave the print of themselves upon paper, and the letters printed bear the resemblance of those stamps which made them, so that,

1. It notes out a resemblance between two things which sometimes in Scripture are called allegories. So Gal. iv. 24, the story_ of Hagar and Sarah is made the allegory of the two covenants; that is, a continued similitude. So likewise they are called va^aZoXal, Heb ix, 9; that is, comparisons made of things like, such as Christ used, and hmhilyiiara, subostensiones, obscure, underhand resemblances, Heb. viii. 5, and shadows; and, Heb. vii. 4, Melchisedec is said to be made like to Christ, as being his type.

2. Secondly, When the thing typified is to come, then it notes out a prophetical resemblance intended by God; and so it differs from a mere likeness, or allusion, or pattern, or example. There are many stories in the Scripture which fell out exceeding like to many passages about Christ; as the instance of Job in his sufferings, which in as many particulars resembles Christ's sufferings as any other whatever in Holy Writ; as in his being emptied of all, and from being one who ' thought it no robbery to be equal with' the princes of the earth in riches and honours, becoming poor (even

poor that it grew into a proverb, and is current to this day), and stripped ked of all, being abhorred of his acquaintance, mocked by those who had

been his vassals, and forsaken of his friends (as Christ of his disciples), God himself hiding his face from him, and holding him for his enemy, Job xiii. 24, as he did hide his face from Christ, when he hung naked on the cross, and cried out, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' And yet for all this, that Job was herein a type of Christ to come, we have no warrant to affirm, though some have done it. So likewise may many other stories more hold the like resemblance; but types they are not, unless they be propheticall}^ intended by God so to signify. Thus, Heb. ix. 8, the apostle, speaking of a type in the Old, says, ' The Holy Ghost thereby signifying,' &c.; and therefore, Heb. viii. 5, he says they did serve as ' examples,' but as instituted by God; for he allegeth God's words to Moses on the mount, ' See,' says he, ' that you make all according to the pattern on the mount.' Wherefore no more of the histories, or whatever institutions else in the Old Testament, than we find applied by the Holy Ghost, either in the prophets, by way of prophecy of what should be under the New Testament (they speaking of the worship, &c., of the New Testament under the language of the old types), or which else in the New Testament itself are so applied by the Holy Ghost, may we dare to make use of or call types. And the reason is, because for things historical to signify is ex instituto, they do it naturally; therefore we must have a word of institution or warrant from God, that so intended them; or otherwise we can found no matter of certainty upon them, neither will they be sanctified in the opening of them; to work upon the heart, as being human significations only, and as unlawful as they are. Allusions, I gi'ant, we may make of them, for illustration's sake; as Amos vi. 6, the Holy Ghost, laying forth their sin, expresseth it under the similitude of Joseph's story, and of the chief butler of Pharaoh, ' They di'ink wine in bowls, but are not grieved for the afliiction cf Joseph ;' yet none will say it was intended as a type of this carriage of theirs, but he aptly expresseth it by that. And so Isa. i. 10, he calls the princes of Israel ' rulers of Sodom.' In hke manner things in nature we may make similitudes of, by reason of a fitness in them to resemble ; and so God intended them to help us (whose understandings are tied to our senses here) in our apprehensions of spiritual things ; for which reason our Saviour Christ abounded in such similitudes and parables. As in that sermon to Nicodemus, where he expressed the work of grace by a new birth, and the working of God's Spirit therein by the blowing of the wind, John iii, 8, which Nicodemus not yet understanding, says Christ, ' If I have told you earthly things, and you believe not,' &c.; that is, have endeavoured by similitudes drawn from earthly things, to make you understand heavenly. So that, as they say, God hath made no kind of thing on the earth but it hath its like in the sea, so there is scarce anything heavenly but he appointed something in nature to resemble it, which notwithstanding is no type (although it be a resemblance) of it, because not prophetically intended by God to fore-signify them as to come; which types do serve not only to help us to conceive aright of the things to come, but also are predictions that they will come to pass, and so may help our faith as well as our understanding; so that a word from God to explain these was needful, but those other are left to man's wit to fit and apply them.

3. Thirdly, In the description of a type I add, ' to signify,' which differenceth these types from bare and mere examples, which do only forewarn or call to an imitation. And therefore, though they be of things past, yet are they not in this sense of things to come ; although, because they

are patterns, the word be used of them, as Phil. iii. 17, you have the word ru-rroi/ put for an example, and so all God's dealings with the Israelites are called TL/To/, examples or types, as the margin hath it. But how ? Not as foresignifying, so much as forewarning, and therefore it follows ' they were written for our admonition.' But so, Adam could not be a typo of Christ for him to imitate or to be forewarned by, but to forcsignify. Many things indeed in the story of the Old Testament were types foresignifying as well as forewarning ; as their not entering into Canaan, and God's swearing in his wrath, is made a tj'pe of not entering into heaven in Heb. iii. 11 and chap. iv. 3, and so I deny not but that those passages they recorded might typify out the hypocrisy of many professing the gospel (which seems also to be the apostle's scope), yet principally they are to forewarn. And if so, yet it follows not that all things then fell out as types foresignifying. For he says not simply ra a'xcvra, but 'xavra rauTa, ' ail these things;' that is, those particulars mentioned in the former verses, so as none but such things as God hath in some word or other declared to be signs and types, are to be so judged, though otherwise never so like in view.

4. Fourthly, I put in that the things that are thus made types of things to come are things more imperfect, and the things typified by them more glorious and perfect. Thus Col. ii. 17, the types of the law are called but the shadows of good things to come ; and Christ signified by them the body, that is, he is as the body of the sun, and they but as the shadow which the sun makes. So the dwelling of God in the temple was a type, yet but as the presence of a man in his shadow ; but oppositely it is said, ' In Christ dwells the fulness of the Godhead bodily,' Col. ii. 9. So Heb. ix. 24, those things that are typical are but figures of the things typified; and no other were all those brave men who were made types of Christ. -.

6. Fifthly, I inserted that in a way of resemblance the things signified do answer fitly unto them that signify, as the impress does to the stamp that made it. Therefore, 1 Peter iii. 21, baptism is called avTirvTrov, that is, a Uke figure.

Now sometimes they resemble either,

1. In a likeness or simiUtude. So Adam was like Christ: Eph. v. 32, * This is a great mystery; but I speak concerning Christ and the church.'

2. In a way of antithesis or opposition : so Rom. v. 18, * Therefore, as by the oflence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.' Adam conveyed sin, and Christ conveyed grace. Or,

3. In a way of eminency or transcendency. So Christ excels Adam : 1 Cor. XV. 45, 46, * And so it is written. The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.' Yet they some way answer and are correspondent as type and antitype, which is enough.

Now having thus explained what a type is, I proceed to shew how Adam and his whole story was intended by God as a more imperfect type going before, to signify and set forth Christ as to come. Now I find some* who do indeed acknowledge a similitude between the first and second Adam, and that Adam may in that respect be called a type of Christ; but yet only natiiralis typus, and so to signify him but as a natural thing or story may be brought to represent and illustrate another like unto it, by way of parallel, but not ex mstituto, as so intended by God in a way of institution, * Cameron in Myrothec. cap. 5, ad Ephes.

as the types of the old law were, which did serve to the example and shadow of Christ, Heb. viii. 5, aud were on purpose framed to that end. But so, says he, Adam was not intended by God, for that would insinuate that God intended Christ should be incarnate, before the fall, and ordained Adam but as his forerunner. Now therefore the point which I intend to manifest, and first to prove in the general only, is, that Adam and his story are not only things which hold a likeness with things about Christ, and out of which similitude may be drawn for illustration, but v.'hich were intended by God to foresignify Christ to come and to assume an human nature. And this not only in respect unto the fall, but for other respects also. Wherefore Adam was ordained to be Christ's type, as to come, and that not simply upon the fall, but before in his first creation and estate of innocency. And though it be true indeed that he had not come thus in the form of a servant into this world, but upon a supposition of the fall, nor had his human nature been the seed of the woman, nor he born of the Virgin Mary else ; which promise of Christ was therefore, in respect of such a way of coming into the world, given after the fall only. And though in the execution of things Christ first took frail flesh and came in the form of a servant, and God so decreed it as he had done the fall, yet in his primary intention, his chief and primary decree, his eye and fij-st aim was at his Son's having such a state and condition in his human nature as he hath now in heaven glorified. This was first in God's intention, though last in execution. And of this state and condition of Christ's human nature glorified as to come, was Adam before his fall the type, as in the sequel will appear.

Now for the proof of this, namely, that Adam and all his story before the fall was a type of Christ in the sense before given ; not only by way of illustration (as any other similitude or thing like may be brought to illustrate another), but by way of ordination, as so intended by God to fore-typify and shadow out Christ as to come.

First, Let us see what these words, Rom. v. 14—' Who is the type of him that was to come'—will afford ; out of which this seems to be made plain.

1, In that Adam is called not only a type, which (as formerly hath been explained) imports more than a bare similitude, but also a type * of him that was to come,' he says not ' of him that was come;' this argues him to be a prophetical type, and that Christ was intended as the antitype fore-signified thereby ; and so Adam not to be only as a similitude that would serve to illustrate Christ then when he is come. The like phrase we have used of the ceremonial types, whose institution (all grant) was more for to typify Christ to come than to serve for a present use in worship, though so they also did. Now of them it is said, Col. ii. 7, ' They were a shadow,' or type, ' of things to come ;' so likewise Heb. x. 1 and Heb. viii. 5, where they are said Xar^i-jnv, to serve in worship to this end for a double use they then had. 1. To make up a worship to God in those times. 2. As types to foresignify things to come. Therefore Heb. ix. 9 they are called a ' figure for the present time' (then when in use as parts of worship), to figure out things to come ; and that was their primary use. Now the like say I of Adam and his story, and the world made for him in innocency, that although it was a glorious instance and manifestation of many of God's attributes, as of his holiness in making him after God's image, so of his power, and justice, and wisdom, more than all God's other visible works, all which God made for him ; and this it was, simply in itself considered, although God should never have intended anythmg further thereby, but

bavo rested iu it. Yet I say further, that besides this it was intended as much, yea more, to be a type and a figure of Christ and his ' world which was to come' (as the phrase is, Heb. ii. 15), and of Christ here, Horn. v. 14, that ' he was to come,' and in comparison thereof Adam was but as a shadow to the body of this sun.

And in the second place, for the confirmation of that latter part of this assertion, or rather the appendix unto it, that Christ was appointed a root to his elect before, or rather without respect had unto the full, I argue out of this place thus, and ask wherein it was that Adam was a type of Christ to come ? Why (as it is plain by the context), in his conveying disobedience. So verses 12-14, ' In him all men sinned ; and so sin and death came upon all.' He shews how, iu a vray of antithesis or opposition (yet bearing a likeness and resemblance), he typified out Christ in his obedience (so verses 17-19), which comes upon all his elect by the like imputation: and they are made righteous by that one man's obedience, as sinners by that one man's disobedience. Now, if we examine the ground why all sinned in him, and why his disobedience made all sinners, it was in that he was a public person, representing all mankind, as Christ also was. And so the main ground of the apostle's comparing them lies in this, that both of them, as public persons, were two roots and principles, and so Adam the type of him, who was also, says he, ' to come ' and be a common head and root, as Adam was. Now I ask when did Adam become a common person first ? What! not until the moment of his sinning ? Surely yes ; he was such before, even in the state of innocency; for he had not in justice been a public person in sinning, if he had not first been such in standing; he had not been such for evil if he had not first been such for good. And so he was therefore a public person in sinning, because formerly in innocency he had been so considered by God, so as, in God's first decree to create him, he must needs have ordained him withal to be a common person ; and therefore at the instant before, or at the time when God made Adam, he says. Gen. i. 26, ' Let us make man '—it is in the Hebrew, Adam —* according to our image.' In which words Adam, or man, in the singular number, is put for all mankind ; even as in that promise. Gal. iii. 16, it was observed by the apostle that he had said, ' not unto seeds,' as many apart of themselves, but to ' seed,' as to one, a public person, for all the rest, which seed was Christ, as including all the elect in him. Now, so he says in that place of Genesis, not men, as speaking of them sevei'ally in their own persons, but man, or rather Adam, that one first man as the root of all, in whom, as in a public person, all were created. And therefore, that so he might be understood in that speech, he adds in the next words following the plural number, saying, ' And let them subdue,' &c., as speaking of all his posterity considered in him. Thus, therefore, God looks at him in his decree of creation. Now, from this Rom. v., it is evident that when he became to be a public person then he began also to be a type ; for he was a type as he was a public person and a root of mankind; that is the ground of it, and lies not in his sinning only ; for he had not been a type in sinning if he had not first been a public person in respect of good and holy actions, to have conveyed the benefit of them, as well as of his sin to convey the evil of it; and so before this his fall he was a type of Christ to come, as a root to his elect, to convey some benefit to them, namely, the glory in heaven ; and this, before the consideration of Adam's fall, as will afterwards appear out of another scripture.

CHAPTER IX.

The explication of the ivords of the text; in what particulars they make a comparison of Christ the type and Adam the anti-type. — In their persons, as Adam had in him a principle of natural life, so Christ has of spiritual. — As public persons and heads of mankind, as Adam conveys his natural life, so Christ his spiritual. — It is j^roved out of the same text, that Adam, before his fall, ivas thus intended as a prophetic type of Christ to come, as the head of the elect, ivho as a ptuhlic pierson, should advance them to the like glorious condition as himself had in heaven. — The ylory of this accomplishment was ap>pointed for him, without consideration of the fall. — That interposing he came and suffered and died to remove the obstacles that the fall had laid in the way of the execution of the work first designed.

There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam teas made a living soul, the last Adam ivas made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first ivhich is spiritual, but that which is natural ; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. —1 Cor. XV. 44-49.

Those words out of Rom. v. I took but for a general groundwork, because they so expressly call Adam ' a t3'pe of Christ to come.' And though that scripture delivers this general maxim, which in many particulars doth hold, yet it instanceth in nothing but the imputation of his disobedience, which is indeed in order the last particular wherein Adam did sustain a public person, and wherein he was a type of Christ, conveying the benefit of his most perfect obedience, after which he ceased to be a public person in all other acts of his, and so that particular is to be insisted on last in this discourse. But other scriptures do instance in many other particulars before his fall (at which time, as I shewed, he was a public person as well as in his fall), and do make him to have been the type of Christ therein also, as pre-ordained by God to come, which will more fully confirm that assertion already laid down.

I will take the scriptures as they lie in order; and first, this in 1 Cor. sv. 44, 45, &c., because indeed it makes Adam a type of Christ from the first of his creation, which is the highest that we can go. And as in that Rom. V. the scope is to shew that Adam was a type of Christ, as he was a public person in respect of his actions, to convey the merit or demerit of them, as in like manner Christ by his actions conveys righteousness and life; so here, the apostle's scope is to shew that Adam was also his type in respect of that condition and state of life, and qualifications of his own person, given him as a public person, and of what at his first creation, before his fall (even in his formation) he received, to convey the like to us, which is the thing I out of this place shall chiefly urge.

The resemblance between these two in that Rom. v. is (in respect of the things conveyed) a similitude of contraries or opposites :

By the one came sin, by the other, righteousness ; by the one came death, by the other life, with this dissimilitude for the measure of what is

conveyed, that Christ exceeds in his ; he conveys abundance of righteousness, and a better life, whereof sin and death were the privation.

But the resemblance between these two in this of the Corinthians is carried on by a comparing the condition of the one with the other (which is the thing conveyed) in a way of eminency and disparity, which yet answer each to other, as type and antitype. The one was made a living soul, and the other a quickening spirit; between w^hich, for excellency, there is as much disparity as between earth and heaven, and yet an answering of each other in that disparity, as type and antitype use to do.

Lirinr/ answering to quickenuui; soul to spirit; nalural to spiritual, ver. 46 ; earthly to keavenhj, ver. 48; yet so as, for the ground of conveying both, they agree alike ; as in the former, that they were ordained tvyo roots, correspondent each to other.

Now, in handling this scripture, I shall observe this method :

1. I will shew the coherence, scope, and connection of these words, and open those phrases in them which most conduce to the understanding of them.

2. Secondly, When they are explained, I will raise arguments from them, to confirm that assertion already laid down, namely, that Adam was before his fall a prophetic tj'pe of Christ to come.

3. And thirdly, I will open those particulars which this scripture holds forth, wherein he was ordained Christ's type as then.

1. The apostle's scope in that chapter is (as all know) to prove the resurrection, which he had by many arguments done, unto ver. 35, the main of which was drawn from the resurrection of Christ, in whom all his elect must live, as in Adam all died, ver. 21, 22.

But then, if the question be made, With what body, or in what state and condition of life they shall rise, and afterwards live in (which question he puts ver. 35) ? he answers, ver. 38 (as in the 36th and 37th he had done to a former query), that for matter and substance it is the same body that they had before, 'their own body,' ver. 38; but for qualifications and adornments, and so for the condition of their persons and their state of life then, these shall differ from what they are now, as much as a clod of earth, 'a body terrestrial,' diifers from a star in heaven, ' a body celestial.' It is the apostle's own illustration, ver. 40, and so he goes on to difierence them unto ver. 44, where he adds another difference between them, calling the one ' a natural body,' the other ' a spiritual body,' which, though differing in teiTns, is notwithstanding the same with the former.

But because these similitudes, though they illustrate this difference of bodies, yet prove nothing, therefore, from the 44th verse, he proceeds to prove that God had ordained two such differing conditions of life, and of bodies, for the sons of men—the one common to all men, the other more glorious, peculiar to his elect—which he positively lays down, and expresseth in this thesis or proposition : ' There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body;' that is, there are to be two such conditions for some of mankind; God hath ordained both these states for men ; or, as some copies have it, and as the vulgar translation reads those words, ' If there be a natural body, then there is a spmtual body;' so making the one the consequence of the other, £/ g'oT/ ffw/xa -^•jyjyjjv, icri y.al rrZ/MX -Truiu/J.aTr/.hv ;* which assertion he proves, ver. 45, 46, and then foi-ms up the conclusion, ver. 49, that as certainly as we see the one, we shall in like manner see the other. This thesis he proves from the differing condition of the first and second Adam ; * Vide Flaccium in Var. Lect.

the former being a type of the latter, and hoth of them ordained to convey their likeness to mankind. The substance and condition of Adam's nature (the best of it) was but a reasonable soul becoming a principle of life to a body created out of the earth, and ordained to live in the earth, which is meant by living soul. But Christ's person is the Godhead in the person of the Son, or Spirit quickening an human nature, ordained to live in heaven, whereof he was Lord by inheritance, ver. 47, and his argument lies in three things thus: if the soul can advance an earthly body to such an excellent state of life as Adam on earth enjoyed, then what a glorious spiritual condition shall the Godhead, united to an human nature, raise that nature up unto ! And by consequent, his elect also shall be raised to the like ; for as Adam conveyed his image (ver. 48, 49) to his posterity, so shall Christ transform his elect to the image of that condition, which his human nature is raised up unto ; which, if that of Adam's was but earthy, this must needs be heavenly ; if that were animal, this must be spiritual. This is, in brief, the sum of his discourse ; which I shall make good by a larger opening, both of the principal phrases and of his argumentation; for the ground upon which the apostle builds the proof of both parts of his assertion, are the words spoken by Moses of Adam, when he was first made; ' And so it is written,' says he, * the first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit.' You see that for his proof, he boldly hath recourse to the words spoken of Adam's state of life, and condition of body at his first formation. Now, ere that I can shew whereupon the ground of the apostle's argument from thence derived is founded, I must explain what is meant by livimi soul and quickening spirit. Soul, as was said, is opposed to spirit, and livinf/ to quickeninfj.

(1.) By soul is primarily meant that moi'e noble part of man. By a synecdoche, such as is familiar both with Jews and Grecians, thereby is also meant the whole man, consisting both of soul and body. The Grecians use the word hody for the whole : ' A body hast thou fitted me,' Heb. x. 5; that is, an human nature, consisting of body and soul. The Jews put the soul for the whole : ' So many souls came out of Jacob's loins,' Exod. i. So as the whole person of Adam, the whole nature, substance of man he consisted of, is expressed by sotil, putting that which was the most excellent part to express the whole man. So that his scope is first to com-pai-e the substance of which Adam's person consisted with that of Christ's : Adam, but a soul giving life to a body; but Christ, a Spirit or God, quickening an human nature. He mentions the difference of them, quoad suhstantiam, because it was the foundation of the diSerence in their conditions.

(2.) And so, secondly, living soid doth connotate and import also that animal state of life which Adam's soul enjoyed in his body, far short of that which the Spirit in Christ raiseth the human nature to, yea, or such a condition as pure spirits, the angels, do enjoy. That reasonable soul inspired into Adam being confined, and clogged with a body taken out of earth, depending in its operations upon the organs in it, and lived in it an earthly life, depending on meat, drink, sleep, &c., in its own proper works of reasoning depending on fancy, and joined with a possibility of dying, though not then reducible to act, till after the fall, the curse said Morieris. And that Uvinrj soul is thus here to be taken, appears by that which he in the other verses expresseth it by calling it ■^•oyjxhv, an animal bod}^ such as beasts have, and yj)i%m, earthly, ver. 47, 48, that is, a state and condition of his soul in a body suitable to this earth, and assimilated to the things

of the earth, to take in help and comfort from them, and in working to depend on them. Now for the opposite phrase of quickening spirit.

1. By spirit, he means the divine nature or Godhead in Christ, which heing ordained to assume an human nature, and therein to hecome a second Adam, he was made a quickening Spirit, namely, to that human nature, by raising up that human nature to a Godhke glory and sovereignty, and exalting it in the form of God, to have life in himself independently, as God hath, yea, even a fountain of life within himself; and so as to have the very body of that human nature spiritualised, and advanced to a glory higher than the heavens, or angels, who are spirits.

Now that the divine nature of the second person, or Son of God, as ho is God, is called Spirit, we have many scriptures besides which give in their testimony. Thus, Heb. ix. 14, it is said, ' He offered up himself (that is, his human nature, as the sacrifice) * by the eternal Spirit' (that is, his Godhead, as the priest). So, 1 Pet. iii. 18, it is said, ' He was put to death in the flesh' (that is, in the human nature), ' but quickened by the Spirit,' or his divine nature ; being thereby raised up, and exalted to that high and glorious spiritual life, which that flesh of his now in heaven enjoys. Thus also John vi. 63, ' It is the Spirit that quickeneth ;' that is, the Godhead of Christ; it is that which hath that transcendent power of giving life and glory; ' the flesh' (or human nature of itself) * profiteth nothing,' were it not quickened and raised by the Spirit, to which it is united. And so answerably, by quickening is meant, the communicating all that glorious life and power, in the utmost extent of it, which from the union of that human nature with the Spirit, or divine nature, must needs flow to it; even the ' dwelling of the fulness of the Godhead therein bodily,' and communicating Godlike properties and excellencies, and glory, and a life suitable to such an union ; and so as to have a fountain of life within himself, and of himself, and power over all flesh ; and to live a life above what earthly souls do ; yea, above what is enjoyed by angels, the life of a ' Lord from heaven' (as ver. 47), and so an heavenly life, unto which his body was not only to be raised, but he to be the Lord of that life, having life and quickening in himself, not depending upon anything else, as the life of men on earth does, and as the Hfe of the first Adam was dependent on creatures for nourishment, &c., and the acting and operation of his soul, and motion of his body, depending on bodily spirits, maintained and supphed by other creatures. But Christ's Godhead supplies life, motion, qaickening, vigour, power, and all unto his human nature immediately from itself. And so the comparison runs thus : if Adam's soul caused his body, made of earth, and remaining such, to live, and put such a glory upon it (above what is in beasts), that the image of God shined in it, then what a life, what a glory, must the whole human nature, both body and soul, of Christ be raised up unto, whenas the Godhead or Spirit shall be, in a manner, unto both the body and soul that which Adam's soul was to his body, the quickener and immediate principle of life, motion, and glory unto both ! and dwelling therein, break forth in its fulness, and so cause such an image of the Godhead to shine forth therein, as in a transcendent proportion shall excel that in Adam, as much as the Godhead excels Adam's soul, which was the supreme immediate principle of life in him. Thus Christ and Adam are compared together in their own persons, singly and alone considered ; and in this sense given, the one was but a ' living soul,' the other is a * quickening spirit.'

But 2dly, There is a further meaning or look which these phrases do

cast, and that is, as tliey are coBsidered as two roots or principles of the like life they themselves have, which they communicate to those that are of them.

Thus, 1. Adam is called a living soul, not simply in respect to that life ■which his soul ^nye his own body, and which his own particular person enjoyed from the union of both, but further, as he was to be a conveyer of the like life to his posterity. And so the phrase here, of his being a living soul, is such another as we use in philosophy, whenas we speak of the general principle of nature, calling it natura naturans. So Adam, being to be a root of life to mankind, he is called (as it were, anima aniinans), a ' living soul,' to shew that Adam had power, through God's ordinance, to convey that life and soully estate which himself had received (living being taken actively, or causally) unto others, as shewing what he was to be the root of to others, as well as subjectively, as noting out that life which was in himself.

And answerably in the second place, the word quickening, which is attributed to Christ, may be understood, not only in respect of that glorious life which the Godhead quickeneth, or raiseth the human nature unto (as yet in the places quoted, 1 Peter iii. 18, and John vi. 63, it is principally taken, and so also here), but further, it is spoken of him as he is to be the means, or principle of life unto us, to quicken, raise, or advance our earthly bodies, which we received from Adam, unto a spiritual and heavenly condition. And further, to import what he will make our souls to be in a conformity unto himself. To be even quickening spirits to our bodies, so as that our soul's motion and acting shall not depend on our bodies, nor they on other creatures, as Adam did, but the soul itself through his quickening of it shall quicken, and move, and act the body of itself immediately, without the help of bodily spirits ; and so (in a resemblance) be unto it, as the Spirit or Godhead in Christ is unto his human nature, even a quickening spirit. And so quickeninfi is here causally taken for what Christ is to others ; and this the rather, because he speaks in this chapter of raising our bodies, when dead, unto a spiritual condition, which the word qnickeniii// likewise imports, namely, a giving life to dead men; and so shews Christ's further power than Adam's, who could only convey life to his posterity, who were not before, but could not quicken or raise dead men, as Christ can.

But although this be one extent of the signification of the word quickening, yet it is not to be confined to this only, as noting out only and merely a raising up of dead men ; for Christ is also a quickening spirit to those who shall be changed at the latter day, who shall not die. So that it ultimately imports rather an advancing men's bodies and souls to a more transcendent spiritual life, than such as depends on creatures in an earthly way, as Adam's life (he being but a living soul) did, and making us to have such a life as the angels have, w's "AyysXoi ; our souls in our bodies living the like life, independent on bodily spirits, or creatm-es, as they do, being made wholly a principle of life and motion of themselves to themselves, and the body also ; when our bodies shall not need to eat and drink, to maintain hfe and motion, but shall be quickened by the soul, and Christ our life immediately ; our bodies then shall not be earthly (as the phrase is, verse 47), suited to earthly contentments and comforts, the belly (or the suitableness in respect of receiving comfort, and need of meat) being destroyed, as well as meat itself. And the body then being suited with new habits, and fitness to receive that comfort from Christ which once it

(lid from these outward and earthly things, the body being ordained for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, even as he had said, the belly was for meat, and meat for the belly, in this world. This you have, 1 Cor. vi. 13-15, diligently compared. The body then shall be turned spiritual, as here, verse AG, and heavenly, as verses 47, 48, and so fitted to Christ and that heavenly world, as afore to this earthly world, himself then becoming a quickener to us.

And the word here used both of Christ and Adam, * was made,' the one * a living soul,' the other * a quickening spirit,' will very well serve both these senses given. So first, when it is said of Adam, he was * made a living soul,' it properly and fitly imports, what he was personally in himself, and that in his first creation he was made a living soul. And so, when it is said of Christ, he was ' viade a quickening spirit,' the meaning is the same with that in John i. 18, where it is said, * The word was viade flesh.' So here, he who was God before (and so not made), is yet said to be made a quickening spirit. For, for the Godhead to become a quickener of an human nature, was a new work done in the earth, and a work of power ; he was made that which he was not before.

Or, secondly, it will fit the other sense also, namely, to signify what both were appointed to be, namely, to others. For the word made to he is often taken for appointed to he, as Heb. iii. 2, ' Moses was faithful to him who appointed him ;' in the Greek it is, ' who made him,' as referring to that public ofiice into which God had put him. So 1 Sam. xii. 6, ' God made Aaron and Moses' (so it is in the Hebrew) ; that is, advanced them to that public ofiice. Many such instances might be given. So that the words quoted out of that place in Genesis do imply, that God appointed that first man Adam to be a public person, a common root, to convey to his posterity that condition of souls aed persons which he had received. And that this is meant in those words of Genesis, the manner of speech does further argue. For it is not simply said, that he became a living soul, but thus in the original, both Hebrew there and Greek here, it is to be rendered, ' He became, or was made for a living soul,' lyhsro Big ■^'^'X/iv ^Sjgav, that is, causally so to others. As 2 Chron. xviii. 21, ' I will he for a lying spirit;' that is, unto all Ahab's prophets, making them to lie, and so deceive him. It implies not only what that spirit was in himself, but what he became to them. So here, ' he became into, or for, a living soul;' that is, unto all other men, in propagating that hfe to them which he had received. And though it be true that he was in himself a living soul, as also in that other place, that the devil was a lying spirit in himself, is true, for he is so in himself, as well as to others; and therefore whereas in the Chronicles it is said, ' I will be for a lying spirit,' in the book of the Kings it is only said, * 1 will be a lying spirit,' yet that also was spoken in respect of what he was to be unto others. And hence, because the apostle knew that the Holy Ghost's pm'pose, in that speech in Genesis, was to signify that he was so to us, and constituted a public person herein, therefore, by way of comment, he is bold to add to the test that which more fully explains the words quoted, saying, * And so it is written. The first man Adam,' &c. Those words, the first man, are not in Genesis. But he knowing it was the Holy Ghost's scope, adds them. And that that phrase here imports him to have been a public person, I shall shew anon. Now the same meaning of the word icas made, will suit with what was said of Christ also, he was made ; that is, appointed to be a quickening spirit, in the sense afore given, to his elect, which is spoken

as if then, when Adam was appointed as a public person, to be a living soul to his posterity, Christ was looked at as appointed also, Adam being therein but his type, and so, as more imperfect, ordained to represent what Christ in a more transcendent and perfect manner was made or ordained of God to be.

The phrase here being thus opened, we may the better discern wherein the foundation and ground of the apostle's argumentation lies. The thing which he was to prove was (as hath been said), that there is an heavenly, spiritual condition for men's bodies, far transcending their present condition in earth : ' there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.' For the proof of which, he allegeth those words in Genesis : * So it is written,' says he, ' The first man Adam was made a living soul;' which words, if you take them literally only, and as meant of Adam alone, do prove no more but the first part of that assertion, namely, that there was to be an animal body, such as Adam had, which was to be communicated to all mankind from him, he being to propagate all in his image. And that part these cavillers against the resurrection made no question of; for to prove this, common experience had been enough ; but thence to argue that other part that follows, that the * last man should be a quickening Spirit,' and 60 raise up the bodies of his members to a spiritual condition, can no other ways be done but by making God's intent in that place of Genesis to have been to make that first Adam a type therein of Christ, a second Adam; and this is truly intended (in a type) as the first Adam himself was, of whom only the words Hterally do run. Yea, and further, Adam therein to be but such a type, as this other, that was to succeed, should excel; and he accordingly therefore should raise his members to a higher and more glorious condition, such as Spirit in him raised him unto, even above soul, or that estate which the soul in Adam's earthly body enjoyed. And upon this gi'ound the apostle's argument will fully hold, to prove the one as well as the other, this being supposed, that it was as much the Holy Ghost's meaning in those words of Genesis to intend the one as the other. And that was so evidently thus, that the apostle hath a recourse to those words as a sufficient proof of what he said; which is founded upon this, that types may be alleged for proof, when we are sure of the Holy Ghost's intendment in them,—as Paul, who had the Spirit, and wrote infallibly, here was,—as well as any other scriptures. It hath passed for a received maxim among some divines, that the mystical sense of Scripture cannot be alleged to prove matters of faith, and that therefore all such mystical significations serve only for illustration : symhoUca theologia nihil prohat. And this axiom is of use against the boldness of them who turn all the letter into mystical meanings, not from any warrant from Scripture, but out of their own fancies, where they found things that had any mutual resemblance. But when we know, and are assui-ed, that the Holy Ghost hath made a thing a type, and know his meaning therein, we may as boldly, warrantably, and efiicaciously allege it as any literal text whatsoever. For so that which is said of the paschal lamb, Exod. xii., that the bones were not to be broken, this being the type, it is said, John xix. 36, * They brake not his legs ; that the scripture might be fulfilled,' &c. So the apostle allegeth a type, 1 Tim. v. 17, 18, where, urging the duty of honouring those who labour in the word, he says, * For it is written, Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.' *

To return therefore to the matter in hand ; observe we farther, that the * Vide Tena. in Hebr. Proelud. 4. 92 Num.

apostle not only hath recourse to these words in Genesis for his proof, but is bold to add to the text (and to the literal sense there, to annex the mystical meaning, as if it were therein as much intended as the literal), saying, ' The last Adam was made a quickening Spirit,' which words are not in the text in Genesis; for he knowing this to be the Holy Ghost's aim in those words concerning Adam, supplied it, as if it were in the text, and a part of what was written, so to make up the sense and meaning full and complete.

2. And so I come to the second head propounded, which, from what hath been last said, riseth naturally up unto us, as the general doctrine of this scripture, namely, that former assertion, that Adam was intended by God before his fall as a prophetic type of Christ to come, who as a head or public person should advance his elect to the like glorious condition as himself had in heaven; which assertion, though it hath been the natural consequent of what hath been already said, yet it is further established unto us by these considerations out of the text added unto the former. I shall make out the proofs of the whole, by proving each particular by piecemeal and apart, and all out of the words of the text.

As (1.) that Adam was Christ's type, is further evident to have been the apostle's meaning, in that he calls Christ Adam, ' the last Adam,' of which there is no other reason but this, that he calls him by the name of his type, it being usual in Scripture to call the thing typified by the name of the type. So Christ is elsewhere called the high priest, &c., his body the temple, and his blood the propitiation.

(2.) He makes Adam to have been Christ's type, as he was ordained a public person or head of mankind; and therefore he here calls Adam ' the first man Adam.' Now in what respect or relation was he the first man ? Not simply as being first in order, as the Scripture means when it says, the first day of the week, but as a common root, who had received what he was, that he might convey it to all other men; which appears by the opposition, in that he calls Christ the ' last Adam,' in the following words, and ' the second man' in verse 47 ; and therefore, in relation unto Adam's typifying out of Christ, he calls him the first man. Now, if it had been spoken in respect of order, Cain was the second man, and God knows who shall be the last. But this is so spoken of these two, as if God had made and looked at two men only for ever to be in the world, because he looked at them as including all, and as two roots of all, who had all men at their girdles, as being both of them pubhc persons, set to convey what they were and received unto their several posterities.

(3.) He is made Christ's type in respect of his conveying the like condition of soul and body as himself had to those that came of him, in that Christ should in like manner convey the same glorious qualifications which his soul and body received. Therefore, ver. 48, it is said, * As is the earthly Adam, such are those of him ; and as is the heavenly Adam, such are his elect,' even ordained to be heavenly like him. These import likeness in the quaUfications of their persons. And again, ver. 49, it is said, ' As we have borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly.' So that, in respect of the condition and glory of his person, he was a type of Christ, as well as in his actions.

(4.) And in the fourth place, he was herein a prophetic type of Christ, not only a natural similitude that may serve to illustrate, but as further intended by God to foresignify such another second Adam (yet more perfect), as certainly decreed by God for to come, as that himself then was

made a living soul. For the manifestation of tliis (besides that which follows in the fifth head, which makes for this also) there are these two things, evidencing it to us out of the words of the text.

[1.] That the apostle hath recourse to Adam and his condition as a proof and argument to make good this assertion, that the elect were to be advanced in their bodies unto a spiritual condition in heaven by Christ a second Adam as a quickening Spirit, because it was written of the first Adam, that he was made a living soul. Now, if Adam had been but a natural type, by way of similitude only, this had then been no argument, for such similitudes do illustrate, but prove nothing. It remains therefore that he must necessarily be a prophetic type, intended by God to fore-signify Christ to come.

[2.J Add to this, secondly, the words of the 49th verse, which are the conclusions of his argument, wherewith he winds up this part of his discourse, aflirming out of his former allegations, that ' as we have borne the image of the earthly, so we shall bear the image of the heavenly Adam;' that is, as certainly the one as the other. He brings in this as an inference that must certainly and necessarily follow, that as we have borne Adam's image, we shall also bear Christ's. He mentions it as a support for our faith to make use of, as a certain prediction that this other will and must come to pass ; whereas, had Adam and his condition been only a natural type or similitude, as unto which Christ might be compared and. appear to hold parallel, it could nor ought not to have been thus far urged. It might indeed have been brought to help our understandings, by way of illustration, to evince how Christ might convey his like glorious state, even as Adam had done his ; but it could not have been thus alleged to help our faith in it, by w^ay of demonstration and certain proof, had he not been a prophetic type. And further, to confirm this, let us but compare the words of the 48th verse and these in the 49th together, and we shall discern a very difierent use and improvement made by the apostle. In the 48th verse he says (speaking of Adam's sons), ' As is the earthy, such are they that are earthy; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.' See how in these words he makes use of Adam's type and condition but barely, as by way of illustration and parallel, for prophetic types serve also to illustrate, as well as natural; but not content with this, he further adds, that ' as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.' In which words he speaks a further thing than in the former, by way of inference, assuring our faith, fi'om our having borne Adam's image, that we shall one day most certainly bear Christ's also in gloiy; he makes use of Adam's type as an argument to confu-m it; and therefore it was more than a natural type, even a prophetic type also.

(5.) In the fifth and last place, I add to all this, that Adam was thus appointed and intended by God as a prophetic type of Christ to come, and this before his fall; he then foresignifying Christ to come, as here he is parallel-ed with him, even to be a quickening Spirit to his elect, as certainly as himself was then made a living soul.

For, first, when was it, or wherein, that, according to what the apostlo here allegeth of Adam, he was Christ's type ? If you observe it, not in respect of conveying his sinful image when fallen, namely, the qualifications he had by sinning, as the corruption and mortality of his body and sinful image on his soul; for though all that is said here hold true of these, and may by imphcation be inferred from hence, yet these are not the things

here spoken of by the apostle, but he is here brought in as the type of Christ in respect of conveyinj:; that image and state of Ufe which he received at his creating, before his fall, as being then a type of Christ to come, as a Ijord from heaven. For unto what he was when he was at his best, even at the first formation of his body, and the breathing his soul into it, those words here alleged have reference : ' Adam was made a living soul,' as appears, Gen. ii. 7, wherein notwithstanding he is here alleged as the type of Christ. And indeed therefore it was, that he conveyed that corrupt image acquired by his fall, because he was ordained as a common person before the fall, to convey the image in which he was created. And therefore it must needs be that he was a type of Christ to come as well before his fall as after ; even as well as that he was a public person before his fall as well as after.

Secondhj, It appears also that he calls Adam his type, as in his very first creation he was the first man ; and this not only, as was said, in relation to all other men (his sons) who were to succeed him, and in respect of order in their succeeding, but chiefly in respect to this second man Christ, as, ver. 47, he calls him, and also the last Adam, ver. 45, in relation to this first man and first Adam, as he is called. So that the opposition shews that those titles given Adam do bear relation unto Christ. Now as the apostle argues, Heb. viii, 13, out of the word new covenant an old covenant to have been, which is now to be abolished—' In that he says a new, he hath made the first old '—so in that he calls Adam, even at the first, when he stood up out of the earth and became a man, the first man, and that, as the apostle explains himself, in relation to Christ, as the second man, it argued Christ to have been then, and as soon intended. Yox first and second are relatives, and relata sunt siimd natura, and so must be in God's decrees. And that which further strengthens this is that phrase * was made,' which in the time past he attributes alike to both. He says, ' So it is written,' referring to Adam's creation, ' The first Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit,' speaking of both with reference to the same time past; even when Adam was made or appointed, then was Christ also appointed, so that he was as ancient in God's purpose as the other, and both without any consideration had to the fall.

Yea, thirdhj, Christ was first, and more principally intended of the two ; for Adam being but as the type, and so the more imperfect every way, Christ, the second Adam, must needs be not only at the same time with him intended, but primarily, and in the first place ; for so it is in all types else, their antitype is that for which they are ordained, and they are but ' figures for the present,' as you have it, Heb. ix. 9, and so are but subordinate to their anti-type, as first and chiefly intended. And therefore they are said but to * serve unto the pattern,' &c., Heb. viii. 5, even as the house is more in the mind of the workman, and intended before the platform or draught of it on parchment, which only serves towards the building of it. And therefore the type is still rather said to be made like the thing typified than the thing typified to be made like unto its type. So Heb. vii. 3, Melchisedec being to be a type of Christ, was said to be * made like unto the Son of God ;' God framed him and his condition to resemble Christ, and not Christ to resemble Melchisedec ; which holds in all other type^ also, and therefore so in this, wherein God did intend Adam and his earthly and soully condition, as the more imperfect, to forerun Christ, and that spiritual and heavenly condition by him. And therefore also Christ is called ' the last Adam,' not in respect of order, but to shew he was the perfection of the other, as last sometimes signifies in whom all is bounded and deter-

mined. So Mat. xxi. 37, ' Last of all he sent his Bon,' as the utmost remedy and completest. This always holds in other of God's works, which are suhordinate to each other, that the last notes out perfection. So here, ' the first' notes out imperfection ; ' the last' the sum, complement, and perfection of all, as rs}.oc signifies the end, and rsXiiog, iierfcct. And that this is the apostle's meaning here is evident by the connection of ver. 46 with what went before in verses 44 and 45. For having affirmed, ver. 44, that it was God's purpose to make two ranks of men and conditions of them, animal and heavenly or spiritual, ' there is' (that is, there is ordained to be) ' a natural body and a spiritual body ;' and then having proved it to be God's meaning, in that when he made the first Adam a living soul, he then in him, as the type also, made or ordained, as we said, Christ a quickening Spirit, ver. 45, thereby shewing that in God's decree the one was as ancient as the other. Then, in ver, 46, he adds by way of explanation or correction, ' Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual,' (that is, not first in execution or in order of time, because that was to be most perfect), ' but that which was natural,' that was ordained to come into the world first, ' and afterward that which is spiritual,' as the perfection of the other ; God's manner of proceeding in his works being to begin ah iw-perfectioriliKs, with what is imperfect, and so to go on adperfcctiora, to what is more perfect. He ordered that Adam should come first with his natural or animal body, to usher in Christ afterwards with his spiritual body. And that state which Adam brought in being the first draught, as that of a coal in a picture, that state which Christ brings in is as the last hand put to it, filling up the piece with the brightest colours of perfection. And as nature is a groundwork to grace, so was the animal substance to that which was spiritual, even to be clothed with it, and swallowed up by it; yet so as the first draught served withal as a shadow to tell that the other more perfect w^as to come, and primarily intended. And therefore, in the 49th verse he brings in this as the closure of this his proof, that ' as certainly as we have borne the image of the earthy, so certainly shall we bear the image of the heavenly.'

3. I shall wind up all with a consideration or two, which put together will fitly serve both as the general conclusion of this whole discourse, and particularly also further to confirm this last branch in hand.

You have seen how Adam was a type of Christ, both in his falling, as hath been shewn out of Kom. v. 14, and before his fall in his first creation, as here in this place. And Adam, in both states, did as a public person represent Christ. Now observe but how Christ his antitype doth in a correspondency, and answering to both these, run through two estates also suitable to these two of Adam. And in each of these estates Christ, as a public person representing us, doth two distinct things for us. 1. He, in our nature, ' takes on him the form of a servant,' to redeem us from that condemnation and misery which Adam's fall had brought upon us ; which having finished, then, 2dly, he assumes and puts upon his human nature that glorious condition which was his due by inheritance in the first moment that he should be made a man ; and by virtue of this condition due to him by inheritance, he will bestow upon us, who are in him, the like glory which was ordained himself. Now then, that work of redemption performed by him under the form of a servant, whereby he frees and delivers us from that guilt and condemnation into which we, through Adam's fall, were plunged, and his restoring us to a state of justification of life through his perfect obedience, this was typified out by Adam's disobedience imputed to

us for condemnation, as you have it Rom. v. And herein was Adam, in the evil he brought upon us, made Christ's opposite type, freeing us from all that evil, even to his subduing the power of death, the last enemy of all, which Christ did at his resurrection.

But then, in that other work, his bestowing upon us that spiritual and heavenly condition of life, in a conformity to his own personal glory, after this work of deliverance perfectly performed at the resurrection, and which we receive after all that evil which Adam brought upon us is removed out of the way, in this, Christ had for his type Adam's estate and condition before his fall, when at his creation he was made a living soul and lord of the earth, to convey the same privilege and perfection he was created in unto his posterity; and this this place hath held forth unto us. • And set but these things in their due order and correspondency, and how fitly do they suit and answer each other ! That so far as Adam had spoiled us by his fall, so far he should be the type of Christ's restoring us again ; and then that his primitive original estate which he had before his fall should be the type of that glorious estate which we shall have through Christ after that redemption of our bodies in the resurrection completed, as being indeed their ancient and first intended inheritance decreed unto them in Christ, as their head, before the consideration of the fall, but which, Adam's sin falling out between, had kept them from, and hitherto had letted, which, this sin of his being now by Christ first removed out of the way, they are then estated in; how fitly and suitably commensurated and proportioned each to other are these two.

And to this purpose you may further observe in this place (which is a second consideration), that the apostle doth here found that heavenly estate of ours to come merely upon that glory due to Christ, as the Lord from heaven, and this upon the sole and single consideration of the personal union of that human nature with the Godhead, and therein ordained a common person to us, and noted out by that other phrase, his being made a quickening Spirit; and that to us his elect, that we may be made in a conformity unto him, he being ordained to that union, and to that gloiy, as a public person, whenever he should fii-st assume it and be made man ; even as Adam, in his very first formation and creation, was made a public person. And in these very respects it is that Adam is here made his type, even before his fall, in his fii'st creation, as hath been declared. All which to me do more than hint, if not clearly evince, taking in all the former considerations with it, that this spiritual and heavenly estate which Christ now hath in heaven, and that personal union whereby he was made a quickening Spirit, was ordained and intended to Christ first, appointed as a public head; and so to the elect in him, before the consideration of the fall, and that simply and absolutely unto them, as considered in massa jmra; and so that Adam's fall, and sin, and death, and then thereupon Christ's death and work of redemption to remove these, came in in the order of God's decrees, and were appointed but as means to improve Christ, and to commend and set forth his love the more unto us, and also to render that condition to which we were primitively in Christ ordained the more illustrious and glorious by this deliverance. And so all Christ's work, until this spirituaHsing of our bodies, was but the taking out of the way (as the apostle's phrase is, Col. ii. 14) that which letted and was cast in as an impediment of this their first intended glory, which so breaks out from under this great eclipse with the more brightness and lustre.

That I may more distinctly explain this last consideration, you may

observe that in tliis part of the chapter, -wherein the apostle sets himself to prove what manner of bodies are ordained for us after the resurrection, he maketh the rise of that their state to be, not so much the death or resurrection of Christ, of -^-hich he makes no mention at all in this part of his discourse wherein he comes to speak thereof, but he allegeth, as the highest and primaiy foundation hereof, this ground, even the personal excellency and glory due unto Christ's human nature above that which was due to the first Adam before his fall, which he brings as the sole ground of this our intended gloiy, as being fu-st due unto Christ merely upon the consideration of his union with the Godhead, of which glory of Christ in heaven he brings in Adam's estate of innocency in paradise as the fittest type, which is expressed unto us under that phrase, as it hath been opened, ' He was made,' or appointed to be,' a quickening Spirit;' that is, the Godhead was appointed to become the life and quickener of an human nature, even as Adam was made a living soul; that is, to consist of a soul giving life to an earthly body, by virtue of which he instantly did become ' the Lord from heaven,' ver. 47 ; that is, the Lord of heaven ; to whom by inheritance, as to a lord, heaven and all the glory of it was due, and so he became ' an heavenly man,' as the expression also is. And then he being withal in and together with the ordaining him to this union with the Godhead, ordained to be a head unto us, hence it is that our bodies are to be made spiritual and heavenly like unto his. And this is the most ancient, primitive title in God's decree, that we have unto glor}', and therefore in this place only and alone alleged. And although it be trae that the very resurrection of our bodies, considered simply as it is the subduing that last enemy death (as the apostle speaks, ver. 26), is the fruit of Christ's resuiTcction as the cause of it; and therefore in that former part of the chapter the apostle argueth it from thence; yet still that at the resun-ection our souls and bodies shall be raised up to so glorious and spiritual a life, and that we should rise with such a kind of body as we had not before in Adam (which is made a distinct query by the apostle from the 35th verse), this, I say, is founded by the apostle here only upon that heavenly condition which Christ was ordained unto, and which was his due merely upon his \ery assuming an human nature, of which we his members were together with him ordained to bear the image. And thus to shew that he, and we in him, were ordained unto this estate before, or rather without the consideration of the fall, therefore it is Adam's state of innocency in his first formation is made the type of Christ's personal union, and so of that glory to which both he as a public person and we as his members are ordained.

Use 1. So then that which is the corollary from all is this, that the plot or order of God's decrees concerning Christ and us was thus laid in God's breast; that though unto Christ and us in him this glory was simply intended (for God looks unto the end of his works at first, and so fii'st to what he meant ultimately to raise Christ and us up unto, even that glory which we shall have in heaven), yet God withal decreeing in the way to this glory the fall of all mankind, and so of the elect to fall in Adam as well as others; therefore Christ, in the way to the execution or accomplishment of this original decree, was ordained for their sakes, and in respect to them, not to take on him first that glorious condition upon his first union with our nature, which yet was his due; but is said to condescend to come down from heaven, even as the Son of man (John vi. 38 and 62 compared), and to take on him frail flesh and the form of a servant instead hereof; and

that to this end, that he might first redeem us, his members, from under that misery which the fall had brought upon us ; and all this to this end, that by this means this glorious condition, both of his and ours, might be made the more illustrious. But then, after he should have taken out of the way that which hindered his members elected in him from the glory originally designed to them, and so should thus first have made up what Adam had spoiled, then should he himself first cast off that veil or condition of frail flesh, and endow the human nature with that spiritual state of body which was by a right of inheritance inseparably and immediately annexed to the personal union with the Godhead. And then, by virtue of this, when he raiseth up his members, he will bestow on them the like spiritual estate, which was also ordained them by an inheritance, in being members of him, as well as by the purchase of his death. And so we come to have a double title unto this glory: one by inheritance through our election in Christ, which is this original, primitive title, and before the consideration of any other in God's intention ; and another by the purchase of that death of Christ, which besides the restoring us out of that estate into which Adam's sin had plunged us, does by an overflow of merit purchase also this life unto us. Therefore, Eph. i. 14, this glory is called ' our inheritance,' as well as a ' purchased possession.' And when Christ hath thus raised us to this glory, then, and not till then, are we restored to what, at oTir first creation, we were ordained to; and then, and not till then, did God (as it were) account Christ to have been begotten—' This day have I begotten thee.'—It is spoken of him in respect of his human nature, and that when spiritualised at his resurrection ; and it is spoken by God, as if then first Christ were become that which he had primitively ordained him to be ; as if, not until that time ; and so God reckons him, as it were, then anew begotten, because not till then did Christ's condition answer, and become like to what, when he was first as man conceived in God's womb of election by his decree, he was appointed to be. And thus in like manner doth God reckon us to be such as he at first chose us to be when he chose us to be men, and primitively intended to make us in the end (and for which indeed he ordained to create us), not until we be raised to the like spiritiial glorified condition unto which, in and together with Christ, we together were ordained to be. And so, all that befell us in sinning, through Adam's fall, and all that thereupon befell Christ in assuming frail flesh, is to be looked at as to have been but in transitu, ' in the way' (as Ps. ex. hath it) to this intended glory; and to have been decreed, as also the elect's several conditions in this world are, as subordinate means appointed by God to make this his primitive and first-intended decree the more glorious, and, as it were, to add a deep shadow to it, so to set off" the lustre of it.

Use 2. Admire we at that which the angels stand aghast at, namely, the ' manifold wisdom of God in his manifestations ol himself,' as you have it Eph. iii, 10. That being one of God's ends of revealing this mystery of Christ, that the angels might see the ' manifold wisdom of God,' -rro/.u-c/V./Xo?, many ways various, by reason of those several ways God hath gone about to discover himself and his Son by. The story of the world, and of the creation of it, what a glorious contrivement was it, taken simply alone in itself; and how wonderfully did these visible things shew forth the invisible things of God, his wisdom, power, &c., and how proud were the wisest of the heathen of their contemplations and knowledge of its story, whiles they searched out the harmony and the secrets of this visible frame ! The angels, who were made the first day, as most conceive, with the heavens,

or the third day, as Piscator, whilst they stood by as spectators to behold how God, by degrees, finished this fabric, and out of the chaos drew the elements, the fii'st lines and ruder draught of all things visible, and then saw him proceed to garnish, embellish, and adorn those void spaces—the firmament with sun, moon, and lesser stars; the air with fowl; the earth with beasts, herbs, &c.; and the water with fishes ; and last of all, brought forth man, the Lord of all, and made him little lower than themselves, being crowned with glory and honour, and, as it were, the epitome of all—how did this chorus, or choir, shout out in joy and admiration at the end of every act and new day's work! Or to use the metaphor which God useth in Job xxxviii. 4-6, where he speaks in the language of an architect, to express how he reared this glorious frame ; W'hen he ' laid the foundation of the earth,' and took measure of all the proportions of every creature which he made in it, then (ver. 7) ' the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy ;' that is, the angels, who are called stars, because they arc the creatures appointed to live in the third heaven, their element, as fishes in the sea, and fowl in the air; and but stars, for there was a sun to rise would make them hide their faces, and pull in their beams, even Christ, before whose glory (for it is his glory spoken of Isa. vi., as appears by John x. 12) they cover their faces, as the stars, like tapers are put out before the sun. And they are called the morning stars, because they were up early, being created in the morning of the first day. He that is early up is in Latin called matutimis, and so in Hebrew. They both at the foundation, and at the finishing of this building, especially when they saw man brought in, the owner of all, shouted for joy, admiring at God's handiworks and wisdom manifested in them, God herein alluding to the custom of men, who, when they lay the foundation of a work, and especially at the finishing of some gi-eat building, have all their fiiends with acclamations and shoutings about them, as at the first stone of the temple laid, Ezra iii. 10, and Zech. iv. 7, the last stone was brought forth with joy and shouting, crying Grace, grace, to it. Just so was it here. And as a skilful and curious artist will stand looking upon the exquisite workmanship of some one part (suppose upon an eye or hand in a picture) many hours together with much delight, so did the angels greedily view every part of this world, admiring and praising God's artifice in it (which likewise God himself did, as delighting to see how good all was that he had made) ; and whilst they were doing so they might behold God, as if he had been displeased at the coarseness of this his work which he had drawn, sufier all to be dashed by one unwary stroke of the pencil, suffering his image in man to be razed, and this whole fi-ame subjected to vanity, confusion, and disorder ; which made them wonder, in that they surely thought that this was all the works of wonder that ever God meant to make, especially when they saw him at first rest fi'om all his works, and sit down as delighted in them, and to appoint a day for the memorial of them. They could not choose but wonder to see that God should throw so costly a piece away, being such a world as they could never imagine how a better could ever be framed ; and how great a God must they needs think him to be, that regarded not the loss and spoiling of such a world ! But, alas ! God had a further plot and platform of another Adam and another world in his head, whereof all this, though so perfect, was but the type and shadow, and of all which they knew not one tittle, nor had the least inkling ; therefore, Eph. iii. 9, it is called a ' mystery hid in God.' God had not spoken one word of it to them (as not of his temple to David). In comparison of which, this

world was but a stngo to act a part upon a while, and man, the lord of it, but as a king iu a plaj', a mere type and resemblance of another king, the King of glory, who, when he should bo brought into the world, these angels must all down upon their knees and worship. Themselves are but the stars, as Job calls them, and David too, in Ps. viii. 3, where he speaks (as was said) of Christ's world, and the creatures thereof, the angels, who become subjects of it, are but the stars, and the church the moon ; but there is no sun mentioned, for Christ himself is the sun, and the light thereof, before whom these stars were to lose their light, with which at best they do but twinkle. And when Christ and his world shall appear, then this ' moon shall be confounded, and this sun ashamed, when he shall reign in mount Sion, and before his ancients gloriously,' Isa. xxiv. 23. And how must this needs shew forth the manifold wisdom of God, that he hath plots beyond plots, though he begins with a ruder show at first, as in the making of the world, in which the wisdom that lies in it, taken simply by itself, how glorious is it! It is called ' the wisdom of God,' 1 Cor. i. 21. And if that even the heathen studied and admired this when without relation to God, when his wisdom in it was not discovered and discerned by them, how much more of wisdom saw the angels in it, who saw him that was the first mover and creator of all therein ! But there is yet a further mystery in the story of it, even a great mystery therein couched, the moral of all being, ' Christ the wisdom of God,' whom to illustrate, all the creatures are not suflicient to be similitudes, nor man, the glory and epitome of them, fit to be his type. Here is wisdom hid in wisdom, a mystery in a mystery, a world in a world. And all this world, and Adam the inhabiter of it, are but as the swaddling-clouts of him who was once a babe and lay in a manger.

CHAPTER X.

A more particular comparison between Adam and Jesus Christ in their persons. — llie formation of Adam's body by God's immediate hand, typifies the assumptio)i of the human nature by the Son of God, whose body was formed immediately by the Holy Ghost. — The union of soul and body in Adam typifies the hypostatical union. — In ichat there is an agreement in the comparison between them., icherein a disparity. — What teas the state of Adam's body : it comprised the perfections of all creatures; it teas suited to take in all the p)leasu.res and comforts which they could afford; it had a natural beauty in it; it was guarded from injuries, and uxis imrnortal, yet in its original it was but earth ; it depended on the creatures for its subsistence, and H'fls subject to many alterations. — To ichat a higher degree of glory the divine nature of Christ, united to the human, raised the body of Christ, as he is one uith God, and the Lord from heaven. — It ivas necessanj that the glory of his human nature should excel all creatures, even the angels themselves. — The glory of his body ivas illustrated by his transfiguration on the mount; and yet that fell short of the glory it has now in heaven.

Having thus in the general demonstrated Adam to have been Christ's type, I come now to lay the particulars together, wherein this typicalness consisted ; for the fitting of which each to other, as also concerning all other types, I will premise this rule, which I take to be safe and warrant-

able, that although, for what are types and what are not, as also for the general scope intended in them, we must find a special warrant by the Holy Ghost's own interpreting and applying of them, as hath been said ; yet so as, when once that scope is found, wc may, for the particulars wherein the types agree with the things typified, take liberty, as in all other similitudes, to enlarge them, and extend them as far, and to as many particulars, as the likeness will hold in, whilst that we keep to the analogy of that their general scope, although we have not an express word for each particular part wherein there seems to be a resemblance. For which rule there is both this reason and instance :

The reason is, because when God useth a similitude to any purpose, all parts of that similitude, wherein to spiritual reason it is evident they are alike, as well in what is not so expressly applied by the Holy Ghost already as in what is, they all are sanctified to resemble it, and are so intended, seeing that the similitude doth as readily and fully arise at the first blush in the one as in the other.

The instance I would give is in the interpretation of parables, in which this rule holds good. Now, Heb. ix. 9, the types of the old law are called parables : TJng craffaCoXi^, ' which was a parable ;' rendered by our translation, ' which was a figure.' Now concerning the interpretation of parables, you usually have the general scope annexed by Christ in them all, but no more; he leaving us, according to the analogy of faith, and of that scope given us as a pole-star to steer our course by therein, to apply the several particulars ourselves, according to that resemblance that unto spiritual reason doth appear. This rule, therefore, will I observe herein, and keep to it as sacred, not to make anything a type which the Holy Ghost hath not designed out for one, but in opening the similitude between such as he hath designed and the things signified, to take liberty for the fitting of particulars, without once sailing out of the sight of the general scope given, or applying the similitude of any particular to signify anything concerning Christ, which otherwise I have not authentic warrant for in the express letter of the word.

This rule thus premised, I descend to the particulars. Now the comparison lies in two things :

1. In respect of their own persons,

2. As they both are ordained public persons, to convey the likeness or image of their condition unto their posterity.

1. Their persons are compared ; and that,

(1.) In the substance whereof each consisted. Adam was a ' living soul,' that is, a reasonable soul, giving life to a body made of earth, and to live on earth ; not a soul simply, but a * living soul.' And that attribute of livinrf is given to soul, as it communicated life to that body into which it was inspired, Gen. ii. 7. And so, Christ was a ' Spirit' (or God), ' quickening' an human nature joined unto it. And that that was the nature assumed for the Godhead to quicken and give life unto, the apostle declares, ver. 47, calling him a ' man.'

(2.) In the infinitely differing conditions of their persons, or state of life which that human nature, by virtue of that union, must needs enjoy, transcending that which a soul could convey to a body of earth. This second comparison, namely, of their condition, is couched in these words, ' lirbirf,' ' quickeninr/,'' as that other of the substance of their persons in those words,-• soul,' * spirit,' ^ Now the first particular of this resemblance lies, as I take it, in compar-

iug the formation of Adam's body, and the union of Lis soul with it, w ith tho formation of Christ's human nature, and the hypostatical union of it with tho divine, which is tho foundation of all that Christ as a public person did for us.

For, first, this being tho first formation of Adam, by which he became a man, must needs typify out tho first formation and assumption of our nature by Christ, by which he became a man.

And, secondly, the thing compared is the one's becoming a living soul, and the other's being a quickening Spirit, which notes out a comparison of their natures or substances. Adam was made soul when into his body the rational soul was inspired, which, being united to it, used it as an instrument to perform the functions of that life which it led on earth. But Christ became a quickening Spirit when his Godhead assumed the human nature to work and dwell in it, and to glorify it. And the apostle calls the whole person of Adam now made by that which was most excellent in it, the soul: mens ciijnsque qidsque est. And so, the person of Christ made man is, by that which is most excellent in that person. Spirit, or the Godhead, which is the foundation of all that which Christ is made unto us.

Thirdly, That his scope is, by Adam's formation, to signify the assumption of the human nature by the Godhead, appears by ver. 47, where he calls the first man, Adam, but mere man, ' the first man,' &c.; but he calls Christ as ' the second man,' so ' the Lord' (namely, God) also, as being become God and man. Therefore we may warrantably conclude that to be the first thing typified by Adam's creation. Let us now see how they agree.

The first making of Adam a man is described in two things :

1. The forming of his bod}'.

2. The breathing in, and uniting the soul unto it, which, together united, do make up one person. Now, the forming of Adam's body doth clearly typify out the formation of Christ's human nature assumed, which whole nature is accordingly called his body ; for so, comparatively to the Godhead, it may be called. Thus, Heb. x. 5, * A body hast thou fitted me,' (that is, an human nature), says Christ there of his coming into the world. And the agreement lies in two things :

(1.) Adam's body and Christ's do agree in this, that Adam's body was immediately formed by God himself, without man's help, he being the first man. It was God who fashioned his body, whereas it is vis plastica, the formative faculty, that doth it in ours begotten of him. And so Christ's body assumed is also said, Heb. ix. 11, to be a 'tabernacle not made with hands ;' not by the help of any creature, not by generation, as ours is, but immediately by God.

And, (2dly,) as God formed the body of Adam, even as a potter doth mould or fashion his clay (as the word denotes), and as God did this immediately, even so the Holy Ghost did Christ's body. That word in Heb. X. 5, which we translate 'fitted me,' signifies also to articulate, or form joint by joint [xaTri^ricfoj); and the Hebrew words in Psalm xl. (from whence this is taken), which we translate,' My ear hast thou bored through,' as having allusion unto the servants under the old law. Genebrard says that the ear is by a synecdoche put for the whole body; and that which we translate perfodisti, is rather foclicasti, to fashion with the hand as a potter doth; and so the apostle renders it, ' a body hast thou formed (or fitted) me.' The Holy Ghost therein supplied that which the plastic faculty doth in our conception, consisting partly in the seed of the man,

nnd partly in the nature of the womb; and this that so Christ might be born without sin.

Therefore, (3dly,) as Adam was without father and mother, so was Christ also; who, Heb. vii. 4, is therein made like unto Melchisedec ; but he is much more like to Adam, who herein was a more perfect type of Christ than Melchisedec was ; for Melchisedec having no fiither nor mother, was not that he had none indeed, but that in Scripture none were recorded, as appears by ver. 6. But Adam really had no man to his father nor woman to his mother; he was not born from the conjunction of man and woman, which Melchisedec was.

(4.) Fourthly, As Adam was in a peculiar manner, in respect of his formation, the son of God, and that in such a respect as other men are not— for, Luke iii., whereas others are in that genealogy said to be the sons of such and such men, as Enoch the son of Seth, and Seth of Adam, Adam is said to be the son of God, ver. 38, because he was his son by immediate creation, which they were not, who yet in another respect, namely, as they were elect, were adopted sons of God—this typified that Christ, even as having assumed an human nature, was in a transcendent manner God's Son, even as he was man he was God's natural (not adopted) Son; for else there had been two relations of sonship in that person, the person being the subject of that relation, not the nature. So Luke i. 35, because * the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee: therefore that holy thing which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God,' that is, so the Son, as no man else : ' the only begotten Son of God,' John iii. 16.

2. In the second place, the uniting of the soul and body together (which was done at that breathing of life into him) so as they both made one man, and the first Adam so became a living soul, this of all things doth the most lively set forth the hypostatical union of the divine and human nature. And so I find all divines acknowledge that the nearest instance that can in nature be found of this mystery is therein held forth. And therefore, 1 Pet. iii. 18, the human nature of Christ is called flesh, and the divine nature spirit, which in the very naming of it seems to bear an allusion to the soul or spirit in man, conjoined with his body and flesh. And it seems a fair interpretation which is given by some of that place, * the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily;' that is, by a more near and firm union than a man's soul doth in his body, as speaking by way of similitude to illustrate this. And so I find the schoolmen labouring much to shew how nearly this instance resembles it; as Thom. Aqu. lib. iv. cont. gent. cap. 41; and Athanasius in his very creed taketh up this similitude of all others to express it. But I did not think to have found such a ground in the word to have made this the type of it as this place holds forth.

For, first, considering the distance that is between the reasonable soul (a spirit immortal, more glorious than the sun, but a step inferior to the angels, bearing God's image in its substance and faculties, and capable of holiness) and a piece of earth, that that should dwell in and inform this, the conjoining of two such extremes best resembled the union of the divine nature with the human, God with man. The angels they are spirits without bodies, and the souls of beasts are but earthly like the bodies which they inform, and indeed the spirits of elements only.

Secondhj, The nearness of their union does yet further help to resemble it; for this soul dwells not in bodies, as a man in a house, or as angels did in bodies assumed, to move them, &c,, but is conjoined to them as a

form, that together with the body makes up a person ; whereas the souls of beasts, though they make a nature, yet not a person. And as tho rational soul's union, so this union of God and man makes one Christ, one person.

Thirdly, The supereminent manner of subsisting that this soul hath in the body, is the highest resemblance of that of the Godhead in an human nature. Other souls have their being fi'om the matter ; they are extracted out of its passive power, as spirits of wine are out of wine; but this is God's breath, and is from without. And in the body it is semi-persona, it is not that only quo subsistit, but quod. Other forms are but principles of the whole ; this is more. It can of itself subsist, only whilst it is in the body it subsists after another manner, namely, in a body. Therefore men's souls are said to ' give an account for what was done in the body.' And it can subsist when severed from the body, which the souls of beasts cannot, Eccles. xii. 7. It, moreover, bears the name of the whole. Therefore Christ, arguing the immortality of the soul, saith that Abraham is alive ; that is, the soul of Abraham, for * God is the God of the living,' &c. Thus the second person is a person of himself, who subsisted before a body was assumed. * Before Abraham was I am ;' and when this person subsists in the human nature, it is the same subsistence that was before, only he takes a body up unto himself to partake of his subsistence.

Fourthly, As the body is but the soul's instrument, its members are called u-eapons or tools he acts by. Eom. vi. 13, ' Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin : but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God,' And the sheath thereof: Dan. vii, 15, * I Daniel was grieved in my spirit in the midst of my body, and the visions of my head troubled me.' And its house of clay : Job iv. 19, ' How much less on them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth.' Such is this assumed body unto the Godhead, which many interpret that place of, * The flesh profiteth nothing, but the Spirit quickeneth,' John vi. 63. And the thing is a truth, though there is another meaning given of the words.

Fifthly, As these two remain distinct—the soul is one thing, and the body another—so do the two natures in Christ.

Sixthly, As the soul hath faculties and actions distinct from those of the body—the body hath its appetite, which we call the sensitive ; the soul a distinct appetite, which we call rational, the will—so the divine nature in Christ hath powers and operations distinct and severed from those of his human. The will of the human nature is distinct from the divine.

But yet this comparison is not without a world of difference in these two ; for.

First, The Godhead and the human nature are not as two parts of that person, as the soul and body are of a man ; for though the soul be of itself a subsistence, yet it is ordained to be a part of the man, and hath not its full and natural perfection and intended state, without union with the body. And although, in respect of holiness, ' the spirits of just men' departed are said to be ' perfect,' Heb. xii. 23, yet in respect of God's ordination to a conjunction with the body, they are not for happiness so perfect as when again united to the body. But the Son of God was as perfect afore assuming man's nature as after, and nothing of perfection is added unto him thereby. And if we could now suppose a separation, he should lose none

of his perfectiou thereby, being of himself ' God blessed,' aud so perfect in himself, ' for ever.'

Secondly, Man is a third thing different from his soul and body, though made up of both ; but it is not so here, the person of Christ is God, and the person of Christ is man.

Thirdhj, The soul, though it can subsist without the body, yet did not alone subsist before it was joined to the body. But the divinity of Christ was from all eternity, and was then as perfect without this human nature assumed as now it is. He is the person, and the human nature but an adjunct of it, and perfected by it.

Fourthly, This hypostatical union is more intimate than that of the soul and body. For we cannot say of man that he is the soul or the body, but the Son of God assuming our nature, may properly and truly be called both God and man.

Fifthly, The soul and body may be and are severed, but so cannot Christ's divine and human nature be. No ; nor were they in death; but when Chi-ist was in the grave, that union held.

Thus you have seen a comparison made between the person of Adam, singly considered in his being made up of soul and body united, to make one person, and the person of Christ singly considered as God and man in one person also.

I come now to the second head, which is the conveyance of an image by each of these persons to the posterity of each of them, and the different manner of conveying it.

And as to that point, the text in 1 Cor. xv. 45, 46, shews the eminently transcendent difference held by God between these two : 1. That Adam conveys his image as a living soul; and by virtue of that conveyance, we are merely made living souls ourselves, such as Adam was. We have barely that animal life conveyed. Thus all those that came of Adam were to be, in likeness to him, living souls. But Christ conveys his image and heavenly life and state, as a ' quickening Spirit,' viz., the same life which Christ himself hath. So that there is a different manner of these two conveyances of life. The one, that of Adam, is by natural generation, to make us men hke himself. But Christ's conveyance is by immediate quickening and causation of his new life. And therein there is this difference between Adam's conveyance to his members and Christ's to us, that Christ, ' the Lord from heaven,' is alone that ' quickening Spirit,' and we are not to become quickening spirits to others. We are quickened, not quickencrs ; we are not made living souls ourselves to others, as in Adam his sons were : God ' blessed them to multiply,' Gen. i. 28. But the hoHest men that ever were could never convey the new birth and life to any; Abraham could not to Ishmael, for it goes not by the will of man: John i. 13, 'Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.' And this is to be understood not only of Christ's quickening at the resurrection, though that only be here spoken of, but that of our first birth is called a ' quickening us together with Chi-ist' as the sole author of it: Eph. ii. 5, ' Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ; (by grace ye are saved).' And in that respect for, and by the same reason, that Christ is a quickening Spirit at the resurrection of our bodies, which was there the particular subject of the apostle's discourse in 1 Cor. xv. 45, 46, is Christ the quickening Spirit at our first conversion; and it is answerably termed a resurrection: Col. ii. 12, • Buried with him in baptism, wherein also you are risen with him through

the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.' And this is a work of no less power than the other of raising our bodies at last. And Christ is expressly termed that Spirit which quickens us, and changcth us into his image : 2 Cor. iii. 17th and 18th verses compared, ' Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' It is spoken of Christ: ' The Lord is that Spirit,' ver. 17. The diflference is in this (as the very words here do shew), that it is Chi-ist's prerogative to have life in himself, as the Father hath, and we are to live by him. And as the personal union in Christ and this his prerogative are inseparable, it cannot be communicated unto others.

Only this is to be understood, that the same image in that 2 Cor. iii. 18 is as to a likeness in qualities, and a similitude of what is in Christ, according to the sphere and proportion of that union which is our lot to have in subordination under him, and which, in a next degree unto him, is to be conveyed to us, both as to our souls and bodies.

Christ's and Adam's communication in this respect are as vastly different as the communication of light from a candle to another, and the derivation of light from the sun to the moon and stars. The communication of light from one candle or torch to another, sets the torch or candle lighted in as full a condition of light, and to propagate light to other torches, as itself hath; and so it is that we are made living souls from him who was a living soul as fully as himself, both for ourselves and others our children. But Christ, he communicates light and life to us, as the sun doth to the moon and stars ; he makes them light and bright with that light which is in himself, but he makes them not to be suns as himself is. There is but one sun still, the fountain of light and the quickener of all things.

I might enlarge, to shew that likeness we shall have with Christ in glory, both in all sorts of quahfications of soul as well as body. But I shall, by way of infei'ence from the lesser, argue to the greater, and so pursue only the glory our bodies shall then have from the glorious body of Christ. And it is the proper argument of this 1 Cor. xv. to shew the vastly differing state of Adam's body, as enlivened by a reasonable soul, and that of the glory of Christ's body as then in heaven, unto which ours are in heavenly qualifications and endowments to be conformed at the resurrection. Our bodies are the 'vile' part of us, as Paul terms them, Phil. iii. 21, which yet Christ will conform to his most glorious body; and he speaks this to the end that from the instance of this body we may infer from that honour which the vilest part hath, what glorious and heavenly spiritualised souls we shall have, and that by Christ, when we are glorified together with him in heaven.

In handling of this, I am to perform three things : to shew,

1. "What was the state of Adam's body when he was made a living soul, that is, had a reasonable soul that dwelt in his body.

2. How glorious the body, the human nature, of Chi'ist was, being quickened by the Godhead, the glory of Adam's body, and his soul dwelling in it, being a type of the glory of the Godhead dwelling in the human nature.

3. That our bodies they were made and intended by God to be conformed unto Christ's body and human nature in that his glory heavenly.

1. For the first, will you take Adam's body as it had a reasonable soul

joined to it, and in the dignity it was thereby raised unto at the first creation ? The body of Adam taken thus, with the reasonable soul dwelling in it, abstracting and cutting off the image of God which yet dwelt in it, for that is a fourth thing to be handled, it had,

(1.) All the world in it subjective, and it had all the world in it objective; that is, there is no excellency that is in the world which he had not in him inherent. Nor is there any excellency or comfort in the world but he had something in him to take it in suited to it, and to take comfort from it.

He had, first, all excellencies in him subjectively. There is no perfection in any creature but it is in man, that is certain. In his soul he partakes with the angels. In his body, and the actions of it, and the perfections of it, he is the epitome, the sum of all the world; he is called therefore a little world. The poets did feign, and they said well in it, only the story they tell is a fiction. When man was made, say they, then did God take a piece out of every creature, and make man out of it. The thing hath a truth in it; not that God indeed did take out of every creature a piece, but he framed up man in an answerable excellency to what is in any of the creatures: ' Preach the gospel,' saith Christ, ' unto every creature,' Mark xvi. 15 ; that is, to men, for man is every creature.

Then, secondhj, the body of Adam, as it had this reasonable soul dwelling in it, it was fitted and suited to take in comfort from all things in the world. It was capable of all the comforts in this world; and of them above, some taste of them. His soul could look up to heaven, to God; his body, his senses, were suited to the creatures. This is a certain truth, there is no creature, but go take the original institution of it, and it did some way serve for the comfort of man. And look as the eye is fitted to colours, so there is something in man, in his body, suited to every creature, in the original constitution of them. There is no creature but there is something in man to answer it, and to take comfort fi'om it, or an use in some way of it for man's help. And there is nothing in man but there is some creature made to answer to it. In a word, there is nothing that is in this life, that we behold with our eyes or hear with our ears, nothing in this world, but was some way suited to something in the nature of man to make use of, to have benefit hy. And was not this a great gloiy and dignity that was given to Adam's soul, living in such a poor tabernacle of dust and ashes, that it should have a whole world made for it, suited to it ? And thus glorious a creature was man in his first creation.

(2.) Go take the beauty that God stamped upon man. The beauty which we have now ariseth as from our garments, from our clothing, but the beauty that Adam's body had then, it was innate ; therefore it is said, they ' knew not that they were naked,' Gen. ii. 25. Christ saith that the lilies are clothed better than Solomon was in all his royalty, Mat. vi. 28, 29. What is the reason of it ? Because Solomon in all his royalty he was beholden to the silkworm, beholden to his clothes ; beholden to the earth, or rivers, wherein the veins of gold do run, for the golden crown he wore upon his head, and for the precious stones that were in that crown ; but the lilies wear their own glory about them, it is innate in them. So now there was a beauty in Adam and Eve innate, inherent in them, which was their glory and their excellency, and they had that then which all the kings of the earth in all their royalty, and all the beauties of the world put in one, have not now.

(3.) This body which Adam's soul did dwell in, was made free from all hurt from all the creatures without him. You use to say of some men's bodies, that they are shot-free ; why, Adam was shot-free, as I may say,

from fill hurt from tlic creatures. There was not a gnat to sting hlin, or a flea (I instance in these lower creatures, to exemplify how free he was from all evil) ; therefore, though ho lived in a hot country, for paradise was seated near Babylon, a very hot climate, yet he could sleep quietly; though naked, ho was exposed neither to sun or weather, to have received any hurt from thence, for ho was naked, and he had as great a comfort in his life that way, and a freedom from all injury, infinitely more than we have now. He had no sickness, nor no diseases, nor no suffering of any kind.

(4.) His body had immortality, it should never have died, for in Rom. V. 15 it is said, that * death entered by sin ;' and therefore, if he had not sinned, he should not have died. These were the perfections of Adam's bod}', as it was first created. He had a world made for him ; he had a world in him. He was free from all evil, free from pain. He was immortal ; that soul of his, dwelling in that body, should never have been parted. And he had that native original beauty, which putteth do\An all the additions of any kind, whereby man now acquircth a beauty to himself. These, I say, were the privileges of that body, which, by the reasonable soul of Adam having the image of God, it was raised up to, by the union of that soul to that body ; and he should have conveyed this to all his posterity, as a public person.

Yea, but now let me tell you also, how short it fell of that spiritual body which Jesus Christ, the second Adam, bringeth with him, whereof this body of Adam's was but a type ; and so you shall see what will lose it, notwithstanding it was thus perfect.

(1.) For the original of this body, it was but an animal body, it was but earth ; and all the senses in the body, and whatever was in the body, and the soul, as it was joined to this body, and working by the body, and in the body, was but earth. It had actions as a soul, which it works, without the help of the body outward, toward God; but the actions which it wrought in the body, they were all but earthy, suited to earthy things. The first man is of the earth earthy, and is no better. The apostle in this, 1 Cor. XV. 46, 47, &c., you see, speaks of Adam at his best. If you take his corporeal state, as the reasonable soul did work and did dwell in his body, he speaks merely, you see, of it; and as he called the law ' the beggarly rudiments of the world' in comparison of the gospel, so saith he, this state of Adam's body, though it had this soul in it, it was but earthy, and it was suited to take comfort from earthly things, if you take the animal and bodil}'-state of it. In Philip, iii. 21, we translate it, ' our vile bodies ;' but the truth is, in the original it is, our 'humble bodies,' our 'mean bodies,' that depend upon, and are beholding unto, eating and drinking, and the actions that follow thereupon, which humble them and lower them : Luke i. 48, ' He had regard to the louiiness of his handmaid ;' it is the same word we translate vile bodies, the lowhness of our bodies, or our mean bodies, whose life and subsistence depends upon such mean actions as we do, and poor creatures without us ; and Adam did so too. His body was an earthly body, that had such earthly actions as these are.

(2.) His body, though it was not exposed to hurt or injuries, yet it was in a dependence upon creatures ; it depended upon meat, and drink, and sleep, and upon all such things to uphold itself.

(3.) Though it was not subject to dying, yet it was subject to many alterations. If Adam had begotten a child, it would have been Httle when it had been born ; it must have grown in augmentation. He was subject to expense of spirits, to weariness, and therefore refreshed himself by sleep

and by meats ; so as though he had not a decay in the whole by death, yet he had a decay in the parts which was supplied and renewed again ; even as we now have not the same bodies we had when we were first born, for our spirits waste, and our blood wastes, and new comes in the room. It is the same body indeed, because it hath the soul, yet notwithstanding there is a wasting; so there was in his. A man eateth more in a year than his own bulk over and over again. Why ? Because he wasteth and spendeth ; there is a partial alteration still; and so it was in Adam.

(4.) It is true he was immortal, as it is in Rom. viii. 10, 11, ' The body is dead because of sin ;' that is, the reason W'hy the body shall die is, because of sin. Had not man sinned, he should not have died ; therefore, Adam having no sin, he was immortal. And it is clear he speaks of natural bodies in that place. I will give you two reasons for it, because it is controverted. He saith, ' The body is dead for sin,' or ' because of sin.' If he had spoken of the body of sin, he would not have used that phrase, ' It is dead, because of sin,' for itself was dead in sin ; therefore he meaneth a natural body, for the death cometh only by sin. And that he speaks of the natural body is clear also ; for in ver. 11 he saith that ' God shall quicken, when he shall raise up our mortal bodies :' he speaks, therefore, of the mortal body. Now, my brethren, the temper of the elements in us are unequal; as we have ' warring in our lusts,' as James saith, James iv. 1, ' in our souls,' so there is a warring in the elements in our bodies. There are contrary factions in every man's body. There is fire against water, and water against fire (for we are made up of the elements), and ' a kingdom divided within itself cannot stand ;' and that is the reason why all men die. Whereas, in Adam's body in innocency, the elements were so poised that he should never have died, God did so temper them, so poise them. We do find this in experience, in monuments that have been digged up in those places where the Romans have died, that there have been urns digged up, in which they have made a perpetual lamp in a double glass, a continued flame that was fed with oil, that hath lasted even to this day. Such a perpetual lamp was the radical moisture in Adam ; and if man was able to make a perpetual flame, God was able to make it much more ; and so he did in Adam's body.

Yet though his body was thus immortal, it was not immortal by virtue of its own principles; his immortality was not natural to him, for he had the four elements in him, the one fighting against the other; and had it not been for a promise that God would poise them, it would in the end have wrought old age and death. His immortality was natural indeed, as a natm-al due to such a creature created in God's image, while he stood in that state, but it was not natural, as arising from the principles of nature, and from the natural constitution that was in his body, but the contrary. Rather it was God's promise, ' Do this and thou shalt live,' and his protection over him, that made him immortal. Our divines use to say this, that Adam had a posse non mori, that he could not have died, but he had not a non posse mori; that is, he had not such a principle as that no way he could die ; for he might die and he might live, as he might sin and he might not sin, he had but a conditional immortality ; he was not indeed moriturus, but he was viortalis; he should not have died for the act, but take the power, and he might have died. There was a possibility of Adam's being killed if he had fallen off from on high, as well as any of us; only the promise was, that God would keep him by his providence, and therein lay his immortality ; and he had the tree of life to eat of, for to

repair nature, and so to live for ever. It is not natural to the body of man to live for ever, for the contrary elements would bring a man to ruin; nor was it in the power of the soul to keep the body ; it was not like salt to keep the body from corruption or putrefaction ; but, as I said afore, it was the promise of God did it, that if he did thus and thus he would protect him and keep him, he should live ; and that it was by virtue of the promise of God that he was thus immortal is clear by this, that the sacrament of the tree of life did seal up this promise. He might eat of that tree of life, and it was a sacrament to him that he lived by promise of God, that said, ' Do this and thou shalt live.' So as, if you ask whether immortality was natural to Adam ? I answer, It was natural in this respect, it was a due to that condition according to the covenant of works; it was a suitable promise, and a due promise to man in that condition ; but it was not natural in that respect, as arising out of the principles of his own nature ; for neither could the body have kept itself immortal, nor could the soul have kept that body immortal; the temperature of his body would never of itself and its own mixture been so equally poised, but it would have been ruinated ; only he was under God's protection, he was under God's promise, he was under the covenant of the tree of life, and so he should have been immortal. And to me this is clearly hinted in these ■words, ' Thou art dust,' saith he ; that is, in that thou art not fallen to dust again, it doth not arise from the constitution of thy original, for thou art but a dust-heap, and thou wilt easily mould and fall to nothing, it is easy for dust to return to dust; but it is my protection that hath kept thee from falling to dust; and therefore the Lord saith, ' Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return;' I will now withdraw this promise of protection from thee, and then to dust thou shalt return. Which evidently implieth, that he was not immortal from the union of soul and body, or from the constitution of his own body, but that the covenant of works, to which the promise was made that was everlastingly to keep him, so he was immortal.

Here is the state of Adam's body, and so I have despatched the first thing that I was to do, namely, to shew you what was the state of Adam's body in his first creation, when he was made a living soul.

2. I am, secondly, to shew you unto what a glorious state and condition the union of the Godhead must needs raise up the body of Christ when he had performed the work of redemption (for that is the apostle's scope here), that as the soul of Adam did advance a poor piece of clay to so high and great a dignity, as the body of a man is advanced by the soul joined to it, and did so ennoble it that it hath all things under it, hath all this world made for it, and suited to it, and itself was the compendiwn and epitome of the world (as you have heard), and what a great deal of difference there is between the body of a man having a reasonable soul joined to it, and dwelling in it, and the body of a beast, you all know. Answerably, and in a proportion infinitely greater; for the first Adam was but a type and an imperfect shadow of the second Adam ; if that the Godhead shall become to a human nature that which the soul was unto Adam's body, will be the height and dignity unto which the Godhead will raise that human nature. If, saith the apostle, the first Adam was a living soul; that is, if that reasonable soul which Adam had created for him, and put into his body, upon which God stamped his image, did so enliven a body of earth, raise it to such a glorious condition, all which was but a type and an imperfect shadow of something more perfect to come, then, saith he, the second

Adam must be a quickening Spirit; and by Spirit be meanetb tbe God-bead of tbe Son of God, whicb did quicken or communicate a glory suitable (it must needs do so) unto tbe buman nature it assumed. To wbat a glorious life tben must tbat buman nature be ordained, unto wbicb tbe Godbead becometb, as it were, tbe soul, and is a quickening Spirit ?

Now to sbew you wbat tbat state of body is tbat Jesus Cbrist is to bave, and batb in beaven, and is due unto bim by virtue of tbe union of tbe buman nature witb tbe Godbead, I sball only give you wbat arguments tbe text affordetb. And tbere are tbree tbings in tbe text from wbicb it may be argued, wbicb indeed do all tbree come unto one, yet tbere is by way of argument sometbing distinct in tbem all.

First, Tbe apostle argues it from tbe inhabitation of tbe Godbead in tbe body and buman nature of Cbrist, tbat it is united to a Spii'it, to tbe Godbead, tbat sball quicken it and raise it up to a proportion suitable to itself. And bis argument, as I bave said, lies tbus : If tbat a poor reasonable soul, created by God, baving tbe image of God upon it, raised up Adam's body to sucb a state, wbat sball tbe Spirit, tbe Godbead, raise up tbe body of Cbrist unto ! For you must keep a proportion between tbe one and tbe otber, Tbe union between tbe buman nature of Cbrist and bis Godbead is nearer and stricter than tbe union of tbe body and soul, and doth tbere-fore require in a proportion tbat tbat buman nature, tbe very body of Cbrist, should be advanced to a state suitable. Adam, saitb be, was a living soul, but Cbrist is a quickening Spirit.

I sball give you a wild similitude, but indeed I do not know wbat similitude else to use, and I do it merely for illustration's sake. Suppose tbe sun bad a ciystal case round about it, and tbere were a poor mean candle in a lantern, wbat a world of diflerence would tbere be between tbe glory of tbe sun shining through this crystal case, and the light that the candle doth diffuse through that poor lantern ! Just thus, even in this proportion, and infinitely greater, must tbe difference be between wbat Adam's soul raised the lantern of his body unto, when it dwelt in it, and shined in it, and through it, and that advancement that the Godbead, tbe fulness of tbe Godhead, dwelling bodily or personally in tbe human nature of Chiist, raised up bis body unto.

God bath made here a world, and God batb stamped a great deal of his glory upon it; but if we could suppose that which Plato and other philosophers supposed, that God was the soul of this world, what a world of glory must this world needs bave beyond wbat it now batb ! Even as much as the dead carcase of a man hath when the soul comes into it, from wbat it had when it was a dead carcase. "Why, but, my brethren, God bath made a little world, and that is the human nature of Cbrist, and he himself bath become the very soul of it; and there is not only the manifestation of tbe tbings of God, as there is in tbe world, but there is God manifested in tbat human nature.

I shall exemplify it unto you further, thus : there is a glorious redemption to come of the sous of God. And in Rom. viii, 19, 20, the apostle tells us tbat ' tbe whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,' to be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of tbe children of God. ' For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for tbe manifestation of the sons of God. For tbe creature was made subject to vanity ; not willingly, but by reason of him who bath subjected tbe same in hope.' Now mark, see bow be reasoneth ; when tbe saints shall be in their ruff and glory, for their sakes, and to gi-ace their coming into

the world at latter day of judgment, tliis world shall be new hung; and all the glory that is now, it will vanish and bo nothing in comparison of that glory the glorious liberty of the sons of God shall make the world partakers of, and that God shall do for their sakes. Shall the world be thus made glorious by the coming of the people of God into it, when they are in their glory at latter day ? how much more glorious must the human nature of Christ be made, when the Godhead shall put forth a full glory in it, whenas that human nature shall be made partaker of the glorious liberty of the Godhead and of the Son of God !

Christ himself saith, that ' those that live in king's courts are clothed in costly raiment.' My brethren, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, he was to be • God's fellow,' Zech. xiii. 7. If he be God's fellow—and to come so near him, nearer than all the angels, and to converse continually with God in the greatest nearness that can be (for he is united to the Godhead)—he must have costly raiment, for his body is but raiment, and it shall be made a glorious body ; for he is to be God's fellow, therefore he shall wear, and doth wear, a glorious body in heaven. That is the first argument.

Secondhj, The apostle telleth us that he is the Lord, 1 Cor. xv. ver. 47. And therefore this human nature is to be advanced above all the angels, and to be worshipped by all the angels ; ' Let all the angels of God worship him,' Heb. i. G. Therefore his body is to be raised up to a condition^ above angels. You may judge what is due to the body of Christ, by this : go take his body when it lay in the grave ; his soul was then out of it; yet notwithstanding, then, when it was in the grave, the Son of God was personally united to that body, or otherwise Christ had not been said to be buried (as he is said to be in the Creed). When that body was in the grave, the angels came into the grave to worship him ; it was his due that they should do so. Mary likewise, when he was in the grave (at least as she thought), she called him Lord ; ' Where have they laid my Lord?' saith she. She meaneth his body. Now therefore, this human nature of his, body and soul thus united together, is made higher than the heavens, saith the seventh to the Hebrews ver. 26. It is said of us, that we shall be like the angels ; he is above the angels, his body is not turned into a spirit, but is made spiritual. And this must needs be because he is the Lord: his human nature, body and soul, is Lord above angels ; therefore must have a condition raised up to a greater glory than theirs is. And then,

Thirdly, By virtue of this union of the human natm-e with the Godhead, he is «the Lord from heaven'; mark the words, it is a strange speech that he should be called the Lord from heaven. Was ever the human nature of Christ there ? No ; not till such time as he did ascend. Upon this place many have said, and been deceived with it, that Jesus Christ had a human nature in heaven before the world was, and that he came down from heaven into the virgin by an elapse. No ; that is not the meaning of the place, my brethren, to shew that his human nature had its original from heaven, in respect of the matter of it, for then he had not took the seed of the virgin, he had not took the seed of Abraham, and so had not been that proportioned Redeemer to save us which the Scripture telleth us he was. What is the meaning then of this, that he is the Lord from heaven, speaking of him as he is man ? And in John iii. 13, * No man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that is come down from heaven, even the Son of man' (he speaks of himself as man) ' who is in heaven.' He never came down from heaven, in respect of taking his body there, and so came into

the womb of the virgin. How is he then said, as he is the Son of man, to be the Lord of heaven, and to come down from heaven ? My brethren, the riddle is opened thus : that ye take what was his due ; when that Son of God should take a human nature, his right it was to be in heaven the very first moment; and therefore, if he take human nature with the frailties of it, this is to condescend from what is due to that human nature thus assumed, so as indeed, my brethren, all the glory that he hath now in heaven is connatural to him. It was suspended indeed for our redemption ; he was ordained to take the likeness of sinful flesh, as the apostle saith, that he might redeem us, and till such time as that was finished he did suspend himself and his right; for he should never have set his foot upon this earth, according to what is his due, if he would assume human nature ; and therefore, because he did condescend from this due of his, he is said to be the Lord from heaven, and to come down from heaven. Now hence it cometh to pass, that it being his due, as he is the Son of God, for to be in heaven, the human nature that he assumed must one day be made heavenly, though it be suspended a while for man's redemption; and when he hath done that work, it must be made heavenly by virtue of this very union of the Son of God ; his body must up to heaven and be made like to the heavens. ' Flesh and blood it cannot inherit the kingdom of God,' it will not bear it. Adam therefore, because he was not in himself ordained to go to heaven, he had but an earthly body; that is, his reasonable soul dwelt in a body suitable to this earth ; but this man Christ Jesus, saith he, is an heavenly man. And however for our sakes he took the frailties of flesh and blood, yet his due is to be in heaven; hence therefore (here lies the apostle's argument) he must have an heavenly body. Why ? Because that every nature hath a body suited to the place it Hveth in : ' There is one kind of flesh of beasts, and another of fishes, and another of birds.' Why ? Because they live in several elements. Fishes they live in the water, therefore they have bodies suited to that watery element they live in ; beasts and birds, they living here in the earth and in the air, they have bodies suited likewise to those elements they live in. Hence, saith he, if Jesus Christ be to be the heavenly man, if he be the Lord from heaven when he goeth up to heaven, his body must be made like the heavens; therefore he must have a spiritual body.

And so now you have the three reasons couched in the text, why that Jesus Christ being a quickening Spirit, that is, a God that quickeneth the human nature, that human nature must needs be made spiritual, and raised up (even his very body) to a heavenly state and condition.

Now I will give you but one instance, because if I should lay open all that concerneth the body of Jesus Christ, and the glory of it, it would ask a long time. I will therefore single out but one instance which he himself did give, to shew how glorious his body should be one day, and I will but argue from that to the glory he hath now in heaven.

The instance I shall give you is, that of the transfiguration of his body upon the mount, that you read of in Mat. xvii. 1, and so on, and in Mark ix. 2, &c., and in Luke ix. 48 ; which yet was but a mere transient flushing of the glory of the Godhead appearing in him. You shall read there, that he was transfigured before those three great apostles, Peter, James, and John, and that ' his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light,' and there did converse with him in their bodies, ' Moses and Elias, appearing in glory with him.' And what was this, but to bring down heaven a little to earth, to make a masque, a show of it ? It was to

shew what glory the body of Jesus Christ should have in his kingdom. That that is his scope in this transfiguration is most clear and evident; for if you read the preface to this story in all the three evangelists, you shall find it in them all to be this, ' The Sou of man shall come in the glory of his Father ; and then he shall reward every one according to his works. Verily I say unto you. There be some standing here which shall not see death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.' When he had told them what a great glory he shall come in at latter day, saith he, There be some of you here shall see a glimpse of it. And hence, in relation to this promise, ' after six days,' saith Matthew and Mark ; ' about an eight days after,' saith Luke (namely, after the mention of that promise); * he taketh Peter, and James, and John, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,' and there he fulfilled his promise, giving them a glimpse of the glory of that kingdom of his which he had spoken of. And hence now, both Moses and Elias they do accompany him, and they do accompany him in that glory which they shall have at latter day ; for Luke telleth us, * They appeared with him in glory.' And that this is the meaning too, is plain by what Peter saith of it in 2 Peter i. 16 : ' We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eye-witnesses of his majesty. For he received from God the Father honour and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.' It is clear he speaks of this transfiguration of Christ, and he makes it an instance of that glory which he should have to come. And that he doth so, observe the words ; saith he, ' We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,' for we saw him coming in his kingdom, according as his promise was. And that Peter, when he saith, ' We made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,' meaneth his second coming, it is evident by this, because his scope was (as appears by chap, iii) to confirm men in the faith of his second coming. And he saith, there should ' come in the last days scofiers, that should walk after their own lusts, saying. Where is the promise of his coming ? But, saith he, we have not told you fables in this, for we had an instance of it, and we saw, and were eye-witnesses of his majesty. They saw no more but the transfiguration of his body. And therefore the word in 1 Peter i. 16, which is used for the coming of Christ, is the same that is used for that coming of his in chap. iii. ver. 4, and is nowhere applied to his first coming.

I speak this to take away the interpretation of some popish writers, that apply it to his first coming; but the apostle's scope is clearly this, to give an instance of that glory he shall have by that glory which he had then ; the word which is used for his first coming is always another word. Peter, you see, makes a great matter of it; and so likewise doth John : John i. 14, * We saw his glory, as of the only begotten Son of God ;' that is, such a glory as none could have but he that was the only begotten Son of God. We saw it, saith he. John, you know, was one of them that was in the mount, and Peter was another ; and both these give testimony of it in their writings. There was a third, James, not he that wrote the epistle, but he that was put to death by Herod ; and he dying so soon after, could give no testimony of it; but the two apostles that survived, both of them did. Now to confirm further, that this transfiguration of Christ in the mount was on purpose to shew how glorious he should be in the latter day, and glorious in

lOG OF THE CREATURES, AND THE CONDITION [BoOK 11.

his body, hence therefore did Elias and Moses, both of them, come and appear in their bodies. God was pleased to raise up the body of Moses, together with his soul; and he appeared with Elias, and that in body too ; for Elias, you know, went to heaven in his body, and he was changed as those at latter day shall be ; and they were to testify to him his resurrection, by their having their bodies there, and that he also should come unto glory after he had suifered. Moses he was in his body too, not only because he was called Moses, which was argument enough, but they are said to be ' two men,' Luke ix. 29. If Elias had his body, certainly Moses had ; and the scope was to shew the glory of the body of Christ, and therefore both were in their bodies. The Lord had made two promises to Moses : the one, that he should see his face ; the other, that he would speak with him mouth to mouth. And here he hath made a second fulfilling of it; for the Son of God, whom he had prophesied of, speaks with him mouth to mouth, and he beholds his face in his glory. Now to speak a little of this glory that was thus appearing in the body of Christ.

It was an internal glory; it was not a glory that did shine about Christ, as if the sun should shine upon a glass, or upon a thing making it to shine ; it was not extrinsecal, it came from within, it was the Godhead quickening him; and therefore he is said to be ' transfigured,' and his ' face to shine as the sun;' it was not that the sun did shine upon his face and made it to shine. And hence it was that his very garments did shine; so saith Mark, chap. ix. ver. 3, ' And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them.' Therefore the glory of his garments was from the glory appeared in his body, and his garments did shine by a redundancy, by an overplus; for if it had been by an external light, it would have fallen first upon his garments, and then upon his body ; but here it falleth upon his body first, and that is made the reason why his garments did thus shine. The glory that Moses had, who was Christ's tj'pe, it was but an external glory put upon the face of Moses by reason of his talking with God, but the glory that Christ's body had was from the breakings forth of the Godhead within it. And that is the difference (by the way) between worldly glory and heavenly glory : heavenly glory springeth from within, and so diffuseth itself to the body, from the Spirit's dwelling in the saints, and from the Godhead dwelling in the human nature of Christ; but worldly glory is a mere external thing put upon men, it is but an outward splendour that environeth men. And his whole body was thus transfigured ; and therefore Mark saith plainly, * He was transfigured,' Mark ix. 2 (not his face only), ' and his raiment became shining,' implying that his whole body was transformed into a glory which did shine through his very garments. My brethren, if vile garments (for so I may call the garments of Christ, they were but mean garments) if they did shine so, what shall these bodies of ours do when they are transformed into ' the likeness of his glorious body ' ?

Consider further the greatness of this glory that did shine in his body ; for we do not read of anything else. Peter calleth it ' majesty :' 2 Peter i. 16, ' We were eye-witnesses of his majesty;' the same word that is used for that great glory in heaven, in Heb. i. 3, ' He is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.' The evangelists do compare it to the glory of the sun; it is said, ' His face did shine as the sun,' Mat. xvii. 2. If you say it did but shine like the sun, I answer, The reason of that expression is this, not that it was a light of the same kind with the sun, but

because thero was nothing else to convey the glory, iincl the beauty, and excellency of it to human apprehension but the sun. My brethren, now that Christ is in heaven, it is more glorious than the sun. Paul, you know, he saw him from heaven; saith he in Acts xxvi. 12, 13, ' I saw from heaven a light above the brightness of the sun' (mark his expression, he riseth higher, above the brightness of the sun) * shining round about me;' yet it was not the body of Christ in the air, but the body of Christ in heaven ; and this brightness he saw was but a light that came from it, which yet was far above the brightness of the sun itself, though it was confined to that company, and did not shine to all the world.

Consider the greatness of it likewise in this, that it made his garments to shine; so you shall find it in all three evangelists : Matthew saith, chap. xvii. 2, ' His raiment was white as the light;' Mark, chap. ix. 3, that * His raiment became shining exceeding white as snow, so as no fuller on earth can white them ; ' Luke, chap. ix. 29, that ' His raiment was white and glistering.' They compare the light of the face and body of Christ to that of the body of the sun, and the light of his raiment to the light of the sun, or of the moon in the air, which makes it white, or to the sun shining upon snow, or the like.

Lastly, How infinitely did it afi'ect the apostles, though they themselves were not transformed into the same glory with him ! What saith the apostle Peter, poor man ? ' Master,' saith he, ' it is good for us to be here ; ' and upon what occasion did he say this ? When he saw Moses and EKas going away. So Luke, chap. ix. ver. 33, ' And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here : and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias : not knowing what he said.' He had but a little glimpse of it, and yet notwithstanding, his heart was infinitely affected with it, and yet he had a mixture of great fear and astonishment too, which must needs allay it; one that is afraid, you know (and the text saith they were all afraid), would rather have the thing removed that he feareth; yet notwithstanding, though he was full of fear, full of astonishment rather, his desire breaks out: Oh, saith he, that we might be ever here ; and let us make three tabernacles, saith he. The text saith, he spake he knew not what. And why spake he he knew not what ? Because he would stay there; and because he would have earthly tabernacles, _ made of boughs and booths, such as the Jews had, for to be a covering to glorified bodies, that have tabernacles made without hands ; as the apostle speaks, 2 Cor. v. 1, ' For we know, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' Our Saviour Christ had other work to do ; for they had been talking of Christ's death, which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. And herein lay the folly of his speech ; yet so as it shewed how mightily his heart was taken. Oh, saith he, let us be ever here, let us never go down to the world again ; and yet, poor men, they were half asleep, they awaked on the sudden, and they heard Moses and Elias talking with Christ, and they heard them talking of his sufferings, an unpleasing subject, yet, say they, Let us go down no more; and yet they themselves were not made glorious, nay, they were astonished, and that allayed their joy. How much then shall we be affected when we shall see Jesus Christ as he is, and be made like to him, and have our bodies transformed, able to bear all the glory, and to view him with open face, as the apostle saith, with an allusion to it, 2 Cor. iii. 18, * But we all,

\vith open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.'

Here you see now, my brethren, what a great glory it was; yet let me tell you this too, that this glory which Christ had at his transfiguration falleth short of that glory he hath now in heaven ; and that is as clear many ways—it was but a mere resemblance of it, a mere symbolical representation of it, in comparison of what that is. For,

(1.) He did not let the glory of his body shine out to the full; for if he had, these poor disciples had not been able to have borne it. Paul, you know, his eyes were put out with seeing it, Acts xxvi. 13; therefore he kept it in from what now shineth forth, and breaketh forth in heaven. And,

(2.) It was but a transient glory; whereas that glory which is in his glorified body in heaven, it is a permanent quality, that hath unchangeable-ness and unalterableness for ever, whereas this was but a blush of it. What saith the apostle in 2 Cor. iii. 7, 8 ? * But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance, which glory was to be done away ; how shall not the ministration of the Spirit be rather glorious ?' He argueth that therefore Moses his glory was no glory in comparison of the glory of Christ. By what ? Because, saith he, the glory of Moses his countenance was to be done away; and therefore it was no glory in comparison of the glory of Christ .which contiuueth. So do I argue, the glory which appeared here upon the mount in Christ's transfiguration, is no glory in comparison of that he hath in heaven. Why ? Because it was to be done away, for, when the cloud had taken up Moses and Elias, Christ was the same man he was afore. Therefore now, the glory which Christ had in the mount, which Peter magnified so, in comparison of what he hath in heaven, it is but like^the joy of the Holy Ghost, which, in comparison of what the soul shall have in heaven, is but a little flushing of it. Yet you see how mightily it did affect, and what a glory it was. Consider,

(3.) His body was still subject to infirmities, and therefore was not glorified ; for Moses and Elias did talk of his dying while he was in this glory, and therefore now it was by a miracle ; it was not in that connatural way it shall be in the world to come, when his body shall be steeled, nay, it is steeled with glory. For, my brethren, the glory that is now in heaven put upon him, it hath changed his body, so that it is impossible he can sutler from anything, and death hath no more dominion over him, nor anything tending to death, not the least alteration; but here he was to come down ofi" the mount and to be crucified when he had done. And then,

(4.) These disciples here could tell what they saw, and they could tell what the speech was between Moses and Ehas and him. But go, take Paul rapt up into the third heavens, and he telleth us that he heard words that were unlawful and impossible to utter; and so he saw sights, he saw the human nature of Christ in his glory certainly; but when he came down again, that vision which he had, he could tell no news of it. But these here, they could tell what they saw, and who they were, and what they said, * They heard a voice from heaven, saying. This is my well-beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.'

(5.) Christ, in this transfiguration of his, did but give an instance of one property of glory, namely, shining brightness, such as is in the body of the sun; but there is likewise other as glorious properties of a spiritual body, that it can move up and down, as he did when he ascended up into

heaven ; he was not long a-going certainly, though it is a mighty vast space from earth to heaven; and he moved up and down after his resurrection; and then he was impassible. But I will not stand upon that.

Thus I have shewn you what a great glory must needs be in the human nature of Christ, in his body. The grounds are in the text; the instance is this which I have given you out of the story of his transfiguration ; and so I have despatched the second thing. Before I come to the third and last, I will make a use or two of this, and then proceed.

Use 1. In the first place, my brethren, will you see and value the infinite love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? As I said before, the glory of his human nature is founded upon the union of that nature with the Son of God ; it was his due as soon as ever he should assume a human nature, and therefore he is called the man from heaven, for it was his due to be there ; it was a condescending for him to take upon him our frailties, our infirmities, and to have a passible body as he had. And therefore now for him that was thus in God's decree in the very form of God, and was the image of the invisible God, for so in his very human nature he is, he could have challenged all this glory as his due the very first moment that he should first subject himself, and that human nature of his, to all those sufferings and debasements that he subjected it unto ; how infinitely should this raise up our hearts to see the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! I shall but make this a little clear to you out of the very story of his transfiguration. You shall find that when he was transfigured, the evangelists tell us, that Moses and Elias did talk to him of his death and of his sufferings ; * they spake of his decease,' saith Luke, * which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.' Our Saviour Christ, to shew what was his due instead of this suffering, he transfigureth himself; and whereas Moses and Elias went up to heaven in their bodies again to that glory which they had before, he is left behind here below, and all his glory is gone, and to Jerusalem he must go, and there he must suffer. Why ? He should have been in heaven first if he had had his due. This glory of his, I say, and his death, were both represented at once ; Moses and Elias spake to him about his death at the same time when his transfiguration was, on purpose to set a value upon it, to take the hearts of the sons of men. This Christ, that was so glorious upon the mount, he might then have gone to heaven as well as descended, and then where had been our salvation ? But he letteth Moses and Elias go to heaven: Go you, saith he, and possess your glory; but as for his own glory, he sheweth what was his due, but layeth it aside for a while that he might suffer.

Use 2. Again, secondly. See whence the valuation of the bodily suflfer-ings of Christ before God doth arise. There were the sufferings of his soul, and there were the sufferings of his body. The suff'erings of his soul the Scripture speaks least of, though they were the greatest sufferings of all the rest; as the Scripture speaks but little of the glory of the soul, but speaks much of the glory of the body, and would have us argue from that to the greatness of the glory of the soul in the world to come. Learn, I say, to value the sufferings of Christ at a due rate, consider whose body it was that suffered; it was the body of him in whom the Godhead dwelt bodily and fully; of him that was life itself, was a quickening Spirit (he was so in assuming human nature), his body was ordained to another world; and the valuation of the person was it that put a valuation upon everything he suffered. Therefore, my brethren, whenever you would put a value upon the bodily sufferings of Christ, I will tell you what to do :

first, look upon him as he is now crowned with glory and honour in heaven, and then think with yourselves that all this was due to him when he was here helow, when he was in the mount, yea, when in the womb, to have taken that body up and made it so glorious ; and when you have brought him down from all the glory he hath in heaven, do but think what a man he was when he hung upon the cross. This should make us put a valuation upon all his sufferings : this makes us see w^hat it is that God doth value his bodily sufferings for; they were the sufferings of Jiis body, whose due it was to be thus glorified, and never to have suffered ; but God so ordered it that he must first suffer, and then rise and enter into, and possess his glory.

CHAPTER XL

What a more glorious condition than was Adam's in innocence Christ will raise us up unto, proved in the lowest instance of it, viz., the glory our bodies shall have at the resurrection. — Wherein that glory shall consist. — A comparison beticcen that glory our bodies shall then possess, and what Adam's had in jmradise: and in what respect ours shall far excel his.

3. The third thing that I am to handle is this, to shew you that our bodies shall be conformed to Jesus Christ's body, that as we have borne the image of the earthly (which we all do in the bodies which we now have), so we shall bear the image of the heavenly; for so the apostle reasoneth, ver. 49. For the apostle's scope in these words is to argue that there is a spiritual body which the saints shall have in the other world after the resurrection ; and he argueth it from this, because that Christ, who is our head, he shall have a spiritual body; and he argueth that Christ shall have a spiritual body, by comparing Adam's body and Christ's together. Adam, he saith, was Christ's type and shadow, and therefore by way of eminency, if Adam was a living soul, that is, had a reasonable soul that dwelt in a body of clay, which advanced it to such a dignity as all this world was made for it, then, saith he, Christ shall be a quickening Spirit; that is, he shall have the Godhead to dwell in him, and quicken the human nature, and raise it up in a proportion to a higher degi-ee of glory, than the reasonable soul of Adam raised up his body unto. And having proved this, he argueth from thence, that our bodies shall be like unto Christ's.^ Why ? Because those two were two common persons and roots of mankind, and they were to propagate the like condition, the like state and qualification that should be in either of them, to those that should come of them : ' As is the earthy,' saith he, namely, Adam, ' such are those that are earthy; and as is the heavenly,' namely Christ, the Lord from heaven, ' such are they also that are heavenly; and as we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.' This, I say, is the apostle's scope ; his scope is not so much to hold forth the state of Adam's soul, taking it as having the image of God upon it, having communion with God, for that is held forth sufficiently and abundantly in other Scriptures, but rather to compare that animal condition, that is, that state that this soul had in this body, as it was suited to earthly things, as_ it was a living soul, quickening and giving life to an earthly body, partaking of all the comforts of things here below; to compare, I say, the state of this body, and this soul living in it, with the state of that glorified body which

Jesus Christ bath in heaven, and which he will raise up our bodies unto at latter day. That I may distinctly express myself to all your apprehensions, let me say this in a word: Adam, you see, here is made a type of Christ; his condition wherein he was created, it is a type or a shadow of that glorious condition that Christ wdll raise up his members to. Now the glory of heaven lies in two things, and the happiness of Adam lay in two things, whereof the one answereth the other. The glory of heaven doth lie first in that immediate communion with and vision of the Godhead which the soul hath, and whether it hath the body about it or no it would have ; for, saith Paul, when he was rapt up into the third heavens, in 2 Cor. xii., ' Whether I was in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell;' nor was it any matter. But, in the second place, because that this soul, that thus seeth God immediately without the help of the body, hath a body that must be carried up thither to it, hence, besides the happiness that the soul hath by immediate communion with God, the body hath a happiness and glory, as the soul dwelleth in it, and the Holy Ghost in both, that is proper and peculiar to itself. Just so it was with Adam: he had an immortal soul that was created with the image of God in it, the image of holiness, by virtue of which he had communion with God; and his soul thus having communion with God, answereth to that vision of God which the soul hath in heaven, although joined with the body after the resurrection. But then, secondly, as this soul dwelling in this body, beside the communion it had with God, it had an animal state, a natural, an outward state of life, taking in the comforts of things here below, in and through the senses, both inward and outward, which here the apostle calleth the natural body, and interpreteth it by that in Genesis, a living soul, that is, a soul living or dwelling in an earthly body, having all the creatures in the world suited to this body to comfort it, and the soul by it. Answerably there is in the world to come something that answereth to this spiritual body, and the spiritual state and condition of it. Now then, the scope of the apostle, I say, it is not to compare the state of Adam's soul, as he had the image of God upon it, having immediate communion with God, to make him a type of Christ therein, or of his elect in heaven ; but to shew, e\ten from that animal, natural, earthy estate that his soul had in his body, what glorious spiritual estate the very bodies of the saints shall have hereafter.

My brethren, the design I had is this, to compare the state of Adam's body in innocency with the glorious estate that the body of Christ hath, and that the bodies of the saints shall have after the resurrection. And I have endeavoured to shew how the state and condition of Adam's body, in which he was first created, it was a type and a shadow of the state and condition both of Christ's body and ours. To demonstrate this I have.

First, Shewed what condition Adam's body was advanced unto by his being made a living soul, what an high estate that piece of earth, that lump of clay which God made Adam's body of, was advanced unto by being united to that reasonable soul which God put into him at first. I have,

Secondly, Shewn what a glorious condition the human natm-e of Christ, by being united to the Godhead, which is here in the text called a quickening Spirit, this Godhead raiseth up this human nature unto. And now I am,

Thirdly, To shew that the state and condition of the bodies of the saints hereafter at the resurrection shall be made conformable unto Jesus Christ's body ; and there I must also make up a comparison betwen the state of

Adam's body at his first creation, and our bodies when they are thus raised up at latter day, and shew how the one was but a type and an imperfect shadow of the other.

That our bodies at latter day shall be conformed to the image of Jesug Christ's body, the Scripture is clear for it. I will give you but a place or two, instead of many others. In 1 John iii. 1-3, • Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.' Now, how is it that we shall see Christ ? Not only with our souls, but we shall ' see him with our eyes;' so saith Job, chap. xix. 26, 27. And seeing of him with these eyes, we shall be made like unto him ; as we shall see him with the sense of our bodies, our bodies shall be made also like unto him. Another place you have is in Philip, iii. 21, ' We look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.' As what to do ? ' Who shall change our vile bodies,'—or our body that, in comparison of that body, is contemptible; so I have opened it afore, it is not a vileness in itself, but it is spoken comparatively,—' that it may be fashioned according to his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.'

Our bodies they have two patterns propounded in Scripture that they shall be conformed unto. The one is, they shall be like the angels. ' The sons of the resurrection,' saith Chi'ist in the evangelist Matthew, * they shall be like the angels.' And there is a second pattern : we shall be conformed into Christ's glorious body. How glorious that was you have heard : ' We shall be like him.' It is not in equality, but it is only in respect of the same qualities that his body had. I would clear one mistake that some run into. When it is said, We shall bear the image of the body and human nature of Christ in heaven, and that Christ is a quickening Spirit, some have run into this conceit, that as the Godhead is united in a personal manner to the human nature of Christ, so it shall also be united to our bodies. But that is not the meaning, my brethren ; and my reason is this, because if we come to heaven by virtue of Christ, it is impossible we should ever be raised up to the same union with the Godhead he hath. The hypostatical union is a thing of so high a nature as it can never be merited ; but all that can be done is this, that we shall be made like unto him. He by virtue of being God, his body is made so and so glorious, as I have described it unto you ; that, as I said, suppose the sun should dwell in a crystal glass, how glorious would that glass be ! So the Godhead dwelling in the human natm-e, he is the Lord from heaven, raised up above angels; therefore his body is glorious. Now we shall not be raised up to the same height and degree of glory he is. No ; let Christ for ever enjoy that to himself ; but all our happiness lieth in this, we shall be conformed to him, even in our bodies we shall be made like unto him.

Now the reason why I insist first upon this of the body is this, because the Scripture speaks little of the glory of the soul, neither can it be conveyed to our senses; but it would have us raise up our thoughts, how glorious the soul shall be, by laying open how glorious our bodies shall be. And so now I come to open to you the glory of that spiritual body we shall have after the resurrection.

In laying open this, I shall do these four things by way of premise:"

1. To shew you that it shall be the same body which we now have that our souls shall then dwell in.

2. That this body shall have all its parts and members that now it hath.

8. That all these parts and members shall have some use or other in heaven. And then,

4. That this body shall bo a spiritual body; and open and interpret what is meant by a spiritual body ; and so I shall come to make out the comparison between the state of Adam's body at his first creation, and our bodies when they are thus raised up at latter day.

1. In the first place, it is the same body for substance ; for, my brethren, when Adam's body, the natural body we now have, is said to be a type of our bodies in heaven, the meaning is not that it is a type of another kind of body for substance. He calleth both the one and the other a body, only he saith the one is a natural body, and the other is a spiritual body. He doth not say our bodies shall be turned into spirits, as some have thought, but they shall be made spiritual. As for example : go take a piece of iron and put it in the fire ; it is one thing to have this iron to be turned into fire, and another thing to have it filled with fire, and to be fiery, that if you look upon it you shall not see iron, but see fire; yet iron it is still. So is it here; it is the same body, it is not changed into spirit; it is only made spiritual, it hath new properties, new qualities put upon it, as iron hath when it is mightily heated with fire; it is malleable when it is heated with fire—you may bow it or bend it or work it which way you will, though it is stiff naturally; audit is hot if you touch it—you shall not feel cold iron but fire, though it is cold naturally. Therefore, in Scripture it is not said we are made angels, our bodies are not made spirits, but they are made as the angels. I speak thus much, the rather because it is a great heresy that is risen up in these latter times, that we shall not have the same bodies in heaven for substance that we have here below. The apostle plainly saith the contrary. He saith not that our bodies shall be made spirits, but spiritual, and that the very same body that we have now, and bear about with us, even that very body shall be glorified. How is that proved ? Out of this very chapter, in verses 53 and 54. * This same corruptible,' saith he (mark the phrase, in the Greek it is most emphatical), ' must put on incorruption ;' it shall not be another body. Now he must needs mean the same body for substance ; for to say a corruptible thing, qua corruptible, shall be incorruptible, is a contradiction. And he addeth also, ' And this same mortal must put on immortality.' And he is not content with that, but he saith further, ' When this same mortal shall put on immortality, and this same corruptible have put on incorruption.' There are four the sames. The same mortal, the same corruptible, is that that shall be glorified hereafter.

And, my brethren, else we were not conformed unto Christ; for what body hath Christ in heaven ? The very same body he rose in. "We must rise as he rose, for he is * the first fruits of them that sleep.' Now it is clear and evident that Christ rose in the same body he died ; for he saith his body should not see corruption ; it was kept in the grave, it rose again. * Feel,' saith he. It is certain that he did ascend with the same body he rose in. Acts i. 11, say the angels there to the apostles that beheld him ascend, * This same Jesus ' (it is a very emphatical place), the very same ' whom you see taken up into heaven, shall so come in like manner ;' he expresseth it every way, the sameness of the one and the other. I will not stand to mention or open that place, which is commonly known. Job xix. 25, * With these eyes I shall see him ; I myself (saith he), and not another.' That is the first thing, the same body riseth.

VOL. VII. H

2. Secondly, Tlie same body shall have all its parts and members that now it hath, and that is plain and evident from our conformity to Christ, for still you see here, our bodies are to be conformed unto,his, we shall bear his image at the resurrection. Now it is clear that Jesus Christ rose with every part of his body that he had when he died ; there was not a member that saw corruption. And in Heb. xi. 35, compared with ver. 37, it is said of them that were sawn asunder, one piece of their bodies broken from another, they shall rise a whole body. Why ? Because, saith he, they shall ' obtain a better resurrection.' Now it was not a better resurrection if that all the parts did not rise again, and if that all these parts were not mended, or if they had any imperfection in them. And if you mark it, he speaks it of the resurrection of the body, for he speaks of their being tortured, limb pulled from limb, sawn asunder; well, saith he, they shall not only have a resurrection, but a better resurrection one day.

3. Thirdly, It is as evident, too, that all these parts shall have an use in heaven, some or other, in a spiritual way, and have objects suited to them. I shall make this plain unto you.

(1.) By instancing in some particulars. It is evident that some parts of the body have an use in heaven. It is evident in seeing. * With these eyes,' saith Job, ' shall I see him.' It is evident in speaking. In that transfiguration which I have spoken of before, it is said that Moses, and Elias, and Christ did talk together. And at latter day it is certain that Christ will speak so as all the world shall hear him; he shall so judge all men as that eveiy man shall be able for to judge, therefore he shall do it audibly; for in 1 Cor. iv. 5 saith the apostle, ' Judge no man before the time, until the Lord come,' and he cometh as a man to judge, * who will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the counsels of the heart;' implying, judge no man's heart aforehand, for one day you shall judge. And how shall you come to judge ? Because the Lord will bring them all to light, and he will do it as a man; for he hath appointed the man Christ Jesus to judge the world. And when I say he shall pronounce the sentence with a voice that all the world shall hear, it is not to be conceived that he shall speak so as to thunder, but he shall have a spiritual voice, and they shall have spiritual ears, and how we know not, as I shall shew you by and by. Stephen's eye, his bodily eye, could see up into heaven, ' and he saw the heavens opened, and the Son of God standing on the right hand of his Father.' To see a man of Christ's stature so far off, he must have the eye spiritualised; and so Stephen's was. And so for all the world to hear the voice of Christ at latter day, it is because they shall have ears spiritualised. Now, I say if all these parts of the body remain, why should those have a privilege and a prerogative more than all the rest of the parts of the body, which certainly shall serve for some use or other ?

(2.) I shall give you the reason which some divines give for it, viz., that else it is not a resurrection unto life. The resurrection is called a waking; for death, you know, is a sleep. Now if there were not an employment for all the parts of the body in a spiritual way (what we know not), there were a resurrection of some of them to sleep, rather than to waking, rather than to life : ' When I awake,' saith he, ' I shall see thy face,' Ps. xvii. 15.

(3.) I shall propound you this reason likewise for it, that the principal aim of God in decreeing men to salvation, it did fall upon their bodies as well as their souls. He chose not the soul only to heaven, and the body to come thither accidentally, but he pitched upon this soul as dwelling in this body,

and therefore makes the soul stay for its full glory till the body is joined unto it; and therefore ho hath as well ordained that which shall bo for the happiness and glory even of the body, objects suitable to it, being made spiritual, as he hath done for the soul itself.

Thus having explained, 1. That for the substance, it is the same body; and 2. That it is the same body with all the parts of it; and 3. That all these parts have their use ; I must,

4. Explain what is meant by a spiritual body, and so make out the comparison between the state of Adam's body in his first creation, and our bodies when they shall be raised up at latter day. There are three interpretations, which being put altogether make up the full scope and intent of what is here meant by a spiritual body.

(1.) Some say it is therefore called spiritual, because that all earthly, animal uses of it shall cease, such as the body hath now. The eye shall not be suited to colours or beauty, nor the ear to sounds, such sounds as now, nor the mouth and stomach to meats and drinks. There is a very plain place for this in 1 Cor. vi. 13, ' Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them ;' that is, that suitableness that is between the body and meats, the eye and colours or beauty, the fancy and the things here in this world fancied; all this suitableness wherein God hath made the one for the other, as faculties for objects, belly for meats, and meats for the belly, God will dissolve; he will destroy, he will evacuate, he will make void all this suitableness, that the mouth nor the stomach shall not desire meats or drinks, &c. Why ? Because God will destroy this suitableness, he will destroy both the belly and the meats in the world to come. As the angels, they are not taken with bodily pleasures, with beauty, nor any such thing, no more shall our bodily senses, otherwise than as to that use they shall be then put unto. If you could suppose a man to be taken out of heaven in the body, he would find no pleasure in anything here, he would not be taken with meats, or beauty, or pleasures, or any such thing; he would be as an angel. Here in this world God hath suited one to the other; there this suitableness shall be dissolved. Therefore you know our Saviour Christ saith, Mat. xxii. 30, ' That they are as the angels of God in heaven, they neither marry nor give in marriage ;' and the pleasures that depend thereupon they shall not have, nor any such carnal thing, for their bodies are spiritual; though they have all the same parts and senses they had before, yet they are turned unto other objects, and put unto other uses. And hence therefore it is said, that ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven ;' that is, take these poor earthly bodies of ours, we are so unsuited to that glory that it would sink us, so that if a man could be put into heaven with this body as it is now, that glory would kill him, he were not able to bear it, he were not able to inherit. It is then a truth that they are called spiritual bodies in this respect, that look as spirits cannot find a suitableness between worldly things and them—what do the angels care for all the beauty in the world, or for all the pleasures of meat and drinks? &c. Nothing at all— no more shall these bodies of ours, when they shall be raised up at the latter day. God will destroy both it and them ; that is, the suitableness between the one and the other.

(2.) Others interpret a spiritual body to be a body able to pass, pierce, or move as spirits up and down ; that our bodies shall be able to move from earth to heaven presently. Popish interpreters say. That Christ's body did move even through the gravestone, while the stone lay upon the

mouth of the sepulchre. But whether that be true or no I will not stand to dispute ; our protestant divines are against it. Yet this is certain, that that is not the whole meaning of the apostle here, when he saith our bodies shall be spiritual, and that for this reason clearly, because he doth oppose spiritual to the whole animal life, the natural life that Adam's soul had in his body in all the operations of it whatsoever; therefore to restrain a spiritual body only to nimbleness and agility, it is too narrow an interpretation ; it is but to take in one property instead of all the rest. But then,

(3.) That which I especially pitch upon (though I take in all these in their degi-ee) is this; it is called a spiritual body, because that the whole body it shall be in a spiritual way suited to spiritual objects made for it; and so now I shall come to make out the comparison between the state of Adam's body in innocency, and our bodies as they shall be after the resurrection, and shew you how the one was a type of the other.

The first excellency of Adam's body, which is called a natural body, I told you was this : it had a whole world made for it,—meats for his belly, coloui's for his eyes, sounds for his ears, &c. ; and as he had an animal body, so he had a world suited to it. So now, likewise, there is a spiritual body we shall have, which shall be so changed, and have new qualities put upon all these senses of ours, that there shall be spiritual objects suited thereunto ; that as the suitableness between earthly objects and it shall be taken away, meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, shall both be destroyed, so there will be spiritual objects which the body will be suited to. Thus you shall find in nature, and you shall find it to hold in grace too, that God hath always suited objects and faculties one to another. If he hath made an eye, he hath made colours for it; if he hath made an ear, he hath made sounds for it. And such as the faculty is, such are the objects. If the faculty be spiritual, the object shall be spiritual also. If he makes belly, he makes meat; and if he makes meat, he makes belly ; and if the meat be earthly things, the belly shall be earthly too. If you could suppose a spiritual belly (but we cannot tell how to speak in such a language), you should have something spiritual suitable unto it. The apostle, in 1 Cor. ii. 18, he saith of the Holy Ghost (he speaks it, indeed, of teaching men how to preach the word), that as he hath made spiritual things to be taught, so he teacheth men to express those spiritual things in spiritual language; he suiteth (so the word signifies), he fitteth spiritual things to spiritual. So in heaven, if God have made a spiritual body, which takes up all the parts of it, he hath suited spiritual objects to it. There are two instances in Scripture of the glory of the body : the one is of Christ's when he was transfigured; the other is of Stephen, when his face shined as it had been the face of an angel, and he looked up to heaven, and he saw two things: he saw Christ, and he saw the glory of God ; there was a spiritual glory which he saw with his bodily eyes made spiritual.

Now, I know you will ask me this question, If that a man's body, and all the parts of it, shall be carried up to heaven, and shall have objects suited thereunto, what manner of objects shall these be ? and what manner of senses shall these be ? and to what uses shall all these be turned ? What senses we have here we know ; what we shall have there, can you tell us ?

The truth is, my brethren, I cannot tell you, I profess it. I can no more tell you than I can tell you, if God should say from heaven that he would add a sixth sense to your bodies, and create an object suitable to it, what

this sense, nor what the object of it should be ; neither could all angels and men, if they laid their heads together, tell you what sense and object thereof that should bo. Paul, you know, saith that he heard words, when he was rapt up into the third heavens, that were unutterable, 2 Cor. xii. When he came down from heaven, they were things of another kind, of such a nature, that he was not able to speak them, or make any impression what they were upon any man's understanding in the world. Therefore, in 1 Cor. ii. 9 (though it is meant principally of the things of the gospel, yet as evidently too of the things of heaven), ' The ear hath not heard, nor the eye seen, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, the things that God hath prepared for them that love him.' I may as well tell you how it is possible that our bodies should be spiritual; the truth is, it is in nature a contradiction ; for to say a spiritual body, it is as if you should say, a wooden stone. Were not this an absurdity ? You would all think so. And therefore, now, to tell you what shall be the spiritualncss of this body, and yet a body still, and what shall be the objects suited to this spiritual body, for my part I cannot; but out of the clear word of God and this very text, it is plain that as there was an animal body that Adam had, suited to animal things, so here shall be a spiritual body, suited to spiritual things ; and so much we may safely say in the general. Luther, when he took into consideration this phrase, * a spiritual body,' saith he. Hie senno est j^^ane inauditus, Here is a speech never heard of. What, a spiritual body ! Yet so it is. It is a ' glory shall be revealed ;' that is the phrase, Rom. viii. 16. I bring it for this purpose, to shew that we know not what glory it shall be, for it shall be revealed. And that he speaks of the glory of the body is clear by ver. 11, 'If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.' And likewise, at ver. 23, he saith, ' We wait for the redemption of our bodies.' It is a glory, therefore, to be revealed, and for my part, I cannot tell you what it is ; only we argue one thing out of another, and so raise up our thoughts to think what it may be. My brethren, suppose the angels had stood by (as it is likely some of them did, for the ' morning stars sang,' as I shewed out of Job), and beheld when God was making Adam's body : they saw him take a piece of earth, and mould it to a head, to eyes, to nose, to mouth, and all those parts ; what this body, while it was thus a-making, should be made for (suppose the body was first made, as it seems it was, for God did then breathe the breath of life into it), what those eyes, and that nose and mouth should serve for, all the angels in heaven could not tell. Ay, but when once God breathed a soul into it, then they saw that the eyes could discern colours, and the mouth could taste meat, and the ears could hear sounds. So will God do at latter day : he will take up our bodies, and make them spiritual; put new senses upon them, as I may say, or rather spiritualise these senses we have, and then what these shall serve for in the other world, w^e no more know than, indeed and in truth, in this supposition, the angels could have known. But when the Holy Ghost shall come as a soul into these bodies (as he will do, for we are all ' the temples of the Holy Ghost'), and shall act all these, then those things that are in heaven they will know and see, and we shall find and feel them suited as truly to these spiritual bodies of om-s that we shall have there, as our animal bodies are to the things of this world. Let a poor, plain man come into an artificer's shop, and there see a great many tools, it may be two or three hundred several tools, as some curious artificers have—what this tool serveth for he knoweth not, and what

that tool servetli for he knoweth not; the artificer he hath a use for them all. So when we come to heaven, what all the parts of these bodies of ours shall then serve for, we know not now ; but he that made them, and made them principally not for this world (mark what I say), your bodies were not made for this world chiefly ; that is clear in all the Scripture ; this text holds it forth, * That which was natural,' saith he, * is first:' first, indeed, in execution, * and afterward that which is spiritual;' God's eye was upon the spiritual. Now he that did order our very bodies for heaven, as well as our souls, and doth not bring the body to heaven by accident only because the soul is there and will not part company, but he pitched upon the one as well as the other ; he knows what to do with all these tools, though we do not. Our own experience will tell us that there may be a great change in the use of things; we eat, and drink, and take in nourishment every meal. Is it not a strange thing that all this meat we eat should within four or five hours after, hear, and see, and feel, that it should beget spirits that shall do all this by the instruments of it ? Is not here a strange spiritualising of these poor creatures ? Thus will God spiritualise eyes, ears, and all, and advance them to more noble objects ten thousand times there than here. So that, my brethren, as God will make a spiritual body at the resurrection, so he hath suited spiritual things in the other world for this spiritual body, as he made and suited this world to Adam's animal body in the first creation; and there is nothing in the other world that is corporeal or bodily (and there must needs be many things corporeal there, for the place is a body), but it shall be suited to the body of man when it is thus made spiritual.

If you ask me more particularly, what one object there is that shall be suited to our bodies, for us to have happiness in our bodies by it ?

I answer. The human nature of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is a notion that the schoolmen had of old, that the body of Christ is the happiness of heaven, and is suited to our bodies in heaven, to be the happiness of them, as seeing of the body of Christ shall be the happiness of that sense ; and how he is otherwise suited to all our other senses, we know not. I shall give you a place or two for it: 1 Cor. vi. 13, 14, ' Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his own power.' The apostle here speaks against unlawful pleasures and sensual lusts, and his argument lies upon a twofold ground : first, it is taken from a common argument. Why should you give up yourselves to these lusts, saith he, seeing your bodies were made for other things ? Suppose inordinate eating and drinking were lawful, it is but for the belly, saith he, it is but for this world, ' God will destroy both belly and meats.' Then there is a special argument, ' The body is not for fornication, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.' Now then, look, as the belly is for meats, and meats for the belly here in this world, so, in a spiritual way (which we know not of), is the Lord for the body, and the body for the Lord in the other world. There are other interpretations given of this; I wiU but name them, and give you reasons against them.

First, Say some, the meaning is this, that the body is made to serve the Lord, and therefore, because you are to serve the Lord with your bodies, give not yourselves up to such lusts. That that is not the only meaning is clear by this, because he doth not say only that our body is for the Lord,

but he addcth, ' and the Lord is for the body.' Now, Jesus Christ is not ordained to servo the body, that is certain. And then again, secondly, ho speaks of our bodies what they shall be at the resurrection. How do you prove that ? By two reasons; for first, he saith, The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body, when the belly and meats shall be destroyed. * Meats for the belly,' saith he, ' and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them ;' and then afterward he saith, ' The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.' Secondly, it is evident that he meaneth what correspondency and suitableness shall bo between the body of Christ and our bodies in the world to come, it appears by this which he saith, ' And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise us up by his own power,' implying that as God did make the belly for meats, and meats for the belly, in a corporeal way, in an animal way here, so he ha,th suited, in a spiritual way, our bodies for Christ, and Christ for our bodies in the other world ; and therefore that God that made this ordination, he that hath raised up Christ already and given him a spiritual body, he will raise us up too, that so we being ordained one for another, our bodies may be for him, and his body for us.

Secondly, Others give this interpretation, that the apostle's argument against these lusts is grounded upon the resurrection; because your bodies shall be one day raised up again, therefore do not thus abuse them. ^ But it is clear that the reason here given why God doth raise up our bodies as he hath raised up Christ's body, is because he had first ordained in his decree the body for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Hence, therefore, my brethren, Christ's human nature being spiritualised, and the same spirit that dwelleth in him dwelling in us, raising up our bodies and human natures, and so spiritualising them, there will be some way whereby the body will be refreshed in and by the Lord Jesus Christ; the body is made for Christ, saith he, and Christ for the body, even as here in this life the world is made for our bodies and our bodies for the world, to take in comforts from it. If you ask me, how shall this be ? Truly, I say only we shall be conformed to the glorious body of Christ thus, and spiritualised by that power that hath subdued all things. It is Calvin's saying upon the text, God hath fitted and suited his Son for us ; the body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.

Now, do but think with yourselves, how happy we in heaven shall be, whenas our bodies, having new spiritualised qualities put upon all the parts of them (which we know not what they will be suited to, nor how),_ and whenas all things in heaven, the human nature of Christ in an eminent manner, the angels and all things here (being all spiritual)_ shall be suited to these spiritual bodies, for us to have comfort and happiness from them some way or other.

I will give you but one other place of Scripture for this ; it is in Ps. xvii. 15, ' When I awake, I shall be satisfied with thine image.' He speaks there of the resurrection; he calls it an awaking, for you know death is called a sleep: ' Those that are asleep in the Lord shall rise first.' He had spoken before of those that had put their happiness in the comforts of this life, suitable to their bodies, to the animal state of their bodies ; that is clear by the 14th verse, ' Deliver me from the men that are thine hand, 0 Lord, who have their portion in this life, whose belly thou fiUest with thy treasure : they are full of children, and leave to them outward things,' bodily things. ' But as for me,' saith he, ' I will behold thy face in the righteousness' (there is the vision of God which is his happiness m his

soul): ' and I shall be satisfied, when I awake' (when I arise again), * with thine imaae.' It is not the image of God only upon himself that he means here. Why ? Because that doth not satisfy a holy heart, but it is that image of the invisible God which the human nature of Jesus Christ is, who, in opposition to all these outward pleasures, will be all in all to us; he is a spiritual creature, his human nature is spiritualised, made glorious, and our bodies shall be made spiritual likewise. * The body is made for the Lord, and the Lord for the body,' and this when they are both raised up; Christ is raised up already, and because he hath ordained the one to be serviceable to the other, he will also raise up our bodies: and when he doth raise me up, saith David, though other men have their bellies full here, and have animal pleasures they delight in ; yet when I shall awake at latter day, and shall see this image of thine, shall see thy Son, I shall be satisfied : ' When I awake, I shall be satisfied with thine image.'

Thus you see what a glorious state God would raise up our bodies unto at the resurrection. All this hath been said to this purpose, to compare Adam's body, that had a world made for the animal state of it, and our bodies as they shall be at latter day, when they shall be made spiritual bodies, and have likewise provision for them in the world to come. Now to make up the comparison, in respect of this first excellency that Adam's body was advanced unto, yet more full, I shall only add one thing more in a word, and that is this, that as our God did make this visible world, made it complete before ever he brought Adam into it, for whom it was made and to whom it was suited, so hath God prepared a glory in heaven, and he hath prepared it from the beginning of the world for his elect for whom it is appointed. In Gen. i. 1 it is said, that on the first day * God created the heaven and the earth ;' by earth is meant the confused chaos, the matter of sun, and moon, and stars, and men, and beasts, and fire, and water, and earth, and all. ' The earth,' saith he, * was without form, and void,' so that the matter of all those creatures we see with our eyes, they are called earth. And by heaven here, in this first verse, is meant that heaven above where the saints shall be for ever. And that it is so to be understood is clear in the text, for if you read the work of the fourth day, at the 14th verse, you shall find that God created the sun, and the moon, and the stars, which are the visible heavens, after he had created heaven and earth in the first day. And therefore, by heaven in the first day is meant the glorious heaven which God will bring the souls and bodies of all his elect unto when they are raised up at latter day. Now as he made a world for Adam afore he brought him into it, so he made heaven, that glorious heaven, the first day, and all the things in it (and what is in it we do not know); he made all these from the foundation of the world for his elect. You have a plain place for it. Matt. xxv. 34, ' Come ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.' And if you observe the words, he tells us that this kingdom in heaven was prepared for us. Now read ver. 41, when he speaks of wicked men, whom he meaneth to throw to hell, that stood on his left hand, saith he, * Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' Mark the difference ; hell, my brethren, was not made primarily for men, but for the devil; for he sinned and his angels. Now if Christ would have kept the proportion, he would have said, ' Inherit the kingdom prepared for the holy angels.' He doth not say so ; but he saith, ' Inherit the kingdom prepared for you,'' suited to you; the things in heaven being made as primarily, if not more primarily, for Christ and the elect of mankind, than

for the holy angels, though hell was made primarily for the devil and his angels ; we do but go into what was prepared for them. But when we are carried into heaven, bodies and souls (for he speaks of the resurrection), we are earned to that place which was prepared immediately and primarily for us ; ' Inherit the kingdom prepared for you,' as much for you, and as primarily for you in God's intentions, as for the holy angels that were made in it the first day. That which I quote and allege it for is this, for it is pertinent to my scope, that as God did first make this visible world, and then brought Adam into it six days after, and when he came into it he found all things in it suitable to him, to that body and soul that God had made, so God, to whom all his works are known from the beginning, he made this glorious heaven the first day ; he then prepared it—they are called the things ' prepared from the beginning of the world,' Mat. xxv. 3-1 —this heaven hath stood empty of the bodies of men, and doth to this day ; there is Christ's body indeed now, and some few bodies else, Elias, and Moses, and Enoch, who perhaps are there now in their todies ; but the shoal and the flush of mankind, whom all the things there are prepared for, and prepared from the beginning of the world, they shall not come into it till after the resurrection ; not bodies and souls they shall not till then ; and they shall find then that all things in that world are prepared for them as truly as all things in this world were made for Adam. And so now I have despatched the first thing, the excellency of Adam's body; it lay in this, that he had a world prepared for him, into which he was brought at last; so hath God prepared another world, heaven, even from the foundation of the world, which the godly, the elect shall, when they arise again, be brought into, and find all things prepared for them. What these are I do not know, for, as he saith in 1 Cor. ii. 9, ' Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, what he hath prepared for them that love him.' And add to it that place, with which I will end this, 1 Peter i. 4, he saith, ' We have an inheritance incorruptible, undefiied, reserved in heaven for us,' ' ready to be revealed (mark the phrase, verse 5) in the last times, when we shall be raised up at latter day;' but prepared it is already, and God brings us into it at last, even as he did Adam at the last, when he had made the world and all creatures else in it.

The second thing wherein the excellency of Adam's animal state of body consisted, I told you, was beauty. He had a native beauty, as I may so call it, an inbred beauty; he needed no clothes, nor no such thing to set it out; and in that respect you fixid, that though they were naked, and had nothing to adorn them, yet they were in a glory ; for when they had sinned, then they fell to shame by reason of their nakedness. Adam had a beautiful body, and so had Eve ; it is said ' he built the woman,' that expression is used. But yet all that beauty that Adam's body had, it is but a shadow to that beauty and that glory which Christ will put upon the bodies of his saints at latter day, upon these spiritual bodies here in the text. We nowhere read that the beauty of Adam is called glory, but here we find it is called glory. Mark the expression in verse 43 of this loth chapter of the first to the Corinthians : ' It is sown in dishonour' (the body, namely), * it is raised in glory.' The word tjlonj here hath a special relation to that beauty, that excess of beauty, which God will put upon the bodies of the saints in heaven. You must know this, that in Scripture the excess of any excellency is called glory. We say that fire hath a light in it, but we do not call fire glorious ; but because that the sun hath an excess of light in it, we call the sun glorious. We rejoice in outward things, but if this joy doth

grow to an excess, it is called a glorious joy; as in 1 Pet. i. 8, ' We rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' Thus whatsoever is such an excellency as super-excelleth, is in Scripture called glory. Now answer-ably the beauty of the body, in heaven, because it shall super-excel, it is called glory. When Christ saith of Solomon, that in all his royalty he was not like to a lily, the word we translate royalty is, in all his glory; that is, take all the outward pomp and splendour of Solomon that his body was adorned with when he sat upon his throne, it was not like the beauty and the glory that is put upon a lily. I quote it for this, that glory it is taken for excellency of beauty. So likewise when he saith, 1 Pet. i. 24, ' For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass: the grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.' He calleth beauty there glory; so doth he here, 1 Cor. xv. 43, ' It is raised,' saith he, ' in glory.' If you would know how much the glory of the bodies of the saints in heaven slaall exceed the glory of what they have now, read verses 40, 41, of this 15th chapter: 'There are celestial bodies,' saith he, ♦and bodies terrestrial: but the glory,' or the beauty, or the excellency, ' of the celestial is one, and the glory,' or the beauty, ' of the terrestrial is another.' And even amongst the celestials themselves there is a difiering glory : ' There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon, another of the stars. So also,' saith he, ' is the resurrection of the dead.' His meaning is this, that look how a clod of earth doth differ in glory from the sun or the moon, how the glory of a terrestrial body diflereth from a celestial, so doth the glory of the bodies of the saints in heaven difier from that glory that was put upon the body of Adam, he being in all his glory but an earthly man, as the text hath it. Take the beautifulest man or woman that ever was in the world, they have but the glory of a clod of earth, but of a terrestrial body, in comparison of that celestial glory that shall be put upon the bodies of the saints at latter day. And to shew the degrees of glory that shall be in heaven amongst the saints, comparing one celestial body with another, he saith, ' There is one glory of the sun, another of the moon,' &c. Now, when I opened the transfiguration of Christ, I did shew you then that Christ's * face did shine as the sun.' Now, in Mat. xiii. 34, he saith the same thing of all the saints: ' Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of the Father; who hath ears to hear, let him hear.' Then, saith he; namely, after the resurrection, for of that, and of the day of judgment, he had discoursed in the former words. And they shall shine as the sun, saith he, although among themselves there shall be degrees of glory, as in that place in the Corinthians even now quoted, one may shine as the sun, another as the moon, another as the stars, one in comparison of another. Jesus Christ will be as the sun, Paul and those eminent saints will be as bigger stars; yet if you will compare the glory of the least of the saints in heaven with this sun, they shall all shine, saith he, as this sun; and because Christ speaks a very high word, therefore he addeth (as usually he doth so), ' Who hath ears to hear, let him hear;' for, saith he, it is a thing people will not believe, but it is true.

Yea, my brethren, it is most certain that the bodies of the saints shall so shine as to put down or eclipse the glory of the sun; that look, as a candle waxeth pale in the presence of the sun, or as the fire is put out by the sun shining upon it in the summer, so shall the bodies of the saints do. In Isa. xxiv. 23, ' Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun shall be _^ashamed,' just as you see a candle looks pale, or as the fire

Chap. XI.1 of their state by creation.

123

draws in its own beams of light before the sun, ' when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously.' Now, although this place may not be meant of the complete fulfilling of the glory of tke saints at latter day, yet it is an allusion to it. This sun and moon shall be all ashamed and confounded; and as a candle now appears before this sun, so shall this sun appear before that glory that shall be put upon the body of Christ, and upon the bodies of the saints.

I shall only add this to it, that this glory and beauty (for indeed glory is but an excess of beauty), which shall be thus put upon the bodies of the saints, it shall not be of the same kind with that of the light of the sun ; I may very well and truly say, that the light of the sun is but terrestrial, but that is celestial, for it is the light of another heaven than what the sun is placed in; therefore the Scripture doth not say that we shall have the light of the sun, but we ' shall be as the sun,' having no higher thing to compare it to; and the reason is plain: for the light of the sun, it is indeed the light of fire, for upon the fourth day God created light, that is, the element of fire (for you shall find earth, fire, air, and water, created then), and he took that light, that fire, and crushed it, as I may say, together into one body, into one globe, put it into the body of the sun, and therefore it is but indeed the element of fire in the excess of it, in the strength of it, therefore the light of the sun heateth, fireth bodies; but this glory of the bodies of the saints shall not do so, it is not of the same kind. The light of the sun it is but an elementary light, it is but fire conglobated and made condense and thickened together, it is but a natural light, and terrestrial light, whereas this is supernatural and heavenly, and therefore it is of a higher kind. And therefore, now in Phil. iii. 21, the text telleth us, that we shall be conformed not to the glory of the sun, but to the glory of the glorious body of Christ; that look as the sun is the fountain of all that glory which the stars have, so shall our Lord and Saviour Christ's glory be of all the glory we have. It is, I say, a glory of a higher kind than that of the sun; in Rev. xxi. 11, the new Jerusalem is said to have ' the glory of God upon it,' not the glory of the sun: and at ver. 23, ' It hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.' That I quote it for is this, that the glory that is put upon the bodies of the saints, though it is likened to that of the sun, because we know nothing more glorious than it, yet it is a glory of another kind, of an higher degree, it is indeed the glory of God that is upon them: that as it is said of Christ in Mat. xvi. 27, that ' he shall come in the glory of his Father;' therefore his glory will be an higher glory, a glory of another kind than that of the sun: so we shall have the glory of God upon us, and therefore a glory of an higher kind than what is in the sun, which we no more know now, than (as I have said afore) we know what the sixth sense would be, if God should say he would create one, or an object suitable to it. I have the larger insisted upon this second property, because I find that in Christ's transfiguration, the only excellency that he held forth before his disciples, when they saw his majesty, was the glory that did shine forth in his body ; ' his face,' the text saith, ' did shine as the sun.' j • +i,

A third excellency in Adam's body, which I have mentioned, is tne healthful constitution that was in that animal body of his, and his being free from all injuries of weather or whatever else ; and therefore though he was naked, yet he felt no hurt; but yet this I told you withal, which

might lone his condition, that he stood in need of creatures, he depended upon sleep and upon meats. Bat now the bodies that God will put upon us at latter day, they shall depend upon none of all these; and not only not depend upon sleep, and meat, and drink, and the hke, but they shall be free from any possibility of being injured by any thing. Adam, he might have been injured (though, as I have said, God had promised to keep him), if he had fallen off from an high place, his body would have been bruised as well as ours, for he was flesh and blood. But these spiritual bodies we shall have hereafter, they shall be wholly impassible and incorruptible. Adam's body, though it was healthful, and should not finally have decayed, if he had stood in innocency, yet it was subject to alterations ; the meat that he ate one day, it did evaporate in spirits; be was subject to weariness, to expense of spirits, though he should not die ; but the bodies that God shall give us at latter day, they shall be bodies incorruptible, bodies raised up in strength. I will give you but those two places for it: the one is 1 Cor. xv. 63, ' It is sown in weakness, and it is raised in power,' or in strength ; and the other is ver. 53, ' This corruptible must put on incorruptible, and this mortal must put on immortality; and when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality,' &c. Here seems to be two different things, between corruption and immortality. I shall express to you the difference thus : that thing is said to be immortal which shall not die ; but that thing is said to be corruptible, which, though it shall not die, yet may be subject to alteration. As, for example, it is said that the body of Christ in the grave saw no corruption; the meaning is, there was not the least alteration in it at all, nothing tending to putrefaction, not the least dissolution of the humours in it. Now Adam's body, though it was immortal, yet it was not incorruptible, it was subject to alteration, there was an expense in it, it was subject to a corruption; my meaning is this, it was not that to day it was yesterday, and the meat he ate went out in the draught, and the like. Hence, therefore, that he might live for ever, he had the tree of light to eat of, for to repair his spirits when they were worn. He was but flesh and blood, though he was immortal, and he was not able to have inherited the kingdom of heaven, for ' flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven,' 1 Cor. xv. 20. And the apostle, by flesh and blood, doth not mean original corruption, but, take man's body as it is mere flesh and blood, such as Adam had, it would not have borne it, to have the glory of heaven put upon it; that glory would have sunk him, it would have killed him. Now the saints at latter day shall not only have bodies immortal, but incorruptible ; that is, they shall have bodies which shall be subject to no alteration, they shall have no expense of spirits, though they shall be employed about the highest objects. The angels, they are not only immortal, but they are incorruptible, and they are able, unwearicdly active, day and night, without any expense of spirits for to serve God; so shall the saints likewise be in heaven. Moses was in the mount (and he was a type of Christ and of us therein) forty days, and in all that time he neither did eat nor drink, he had no repair; he had a glory upon him, and he had for that time an incorruptibleness upon him, for his eye was not weary with seeing, nor his ear of hearing; his eye waxed not dim, no, not when he was old, much less when upon the mount. Incorruptibleness therefore is this, a continual vigour, such as is subject to no alteration whatsoever. In Kev. vii. 15, he saith, that * they shall serve God day and night,' as the angels do; ' and they shall hunger no

moi'e, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.' The meaning is, they shall suffer from nothing. There is, 1, no ^veariness, for they rest not day or night; 2, there is no misery, for ' all tears shall bo wiped from their eyes,' verse 17; there is, 3, no need of repairing of spirits, for ' they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;' 4, there is no injury from anything without, for ' the sun shall not light on them' to hurt them, ' nor any heat.' And although this place is meant (as our best interpreters have shewn), of the state of the world to come, I mean of the kingdom of Christ, and so may fall short of the glory of heaven, yet it speaks in the language of heaven, and is an allusion to it, and heaven must needs be a higher and more glorious condition. My brethren, I take it there is this ditierence between the bodies of wicked men in hell, and the bodies of the saints in heaven. It is true, they are both immortal; but yet the bodies of wicked men, they are corruptible, they do not put on incorruption ; that is, they are subject to all sorts of passions and of miseries, and fire can burn them ; and therefore let us take heed of hell; they are as sensible of all sorts of miseries as now, only the power of God upholds them that they are immortal. But now the saints, their bodies shall not only put on immortality, but incorruption too. Adam's body, it was subject to corruption in this sense, it was subject to expense of spirits, to weariness, to sense from outward things, though he might be protected by the providence of God from such injuries as might any way hinder his happiness, but our bodies shall wholly put on incorruption. And so now that is a third thing, wherein I compare the state of Adam's body at best, with that state and condition the bodies of the saints shall have after the resurrection.

I shall give you a fourth, which, I confess, might be implied in the other, and that is, immortality. I shewed you, when I opened the perfections and state of Adam's body, that indeed his body was immortal, that is clear; for death came in only by sin, as appears in Rom. v. 12, and Rom. viii. 10, 11, ' Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.'

* And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin ; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.' But yet, let me tell you this, that though Adam's body was immortal, yet it could have died, it had a principle in it that tended unto death. Now, in opposition to this, to shew you that his immortality is but a shadow of that that the saints shall have at latter day, do but look Luke xx. 35,

• They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage : neither can they die any more : for they are equal unto the angels ; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.' Our Saviour Christ here, you see, speaks expressly, and in a way of clear difference from that state of Adam. The words which are translated, ' neither can they die any more,' in the original they are, '/o/- they cannot die any more,' and so indeed they are to be read, and they are a reason of the former words, that therefore ' they neither marry, nor are given in marriage': */o/-,' saith he, * they cannot die any more.' The meaning is this, they are put into an higher state of immortality than Adam had, for though he was immortal, that is, he should never have died, yet he did marry, and should have procreated children ; but, saith he, these are put into such an

estate of immortality, as they shall not die, therefore (he bringeth it in as a reason) they shall no more mariT, neither be given in marriage; they are not capable of such an estate, for they are immortal. And how immortal ? It is not only that they may Hve, or may die, and God will keep them for ever, but they cannot die, there is impotentia moriendi, plainly. And as their not marrying is brought in as a reason of the former assertion, 60 Christ giveth two reasons why they have such an estate of immortality as Adam (take him at best) had not, for he applies it to that. First, saith he, ' they ai-e equal to the angels ;' and secondly, ' they are the sons of God, being the sons of the resurrection.' First, they are equal to the angels. Now it is certain, my brethren, that the angels being created immediately out of nothing, though indeed God may annihilate them, he may bring them into nothing again, yet they cannot die, they have not principles to be dissolved, they have not a form and a matter, a soul and a body that may be separated. All things created immediately out of nothing, they cannot die ; as now, take the soul of a man, because it is created of nothing, it is therefore immortal, as the angels are; and therefore our earthly parents are said to be the fathers of our bodies, and God the Father of our spuits, Heb. xii. 9. Now, saith Christ, the bodies and souls of those that shall be counted worthy to obtain that world, they shall both of them be put into that state the angels are in ; and in the same sense that the angels are said that they cannot die, in the same sense shall it be true of them, they cannot die neither ; and, secondly, they are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection; that is, we have bodies of flesh and blood, and these bodies we have them from our parents, we are the childi-en of Adam. So the saints, as their souls are born again, so their bodies are, as it were, born again by the resurrection; they have new kind of bodies, and therefore they are called the children of the resurrection, and being children of the resurrection, having bodies now framed immediately by the power of God, which subdueth all things to himself by as great a work as he created at first; hence it comes to pass that they are sons of God in a more transcendent manner than Adam was. And as the angels are said in a transcendent manner to be the sons of God, as immediately made by him, so these children of the resurrection may be said to be. Nowthen, being sons of God in this transcendent sense, in opposition to Adam, and in opposition to all mankind that are sons of men, being thus the children of the resurrection, their bodies being bom again by a new creation at the resurrection, hence, saith he, as God liveth of himself, and dieth no more, these are in this respect transformed into his image, that as he is immutable and unchangeable, so shall they; he puts it as a reason why they cannot die ; for, saith he, they are the sons of God, and they bear the image of God in that very thing, that as he hath immortality, so they have immortality suitable thereunto. So that, I say, it is clear from this text, which is an evident text, and I confess I have wondered at many of our divines who have handled this argument of the immor-tahty of our bodies at latter day, have not pitched upon this Scripture, for there is nothing more clear. He saith plainly they shall not die.

I might add other properties which are usually mentioned in comparing the state of Adam's body and ours, but then I should be too tedious. I will only conclude with this. Our Lord and Saviour Christ in his human nature, the Godhead personally united thereto, quickened it; he is therefore said to be a quickening Spiiit. What is it shall quicken our mortal bodies at latter day ? It shall not be the Godhead personally united to us j

but it shall be the Spirit of Christ, making our bodies his temple in a moro peculiar manner : 1 Cor. vi. 19, ' Your bodies,' saith he, ' arc the temples of the Holy Ghost who is now in you.' But then when he hath raised you up again, your bodies are to be his temple in a more immediate manner, ver. 14. In Rom. viii. 11, ' For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead do dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.' Ho saith of Jesus Christ, that he is a quickening Spirit; the Godhead being personally united to him, quickened his human nature ; but so it shall not be with us. That is his prerogative alone ; but he hath put his Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, into us, who doth dwell in us ; and that blessed Spirit he shall quicken our mortal bodies, and shall not only raise them up again at latter day, but look what Adam's soul was to his body, that shall the Holy Ghost be to our bodies in a transcendent manner, though not by a personal union, yet by such an union as is between the human nature of Christ and the Holy Ghost. For, my brethren, though the Godhead of the second person doth dwell in a personal manner in the human nature of Christ, yet the Holy Ghost doth not dwell personally in him ; he is united unto the human nature but as he is unto us, and that Spirit thus dwelling in us he shall quicken, and advance, and raise up our bodies to that state and height as becometh the Holy Ghost (if he will take a temple up unto himself) to raise^,our bodies up unto. He saith, 'the Holy Ghost shall quicken your mortal bodies ;' he doth not only speak of the first act of raising them, but in respect of spiritualising and glorifying their bodies, the Holy Ghost shall dwell in them, and shall make that God shall be all in all unto them. And so now I have finished this text, which only holds forth a comparison between the animal, the natural state of Adam's body, and the state our bodies shall have at latter day.

I will but name an use or two, being loath to dismiss you without one-All this that hath been said hath been but to this purpose, to compare Adam's body, that had a world made for it, for the animal state of it, with the state our bodies shall have hereafter, which shall be made spiritual, and have objects suited to them in the world to come. You have seen what a state God will raise up our bodies to; let us therefore abstain from fleshly lusts, let us get our souls to spirituaHse our bodies all we can while we are here, for it is that Hfe we shall certainly live hereafter. My brethren, our bodies can never be made spiritual here; we are here in an animal state, we are in Adam's world, and we have Adam's image upon us, and we need meat, and drink, and sleep, &c., and must live upon those things which are necessary to this hfe; but yet we may look upon ourselves as pilgrims and strangers, and we may go and spiritualise all these, because all these shall one day be spiritualised ; let us live the hfe of heaven here as much as we can, even in the use of all these outward things, because our bodies are ordained to such a spiritual condition one day.

Secondly, Let those that do groan under weak bodies be comforted with the assurance of their being restored to a full vigour, health, and strength. The truth is, our bodies here, they do hinder us from a great deal of that very hoUness we might have ; for holiness cannot be had without taking pains, and there is no pains doth spend the spirits and lick them up more than intention upon God and spiritual things. And besides all hindrances •we have here, the very hindrances of these poor animal carcases of ours, which we have from Adam, hinder us as much or more than anything else.

And there is flesh and corruption that dwells in them, that inordinately carries them out to earthly things. Therefore let us ' groan,' as the apostle saith, ' for the redemption of our bodies,' whenas there will be no weariness, whenas all the suitableness that is now between earthly things and us will be done away ; we shall have new objects fitted for these bodies when made spiritual, that will no way hinder us from the vision of God, but rather fifrther us in it. Weakness and imperfections of our bodies now hinder us very much from holiness, and to build holiness upon our weak and frail bodies, it is as the building of an house upon a quagmire. Let us therefore groan after that time; and in the mean season, let us sanctify God in our hearts to the uttermost endeavour, waiting for that redemption, when we shall have bodies that shall need neither meat, nor drink, nor sleep, nor refreshing of spirits, all which are now temptations and interruptions to us.

OF GOSPEL HOLINESS IN THE HEART AND LIFE.

OF GOSPEL HOLINESS;

IMPLANTED IN THE HEART, AND CONTINUED IN THE WHOLE CONVERSATION OF LIFE.

BOOK L

That graces and holy dispositions ivroiight in the soul are the springs and principles of evangelical obedience. — The Jirst streams which flow from hence are inward actions of our souls in holy thoughts, and a lively sense and per-ception of spiritual things, and a due apjyrohation and judgment of them as most excellent. — That our holiness ought to be sincere and blameless. — That our obedience ought to abound in all fruits of righteousness, and to continue ■until the day of Christ.

And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere, and without offence, till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. — Philip. I. 9-11.

CHAPTER L

The words of the text explained; wliat the apostle means by abounding in all knowledge, and sense, or judgment.

This is one of Paul's prayers, several whereof we find dispersed up and down in his epistles, and they are put up to God for those he wrote to. The prayers of holy men are usually the utmost and choicest expressions of their graces—the drawings forth, or pourings forth rather, of their deepest affections and desires, for things which the light of the Spirit in them judgeth to be most excellent. And the words of the text are the prayer of the apostle Paul, who was filled with the Holy Ghost; and you see it is for holiness, and the increase of it.

* This I pray,' &c.; so he begins. You that have very holy hearts, if God should from heaven bid you ask some one thing,—as David speaks, • This one thing have I asked,'—it should be roZro, this thing, Paul prays

for here, to be ' holy before bim in love.' That which concerning holiness he prays for may be reduced to three heads :

I. Such graces and dispositions as are the inward springs, or primary essential principles, of holiness, which are three: 1. Love ; 2. Knowledge ; 3. Sense.

II. The next immediate consequents of these; the next streams from these in their inward man are, that in their judgments (which is to rr/ifJ'O-viTiov of all both holy affections and actions) they might, 1. ' Approve of things most excellent;' 2. ' Discern things different:' the words import either ; 3. That in their hearts they might be ' sincere.' These are inward.

III. The third thing which the apostle prays for is, that holiness be perfectly, and all sorts of "ways, held forth in their lives: 1. Negatively, * blameless,' or ' without offence,' or ' without accusation,' as the word is used, 1 Thes. v. 23. 2. Positively, that they might be ' filled with the fruits of righteousness.' And yet, 3. Because it is not the outward appearance of fruit, bigness, colour, fairness, but the kind, the constitution, and rehsh of it that commends it, he therefore describes these fruits he prays for in the highest spiritualness of them. (1.) That they are such as are by Jesus Christ, which grow on that tree, and on hearts engrafted on that root. Paradise, no, nor the tree of life, knew none such; that is, these are a more excellent kind of fruit than ever did or should have gi'own on Adam's heart. (2.) He describes them to be such fruit, which are immediately and eminently directed ' to the glory and praise of God,' that have Christ and union with him for their efficient, and God's glory for their end. And as the end makes the means lovely and desirable, so this great end of God's glory gives the relish to all the fruit that comes from us, since none other is fruit to God, as the apostle speaks, Rom. vii. 4, that is, for God's taste and acceptation.

IV. The fom-th and last thing is, the extent and continuance of this holiness for the time of it. It is to be found in them, ' in the day of Christ,' or ' until the day of Christ.'

These are the main branches that the bulk and body of this tree divides itself into ; and this is a gross view of what grows thereon. Let us but shake a little, and gather up what will easily and naturally fall.

The 9th verse is such, that in it (as the psalmist says) * all our springs are found,' namely, the inward springs of true hoHness. I may call them springs, not without the apostle's allusion here: the word is msigoivrj, that it may abundantly flow, as fr-om a spring; so Musculus. In ver. 11 he useth the metaphor of fruit and a tree; but here, of streams and of a spring. The principles of holiness in us are in Scripture compared to both, to a root from whence fruit grows (Gal. v. 22, 23, ' the fruits of the Spirit'), and to a fountain: John iv. 14, ' There shall be a well of water in him that believes, springing up into everlasting life.'

1. Grace and love to God should flow naturally; springs do so. Trees must be watered (that metaphor is not enough expressive of the naturalness of the workings of gi'ace), but springs flow readily; 1 Thes. iv. 9, ' I need not to write to you to love ; ye are taught that of God.' ' Out of his belly,' says Christ, ' shall these waters flow.' The inwards he calls the belly, which should have love in them, as the earth hath water in the bowels of it.

2. In a fountain, as you take away, still more comes, and the faster it comes; and thus as a spring retains not its water to itself, so love keeps nothing to itself, but it flows to the use and benefit of God and men.

8. As fountains have their rise in hills, so this of love is first in God's heart in heaven: ' We love God, because he loved us first,' 1 John iv. 10. ' It springeth up,' says Christ, ' to eternal life,' i. e., its original. Aqua in tantum ascendit, &c.

I have done with the metaphor; I come to the naked sense intended, 'in fiaXkov %at iJMKkov msiaarjri, ' may abound yet more and more.' It had abounded already; the love of the primitive times it abounded, as you read, 1 Thess. iv. 9, 10. One rivulet remains of the former metaphor to convey this to us, which we have, John vii. 38, 39, ' He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this,' says John, ' he spake of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive : for the Holy Ghost was not yet given ; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.' When Christ was now glorified, the graces of the Spirit were not brooks, but rivers; he poured, not dropped, down his Spirit, and love made the greatest channel. Ecce qui diVujunt, was the common observation of the heathens, ' See how they love one another,' speaking of Christians. It held till TertuUian's time. Were there a cause concerned the common good of saints ? Their principle was, they would ' lay down their lives for the brethren,' 1 John iii. 6. Was it the cause of God? ' They loved not [their lives to the death.' It is the character of Hhose Christians, Rev. xii. 11. Our springs are not only dried up, but turned back, as Jordan was ; the hatred among the saints abounds yet more and more, and is like to swell higher yet. Oh, my brethren, is not Christ yet glorified ?

The apostle adds these words, * yet more and more.' To have said that it may abound, had an emphasis with it; but he adds 'in, yet, and adds to that /xaXXov, more, and xa/ /MoiXXov, more still. God can never have enough of your love, nor you of grace. Paul that knew him thought so, and therefore prayed so. Seest thou a spark of fire; lay straw to it, and then add more fuel, it abounds more and more 3-ccording to its fuel. This whole inferior world will not be a sufficient prey for the fire one day ; it will melt the elements, as Peter says, yea, the heavens that now are it will consume. Such a thing is grace and love: all the excellencies in God are ordained to be the object, the fuel of it; yet it can neither consume, nor be consumed,, but abounds still yet more and more.

But why is love first ? Doth not faith and knowledge in order of nature go before ? You must remember (as I told you) he speaks here of the principles of obedience, and so love is the more immediate, for faith works by love. It is love (says the apostle, 1 John v. 3) makes all the ' commands not grievous.' ' Provoke one another,' says the apostle Paul, Heb. s. 24, ' to love and to good works.' Enkindle, stir up that principle, and then good works, as the flame, will arise. When Christ would move Peter to take pains for him and feed his lambs, and in doing so run through all the difficulties that attended an apostle's work and calling, what says he to him ? ' Peter, lovest thou me ?' He says no more. And what says Peter ? ' Lord, I love thee.' It was enough between them two, to put him on to anything. Faith is indeed the only principle by which we deal with God and Christ for justification and communion with them ; but love is that which incites us to holiness and obedience. We are ' ordained to be holy before him in love ;' holiness riseth from love. Oh, therefore, get your hearts inflamed with the love of God !

The apostle farther adds these words, ' that your love may abound in knowledge.' Ordinarily men had need pray that their love might grow up

to their knowledge ; but Paul here prays that their knowledge might grow up with, and to, their love. Usually men's knowledge is larger than their affections. It was, it seems, otherwise with these Philippians. There are usually extant these two sorts of Christians: affectionate, fond souls of Christ, but less knowing ; others more knowing, yet less passionate, though true Christians both. The primitive times give instances of both. The Corinthians were knowing Christians: 1 Cor. i. 4, 5, ' I thank God that in every thing ye are enriched in all knowledge and utterance ;' but they were short in love. 1 Cor. viii. 2, 3, ' If any man thinks that he knoweth anything,'—he speaks home to them—' he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. But if any man love God, the same is known of him.' And chap. xii. 31, they were for gifts : ' But yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.' And what was that ? Love. So in chap. xiii. 1, ' Though I speak with tongues of men and angels, and have not love,' &c., throughout. But to return to that chap. viii. 3, ' If any man love God, the same is known of him.' The speech carries the highest reproof with it; it is as if he had said, You take care to get more knowledge, but God knows enough for you, if he knows you to be his. Take care to get more love, for ' if any man love God, the same is known of him.' And conform yourselves to God herein. God's loving of you is termed his knowing of you ; they are adequate, let them be so in you to him.

But the Philippians and the Thessalonians were a more plain, sincere, affectionate sort of Christians, whose affections had been hitherto more than their knowledge; he therefore prays that their distinct knowledge might grow up with their love—' That their love might abound in knowledge '—and both grow together. As 2 Pet. iii. 18, ' Grow in grace, and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ;' not in blind affections, but such which spiritual knowledge may stir up. What is grace ? It is bxxt knowledge concocted into the affections, to have suitable impressions, dispositions on the affections to the things known. 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' "We are changed ' (by beholding) ' into the same image.'

3. The apostle adds these words, ' and in all sense,' %at 'rrderi aJcdrjgu. It is translated 'judgment,' but in the Greek, ' sense,' and so in your margins varied. The apostle puts the emphasis here, saying, ' in all sense ' as the main, for it is such knowledge as hath sense added to. We are to inquire what is meant by sense, and why it is added to knowledge. It is all sense, let us therefore take in all senses may be given of it.

(1.) Sense is here added to knowledge, to express the true nature of spiritual faith in two words, added the one to the other, which is elsewhere expressed by one single word. Faith, what is it ? A spiritual sense of spiritual things, or things excellent (as it follows in the text, Philip, i. 10). And the same apostle speaking of grown Christians, says, that they have ' their senses exercised,' rd a'lG&nTrj^ia, Heb. v. 14. Though he speaks this indeed of grown Christians, that they have their senses exercised, yet he sup-poseth that as Christians they have the senses themselves, that is, the faculties of them; and he says not sense only in the singular, as here (Philip, i. 9), but senses, making an allusion of the new creation of the spiritual man to the outward man ; for as the outward man hath divers organs and instruments of sense, so hath the new creation. That look as God made an outward world, in which are all sorts of objects, beauty, colours, sw^eet smells, pleasant fruits, so he placed in man's body ai6()rir7]^ia, senses suited to these, to take in the real comfort from these ; and there is no creature outward, but there is a sense suited to it. So he hath made an invisible world, with

variety of things spiritual, and that variety is but tho several appearances of himself; and in the new creature there arc suitable spiritual senses made to entertain them, and take them into tho soul. In the Scripture you find that there is no particular sense, but faith is expressed by it; you have seeing and tasting in one verse: Ps. xxxiv. 9, ' Taste and see that the Lord is good ;' and both put to express faith, for it follows, ' Blessed is the man that trusts in him.' To see God in his beauty and goodness, and in the heart and alTection, and to taste of that goodness (to which Peter alludes, 1 Peter ii. 2), ai-e the acts of faith. Then, for hearing, I need not enlarge upon it. ' He that hath an ear, let him hear' with an inward ear, Eev. ii. 7. For men may naturally hear and see God's wonders, and yet not with a spiritual ear ; for, Deut. xxix. 3, 4, ' The great signs and miracles which thine eyes have seen, yet the Lord hath not given you eyes to see, and ears to hear, to this day.' But Christ gives another character of believers, when he says, John x. 3, ' My sheep hear my voice ;' that is, discern and distinguish his voice by an inward sense; for it follows, ver. 5, ' The voice of a stranger they will not follow.' As the ear tries words, says Job, so they by an instinct know the mind of Christ, 1 Cor. ii. 15, 16. Thus likewise as to smelling: 2 Cor. ii. 15,16, ' We are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish : to the one we ai'e the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life.' We are, that is, our ministry; he compares the effect of it to that of vapours or smells*. There are some vapours and smells that, as soon as they come into the nostrils, suffocate the spirits, strike dead, as in those famous caverns in Italy. Such are the threatenings of the gospel to a man that will not leave his lusts and believe, they are the savour of death, the occasion of his ruin; and not only so, but his conscience (which is a principle suited to the threatening, as smell is to savour) smells the savour of fire and brimstone of hell in them, and he goes away with sense of condemnation unto him, for those courses he is resolved to go on in. But it is contrary to those that beheve and obey, for unto them this ministry is the savour of life unto life. Some smells recover men when in a swoon ; so do the promises quicken and revive men's souls by their scent from them. They send forth the perfume of heaven, of God's love and free grace ; it is the savour of life unto life. And as to feeling, which is another sense, what says the apostle? 1 John i. 1, ' What our hands have handled of the word of faith.' He speaks not of outward conversion, but inward, as ver. 3, * that which we have seen and heard,' &c., of that fellowship their souls had had with him, as seals on that of their senses.

(2.) By sense is meant experience, as it is a distinct thing from faith; for the apostle, Rom. v., after he had said, by faith a Christian hath peace with God, shews how faith is improved and added unto, through God's dealings with us : ' tribulation worketh patience,' and submission to God; ' and patience, experience.' So in such and such afllictions, after we had submitted to God, God came in and delivered or upheld with comforts, and thereby faith was strengthened against the next; for ' experience breeds hope,' or confidence of God's carrying us on to life and glory, when we have found God faithful in relieving us, and sticking close to us in all sorts . of trials, and so it grows up to assurance (as hope is there, and 1 John iii. 1, taken in that sense). Now experience is an acquired knowledge in matters spiritual, founded on sense—a collection of conclusions from what we have the sense of, as all artists gather conclusions from experiments made. A man at first sets out to believe with faith barely founded on the

promise; as suppose he relies on this, that God favours him and loves him, and will do him good, and that God is faithful in such and such promises, afore ever he sees any performance, a man believes this with spiritual faith, and a faith that hath sense in it. Take seeing for the reality of the things, as they He in the promise, and that God is the promiser. But afterwards look as God performeth in process of time any promises of his, there is then a sense of experience superadded, and a collection from thence of the truth of the promise. Ps. xli. 11, ' By this I know that thou favourest me, because my enemies do not triumph over me ;' especially when withal I find, as it follows, that ' as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity.' A man believes that * there is a God, who is the rewarder of them that seek him,' Heb. xi.; a God that judgeth the earth, and therefore comes to him as a God that suffers not the wicked always to prosper, but in the end heareth the prayers of his poor people. And the man hath learned this, first (as the psalmist says, Ps. Ixxiii. 17, 18) in the sanctuary, that is, out of the bare word. But having now believed this, he afterwards sees with his eyes a vengeance executed, as in Ps. Iviii. 10, ' The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance.' He sees the vengeance by experience, and so fi-om experience collects and strengthens faith anew, namely, in this great point of faith which follows there : ' A man shall say. Verily there is a reward for the righteous : verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth.' Thus also David, Ps. xxxvii. 34, ' Wait on the Lord, and keep his way, and he shall exalt thee to inherit the land: when the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it,' that is, have experience of it. And David confirms this by his own instance, ver. 35, 36, ' I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree : yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.' Thus promises brought home in trials and temptations breed experience : Ps. cxix. 50, ' This is my comfort in my affliction,' says he, ' for thy word hath quickened me.' Here is a conclusion, a trial of a receipt in time of malady, with a prohatum est from experience. And such was the experience of a dying Chi-istian: ' Is there^not (said he) such a promise—I will be with thee in the fire and in the water? ' ' Yes,' said they that stood by. * Read, I pray' (replied he); which done, ' Bear witness (said he) that I die, testifying that God is true in that promise to my soul,' which is the similar to that of David's, ' This is my comfort in my affliction,' &c. Thus in hearing a man's prayer, what a world of experiments hath an experienced Christian. The whole 116th Psalm is a record of it, and so likewise the 18th Psalm : ' In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears.' And how it doth set heaven and earth on work, the rest of that psalm shews; and therefore, as David learnt himself by experience, so he teacheth others : Ps. Ixvi. 16, 17, 19, ' Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul. I cried unto him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. But verily God hath heard me ; he hath attended to the voice of my prayer.' Thus by experience we know our own graces, and ' things given us of God,' as 1 Cor. ii. and the 119th Psalm throughout shews. And ' Oh how good is it to draw near to God !' says David, upon a taste and experiment of it, Ps. Ixxiii. 28. Of grown Christians we say, they are experimental Christians ; and those that were babes, the apostle describes such to be umipoi, such that have no experience; whereas a grown Christian hath * his senses exercised to discern both good and evil.' Such an one discerns the difi'or-

ence of things readily, not from reason, but skill that hath been contracted from the sense of experience. Thus of Christ it is said, * that he learned obedience by the things he suffered,' Heb. v. 8. Take a man that hath naturally a wise head, and the grain, the current of his understanding lies and runs that way ; yet if such a man hath been further versed in the world, and hath been tumbled and tossed up and down therein, and hath been used to business or affairs of state, &c., he will have an experimental acquired wisdom added, if not to increase, yet to confirm all those principles naturally engrafted in him ; and through both these a man proves a wise man indeed, as Solomon throughout did.

Thus Christ our Lord, though his manhood was furnished with all sorts of abilities, principles of faith and knowledge spiritual, yet God did put this great scholar to school, to learn (says the apostle, Heb. v. 8) knowledge of this other kind. And the schoolmaster he sets him to was patience, which breeds up experience, as the same apostle saith, Rom. v. 4. The school was obedience, that so he might have sense added to his faith and knowledge. The heart of Christ had an ocean of love natm-ally flowing in it, and yet he must learn mercy and pity to us, in a way of sense, as it is said, 'inasmuch as he also was tempted,' Heb. ii. 18. And this is the meaning of that passage in the 10th verse of that chapter, ' He was made perfect through sufferings.' God would have his eldest Son educated in all sorts of faculties and learnings (whose type was Moses), that so he might be perfect; and therefore he ran through all courses as we mortals run through, that he might be perfect in all sorts of experimental knowledge; and especially because sufferings teach most compendiously, he was therefore made perfect through sufferings. And as use, we say, makes perfect, so did experience him ; and thus as to us (as the apostle says, Heb. xii. 11), ' Afflictions bring forth the peaceable fruits of righteousness, to them that are exercised therein.' The word exercised is the same that is used in that forementioned Heb. v. 14, concerning our senses being exercised ; and it is a metaphor taken from the knowledge that is obtained in schools, whether either of arts and sciences, through exercising themselves therein, as fencing, grammar, &c., by performing such exercises whereby youths grow up to such a perfection. The same word we have again, 1 Tim. iv. 7, ' Exercise {yv/xm^B) thyself to godliness ;' that is, get such a skill by performing the exercises of it as scholars at school do; run through all sorts of duties, as scholars do thi-ough all sorts of forms (which seeing the Holy Ghost so often alludes unto, to express the practical part of godliness hereby, it is unsavoury to call, as some do, the set performance of such holy duties, forms, and tasks); but, says the apostle in direct opposition to these, they diligently run through all parts of piety, which will procure an exquisite knowledge by experience, which is equivalent to sense here in the text. So then when the apostle here prays they might abound in all sense, his meaning is, they might run thi-ough all courses of godliness, and be carried through all the varieties of God's dealings and dispensations, all sorts of trial of graces on their part, and performance of promises on God's; that so, having tried all conclusions, they might be perfect Christians in experimental knowledge, even in all sense.

(3.) By sense he means deep and glorious impressions on the soul, over and above the Hght of faith or knowledge by ordinary experiences; and such impressions are truly rather sense than knowledge, as all find that enjoy them; and they are therefore said to 'pass knowledge,' Eph. iii. 19, and are entitled, ' the peace of God which passeth understanding,' Phil. iv. 7.

And the same is hinted Rom. v. 5, G, ' Patience breedeth experience, and experience hope: and hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us.' A man had before by faith peace with God (thus ver. 1), but now he comes to have experience with hope or assurance from the love of God shed, not manifested or apprehended by knowledge so much as shed, whereof the subject is said to be the heart rather than the understanding; and this is that which Christ promiseth, John xiv. 21. And this the primitive Christians more generally enjoyed: 1 Peter i. 8, ' Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' Thus were those Peter wrote to, and so were the Philippians and Romans, as you heard; as for the Thessalonians, the word ' came unto them in much assurance, and joy in the Holy Ghost,' 1 Thes. i. 5. And this high and heavenly sense and enjoyment the apostles used to pray for in behalf of those they wrote to. Thus Paul for the Romans, Rom. xv. 13, ' Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.' And Peter exhorts those Christians he wrote unto to maintain and not to lose this; for having said, 1 Peter i. 8, 9, that they had been filled (as at conversion, or soon after ordinarily) with joy unspeakable and glorious, he exhorts them (chap. ii. 2, 3) that they would keep up that sense and taste, even as new-born babes; he would have them, though men in understanding, yet always to be as babes in their appetites and tastings of the love and goodness of God, and if they wanted it, to cry for it.

Use 1. Hath faith and the new creature these senses joined to and implanted in them ? Then may a Christian, if it be not his fault, lead the most sensual life (pardon the expression) of any creature. For as God hath made a world for sense, so God hath prepared Christ, and all things spiritual to the new creature. You see what pleasures are in the visible world, which the senses let in; but the soul is able to drink in more at one draught in a moment than all the senses can let in, or the world afford us in ages. Now, what the world is to the body, that God and Christ are to the soul. Of this sense the Psalmist speaks, Ps. xxxvi. 8, 9, * They shall be abimdantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house ; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life : in thy hght shall we see light.' He instanceth in those senses of sight, and taste, and the objects thereof, which bring in so much pleasm-e to the body.

Use 2. See the reason why the same truth meditated on, or conferred on, or heard again and again, to hearts prepared to relish spirituals, still afiects with a new and fresh sweetness. If our souls only entertained, and took them in by bare knowledge, 'it would not be so ; but faith, containing all the senses in it, hence, if we receive them by faith, a fresh and rich pleasure springs out of them.

Use 3. See the reason why faith hath the greatest certainty of knowledge about its objects of any other knowledge. The philosopher says, Se7isus non falUtur circa j)rnprium objection: the senses are not deceived about their proper objects (due circumstances and proportions of distance, &c., being obsei*ved), and that the speech of Christ confii-ms it. When the disciples thought Christ to be but a spirit, he appeals for the final determination to two senses, seeing and feeling; for, says he, ' Hath a spu-it flesh and bones as I have ? ' Now, faith hath not one only, but all

tho senses conjunct with it, and implanted in the nature of it; so far, therefore, as we believe, we arc certain of tho object, the reality, the existence of it, though of our interest therein we may be doubtful.

CHAPTER II.

The imcarcl effects of an holy disposition and temper in the soul are an abilitij in the understandinri to discern, jmhje of, and approve spiritual thinrjs, and a sincerity in tho heart, incUniny a man to ivalk in God's ivays; what it is to be sincere and icithout offence.

The inward fruits and effects that flow from a principle of holiness, and do constitute and form such an habitual frame of spirit as may practically fit a man to walk holily, are next to be considered, and they are two:

1. In the understanding, an ability to discern upon all occasions tho difference of things, and upon an act of discretion choose and approve what is best; or (as the words may be varied) a judgment to discern of the excellency of things in the ways of religion, what is more excellent than other, and to approve of and cleave thereto.

2. In the heart (' that ye may be sincere,' which respects walking), a sincerity to incline and direct a man in his way, to keep him so as not to turn to the right hand or the left, and to preserve him from stmn-bling and falling from his course; and therefore it is joined here with d'TT^oaxo'Troi, which signifies both those that walk without wandering from their scope, their mark,* which in their course they are bound for, as also that are void of ofience, or stumbling, or giving occasion to others so to do; and therefore I added, which practically fit a man to walk holily.

1. In the understanding there are holy principles: s/g rh hoxiijA^m to, diap'sPovTot,. Both words here used have an amplitude, a comprehensiveness in them. I will open each apart, and fit them each to the other, and all to the thing in hand.

(1.) It signifies to try and discern the difference of things from their counterfeit or contraries—a word taken from goldsmiths, as the use of the word in 1 Peter i. 7 evidently shews, where he speaks of the trial {do-/.i,(Mm) of faith, which is ' found more precious than gold, though tried with the fire' (the goldsmith tries gold and metals either by the touchstone or by the fire). And in an allusion to this metaphor, it is applied to a discerning the difference of doctrines, whether about things to be done or believed : 1 Thes. v. 21, * Prove,' or try, ' all things.' He had spoken of prophesying in the words afore, in which ordinary gifted men being not infallible, might mingle verisimilia, errors like truth, or dross and corrupt doctrine with truth, he exhorts them 8orj/j^d^siv, to try, or prove, and so hold fast what is good.

(2.) It imports, withal, an approving in judgment of what is good, a savouring, relishing, closing with and cleaving to the goodness of it as good and best for him. Thus, Rom. xii. 2, 3, ' Be renewed in your mind, that you may prove what is that good, that perfect will of God' (it is the same word), not only to discern the will of God in its truth from falsehood in all the latitude and perfection of it (as David speaks, Ps. cxix. 97, ' I have seen an end of all perfection, but thy commandments are exceeding broad'), but to approve it. There is a vastness and variety of duties commanded, * Metaphora sumpta ab iis qui aliqiio contendunt.— Beza.

HO OF GOSPEL HOLINESS fBoOK I

sins forbidden ; and to discern those, especially the spiritual part of them, •which is the perfection that gives the acceptation, this no man can do but by being renewed in his mind ; but farther, so as withal to prove and close with the goodness of that will of God in each particular thereof, to like it, relish it, savour it (as Rom. i. 28 the word is used), under this consideration and respect, that it is acceptable to God, as well as perfect in itself; yea, and also as good, yea, best for a man's self that is to do it, and all this out of a suitableness: this, to be sure, is found only in and from a renewed mind. And thus in that former place, 1 Thes. v. 21, this word hoy.ifia^iiv is to be understood, ' Try and prove all things, hold fast what is good.' There is, you see, 1, a discerning the difference, prove or try, joined with holding fast, or cleaving to the mind of God as good, as good for me ; that if I were to make my own statutes I would live by, it should be those and no other which I find revealed in God's word. Ps. cxix. 127, 128, ' Therefore I love thy commandments above gold, yea, above fine gold. Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.' The expressions are as full as full may be : I esteem, I love, yea, I esteem thy precepts out of love to their suitableness ; therefore I esteem them because I love them, and all and every one of them, and that concerning all things, as they direct me in all and each circumstance of my ways, as they concern any part of my life, oppose my dearest lusts, or cross my strongest desires. And not content with this, he expresseth it by his hatred of its contrary, * I hate every false way.'

As these are the two imports of the word doxi/Ma^iiv, namely, both, 1, to tiy, and 2, to approve, so suitably the other word, which here expresses the object of these acts, ra oia(pl^o^Ta, translated ' things that differ,' is such a word, and so industriously singled out, as answers to both, clasps in with both ; for it signifies either, 1, ' things that differ,' and so yokes well udth ' to try or discern,' the object of which is the difference of things. 2. They are ' things that excel,' and are more excellent, and so yokes with the other import, to ' apj)rove as best,' or most excellent. I need not give you an account of the first, that o/apl^oi/ra signifies things that differ, abtd(p(i^u, are things indifferent. But for the second import of the word take Luke xii. 7, ' Ye are of more value,' of more excellency in God's esteem, * than many spaiTows.' Yet it is the same word that is used here. So likewise when it is said, 1 Cor. xv. 41, that ' one star differs from another star in gloiy ;' that is, excels another. We say of things more excellent, compared with things less, that there is a great deal of difference. Christ ' obtained a more excellent name,' oia^po^uiri^ov. So then let us take up the apostle's meaning, as it comprehendeth both these senses.

1. He prays their understanding may be so habited with spiritual judgment and sense upon all occasions, whether of proposals of doctrines to them, matters of controversy, wherein there is an aptness to deceit, through a likeness, that yet when they see reasons on this side and on that side, they might be able out of sense to say, This is truth ; that they might discern truth from falsehood, and approve it; or in matters of practice, in all turnings of their lives, or cases of conscience, they might quickly discern and judge what they were to do, to see and say. This is my way; and that they might know this clearly, so as not to be deceived, but so as to walk comfortably, as knowing they are doing the will of God. And this is one frame or constitution of spirit the judgments of God's people are clothed with. Of Christ it is said, Isa. xi. 2, 3, ' The Spirit of the Lord,' and ' a

Spirit of wisdom and understanding,' as the fruit of that Spirit,' should ' rest on him,' and he should be of ' quick understanding in the foar of the Lord'; that is, he should be quick-eyed, nimble-sighted, to discern the difference of things; and answerably every Christian is made more or less a sagacious creature. He receives wisdom in matters doctrinal, prudence in matters practical, Eph. i. 8, Col. i. 9, a skill to know at the instant how to walk, which all the notional knowledge in the world cannot stamp on the mind ; for that is not ad mamim at every turn when a man is to act, but a practical skill is needful. If a scholar had learnt all the art of.'fencing in all the postures of it, and had the rules imprinted on his fancy, yet a fencer brought up to it hath a skill beyond him, a sagacity impressed through use on his eye, his hand, to spy out every advantage. Such a practical art in discerning a man's way doth the Holy Ghost stamp on the judgment of a man regenerate, which no use nor learning can ever enable unto. Then again, apply the use of this word to a discerning a ditierence in things. When a man is turned to God, how is this fulfilled in him ? He is enabled to see a strange difference, as in things and persons both worldly and spiritual, so in the ways of men, and in the difference of ministers. When a man is unregenerate, he is darkness, and to men in the dark color omnibus laiits, all coloui-s are alike. Morality and natural devotion in men go for grace and hoHness. Glow-worms shine as well as stars, but when a man is converted, ' the darkness is past, and the true light shineth,' as John speaks. And then he discerns and knows, as the same John says, 1 John V. 19, that * we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.' The Scriptures afford a thousand such instances. And all this the regenerate man discerns by a kind of sense and infused sagacity. For the farther increase of such light doth the apostle here pray ; for as this increaseth, so like-wise hohness increaseth in the heart and Ufe.

2. He prays that their judgment might be so habited as to close with, approve, savour the goodness and excellency of things spiritual, according to their several degrees of excellency as best for them; that they might approve the excellency of spiritual things in comparison of things and persons worldly, and answerably esteem and value Christ and all his excellencies, so as to give up all for him, as Paul did, Phil. iii. 8, ' I account all things as loss and dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ.' And thus Peter speaks, * To you that believe he is precious,' 1 Peter ii. 7, whenas all disobedient ones refuse him. To such a man the saints of God are the excellent ones of the earth, as they were to David and Christ, Ps. xvi. Likewise the things of the law are excellent things, as the prophet speaks, and accordingly are valued by such a man. And he so values them as to choose these as best, and best for him. Ps. cxix. 30, * I have chosen the way of truth, thy judgments have I laid before me.' I have deliberately viewed and considered them all, and as deliberately chosen them, and that as my heritage to live upon ; ver. Ill of that psalm.

3. Besides approving in common the excellency of things spiritual in comparison to earthly and carnal, the apostle's meaning is of their approving among things spiritual those that are most excelling. Our apostle praying for grown Christians, as these Philippians were, the aim of his prayer was, that among those more excellent things they might still more and more, as he had spoken of abounding, approve of what was most excelling. In those primitive times, though there were not several forms of religion, and all of them acceptable to God, as some have dangerously spoken, for there is but one God, one faith, one baptism—which latter is by a synecdoche put for

all other instituted ways of worship—yet according to the several degrees of light there were in some churches and persons further and more excellent attainments; and in this regard it is he prays for these PhiUppians that they might be heightened to the approbation of what was most excellent, that they might abound in knowledge, love, and sense, so as to embrace and pursue after of all other what was most excellent, by perceiving the comparative different excellency that was between spiritual things. Acts xviii. 25, 26, you read of a man of God, ApoUos, who was ' instructed in the way of God,' and one that was ' fervent in spirit,' that taught and ' spoke diligently the things of the Lord,' yet ' knowing only the baptism of John.' You read likewise, chapter xix., of certain disciples that were true Christians, and have that testimony given them, both here in the story of ApoUos, chapter xviii. 27, and also in that succeeding chapter xix. 1-3, &c.; and these had all been instructed in what was fundamental, for even John had taught them that * they should believe on him who should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus, so ver. 4, who yet, ver. 2, are said ' not to have heard so much as whether there be any Holy Ghost,' that is, either in those his gifts which accompanied the profession of Christ, as risen and ascended, or perhaps because they were not struck with any special intensive apprehension of it, to take up their heedful regard to him; yet it was accounted sufficient that they and he believed on Christ. And therefore Aquila and Priscilla took ApoUos, as Paul also those disciples, and instructed him, as it is said, more perfectly, or ' expounded unto him more perfectly the way of the Lord,' Acts xviii. 26. It was not teaching him a new way, but in a way of superstruction of what he knew before. What says the apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 11 ? * Other foundation can no man lay than what is laid,' and, as you see, was unto them laid, even Jesus Christ; and yet, says Paul, ' I shew you a more excellent way.' Take the apostles themselves : there were many things which they could not bear; their weak stomachs would have cast them up again. John xvi. 12, ' I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.' And that them now refers to an after time, in which they should ' receive a Spirit of truth,' ver. 13. To the apostles there was a double coming of the Spirit, as to us and them there is of Christ, The one secret, when he regenerated them, as of Christ when he stole into the world unknown: John i. 10, 11, ' He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' The other coming of the Spirit is, when he comes as a comforter: John xiv. 20, ' And in that day,' says Christ, ' you shaU know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you.' As you see an instance of attaining things more excellent in the apostles themselves, and ApoUos, and those at Ephesus, so you may see the like in the Corinthians, 1 Cor. ii. 6 and 1 Cor. iii. 1, 2. The apostle is bold to distinguish and put diflference between them that are perfect, and- what he taught unto such, and the Corinthians themselves he wrote to. Of the first says he, * we speak wisdom among them that are perfect,' so chap. ii. 6; but as for the other, vou read what he says, chap. iii. 1, 2, 'And I, brethren, could not speak to you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.' Nay, after he had written and almost concluded that epistle (that I may bring it to the very language of the text), 1 Cor. xii. 31, he says to the same Corinthians, 'And yet I shew unto you a more exceUent way.'

This I insinuate, 1, to shew how remote those are from this primitive spirit, that would include all within their circle, and that circle must be what a whole nation, yea, churches of nations, agree upon, as if there wore not room still for something more excelling, built on the former foundations; though indeed to destroy or alter principles fundamental, is to destroy the church universal, both that which is now on earth and hath been. But soberly compare these instances (if there were no other) with the attempts and principles of this and the former times, and let none of us exclude himself out of Paul's prayers; that is, of professing ourselves to be in a capacity still to approve of things more excelling than j'^et we do; and let us pray to God daily to deprive us of no manifestation of himself which saints in this life are and have been capable of.

The only observation (besides those which have been insinuated and scattered as I have gone along) I centre on, is from the coherence of those words, ver. 9 and ver. 10, ' That your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ:' i!g rb boxiij^d^nv, to the end you may approve, &c., and it is this.

Obs. That the readiest and speediest way for any or every Christian to come to discern and judge aright of things that differ (as matters of doctrine controverted, cases of conscience, and also of ways that are more excellent in religion) is this, that they abound in love, knowledge, with all sense, as was explained. This observation is natural from the words ug rh doxifid^uv, ' to the end you approve,' &c. Take sense here in all the senses I have mentioned; for faith, as it hath all senses annexed to it and found in it, Heb. v. 14, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, so faith con-duceth to the discerning of things spiritual, which are not taken by reason only, but by a spiritual sense joined thereto: Job xii. 11, 'Doth not the ear try words, and the mouth taste its meats ?' which conjunction and comparison signifies, that the discerning of truths is as discerning by the taste. The understanding, as made spiritual, is the palate of the soul: ' The spiritual man discerneth all things,' 1 Cor. ii. 15. The word (p^ovuv, put for wisdom, is savouring; and says Job, Job vi. 30, ' Cannot my taste discern perverse things ?' He appeals to sense for things that are grossly perverse, as a man by taste discerns his meat if it be stale or corrupted. Peter's judgment having a vitiated humour overflowing it, hereupon says Christ, ' Thou savourest not the things of God,' Mat. xvi. 23. My brethren, the regenerate part hath all truth and goodness originally wrought and interwoven into the temper and constitution of it, itself is nothing but truth and goodness; and so all spiritual things are but prepared (as 1 Cor. ii.) or suited and fitted for it, and so thereby a Christian hath a great predisposition to judge of doctrines and practices. This suits, or this suits not, says he, with the regenerate part; and however, though that is not the sole determiner (for then there would be no want nor need of reason or others' teaching), yet when reason hath done all it can, if this neither approves nor relisheth, there is a bearing off, a not closing with what is propounded.

Or if we take sense for experience, as it is superadded to faith, Eom. v., this is an help to judge. The apostle speaks, Heb. v. 14, of strong meat. The strongest truths are suited to be digested and taken in by those that have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. He speaks of experimental Christians trained up in temptations and cases of difficulty; whereas one (as afore) that is unskilful in the word of righteousness (the

word in the margin is, hath no experience) will be able to digest only milk. A man discerns in things spiritual the difference, not by argument merely, but by aim, that he presently says, This is crooked, that is straight; as a merchant's taste who is used to wines, or an experienced apothecary judgeth of drugs, and as jewellers judge even by sense of jewels. Or if we take sense for extraordinary impressions from communion with God and sense of his love in the heart, these mightily enable and guide a man, confirm him, and lead him into truth. How come men to discern ci^oXov ya?.a, 'the sincere milk of the word' ? 1 Pet. ii. 2, It follows, 'If so be you have tasted,' says he, 'that the Lord is gracious.' Infants discern the sweetness of their milk by sense, not reason. I cannot dispute, but can die for the truth, said the holy woman martyr. Thus John exhorts them to communion with God the Father, shewing this as one privilege of it, that being pre-informed therewith, he tells them, chap, ii., 'Ye have received an anointing that teacheth you all things ;' not that they needed not teaching, for then why should he have written to them against them that seduced them ? but he recalls them in those words unto that principle which would exceedingly further them in judging of truths ; even as Paul in the case of justification by works bids them but to have recourse to the thoughts they had at conversion, when they were first humbled for sin— Did you then trust in your works for salvation ?—this was enough to confute that wicked opinion. ' This persuasion came not of him that called you,' says Gal. v. 8; and so chap. iii. 2, he appeals to experience in the same or like question to decide it: ' This only would I learn of you, Eeceived ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?'

Lastly, to grow up in love. Working by faith is the shortest way to know God's will. There is a blessing of God that guideth such a man: John vii. 17, 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.' And David con-fii-ms it: Ps. cxix. 98-100, ' Thou, through thy commandments, hast made me wiser than mine enemies; for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.'

Having shewed you what it is to approve the things that are excellent, I come in the next place to explain to you what it is to be sincere.

1. Sincerity is opposed to what is counterfeit. Thus the apostle joins sincerity and truth together, 1 Cor. v. 8. That then is sincere which is genuine, which is right, which is true, as when we say. This is true gold.

2. Sincerity is opposed,* also, to that which is void of mixture. Thus sincera, in the Roman language, is sine cerd, without wax mingled. We do not huckster the truth, saith Paul, we do not mingle it with false wares, but as in sincerity, 2 Cor. ii. 17. Sincerity there is opposed to mixture. Now then, apply it to grace. A sincere heart is, as the apostle calls it, a ti'ue heart, an heart genuinely holy. Heb. x. 22, ' Let us draw near with a true heart,' true to God, faithful to him in all things, as David is said to have been. A sincere heart is a sound heart, 2 Tim. ii. 22, an heart that hath a principle of life and health in it, which works out all mixture of ill humours, and purgeth itself from all filthiness of flesh and spii-it, and mingleth with no sin, in the constancy of a man's course. He keeps himself that the evil one touch him not, as sound, pure wine bokes, and seeks to cast out the scum.

* Qu. ' applied ' ?— Ed.

3. Sincerity signifies tliat which may be brought to the sun ; so in 2 Cor. i. 12, ' We have had our conversation in this world, not in fleshly wisdom, but in godly sincerity,' or in the sincerity of God, ilXr/.^mia ©joD, that is, whereof God is witness, which may be brought to him, be held up to the sun, and be judged to be such, according to that of Christ, John iii. 21, ' But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought in God.'

4. But sincerity hath a peculiar relation to walking with God (as the word shews with which it is joined, a-Poffxcro/, without stumbling in his way, for that word is properly used only of the feet), and so it importeth a sound constitution of spirit both towards God and the commandments of God in walking with him, &c. (as David expresseth it), being upright in the way : 1 Kings ix. 4, ' If thou wilt walk before me' (speaking to Solomon), * in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I command thee, and keep my statutes and my judgments,' &c.

5. But sincerity implies more particularly these two things :

(1.) A right intention aiming at God. It is therefore called the sincerity of God in that 2 Cor. i. 12, and it is opposed there to fleshly wisdom, whereby a man seeks to bring the world and religion together. No (saith the apostle); I aimed at God sincerely, and that is the testimony of my conscience. In that 2 Cor. i. 12, he joins with it simplicity. Now in Mat. vi. 22, that which the apostle calleth simplicity, Christ there calleth singleness. * If thine eye be single,' saith he ; it is the same word. Now Christ his aim and scope is evidently in that place to speak of sincerity of intention in aiming at God, and in throwing out worldly ends ; for he speaks it in relation to a sincere purpose of not serving two masters. Men think to compound with both, to have the world and religion too . No, saith he ; God will have all; he thafserveth him must serve him singly, and his eye must be single. And because Christ spake of the aim and intention which guides the whole conversation, therefore he adds, ' If the eye be single, the whole body is full of light.' For a sincere intention is to direct the whole man in his walking, as the eye doth the body in acting ; if this intention be kept single, a man will not err. John vii. 18, He who seeks his glory that sent him (viz., God's), the same is true, sincere, and upright, and there is no unrighteousness in him, he having nothing to bias him, or to make him swerve. And then take sincerity for such a temper of heart as can come to the sun, and abide the light of it; he who thus sincerely aims at God's glory * comes to the light' (as Christ says), John iii. 21, ' that his deeds may be manifest that they are wrought in God,' and for God, because such an heart can bear all that the word says.

(2.) It notes out a bent of will to all the commandments that he knoweth to be such. I shall only name but one place: Ps. cxix. 112, * I have inclined my heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end.' In such an inclination of heart that is thus constant to all the commandments, lies sincerity.

Which sincerity ariseth, 1, from a love to God and his commands; therefore the apostle prayeth that they may abound in love. 2. It ariseth from a sense and taste that a man hath of the sweetness of God (through communion with him), and of that which he finds in his commands ; he tasteth how good God is, and how good the word is. ' Oh how I love thy law !' says David. And 3, it ariseth from knowledge ; for, as David says in Ps. cxix. 30, ' Thy judgments have I laid before me,' therefore (saith he, verse 128) * I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right,

VOL. VIT. K

and I hate every false way ;' as he also saith in the 112th verse. Eead that whole psalm. I may style it a mirror of sincerity. As the Holy Ghost hath used the penmen of Holy Writ to utter divine truths scatteredly and apart, so some more special subjects he hath been pleased to write set treatises of. Thus Solomon's Song is of Christ and the church, and his Ecclesiastes is of the vanity of all things. Thus John wrote an epistle of an union with God, and Jude wrote another of false teachers ; and so David wrote this psalm of sincerity and the characters of it, and accordingly he begins, ' Blessed are they that are upright in the way of God.' And this is called the integrity of God, as to give one instance concerning the meanest service done to God: Eph. vi. 5, ' Servants, be obedient unto them that are your masters according to the flesh, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ;' that is, aiming at him, even as if you served the Lord Jesus, and as if he bid you do everything. And do this, ' not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as servants of Christ,' * doing the will of God from the heart,' * with good will doing service, as to the Lord and not to men.' I instance in this, to let you see how a sincere heart works towards God in one particular condition and part of obedience, that you may understand what it is to be sincere in any other part, be it recreation, or whatever work God sets thee about. All these put together make up this integrity, this sincerity, this right frame of spirit towards God and his commands, that here the apostle prays for. This is that which Job saith he would not part with, that though he was not able to answer God one of a thousand, that is, if he came to actions and thoughts, yet for this frame of spirit, saith he, ' till I die I will not remove my integrity from me,' and let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity.

It remains that we explain what it is to be without offence. It is to walk without stumbling, as the word signifies. The place in Acts xxiv. 16 (where the same word is used) openeth it: ' Herein do I exercise myself,' saith Paul, * to have always a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men ;' that is, that I might not sin against light in my inward converse before God, or outward before men, grossly and willingly against light; for otherwise in all things we do oflend, as James saith. And certainly Paul to the day of his death lived so, for we find no sin against light, either in his epistles or in the story of the Acts recorded of him, but rather the conti'ary. Elsewhere also you have it explained; as in Luke i. 6, it is said of Zacharias and Elizabeth, that they walked blameless in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord; that is, the precepts of the moral law, and also ordinances of worship. You have the like phrase 2 Cor. i. 8, 1 Thess. v. 23, that you may be preserved blameless, aiMifi'TTToi, without reproof or accusation, or just cause of it; sine querela, without just cause of complaint by men, 1 Peter iii. 16; or of Satan, 1 Tim. iii. 7, and v. 14, who is called the adversary and the accuser. Rev. xii. 10. But he hath not power to accuse in such cases where the believer walks without offence.

To be without offence is to be air^oaxo'xoi. Ugoffxavrj is put properly to signify the errings, mistreadings, stumblings and bruisings of the feet in walking.* As afore in that of sincerity, the intention of the mind signified therein was compared to the eye, so this hath allusion to the steps. I shall make up the full comprehension of what this word holds forth, by what offences I find in the New Testament the word is applied to.

1. Heedfully to avoid all such footsteps and ways before others, as may * 'AffgoVzo'To/, proprie £t/ mbuv, metaphoric de aliis.— H. Stephanus.

induce them to sin, or wo know may prove an occasion to others of stumbling, or that edify them in their corrupt principles,—this is to be drpoSKO'roi, or void of offence in walking. Thus, 1 Cor. x. 32, uT^oax.o'roi y'msOs (the same word that is used here), ' be not offensive,' or be blameless ; give no scandal (the particular instance he was upon, was eating in the idol's temple), ' neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God.' He reckons up all sorts of religion then in the world, to all which that one action would be an occasion of off'ence. The Jews would say, These men profess to worship one God as we do, and yet partake with idols, as we do not. The Gi-ecians would say. We may then lawfully sacrifice to our gods, for lo these Christians join with us in eating the sacrifices offbred up to them in the temples of our gods, which we (as they know) intend as a part of our worship and religion performed unto them. The church of God would be scandalised, 1, passively, in that religion was blamed for it, that it would allow men any kind of practices, though contradictory to the principles of itself; 2, actively, that weak ones would and were thereby drawn and encouraged against the scruples of their consciences (to avoid persecution) to the like compliance, which also proved a step to apostasy in many. Thus when, by our footsteps and example, we invite others to follow us in evil, or give occasion to others to stumble, we are not a-ir^ltfs-Ko-TToi, blameless or inoffensive.

2. To walk in any action contradictory to a man's own principles he profes-seth before others, is to be offensive, and not d>rgo(T;cocTog, in the apostle's sense. Besides what the foregoing instance contributes, that phrase which Paul applies to Peter and his companions in that case is the opposite to this. The word here, as was said, properly regards J-/' mduv, and is properly applied to walking, and but metaphorically to other things ; therefore, inoffenso j)ede; with an inoffensive foot, say some ; inojfeiiso cursu, others. Most fitly therefore doth that of Paul, Gal. ii. 16, explain it, when he charged Peter ' not to have walked with a right foot,' and that according to the principles himself professed ; therefore it follows, * and not according to the truth of the gospel,' that is, as the principles thereof, and those professed by a man's self, do require. This was Peter's apparent fault there, for he, of all the apostles, was the first that, by a revelation given in and warranted by a vision from heaven, was himself the first who had been taught not to forbear eating with Gentiles as unclean,' Acts x. 28, * Ye know,' says he, ' that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or to come unto one of another nation. But God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean.' That principle was, and had been, a partition-wall between Jew and Gentile, Acts xi. 3, &c., and so on in that chapter; yea, and himself glories of it, as a peculiar honour vouchsafed him by God, in a public synod. Acts xv. 7 ; yea, and at Antioch himself practised it, and did freely eat with the Gentiles ; but when certain Jews came thither, he, for fear of them, separated himself, Gal. ii. 12. This was a contradiction so notorious and visible, and his example had such influence on others, and so justly off'ended them, that Paul could not forbear, but openly falls upon him : ' When I saw,' says the apostle, ' that they walked not with a right foot, I said to Peter, before them all,' that is, reproved him, for, ver. 11, * he was to be blamed ;' and so it comes home to the text, to explain it in the very phrase of it.

3. As thus to be void of offence before men, so not to do anything contradictory to that light which a man's own conscience hath received to walk by, not between God and himself, is to be without off'ence. In this sense

also, Acts xxiv. 16, Paul useth the word, applying it to himself, so as we may understand his prayers for them here from his own principles in walking, instanced in by himself: ' Herein,' says he, ' I exercise myself, to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men :' d'j^ixr-A.o-Trov euvi'ihriGtv, it is the same word, * a blameless conscience,' nil conscire sibi. He says not only a blameless conversation, that others shall not be able to blame me, but a blameless conscience, not to men only, so as not to offend them, or give them cause of accusation, but before God also. Conscience is that principle which is the seat and principle of all that practical light which is to guide us in our walkings with God, and is the receptacle of all the guilt, or opposition to that light in any action of ours, which is refunded back into it. Now Paul's conscience had received in more light than any man's in the world, and had therefore the hardest task of it that any man ever had, to walk up to it, and needed the more diligence and study how to manage every action, and the circumstances of it (which is the greatest study of the two), that not only his outward conversation to men might be without blame or offence, his conscience bearing witness of that (as 1 Pet. iii. 16, ' Having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you, as of evil doers, Ihey may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation in Christ'), but so as if you brought his outward walking to his conscience itself, and that conscience to God, the Searcher of hearts, he endeavoured so to walk, as that conscience might not have a spot, a darkness, a contrariety in actings of spirit, or converse, to that light which shined into his soul from God, no, not in his actings between God and himself. I follow this metaphor, because the apostle's parallel expression glanceth at it, 2 Cor. i. 12, ' For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, w^e have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-wards.' That hV^r/.^mia Qiov is a metaphor from bringing fine linen, as lawn, &c., to the sun, to view if there be any spots in them, by putting them between our eye and the sun. Now, saj'S Paul, so have I done, and so I do; I hold my conscience (for of the rejoicing of his conscience he there speaks) to God, as to my sun and judge; and I am not conscious, says he, no, not between him and me, of any action in my converse wherein I made an interposition, or cast a shadow against that light he hath seated therein to guide me. He brought his works to the hght of God in his conscience, to see whether they were ' wrought in God,' John iii. 21, for thus Christ speaks of him that doth the truth. Or if you will take it up in the metaphor used in the text, when a man, in all duties between God and him, as well as men, hath not dashed his foot against his light, and so is free from all bruises and wounds which his conscience would feel, and which a tender conscience easily feels, and which all men's consciences one day shall feel, when the heat of lust and pleasure of action are past and gone, it is then that man is without offence. This light of God in the conscience is, as Christ himself is said to be, ' a stone of stumbling, on which if a man fall, it bruiseth or breaks him ;' and a sin against conscience is a dashing against it, a kicking against the prickings of it. But Paul professeth his religion to consist in two things : 1. For matter of faith and opinion, and way of worship, he confesseth himself a Christian : Acts xxiv. 14, ' After the way which they call heresy,' says he, * so worship I the God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the law and the prophets.' And ' herein,' saith he, ver. 16, ' I exercise myself to have a good conscience.' The translation, ' I exercise myself,' is, methinks,

a little too low and flat, for it doth not reach the higher emphasis of the words in the original, iv rovruj di aoxu, i.e., ' in this,' or ' unto this,' as the main study and design of my life and soul, ' do I give up myself, devote myself.' Those devout Christians were anciently called Ascetce, that gave up themselves wholly to God in contemplation and mortification therewith, and made it their business. And as Paul made this his study, so (as I take it by all that ever I have observed recorded of him) he made this his glory, that he never, after his conversion, sinned against his light, no, not between God and himself, which was rarely any man's glory before or since ; to be sure it was not Peter's. He had set that down as an excellency he affected, to keep his conscience a virgin pure; and this made him so studious, and versed, and exercised in this point. Unto this, says he, I give all my study, meditation, aaxM, the best study in the world, for conscience unblotted is the best, 3'ea, only book in the world that will remain unburnt, and be opened and exposed, and we examined by it, at the latter day ; and when a man hath studied to get much knowledge, he is thereby (if he will be answerably holy) further and anew put upon a far greater and more exact study, exercise, and meditation ; and that is, how to walk up to the light of what he knows. And that this Paul made his glory, the Scripture everywhere testifies upon all occasions : Acts xxiii. 1, ' And Paul, earnestly beholding the council, said, Men and brethren, I have lived in all good conscience before God until this day.' So 1 Cor. iv. 4, ' For I know nothing by myself, yet am I not hereby justified ; but he that judgeth me is the Lord.' It is as if he had said, I am not conscious to myself of anything, though I am not hereby justified ; that is, I do not say I am without sin (for we must accord Paul with John, who says, * He that says he hath no sin deceives himself), because God knows that sin in me for which I cannot be justified ; yet I have not to my knowledge in any action gone against my light. Also, 2 Cor. i. 12, he thus speaks, ' For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simpHcity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-wards.' And 2 Tim. i. 3, 'I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day,' And Heb. xiii. 18, ' Pray for us, for we trust we have a good conscience in all things, willing to live honestly.' This blamelessness himself having kept, he prays might be in these Philippians, and ought to be in all Christians, and possibly might be, for it was in Paul.

CHAPTEE III.

What is meant by these words in Philip, i. 10, * until the clay of Christ.' The different significations of those j^hrases used in Scripture, ' unto the end,' and ' until the day of Christ.'

The next words to be considered in the text, Philip, i. 10, are these, ' till the day of Christ.'

I should come next, according to the order of the division of the text given, to the positive part of holiness, ' being filled,' &c. ; but these words cominw in between, I had rather handle them as the Holy Ghost hath placed them. And indeed, these words come in in the midst between both, and so appertain in common to both, and that as to this sense and purpose, both, * that you may be without offence until that day,' or ' in that day,'

and also, * that ye be filled with the fruits of righteousness in and at that day.' This is inserted as a matter of greatest moment, both, 1, in itself, as a necessary requisite, that holiness in us be continued until that day without interruption, and also crowned with perseverance. And also, 2, in that relation which holiness hath unto that day, or the stead which in that day it will stand us in ; that day is the special time and season which holiness and blamelessness is Jordained and serves for, the day when it will stand us in most stead, and shine in its greatest lustre. Which therefore, 3, we should have most in our eye, as a great incentive to abound in it, that in and at that day we may be found to have been blameless, that in and at that day we may appear filled with the fruits of righteousness, &c.

Now, 1st, to clear this phrase itself, as the words refer to that first import, being blameless until that day, there is a difficulty hath often presented itself to my thoughts which I will endeavour to assoil: why the apostle should not rather have said in his petition, till the day of death; but still almost everywhere in his epistles, should mention the day of Christ. Now that he should assign that day to bear the date of his prayers and consolation to expire at, not extending his petitions to that eternity after that day, it looks as if he supposed, even after death, some danger to remain until that day, which after that day they are for ever free from, and after which they would not need any such petition, but were secure for ever.

1. Some make the foundation of these and such like phrases to be, that Paul was of the mind and opinion that the day of judgment would fall out in his and their days. And that this was his opinion they allege other like expressions that seem to look that way, 1 Cor. xv. 51, where, speaking of the judgment-day, he says, as in the person of himself, and them of that age, ' we shall not all die, but we shall all be changed;' why did he not rather say, they then living shall not all die, but he says, ive, &c. And he again utters himself in like manner, 1 Thes. iv. 17, ' Then we which are alive and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.' And to the same purpose (say they), he supposing that Timothy might live to that day, it was that he says, 1 Tim. vi. 4, ' That thou keep this commandment without spot unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' All which is further backed with that of Christ's speech, ' Watch ye; you know not what hour;' &c., 'and what I say to you, I say to all.' He speaks not as* if he would have those his disciples then living and present, to apprehend the day of judgment might fall out in their time.

But (1.) on the contrary, it seems evident that Paul did think and judge that the day of judgment would not be in that age, and that therefore this is not the import of this and the like phrases. And to that end compare we but his speech in two epistles to the same persons, the Thessalonians : in the first of which he maketh the same prayer that is here, 1 Thess. v. 23, he prays for them in the same style that here: ' I pray God your whole spirit, and soul, and body be preserv^ed blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' Yet again speaking to the same persons, 2 Thess. ii. 2, he exhorts them ' not to be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from him, as that the day of Christ is at hand.' That one particular enumerated, not by letter, sufiiciently cuts ofi" any expression in his former epistle written, to import so much, and therefore cuts off too that fore-mentioned prayer, to keep them blameless to that day. And this reason is the same by which we may argue the like even in these * Qu. ' speaks as' ?— Ed.

latter days, that this day cannot fall out in this age, because there is yet so much business to bo done in the world, for which there is express prophecy unfulfilled, as it will ask more than the time of an age : ' For that day (2 Thess. ii. 3) shall not come except there be a falling away first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition.' And so we may say, the ten kings must destroy the whore, and the Jews be called, and the whole earth be filled with the knowledge of the Lord, ere that day come. As therefore, as he says, so say I, they deceive you that tell you so ; and for those phrases, ' We that are aUve,' &c., they are easily solved. He considers the succession of Christians in all generations as one body and community, in distinction from all others reprobated, and accordingly says, we shall not all die.

But (2.) in the original, the word translated until, is not a'/^>i, as at the 6th ver., nor j^'^xi'' ^^ ^ Tim. vi. 14, but it is i!;, which is often put for sv, and so signifies m that day, as 1 Cor. i, 8; h rfj r,/j,i^a, in the day of Christ, and 1 Thes. v. 23, kept blameless, h -zaso-jsia, in the coming of Christ; and so it is all one as to say, in, at, or against, that day—a day for which holiness is mainly designed, when blamelessness and holiness will be at the highest value, and of more use to you than at all times else. And so there may be an observable difference made between the phrase he had used in the 6th ver. of Philip, i., where, expressing his confidence that God would perfect the work he had begun, he says manifestly, until the day of Christ, a^si. For the perfection of glory (whereof grace is the foundation) is not till then and there both in body and soul accomplished; but here in 1 Thes. v. 23 it is, ' that you may be blameless, in or at the day of Christ.' And in this sense wicked men are said to treasui-e up wrath ev rfj ri/MB^a, ' against that day of wrath,' Rom. ii. 5 ; so it is there translated, and might be here.

There is only one place, 1 Tim. vi. 14, hath /A2%f/, rintil: ' That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' But the answer to that one place is ready and easy, and carries a great truth with it. Paul wrote to Timothy as an evan-gehst, who being set over churches in that age, when churches were to be constituted, to set them in order, they accordingly received directions from the apostles according to Christ's institutions ; yet so as their ofiices ceasing (which, whether they did or no, I will not here dispute), the same directions were intended to all ordinary officers of churches settled. Now then, in speaking to him, he in him speaks unto all saints and officers betrusted, how to guide and govern churches in the ordinary way unto the end : 1 Tim. iii. 15, ' That thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God.' To instruct all saints and ofiicers betrusted with the government of churches to the end of the world, and to shew he intended the succession of officers and Christians in what he wrote to Timothy, he gives him, and in him them, warning of what should fall out in several successions at the latter days of the church: ' 1 Tim. iv. 1, 'Now the (Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some should depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils ;' wherein he forewarns them of the apostasy of popery, which fell out in the latter days, the middle age of Christianity, when Paul and Timothy were dust. He speaks here too of carnal protestants, that have a form of godliness; and he speaks too of all that fry of errors that should infest the churches ; from all which his counsel is to turn away and separate from them, ver. 5. I allege these places for this, that he speaks to Timothy, as bearing the

person of them that should come after him many hundred years (as Peter also did in receiving the keys), and so that charge, 1 Tim. vi. 13, is not barely personal, but to others after him to the end of the world ; and so he might well lay a charge /■/•s^f, ' loitil the day of Christ,' and the ' commandment' there is all the doctrine in that epistle, where church institution and rules for worship and government take up a great part. Thus ' commandment' is taken for the whole doctrine delivered : 2 Pet. ii. 21, * For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them.' Thus also in chap. iii. 2, ' That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour.' And the truth which I said this explication carries with it, is this great and manifest one ; that church institution for worship and government contained in that and other epistles (I say other also, for who shall put the difference of these in this, from those in other epistles ?) are the commandments of Jesus Christ, the charge of which lies upon the churches of God to the coming of Christ. Similarly unto the style of which injunction here in Timothy, Paul elsewhere speaks, when he says of the great ordinance of the Lord's supper, ' ye shew forth his death till he comes;' and Christ answerably gives forth his promise, reaching to the same date that Paul's charge doth. And as he speaks to the saints under Timothy's name, so Christ under his disciples' names speaks to all others: ' Go, teach and baptize' (synecdochically put for all outward administrations); ' I will be with you to the end of the world.' So then ordinances and the command for them continues to the end. This we have only gained by the way, to give an account w'hy /J'i/Ji, u7iiU, is used in that passage, more especially as noting out the whole continuance of time till the day of judgment, w^hich yet is not in these other passages of Paul's prayers, which are rather to be understood of being kept blameless in the day, and in the coming of Christ.

But a third satisfaction to the objection mentioned is, that if the reading be retained until, iJg for usque ad (as Beza explains it), as noting the continuance of their being preserved all the time until then (which, because the word may signify, I would take in), yet for the thing itself, both phrases come all to one, as in the reality of the event; and it is all one to say, to be kept till the day of death, or till the day of Christ. And this intei7)re-tation two places do warrant: the first is Rev. ii. 10, ' Be thou faithful unto the death, and I will give thee a crown of life,' which manifestly argues that the faithfulness which is continued until death hath an immediate reward of a crown of life, and is completed then, so as to admit no addition of flowers to that crown by any faithfulness after; for only so much as till death is rewarded, and no more accounted. And thus Paul reckons his account finished, his computes perfected at death : 2 Tim. iv. 7, ' I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.' When I come to die, there is an end of, a finishing of all, unto which any degree of glory is accounted ; when I come to die, I shall have done my part, I shall have finished my course. As for that to Xoi'tov (which we translate 'henceforth'), that remainder for ever after, that noway lies in me, it is God's part, I shall have done all mine; nothing remains but for him to give me a crown of life. So then to be kept blameless to the day of death, as it is enough for our parts, so it is all one with this here, until the day of Christ. The second text is 1 Cor. i. 8, ' Who shall confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of om* Lord Jesus Christ.'

Here is both the one and the other mentioned together, to that sense which

1 have given; for to confirm to the end, is to the end of our lives; and if we are so confirmed till the end of our lives, we shall be blameless in the day of Christ. For such we shall be found at the latter day, as we were in our lives to the day of our death. And thus it is necessary to distinguish these two phrases, to the end, as meant of death, from that other, as of the daij of Christ, for else it had been a tautology, when yet the latter is made the end of the former; and the reason why yet these two are one in the issue and reality and event is, because as the tree falls it lies, qualis hinc exit, talis Judicandiis in isto die, there being indeed no account to arise from all that passeth between the day of death and this of judgment; for,

2 Cor. V. 10, we are to be judged only for what the soul doth in the body: ' For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' The account is not for what is done out of the body, which is alike common both to wicked and godly men, to those that have done good or evil; and therefore Paul, Heb. ix. 27, makes no more between, but that it is appointed for all men to die, and after this the judgment; and he speaks of the general judgment, for it is brought as a parallel instance, to prove Christ's coming the second time, as it foUoweth there, ver. 28, • So Christ was once otiered to bear the sins of many: and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time, without sin unto salvation.'

But if the question be asked why, since these two phrases, ' to the end,' and ' to the day of Christ,' come both to one sense in reahty, he should choose rather and more frequently to use this latter, ' till the day of Christ' ? the answer is, Because holiness is of more concernment to us at that day than at all times else; therefore he contents not himself here, nor also, 1 Cor. i. 8, to have said, who shall confirm you to the end, viz., till death, but adds also, in the day of Christ.

CHAPTEK lY.

How we may be said to he kept blameless until the day of Christ.

Thus much touching the difficulty in the phrase ; there is another remaining in the thing itself, which is concerning the blamelessness, or being void of olfence; how both in this and other places, as 1 Cor. i. 8, 1 Thes. V. 23, the promise included in these prayers, to present us blameless in that day, is to be understood. For men shall be presented such as they were in this life ; and in this life in many things, as James says, we offend all; and many of the saints after conversion run into scandals and offences to others, and their own consciences. How then are such prayers and promises fulfilled ■?

To this an antinomian would be ready to give an easy answer with respect to their principles : that all this is accomphshed in justification ; because Christ shall present us then to himself and his Father, clothed with his righteousness, we shall be spotless and without wrinkle. But the blamelessness of the saints here, and in other the hke places at that day, is not that of justification, but sanctification. 1. For here he speaks of sincerity, ' being filled with the fruits of righteousness.' 2. And elsewhere, 1 Thes. V. 23, ' The God of peace sanctify you wholly, that your whole

soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of Christ.' It is spoken of sanctification, you see ; and as so taken, I find it sometimes uttered (1.) as an absolute promise which God undertakes to perform, as well as that the saints shall persevere ; 2. sometimes as a prayer for, and exhortation to, us to be found as such, so here. And the several consideration of either will answerably afford a double distinction of blamelessness, even of sanctification intended in this and the like places.

1. We find absolute promises annexed to the prayers he makes for their being kept blameless to that day, that God will perform it: 1 Cor. i. 8, ' Who shall also confirm you, to the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.' And that it is an absolute promise the 9th verse shews : ' God is faithful, by whom ye were called into the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' And in more absolute terms yet, 1 Thes. v., you have heard how he prays, even as here in ver. 23; and yet, verse 24, it follows,' Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.' He first engageth God's faithfulness, and then doubles the assurance, * he will do it,' yea ' also do it,' as sure as he hath called you. Yea, and it is such a promise as shall be performed unto all saints called, small and great; for the promise is founded upon a consideration, that in common holds true of all the saints, ' faithful is he that calleth you;' and all saints are saints by calling, in the same 1 Cor. i. 2. Of necessity, therefore, such a blamelessness, of that latitude and size, must be understood in these places, as is a common privilege to all saints that ever were, or shall be, and common even to those that have run into offences, as many of those he wTote to also did. And to interpret this only of that perfect sanctification, wrought just at the parting of soul and body, is too dilute ; because Paul prays and exhorts, and accordingly promiseth from God, that during the whole com-se and time of their lives they be so kept, even blameless. There is therefore, brethren, a blamelessness and sincerity in the saints, some especially, in respect of all that vacuity of aU sorts of offences, such as in the sense the word was interpreted. But in respect to those principles and laws which the state of gi-ace is bounded with, and men preserved in that state, notwithstanding such particular ofi'ences, there are certain principles which are essential to the being and keeping of us in the state of grace, as that a man should live in no known sin, but live in the constant practice of known duties, seeking the glory of God in all. The apostle John hath everlastingly stated such principles as the bounds, the limits between both estates : 1 John iii. 7, ' Let no man deceive you ; he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.' He speaks not of particular acts; wicked men may do some things righteous, and godly men do things that are evil. But his to/s/V, is a man's course, work, business, to go on in an ill track, as the devil from the beginning. Another like principle^ Paul inculcates, Piom. xiv. 7, 8 : ' None of us lives to himself, but to the Lord ;' that is, maketh God's glory the end of his coui'se and ways. This is a fundamental maxim of our lively, they are none of us that do not; we own them not, nor will Christ own them. To be kept then to the practice of these and such hke, is radically and essentially necessary to the being kept in the state of grace. Again, if a man falls into particular acts of sin through temptation, wherein a Christian ofi'endeth his own conscience or others, an essential law to the being kept in the state of grace is to return and convert, humbling themselves, renewing their repentance, as Peter did whose faith was recovered. ' I have prayed,' says Christ, • thy faith fail not.' He wept bitterly, repentance was renewed,

and he loved Christ more than ever : ' Lord,' says he, ' thou knowest I love thee.' Now then, as in respect to such principles as these there is a blame-lessness, a being void of ofl'ence according to the rules of the gospel, whenas in respect of acts there is not a blamelessness in conversation, this is such a blamelessness as that perfection of heart is said to be in David,* 1 Chron. xxviii. 9, and in Asa all his days, 2 Chron. xv. 17, though with a nevertheless (as there) of many foul acts, the particulars of which you may read in chap. xvi. It was a comparative perfection, taking their whole course and summing up the account of all their days, as it is there said ; yea, and further, when in respect of such acts committed a man is to be blamed, Gal. ii. 11, yet if a man renews faith and repentance, he is, according to the rules and verdict of the gospel (which is that royal law of liberty), rendered pure and void of oflence. Again, this Paul upon these principles pronounceth of the Corinthians in a matter wherein they had been highly guilty (as in the business about the incestuous person, 1 Cor. V.); yet in 2 Cor. vii., after he had related how they had * sorrowed' (for their sin) ' to God,' and ' after a godly manner' (witness all those gracious dispositions he rehearseth, ver. 11), in the conclusion he gives forth this gracious sentence of the gospel thereupon : * In all things you have approved yourselves clear in this matter,' ayvovg (as high a woi'd as any other, equivalent to that' without spot or wrinkle'), clear, not in respect only to other things in their lives wherein they had done worthily; but even in this very matter wherein they had afore been so foully fault}'. The sin they had committed could not be undone, but yet they had done all (* in all things we have shewn,' &c.), all, namely, which the law of liberty, the gospel, requires in such a case (the particulars of which he had reckoned up), upon which it declares a man pure. Neither speaks he of purity through justification, that is, only by faith, not repentance; but according to the rules and maxims which about sanctification the gospel holds forth, and according to which the day of judgment shall proceed.

So then we see one sense in which those speeches of the apostle (take them as absolute promises) are to be understood; and this kind of blamelessness must needs be supposed at least to be intended in these prayers of Paul, especially in that parallel prayer of his (1 Thes. v. 23), where the promise of keeping all the saints in this respect blameless is also annexed; and this to be sui-e his prayers attained for them that were true saints among them.

But yet, my brethren, this is the lowest, and if I may call it so, the worser sort of blamelessness ; though indeed thus to be kept all a man's days in the midst of many offences, still within the circle and limits of the state of grace, is an infinite privilege and high specimen and argument of God's free grace, according to that of Hosea xiv. 4, ' I will heal their back-slidings, I will love them freely.' In the state of nature, God gives examples in various proportions, and degrees, and sizes, how far in common righteousness men unregenerate may proceed, and yet remain unregenerate, and be still in that estate. Some attain to the height of morality, as Socrates; others of legality, * as concerning the law blameless,' as Paul, Philip, iii. 6; others attain to a degree of a work evangelical, yet not saving : 2 Peter ii. 19, 20, ' While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption : for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they « Qu. ' Solomon ' ?— Ed.

are again entangled therein, and overcome, tlie latter end is worse with them than the beginning.' They do escape the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of Christ, who yet remain in their nature ; swines washed outwardly yet not renewed, but returning to their former vomit. And God in his actings towards those in a state of grace, to shew the glory of his free grace in the variety of dispensations, doth preserve in and amidst several sizes and dcgi-ees of unblameworthiness those whom he saves. Some run out farther, others in lesser measures as to particular acts of sin, and yet still so as they remain within the line of communication of those principles mentioned. And as it is a matter of difficulty to define how far a man unregenerate may go in external acts of virtue, and yet still continue within the sphere and dominion of that unregenerate estate, so it is as hard to say how far saints may fall, or how often, into oflence and blameworthiness, and yet this radical fundamental blamelessness as to the principles of the state of grace, both for his whole course and reducements by repentance, be preserved. Some are more scarcely saved, though certainly saved ; some are suffered to put the sure mercies of David to it. Thus the sureness of God's mercies were exemplified in David and Solomon, for they tried, especially Solomon, how far they would hold. I sinned, saith Solomon, to the utmost of the tether, as far as the lines of the principles of grace would reach, as far as would be consistent with them. Himself expresseth it thus in the sad story of all his vanities, in Eccles. chap. i. and ii. He inserts this, Eccles. ii. 3, that he ' yet acquainted his heart with wisdom ;' and his reducements by repentance are known to you, for the title of his book is a testimony of it, and yet he was so scarcely saved, that it is a controversy in the church to this day whether he were saved yea or no. And although this may be an encouragement to some souls who have had great diversions from God in their lives since their calling, that the prerogative sovereignty and the faithfulness of that grace they are under the dominion of hath reduced them, and hath in all their goings astray kept them within the fore-mentioned principles of this state, and hath reduced them from their wanderings ; yet whoever he be that, having the work of God upon his soul, will think with himself, I will be sure to sin but so as to keep within that compass, let that soul know that he into whose heart this thought enters, or takes any hold in, is at the next step to outsin those principles, and to sink into eternal perdition. For, poor soul, though the free grace that is in God may say it, I will suffer such an one to sin, and yet keep him blameless according to the covenant of grace, yet it is desperate daring for thee to say this, or to presume upon it; and it is indeed utterly against the ingenuity* of grace, and argues nothing but selfishness in thy soul. Thus much of the first sort of blamelessness which the absolute promise is made to.

2. There is certainly, in the second place, another sort intended; for the apostle prays not barely that they may be kept blameless, according to the principles of the state of grace; but this being a prayer indefinitely uttered, therefore that sort of blamelessness which is possible to be attained by saints must be intended here; and my reasons are, 1. Because in prayer we are allowed to seek for ourselves and others the utmost good which by any kind of promise we judge they may possibly attain to. And 2. It is evident he stints not himself here barely to pray for perseverance, but for their abounding more and more, so ver. 9, and that they might be filled down, laden with the fruits of righteousness ; and he aimed therefore at the highest * That is, ' ingenuousness.'— Ed.

blamelessness in his prayer for these. I will not dispute now whether the desires of our prayer may not be extended beyond what we know God in his decrees will grant, when yet his revealed will propounds it as what should and ought to be in us, and as what wc should aim at and endeavour to attain. Thus, in Mat. vi. 10, ' Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven ;' and also, 2 Cor. xiii. 7, ' I pray God ye do no evil;' all which will one day bo accompUshcd on this earth when Clirist comes to judgment. But take this blamelessness de facto, attained at the highest pin (without breaking the strings of mortality) it hath in any been wound up unto, and as we descended to the lowest degrees in the other interpretation, so let us ascend up to the highest possible in this other. And such a blamelessness (we may well understand) he intended for these Philippians ; and what was the aim of his prayers should be the aim, yea, hope, of our endeavours; and to understand what blamelessness this is, let us take his ov/n example, 1 Cor. iv. 4, *I know nothing by myself (not any fact against light, and he speaks it as in relation to a censure of him by the Corinthians), and though I am not justified (which belongs to another court) by this kind of blamelessness (for I do not say I am without sin), yet this blamelessness I have (says he) that I never sinned against light from the first of my conversion, I know nothing by myself. If he had so sinned he must have known it, and his conscience have checked him in the writing this.

So then, from hence I gather that besides the former there is a blamelessness possible to be attained as a more special privilege, and to be aimed at by Christians, even to be void of oflence against light of conscience all the residue of a man's days. I say it is a special privilege for him who attains to it. The chief of the apostles, that forsook Christ, did not attain it, yet Paul did; therefore propounds himself as an example: Follow me, as I follow Christ. And it would seem that Paul was kept to the very end of his days, to his ofiering up. For, 2 Tim. iv. 18, he expresseth his confidence in him that had hitherto kept him, ' that he would deliver him from every evil work, and would preserve him unto his heavenly kingdom.' His meaning is not simply that God would save his soul, and accordingly keep him from such ways of sinning as could not stand with the principles of grace; but further, so to keep him in his heavenly kingdom as he might be kept from every evil work, such as was contrary to the principles which he professed before others, or which his own conscience had the impression of. And that place is not so fairly or honourably enough to Paul's spirit, nor rightly as to his scope, interpreted of deliverance from persecution, and the evil workings of evil men against him. For this interpretation is grounded on that false pretence that the occasion of that speech was the narrative of his being delivered out of the mouth of the lion Nero, in the words before, and so as that confidence of his should intend only like deliverances fi'om the bloody hands of persecutors. No; for he was not delivered, but died by the sword of the same Nero, whose power he had now escaped. But Paul's confidence had a further deliverance in his eye, which that very deliverence was a pledge of. His case stood thus: I Paul (I speak in his person to utter his sense) have been often before the bars of kings and great ones for my life in the profession of Christianity, (you read how before Felix, Agrippa, and the high priest in the Acts), in all Buch pressures I never did anything at any time (I thank God) unworthy of my profession. You read how, instead of pleading for his hfe, he still endeavours at the bar to turn them Christians he spake to. God still preserved him from every evil work; upon all such sore trials he came not off

halting. Now in my old age (for so it was when he wrote this, now he was ready to be offered, and the time of his departure was at hand, and this story was then newly acted) I was called before Nero, and I was more put to it than ever. Ver. 16, ' At my first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook me: I pray God that it may not be laid to their charge.' Yet, as at all other times you have heard or read of, I have undergone great trials, this time of temptation is as great as I ever underwent, and yet, notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me and strengthened me. The chief of his intention, you see, was not upon outward deliverance, but how not to sin, how to carry it so as to credit religion, to come off so as to make a good confession for the advantage of the gospel, as elsewhere he had done ; and that this is his meaning the next words shew: * that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear.' Paul having thus as a lion kept his integrity in this great certamen in his old age, and having made this his glory, besides his being" delivered out of the mouth of the lion, what was his reward ? God came in upon his spirit with fresh assurance, not only that he would preserve him unto his heavenly kingdom, so as not to fall away, but that he would from thenceforth deliver him from every evil work. Oh, that gladded Paul's heart! I shewed you formerly how Paul made this his glory, but we could not tell certainly whether he might not blemish his glory after; but this scripture shews that, as he had made it' his ambition not to sin against his light, to be void of offence all along, so he had now the security of it as a special privilege. An holy man that affected the same exemption came once to me, and professed he had read all the Scriptures over, and could not find one promise to keep a believer from a gross sin as long as he lived. I thought of this, I know no other, I observe that, upon eminent trials, such as that was of Paul's, God useth to seal up something to a man's soul of special grace to him. In the 28th of this 1st chapter of the Philippians, when Christians are called to bear witness for Christ, ' Be you in nothing,' says he, ' terrified by your adversaries, which is to them an evident token of perdition; but to you of salvation, and that of God.' God at such times, and upon such occasions, used to give (ordinarily to martyrs and confessors of him) an evidence and token of their salvation ; as unto the persecutors, a consternation of spirit, which is to them an evident token of perdition. Now therefore upon this occasion he gave unto Paul a double assurance at last, who had served him in so many trials : 1. He gave him an assurance of preserving him to his heavenly kingdom, which is common to other Christians. 2. He gives him an assurance, which was more special, of delivering him from every evil work, which he had so much desired. God said to him. As hitherto thou hast not, so thou shalt from henceforth never commit any evil work against thy light and principles.

I have been the larger in this, to set before you the examples, the possibility of attaining this kind of blamelessness, for which he therefore prays for these Philippians. I would provoke your spirits hereby to affect it, and endeavour it. It would seem attainable also by other instances, as that of Elizabeth and Zacharias, the parents of the Baptist. Luke i. 6, it is said they were ' both righteous before God, walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.' You profess to live in obedience to commandments. I beseech you, do the same with respect to ordinances, and all ordinances ; for they are all of a like necessity, and the second commandment commands j'ou this duty. From this doctrine, though the papists would fondly gather their perfection and possibility of keeping all

the commandments without sin (however John and James contradict it, saying, * in many things we oflend all'), yet we may well allow them (their errors having usually a shadow of some truth, which they miss, speaking either over or under) a possibility to be blameless in respect of sinning against light, and so to have a conscience void of offence before God and man. And the reason for it is this, because if an holy man be, and is often kept from such sins a week, a month, a year, then it is also possible with this state of frailty to be kept all his lifetime ; but for the papists' perfection, a man is not kept an hour, a moment, sin cleaving to all we do. The apostle Peter, though he had not so lived from the time of his conversion, yet from experience now perhaps he had learned the way how thus to be kept, and accordingly directs those primitive churches he wrote to, 2 Peter i. 10, where, exhorting them to all diligence, &c., he adds this motive, ' If ye do these things, ye shall never fall.' What! fall away ? There is no danger to men, partakers of the divine nature, so to do ; but as the word imports never, firrrrors, not at anytime. And that doxologyof Jude seems more clearly and fully to hold forth such a meaning as I have put upon this petition of Paul for these Philippians, and so wuthal to argue the possibility of obtaining it, which he would have those primitive Christians to have in their eye to obtain at God's hand. Jude ver. 24, ' Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding great joy,' &c. I observe how the apostle had afore made mention of very great errors and miscarriages in doctrine and life, which some professors in those times had ran into, and he had also spoken of the day of judgment; and to be kept faultless hath relation to those gross sins in judgment and practice, which would be of infinite moment to them at that day, for it would cause mighty exultation and a triumphant joy. And as Paul prays here, so he there sets out God to them as able to keep them, to the end they should have recourse to him, and so to do with encouragement; that as he was able, so that he might do it for them. For to that end is God set forth to them as able to do this for them, and so he concludes his epistle.

Obs. The only observation or meditation I shall now make is, that the solemnity of the great day ought to be continually in our eyes, as that which should move us to be sincere and blameless. For therefore it is that the apostle chooseth to use the phrase, until, or in the day of Christ (for either serves a bottom for this meditation), rather than until the day of death. We should so walk and live and die as if we were immediately to go to judgment at the very hour of our deaths. And though both the one and the other import the same thing in the event, yet the consideration of this latter strikes a greater awe, and that is the true reason, which is a remaining part of the former objection, why Christ in his cautions to watch and be sober, under which he expresseth the highest care to be holy, and to be continually ready, still mentions this day. Mat. xxiv. 42, ' Watch ye therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.' Mark xiii. 35, 36, ' Watch ye therefore : for ye know not when the master of the house Cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cock-crowing, or in the morning ; lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.' And ver. 87, ' What I say to you, I say to all in all ages.' And he speaks of the day of judgment, and presseth this readiness and preparedness upon the uncertainty of the coming and approach thereof, both to them in that age who knew it not, and to us, and those after that did and do know, it could not be in their or our times ; yet because judgment finds us as death leaves us, and as our

behaviour in this world hath been, therefore it is that Christ gives forth the caution to all ages of watching for the day of judgment, thereby to make the greater impression. It always moves men, both as it contains a promise sealed with Christ's last prayer and blood, and as withal it carries the greatest warning for our care and study how to behave ourselves in this world. Thus Christ at last, when himself was to go to God out of this world, as having seen and passed through the temptations of it, as a signal instance of his love for us, prays that we should be kept whilst in this world. Thus in his last prayer, wherein you may see wherein his solicitude ran out ,most: John xvii, 12, ' While I was with them in the world,

1 kept them in thy name ; those that thou gavest me, I have kept, and none of them is lost but the son of perdition, that the scripture might be fulfilled.' And ver. 15, ' I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world, but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil.' The time of their being in the world had all the danger in it, and he had a special memento and occasion at that time to put up his prayer; for Peter was to deny him, the disciples to leave him. I have been glad that Paul in saying, that neither death nor life shall separate us from Christ, did put in life, for I profess I fear life and the temptations of it, and how to go through this world comelily, more than death. Now then, as the time and concernment of danger is in this life, so the consideration of a judgment to come should have a great influence to keep us blameless in this world, and free from the evil of it; therefore here he mentions that day, as also Christ doth, Luke xxi. 36, ' Watch ye therefore, and pray always, that ye m.ay be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man.' To stand, namely, in judgment (as Ps. i., the phrase is), and thus Paul likewise aweth Timothy, and us in him, 1 Tim. vi. 14, ' That thou keep this commandment without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' The force of this motive lies thus : as Christ appeared before Pilate (for that was God's day of judging Christ standing in our stead), so thou, says Paul, must appear before Christ; therefore I charge thee keep this commandment; and therefore the apostles turned the eyes of all the primitive Christians upon that day, or the coming of Christ. It was a great part of the religion of the primitive Christians to wait for the coming of Jesus Christ, and they are described to us to have been such as those that walked in view of it, as those that had that day in their eye, and should then be judged ; and in this they are set forth as a pattern to us: 1 Cor. i. 7, ' So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' He makes this an evidence of their excelling in all other gifts : 2 Tim. iv. 8, ' Which he shall give me at that day : and not to me only, but unto them also that love his appearance.' This latter, you see, is a paraphrase, a description of the saints in those times, and all ages ; and as he describes them by it, so he sets it before them as his own principle, which did keep him steady in his walking:

2 Cor. V. 9, 10, * Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' There is a necessity of it, we must so appear, none can avoid it; and we shall not be present only as in a crowd, so as to hope to shrink aside and hide ourselves unseen, but we must be singled out, be presented (as Col. i. 28), and stand forth apart as at a bar. Men that are personally called to appear ought 'xoc^acrrivai ffw/iar/, personally to answer, Rom. iv. 10, ifirr^oadsv, in conspicuo,

to be seen of all, 2 Cor. v. 10, to the end they may be made transparent, and be seen through and through, what they are or have been in their lives, i^avisudrimi; and this is then to be made apparent to men, as now unto God, ' We are now manifest to God, and we trust also in your consciences.'* However, this place implies, that at that day we shall be made manifest one to another, even as now we are unto God,

It is a great scripture, and full of majesty, in 1 Thes. iii. 12 ; he prayeth they may ' abound in love more and more (as here), to the end their hearts might be established unblameable in hohness before God, even the Father, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.' He presenteth before them the solemnity of that day, by all such ways as might strike their hearts. 1. He tells them they must appear before God, the judge of all, as Heb. xii. he is set forth. 2. Before Jesus Christ, who, Heb. iv., is said to have a sword in his hand to rip up every man's heart and conscience, to divide between the marrow and the bones, and the intentions of the heart; and that description of him referreth to judgment, as the close of that discourse shews: noi$ ov 6 Xoyog, to whom we must give an account, as speaking of judgment, though it is otherwise translated. 3. He tells them that the saiuts will be all present there, and the general assembly of angels and first-born ; and these as witnesses, yea, judges, when all of a man shall be ripped up. And to this place add that of Jude 14,15, ' Lo, he comes with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.' Now therefore, when Paul considered what a judicatory, a presence there will be, and how that all secrets shall be ripped open and laid together, he falls a-praying that their hearts might be established in holiness ; for, as I will shew you, God will make out every man's state by his works, and the casting of men's conditions shall, according to an evangelical rule, depend thereon. Now observe it, that this prayer is plainly and directly for this, that then at that day their hearts might be established in holiness. Now it would seem strange, that for men who are to be in heaven a long time before that day, there should be supposed a need to pray that their hearts should be then thoroughly estabhshed in holiness, which they should have here in this life, to the end they might then be without wavering or fear established. Yet to me the reason is clear, for they are not then to be judged, nor is their condition to be sentenced by that holiness they have had in heaven, but barely by that which men have had here on earth, whilst in the body, as you heard. All is put upon this, whether such holiness accompanied here their faith, as puts a manifest difference between them and hypocrites, and by that evidence it must and shall be made forth to others. Thus Jude, because he had said Christ comes with ten thousand of his saints, prays, ver. 24, ' Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy,' &c.^^ And thus I understand Peter, 2 Peter iii. 14, ' Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be dilig«nt, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.' In peace, that is, in their spirits; and therefore John still makes a great matter of it, to have boldness at that day : 1 John ii. 28, ' And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his

* Non modo sisti praesenter, sed illic in nos inquiri, ut palam fiat qui fuerimus.— Beza.

VOL. vn. L

coming.' And again, chap. iv. 17, ' Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world.' And there will be a confidence and a quietness in the soul when heaven and earth shall shake.

CHAPTER V.

What it is to be filled with the fruits of righteousness in our course of obedience.

I would turn Paul's prayer, Philip, i. 11, here for these PhiHppians, into exhortations unto you. His prayer is for, and the bent of my exhortation is unto, holiness, in all the eminent parts and principles of it: in heart, ver. 9, 10; in life, in this 11th verse, where I am now arrived, which holds forth the positive part of an holy conversation, 'being filled,' &c., as being blameless did the negative. There are three things to be spoken unto, for the opening of these words :

1. What it is to be filled with the fruits of righteousness.

2. The kind of these fruits, such as are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. He prays for such, because he knew no other would be accepted.

3. The third is, of what concernment it is, at or against that day of Christ, that saints be filled with such fruits. For those words, ' in that day,' coming in between the former word blameless and this ver. 11, do indiflferently refer to both; and so to the words of ver. 11 in this sense, that look what fruits any man hath brought forth, he shall appear laden with at that day, as a tree in autumn with all its fruits.

1. To explain what is meant by fruits of righteousness, three particulars might be handled: (1.) the metaphor there used, 'fruits;' (2.) the gene-rical nature, substance, or matter of them, ' fruits of righteousness;' (3.) what it is to be ' filled' with them, which is the main thing that his petition is directed to.

(1.) For that similitude of fruits, I will forbear to gather it from all the branches of that metaphor, though it might afibrd good store to be laid up. It is a metaphor the Holy Ghost doth frequently delight to set forth abounding in holiness by ; yet in such a variety of allusion, it is difiicult to define what more specially he aimed at. Instead of a large prosecution or drawing out the allegory in any one, I shall content myself to present rather the severals, which this allusion may have respect unto. There are three sorts of fruit which the Holy Ghost is pleased to compare the good works of holy men unto: [l.j the fruits of trees; [2.] the fruits of the earth; [3.] the fruit of the body and womb, children. I shall give you express scriptures for each.

[1.] As for the fruits of trees, you find man thus growing up and down the Scriptures ; as whilst David, Ps. i. 3, compares him to ' a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth his fruits in due season ;' ' planted in the house of God, that brings forth fruit in old age,' Ps. xcii. 12, 13. And Christ compares himself and his members to a vine when he says, ' Eveiy branch in me that beareth fi-uit,' John xv. 2.

[2.] As to fruits that grow promiscuously out of the earth, holy speeches and thanksgivings are called the fruit of the lips, Heb. xiii. 15, in allusion to the first-fruits of the earth, all sorts of which were consecrated to God, as well as the first-fruits of trees. And the apostle, Heb. vi. 7, compares

(as Christ afore him in the parable of the sower) a good heart fruitful of goodness unto ' that earth, which brings forth herbs meet for the dresser;' or as Christ says, Luke viii, 15, ' that brings forth fruit with patience.'

[3.J As to the fruits of the womb, of the body, or children, fruitfulness in gospel obedience by Christ is under that metaphor presented: Rom. vii. 4, * Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.' He compares Christ to a second husband we are anew married unto, as the law to a former husband to whom we are dead, to the end that being married to him, we should bring forth all sorts of acts of new obedience, as children begotten in us by his body; which fruits of Christ's body, and of our hearts the wombs of them, he calls fruit to God, as to whom they are born, the gi-andfather of them all, even as children are called the fruit of the body and of the womb. Now, whether unto all these, or unto which more particularly this metaphor is directed, is hard to determine; there is none of them but may put in for it, else I would not have so distinctly mentioned them. Of the allusion to that of children, that place last quoted seems parallel; for as there we are said to bring forth fruit to God by Christ, so here it is expressed, 'which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God.' And so at the latter day, as Christ shall say of all his members, * Lo, here am I, and the children that thou hast given me,' so a Christian, being encompassed about with all his good works that follow him, shall have it said by Christ, Lo, here is such a one, and the children have been brought forth by him, and begotten by me ; and blessed is the man that then hath his quiver full of them, he shall not be ashamed in the gate, Ps. csxvii. 5. But then this makes it not so clear; for children (when many) in the Scripture (when spoken of together in a cluster) are not called fruits, but fruit; but the word here in Philip, i. 11 is in the plural, fruits; and the term fruit, as given to children, being itself a metaphor in derivation from the fruits of the earth, it must be one metaphor borrowed from another metaphor to call good works ' fruits of righteousness,' in allusion unto children being called fruits. And if we should carry the allusion to the earth, where it is true there are plenty and variety of fruits, yet that metaphor here, Philip, i. 11, taking in Christ as the root from whom they spring—which are by Jesus Christ-f-that similitude of the heart to the earth, will not so pertinently afford a room or meet ground for it. But these words of Christ, John xv., 'I am that vine, and every branch in me that brings forth good fruit,' are genuine, and proper, and agreeable to that expression here, Philip, i. 11, 'fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ.' This suits also with the apostolical exhortations in their epistles, ' Be fruitful in every good work,' &c. I will not here (for it would be fruit out of season) enlarge upon the similitude of Christ the root, the heart of man the tree, every faculty the branch, the Holy Ghost the sap, opportunity of doing good the seasons, God the husbandman, union with Christ the engrafture, and many the like. But having thus fixed the metaphor to its right foundation, I come to that which is proper to my text and scope, to explain what it is to be filled with these fruits of righteousness.

Therefore, secondly, to shew what it is to be filled with these fruits. I will suppose that by fruits of righteousness are meant all sorts of holy actions both towards God and man, springing from a heart made righteous, and conformable to, and brought forth according to the righteous law of

God ; no other are fruits of righteousness. But now the inquiry is, what it is to be filled with them ? It is an Hebrew phrase, to express abounding in them ; as ' full of children,' Ps. xvii. 14 ; ' a land full of silver,' Isa. ii, 7. I shall, in explaining it, keep to the allusion, to a tree full of fruits, as that which will guide me.

(1.) A tree is said to be filled with fruit when all its branches are down-laden with them, so as there is not a twig empty or thin-set therewith. Now, as the heart of man is the bulk and body of this tree, so every power of the soul, member of the body, is a branch, and is so to be understood in this allusion. When the Holy Ghost w^ould set forth the abounding wickedness in ungodly men's hearts and lives, he reads an anatomy lecture on every part and member, and shews how every member (which are the branches of these trees) is full of that wickedness that it is proper to grow upon : ' their mouth is full of cursing and deceit' (it is the expression Ps. X. 7), full of that foam and filth to flowing over. There is a superfluity of naughtiness continually issues thence. And so in James iii. 8, ' Their tongue is an unruly member, full of deadly poison.' Thus also in 2 Pet. ii. 14, ' eyes full of adultery;' and Isa. i. 15, ' hands full of blood,' that is, of all sorts of oppression. In a word, the heart is said to be ' full of all readiness to evil,' Acts xiii. 10; the whole man to be 'filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity,' Piom. i. 29. So, on the contrary, a good man should have all members and faculties filled with all righteousness proper to them; the mind, the understanding, and meditative part ' filled with all knowledge,' Piom. xv. 14 ; with a full stock and treasury of gracious thoughts and instructions, which might enable him to do spiritual good to others upon occasion ; so it follows, Piom. xv. 14, 'Able also to admonish one another.' In the first psalm, the psalmist compares a godly man to a tree ; among other fruit, he instanceth in the continual buddings of thoughts : ' He meditates on the law of God day and night;' he is a man whose ' mind deviseth good,' Prov. xiv. 22. He contrives with himself how most acceptably to serve and please God ; for such as the man is, such are his devices, Isa. xxxii. 8. And thus the memory is stored with the word, promises, commands, directions, laid up to guide and comfort a man in his way : Psa. Ixiii. 6, ' When I remember thee on my bed,' &c. And thus, when the will and afi'ections are full of all goodness, Piom. xv. 14, there will be fresh love to God every day, as his mercies are renewed every morning. He will' keep himself in the love of God,' as the phrase is, Jude 21. He will keep the heart steeped in it, and will put fresh liquor to keep it quick and sweet every day. He will ' dwell in love,' 1 John iv. 16. He is full of mercy to the souls and miseries of others, James iii. 17. And if so, he is then full of good fruits, as these will follow, and he is full of joy and hope, Rom. xv. 13, ' Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost.' As thus the inward, so the outward man, and every member of it, will be so many ' weapons of righteousness' (which is an allusion to our Christian warfare, Rom. vi. 13), and 'trees of righteousness' too, Isa. Ixi. 3. The tongue, to instance in that one member, will be a ' tree of life :' Prov. XV. 4, ' A sound tongue is a tree of life.' He compares that one member to a whole tree, and of all trees to that which was in the midst of the paradise of God, the tree of life, to which Isaiah alludes, when he calls them ' the planting of the Lord,' for so those trees were in a special manner, Gen. ii. 8, 9, whereas other trees were left to grow wild. And when this

holy tree bears such communicative fruit, that may minister ffcacQ to others (as the apostle speaks, Eph. iv. 29), then it is fruitful indeed. Solomon tells us that ' the fruit of the righteous is a tree of life,' Prov. xi. 30, because the fruit of his lips, the fruit of his actions, do become trees, from whence do often other trees arise, and souls are won and converted to God; for so it follows, ' He that winneth souls is wise.' If any of us should gather all the fruit that grows but in one daji on this member, the tongue, and, as the prophet saw in his vision, put it into two baskets, the one of good, the other of bad, how little good should we find in the one, how much that is rotten and naught in the other ! If the story of all the outward actions ■were written on each member, and appeared at once, as at the latter day they shall, what a world of evil would be found in each, when the tongue is a world of evil, as St James speaks !

(2.) A Christian is then filled with fruit, when good works of all sorts do, and have grown there. Col. i. 10, ' Unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.' ' In all pleasing,' that is, all the ways whereby God is pleased ; in all that is the will of God concerning us, to be done by us. And we must be fruitful in every good work, that is, of all kinds and sorts, not to be wanting or barren in any. What says the apostle ? 2 Cor. viii. 7, 'As you abound in everything (else), in faith, utterance, knowledge, all diligence, love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also.' They had been more empty in the bringing forth of this grace. So then a Christian should look back, and think with himself, What dut}^ what grace, what part, or course, or practice of godliness is there, which I have been hitherto deficient or scanty in ? I have abounded in such and such, but not in fruitfulness of speech, or the like : Oh I will set myself to abound in this also, that I may be found filled with all sorts at that day. And herein indeed a Christian difi'ers from other trees, unless, as was said out of Solomon, we consider every member of him as a tree of life, and the whole man a paradise to God. Take any one natural tree, and though every branch may be filled with fruit, yet but with fruit of one kind—said God, ' Let every one bring forth according to its kind'—for the seed by nature limits it to one. But here the Holy Ghost is the seed and sap, and seminallj', yea, eminently, containeth all that is holy in himself, and so doth the spirit of regeneration begotten by him : Eph. V. 9, ' The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth.' And accordingly, you find a variety of them named as fruits of the Spirit: Gal. v. 22, 23, ' But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance : against such there is no law.' And let me add this as a reason and incentive : God loves a variety of good works, though some be of an inferior kind and sort, rather than that we should abound in any one sort that is more excellent. Though God would have us lay out our strength most in what is most excellent, and we are most fitted for, yet we must fulfil, as Christ did, ' all righteousness,' one part as well as another ; and this God delighteth in. It is better to perform duties of every kind, though we do the less of some others. 2 Pet. i. 5, the apostle exhorts to this variety, which he calls, adding grace to grace : ' Add to your faith, virtue ; to virtue, knowledge ; to knowledge, temperance ; and to temperance, patience ; and to patience, godliness ; and to godliness, brotherly-kindness ; and to brotherly-kindness, charity.' And he is exceeding vehement in this exhortation, to set it home : x.al aurb toijto di, <xe^l or T^og is to be understood ; and then his meaning is, Bend your minds unto this, this very thing, mainly and ami-

nently ; give your diligence and study, and all diligence unto it. Ua^sia-inyyM\7ic, : the Jesuits, obsening a double composition, Trata and s/'j, take advantage of the addition of this particle Traga, besides, to prove that, besides the grace of God, man's will must co-operate, crapa, sub, or prater, &c. But as I take it, there is another emphasis of it, suitable to the apostle's scope, which being to exhort to add one grace to another, his meaning is, they should still apply their study to some things besides ; that though they had exercised this, and that, and the other grace, yet still they were to reckon that there was something besides to be done by them. Our translators have taken the particle off from its own place, the verb it stands on, and have put and joined it to the pronoun, ' besides this,' and so made the emphasis less. But Peter's scope is, as Paul's, to exhort to forget what is behind, and to press to what is before ; never to think they had done all, but that they had something besides still to do. And, says he, if you will bend your minds, cff&; aorh toZzo 6:-, if you have this rule in your eye, ' you will never be barren or unfruitful.' So then, you see, it is proper to what I am upon, namely, to exhort you to add gi-ace to grace ; and still some grace besides, and over and above what you have had hitherto. Add to this the force of that phrase, ' add grace to grace,' and it will be evident that this is one way to be filled with fruit. As men heap up land to land, buy whole towns to lay one to another, so do you add grace to grace. This should be the ambition of a Christian. And go to God to enable you to it; for he is, as Paul says, a God that is ' able to make all grace to abound towards you,' 2 Cor. ix. 8.

(3.) To be filled with fruits of righteousness, is to be filled with them at all times, to have, if possible, no time of our lives barren, always filling up our time with some fi-uit or other. Other trees, when young, bear no fruit; but a Christian, fi'om his first conversion, doth. Col. i. 6, the gospel is said to have ' brought forth fruit among them, since the first day they heard of it, and knew the grace of God in trath.' They fell instantly on acting holily, and for God, and stayed not a day, a moment after their conversion, Piev. xxii. 2, and Ezek. xlvii. 12. And these trees of the Lord's planting are not only said to be such whose leaves fade not, whose fi-uit withers not, but to bring forth ' fruit every month,' ' twelve sorts of fruit,' says the Pievelation (there is that variety afore spoken of), ' new fruit according to their months,' says Ezekiel, that is, all sorts in their seasons. In nature, some fruits are in season one month, others in another ; but no time is ban-en in a holy heart, it bears the whole twelve months, the whole of the year, which is the epitome of time. They bear fruit aU their lives continually ; and if so, then they will be found filled with fruit.

Now, when I say ' at all times,' it may be enlarged to three particulars : [1.] That our whole time be filled up with some good fruit or other. Now there are these things our time is to be filled up withal, our callings, recreations, holy duties ; and we are to subordinate the one to the other, and then we are holy in all. A man brings forth fruit in recreations as well as in holy duties, if his end be to have spirits to perfoim holy duties with. Blossoms, that fall off and wither, yet prepare for fruit. Now it is impossible to give certain rules what time is to be allotted for each of these, the conditions, tempers, constitutions of men do so vary. Poor men, that live by their daily labour, are necessitated to spend more time in their calling, than in recreations and duties. Men that are of weak and fiery spirits, and have callings that are exhausters of them, are as much necessitated to spend more time in recreations, than in their callings or holy duties, though

perhaps if such men had grace enough, even the most serious duties might be a recreation to them. Rich men that are strong and vigorous, and want employments, they may and ought to spend the more time in holy duties; their strength and leisure will afford it. But if a man proportions wisely and conscientiously forth his time, according to his conditions, between all these, and puts holy ends on all, he will be found for the circumstance he stood in, and the ground he was planted in, filled with fruits of righteousness. This the apostle gives us as a rule, to be holy in all manner of conversation, be it whatsoever. The mower that hath occasion often to whet his scythe, and cease his work with many interruptions, shall be paid for bis time therein (if he otherwise loiter not), as well as for doing the work itself. This rule is certain, a man is to spend that time in duties as may serve to keep his heart up with God, and not to spend that time in recreations as may dull and flat the heart unto holiness. My brethren, the Holy Ghost sets a price, a value upon time and every moment of it, when he says, ' Redeem the time.' ^Now, time hath its preciousness from the things to be done and acted in it. And because the fruits we bring forth are said to be precious (as James calls the fruit of the earth precious fruit, James V. 7, as also Paul the fruits of the Spirit; for, Philip, iv. 17, they are termed ' fruit that abounds to our account,' namely, at that day, that is, with infinite profit and advantage), we should therefore improve every moment. There are twelve hours in the day, saith Christ (John xi. 9), to work in, but night^comes, and no man^works. Christ, you see, reckons every hour as to be employed in working, and why are you idle in the market-place ? Mat. xxvi. 6. Buy thy time out, let the time past suffice for lusts, says Peter, 1 Peter iv. 3, and the time remaining is short, 1 Cor. vii. 29, and we have much ground to ride, much work to do. Peter therefore, 2 Peter iii. 11, 12, exhorts, ' What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness; hasting unto the coming of the day of God.' He doth not say only that the day of the Lord hastens, to affright them to turn to God; he supposeth that work done; but do you, says he, hasten against that day. He speaks to them as to men that were to do work against that day, which will require the utmost intention and improvement of time, making account they had done already so little towards it; and that therefore the rest of their lives should be a continual hurry towards it, as men that are making a great removing at such a day, how full of business and haste are they !

[2.] In the time of a man's life, there are special opportunities; and to bring forth that fruit in that special opportunity God calls for it, that makes it doubly acceptable. Ps. i. 3, a good man is compared to a tree, and is said to ' bring forth his fruit in due season.' ' New fruits according to their months,' as you heard out of Ezekiel. There is a ' time of fruit,' as Christ speaks, Mat. xxi. 84. Many men lose not time, that yet lose special opportunities ; and though they be found doing of good, yet not that good at that time God calls for. ' Do with all thy might,' says Solomon, ' what thy hand finds to do,' not what thou thyself hast rather a mind to do. And says the apostle, Heb. xii. 1, ' Let us run the race set before us.' God chalks out our works, our journal every day, and we should heedfully attend it; to omit doing of work at such a season God calls for, is to be in a gi-eat measure unfruitful. I have judged it the more special meaning of that passage, Titus iii. 14, ' Let ours also' (that is, those of our profession) ' learn to maintain good works for necessary uses, that they be not unfruitful.' Besides a general scope which the words have, in

reference to all goods works, he had a particular aspect, by comparing the words immediately afore, upon that duty of bringing two evangelists, Zenas and Apollos, on their journey, that nothing might be wanting to them ; and then subjoins as the reason of it, ' And let ours also learn,' &c., as well as heathens, who perform such duties of humanity. And let Christians, says he, look upon all such occasions as opportunities of expressing a grace, which if they omit when put into their hands, they are rendered so far, and as'to that special season, unfruitful. Parallel to which is that text. Gal. vi. 10, ' Whilst we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to the household of faith.' That which puts a value upon fruit is their season ; and this is a great part of that duty, so often inculcated, ' watch,' as merchants for a bargain ; s^ayo^a^o/j.ivoi rov xaiohv, buj'ing out our time, Eph. v. 16, it is a metaphor from merchants that watch for bargains, and their chiefest skill lies in taking seasons to buy commodities in. Of Christ it is said. Acts X. 38, that ' he went up and down doing good ;' that is, he sought out opportunities.

[3.j To be fruitful, is in all ages and conditions to bring forth fruit more proper to that age; as young men to fly youthful lusts (2 Tim. ii. 22), the lusts proper to that age ; old widows (1 Tim. v. 5) to give themselves up to prayer, as their very callings proper to that age do require ; the younger women to guide the house, 1 Tim. v. 14 ; rich men to be rich in good works, 1 Tim. vi. 18 ; poor men to be humble, content with their wages, as John said to the soldiers.

Lastly, Let men endeavour to be filled with fruits toward their end (Ps. xcii. 14), to ' bring forth fruit in their old age ;' there is a special blessedness put upon it. ' Blessed is the man whom his Master, when he comes, shall find so doing,' Luke xii. 43. Else we shall be in danger to ' lose ■what we have wrought,' 2 John 8, and not to have ' a full reward.' Of Christ it is said, John iv. 14, that it was his ' meat and drink as to do his Father's will,' so to finish his work. And in the last week of his life, when he saw he should die, he did nothing else but spend himself, he went out in the nights to pray, and in the morning taught the people, knowing it was his last; he took his fill, insomuch as he was so spent, that he could not carry his cross alone, but for fear he should faint and die, they called in another to help him. The fruit of old trees is most concocted and pleasantest.

CHAPTER VL

Of what kind those fruits of righteousness are, with tchich our obedience should abound; what is requisite to make them true and genuine.

Having thus shewed what it is to be filled with the fruits of righteousness, I come new to explain of what sort or kind these fruits are.

1. The man who performs them must be a righteous man ; he must have an inward frame of righteousness in his heart, whence these grow ; ' Make the tree good' (saith Christ, Mat. vii. 17, 18, &c.), * and the fruit will be good ; for can an evil tree bring forth good fruit ? Can you gather figs of thorns ?' So that, unless the heart be made holy and righteous, it cannot bring forth the fruits of righteousness ; and they are therefore said to be fruits of righteousness, because they spring from a righteous frame of heart, a workmanship created unto good works, Eph. ii. 10. And that which is said

in Isa. xxxvii. 31, of the kingdom of Judah, expressing its continuance, 'it shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward,' that I say of the fruits of righteousness, that as there should be fruits growing upward, so there shall be a root growing downward, which is the root of those fruits. And as a man doth grow and hold forth profession outwardly, so he should grow inwardly holy and righteous, having the image of God, which is created in holiness and righteousness, renewed in his heart; and works proceeding from thence are righteous works.

2. They are called righteous fruits, which are agreeable to the law of God, and which have the word of God for the rule. The commandments of God (Deut. xii. 9'^) are called our righteousness (so it is in the original), and anssverably every work which a man hath a rule and a warrant for, which a man doth in obedience to a law and a word, it is a fruit of righteousness. The apostle John doth answerably exhort us to such holy obedience, 1 John iii. 3-10, That good old apostle, who writes about communion with God, and knew best what it was, and what was the fruit of such communion, cloth not take men off from the righteous law of God as the rule of obedience; though there were those that went about, even in his time, to take men off from attending to the law as a perfect'rule, and that because God dwelt in them, and they had communion with him. No, saith he ; ver. 7, ' Let no man deceive you: he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.' And ver. 4, * Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law, for sin is the transgression of the law.' Answerably therefore, the righteousness which he intended is a conformity to that law. And, saith he, besides the motive that you have from Christ (for mark it, so the context clearly runs, ' he was manifested to take away our sin,' and ' he that hath this hope in him,' that hath any assurance to be saved, and hath any communion with God, ' he purifieth himself), but besides that (saith he), * whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law.' The righteousness therefore of a holy man that is truly righteous, is that which is a conformity to the law; and the law as a rule of righteousness standeth to that man, and ought to stand, and he ought to act according to that law, and then it is a fruit of righteousness.

3. These fruits must be such as are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. The Scripture insisteth much upon the kind f of our actions, as well as upon the actions themselves. It is not enough for them to be conformed unto the law outwardly, yea (if it might be), inwardly too : 2 Tim. ii. 5, ' If a man strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned except he strive lawfully.' The meaning is this, it is an allusion to those games usual amongst the Greeks, which were for crowns, where there were certain rules set for the manner of doing them ; and if a man did not keep to the manner as well as to the matter or thing to be done, he had not the laurel given him. It is not therefore striving only, but doing of it lawfully. The same apostle discourseth to the same purpose, Eom. vii, 4 : ' Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even unto him that is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God ;' and saith he, ver. 6, ' We are delivered from the law, that we should serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.' It is not the having a conformity to that old letter of Moses's law, which will make a fruit of righteousness, but it is (saith he) serving inthe newness of the spirit, that is, of the gospel; for clearly there spirit is opposed to letter, and to perform such obedience and bring forth such fruits of right-

* Qu. ' vi. 25' ?— Ed. t Qu. ' mind' ?— Ed.

eousness as the gospel doth suggest and require, this, saith he, is to bring forth fruit according to the newness of the spirit; and no other fruit is accepted of God. And therefore whereas before the law brought forth fruits of righteousness in us, we are now dead to the motions of it, though it is a rule still; j-et for begetting fruits of righteousness upon us, so we are dead to it, and we are married on purpose unto Jesus Chi'ist, that by him we might have fruit; that is, children unto God, for he useth a marriage phrase here. Before, when we were in the flesh, ' the motions of sin which were by the law did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death; but now, being married unto Jesus Christ, we serve in the newness of the spirit, and by him bring forth fruit unto God.' And he calls it fruit, because good works are children begotten upon the heart by Jesus Christ; for fruit, you know, is not only taken for the fruit of a tree, but there is the fruit of the womb and the fruit of the loins. So that the fruit which is accepted of God must be such as is by Jesus Christ. And agreeably to what hath been said, the apostle speaks (2 Tim. iii. 12) of our ' living godly in Christ Jesus.' And in the same chapter he speaks of a mere form of godliness as insignificant. Godliness therefore in Christ Jesus is that alone which is the distinguishing character from the form of godliness, which is a conformity to the old letter.

Now then, for the kind of the fruits of righteousness, he says two things:

1. They must be by Jesus Christ.

2. They must be performed by the heart, so as to be directed to the glory and praise of God.

1. They must be by Jesus Christ. Now fruits are by Jesus Christ in all these respects.

(1.) Because they are from a workmanship created in Christ Jesus. And certainly the image of holiness, which is created in Christ Jesus, is of an higher strain than that image of holiness, which the law could stamp upon the heart of a man. It is of another kind, for it is suited and fitted to gospel-motives and considerations, unto which hoHness in Adam was not suited, Eph. ii. 10.

(2.) Because they are such fruits as do arise from the Spirit of Jesus Christ, received from him, and dwelling in the heart. ' Love, joy, peace, long-sufi'ering, gentleness, meekness, temperance,' &c., all those excellent virtues are called, in Gal. v. 22, the fruit of the Spirit; and ' against such' (saith the apostle) ' there is no law,' there needeth no threatening of condemnation to such men as are led by the Spirit, as you have it, ver. 18, * If yo be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.' There was temperance, and meekness, and gentleness, and long-suffering in divers of the heathen, but they were not fruits of the Spirit of Christ, and therefore they were not fruits of righteousness by Jesus Christ, and from his Spirit dwelling in their hearts; neither were those men led into them by the Holy Ghost, and acted by the Holy Ghost as dweUing in them, and united to them, and becoming one spirit w'ith them.

(3.) Fruits of righteousness are by Jesus Christ, because they are the fruits that follow upon a man's apprehending the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ for his righteousness. And indeed so some do interpret this place ; say they, they are fruits of righteousness, that is, of the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith ; they being both joined here in the text, of righteousness, and that by Jesus Christ. It is evident and clear by the Scriptm-e, that the great spring of holiness and obedience is faith in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus ; I will give you one scripture for it,

it is in Tit. iii. 8, where the apostle having spoken in the former part of the chapter, how that we are saved not by works, and that we are justified freely by grace, and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life, he saith, ' These things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God may bo careful to maintain good works.' So that to believe upon Jesus Christ for righteousness, and to be efiectually convinced that all our own works will stand us in no stead, and to go to Christ for his righteousness, is the greatest spring of good works, and the best stock to maintain them,

(4.) Fruits of righteousness are by Christ, because they are so by motives drawn from Christ, When a man feels the ' virtue of his resurrection' (as Paul saith, Philip, iii. 10), that is, when he considereth that Jesus Christ is risen as a common person, and that he arose for him as he died for him, or he believeth on him that his death and the fruit of it may be his ; when a man feels a virtue coming to his soul from the consideration hereof, which quickeneth him to holiness and obedience, to die unto sin and to live to righteousness; when the love of Christ thus constrains, when these are the motives of the fruits of righteousness, these fruits are likewise by Jesus Christ. When ' the grace of Christ teacheth us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to Hve soberly' to a man's self, and ' righteously' to others, ' and godly' in this present world, in all the duties that concern God, a man's self, and others, as knowing that Christ hath ' redeemed us to be a peculiar people, zealous of good works ;' when the redemption of Christ makes a man zealous of good jrorks ; when these are the motives (which are the gospel motives) whereby a man is acted, and the peace of God ruleth in his heart, and the love of God ruleth in his spirit, and the love of Christ constraineth him, then his holy actions are fruits of righteousness by Jesus Christ.

(5.) Fruits of righteousness are by Christ, because they flow from our union with the person of the Lord Jesus ; and therefore the apostle speaks of our 'growing up into Christ in all things' (Eph. iv. 15), and of our ' increasing with the increase of God,' Col. ii. 19. The way to grow up in all things is to grow up in him, into nearer union and communion with him and his person, and fellowship with him; and when from such a union and communion with Jesus Christ, and growing up herein, a man grows more holy—' Abide in me (saith Christ, John xv. 4, 5), and I in you, that you may bring forth much fruit'—when, I say, from this union there flow works of righteousness, these are fruits of righteousness by Jesus Christ.

(6.) They are fruits of righteousness by Jesus Christ, when the example of Christ is before me to move me to the like righteousness. ' He that pi-ofesseth he abidethin him' (saith the apostle, 1 John ii. 6), ' ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.'

(7.) Then my actions are fruits of righteousness, whenas I look for all my acceptation of all my fruits of righteousness in Jesus Christ, or when I expect that they should all be accepted of God in and through Jesus Christ, and not as they come from me. Thus our services are expressed (1 Pet. ii. 5) to be ' sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ,' as they are found in him, and as God relisheth Christ in them. I say, when the heart is thus carried out to bring forth fruits of righteousness, though the law be the rule that guideth me for the matter, what fruits of righteousness to bring forth; yet I say, when they are thus brought forth (for the kind* of them) * Qu. ' mind' ?— Ed,

by Jesus Christ, then they are accepted by God, for God accepted nothing out of the Lord Jesus.

Thus I have shewed you that those actions are the fruits of righteousness, which are done in and by Christ Jesus. But,

2. Then our actions are the fruits of righteousness, when they are directed by the heart to the glory and praise of God. This the apostle plainly intimates, 1 Pet. iv. 11, where, speaking only of giving alms (which is one fruit of righteousness), he saith, ' If any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth, that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ.' He must do it to that end, that God may be glorified through Jesus Christ; for Christ himself is ordained to the glory of God, and all the fruits of righteousness are to be presented to God in and through Jesus Christ, and God is to be glorified through Jesus Christ. He speaks it, you see, of an action, a deed of charity ; that in all things (saith he) God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. But it may be asked, why he doth not only say, ' to the glory of God,' but * to the glory and praise of God ?' Is there any difference between these two ? To resolve the question, we must consider that those things are done to the glory of God (as you will have it in a way of distinction from the praise of God), ■whenas a man, personally between God and himself, endeavours to glorify him ; and those things are done to the praise of God, which are done by a man before others. That is properly praise, which is the shine of glory, for praise is the manifestation of glory; therefore that which is done in the heart, or personally between God and a man's self, that is properly to his glory; what cometh forth in the outward conversation of a man before others, that is properly to the praise of God. But it is usual in the Scripture to double things thus, to put the more emphasis upon them; to shew that all we do ought to be to the praise and glory of God, that our eye should be sure to be upon that; and therefore the apostle useth two phrases, not unto glory only, but unto praise also. To shew the abundance of a thing, it is doubled often in Scripture. I will give you but one instance, which is pertinent to the thing in hand; it is in 1 Pet. i. 7, where he speaks of the great glory which our faith shall have in that day, as here he speaks of the glory our works give to God in this day of ours; he saith, it shall be ' found unto pi'aise, and honour, and glory.' He heaps up those words to shew the abundance of glory which God will give our faith at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. And let me add this, that the greatest glorifying of God, that is done by the creature, none knows but God himself and the soul of a man. I say none knows, nor is privy to it; and therefore those works are the most acceptable works unto God which are in a man's own spirit, whereof the outward works are but the fruit. Why ? Because therein a man so glorifieth God, as no creature can see it, and that is glory indeed; and all secret glorifyings of God in a man's own heart, and also between God and a man's self, whereof God alone is the witness, they are those that God especially accepteth ; ' he seeth in secret' (saith Christ, Mat. vi. 4), * and shall reward thee openly.' And indeed therein lies the glory of God, that he is so respected by his creature, that a man doth glorify him so, as God himself only is the witness of that glory; and that is properly by what is done between God and a man's self, and in a man's heart. Therefore the greatest glory God hath from the saints and angels, is that which no creature can give a witness of. Now then, to do a thing to the glory of God, is to do it so as to please God, aiming at him, moved by his glory, referring it to his glory, and intending it so; and

this is necessary to every good work that is a fruit of righteousness. I shall give you but a place or two: Col. i. 10, he prays that they might ' walk worthy of the Lord unto all well-pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.' A man never walkcth worthy of the Lord, that is, as becomes one that hath communion with God, unless he aims at him in all things to please him. The like scripture you have in 2 Tim. ii. 5, G, compared (for I still choose out such scriptures as near as I can that liave the metaphor of fruit in them), ' The husbandman that labours,' saith he, ' must be first partaker of the fruits'; so must God. And, saith he, verse 4, ' No man that warreth entangleth himself in the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.' It was the law of the militia of Rome, and of that empire, that they should do nothing else but give themselves up to the commands of their general, and unto matters of war; they were not to be sent of an errand by their captains, nor employed by them in any private business ; and all was that they might please him that had chosen them, that they might please their general, to whom, and unto whose service they were assigned. Thus now to give a man's self up wholly unto God, to aim to please him in all things, and to act all to the glory of God, to make that the chiefest guide and rule of all my actions, this is to do all to the praise and glory of God.

CHAPTER VIL

That our obedience ought to he continued; that a man shall in the day of Christ appear ivith all those fruits of righteousness which he hath brought forth in Christ to the glory of God.

There is only a third thing to be explained, and that is, what is meant by the words of the text, Philip, i. 10, ' till the day of Christ.' Now, as in relation to that reference, I do observe from thence, 1. All the good acts and fruits of righteousness, inward and outward, that any man hath done by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God, though in never so weak a measure, he shall appear with them all at the day of Christ. It shall not be with him as with other trees that have long borne fruit, and at the last have none appearing on them; but all the fruit that a man hath borne successively in his whole life, he shall appear withal at the latter day. Wicked men shall appear with all their bad works, and godly men shall appear with all their good works; and therefore the end of the world (Matt. xiii. 39) is called a harvest; and it is called a reaping. Gal. vi. 5-7, where the apostle alludeth to the day of judgment, though he speaks of our liberality—* what a man soweth that shall.he reap ;' and at the harvest the crop comes in all at once: whatsoever a man soweth, though he sow barley at one time, and wheat at another, and rye at another, yet at the harvest all the crop comes in. ' He goeth forth,' saith the psalmist, ' carrying precious seed with him;' but when the harvest is, he shall come again, ' bringing all his sheaves with him,' Ps. cxxvi. 6. AH the works that he hath done, he brings them with him at the day of judgment. Now, then, that which the apostle prays for in the behalf of these Philippians is, that at that day they might appear filled with all the fruits of righteousness, and fruits of that kind, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. And the reason is this, because a man's fruit remaineth, John XV. 14, 16, and remaining for ever, they meet him there at the day of judg-

ment. * Charge them that are rich' (saith the apostle, in 1 Tim. vi. 17-19), ' that they be rich in good works, laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come,' It will be a store and a treasury, which a man shall meet withal at that day.

2. As a man shall appear thus with all his fruits of righteousness, so to appear at that day filled with the fruits of righteousness which he brought forth in the whole course of his life, shall be of exceeding great moment and concernment. It will be of concernment every way then, besides all the uses of it now. For,

(1.) As all these fruits were by Jesus Christ, so there will be a great deal of honour arise to Jesus Christ, ' who shall then come to be glorified in his saints' (as you have it in 2 Thes. i. 10), * and to be made wonderful in them that believe.' For Jesus Christ shall present us to the Father at the latter day. Col, i. 22, and our fruit will be found on him : ' All thy fruit is found in me,' saith he in Hos. xiv. 8. All our fruit, I say, will be found on him, and he will have the glory of all; therefore to have brought forth fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Chiist, will be infinitely to the glory of Jesus Christ. As he will say, * Here are the children which thou hast given me,' so here are the fruits these children have brought forth. We are married unto Christ, saith the apostle, that we may bring forth fruit unto God. I am the husband, will Christ say, and these are the children of those unto whom I am married ; and therefore a saint is called the glory of Christ, 2 Cor. viii. 19.

(2.) And this will be for the glory of Christ, so for the glory of God the Father, to whom all this was done. Therefore the apostle Peter, 1 Pet. ii., exhorts them to hold forth the virtues and graces of Jesus Christ, to have their conversation honest amongst the Gentiles ; that whereas they speak against them as evil doers, they may by their good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation, that at that great and general muster, as I may so call it, when every man shall shew his arms, God may then be glorified. So that in respect of the glory that shall arise to God the Father at that day, and that even before others also, it is of great use to be filled with fruits of righteousness; not only that God may be glorified here in this world (as you have it. Mat. v. 16, ' That they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven'), but that there may also a great deal of glory arise unto God, and confusion of face unto wicked men, even in that day of visitation.

(3.) It is of infinite use likewise unto us ; for I do believe it to be a great truth in the word of God, if I had time to open it, that there are degrees of glory, and especially at that great day of judgment, which will be according as a man hath been filled with fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory of God, here in this world. The prophet (in Jer, xvii. 8, 10, verses compared) compares a man that trusts in the Lord, and so out of faith worketh and bringeth forth fruit, to ' a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her root by the river ; that hath her leaf green, and is not careful in the year of drought, neither doth cease from yielding fruit.' And ver. 10 saith he, ' The Lord shall reward every man according to his doings;' that is, by an Hebraism, according to their doings, which were their fruits. Compare the two verses together, and you shall fijid them pertinent to the thing in hand; and answerably in Gal. vi. 8, 10, saith the apostle, ' as a man soweth so shall he reap.' Now a man soweth either to the flesh, to his lusts, or to the Spirit; all his thoughts and afi'ections are laid out either upon things spiritual, or else upon things

carnal, or else, as others interpret it, either on things of the soul and the eternal glory thereof, or on things of the body. Now, saith the apostle, whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap, both according to the kind and according to the measure ; look what a man sows to his lusts, to the flesh, he shall of the flesh reap corruption ; even to a godly man, whatsoever he sows to the flesh will be all lost. But what is sown to the Spirit it will rise up to eternal life ; * He that soweth to the Spirit,' saith he, ' shall of the Spirit reap Hfe everlasting.' He compares every action that a man doth to a seed ; every action hath a seed (let us look to it, my brethren), a man sows a seed in every thought, in every afiection, in every word, in every action that he doth in any kind; and there will either come up corruption if it be bad seed, or it will come up to eternal life if it be good. ' Be not deceived,' saith he, ' God is not mocked,' for he seeth and observeth every seed that is sown, and it is he that makes the harvest (for so I take those words in Gal. vi. to refer to that coherence) : * Be not deceived; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, he shall also reap.' He will look to that; he seeth every seed you sow, every thought, and every affection, and every action, and he will be sure to make the harvest accordingly. James speaketh in the same language too; chap, v., he exhorteth them there to patience in well-doing, and he doth it under this very metaphor I have now spoken of. ' Be patient,' saith he ver. 7, ' till the coming of our Lord,' do but stay till then. Whence hath be his similitude ? What shall we expect at the coming of our Lord ? ' Behold,' saith he, ' the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient; stablish your hearts; for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.' He compares the coming of the Lord to the hai'vest, and the time of this life to sowing of seed. ' The husbandman waiteth,' saith he, * for the precious fruit of the earth,' It is called precious fruit, because, indeed, the fruit of the earth is more precious than gold, for a man cannot eat gold ; gold, and silver, and pearl, are not so precious as corn. And sometimes it is precious seed which is sown, because it cost him a great deal of money, and he saves it out of his own belly to sow it in the earth ; and when he hath done, he endureth all weathers, and still waiteth and hath long patience for the harvest. * Do you also,' saith he, ' wait for the coming of the Lord, because then is the harvest, and he will reward every man according to the fruit of his doings.' And hence therefore you shall find (still that I may speak in the language of the metaphor) in this epistle to the Philippians, chap. iv. ver. 17, whenas they had sent him a benevolence, saith he, ' It is not that I desire a gift,' or that I rejoice in what you have done, ' but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.' He compares it to merchandising; there is, saith he, so much set upon your account in heaven for it, it is a fruit of righteousness, and a seed sown, which you will have an account of at the latter day. Certainly, my brethren, God, as he will reward every man according to the kind of his works, that is, those that have done good shall go into eternal life, as the expression is ; and he will make it out by the kind of the works that this man is a good man and the other not; so he will reward according to the proportion, the proportionality. But why should I call it proportion, since it holds no proportion with degrees of glory ? You have a place very considerable, Kev. xxii. 11, it is Christ's last speech from heaven, his last sermon that he makes : ' He that is unjust, let him be unjust still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still; and he that is righteous, let him be

righteous still; and he that is holy, lot him be holy still.' The reason why he speaks thus of wicked men, * he that is unjust, let him be unjust still,' is because, that notwithstanding all that he had said in this book, and in the whole book of God, they would go on in their wickedness ; and because the day of judgment is deferred, they would be more wicked (as Daniel also had foretold in his prophecy, chap. xii. 10) ; but be not offended at it, ' But he that is righteous, let him be righteous still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still ;' let him continue and increase in holiness. And why ? ' Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me ;' that is, I have it ready, for so in 1 Peter iv. 5 he is said to be * ready to judge the quick and the dead.' I have every man's account in my head, and I have the reward he shall have, for I have summed up all the holiness that is in the heart and life of a godly man, and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be, not only for the kind but for the degree. Why ? Clearly because he that is righteous let him be more righteous ; he that is holy, let him be more holy ; for my reward is with me, and I will give every man according as his work shall be found at that day. Therefore doth the apostle here (Philip, i. 10) pray that they may be filled with fruits of righteousness; for the more they are filled with such fruits, the more will there be fruit come in then to their account. Truly they hold no proportion with what shall be then, that is certain, none at all; yet as a man that is casting up of what is due to him may do it with counters, when the money that is paid holds no proportion with the counters, and yet may truly say the money that is paid him is according to that account made up with the counters ; so here, though all the fruit we bring forth here, all the works we do here, are not worthy of that glory that shall be revealed, they have nothing in them proportionable to it, yet notwithstanding it shall be according to that account. How this stands with free grace, and is not of works, I have shewed in my sermons on Eph. ii.

How should these thoughts make us for ever grow up in holiness, and to endeavour to be filled with the fruits of righteousness! ' Every man,' saith the apostle, 1 Cor. iii. 8, ' shall receive his proper reward.' It is a reward proper to his work, to his labour. And to the same purpose is what the apostle says, 2 Cor. v. 10, ' For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.' ' In the body,' that is, proper to the body, as some read it; or as it followeth, as he hath behaved himself in the body. And he speaks suitable, 1 Cor. iii. 8, ' Now he that planteth, and he that watereth, are one, and every man shall receive his own reward, according to his own labour.' It is meant of heaven, for saith he, ver. 15, * He shall be saved, yet by fire ;' he shall suffer so much loss, for the Spirit of God will reveal all. Consider also another place of the apostle, Eph. vi. 8, 9, he speaks upon occasion of ordinary duties, of the duties of servants that do service in their callings ; but you may apply it to anything else that is good, that hath any ingenuity* in it, that is done through Christ to the glory of God. ' Servants,' saith he, ' be obedient, &c., not with ej'e-service ;' he speaks not only of holy duties, but of all that a man doth, of servants serving their masters, ' knowing that whatsoever good thing a man doth, the same shall he receive of the Lord.' A man doth such a one a good turn, and he doth it out of a principle of grace and holiness ; whatsoever good thing any man doth, whatsoever ingenuity any * That is, ' ingenuousness.'— Ed.

man sheweth of any kind, tho same he shall receive of the Lord. He would never condescend to i)articulars else, to a cup of cold water, as he doth in Mark ix. All yield, even those that are against degrees of glory, that at the last day there shall more approbation be given to one man than to another ; but why not for ever, seeing a man's righteousness remaineth for ever ?

And therefore, my brethren, how should all these things make us endeavour after holiness, as Peter saith (sufl'er the words of exhortation, for these things tho holy apostles pressed upon the hearts and spirits of men): 2 Pet. iii. 14, ' Seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless,' which is the first part; • And seeing that these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be, in all holy and godly conversation !' so it is in the original. The apostle Peter, who doth in his epistles sparkle forth so much holiness, yet he hath so great and so vast a sight of holiness, which yet he would attain to, that he knows not how to express it. * What manner of men,' saith he, ' ought we to be !' It is a word of admiration, as when Christ did still the sea in Mat. viii. 27, ' What manner of man is this !' say they ; so here, what manner of holiness should we use, ' looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of the Lord ;' that is, despatching and doing all we can for our lives against that day; and if we have neglected our time, let us begin now to hasten, and to be holy in all manner of conversations. It is expressed in the plural number, to instruct us that in all ways, towards a man's self and towards others, and in all duties towards God, we should be holy. Our lives should, as it were, be in a hurry after the day of judgment; as those that are to remove at the quarter-day, they hasten to do all against the time. Let a man think with himself, I must have all my time filled up, with every grace I must abound, and hold forth Christ in everything, in every condition, and in every relation ; and the more fruitful I have been, I shall appear so at the latter day, and it shall all redound to my account. Let a man consider this ; it will make him to be like one in a continual haste, despatching as much business as he can for his Ufe.

BOOK II.

The demeanour of a Christian, as it is expressed under the notion of friendship with God. — The example of Abraham's being the friend of God. — How, in the sense of the apostle James, he was justified by works. — How great, excellent, and kind a friend God is to us. — How this consideration should engage us in a sincere friendship to him. — What are the duties and offices to be j)erformed by us, as proper and owing to such a friendship ? — Of the behaviour of a Christian, as it is named service to God.

Was not Abraham our father justified by ivorks, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his icorks, and by ivorks li'os faith made perfect ? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. — James II. 21-23.

CHAPTER I.

The obedience of a Christian expressed under the notion of friendship to God. — The title of being * God's friend ' is given to Abraham — The meaning of the apostle James, when he says, Abraham was justified by works.

My present subject is the obedience of a man already regenerated; and this the notion of friendship with God will in a large manner serve to illustrate unto us. Friendship is the strength of love, and the highest improvement of it. ' Thy friend,' says Moses, ' that is as thy own soul,' Deut. xiii. 6. Friendship is common to, and included in, all relations of love. A brother is (or ought to be) a friend; it is but friendship natural. Husband and wife are friends ; that knot is but friendship conjugal. See one instance for both. Cant. v.: Christ had first called his church sister, and then spouse; and as not contented with both, though put together, he adds another compellation as the top of all, ' Oh my friends !' This friendship to God will therefore most perfectly and completely serve to express the love and obedience of the saints to God, which is here set forth in the text, in the example of Abraham, the state of whose person and temper of heart is herein made the common standard of all believers.

This phrase of being friends to God is not only expressive of the first work of God upon us, but it is sufiicient to instruct and direct us, and (as the Holy Ghost speaks upon another occasion) ' to make the man of God perfect.' The whole of that charge given to Abraham, who is here made our pattern, Gen. xvii. 1, ' Walk before me, and be thou perfect,' is summarily comprehended in this testimony of his carriage, whereby he made good the character of a friend, and so was called the friend of God. Other titles given us do more express our privileges, as to be called a son, an

heir; but this of being a friend to God (the essential constitution and essence of wliich regeneration first gives us) expresseth more of duty and of the inward disposition of a Christian towards God, though it also be as high a title for dignity as any other. God writ upon the palms of his hands, and as a signet and a memorial on his right hand, the name of * Abraham his friend ;' ho remembers him and his seed by it again and again, as if all were spoken in that one word. Our privilege by it I will not insist on, but the duty, the dispositions of it, I cannot omit, having gone so far in it, which Christ also insinuates, John xv. 14, ' Ye are my friends, if ye do whatever I command you.'

That I may arrive at this portion of Scripture (my text), as it stands in coherence with the foregoing words, I must necessarily open the aim and intent of James therein, which hath had so much controversy upon it. The point which he pursues in this chapter and this epistle was to convince loose professors, who, building themselves upon Paul's doctrine (which if it had not been current in those times there had been no colour for their mistake), that faith alone being that which saved us, and justified us without works, they thereupon had taken up a looseness of profession in practice, not judging inward holiness in their hearts, or an outward strictness in their lives necessary, seeing it was faith alone that saveth. Now, in this chapter, there are two mediums by which he evinceth the vanity of that deceit.

1. That even under the gospel, universal respect to all the commandments, one as well as another, is required, and upon the same ground to all as unto any one ; yea, and that at the latter day, God will judge every man according to this rule, which he terms the ' law of liberty,' ver. 12. The gospel requires a sincere respect unto all commandments; this you have from ver. 8 to the 14th, ' If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors. For whosoever shall keep the whole lavv-, and yet ofiend in one point, he is guilty of all. For he that said. Do not commit adultery, said also. Do not kill. Now, if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law. So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty. For he shall have judgment without mercy that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment. What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works ? can faith save him ? '

The second part of this discourse, and which he prosecutes to the end of the chapter is, 1. That true saving faith hath always works of holiness, or such a respect unto all the commandments, accompanying it both in the heart and life. And 2. On the contrary, that faith which hath not these fruits is but a dead faith, and not the true genuine faith, such as all believers have that are saved. Yea, and 3. That every man's faith (and so together therewith every man that professeth himself to have true faith) must one day be put to an open trial, to justify the truth of itself, and of his profession, and this afore all the world. And the believer also wiU be put upon the justification of his having had such a faith as God (ex conse-quenti, or in the sequel) professeth only to justify man upon; for at the latter day it is faith is the grace that must be tried and found unto honour and glory, 1 Peter i. 7. And the man that shall plead justification by faith alone (which James contradicts not), and that he had a saving faith, must undergo this examination, whether his faith produced such works, yea or

no, as the nature of true faith, with difference from false and unfeigned faith (which James disputes against), doth note.

These three assertions he intermingledly lays down. The first, ver. 14, * "^Tiat doth it profit a man, though he say he hath faith, and have not works ?' ' Can r, rrlsn:, that faith, save him ?' The second is in ver. 17, ' Even so faith, which hath not works, is dead, being alone,' and but such a faith as the devils have, ver. 19. The third is in verses 21 and 24, ' A man is justified by works, and not by faith only.' The issue of all which comes to this, that true sanctification and holiness of heart and life is required by God unto the possession and the enjoyment of salvation as well as faith, and serves to justify the truth of the faith, by which he hath alone the right to it.

Now, for the confirmation of all this, he allegeth the instance of Abraham as an undeniable conviction and sufficient evidence, as his preface to it shews : ' Wilt thou know, 0 vain man ? ' says he, ver. 20. He gives such possessors the title of vain men, because they are vain in their imaginations, Rom, i., and deceived in what they build on, and their rehgion will prove vain (as in chap. i. 26 he speaks); such a man ' deceives his own heart, and his religion is vain.'

Now wilt thou know, that is, shall I give thee an invincible demonstration for all these things ? Both that that faith which is without works is a dead faith, a counterfeit faith, and so of another kind fi-om saving faith. And 2dly, that whoever pleads he hath faith, must have a justification (in a right and true sense) by works, &c. For this, take that instance of our father Abraham: James ii. 21, 'Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered up his son Isaac upon the altar ?' We must understand him here closely to prosecute those assertions he had begun, whereof one was, that it was not enough for a man that would be saved to say that he had faith, but he must make this good, and shew it forth in his works. And accordingly, as to this sense, the apostle must be tmder-stood to speak this of Abraham (for he speaks pertinently to his own conclusions laid), that if Abraham our father were now ahve, or to appear at the day of judgment, and would say or plead that he had faith, upon which God had imputed righteousness unto him, that yet even he, as well as any other, must shew that he had such a faith by his works, or he had not approved himself to have been a true believer. And so to be justified by works is but to approve himself a true believer in difference to a false faith (which is the main point which James his scope was to disprove); and accordingly, there is recorded (to which James his words do refer) a justification of him that followed upon that work of his: ver. 22-24, 'Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect ? And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.'

CHAPTER II.

How the apostle Paul and the apostle James are consistent in the account uhich they give of Abrahams justification.

If you ask how this is to be reconciled to what Paul says, Rom. 3d and 4th chapters, where he says the clean contrary, that Abraham was justified by

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faith without works ? the answer (besides what hath been now said) is clear out of the scope of both places compared. There is a double justification bj God: the one authoritative, the other declarative or demonstrative. Though this is also before God, yet it is that which is to be made before all the world b}' God; and in order thereunto, the one is the justification of men's persons coram Deo, before God, as they appear before him nakedly, and have to do with him alone for the right to salvation; and so they are justified by faith without works, either as looked at by God or by themselves. God therein passeth an act of Christ's righteousness, out of his pure prerogative ; as a king, when he pardons, or creates a nobleman, and the like. And this part of the distinction Paul himself puts, in stating it under the example of Abraham; that coram Deo, before God, nor Abraham, nor any flesh shall be justified by works : Rom. iv. 2-5, ' For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture ? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness. Now to him that worketh is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.' Observe it, he saith, * not before God;' that is, not in that justification, which is an act passed between God and a man's own soul, and in respect of the private transactions between both.

But God, at the latter day, is to proceed as the judge of all the world (as Abraham calls him), and as such, to put a difference between man and man, and that upon this account, that the one were true believers when he justified them ; the other were unsound, even in their very acts of faith which they did put forth. And so he is to shew forth a difierence between those whom he hath justified thus out of his prerogative, and those whom he hath left under wrath. He is to own the one with a ' Come, ye blessed,' and reject the other with a ' Go, ye cursed.'

Now God hath ordered it so, that he will not put the possession of salvation upon that private act of his own, without having anything else to shew for it. He shews grace and favour to a man without works, but yet he will go demonstratively to work, and difierence believing Abraham from unbelieving Ishmael and Laban; and this by such works as the other had not to shew for themselves. He will justify his own acts of justification, of this man and not of that; and he will justify the faith of him he had justified (which is James's main scope), or, if you will, the person himself, as he professed himself to have had faith. And this is as evidently James's scope, as the other is Paul's. In a word, Abraham's person, considered singly and alone, yea, as ungodly, is the object of Paul's justification without works, Rom. iv. 3-5. But Abraham, as professing himself to have such a true justifying faith, and to have been justified thereupon, and claiming right to salvation by it, Abraham, as such, is to be justified by works. Now, that this is James's scope is evident, for—

1. It agrees with the language he useth, which imports his meaning to intend but an outward demonstration in this his justification which he intended, ver. 18, ' Shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.' And ver, 22, ' Seest thou how faith wrought with his works ?' So, then, he speaks of a visible, demonstrative justification, as the words seeing and shewing import.

2. This instance of Abraham's justification, he saith, was after he had ofi'ered up his son. Now what was that justification, but that famous testimony of God himself, given him thereupon ? ' Now know I,' says God,

Geu. xxii. 12, ' that thou fearest God,' which is no more but this : I have now a visible evidence and demonstration of it; so that whereas before I, upon a private act of my own, justified thee upon beheving, I can now own thee to all the world, and have an evidence to give upon certain knowledge. And this testimony was Abraham's justification.

3, The 23d verse also tells us, that he had that character or title of honour given him thereupon : 1. That he was called the friend of God, which is spoken in relation unto that act; 2. He is spoken of, also, as one whom God was not ashamed of to be called his God, nor to own him as a friend, for he had had it upon an experience what would justify his doing so.

4. And yet further, he herein prosecutes what he had said, ver. 12, that we should be judged by our works, and so speaks this in relation thereunto. And look in what sense a man may be said to be judged by his works at the latter day, in the same sense, and that sense only, he intends this his justification by works, and in no other; for all judging and passing of sentence must have either a justification or a condemnation, as the sentence of it in the close. So as there is no more danger to say, a man at the latter day shall be justified by his works, as evidences of his state and faith, than to say he shall be judged according thereto ; and the one is to be taken in a similar or like sense unto the other. Now, to be judged ' according to works' (when it is spoken of a good man), is meant demonstratively, as they are evidence of his estate. The apostle's scope being also to shew, by God's approbation given Abraham, upon the story of his offering up his son in his lifetime, what like approbation or justification Christ will declare and hold forth concerning true believers, when the story of their lives and all the good they have done, or was wrought in them, shall be ripped up : ' I was naked, and ye clothed me ;' and so gives them the testimony of his knowing that they had done so. As, on the contrary, to them that regarded not good works, he says, ' I know you not,' Mat. vii. 23. And David, speaking of standing in judgment, useth the same phrase, Ps. i. 6, 6, ' The Lord knows the way of the righteous,' that is, justifies and approves ; as in that speech God did Abraham, * Now I know thou fearest me,' &c.

And in relation to this outward judgment at the latter day, our sentence of salvation is termed expressly a justification; and this very thing is asserted by Christ himself: Mat. xii. 36, 37, ' I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment ; for by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.' Neither is it anywhere said, that God will judge men according to their faith only ; nor will it be a sufficient plea at the latter day to say. Lord, thou knowest I believed, and cast myself at thy grace. God will say, I am to judge thee so as every one shall be able to judge my sentence righteous together with me : 1 Cor. iv. 5, ' Therefore, shew me thy faith by thy works ;' let me know by them thou fearedst me ; for as I did judge Abraham, and gave thereupon a testimony of him, so I must proceed towards thee. And this God will do, to the end that all the sons of Israel, yea, the whole world, may know that he justified one that had true faith indeed.

So then, Paul's judging according to works, and James his justification by works, are all one, and are alike consistent with Paul's justification by faith only. For in the same epistle where he argues so strongly for justification by faith without works, as Horn. iii. iv., he in chap. ii. also declares, that ' he will judge every man according to his works.' He doth so to the

good: ver. 7, ' To them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life.' As well as to the bad he pronounceth a contrary judgment: vers. 8, 9, ' But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile.'

Now then, to proceed in the exposition of James : * Thou seest how faith wrought with Abraham's works.' Which imports, first, that his faith was a working faith, which is the principal point that James drives at. And secondly, that his works did proceed out of faith, and so were accepted. Thus in Heb. xi. 17, ' By faith Abraham ofiered up Isaac,' says the apostle there. ' And by works faith was made perfect;' that is, declared and manifested to be true and perfect faith. Thus we are said to bless God, when we shew his blessedness. And thus, in 2 Cor. xii. 9, ' God's power' is said to be ' perfected in weakness ;' not that it receives any perfection from us, but because it is manifested in its divineness and perfection. And this the reason of the thing also enforceth, for the cause is not perfected by the effect, but is declared perfected. Fruits perfect not, or make not the tree good, but shew the goodness of it. Now faith is the cause of works; and so his faith was perfected by works, by being manifested, upon trial (as, Heb. xi. 17, the apostle speaks), to be perfect faith, that is, true and genuine faith (for so perfect is taken by James, chap. i. 17, * every perfect gift'), in distinction from faith that proves itself hypocritical in the issue. Thus you say of a true dye, it is a perfect colour.

Again, then, a thing is said to be perfected, when it hath attained the end which it was ordained for, or which was aimed at. Thus in 1 John ii. 5, * Whoso keepeth his words, in him the love of God is perfected.' Understand it either of the grace of love in us, it is perfected when it brings forth the actions and fruits of obedience it was ordained to bring forth ; or take it in respect of God's love towards us, holiness is the end and aim thereof. It receives its intended end and accomplishment in a man that keeps the commandments, for we were ' chosen to be holy before him in love.'

But let us proceed in the exposition of James's words. James ii. 23, ' And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness;' that is, upon this his ofi'ering up his son there was a fulfilling of that thing which aforehand had been spoken of Abraham, whereof the Scripture is the record. 1. First, let us consider the thing. 2. The i^hrase fulfilled.

1. Let us consider the thing in other passages of the New Testament, where it is said a scripture is fulfilled, when it is first done or accomplished, with reference to some scripture or prophecy recorded and written long afore the thing was accomplished. Now that cannot be James his meaning here, for Moses his books (and so this Book of Genesis) were written after, both this imputation of righteousness by God, and that ofi'ering up of Isaac by Abraham. The intent of this saying then must rest upon this, that what is recorded in Scripture, as said long before of Abraham's faith, was afterward fulfilled and demonstrated, though both passages were at one and the same time written by the same hand of Moses long after both. And so it refers to the priority of matter, that one passage fell out afore the other, not to the writing itself. Now it is evident by the story, that about thirty years before Abraham ofiered up his son, God had (as the Scripture records it) imputed righteousness to him upon believing, Gen. xv. 6. Yea, and

upon a bare and naked act of believing was it that Grod did impute righteousness to him. But then, as hath been said, God that justified Abraham as his elect gave him such a faith; and such an act of faith was then put forth by Abraham, as God, to use the words said of Christ, knowing by intuition and foresight the kind of it (he also out of election having given him such a faith) to be true and genuine, justified him upon it; it being such a faith as he meant to follow with all these good works, that which Abraham afterward out of faith wrought; and indeed Abraham's faith after so many years brought forth those many acts of obedience, Heb. xi. 17. There was an evident demonstration of making good, a fulfilling or justifying of what God had done, and of that faith he had justified him then upon, clearly shewing that God in justifying him upon that, though a single act of faith, yet had kept to that eternal rule of his in justifying any, that such a faith should be operative and working of holiness. This Abraham in the sequel fulfilled and made good, and God foresaw he would. And it is observable, that in the 15th of Genesis God gave forth the promise absolutely unto Abraham first, and then he put forth that act of faith towards it. The promise was a declaration of God's immediate counsel towards him, not founded on any work precedent, no, nor faith, but uttered for him by faith to receive : ver. 1, ' I am thy shield and exceeding great reward.' And ver. 6, ' As the stars shall thy seed be' (in which Abraham spied out Christ). * And he believed in the Lord, and he counted it to him for righteousness.' Therefore Paul argues that God justified him, as considering him an ungodly person, neither therein respecting his works nor his faith, as that for which he justified him. Now then, upon that eminent act of obedience, the ofiering up his son (which is recorded Gen. xxii.), doth God renew the same promise, confirming it with an oath; I say, he renews the very same promise for substance given afore: ver. 16, 17, ' By myself have I sworn, that because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son : that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore ; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies.' Now the fulfilling here is in part interpreted by the word the apostle useth of this very speech Heb. vi. 17, that it was a ' confirmation of a promise formerly given by an oath,' referring to the declaration of himself, Gen xxii., as by the 13th and 14th verses appears, * For when God made promise to Abraham, because he could swear by no gi-eater, he sware by himself, saying. Surely blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee.' So then, as this renewing the promise was but a further confirmation of what was sure afore on God's part there, so here in James this fulfilling was but a making for, or open verification, or demonstration, or shewing forth on Abraham's part, that hisjfaith God had justified him upon was true and real, perfect faith, such as God only professed to justify men upon. And as the first promise given. Gen. xv., was sufiicient alone to have assured us, and the addition of that oath made it not more true or full in real verity than it was afore, only ex ahmdantl was added for confirmation, so Abraham's justification upon that bare act of believing was as full and complete in the thing itself, as it was now upon the ofi"ering up of his son ; only hereupon a new ratification was made to his faith thereof. And so the saying was but fulfilled, and Abraham's faith (upon which it was first uttered) justified and declared true, namely, by that testimony of God's then given, ' Now I know thou fearest me.'

2. And, secondly, the phrase well bears it; for in this sense a thing is

said to be fulfilled in Scripture when declared and ratified by some eminent signal of it. Acts xiii. 32, 33, when Peter brought the Jews tidings that they should have God's own Son for their Messiah (for which he quotes Ps. ii., ' Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee'), says he, ' God hath fulfilled the same unto us, in that he hath raised up Christ from the dead.' Now Jesus Christ was not made any whit more God's Son by his resurrection than he was before ; how is it then said by his resurrection to be fulfilled'? Paul hath resolved us : Rom. i. 4, ' He was declared to be the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead.' It is he that was the Son of God by eternal generation, and there was no other such a son of God, and of whom it was accordingly said in Scripture, ' This day have I begotten thee.' This scripture is said to be fulfilled, when this is manifestly made forth and demonstrated. And this is but the same which God doth every day, when upon occasion of some eminent act of self-denial or sufi'ering he renews assurance of his love, and of the justification of them that have afore believed, as John xiv. 21.

Now then, that justification, which in reality, and for the thing itself, was as complete upon a bare act of believing as ever it shall be to all eternity (and the very words import it, in that thirty years before Abraham's ottering up his son, righteousness was imputed to him by believing), yet is said to be fulfilled, when demonstratively and signally held forth. And as the resurrection of the Son of God added nothing to his Sonship that was essential thereunto, so neither did this justification of Abraham by works, James ii. 21, add anything to God's real imputing of Christ's righteousness, but was the signal of it.

So then, let us conceive aright of God's proceedings herein. Says God of a man that now but begins to put forth a naked act of faith, I do here justify this man, and I do justify him for ever, and I will never recall it. But a carnal heart might object, Will God beforehand thus rashly give forth an eternal justification of man ? Will he not stay until he sees works to spring from it ? No, says God, I will adventure to do it now ; for when I mean to justify according to my decree of election, I give him faith, the faith of my elect; and I see (for he sees all our thoughts and wants afar off) this faith I justify this man now upon, this sole act of believing for justification, to be so genuine, so true and unfeigned faith, and of the true and right breed, that I will adventure it, or rather undertake for it, that in the future course of this man's life it shall bring forth in his heart and life acts and dispositions suitable, which shall justify this my justifying of this man ; which when it shall do, then is God's sentence of justifying him said to be fulfilled.

When a man first believes upon a bare word of God, God in like manner justifies upon that bare act of believing; and as he trasts God, so God trusts his faith, or rather undertakes for it, and pronounceth such a sentence upon him of justification as he hath sworn (as he did to Abraham) never to recall. And yet the case is such, as if in the future course of his life that man did not walk so as, by works and dispositions of hohness accompanying that faith, to give demonstration of himself to be a true believer, God at the latter day must recall that sentence, as pronounced upon a dead and empty act of faith. When therefore in his future course he walks suitably, he is said to fulfil or make good that first act of God ; for he gives sufficient proof and demonstration that he had, and hath that kind of faith upon which God alone will be sure to justify a man, even a working faith that is lively. And in this sense is that saying of James here to be

understood: ' And the scripture was fulfilled which says, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness.'

CHAPTER III.

Abraham called the friend of God, upon the performance of that act of obedience in offering xip his son. — That what is said of Abraham is spoken of him as the father and pattern of all believers. — The true faith works in the heart friendly dispositions toward God.

The apostle James withal adds, ' And he was called the Friend of God.*

1. Some ado there is where in the Old Testament to find this saying. Some think it not anywhere uttered in words, and must therefore be fetched from such passages recorded betwixt Abraham and God, as argued he owned him for his friend, as that promise Gen. xii. 4, ' I will bless them that bless thee, and I will curse them that curse thee.' And to be a friend to one's friend, and an enemy to all one's enemies, is the strictest league of friendship that can be. Also those familiar conferences and colloquies vouchsafed to Abraham do argue it. God in reality used him as a friend, and so did in effect call him so. But over and above there are two evident testimonies of God in express terms giving this title to Abraham by God. 2 Chron. xx. 7, Isa. xli. 8, ' The seed of Abraham my friend.' And this honourable mention of him, compared with those real transactions of friendship, does put all out of question as to the authenticness of this quotation.

2. For the scope and pertinency of James in this quotation to the purpose he had in hand, it must be considered,

(1.) That he joins and couples, you see, two several testimonies, fetched out of several scriptures, concerning one and the same person, Abraham, whose instance he had before him to make forth his assertions out of it— one in his story in Genesis, the other in the Chronicles and prophet. And thereby he would prove and shew that which he intended, tlaat in him justification, or justifying faith, and sanctification, or works answerable, did meet; yea, and that from his faith by which he was justified, did flow true holiness and love to God. So as that from his instance, who is our pattern, he argues that where God imputes righteousness by believing, the person is made such in heart and life, as God may approve of him as a true and real friend. ' Abraham believed, and it was imputed to him for righteousness.' There is the one. And (says James) take this in too, ' He was called the friend of God,' that is, approved by God as such ; and he really was such, for God calls things as they are. Now a friend to God, in James his interpretation of it, imports such inward dispositions of heart, and such a behaviour and deportment in life towards God, as a true friend beareth to a friend; and so is set to express sanctification in its distinction from faith, and as inseparable from faith.

(2.) He pertinently mentions this title of Abraham's being God's friend, as given him more especially upon that act of oifei-ing up his son. A friend, we know, is Imown in trial. Now God tried him in the dearest thing he had, in requiring that he himself should sacrifice his own son, which God took so kindly at his hands, as he ever after upon mention of him termed him friend, this having baen so high an act of pure friendship toward him.

(3.) The apostle pertinently allegeth it upon this disconrso of true faith, to shew what a powerlul working thing it is, where it is. You see how it wrought in Abraham's heart; it framed and changed his heart into friendship with God. Abraham believed God, and he was called the friend of God. You see then what a faith his was.

(4.) And lastly, it indeed interprets what James meant by Abraham's being justified by works ; not the imputing of righteousness, but the calling and owning a man as God's friend. And in the same sense that God called Abraham friend, upon that act of oflfering up his son, in the same sense he is said to be justified by works in the verse before. You use to say, such an one is an approved friend ; such did Abraham demonstrate himself to be ; and God owned him, and entitled him such for ever, which is a clear distinct thing from either Paul's or James's interpretation of righteousness, and justifying the ungodly.

I have but this to add in the close, which I began with in opening this difiicult scripture, that all this is spoken of Abraham, not as a person extraordinary, but as a pattern and father unto all believers. For, 1, else James's alleging his instance had not come home to his scope, to shew that all professors must have that faith and sanctifieation that Abraham had. And therefore, 2, in ver. 21, when he begins to allege it, he says, ' Was not Abraham our father ' thus and thus ? And therefore we that profess ourselves sons and children of Abraham, must be herein like and conform to him. Yea, 3, it is observable that in the places to which he refers us, that Abraham was called the friend of God, it is still spoken of him in relation to us his seed and children. You have it in two places, Isa. xli. 8, 2 Chron. xx. 7, and in both it runs thus, * The seed of Abraham my friend.' It is given him when his seed is mentioned, and the entail to them is from him, because they all are to be friends to God as well as he.

So then to conclude ; look as that glory, that heaven which we all expect, and which is the common receptacle of all believers, is termed in this very respect ' the bosom of Abraham,' Luke xv.—and we are said to sit down with Abraham, &c., because both he and we go to one and the same common place—so that same kind of faith, the same effect and fruit of faith, sanctifieation and friendship to God, is to be wrought in us here, if we be saved with Abraham. Now friendship being put here to express Abraham's suitable can-iage towards God, in the actings of his heart and life after believing, the deductions from hence are two, and they are proper to his scope.

1. That true faith, wherever it is, worketh and frameth the heart to friendlike dispositions unto God, and brings forth friendlike carriage in the life towards God. This the 23d verse holds forth, ' And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto h im for righteousness : and he was called the Friend of God.' This the stream of his text fully carries along with it. James his scope is not only chiefly to shew that whom God justifies, he doth reconcile them to himself, or works in their hearts friendiike dispositions toward him ; but that a friendlike deportment, that is, sincere obedience, is thereby signified, and doth flow from thence, and accompanies it in their hearts and lives. And to this very end and scope it is that this is cited out of the Old Testament, and again and again repeated ; so that, however reconciliation elsewhere mainly imports the work of God upon us at first in the alteration of our states, yet Abraham's being a friend properly and mainly relates to obedi-

ence, and a behaviour suitable to friendsbip, as witnessing and testifying that work and aUeration.

2. Another inference is, that every man's faith, whether it be true or feigned, shall and must have this trial, whether it hath brought forth holiness in heart and life ; and every man is thereby to be declaratively justified, and differenced from all men that shall be damned.

I shall insist now on the first of these inferences, to shew how true justifying faith works this friendly temper to God, which is the apostle's scope here. I shall give you a reason or two for it.

(1.) From the ingenuity- of faith, if it be true and genuine, that is, suitable and answerable unto the object it apprehends ; for in a suitableness there unto the truth, the genuineness of faith consists. For what is indeed the aim of faith ? When it comes to God and Christ, believing on him, what would it have ? What is the thing it looks for from God ? And what would it have at his hands ? The mind and intent and scope of my faith, when I come to believe, is to have God, out of an infinite love (the same out of which he gave his Son to die, and which would yet move him to give him if he had not done it), out of such a love to pardon me all my sins, and to justify me, and to become an everlasting Father and friend unto me, and to love me with that love he loves his Son with, and out of that love to bestow all things on me. If you ask your hearts, and your faith could but tell you what the meaning of it is (as the scripture, Rom. viii., speaks of the Spirit in prayer), what is its errand, what its business is with God, when it casts itself upon God in Christ for salvation, you will find the very bottom-reach of it to have been spoken in what hath been said; and that this it would have of God, or it is never quiet. Now then, if this faith be but genuine and true, honest and unfeigned (as Christ in the parable, and the apostle speaks of it), and so is answerable to its own aim, if it have any truth, honesty, justice, equity, or reality in it, how is it possible it should come to God for such a great love from him, such a large fruit and effect of such an entire friendship on God's part; but it must work the heart to a correspondent, an answerable fi-ame in some sincerity towards God again on our parts ?

The faith that justifies us is called a * working faith' (ver. 22), and surely if it work anything, it must needs work a suitable disposition to God, such as it expects from God towards itself. So it is evident from the example of Abraham here ; look what his faith expected to have from God, it wrought in a way of ingenuity the like in his heart unto God. Abraham when he believed unto righteousness, it was founded upon the promise God had made him of his own Son, his only Son, ' in whom' God told Abraham, ' he and all nations would be blessed.' Now doth Abraham believe to have God's Son given to him and for him ? (For ' Abraham saw his day and rejoiced,' Abraham being a prophet, Gen. xx. 7, and the father of the faithful, to whom the first promise of Christ, the blessed seed, was made.) He must then be understood to have had the same temper which David had, of whom it is said. Acts ii. 30, ' That being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn that of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ: he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ.' So Abraham, I say, must necessarily be understood, upon the same account, to know and apprehend Christ and his offering up, and resurrection represented in that of his son's, which is expressly affirmed : Rom. iv. Jind Heb. xi. 17-19, ' By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and * That is, ' ingenuousness.'— Ed.

he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, That in Isaac shall thy seed be called : accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.' And Abraham, considering these things, said with himself, Why then God shall have my son, now he calls for him, my only son, or whatever else is dear to me. ' Seest thou not then how faith wrought with his works, when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar ?' If his faith would have God be so great a friend to him, as God in that promise had declared himself to be, then faith frames his heart to be a friend to God. * He believed,' this, namely, which hath been now discoursed, ' and it was imputed to him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God;' that is, this effect the faith that justified him did work in him.

And if faith be but equal, if faith be but faithful, if it be but honest (as Christ himself speaks, he calling the heart, by which the promise is savingly received, * an honest heart,' in the parable of the sower), if it be but a principle of humanity, and deal with God but according to the principles of men, as a man, a sinful man, deals with man, it must needs work this frame. For this is made by Christ (Mat. v. 46) a common principle of humanity, ' to love those again that love us.' And Solomon speaks the same, that * he that hath friends must shew himself friendly,' Prov. xviii. 24. Now faith is an higher principle than humanity ; it is a divine principle of the operation of God (Col. ii. 12), and therefore must needs, by the same power of God, which from first to last accompanies it, frame the heart it is seated in unto this ingenuity of friendship unto God. And it is seated in the whole heart, as the Scripture tells us, Rom. x. And that faith works in this manner to return to God what it receives from God, that place likewise holds forth, 2 Cor. v. 14, 15, ' The love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, and that when all were dead, to the end that they might live; that then they should not live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again.' This the law of common equity requires, to live to him that should have given his life unto us, especially by his own death ; and this (if you observe it) is put upon this reason, ' because we thus judge,' which judgment is the product of this principle and act of faith, which both believes these things as of and from God towards us, and withal hath in it an equity, an ingenuity to make the like retm-ns to God; and therefore it must needs constrain us, when we thus in earnest judge.

And this holds true of the faith of dependence, as well as of faith of assurance (if it be genuine), for even faith of dependence expects this great friendship at God's hands, desires it, waits for it, and is not quiet without it. Surely because it so judgeth, and waiteth for and desireth this, it must needs frame the heart to the like again. And this is the first reason.

(2.) The second reason is from what hath been noticed, that to be sure God accepts of no other faith, but such as in the kind of it is such as will bring forth holiness and works by love ; neither doth he justify upon any other, this being the faith of God's elect. Where his election bestows justification, there and then, and in them, he works that kind of faith. That there is such a distinction of faith, James holds forth; and God, to whom all his works are known from the beginning, knoweth where he worketh such genuine acts of faith, and where there is such a root as will bring forth according to its kind holiness in heart and life, and that works by love. God foreknows whom he justifies, and knows things in their causes, and the properties of causes. Souls of all sorts come with their faith unto

him, and do alike cast themselves upon him and his gi'ace. And he knows what is in man, even their thoughts afar off; and as a skilful herbalist knows the differing roots of herbs and fruits ere they have brought forth, so doth God know of what kind that faith is wherewith men come unto him, and so never errs in bestowing his justification upon an unsound faith, that hath not love to accompany it. God doth not justify any man rashly, or inconsiderately, so as if afterwards he sees a soul to withdraw, and not answer his faith in works and obedience, he should then call back his grant. No ; he makes sure work, and whom he foreknew or chose unto faith, in them he works true faith, and in them alone; and them he justifies upon their believing. The just is said to have his faith, which is proper to him, in distinction from that faith which those that withdraw have, Heb. x. compared with that of the prophet, Hab. ii. 4, ' The just shall live by his faith, but he that makes haste' (though he seems to believe), 'his soul is not upright in him;' that is, his faith is not sound, and of the right breed. ' We are not of those that withdraw, but that believe to the saving of the soul;' that is, we are of the number of those that so believe, as to be infallibly saved; it is spoken by way of distinction of their faith, for the other believe too, as the opposition implies. So as though many come to God, and put forth acts of faith, yet their faith being not spiritual, nor genuine, God justifies not upon it; for he hath not given them a faith to the saving of the soul. He knowing what manner of faith it is, bestows not that grace of justification upon it. I may say of it, as of Christ it is said, John ii. 24, upon his like discerning beforehand, the ineflectualness and unsoundness of their faith, ' Many believed on him, but Jesus committed not himself into their hands, because he knew them all.' So God doth in this case.

(3.) A third reason is, God's end in saving us by faith, was not to lose by us a whit of that love and holiness he expects from us; but rather he chose faith, because whilst it gave all to free grace, and his infinite love, it might withal reflect and carry all that love down unto the heart again, and shed it abroad in the soul, and so cause love to God to spring up with a redoubled increase and advance. He did not choose love immediately, not because he regarded it not, but because if it had not sprung from faith, as first apprehending his love, it would have boasted itself, for it had returned something of itself unto God. But whilst faith is made the receiver of all from God, and thereupon the worker of love in us, upon that account God's free love is at once exalted and magnified, and our hearts quickened and inflamed with love to him again.

CHAPTER IV.

An exhortation rmto fnendship with God, from the considerations how great, excellent, and kind a friend he from eternity hath been, and perpetually, and for ever is to us.

My exhortation now shall be unto those that are reconciled, and become (in respect to their states) friends to God already. You see your high calling, brethren; you have the honour to be called, as Abraham was, the friends of God. You are entered into a covenant of friendship with God, make something of it; and indeed it is the scope even of that place also, 2 Cor. v., ' Be ye reconciled to God.' For he speaks unto the Corinthians

who already believed, and were converted and reconciled : but be you, even you, reconciled more, for even you have need of it, and at the best your friendship is but imperfect; and as you ' know but in part,' so you love but in part. As Christ says to his disciples, * Except ye be converted,' Mat. xviii. 3, so say I, ' Except ye be reconciled,' that is, except you more and more renew your covenants with God, • ye cannot be saved.' And besides, you make many breaches with God; and though the covenant through his grace and goodness notwithstanding holds, yet you had need to make those breaches up again. Amantium ira arnoris redintegratio est, and reconciliation is but the renewing of love.

Consider that those who are perfect enemies and rebels to God, whilst they are in that estate, do but their kind; but you know what it is to oflend God, and how it grieves him, his Spirit hath at times set it upon your hearts, how unkindly he takes any sin from you. You have felt in part what it cost him to reconcile you, and have tasted how good the Lord is, and you have a principle of love in you which needs but stirring up. Consider what Solomon says, Prov. xviii. 24, ' A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly ; and there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother.' It is the law of friendship, you see, to answer it with friendship again, mutuis officiis vivitur.

And besides, the sweetness that is found in reciprocal friendship, loyally and sacredly maintained and kept up, it should move you. God will find a sweet savour in you, and you again will have pleasure in communion with him. Friendship is the sweetest, and of all comforts the greatest; therefore Solomon, though he were a king, and had the sum of all delights, yet he would have one in an especial manner be his friend, 1 Kings iv. 5. And God, though he need no comfort nor happiness to be added to him, yet he would have friends to delight himself in, and that should delight in him. It was this that moved him, and therefore that the comfort of his love and yours be not much of it lost or impaired, demean yourselves as friends. It is Christ's own argument in his last sermon to his disciples, in which he treats them, and admires them by his sacred name of fi'iends, John XV. 13-15; and amongst other arguments he useth this in exhorting them to obedience : * So my joy shall be in you, and your joy shall be full,' verses 10, 11. There will be mutual and reciprocal joy and delights in the intercourses of it. You will add to Christ's joy, whose joy is yet full; and to be sure yours, which is imperfect, will be made full by it. As we use to say, if people do not mean to love, let them never marry ; so if men do not set themselves to walk with God, let them renounce this sweet and obliging relation of being friends to him. Especially this is to be done, if a man find one who is a friend indeed; so says Solomon in that place, * There is a Friend is nearer than a brother,' that will do more for thee than one that cometh out of the same loins. And therefore Moses, Deut. xiii. 6, seems to prefer the love of some friends to that of some wives. ' If thy wife,' says he ' entice thee, yea, if thy friend who is as thine own soul.' Now, to such a friend, if you meet with him (says Solomon), ' shew yourself friendly.' And truly as faith, so friendship is rare on earth. It is hard to find a good piece of stufi" indeed to make a friend of.

I have two things, therefore, which will make up the measure of this my exhortation full. 1. What a fi'iend God is, and hath been, and will be unto you ; and, 2. Wherein you are to express friendship again unto him. You find them both in that exhortation of Christ, what a friend he was, John XV. 13, ' Greater love than this hath no man, to lay down his life for

his friend.' And from thence he presseth this on them, * If ye be my friends, do what I command you.'

(1.) Consider, first, that God hath been your ancient friend, even from everlasting. The older friends are, the more we ought to prize them. We esteem of an old servant, but especially of an old friend. Therefore, saith Solomon, ' thine own friend and thy father's friend, forsake not,' Prov. xxvii. 10. That is, leave not one who hath been an old friend to thee, and thy family before thee. Now God hath been thy Friend and Father from everlasting, therefore forsake him not; he hath loved thee ever since he loved himself. Now if one had loved another ever since himself was, how would this endear him! God hath done this.

(2.) He is such a friend as never had his thoughts off from us. There is not a moment in which he hath not loved us, and had his thoughts upon us. Other friends sometimes think and speak of you, but not always;

* But God withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous,' Job xxxvi. 7 ; and Cant. viii. 6. We are said to be ' set as a seal upon his hand,' so as he continually looks upon us. It is an allusion to that type, Exod. xxviii., wherein Israel is engraven, first, upon two stones placed upon the high priest (Christ's) shoulders and arms, ver. 11, 12, then on a breastplate, or (as it is there interpreted) upon his heart, ver. 29. Upon his arms, to shew his power is engaged; upon his heart, to shew that his love is; and placed visibly on both for a memorial: Isa. xlix. 15, 16, ' Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands, thy walls are continually before me.' Jerusalem, the type of his elect, her walls are continually before him. And in the like type, Deut. xi. 12, they are termed a land (for selection of people) ' which the Lord thy God careth for. The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it.' Therefore David also saith, ' How many are thy thoughts to us-ward ! They cannot be numbered.' If a king casteth but a glance upon a man, and thinks of his suit and business, he counts it a great favour. What is it then for the great God never to have had his eye off" thee to do thee good ? And think with yourselves, what, and how old are your thoughts towards him ? They are but of yesterday. Your friendship began but the other day, but his hath been from everlasting.

(3.) As it is from everlasting, so to everlasting. The one is called

* choosing us from the beginning,' Eph. i. 4. The other is called loving us to the end: ' Whom he loved, he loved to the end,' John xiii. 1. For a couple to have been twenty years married, and to hold out in loving, how great a wonder is it amongst the sons of men, especially when many unkind-nesses have passed!

(4.) The first moment he took up as much love as he hath ever since had, or can manifest to eternity. This is high, brethren, if ye consider it. God loves not as man, as he is not as man that repents of his loving ; not as man that begins to love a little, that hath a velleity at first, an aflection stirring, and having his heart inclined, is drawn on to do what at first he meant not to do. No; but all the grace and favour which in time is bestowed on us, was given us in one lump from eternity, and all to eternity is but the manifestation of it: 2 Tim. i. 9,10, ' The grace which was given us before the world began ; but now is made manifest in Christ, who hath brought immortality to light.' And so that immortality serves but to manifest, or bring to light the grace which was given at the first, or (as it is 1 Cor. ii. 9),

* which was then prepared for them that love him.' So as all that is done since, is but a show love hath prepared to entertain you with, and is set out with new inventions and studied ways to take your hearts. And therefore the very giving Christ is termed but the ' commending,' that is, the setting out his love, Horn. v. 8. And John in plainer terms says, ' In this was the love of God manifest,' 1 John iv. 7, 8. The love in solido, in bullion, was all (the whole mass of it) in his heart before. And all he doth to eternity is but the coining of it, stamping this or that particular mercy, and so paying it forth unto us : Ps. cxxxviii. 8, * The mercy of the Lord is for ever. The Lord vs-ill perfect that which concerns me.' The connection of those words is this, that God having beforehand set down ■with himself what he would do for him, his mercy which -was for ever was but a perfecting, a limning out that happiness love did conceive the idea of, and that perfect from everlasting. And because an eternity of time was required to this vast work, therefore it is he adds, ' Thy mercy, 0 Lord, endureth for ever ;' for so much time to perfect v/hat concerns me (a poor atom placed in the eye, or because of thy love) will take thee up. And will not this atlect your hearts, that have any love in you to him, or hopes, or pursuits after such a love ?

(5.) Consider what his love hath caused him to do for thee. He first gave thee a paradise ; but that was not good enough. He prepares heaven, not as that which thou wert worthy of from thine original, but which he thought meet to bestow, to shew how great a God he is : Heb. ii. 11, 'He was not ashamed to be called their God, for he prepared for them a city.' Yea, he was not contented with the ordinaiy direct means of loving ; but, as those that are vast and lavish in entertainments, he must have uncouth artificial ways to love such as are extraordinary. To love us only the plain direct and downright way, and to give us heaven the first day, as he did the angels that never sinned, this was too low, too mean. His love must have meanders, windings, difficulties, yea, much water to encounter it, and so endanger the quenching of it; all this to commend the greatness and transcendency of it. * Love is as strong as death ;' and ' much water cannot quench it,' Cant. viii. 6. And Rom. v. 8, ' In this God commends his love, that whilst we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.' So says St Paul. And Christ, that was to perform it, knew what he did lay down :

* Greater love than this hath no man, that he lays his life down for his friends,' John xv. V6. And yet, 0 dear Redeemer, at how low a price dost thou set thy love, whilst thou enterest into comparative suppositions of one man (a mortal, sinful man) dying for another ! ' Greater love than this hath no man ;' and in that supposition art fain to put in this too, as the highest elevation of man's love in supposition, ' to lay down his life for his friends,' to be sure not for his enemies. But yet because there could be no higher supposition made, he is therefore fain to represent his love to tis hereby. Paul makes the supposition thus : Rom. v, 7, * For a righteous man will one die ? yet peradventure for a good man,' that is, one eminently and publicly useful to such a proportion as his life, as it is said of David's, is worth ten thousand of other men, * a man would even dare to die.' Well, let all these qualifications meet, and when they do, it is yet but a ' scarcely,' but a peradventure, that any would be found to die for such an one. It is but a supposition of one that is otherwise weary of life ; and yet if he comes to the point, he will shrink at it; therefore it is added, 'to dare to die;' it is so gi-eat an evil. But to do it not for friends, but enemies; and to this end, to make them friends, when he could have created new ones cheaper,

VOL.. VTT. N

and enough of them ; yet to die for ungodly sinners, enemies (as Paul exaggerates our case and condition there), and for him to die that had such a life to lay down, is an admirable instance of extraordinary love. For a mere man, a sinful man, to die (the case which both Christ and Paul do put), is but to give up a game that must be lost a little after, to restore a forfeiture, a debt that must be paid; but ' my life' (saith Christ with an emphasis), ' none can take from me,' John x. 18, ' I lay it down of myself.' Let me say it (which he hints there), his Father could not take it, but that himself consented to it; for ' his Father had given him to have life in himself,' John v. 26. And will ye know the value of that life he laid down ? It is the dignity of the person gives the worth to the life. You have it, and you cannot have more said, 1 John iii. IG, ' Hereby we perceive the love of God, that he laid down his life.' Well, thus dear it cost Christ, who was God. And was this nothing to God the Father too, think ye ? Was it nothing for God to see one that was God, of the same nature, and his fellow, so debased ? As it moves man to see any of their nature despised, so it moved God to see God the Son, God equal with him, to lay down his hfe; it touched the Godhead in common, as in the three persons. But for a Father to give and offer up his Son, is a love above our thoughts to conceive, or our words to express. Your father Abraham, though he had too big an heart to weep for it (you see no tears in his eyes, nor mention of them when he was about to do it), yet he knew full well what it was to offer up a son, an only son. To be sure God knew it, and measured it by his own heart to his own Son, out of the sense of which God uttered those words to Abraham, ' Now I know thou fearest me, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me,' Gen. xxii. 12. And was not God's Son's life proportionably dear to him, inasmuch as he is his Father by a more substantial and transcendent generation ? ' My God, my God' (says Christ, Mat. xxvii. 40), why hast thou forsaken me ?' thou who art in so special a respect my God and my Father (see Eph. i. 3). And he speaks thus, knowing it would strike and affect his soul. And yet he speaks but the half of what God did in it, and yet in that consider how he parted with, yea, forsook an old friend, a bosom friend ; and how Christ also forsook father and mother for his wife, the church, Eph. v. 25. And do you think God to be so insensible, or impassible, or without natural affection to such a Son, as that all those speeches should be but rhetorical figures, and feignings of a sorrowful part ? When, as you have it inculcated 1 John iv, 9, 10, ' In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' And you have the same also in Rom. viii. 32, ' He that spared not his Son, but delivered him up for us all.' Yea, further, think with yourselves, that his father was himself obliged to be the infiicter of his own justice, to bruise and break him, ' when he made his soul an offering for sin,' Isa. liii. 10; for no creature could strike strokes hard enough to satisfy for sin. He laid the wood of the sacrifice, viz., our sins, about his soul, for ' he laid upon him the iniquities of us all,' and he blew the fire too. All earthly bellows would themselves have been burnt, at least not been able to have made the furnace hot enough; yea, his wrath against sin was the fire. Think but with yourselves if his mother Mary must have been the crucifier of him, and must have knocked in every nail with her feeble trembling hands (whilst at every stroke a sword is said

to havo * pierced through her soul'), what excess of sorrow wouhl have oppressed her! But now, even what man did against him is said to be by God the Father's own hand and counsel. And 3'et to what end was all this grief and loss ? I might say it, and could defend it, it might have been spared. God in his prerogative could have saved sinners without it. That outcry of Christ cries thus loud in mine ears, ' Let this cup pass ; all things are possible to thee.' In which prayer we ro.ust suppose it entered not into Christ's heart to desire the elect might not be saved when he uttered it; and yd supposeth it consistent with that cup's passing from him. But love was set upon it to have our salvation thus, and no otherwise, transacted. If justice might have permitted it, and havo let that dismal cup pass and slip, ,yet love was engaged and resolved to manifest itself this way rather ; and the more possible another way might have been, the more should love be commended in taking this, ' that when we were sinners, Christ died for us.' It was an extravagancy, a superabundancy of love, love's device, an invention of love, that knew not how to shew love enough. And, my brethren, these are not notions or ideas, these are the greatest realities and existences, which are only to be understood with our hearts, and not by our understandings ; for * the love of God' and Christ ' passeth understanding,' Eph.1 iii. 19, and so is not taken in, but by the immediate impress of the Holy Ghost, who is the ' shedder of this love of God abroad into our hearts' (not so much into our understandings), as the apostle speaks.

(6.) I come next to God's dealings and dispensations towards us; and herein all the ways of God are ways of love and friendship ; he is never but doing us good : Ps. xxv., ' All his ways are mercy and truth.' He is never out of the road of fulfilling one promise or truth, or of bestowing one mercy or other. In his very afflicting he fulfils a promise : ' In very faithfulness hast thou chastised me,' Ps. cxix. And faithfulness is the performance of some trust or promise out of love.

(7.) All he doth he doth freely for us, and thinks not much at it. A man must hold pace with other friends, and do one kindness for another. But says God, Hos. xiv. 4, ' I will love thee freely, and heal thy backslid ings.' And he will (says Zephaniah, chap. iii. 17) ' rest in his love.' He is glad, and rejoiceth to do his people a kindness : Jer. xxxii. 41, ' I will rejoice over them to do them good, with my whole heart and my w^hole soul.' In James i. 5 it is said, * he giveth freely and upbraids not;' the word is a--X'Sjg, that is, smphj or singly, that is, for no other end than to give, for who can recompense him ? So true liberality, even in us, is termed a^rXor^jc, 2 Cor. viii. 2. He doth it merely to do good, rejoicing in so doing ; and therefore when he hath done upbraids not, and doth not use to say, I have given thee thus and thus. Often in case of great provocations indeed thou mayest hear of him, as David did, but it was but to melt his heart (2 Sam. xii. 8), but otherwise he is silent; whereas other friends will be ever and anon twitting you with kindnesses.

(8.) His inward valuation and real esteem of you is answerable to, and more than his outward kindnesses; and really to do so is the greatest attractive of friendship. He prizeth you above all the world: Isa. xliii. 3, 4, ' I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I have loved thee : therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life.' And he gave real testimony of this in giving his Son, which was more than a thousand worlds : Mat. x. 30 and Luke xii. 7, * Even your very hairs are

all numbered'—the hair, -which is the meanest, unvaluablest appurtenance of man, and -which in a proverb the Latins express as a thing of no value, ne pili astimo, as we say, I value it not a straw. Things of worth use only to be numbered, and things that are not are said to be nullius numeri. David made it a great occasion of God's love to him, that ' all his members were written in God's book,' Ps. cxxxix. 16. But Christ descends to our very hairs ; and not your hair in the comb, the bush of them, but every one, the smallest, all are numbered ; how much more our persons.

(9.) Other friends will be ashamed of you when you fall into disgrace and poverty, though they knew you never so well before: Prov. xix. 7, ' All the brethren of the poor do hate him; how much more his friends that go afar off from him ?' But the great God is so far from being ashamed of us, that he takes his denomination from us, and takes us into his style; witness that expression, ' the God of Abraham,' &c. to which that of Heb. xi. 16 refers.

(10.) In all afflictions he will stand thy friend. When thou art in greatest trials and distresses, then he will shew himself most to be a friend, which indeed is the time for the trial of a friend: Prov. xvii. 17, * A friend loves at all times, but a brother is born for adversity.' That is the special season that a man hath use of a friend for. ' In time of adversity' (saith Job, chap. vi. 14) ' a man would have pity from his friend.' But usually it falls out (as Solomon says, Prov. xix. 7), ' A man follows them with words, and they are wanting to him.' But then will the Lord own thee most especially, if thou foUowest him with words, with prayers, and seekest earnestly unto him. Therefore David (Ps. xxxi. 7) says, ' Thou hast known my soul in adversity.' And David speaks it out of the sense of his love, that he did it then most, when others would not know him nor regard him. And whereas other friends may be absent, and not able to help thee or advise thee, ' he is a present help in trouble,' Ps. xlvi. 1. Yea, there are cases wherein all thy friends in the world, if present, could stand thee in no stead, but would be miserable comforters, as in case of scandal, &c., and then will God break in and own thee. Yea, further it is said, Ps. xli. 3, that ' he makes our bed in our sickness.' It is put to express the highest tenderness in distress, a condescending to do the meanest office, a readiness to supply all wants and deficiencies; and in that he says, he will make all thy bed, it imports utmost and universal diligence and care in that which is committed to servants of the lowest rank. He will as a friend sit by thy bedside, lay thy pillow for thee, make thy bed easy ; that is, make a distressed condition comfortable, fetch thee anything, take care of everything, apply himself so to thee that thou shalt then say, thou art in ease in the midst of trouble,

(11.) God will not cast thee off when thou art old, and wantest strength to serve him; but (as it is in Jer. iii. 14) he then remembers the kindness and pains taken in thy youth. David prays, Ps. Ixxi. 9, ' Cast me not off in time of old age, forsake me not when my strength faileth.' You know God's answer, long before he prayed it and since, is repeated with five negatives to assure us of it, ' I will never, at no hand, upon no occasion, leave thee, or forsake thee.'

(12.) Other fi.-iends, for an ill turn, will forget all foimer good turns and kindnesses done, though never so many; but God on the contrary will forget all thy sins, and remember them no more (Isa. xliii. 25); but not one good deed or office of love, no, not one good thought from the first to the last, shall be forgotten, but it sticks in him, and takes deep impression.

Those things thou hast forgotten, at the latter day he will remember them, and that to requite them. Every cup of cold water shall have a reward : ' God is not forgetful of your labour of love to his name,' Heb. vi. 10.

(13.) Yea, when thou art dead he will remember thee and thine. Other friends bury their friendship in the graves of the deceased, but God not only will take care of thy very bones, Ps. xxxiv. 20, but remember thee in thy seed, as David did Jonathan's posterity. Thus he remembered Abraham's seed for their father's sake : ' The seed of Abraham my friend,' says he, Isa. xli. 8; and so he remembered David's seed, 1 Kings xi. 31; and Rom. xi., ' They are beloved' (and it is gospel) 'for their fathers' sake.'

(11.) Lastly, Whatsoever he hath thou shalt have part of it; nay, all he hath thou"^ shalt inherit, Rev. xxi. 7. God himself can have but all things, and thou shalt have all that he hath, John xvii. 21 and John xii. 21. Christ speaks with an heart, as if his own single personal glory would do him no good unless we should be with him and have part of it. All his attributes shall be for thy happiness as well as for his own glory ; his power, wisdom, and mercy, shall be set on work for thy good; and though aU these attributes serve for his own glory, yet they shall as truly and really serve for thy comfort as for his glory. AU within him and without him shall be set on work for thy good. What canst thou have more of a friend ?

Now if God hath been, is, and will be such a friend to us, what manner of persons should we be in returns again unto him! My brethren, this is your calling; you are called to be friends of God, see you walk worthily and answerably unto it, so as to fill up the measure of that relation, and observe as far as possibly the laws of friendship that ever were or can be feigned to have been between two fi'iends, for God full well deserves it at thy hands. And it should move you that you were a long time before enemies, and had nothing but wars in your thoughts against him, and therefore you had need now endeavour to make him amends.

CHAPTER V.

What the conversation of a believer owjht to he in performing the part of a friend towards God. — That we should keep up an entire and near communion with him. — What this communion is, explained in. several particulars.

I come to that main and principally intended subject, which is, the conversation of a Christian towards God, in performing the part of a friend. I shall insist on some particulars wherein these returns of friendship do consist.

1. The first and primary head (which will contain divers particulars in it) is pursuing after, and preserving entire communion with, God. Mutual communion is the soul of all true friendship ; and a familiar converse with a friend hath the greatest sweetness in it. Sometimes Solomon compares it to honey, which as it is pleasant to the taste, so enlighteneth the eyes, Prov. XXV. 16, 17 compared, reading, as Cartwright* doth, for ' neighbour' ' friend,' ver. 17. Sometimes it is compared to perfumes and odours, which refresh the brain ani animal spirits : ' Prov. xxvii. 9, ' Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man's friend. * Cartwright in loc.

And he calleth it sweetness in the abstract rather than sweet; for it is certain, where it is found close and entire, it is the most spiritual cordial of man's life. And indeed communion is that which distinguisheth this of friendship from the intercourses that are in other relations, unless it falls out that friendship be intermingled with them, as in conjugal it often doth. Parents take care for and love their children when young, and they again do honour their parents and obey them, when yet during their non-age there is not much communion nor acquaintance between them. Between masters and servants there is an intercourse by way of command and obedience. Masters maintain their servants, and servants render fear and service to their masters; but yet there is not a mutual communion and acquaintance between them. And by this doth Christ distinguish friends and servants, when he sets himself to heighten the privilege of this relation, and to endear it to them: John xv. 15, ' Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends.' For I have unbosomed myself unto you; ' whatever I^have heard of my Father I have made known unto you, but the servant knoweth not what his lord doth;' that is, there is no communion between them.

Now, although God beareth all these relations, of father, lord, master, &c., which his distance between him and us exacts, yet he also hath condescended to admit us to communion with himself. John seems to speak of it as with an holy boasting of the eminent privilege which himself and others, that lived up to their principles, enjoyed : 1 John i. 3, ' And truly our fellowship is with the Father, and the Son.' The rise of it lies thus, Christ was God's fellow, Zech. xiii. 7, which privilege he hath by being a Son equal with God. And God found this fellowship so sweet, as he calls us up to the participation of it: 1 Cor. i. 9, ' God is faithful, by whom ye are called unto the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord.' He speaks of it likewise as that which is the height and top of our calling as we are Christians. And this fellowship with the Lord Jesus doth not only consist in his and our sharing jointly in the same privileges, as in his graces, glory, &c., but it is the ' fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ ;' and so also of his person, in all the sweetnesses of, and converses with, and relations to him. And yet, lest in too much familiarity we should forget our distance, he adds, 'our Lord!' as in the psalm fore-cited upon the like occasion, having called us his fellows, ver. 7, he adds, ver. 11, ' He is the Lord, and worship thou him.' Now, this communion, as on our part it is to be transacted, is summed up in these things :

1. Besides the common tribute of daily worship you owe to him, take occasion to come into his presence on purpose to have communion with him. This is truly friendly, for friendship is most maintained and kept up by visits; and these, the more free and the less occasioned by urgent business, or solemnity, or custom they are, the more friendly they are. It is made a diminution, though in his own people: ' Lord, in trouble have they visited thee; they poured out a prayer when thy chastening was upon them,' Isa. xxvi. 10. A stranger will visit one whom he hath a suit unto and business with; and we use to check our friends with this upbraiding. You still come when you have some business, but when will you come to see me ? David, who hath this testimony from God, to be ' a man after God's own heart,' which is equivalent to this of God's concerning Abraham's being his friend, hath this disposition of spirit recorded of him, Ps. Ixiii. 1-3, ' 0 God, thou art my God;' he embraceth him at first word, as we use to do friends at first meeting. ' Early will I seek

thee,' says he: 'my soul thirstcth for thee, my flesh' (that is, myself) * longeth foi* thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.' Surely David had some extraordinary business now with God to be done for himself, which made him thus eager after him; no, truly, nothing but to see God himself; as it follows, ver. 2, 'To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in thy sanctuary,' where God had met him, and manifested himself to him. ' To see thee,' hath the same emphasis here that those words, ' against thee I have sinned,' have elsewhere. And further, what was it in God that specially drew forth his heart, and was the object of his inquest ? Ver, 3, * Because thy loving-kindness is better than life ;' and ver. 4, thus (if I have no other reason) ' will I bless thee whilst I live.' It is all along the pure language of friendship. The very sight of a friend rejoiceth a man : Prov. xxvii. 17, ' As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man the face of his friend.' It alone whets up joy by a sympathy of spirits; and in answer hereunto it is characteristically to God's people called the seeking of God's face, that is, himself, for so his face is taken: ' Thou shalt have no other gods before my face,' that is, thou shalt have myself, or none but myself. Personal communion with God is the end of our graces; for as reason and the intercourse of it makes men sociable one with another, so the divine nature makes us sociable with God himself; and the faith we live by is but an engine, a glass to bring God down to us. And as for duties, the journey's end of them is fellowship with God; and our backwardness to them, if you resolve it into its original, is a backwardness to entire communion with God; the soul therefore saith it hath no pleasure in them. But this communion was the apostles' Eden and proper walk. John calls us all up unto it, as that which we are alike born to, 1 John i. 3. It was Moses his perfection as he was Christ's type: Exod. xxxiii. 11, 'And the Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man useth to do to his friend.' You see the Scripture lodgeth this in the notion of friendship; therefore attempt, if thou hast not yet tried, this way of seeking God. I have known those who have come to God as for nothing else; so when they have been come, could mention nothing else, but scorned to blur or soil the noble" and royal intention of their visit of him with any lower request than that of obtaining communion with him. And take my counsel, when the Spirit at some by-time moves thee, and it is merely a motion of his, go and stand in the presence-chamber; that is, put thyself on duty with this aim and design mentioned, and see if he hold not out his golden sceptre to thee. This shall prevail with him more than the sacrifice of rams.

(2.) A second way of intercourse and expressing friendship to God is this: when thou comest into his presence, be telling him still how well thou lovest him; labour to abound in expressions of that kind, than which (when founded in a reality in the Spirit) there is nothing more taking with the heart of any friend. That famous pair of friends, David and Jonathan, when they met they spent the most of their time (they had got by stealth, and with hazard of their lives) in vying and revying, and therein seeking which of them should utter and declare most love and manifest most faithfulness. They weep over one another's necks, as overcome with the overflowings of each other's kindness. The story aflbrds the pleasantest contention of love and friendship, and strivings for masteries ; and accordingly, as to the passionate part, the victory is decided on David's side, 1 Sam. XX. 41. They both wept one with another, ' until David exceeded,' says the text. And yet again, for the real part and demonstration of

friendship, Jonathan had the advantage to outvie David. Jonathan had a kingdom to lose for his sake, being heir-apparent by birth ; yet he ventures his own Hfe to save his, who he beheved should be king in his room: ' And let me but live,' saith he, ' and not die,' ver, 14. ' And let me be the next in the kingdom,' chap, xxiii. 17. But David had another and greater fi-iend, even God ; and how his afiections overflowed the banks towards him, the Psalms do shew. How often have we him breaking forth, ' I love thee. Lord !' and ' Oh how do I love thy law !' And how eloquent is he in that his solemn and his almost last thanksgiving, 1 Chron. xxix. Now, the truth is, the real part is God's; the fond, affectionate part of fiiendship, it should be ours. He had a Son to give away, and his Son a life, a kingdom; and both of them agreed to do it. We have little to lose, and can do less for them : Oh yet let us love them, and love to tell them so ! Hast thou ever yet lain in those everlasting arms ? Or when thou at any time dost, and his banner of love is spread over thee, what hath thy heart meditated concerning God at such a time ? As a liberal heart is said to devise liberal things, so a loving heart will devise loving things. I use to say, whatever ingenuity, wit, rhetoric any one hath (and I speak of those that excel therein), there are times wherein God hath the flower, the eminency of them, vented in strains of love to him in prayer. He hath at one time or other every man's strength and prime. What affections or expressions thou hast to bestow on friend or wife, God will have them from thee to himself; and if thy spirit be narrow, and shut up to such a way, yet thou wilt and mayest be able to vent that love thou bearest him in blunt and downright expressions : ' Lord,' said Peter, ' thou knowest I love thee,' if I ever loved anything. Yea, I have known some bad and churlish natures to their other relations, in whose spirits, upon observation of them, you should scarce find any strains of pure ingenuity pass from them to any other ; yet in their narrations of what hath been between God and them, they have been brought to the lowest submission, the highest resignations of themselves for him and his glory, and as great strains of ingenuity as any other. As physicians say of a child in the womb, if there be any good blood or spirits in the mother's body, the child will have it; the nutritive and formative virtue doth and will attract it. So if there be any good nature in thee, God will have it at one time or other. Yea, how often falls it out, that even souls that want assurance of God's love to themselves, yet can please themselves in blessing God, or at least admiring him for that goodness and blessedness which is in him, and which he enjoys for loving himself, and aiming at his own glory : for his so dearly loving his Son (whom also their souls love), and for his being good to others ! And they find it real in their souls to do so. Yea, and sometimes when they come to pray, and are shut up for want of vent in other desires, they yet can fall a-telling God how well they love him, and what (if he would be pleased to enable them) they would do for him ; and they can do these things when they can do nothing else. Yea, and because in real performances they find they can do little, and are not satisfied with the opportunities they have in view at present, the heart will be venting itself in suppositions and feignings with itself, what in case of God's condemning them at the latter day ; so that, should they lose their labour, they would say, in way of ingenuity, what farewell they would then take of him ; how they would demean themselves in hell, when their souls should be filled with the noise of others' blasphemies ; how they would speak well of him, and rebuke their fellow-thieves, as that good thief did. And because in suppositions higher

strains of love may be vented than God will ever put us really to act, therefore the heart often seeks vent for its vast desires this way.

Thus Christ, to shew his love to his Father, in submitting to his will and love, made a supposition of the cup's passing from him, which yet he knew could not by God's decree. And thus Paul wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethren's sake. Or else the heart will go about to do it, by separating acts of obedience from self-respects ; and this in a way of supposition of such things as will not fall out. But yet, suppose they should, yet. Lord, say they, I will trust thee. As Job, ' though he kill me, yet will I trust in him.' It was a supposition of the worst. Or else the heart will be chalking out within itself, what it would do for God if it were in such a power, in such a place of opportunity of service, as Herbert in his poems speaks. At these, and a thousand other ways, love will be creeping out when it cannot go, nor, alas, is ever able to perform. And these stirrings and ventings of love, God is infinitely taken with, and knows the mind of the spirit in them. These strains are pleasant: this is melody and music in his ears. Ivnow this, that communion with God lies not only /xsr' d/.X?3>.wi/, as John speaks of it, 1 John i. 7 (as I understand the place), when it is mutual, he teUing us his love, and so drawing forth ours, when there is an astus, a reciprocation of love from him to us, and so from us again to him ; but also, when he doth not shed abroad his in our hearts, to an overcoming assurance, and yet strongly draws forth ours to him, as hath been expressed ; and that is true communion with him as on our parts, and aii'ects the soul accordingly. For though it be true that we love him because he loves us, as to the reality of the thing, yet it is not always so in our apprehension, nor necessary to the drawing forth of our love to him.

(3.) Delight much in him. Friendship well placed aflbrds the highest delight. Besides what I noted out of Solomon, of the sweetness of a friend, David, the father, also had experimented it, 2 Sam. i. 2G, in his beloved Jonathan : ' Thou hast been very pleasant to me,' says he there. And again of Jonathan it is said, he ' delighted much in David,' 1 Sam. xix. 2. If, therefore, God and thou be friends, retire thyself into him, and make up thy delights in him. And thus both Christ and his church do mutually express themselves touching each other: ' Oh how fair and pleasant art thou,

0 love, for delights,' Cant. vii. 6, says he of her ; ' Behold, thou art lair, my beloved, yea, pleasant,' says she of him. Cant. i. 16. Ps. xxxvii. 4 : ' Delight thyself also in the Lord.' Yea, and the psalmist prescribes it as the readiest, speediest way to get despatch of all our particular suits and requests : so it follows, ' And he shall give thee the desires of thy heart.' As it is said of God, that ' to the pure he will shew himself pure,' Ps. xviii. 26, so to the ingenuous he will shew himself ingenuous. A soul that hath many wants and requests to put up to him, and yet comes to him and really says. Lord, though I want these and these things in my outward condition, yet I am well pleased, for I have enough in thee alone ; though

1 had nothing, and though thou hast made me these and these promises, besides the making over of thyself unto me, yet thou art my portion, mine inheritance, and my lot is fallen in a pleasant place in thee, Ps. xvi. 6; thou art my exceeding great reward. Whilst God sees that thou thus settest thyself to delight in him, he at once grants thee all else thou wouldst desire. This is the most compendious art of begging. ' Be acquainted with him,' saith Eliphaz to Job, Job xxii. 21, ' and thou shalt have thy delight in the Almighty,' ver. 26 ; ' and thou shalt have gold,' ver. 24 ; ' and thou shalt have silver,' ver. 25. Thou shalt have anything of him, take but that

method. Art thou in any great distress ? Go alone, think of his love, think of himself, what a God thou hast whom thou servest and lovest. His love, and himself apprehended, embraced and meditated on, afibrds the greatest delight: Ps. civ. 34, ' My meditation of him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord.' Life we say is sweet, and death is bitter (as Agag's speech implies, ' the bitterness of death is past') ; but ' thy loving-kindness, 0 God, is better than life,' and hath the sweetness of all good in it, if the Holy Ghost gives thee but a taste of it. Christ's love was such as sweetened death itself to him, which we account so bitter : ' It was stronger than death' (says Solomon), Cant. viii. 6. How sweet then must that love in itself be, and to the soul that tastes it ? Therefore ' Rejoice in the Lord ; and again I say, Rejoice.' Let God be your chiefest good in the most prosperous days, and he will be your only good in your worst days. A friend is for adversity ; and therefore, ' though the fig-tree blossom not,' &c., ' and all things fail me, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation,' Hab. iii. 17, 18. What is the reason men pray not often, nor much, and in the end perhaps do give it over ? You have the reason : Job xxvii. 10, ' They delight not in the Almighty.' But yet content not thyself with the performance of duties : Isa. Iviii. 2, ' They take dehght in approaching to God;' that is, in the outward performance of it; but let thy delight be in God himself. We rejoice in God, saith the apostle, Rom. V. 11. And let not delights derived from God only content thee ; but let thy delight be in God, and the excellencies that are in him.

(4.) A fourth particular wherein the communion of friendship lies, is unfolding secrets. There is a kind of civil shrift between friends, saith Verulam ; the style of friend is a ' man of my secret,' Job xix, 19. That which is translated ' my inward friends,' is in the Hebrew, and varied in the margin, ' the men of my secret.' A friend is ' as a man's own soul,' Deut. xiii. 6. As in respect of love, so in respect of laying up all that is in a friend's soul, all that is one's own. And this use and advantage, or improvement, a man is to make of his friendship with God, to unburden his mind, and spread his heart before him. In Scripture, prayer is termed a pouring out one's soul to God. So it is spoken of Hannah's prayer, 1 Sam. i. 15, which is interpreted by that in Lam. ii. 19, ' a pouring out the soul like water, before the face of the Lord.' She had, as it were, wept it out at her eyes, and poured it forth in tears. The same is eminent also in David : Ps. cxlii. 2, ' I poured out my complaint before him ;' that is, as it follows, ' I shewed before him my trouble.' And this is done in case of distress, when the ' heart is overwhelmed,' as in ver. 3. And in the very same words, the title of the 102d Psalm expresseth it, ' A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the Lord.' If thou hast some great affliction or secret, which is not fit to trust man, no, not thy nearest friend with, and yet thy heart is ready to break with it, the heart, in that case, is apt to tell it to man, that it may have some present ease. But take my counsel, try God alone first, and hereby shew how only a friend thou makest of him, by telling it alone to him, easing thy heart to him alone. He thinks himself honoured by it, and takes it well at thy hands ; and if he encourageth thee, or necessitates thee to tell it to another (as in some cases, James v. 10), then do so. As for distresses thou art in, so for thy sin; the more communion there is betwixt God and us, the more secret sins will God discover to us, and the more will we again disclose to God. This is made an absolute consequence of holding fellowship with God; for the apostle having spoken of fellowship

with God, 1 John i. 3, G, 7, he adds, ver. 9, ' If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive.' He speaks it, as without which none can preserve communion with God entire; for whilst we labour to walk in nearer, so closer communion with God, yet ' if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,' ver. 8. Now then, here lies the coherence of the 9th verse with the former, confess your sin, if you say you have fellowship with him; for the law and nature of true and entire communion and fellowship between two as friends requires, that if the one sins against the other, he should disclose and confess it ; this friendship cannot hold else, and it is well we can have pardon so. Now, says John, we do all sin ; therefore, in order to hold communion with God, confess thy sins. And a further reason is, that one great part of God's friendship towards us is seen in pardoning sins. John hints it, he is faithful to forgive, as a friend is faithful to perform his promise. And if he should not, none could retain friendship a moment with him ; but if he pardons, he will have the score acknowledged ; even as though he promiseth, he yet will be sought to, as the prophet speaks. And the more the soul finds that God pardons, the more willing and free it is to confess, Ezek. xvi. 61-63, knowing it is to a friend that will not take advantage of the acknowledgment. Likewise lay open all thy jealousies thou hast of his love ; another friend would never bear it; but, alas! God knows them all already, and is used to them, and will ease thee of them. Tell him all thy doubts'^ scruples, and objections thou hast about thy estate and of his love ; spread even all, lay open thy case plainly, without guile (as David speaks, Ps. xxxii.), and he will answer them all, and discover to thee that sincerity of heart that is in thee towards him, and how well he loves thee notwithstanding ; and this other friends will not do.

CHAPTER YL

What our behaviour toward God, as his friends, ought to be, u'ith respect unto his providential dispensations to lis. — We should ask his advice and counsel on all occasions. — We should make use of and depend upon his favour and assistance in all affairs. — We should have an entire conjidence in him, without any jealousy or distrust.

I shall now begin a new and second set of duties, which our relation of friendship with him brings upon us; such as do respect his providential outward dispensations towards us, as the former related to communion with his person. As much of God's friendship unto us is given forth in his ordering all things that fall out unto us for good, so much on our part lies in observing those his dealings, and applying ourselves to him therein. And for that I give these following directions :—

1. First, Ask his advice and counsel upon all occasions, and in all (especially great) turnings of thy life. This is an improvement of a friend whom we count wise and faithful. Thus David sets out a man who had been his friend : * Thou, 0 man, my guide' (says he, Ps. Iv. 13) ; ' and we took sweet counsel together,' says he, ver. 14. Yea, when one that we have chosen for our friend, and is a friend indeed, is yet below us in parts and wisdom, yet we love to see how our thoughts look in the glass of his mmd and apprehensions. You may see it in God himself, who is the most perfect pattern of friendship, as of all relations else. He, you well know,

needs no advice ; for who is his counsellor ? Eom. xi. 34. Yet when he was to do a great act, whereof the whole world would ring, and when he knew it would certainly come to Abraham's ears, though it did not concern Abraham's particular at all, yet, says God -with himself, I have singled forth this poor man to be my friend, and shall I do so great an act, that will make such a report, and not tell Abraham of it ? Gen. xviii. 17, ' Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do ?' That ingenuity that works in the heart of a friend, wrought in the heart of God, insomuch as he could not do a great thing, but he must tell his friend of it. He speaks as one shackled and restrained by the laws of friendship ; and upon that law he had an inward regret when he came to the execution of it. The ground and account thereof the text gives you, Abraham was the friend of God. And Abraham followed God in the same path, and upon the same principle, though Jtaud j^fissibus aquis, not with equal pace; he stirred not a foot without God"s direction, Isa. xli, 2, where it is said, ' God called him' (that is, Abraham*) ' to his foot;' which the apostle, in Heb. xi. 8, interprets thus: he went out, not knowing whither he went, but gave up himself and every step unto God's direction and appointment. And we have the like instance of friendship to God in David: Ps. Ixiii. 23, 24, ' Nevertheless I am continually with thee; thou hast holden me by thy right hand. Thou shalt guide me by thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory.' That word nevertheless brings this as a lesson and experiment he had learned from the contrary. He had had the reins laid upon his own neck for a while, and was left to the counsel of his own heart, and so he had miscarried. ' So foolish was I,' says he, ' and as a beast before thee;' ver. 22, ' Nevertheless thou boldest me by my right hand;' that is, I have found by this experience, that when I, being left to myself, am gone out of the way, yet thou secretly and invisibly boldest me by the hand, to reduce and bring me back again. And what lesson learns he from it, and what conclusion issues thence ? You have it in ver. 24, ' Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel,' and I will never more follow my own, but give myself up to thee (as Herbert well expresseth it in his poems), only give me thy hand, since both mine ejes are thine. Neither doth the psalmist mean his hand merely to guide, but to support and strengthen : ' Thou boldest me by my right hand.' And I also observe it, that God's guiding of us by his counsel serves us but in this life ; but afterwards he is said to receive us to glory ; he pulls us up, by the same hand which here guided us, unto that glory above. You have seen an instance or example of this. See a promise also on God's part for this, which calls loud upon us for this duty : Isa. XXX. 21, ' And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee saying. This is the way, walk in it, when ye turn to the right hand, or when ye turn to the left.' God had promised in the words before to give them teachers, who doctrinally, or by the delivery of the right rules, should teach them the good and right way : ' Thy teachers shall not be removed from thee,' (fee. Well, but we poor Christians are to put those rules and instructions our teachers give us into practice and execution; and when we are personally to act, we have not our teachers and tutors by us, and (God wot) we through ignorance (as the psalmist, Ps. Ixxiii.) or forgetfulness are, when we come to act, at a loss, and know not which way to turn us. Hence therefore at the voice of thy cry, when he shall hear it, he will answer thee, ver. 19, and upon such outcries and occasions promiseth his Snirit, who can be and is always with us: ' Thine ears shall hear a word bemnd thee saying. This is * It is by uo means clear that the reference in this passage is to Abraham.— Ed.

tho way,' See. Tho psalmist had said, ' Thou hoklest mo by my ri^ht band, unknown to me, and wilt guide mo by thy counsel.' The i)rophet says, • Thou shalt hear a word behind thee,' wherein he compares him to a friend or companion, that secretly watchcth aloof of another friend ho takes care of, whom he lets go to see how he will order his steps of himself, yet in great straits and turnings, or (as the text expresseth it) when ho turns to the right hand or the left, comes stealing behind thee; so the phrase is, comes behind thee, and whispers (for it is called a word). This is the way, walk in it. The prophet compares him to a loinis f/eiiiics, who doth aiiron rcllicarc, pull him by tho ear, and brings things practicable ' to our remembrance,' as Christ hath it. The psalmist compares him to a companion that never leaves us, but gives strength as well as guidance : * Thou art continually with me, and boldest me by the hand.' These things are evidently spoken of guiding us in practice, as these phrases, ' This is the way, walk in it,' as also ' turning to the right hand and the left,' do import. They declare the various occasions and affairs of man's life, his going hither and thither, as elsewhere it is expressed. This for the promise of God. Now then, that^God de facto effectually performs when he is sought to by thee, that other'passage of the psalmist assures us: Ps. xxxvii. 23, ' The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord ;' which is spoken in respect of that happy issue and success which good men's actions are through the blessing of God accompanied withal. But what if he falls into any disaster? It follows, ver. 24, ' Though he fall, he shall not utterly be cast down; for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand,' Therefore in all thy ways take Solomon's counsel: Prov. iii. 6, ' In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' To acknowledge God in all thy ways doth in Solomon's sense import,

(1.) To come to God in a sensibleness of a man's own inability to guide himself in any of his ways, which the same Solomon pathetically utters, ' How can a man understand his ways ?' And Jeremiah having by vision understood that great calamity that was in his time to come upon his nation, not knowing what might become of himself, nor which way to take to help himself, comes to God, and cries out concerning his own person : Jer. X. 23, ' I know that the way of a man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.' And therefore seeing I must be involved in a common calamity, I submit to thy correcting hand: ' Correct me' (if thou pleasest), ' but not with judgment; not in anger.' And God dealt with him accordingly, he had the best quarter from the king of Babel of all the Jews.

(2.) It imports that we should acknowledge him, by giving ourselves up to his direction, as is evident from what follows : ' He shall direct thy paths.' His meaning therefore is, so to acknowledge him as to give a man's self up to his direction ; or if you will have it in the terms this aphorism was first expressed in, take his advice and counsel. And so the opposition both before and after carries it: * Lean not to thine own understanding, and be not wise in thine own eyes.' Often, though man knows not his own yf&j, yet having distrusted his own understanding, and coming in simplicity to God for counsel by prayer, either God in prayer leaves a biassing impression on his heart, which is the voice behind him, or by providence casts him upon it. And truly when a soul hath thus come unto God, he may blindfold cast it on him. I end this direction with this great consolatory, that look as Jesus Christ is thy priest to obtain and accomplish thy salvation, so he is thy prophet; that is, his prophetical office is in its

kind fis mnch for tliee and thy good, and for ordering thy ways, as his priestly office is for thy salvation hereafter. And he being the mighty counsellor, that knows all events and issues, will, if thou hast addressed unto him under that relation, put forth his abilities and power given him in that office for thee, to direct thee as effectually as to save thee, therefore present all to him.

2. When thou hast thus asked and sought his advice, be sure thou follow it. To that end, observe the impressions which God upon seeking him maketh upon thy spirit in prayer. Observe the most swaying weight that God casts into the balance, when otherwise the scales are even. Observe especially what spiritual motives, that are purely for God, are cast into thy heart (for they are from God which are most for God), and follow them fully, as Caleb is said to do. Our Lord and Saviour Christ is in this (as in all things else practicable by us) a pattern to us. He was (as you know) to die andoffer up himself to God, and to enter into a conflict with his wrath for sin. He saw the black cloud and the storm coming, and some drops had been let fall upon his soul: John xii. 27, 28, and nature (as you know) wrought in him, and you have heard the voice and cry of it, ' Lord, let this cup pass !' Now j'ou read in Ps. xvi. 7, Christ blessing the Lord for giving him counsel : ' I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel ; my reins also instruct me in the night-seasons. I have set the Lord always before me, &c. Therefore my flesh rests in hope : thou wilt not leave my soul in hell.' Concerning which passages in this Psalm Peter hath plainly instructed us. Acts ii. 25, 29-37, that they were immediately intended of Christ, and not of David at all, as his type or shadow, as in other psalms and passages of prophecy. And they are (being thus appUed unto Christ) the inward workings and discussions of his soul when he was to give up himself to that great encounter and adventure, the greatest that ever creature was to undergo. You have the inward agitations of his spirit, and the considerations that heartened him to give himself up unto it, ver. 8-11. He mentions the night seasons, in which his reins instructed him. Now you read, Luke xxi. 37, that immediately before his passover, chap. xxii. 1, 2, he spent the mornings in preaching, but the nights in mount Olivet, to pray all night to God, according to his custom, Luke vi. 12. And the cofttext immediately before this, ver. 37 of Luke xxi. shews it, ' Watch ye therefore and pray,' ver. 36, for which his example is propounded, ver. 37. Thus he spent the night before his passion; for Jesus knew beforehand all that should come upon him, John xviii. 4. But thus especially he spent that night in which he was betrayed and taken. You know how he spent the time in prayers and conflicts, with strong cries and tears, being heard in that he feared ; Heb. v. 7, great fears and conflicts were upon him, he was at a stand : ' Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.' And when his soul was thus wrestling it out, God evidently came in with a new and peremptory declaration that he would have him go through with it, which that speech that immediately follows shews: * Not my will, but thine, be done,' which, say I, was Christ's motto. Why, now that which I aim at to my purpose in hand is, that Christ blesseth his Father for giving him this counsel, and supporting him with this advice : ' I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel.' To be sure we have cause to bless God that gave him that counsel; it was good counsel for us ; and you hear of this conflicting no more; but after that, though he knew all that should come upon him, he went forth, and said unto them, ' Whom seek ye ? ' John xviii. 4. Peter

had given him other counsel, 'Master, spare thyself;' hut God, that was his ancient friend, gave him this counsel, and he thankfully receives it, follows it, and blesseth him for it that ever he gave it him. My brethren, such advices in great and diflicult cases God gives us in prayer and by the word, and the flesh comes and gives the contrary. Solomon, Eccles. vii. IG, brings in a man solicited by flesh and spirit, by contrary counsels. Says the flesh, ' Ue not righteous overmuch,' not too strict; ' why shouldest thou destroy thyself,' waste thy spirits in duties, and bring miseries and hazards of ruin to thy name, estate, and life, which attend ordinarily a living godly in Christ Jesus ? On the contrary, replies the spirit, ' Be not over much wicked ; why shouldest thou die before thy time ?' Loose ways and courses will bring thee to thy grave sooner than the course of nature ; 'A dart will strike though thy liver,' &c., and thou wilt go to hell when thou hast done. And Paul speaks similarly unto this, liom. viii. 12-14, * Therefore, brethen, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die : but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.' The meaning whereof is, follow not the counsel of the flesh, it is the counsel of a flatterer, an enemy. It adviseth thee, as the young men did Rehoboam, for thy hurt; or its advice is like that of Job's wife, 'Curse God and die'; or like that of Peter to Christ, ' Master, spare thyself.' Where had our salvation been then ? And where will thine be if thou followest it ? But, on the contraiy, Paul exhorts them to give themselves up to the Spirit, to be led by him as God"s sons, ver. 1-4. His advice is the advice of a father, of a comforter; and though his advice for the present may lead thee into such a way and course, as for which thou mayest hazard life, yet consider, said he, ver. 11, that he that raised up Jesus from the dead, and, as you heard, gave him counsel to die, will raise up thy mortal body again; whereas, if you follow the flesh's advice, and mortify not the deeds thereof, ye shall die. Above all, take heed of rejecting his counsel when thou hast asked it; as the Pharisees are said to have done against themselves, Luke vii. 30, and the people in the prophet Jeremiah did. The heathen, when they inquired of their oracles, durst not go and do contrary; nor would Socrates act against what his genius dictated ; much less let us act against the counsel of God and his Spirit, for this breaks friendship with him. Yea, let me cast in this, take his very reproof kindly ; Prov. xxvii. 5, C, ' Even the wounds of a friend are faithful.' He speaks it of rebukes : ver. 5, ' Let the righteous smite me,' says David, Ps. cxli. 5, ' it shall be a kindness ; let him reprove me, it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break, but cure my head.' If, therefore, the righteous God shall smite me, if the Holy Spirit, who is that holy anointing, rebukes thee in thy way, it is to save thee, to heal thee, and to comfort thee in the end : ' He went on frowardly in the way of his heart, and I smote him,' says God, Isa. Ivii. 17. But it was to heal him : ' I will heal him, and restore comforts to him.'

3. Make use of his favour and friendship in all businesses, and depend thereon alone. God would have all kindnesses run through his hands, for he would have all your thanks; as David said to Barzillai, 2 Sam. xix. 38, ' Whatever thou requestest of me, that will I do for thee,' that doth God say to us. Great men in power that are friends take it iU, if it be a suit wherein they can stead us, if we use or trust to other friends beside them, for by doing so, we either question their power or their love.

There are two things which this direction holds forth : 1. To use God in

small matters as well as great. And 2. To make use of his special favour and peculiar love in all.

1st. Let us make use of God in small things as well as great, even all. It is said, Isa. xxvi. 12, he works all our works in us and for us. It is read both wavs, for we have two sorts of works to be done : 1. Inward, in our own spirits ; and 2. Outward, which are for us in the course of providence ; and of the two, the inward is of the greater concernment, not to fear what we shall suifer, but what we shall do. "We are to use God in small things, and herein God's friendship exceeds that of men's ; for men are shy to use great friends about trifles, but reserve their interest for greater; for they are both loath to be troubled, and cannot mind us therein, and their stock of favour is soon spent; but God doth not deal so with us. I observe in the parable made on purpose (as one evangelist hath it) to encourage us and provoke us to pray, Christ represents the -Trooraaig, or story of it, thus : Luke xi. 5, that a man having a friend, goes to him at midnight, and says to him, Lend me three loaves. What! trouble a friend for so small a matter as three loaves, and that at midnight; and those not for himself neither, it is for his friend's friend; ver. 6, ' For a friend of mine is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Christ shews the disposition of a man in this case: ver. 7, 'He from within shall answer and sav. Trouble me not: the door is now shut, and my children are with me in'bed ; I cannot rise and give thee.' They are loath to be troubled in such a case, though they are neighbours and friends, and may themselves need the like at another time. And yet, ver. 8, for importunity's sake, though not for friendship, he will rise and give him them. Now the reddition or moral of this is, that much more God, that professeth himself a friend and father, ver. 13, will hear you in whatever you ask, even the smallest, if a man asks an egg, or asks a fish, as Christ insinuates, ver. 11, 12, or daily bread, as he had taught them, ver. 3. And he thinks it no trouble, at all seasons, upon all occasions, to be visited. Come to him at midnight, come to him for thy friend's friend, for what thou wilt; this is an honour to him, he is hereby acknowledged to be God that ruleth and governeth all things, even the least.

2dly. Make use of God's peculiar love in all. Outward providential mercies do come to the people of God out of peculiar love, as the connection of Kom. viii. 28, 29, tells us. The love of friendship in God is the fountain and spring of all; out of that he bestows all, and therefore will have it acknowledged in all. If therefore, in thy outward affairs, thou seekest God for a mercy, and thou hast found a particular promise which mentions the verv thing thou needest, yet let me advise thee to go to eternal love, and treat with it to bestow it on thee, and treat with it in all as well as for thy salvation. My brethren, the effectualness of this cause* is not known enough ; to be sure the thing is not enough practised by saints.

1. It is utterly a fault that either, even in great matters, they treat not with God, or walk rashly whilst they are in dependence on God for them; that is, they leave the issue and casting of such a matter to all adventures, and seek him not in it; which often provokes God to give a man a sound stroke, a shrewd blow, ere he is aware, in what is most near to him, as if he cared not where he did hit him. The Israelites would have a king, but God gave him in his anger, and took him away in his wrath.

2. Or else they treat not his special favour, but leave it to bare ordinary providence ; and things which accordingly come out of ordinary pro-

* Qu ' course ' ?— Ed.

vidonce, arc by tbo course of that providence turned into bitter crosses, even to God's own people; though when they are taught otherwise, and humbled, his love at last turns them again into blessings. But those wherein eternal love is sought, prove pure blessings, and God adds no sorrow with them. The Israelites did seek a king at the hands of God, and yet God complains: Hos. viii. 4, ' They have set up kings, but not by me ; they have made princes, but I knew it not.' And yet how could so great a matter be done without him by whom kings reign, and who knows all that is done in the world ? But they carried it so as they sought not God in it, nor acquainted him with it. They did it ipso inconsulto, without advising with him, or interesting him in them; and without having recourse to, and dependence upon, his favour. If a man should see his son or his friend stand among the crowd of beggars that wait at his door for a common dole, and that he casts his lot for his meals with them, to be served as his turn comes, as they are, would not this provoke him ? would he not say. What do you mean thus to stand there ? are you not at home ? Why do you not come to me for money for all necessaries ? Or why do you not come in and sit down at table, and eat with me as becomes sons and friends to do ? Thus doth God take it ill to see his own childi'en carelessly stand at the common door of providence, when they should come in and seek what they want by prayer, and interest his fatherly love in the business. The truth is, that those blessings only prove pure, stable blessings, which are fetched ex isto doUo. As God gives, so he would have you receive ; now he gives out of eternal love, and that therefore he will have us apply unto.

4. Yet I add, take some seeming denials of particular requests of thine kindly from him. Remember it is friendship with a superior, who is only wise, knows what is best for thee, hath many great and vast ends in the government of this world ; and some things thou hast earnestly desired for thy particular, may and do cross some other and greater designs for his glory. As kings that have large interests, multitude of persons and things to deal with, are forced to deny some things which their dearest favourites ask of them, as crossing some other engagement, or more general project. But if God denies thee, he will be sure to remember thee in some other thing.

The truth is, we shew ourselves unfriendly to God, and usurp upon the privileges and dues of friendship, if we expect everything should be as we would have it. ' Should it be as thou wilt ?' as God said to Job. God denied Moses his request of entering into Canaan, and it was a great request of him ; and yet he murmurs not, but quietly goes up and dies, as God bade him.

5. Trust God especially in great exigents, and take heed of being jealous of him. Mutual confidence is a great part of friendship ; therefore David, speaking of his friend, saith, ' Yea mine own familiar friend whom I trusted,' Ps. xli. 9. If a man were to procure the friendship of another, he would deal with him in his kind : as if you were to deal with a covetous man, ye would bring him gold ; if with a vain-glorious man, you would flatter him. But now the way to deal with God, and to procure friendship w^th him, is to trust him; and the reason is, because he doth all his kindnesses freely; and one that doth all freely desires to be trusted before he doth the benefit, and to be thanked after. Since I knew what love and friendship was, I have the less wondered why God chose our faith rather than our love to save us by, and that he calls so much for it. The reason is plain, that one that loves much desires rather (and prefers it far) to have

VOL. VII. 0

the party lie fi'eely loves to believe much that he loves him, than that he should love him, for he desires to magnify his own love to them. Now that is God's distinction, for it is his main end, in loving us, to commend his love. The Holy Ghost exhorts, Ps. xxxvii. 8, * Trust in the Lord, and cast all thy care upon him.' Friends are jmrticipes curarum, they are partners in our cares. There are two eminent places for this : 1 Pet. v. 7, ' Cast all your care upon God, for he careth for you ;' and Phil. iv. 6, ' Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God.' Be careful or solicitous in nothing; he doth not say, God leaves small things unto us, or that we should not be anxious, but avoid rug fiiBi/Mmg, those cares that divide and distract the soul. Great momentous care is God's work, not ours. ' Cast all your care upon him,' says Peter, ' for he careth for you.' He speaks it of the sorest trials under God's mighty hand, ver. 6. He quotes Ps. Iv. ver. 22, * Cast thy burden on the Lord.' So much care as is a burden on thy thoughts, lay it on God. What a friendly part is this, that God loves us so well as he would have no bm-den lie on our spirits, but is willing to take that burden on himself! Let me have all the load, says he, like a friend that travels with another, and for his friend's ease carries and takes off all the baggage. God is not only willing to bear it with us, but to take it wholly off from us on himself. He doth not only offer to take one end of it, and so ease us (as the word is, Piom. viii. 26, oumvrt-Xafj.Qdvirai), to help us only by taking it together with us at the other end of our burden, but he takes it wholly off; ' Cast thy burden on him, for he careth for you.' The truth is, says he, whether you trust him or no, he careth for you : or it is spoken thus, his is the great care ; as if we should say to a wife that hath a good husband to her consort, he takes all the care, and is so wise as you need take none, but may sleep quietly and take your ease; so doth God say to us. Qui hahiiit tid curam antcquam esses, qiiomodo non habehit cum jam. es ? says Augustine. He took care how to redeem thee from sin, and he will for all things else. Yea, he takes such care for every one, as if he took care of none else Only, indeed, this Paul requires, Philip, iv., * that in every thing our requests should be made known to God.' He would not have us so much as troubled ; only, says he, come and tell me ; that is enough, and it is but what a man would do to a friend when burdened, if it were but to ease his mind ; not that God needs that we should make known our requests to him, for he knows, says Christ, * you have need of these things ;' but that there may be a recourse to him, that he may be acknowledged to be the carer for you, and also your dependence on him may be owned : Prov. iii. 5, 6, ' Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not to thine own understanding. In aU thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.' He speaks it as a friend, that would have his friends but come and tell him when they want. It is as if he said. Come, and but communicate your wants and your necessities to me, and I will supply them. Thus our Abraham in the text did trust in God as a friend, when he went to offer up Isaac. 0 father, says Isaac, ' but where is the sacrifice ?' ' Take no care, son,' says he ; ' God will provide,' Gen. xxii. 8, 9, 13, 14. Hence that proverb went amongst the Jews, when any one was afiiicted, that ' in the mount the Lord would be seen,' and provide, as he did for Abraham and Isaac in their straits. Let your heart, therefore, in all occurrences be quiet, and repose itself safely in him ; 'trust him at all times,' Ps. Ixii. 8, and trust him in all things, and in small things as well as great; make use of him, and come to him for

every thing, for ho thinks you account him not your friend else, and he thinks it no trouble but an honour to him.

I add to this an appendix of it: be not jealous of him. There cannot be a greater wrong done to friendship. Trust hath made many a friend; and so, on the contrary, suspicion hath broke many fast and entire friendships. Hence charity, or love to men, binds us to interpret all things well. 1 Cor. xiii. 5, ' Charity thinketh no evil, believing all things for the present, hopeth all things for the future.' And if this rule hold of men, who are a lie, as the Scripture speaks, and of whom a suspicion may be that they are false, and a lie is in their ways, then much more is this true in love, and much more ought we to act thus to God, who is truth itself, Rom. iii. 4, and love itself, 1 John iv. 16. And accordingly, as his nature is love and truth, so all his ways are mercy and truth, Ps. xxv. 10. They are mercy in respect of aiming at our good, and truth in respect of fulfilling his promises and faithful carriage to us ; therefore whatsoever befalls thee, though it be clean contrary to thy expectation, interpret it in love. Many actions of men are such as a good interpretation cannot be put upon them, nor a good construction made of them ; therefore interpreters restrain those sayings of love, that it believes all, &c.; that is, credibiUa, all things believable, otherwise to put all upon charity, will eat out charity. But none of God's ways are such, but love and faith may pick a good meaning out of them. ^ A bono Deo nil nisi homon, from a good God there comes nothing but what is good ; and therefore says Job,' Though he kill me, I will trust in him.' Endeavour to spy out some end of his for good at the present, and if none ariseth to thy conjecture, resolve it into faith, and make the best of it. To be jealous provoketh God exceedingly, for no faithful friend can endure to be suspected. It breaks amity between man and v/ife when they live never so entirely ; and the reason is because one that loves and makes a business of it to shew himself a friend, and counts it one of his greatest excellencies, as God doth (for all his attributes seem but to set out his love), cannot therefore bear to have it questioned. Take a man that is both wise and loving, and he had rather be thought unwise by his friend, than unloving or false to him. It provoked God much, well nigh as much as anything, that the people of Israel said that he brought them into the wilderness to destroy them, which sin moved him to destroy many of them. And yet thus, and worse, do many wrong God, who though God hath humbled them, and given them many evident tokens of his love and everlasting good will, yet still they suspect it to be but a common work, that God hath enlightened them, to make their damnation greater. He hath brought us out of Egypt indeed, say they, the gross sins that others lie in, but it is but to destroy us : Jer. xxix. 11, ' I know the thoughts that I think towards you, saith the Lord : thoughts of peace, not of evil, to give an expected end.' It was when the people were carried away captive into Babylon, they thought God carried them thither to destroy them, these were their thoughts ; and therefore, in opposition unto their thoughts, saith God, it is no matter what you thmk, I know the thoughts I think, even to give an expected end ; that is, as good an end as you could wish. God speaks like one suspected, and is fain to comfort himself, as it were, with the consciousness of his own thoughts toward them, against the hard thoughts and speeches they had of him. Well, but I know mine own heart, says God. His eyes were as much and more upon the end of their deliverance and peace after seventy years, than upon the captivity itself, as appears by the verse going before ; for the end is first ordained, and chiefly in an agent's eye. Let but God alone. See

the end he made with Job; says James, chap. v. 11, whilst God was a-pulling down Job's estate and house piece after piece. Job nor no stander by could have known what to have made of God's purpose in it; but the issue was such as was evident to the eye of all beholders, that all this was in love. Therefore he useth this phrase, ' Ye have seen the end of the Lord in it.' He did but put down the old house to set up a new one ; some interpret it of Christ's passion, you have seen the end of the Lord Jesus. Whilst the apostles and believers beheld him on the cross, yea, the angels themselves, they might wonder what God meant to do with him, what should be in his thoughts to hang his Son there; but ye have seen the end of the Lord, saith he. ' For we have seen Jesus, through the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour,' Heb. ii. 9. This was fresh news in those days, for it was new done, so as they saw it. When thou art in affliction, thou art apt to think that he is a-destroj^ng thee, but thou knowest not his thoughts. If a man be poor and down in the world, then he is apt to say, If God did love me, he would not suffer me to be so low; if rich, he is apt to say that God puts him off as Abraham did his younger sons, and reserves his inheritance for others. So likewise young Christians are often jealous that God will one day take advantage against them for their offending him and backslidings, and take his favour from them and cast them off; but do not suspect him, for he is a constant friend. It is a slander papists and Ai-minians have raised on him, that he should cast away those are entered into friendship with him, and discard his old fiiends ; and therefore, Isa. Iv. 3, God's mercies are called ' the sure mercies of David.' If others have comfort, joy, and peace, which such an one wants, the poor man begins to be jealous of God, as if God did not love him ; as when the Gentiles were called, Zion was jealous, and took it amiss, Isa. xlix. 14, and says, ' God hath forgotten me.'

6. Study his favours, how to find out his loving-kindness in them. God would not willingly lose his kindness in what he doth. As a wise man would not his notions on one that is not apprehensive or capable of them, and a man's love is dearer to him than his notions; this is the least reciprocation of fiiendship that can be expected. God doth study how to contrive all the circumstances of his mercies, so as to make them mercies, and to shew his love in them, and accordingly orders them. He thinks how to bring them in best to make them take, when and where they will be best placed and bestowed, and most seen and taken notice of. He waits to be gracious, Isaiah tells us, even as a curious orator orders all his matters, brings in this after this, and sets out all with metaphors and elegancies, and all to make it take and please his hearers ; so doth God strew mercies through thy whole life, and you should study them and the circumstances of them, as you would study and delight to read a curious speech, and obsei-ve all the art that love hath bestowed upon the whole. As you shall have a world of wit and matter couched in a word, a short sentence, so God casts out sometimes a sea of love in a di'op of providence, in a small by-passage that a man would scarce take notice of. Ps. cxxxix., when David considered but that part of it, of his outward and ordinary providence only, he wonders : ' Marvellous are thy works,' says he ; * and that my soul knows right well,' ver, 14. David had studied them, he was versed and skilful in them. ' How precious,' saith he, * are thy thoughts, or the thoughts of thee unto me ? 0 Lord, how great are the number of them !' And Ps. cxi. 2-4, ' The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. His work is honourable and glorious; and his

righteousness endurcth for ever. He hath made his wonderful works to bo remembered : the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion.' His goodness and compassion he would have observed by us ; more especially, ' the Lord is gracious, and full of compassion,' so it is in the close of all, and therein lies the glory that is the conclusion of all. And as in searching into any experiments in nature, there is an infinite pleasure that accompanies such a study to them that are addicted thereunto; so to him that hath pleasure in such works of God, and is addicted to spy out his kindness in them, there is nothing so pleasant as the discovery of such or such a new circumstance of mercy, that renders it glorious and honourable. Get therefore skill in his dealings with thee, and study thy friend's carriage to thee. It is the end why he raised thee up, and admitted thee into friendship with him, to shew his art of love and friendship to thee, how well he could love thee.

CHAPTER VIL

What obedience and duty tee oive unto God, as ice are his friends. — We shoidd be fearful of do in ff anijthin/f to displease him, observe his commands, and do all from the jyrincijdes of love and gratitude.

The next thing to be treated of concerneth what in obedience we owe unto him, what correspondencies, what returns, observances, and compliances are due to him in our walkings with him, upon the account of friendship. Now the general consideration I would premise to all that follows is, that this friendship being contracted between an infinite God, and creatures subjected perfectly to his sovereign power, he might exact all from us, as simple obedience due from absolute servants and vassals. But he hath been pleased to quit (as it were) that consideration: John xv. 15, ' Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends ;' as if he were content on his part to forget the relation of servants, and take up all from us as from friends, provided he hath the same that as servants we owe to him, which must needs so sweeten all obedience to him, as not to make the commandments grievous; and it also puts the stricter obligation unto obedience, due as servants, and superadds some strains and dispositions thereunto, upon the pure account of friendship. So respectful is he of us, that he is content to veil and cover this hard and severe tax, and to take it up from us under the notion of gratitude and thankfulness. And this notion will run along, and accompany us through the whole. Now of such compliances and returns of obedience, there are two branches, which are a known and common trodden place by every tongue and pen.

1st. There is a fearfulness to displease or offend him as our friend.

2dly. All possible care to please and render ourselves friendly and respectful to him. I must not instance in particular duties, nor be large in anything, only hint such considerations as not the notion only, but the power of friendship, doth bind us to.

1. There is fearfulness to displease him, as a man is fearful to displease a friend. This is to ' fear the Lord and his goodness,' as the prophet speaks. Every sin, by reason of friendship to him, comes under the crime and guilt of falsehood and petit treason. When thou sinnest, then think with thyself that God's Spirit looks back, and says to thee as Absalom to Hushai, 2 Sam. xvi. 17, ' Is this thy kindness to thy friend ?' Or as God himself, Deut. xxxii. 6, ' Do ye thus requite the Lord, ye foolish and unwise ? is

not he thy father that hath bought thee ? hath he not made and established thee ?' ' If it had been mine enemy, I could have borne it, but it was thou my friend,' Ps. Iv. 12, said David of his friend. And says God again of David (who had felt the smart of wounds received in the behalf of his friends, and therefore every word pierced him), 2 Sam. xii. 7-9, I anointed thee king over Israel, delivered thee from Saul, gave thee thy master's wives, yea, gave thee the whole house of Israel and Judah to be thy subjects and to reign over; and if this (which for this world might well content the largest heart) would not have contented thee, I Jlove thee so well, that I would have given thee such and such things. And you know how the sense of this ingratitude brake his heart. Now translate this word for word into the style and language of the New Testament. I have loved thee (may God say), and chosen thee my friend in Christ Jesus afore the world began. I have delivered my Son unto death for thee, and with him how shall I not give thee all things ? Heaven, and glory, and an everlasting kingdom I have prepared for thee, not to tell thee how many sins I have pardoned, when thou first camest to me, and since ; and wilt thou serve me thus ? Is this thy kindness to thy friend ? This grieves God. Against his enemies he hath a relief, he can ease himself: Isa. i. 24, ' I will ease myself on mine adversaries ;' but on his friends he hath no remedy, no other, but having seen their ways, to heal them ; for he cannot, must not, ease himself by revenge. Such things as these should move us. Oh, when thou art about to sin next, and hast the cup of pleasure at thy mouth and lips, think with thyself at the instant, that it is the price of thy friend's blood, and pour it upon the ground: you know I allude to the story and passage in 1 Chron. xi. 19. Think what was in that cup which he trembled at. Let this cup pass, cried he. Dost thou begin at any time to sip of pleasure's cup ? Oh cry out then likewise, Let this cup pass from me ; my Saviour drank all these as turned to gall and vinegar, and shall I make that my pleasure, which was such hoiTor and bitterness to him ! And of sins, take heed of presumptuous sins, which is a making bold with his friendship, and the continuance of his love still notwithstanding. These strike directly at the root, the soul, at the marrow of friendship ; this is a strain higher than treason. David, a king, might have aggravated Ahitho-phel's fault, in that he was his prince, his sovereign ; but it was ' Thou my friend' which he upbraids him with, and lays to his charge his treason against friendship. And Ahithophel was therein the type of Judas, whose sin to this day is branded with the name of treason—treason the highest that ever was, that he who eats my bread (says Christ) should betray me. 'Oh keep me from presumptuous sins !' (saith David, Ps. xix. 19) for they are the next step to the great offence; * so shall I be free from the great transgression,' than which nothing is higher, or nearer than the sin of presuming on God's love. The oppression of good nature in any good and sweet soul we stand in relation unto, is the greatest oppression in the world ; and what oppresseth good nature more than under presumption of friendship to abuse it ? So also upon the same account take heed of sins that wound the name of God in thee. How doth one cast shame upon all his friends, when he runs into an enormity ! Noscitur ex socio, &c., they account all his friends and companions such. David's sin is aggravated by this, that he made the enemies of God to blaspheme; and nothing puts God more into a strait, how to acquit himself toward you, and save his own honour, than in such a case either to lose the service you may yet do, or to dishonour himself by using you any longer therein.

2. The second branch of obedience is (as you know), keeping his commandments: 'Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you,' says Christ, John xv. 14. Thus also says Jonathan to David his friend: 1 Sam. XX. 4, ' Whatsoever thy soul desireth, I will even do it for thee.' Yea, friendship will turn that sovereign word of commands into that more easy style, ' whatsoever will please him,' Isa. Ivi. 4. And yet 'yours to command' is stylus amicitue, the style of friendship. A man can requite a friend but two ways, either by protiting him, or by pleasing him. Now profit God we cannot: ' What is it to him that thou art righteous ?' (says Job). Christ himself could not profit God; witness that speech spoken of him, ' My goodness extends not to thee,' Ps. xvi. But yet please him he did in all things, John viii. 39.

(1.) Let us study with ourselves what in our way, and in his will concerning us, will most please him, and let us make it the pleasure of our souls to do it. Let us think with ourselves, as David did: Ps. Ixix. 31, ' This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.' Let us do what is done by us out of a free spirit, and not only or barely as commanded. Let us think, that of Paul's looks fully this way: 1 Cor. ix. 16, 17, ' Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me ; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!' ver. 17, ' For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if unwillingly, a dispensation is committed to me.' The plain result of which place is this, 1, that to do the best woi'k for God that can be done in this world, is to preach the gospel; therefore, by way of supposition, he heightens and gi-eatens it, ' Though I preach the gospel,' than which the angels themselves have not a better work committed to them ; yea, 2, if I outwardly do this work (says he) with all the pains and diligence that flesh and blood can perform it with, even to the utmost of the dispensation and commission enjoined me, as ver. 17 implies ; yet, 3, to do this, having this only in my eye, that I am commanded by God to do it, is not enough. That this was his scope is clearly acknowledged out of these his words, ' for necessity is laid upon me.' This necessity was not of any outward restraint; no man could have compelled him, no more than they could Demas, who left his preaching, embraced the present world, and fell a merchandising, taking the advantage of growing rich at Thessalonica, 2 Tim. iv. 10. It was not for maintenance and livelihood, for it was that he was speaking of, that he refused it for preaching. Yea, the necessity he in these words intends, is severed from that other necessity of being damned if he did it not, for so it is emphatically expressed by our translators. Yea {tanquam aliquid amplius), Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. He adds it as some further thing, so that the single necessity of the command was at first considered by him; which therefore, ver. 17, he thus expresseth, ' A dispensation is committed to me.' But to have preached the gospel out of such a necessity only, had not been matter of glory or acceptation with God; yea, to have preached it upon these or such grounds only, had been to preach it cixm, unwillingly—the unwillingness being to be interpreted by what he opposeth to it, namely, willingness out of choice, heartily and freely to choose the work out of love to God chiefly, and the souls of men. As one well observes, unwilling is not invitus, but jussus ;* and our translators have shot that bolt too far to translate it against my will. So then, to conclude this, to do a thing merely upon the necessity of the obligation of the command, though of God, and only because such a dispensation is • Grotiua.

committed and laid upon one, although in itself the greatest service in the world, is not with God acceptable alone, in the terms which we stand in with him, which are of friendship and not of mere servants. And therefore, over and above, there must be a freeness and willingness, out of ingenuity to God, which is to do it for him as to a friend ; which that Paul might manifest, he did preach the gospel freely, to which yet others (he says) were not obliged, but it had been his profession so to do. And in doing this out of this principle, and in this manner, the work had a glory, that is, a gi-ace, an acceptableness in it, which else it would have lost. Peter thus expresseth it: 1 Pet. ii. 19, 20, that it is thankworthy, and that from God, tovto %«§/; Tapu Qs'SJ, which in the same verse he also terms glory; what glory is it ? He speaks it upon the like occasion of doing noble, free, and heroical acts of obedience unto God. To be patient and quiet, to be buffeted for what is truly faulty, this is good (says he); but this comes merely under the notion of justice, and duty, and command, and so what glory is in it ? ' But if, when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is thankworthy before God.' The style and language imports that such actions God takes not only well, as a master that commands things as a duty, but also as a friend doth from the hands of a friend; not only with an acknowledgment, * "Well done, good and faithful servant,' but with thanks, which we use not to give to servants, but to friends, as having done us free courtesies. So that, although there are not works of supererogation (as in respect of what God doth and may command : Luke xvii. 19, ' Doth he thank that servant, because he did those things that were commanded him ? I trow not,' says Christ), yet there is such a performing of things commanded for the manner of it, as is over and above the force of the command, even out of freeness and ingenuity as friends. And there are some such noble and heroical acts of obedience, as carry in their very appearance a principle above that of semce, which respect the necessity of the command, that God thanks them for them, as a man doth his friend for a matter of courtesy; and they come to have a glory, a special grace in them, which simple obedience hath not. And they also have thanks, which not the intercourse of servant and master, but between friend and fi-iend requires, and which chiefly respect the freeness and nobleness of the mind we do it with. Now that Christ should use the same word that Peter doth, %a^/c, thanks; and that Peter should say, that to such and such actions thanks, and those thanks from God, were due or suitable ; and that Christ should, on the contrary, say, Yfill that master thank his servant ? I know not how otherwise to reconcile than thus, that when we shall lift up our obedience out of the crowd and common rank of services (which God might stand upon, since he, as lord and master, could so command, and we must be forced to say. We are unprofitable servants, when we have done, as having done nothing but what was commanded us), and shall perform it to God upon terms and grounds of gratitude and thankfulness, yea, as friends, then God condescends also to accept it as it is given, not as duty only, but as free, and gives thanks for it : so gracious is he if we be thus noble. And all these places shew, that otherwise (suppose we be saved) yet we lose that glory, splendour, and lustre which might be found in oui- obedience, if we thus performed it.

(2.) We should study and search outworks so excellent for the manner of performance, or seek a heart so noble, as should render such common actions exti-aordinaiy. God hath studied how to commend and set out his kindness (witness the death of his Son), and prevent us with his loving-

kindness, as the psalmist speaks. And we should (if possible) study out some free-born acts of obedience, and prevent him with them. . Thus David, unspoken to by God, out of his vast desires to glorify him, thinks of building a temple for him ; and, says God, I never spake a word of it, 2 Sam. vii. 7. Yet because what was in God's heart rose up so nobly in David's (it was an ingenuous thought occasioned it, ' I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells in curtains,' ver. 2), God took this kindly: ' Tell him' (says God to Nathan), * I will build him an house for it,' ver. 11. In services we do let us study to put an emphasis of love upon them, as Paul, who (when he might have done otherwise) preached the gospel for nothing.

(3.) I shall mention some special seasons (instead of other particulars) which thou mayest take the advantage of, to render a quick and diligent obedience exceeding acceptable to him as a friend, and thanksworthy as from a friend, ffasa Tou Qbov, even by God himself.

[1.] One season is, when after great falls you are anew reconciled to him, and he hath pardoned you great sins. You know what vows David made after his falls, Ps. li. 13 : he vowed to convert others, to celebrate his praise, and to ofler the choicest of sacrifices, a broken heart. This made Peter bestir himself, but upon two words spoken by Christ after his fall, Lovest thou me ? Politic friendship bids you take heed of a reconciled friend that hath been treacherous, and done you a mischief; but God delights in such to choose. He therefore chose forth his entirest friends (and he knew what he did in doing it) out of the sons of men that had otiended him, rather than make new ones, for he knew they would love him better. A friend that is in his radical disposition of a good and ingenuous nature, and hath wronged you, such a one when reconciled, and you have pardoned him, is the best and fastest friend in the world. And God will in the end be sure to make those good-natured, and true-hearted to him, whom he pardons : Ps. xxxii. 1, ' Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, in whose heart is no guile.' He couples these two for ever together: Hast thou sinned, and hath God pardoned and loved thee freely ? This is a new conversion to thee, a redintegration of a new love between you; love much, and obey much, as Mary and Peter did.

[2.] Labour then most, when in view thou art in least dependence on him for outward mercies, and thinkest thy mountain most strong. In some times of a man's life he is set in an enlarged and free state, so as he looks over the present horizon of his condition, and sees not one cloud that anyway threatens rain. He is hedged about (as Job), and sees not whence a breach should come. At such a time meditate (if ever) to act in a more extraordinary manner for God's interest and honour. When was it that David meditated that fore-mentioned high and generous act of testifying his love in building God an house ? It is prefaced thereunto, 2 Sam. vii. 2, ' that it came to pass, when David sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies.' The coast was clear (as we use to say), and then the king said, ver. 2, ' He would build God an house.' He took this special season to express his love towards God in, and God took thereupon that special advantage to confirm his house to him. Hezekiah, on the contrary, whilst Sennacherib lay with his army before the city, and the ten tribes were carried captive before his face, walked with a perfect heart; but when his kingdom was settled, and a lease of his life freely sealed for fifteen years, you know then how he forgat God, and how God took it at his hands. Joshua (who was a man God honoui'ed to bring his people into rest, having that testimony given him,

that he followed God full}-), you see, a long time after (Josh, xxiii. 1) that God had given rest unto Israel from all their enemies round about, how he engaged afresh all the people to serve God, chap, xxiv., and himself especially, ver. 15, ' I and my household will serve the Lord.' This was friendly, and God took it accordingly, and recorded it for ever.

[3.] On the contrary, when God afflicts and crosseth thee in thy desires, and hath denied for the present the request thou hast made, apply thyself most unto him. These, though contrary seasons, are yet times alike of winning upon God by obedience : Eccles. vii. 15, ' In the day of good, or prosperity, be in good;' that is, as our critics explain it, be conversant, and exercise thyself wholly in what is good; ' and in the day of evil, see to thy ways and consider.' Thus he calls for holiness alike in both. That was also true ingenuity which they expressed, Ps. xliv, 17, 18, &c., * All this is come upon us ; yet we have not forgotten thee, nor our steps declined from thy ways.' Paul glories more in the obedience he did in his infirmities than in all his revelations.

[4.] Though thou hast served him long, and waited, and perhaps he hath done little for thee in comparison of what for others, yet take occasion still to serve him, and that the more diligently, and be far from thinking much. Amicitia non est revocanda ad calculos, friends are not as partners that keep accounts of their receipts and expenses from each other. God ' gives mercies,' ' and upbraids not,' James i. 5. And we should return obedience, and not repine. Paul served God many years, did more than all the apostles, as himself says, and yet (says he), ' I forget what is past and behind,' Phihp. iii., ' and reach and roam after still what is before.' And though many years were past already, yet he thought not much at it, that his condition was not bettered, nor his ways mended: 1 Cor. iv. 11,' Even to this present hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have not certain dwelling place; and labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it; being defamed, we entreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and as the ofF-scoui-ing of all things unto this day,' You see he puts it into the account, that to that hour (ver. 11), to that very day (ver. 13), he and his fellow-apostles (the greatest saints that ever the world had, or was to have) had done such high and so great works of service for God as the world did then, yea, doth to this day, and shall to the end of the world, owe their salvation and Christian religion to them ; and yet though they had run out so many years, they were not a whit amended as to their outward condition. They had neither meat to put in their mouths, nor houses of abode to dwell in ; yea, and which still heightens all this, other Christians that were saved as well as they, that had less grace, and done far less service, yea, for whose sakes they had been employed to do all this, were gratified by God with these kind of accommodations. The apostle on purpose sets the instance of such by this other, vers. 8 and 10, ' Now ye are full, now ye are rich, ye have reigned as kings without us; and I would to God ye did reign, that we also might reign with you. We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ: we are weak, but ye are strong : ye are honourable, but we are despised.' Yea, and ver. 9, * I think that God hath set forth us apostles last, as it were appointed unto death.' You that are scholars know what he alludes to : it is to the Roman spectacles, either those in which men were thrown to beasts, as the last and lowest sort of men, to make sport unto the common sort of people (which is TertuUian's interpretation) ; or rather to those gladiators or sword-players, who came up last, of which

there were two sorts : 1. of such as fenced to shew skill, as now-a-days; 2. of those that fought but to wouudiug, aud then wore fetched olf; but the 8d and last sort was of slaves, or men condemned to die, who were to fight till they had killed their fellows, or were killed. And thus God had pre-ordained to his dearest friends and servants, his apostles, whilst they lived, to run through all these difficulties and wants, and at last to be killed; and all this too to make them spectacles to the world, yea, both worlds, angels, and men, and set them all aghast at them. God had provided a greater stage and theatre than that at Rome, and he sets and brings these poor men forth to play their prize for his glory, that he might only say to them all (as he said to Satan of Job) * See you not my servants' Paul and Peter ? But what! doth God deal with his best friends, that do most for him, thus ? Then who will serve him ? That will I, says Paul. ' I know whom I trusted; and I have fought a good fight, and will die in the quarrel.' They thought not much at this, they knew whom^ they served. And let that consideration at first specified cheer thy spirit in this case, which surely was it that carried on the apostles themselves. They knew and considered that their radical and original subjection by the law of creation to God was such, that God might command all this, and exact it of them as pure servants to him, and give them no wages; that (as it is in verse 7 of that chapter) ' whatever they had they had received ;' and they owed all they could do for him upon that account, as David says : 1 Chron. xxix. 16, ' Of thine own we have given thee.' Our Saviour had laid in this consideration in the hearts of his apostles, whom afterwards he meant thus to use. He spends one parable on purpose to let them know their native condition as they were creatures, and what subjection they stood in to God as mere and perfect servants, yea, and unprofitable too, when they should have done never so much. He made them know this, that being humbled and prepared hereby, they might see the infinite grace and favour in God tow-ards them, when afterwards he should adopt, own, and admit them to be his friends (John xv. 15, ' Henceforth I call you not servants, but friends'), and how upon that account he would accept of all they should do, the utmost of which they owed, as unprofitable servants. The parable you have, Luke xvii., from the 7th verse to the 11th, ' But which of you, having a servant ploughing or feeding cattle, will^say unto him by and by, when he is come fi-om the field, Go and sit down to meat ? and will not rather say unto him. Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken ; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink ? Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him ? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants : we have only done that which was our duty to do.' He lays before them the common condition of servants unto men, and what was expected from them after the customs of men. A servant that hath been doing hard and laborious work, as ploughing or keepmg cattle abroad in the fields, in all weathers, winds, and storms, and this all day, when he hath done these long and tedious works, might seem to expect, when he comes home, to have his supper prepared and ready dressed for him, that he might eat and go to rest after so tedious a travel. No, says Christ, none deals thus with his servants ; but he must yet stay, though weary and an-hungry.—' To this hour,' says Paul, ' we hunger and thirst: nay, have not so much as an house in this world to come to.'—He must yet do another work, and di-ess his Master's supper; but yet then he might

expect to sit down or eat at the lower end of the table. No ; but after he had dressed it, and served it up, he must stand and wait at table, run hither and thither, see his master eat the meat which himself dressed before his face, and perfectly stay till he had eaten and drunken, and afterwards he shall eat and drink, so as he must not do one, but all sorts of services. And what when all this is done ? Doth his master thank him ? ' I trow not,' says Christ. Nay, he teacheth him to say he is an unprofitable servant, and hath but done his duty. How then should this move us ? That God should take us up out of this servile condition, which not our sins, but our creation, hath condemned us to, and constitute us friends to himself, and profess, if performed with such an heart by us, to own and accept all these our services as acts of friendship, for which he will thank us and reward us in the highest measure. Who would not be content to serve so great, and withal so good a God, as this ?

I shall go on to mention other genuine properties of right and true friendship, in the point of their obedience to him.

(4.) Manage all with all simplicity and plain-heartedness towards him, in all thy walkings, which is the truest and rarest jewel in friendship. A reserv'ed, cunning politician never makes a good friend, who is * an Israelite indeed,' (as Christ says of Nathanael, John i. 48), ' in whom is no guile.' Our Saviour not only puts a value, but a rarity upon him ; therefore points him out with an "lo;, ^Behold, an Israelite indeed,' such as you should not find amongst a million of men. And he entitleth him an Israelite in this respect, because this is that which made Jacob's or Israel's commendation,' Gen. xxv. 27, that he was a plain man, airXoxic, of a sincere heart, without false or cunning ends and reaches in his way; whereas Esau was a cunning hunter, a cunning gamester, as you say, in his. Now, let a man naturally have what guile or cunning he will, real converse and acfjuaintance with God will put him out of it, with respect to God himself, whatever God alloweth him to exercise towards enemies that seek advantage. For a man knows he hath to do with a God that cuts up to the marrow, and to the joints, the socket bones and the heart, and all the wheels it turns upon. He wi-iggles his anatomising knife through them, Heb. iv. 12. David had carried the business of Uriah cunningly, as to men ; but when his heart was set in God's sun, in the light of God, that light discovered this work to be a deceitful close-spun web of wickedness, a plotted and continued villany, which made him, upon that occasion, cry out, Ps. li. G, ' Behold, thou requirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.' The inwards of a man are the seat of guile, as well as of truth and plainness ; and upon the dis-coveiy of this his sin to him, he entitleth grace by the name of truth, or plainness, in the inward parts, and acknowlodgeth such a plain spirit to be the only wise spirit. David thought himself to be very wise, in ridding his hands so handsomely of Uriah, but he must not think to caiTy it thus, and escape God so ; he now saw it to have been the greatest folly in the world, and that it should teach him wisdom for hereafter : ' In the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.' And again you have him at it, Ps. xxxii. 3 ; when he hid his sin and kept silence, he had distinctions to fence with, and endeavoured to distinguish himself out from being a murderer, and day and night lay roaring ; but in the end he confesseth it, and then God pardoned it: vcr. 5, ' I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid ; I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.' And from thence he ever

learnt this lesson, that whom God pardons, and receives to grace and favour with himself, from them ho takes out that venomous vein or sting, that runs through the backbone of guile and deceit towards himself. Therefore, at the second verse, he couples these two for over together, * Blessed is tho man whom thou pardonest, and in whose spirit there is no guile.' It is observable that the apostle makes these two equivalent, to do a thing heartily, and to do it as to tho Lord : Col. iii. 23, ' Whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men.' And in the words before, he says, ' Not as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.' That which I observe out of it is this, that nothing will fix the nature of man, and make it void of ends, but this knowing God, this fear of him, and conversing with him. If a servant would propound to please his master, yet his own purpose will not make him constant in what is his duty, both absent as well as present; it will be an uncertain rule, he will be a weathercock in his actions, observing the wind, and turning uncertainly with it. Now, you walk not plain-heartedly, when you seek out excuses to put ofi duties, and are glad of them; and when you labour to find out distinctions, to make good those sins you are loath to leave ; and when you walk unevenly in several companies, as Peter did : Gal. ii. 14, * He walked not with an even foot;' when, also, you use your wisdom to hold correspondence with God and the world, as they in Gal. vi. 12 ; when ye have ends of the flesh in all, and yet would make as if ye did much for God, as Jehu did : ' See what zeal I have for the Lord of hosts.' To magnify kindnesses, when we design only our own ends, and to make them seem greater, is guile in friendship. Friends often lay aside some things they would else do, merely to avoid the suspicion of by-ends to their friends. Paul walked in simplicity, or with a spirit without folds or doublings, as the word signifies, 2 Cor. i. 12.

(5.) Be faithful to him, in whatever is committed to thy trust by him, and let thy friendship move thee. This is the special epithet of a friend, that he is a ' faithful friend,' Exod. xxxiii. 11. God treateth Moses, at the first entry into his office, as a friend : * The Lord spake to Moses face to face, as a man speaketh to his friend.' And this obliged and endeared Moses to that faithfulness he shewed in all and every particular about his house. Compare with this Num. xii. 7, 8, ' My servant Moses, who is faithful in all my house, with him will I speak mouth to mouth,' that is, face to face, as a man with his friend ; which manifestly refers to what God had before done and said of him, Exod. xxxiii. 11, to which also the margin doth refer us. There is none of us but God hath betrusted with something: with pupils, who are precious ware, and their souls, as well as their outward state, are committed to their governors ; with riches : ' Be faithful, then, in the unrighteous mammon ;' with his name : keep it unspotted in thee ; with gifts and talents : improve them to his advantage ; with power : let it be used and turned for God ; with thy voice in elections : let God dispose of it, and let those that are God's friends, and godly, have it rather than any other. If God hath entrusted thee vv^ith the truth, ' keep that good thing committed to thee,' as Paul speaks to Timothy ; ' be faithful unto death, and he will give thee a crown of life.' Let not God be a loser in what is committed to thee, whatever thou mayest be. Thou mayest, in the management of what is for God, perhaps lose a friend, disgust this or that person. It is no matter ; be in all things faithful to God, as Jacob was to Laban, and served him fourteen, yea, twenty years, day and night; and if there were any loss, he bare it, Gen. xxsi. 39, 41.

(6.) Deny him notliing, and yet take his denials kindly. Friends that are critical in friendship, if they think they shall be denied, will not so much as ask, for it will trouble them. Abraham spared not his son when God called for him, and he was called the friend of God. God, to endear thy friendship to him, sometimes will seem to stand in need of something thou hast. When Christ was on earth, he was poor, and good souls ministered unto him. Another time he sends to a poor man for his ass, with this message, which was a strange one, Luke xix. 31, ' The Lord hath need of him,' though the cattle on a thousand hills ai-e his. It was but to fulfil a prophecy ; else we never read he rode, but went afoot many a wearisome step, from Galilee to Jerusalem, to and fro unto the feasts. God hath business in this world that concerns his glory, needs thy help against the mighty, needs thy good word in a good cause, and thou perhaps art sluggish, or loath to appear in it. Think nothing thou hast too dear for him, when he calls for it: ' I count not my life dear to me,' says Paul, ' to fulfil my ministration with joy,' Acts xx. 24. And take this for a rule to guide thee to know what he calls for from thee. When either thou canst not hold that which thou hast without sinning against him, or when the laying of it down tends to promote his glory, then God calls for it, and deny him not, he is a special friend. Kemark that speech of Christ, « He that forsakes not father, mother, &c., for my sake and the gospel's, is not worthy of me,''Mat. x. 37, that is, ' of my friendship ;' he is not worthy to be held in correspondency withal by me.

(7.) Stick close to him in the time of trial. A friend, though he loves at all times, yet is specially * born for a time of adversity,' Prov. xvii. 17, as in a great case of distress it is said of Esther, she * came to the kingdom for such a time as that;' it was the greatest thing God had in his eye, when and for which he advanced her. There are special times in our lives in which God hath ordained to try us, and bring us to offer up our Isaacs, as he required of Abraham. Think with thyself, I was converted, born again for such a time as this ; shall I fail God now, and bid farewell to his friendship, when there are such obhgations between God and me ? Ah, no! they are as bills of exchange, and you break all future correspondency if you pay them not.

(8.) Suffer for him, if there be occasion, gladly, and be greedy of such opportunities when brought upon thee by others. As the wounds of a friend are faithful, as Solomon says, so for a friend they are honourable ; and Paul calls them Christ's marks and scars. The apostles thought they had a kindness done them when they suffered for him, and the primitive saints loved not their lives to the death, Rev. xii. 11. Do thou stand for him among his enemies, and take his part. This we expect of those that profess an eminency of friendship ; and in what company soever they be, if they are silent at such a time, when they hear their friend reviled, they strengthen his enemies in their evil speeches of him. See how Jonathan shewed the part of a friend for David, 1 Sam. xix. 4 ; how he pleads for him to Saul when his life was in danger at every word, for he threw javelins at him. And do thou vindicate God and his ways the rather because thou shalt have opportunity to do this for him only in this life ; at the latter day he will appear to defend himself, as Jude says. You glorify God amongst his enemies only here. ' He that confesseth me before men,' that is, here, * him,' says Christ, ' will I acknowledge,' namely then, at that day.

(9.) Be afflicted at all things done to his dishonour, as if it were thine own, nay, more than thou wouldst at thine own. Thus Jonathan did for David :

1 Sam. XX. 34 it is said, ' ho grieved for David, because his father had done him shame.' Friends are like lute strings tuned to each, which will sUr and tremble if one of them be struck. Was God displeased at the sins of the Israelites? It is added, Num. xi. 10, that 'Moses was displeased also.' And in another place it is said that he stood weeping in the tent door, and knew not how to help it, when God was so openly dishonoured by Zimri leading Cosbi. Paul's ' spirit was stirred,' Acts xvii., ' when he saw their idolatry.' And as thou art to moan on occasion of sorrow, so to rejoice on occasion of joy. When souls are converted, and the lost sheep and lost groat are found, he calls his friends to rejoice with him, says the parable, Luke xv. 5, 6. John being a friend of the bridegroom, rejoiced that ' he should decrease, and Christ increase,' John iii. 29.

CHAPTER YIII.

Obedience to God described, as it is a service joerfonned to him. The character and properties of those icho are his sincere and faithful servants.

But God be thanked, that ye icere the servants of sin ; hut ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine u-hich was delivered you. Beiufj then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness. —PtOM. VI. 17, 18.

In these words (as of old in the tjrpes of Isaac, Ishmael, the one the son of a bondwoman, the other of a free, Gal. iv. 24) you have set forth unto your view the twofold condition of those two contrary estates, the one of nature, the other of grace; and that in the example and pattern of these lately converted Romans, to whom the apostle wi'ote, that had experience of both, who first, while in their estate of nature, had been servants to sin, but now their condition being altered by grace, they were made free fi'om sin, and became the servants of righteousness ; where by righteousness is meant that universal spiritual strictness and exactness which the word of God requires. For it is here opposed to sin, and therefore to be taken as largely as that is. And it hath reference unto the word ' doctrine ' in the former words, as being the whole entire matter and substance which that doctrine commands, and which Christ gave in charge to his apostles, ' to teach all that believe in him to do whatsoever he commanded,' Mat. xxviii. 20. And the apostles coming among these Romans, and teaching them that righteousness which is required of them, God so wrought by their preachings, that their hearts were framed and fashioned to the obedience of it, like as a piece of clay or metal cast into a mould is fashioned to the likeness of the prints in that mould, and made serviceable to some use. Thus it was with their hearts; for God, that hath the hearts of all men in his hands, hke a skilful artificer, used their doctrine, the words of weak men, as a mould of righteousness, as I may call it, whereinto casting and delivering thereinto, casting and fashioning their hearts, they had the same image and prints of righteousness stamped on them, and were made as serviceable and fit instruments to be employed therein. They became servants of righteousness, shewing and manifesting this in their lives, obeying that word of righteousness to the utmost of their endeavours, and this from the heart, being thus changed and framed thereunto. This is the meaning of the words, as both the words in the original, the scope of the apostle, and the best intei-preters do manifestly shew.

Obs. The condition of God's children is to be servants of righteousness, or, which is all one, servants to God in righteousness, or according to that strictness which he requires in his will. For what he calls here serving of righteousness, he calls ver. 22 serving of God; please but God's law, and you please him. It is true, indeed, that the estate of God's children is an estate of liberty, inasmuch as they are made free from sin in regard of bondage to it; but there are two masters, which, as we cannot serve both, so we must serve one of them ; and if we are free from the one, we become servants to the other. Mat. vi. 24. And also, although it be true, that, as Christ saith, ' henceforth I call you not servants, but friends,' John xv. 15, yea, brethren and sons also in other places, yet Christ speaks not as exempting them from the obedience of servants to his command ; for he tells them they are not his friends, in the 14th verse, unless they do what he commands. And he speaks that to shew his love to them, in that he would deal with them more graciously than the lords of the world do with their servants, though they be men like themselves, and he is God blessed for ever; for he would reveal all his secrets to them, make them his bosom friends, as it follows there ; for the servants know not their master's will, that is, are not of their counsel, as you are, my favourites, my friends, my privy councillors. ' For all things that I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you.' God indeed hath other servants, that are the servants of his secret will and righteous judgments; and so the devil is, and all wicked men, Isa. xliv. 28; but such servants the saints are not, but of his revealed will, they are servants of his righteousness. They are indeed rather sons than servants, he useth them so kindly. God serves himself of wicked men, but the saints do serve God in righteousness and true holiness.

For the proof of this, why should I heap up Scripture, which is so plentiful ? To be the servants of the Lord, was the title that all the old patriarchs delighted in so much, boasting to wear God's livery; so David, Ps. cxvi. 16. And it is the title that the apostles prefix in all their epistles, as esteeming it most honourable ; yea, the angels themselves do make it to be the top of their honour : Rev. xix. 10, ' I am thy fellow-servant to Jesus Christ.' I will omit also the reasons which may be drawn from our creation and regeneration. By the first creation, every creature is bound to be the servant of its Maker. By virtue of our regeneration, and being created again, as also of our election, we are to be the servants of righteousness. ' For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them,' Eph. ii. 10. In which words observe, first, that God's giving us a new frame of heart at our regeneration, is to that end, it is to the obedience of righteousness to good works. Every creature is created to an end, and tied, by virtue of its creation, to that work and service it was created unto, and therefore never rests till it hath attained that end. So all the creatures serve, yea, and rejoice to serve God in that employment he hath created them in. And then, secondly, observe, that by virtue of our election we are bound unto these works, we were ordained to walk in them, and we are indeed chosen servants. But I shall insist more particularly on these following reasons.

1. We are obliged to God's service, because it is the end and fruit of our redemption by Christ. Titus ii. 14, Christ is said to have * given himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purge us to be a pecuHar people to himself, zealous of good works.' I pray mark the scope of the words.

(1.) It is said that Christ gavo himself for us ; that is, rcsif^ned up himself, devoted himself in all that ever he did here upon the earth for us. It was not for himself, since himself was given for us ; he became our servant: Philip, ii. 6, 7, * He took upon him the form of a servant, and was obedient to death ;' and in his death, submitting himself to obey all righteousness, he was righteousness's servant, and in that our servant. And why was this ? It was to make us a peculiar people to himself, and to be peculiarly laid up for himself; to bo set apart, devoted, and given up wholly unto him. And therefore in that place of the Philippians, the apostle exhorts in the 5th verse, that * the same mind should be in us,' that we should become servants of righteousness for him, as he hath been for us.

(2.) Observe in that place of Titus, that Christ giving himself for us, redeemed us ; that is, bought us, purchased us out of our enemies' hands. We are redeemed ones to God, by the blood of Christ. Now the law of nations gives it, that the redeemed should be servants to the laws of the Redeemer. ' You are not your own' (says the apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 20); * for ye are bought with a price : therefore glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, for you are God's' by the right of redemption. But yet because it might be thought, that though God's children are thus redeemed and bought, all the question is, whether they will or do become servants, yea or no ; for many out of unthankfulness deny the Lord that bought them, 2 Peter ii. 1. But do any of his redeemed ones do so ? No ; they are made wilHng to serve him.

(3.) And therefore, thirdly, observe out of that place of Titus ii. 14, that they are said to be redeemed, that they might be zealous of good works; not only willing, but earnest, forward, zealously and hotly pursuing after good works of righteousness; and were it not so, he would lose his end in redeeming us. And therefore God brings home this redemption of Christ to their hearts, how he became a servant to righteousness, yea, to death for them, and so frames the same disposition in them to Christ that was in him to us, Philip, ii. 5. And therefore the apostle Peter (1 Peter i. 14-18), exhorting them to be as obedient children to God, and to walk in holiness and righteousness, useth this as an argviment in the 18th verse, ' Knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things, but with the blood of Christ;' as if he had said. If you did but truly know and beheve that Christ did this for you, and that you have a part in this redemption, it would frame your spirits to the like willingness of obedience unto him; yea, if men's hearts did but seriously make account to have salvation by Christ, and did seek after it truly, they would be willing to obey him in anything.

But though they are made willing, yet still the question will be, whether they are made able thereunto, yea or no, and so do really become his servants, and obey him ? Therefore,

(4.) Fourthly, Know that those whom God calls to be his servants, he doth in some measure enable them thereunto. Every ordinary tradesman, when he takes an apprentice, binds himself to teach him his trade, and therefore how much more God ! And therefore old Zacharias, Luke i. 74, speaking of the frait of Christ's redemption in his redeemed, says, that it is not only to deliver them out of the hands of their enemies, but ' to grant them to serve him in holiness and true righteousness all their days.' To grant them, that is, to vouchsafe and give strength and ability thereunto; and to that end we are called by the apostle, Eph. ii. 10, * a new workmanship, created to good works, which he had ordained that we should walk in them,' Here I pray observe three things.

1st. That God creates a new frame of heart which was not before.

2dly. Observe the end to which he created it, ' unto good works.' The phrase implies a giving a power and abiUty in some measure to do them. For as when God is said to create the heavens to move, what is meant by it, but that he gives a power to do it, abilities and endowments tending to that end ! When an artificer makes a clock to strike, what is meant by it, but that he so frames it as it shall do so ! "WTien God created anything, he bade it to be, and in that gave powers to act.

3dly. Observe that God had ordained that we should walk in them ; his decree was for it long since, and he cannot be frustrated of his end.

These things being thus clear, what use shall we make of them ?

Use 1. The first use shall be for trial, whether we be in the estate of grace or no, namely, by this, whether we are the servants of righteousness or no ? Ai'e we the redeemed ones, as we all profess ourselves to be, when we receive the sacrament ? This inquiry is the more necessary, because this is the usual plea of men, that they are the true and dear servants of God, and do serve him day and night, come to his service and to church, and think that is enough. I will name a few properties of a good servant, which I desire you to examine your hearts by, whether they be in you or no.

(1.) It is a necessary thing in a good servant to know his master's will and humour, and what will please him; and though I confess there are unprofitable knowers of God's will spoken of, that do it not, and who therefore shall be beaten with many stripes, yet necessai-y it is, that he that doth it should know it, and that not only for the matter, for so wicked men do, but for the manner, so to do it as it may be pleasing to God. A clown that goes to the court to serve his prince, if he do not know the fashion of the court, will do but untoward service. And therefore, Eph. v. 15, the apostle, exhorting to holiness of life, and walking circumspectly, or exactly in that strictness God requires, adds these words, * not as fools, but as wise;' that is, not going about good duties as fools and bunglers, that do they know not what, but as cunning and wise artists that know what they do. And therefore at the 10th and 17th verses of that chapter, he, expressing his meaning, bids them ' understand what the will of the Lord is,' and what was acceptable to him ; and to know this aright, it is requisite to know truly what a God he is, whom we have to serve ; and therefore in Gen, xxxi. 33,* the knowing of God is made as it were the groundwork of all his service in the new covenant. To come therefore to the application of the sign, all men in then- natural estate having but low conceits of God, do also fall short in their apprehensions of that righteousness which would please him (even as fools out of their shallow conceits can never please wise men), and hence they never come to be the servants of God in true holiness and righteousness. For the apostle, Rom. xii. 1, 2, requires a true work of grace to ' discern what that good, and perfect, and acceptable will of God is.' Now by this truth,f therefore, it is easy to shew that the most sorts of people in the world are not the true servants of God, because they never dream of, or do follow after, that true righteousness that he requires. To omit the righteousness of the papists, consisting merely in carnal, sensual pomp and ostentation, in their mass, music, crosses, holy water, and the like, I shall consider the outward righteousness of those sorts of people who live among ourselves.

[1.] There is the vulgar sort of ignorant people, that think they serve * Probably ' Jer. xxxi. 33.'— Ed. t Qu. ' test' ?-Ed.

God well enough with then- good meaning, and by mumbling over their creed and ten commandments, and saying the Lord's prayer without understanding. Here is a poor blind sacrifice indeed. Alas, poor people, you worship you know not what; for what God do you think he is that will be thus served with saying even what you know not, nor understand aright ? Your God must needs be a sottish God, an ignorant God, a foolish God, that would be put oft' with such ignorant, blind, and sottish service.

[2.] There are profane persons, that will drink, swear, and blaspheme God, rail upon him and his servants in every tavern ; and yet because they come to church, and there bow themselves to God, think they serve him well enough. But I pray, consider what manner of God you make of him, whom you think you may thus easily deceive, mock, and cozen with fair words and outward compliments. Tell me, wouldst thou own such a servant thyself for one minute, that should rail, conspire against thee, and only now and then come into thy presence (as Gehazi did into Elisha's), and there compliment thee with good words ?

[3.j There are civil men, that live in the bosom of the church, and think by their just dealing and giving content to men, and by carrying themselves smoothly and evenly in the world, to please God. Will this righteousness, thinkest thou, carry thee to heaven ? God must then be such an one as thyself, that careth not much for his Sabbath, his word, his sacraments, or his children, but will be put off with the little morality which thou contentest thyself with. Didst thou never hear that God was an holy God, and that thou oughtest to follow after holiness, or thoa shalt never see the face of God with comfort ? Remember the righteousness of the Pharisees, which if thou exceedest not, thou shalt never enter into heaven.

[4.] There is a formal righteousness in professors of religion, who, because they side with good men, make a show, perform family duties, though deadly, perfunctorily, yet think thus to please God well enough ; if they hear the word, delight in it, speak well of the preacher, and say of him that his voice is pleasant, Ezek. sxxiii. 32, and Ezek. xxxi. 18. But, alas 1 ' bodily exercise profiteth nothing ;' that is, fleshly and outward performances slubbered over, prevail nothing with God without true godliness : faith in Christ and a new nature aims at his glory, it is godliness must do the deed. The hypocrite in the 50th Psalm thought to please God with multitudes of sacrifices, which was the outward worship of the law; and these he offered up, though without faith, zeal, and sincerity of heart. He thought it would please God well enough; and what was the reason ? You have it at verse 21; he thought God like himself, and what pleased his own carnal fancy, he thought it would please God. I say to these that think to please God with a half righteousness, a dead, dull righteousness, as God says to the people, Mai. i. 6-8. A mortal man would not be served so, and yet they thought God would. I desire every one to look into his own conscience, and let him but ask his heart this question, whether he thinks that that measure and pitch of obedience which he performs, will pass for current in God's acceptation at the day of judgment. ^

(2.) A good servant will be careful of his master's business, bear^it in his memory, and not let it sHp. Some servants, when they are sent of an errand, if they be careful to do it, they will be thinking of their message all the way; and so it is with a servant of righteousness: the duties which God hath enjoined him in his word, he is careful of them. What says David? Ps. cxix. 15, IG, ' I will meditate on thy precepts, and consider

thy ways; and I will not forget thy word ;' and though other business comes in, it shall not put that out of my head. And therefore, as God commands, he remembers the Sabbath, and hath it in his mind all the week to plot and contrive his business, so as that he may attend alone on that day.

(3.) A good servant will stand for his master's credit, and not be ashamed of his livery. He will stand in defence of his master, and will not hear him wronged ; and so is a good Christian: he is for righteousness wheresoever he comes, and he will take its part, turn him whither you will, and is not ashamed to make profession to all the world whose servant he is. He will practise that strictness which the world cries down so much; and therefore no wonder if he gets so many a scoff, and snubs, and wry-looks for his Master's sake. And if men break out against nnj of the ways of righteousness, he will be for the defence of it with all his might; and if he be called to it, will spend his dearest blood in the quarrel. What shall we then think of those meal-mouthed professors, that are only for goodness in the company of their fellow-servants; but when they are in the company of their Master's enemies, turn their coats, and will serve righteousness but so far as it may stand with the good liking of their friends, parents, masters, or neighbours ; and for fear of displeasing them, cut themselves short, and will go no further than may stand with their good liking!

But did men know and consider that God whom they serve is a just God, and righteous in all his laws, how durst they content themselves with a half obedience, seeing the same God that gave one precept gave another, as James saith ? No ; they would have a respect to all his commandments if they had a respect to him, for it is universal obedience which he requires. Again, did men consider God to be a holy God, and to be most delighted in such duties, wherein we have to do with him, in his ordinances, as his Sabbaths, word, sacraments, and holy meditations, they would labour to please him herein most, and would strive to be holy, as he is holy. Did men also consider him to be an almighty God, they would come with fear and reverence, with hearts broke and humbled in all their performances. If God had ' delighted in sacrifices,' says David, * I would have given it him;' but he knew his delight, viz., a broken heart: such, saith he, * thou wilt not despise;' and this he therefore brought with him in all his performances. If men did but consider God was a Spirit, they would labour to ' worship him in spirit and truth,' as our Saviour says—that is, with changed hearts and renewed spirits—and durst not bring their old hearts with them, which they had from Adam. And if men did also but consider him to be the searcher of the heart and reins, they would in all their performances have an eye to their inward man, and humble themselves for their secretest corruptions therein. And did men consider God to be a God jealous of his honour, they would not dare to rest in things done out of self-love, and for by-respects, though never so secret, but would labour to work their hearts in all their performances, to have an eye to God's glory, and to deny their own interest and honour.

(4.) A good servant is content to submit, and to be subject to his master's will in anything he commands. ' Speak, Lord' (says Samuel, 1 Sam. iii. 9, 10), ' for thy servant heareth.' Let God say what he will, he is his servant, and must and will obey, and is content to hear, and willing to yield any part of that righteousness God hath revealed in his word. * Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ?' says Paul, Acts ix, 6. To do! Why, he undid all that he ever had done, and took a clean contrary course to

what before he had walked in. Yea, and what wilt thou have me suffer ? he might have said as well, for what imprisonments did he undergo, and all for righteousness' sake ! * I count not my life dear,' says he, * so I may fulfil my ministration with joy ;' here was a good servant. We will suppose now God calls thee to offer up thy Isaac, to cut the throat of thy dearest son, to part with that sin which before thou didst love as thy life ; art thou willing to do this ? Thou art a good servant. Or suppose he call thee to deny thy tredit and reputation in the world for the despised profession of his truth; and though thou beest trampled on, 80 he may have glory thou carest not, thou art a good servant. And so likewise when he calls thee, as he doth us all, in his word, to deny thy correspondences with thy former company in the unfruitful works of darkness, and to fall a reproving them rather, and to gather up thyself from conformity with the world in their corruptions, and thou obeyest, though against the liking of all thy friends, thou art a good servant, and shalt not lose thy reward. And thus also, he calling thee to the spiritual and constant performance of such duties as thou formerly didst neglect or slightly perform—as to hear the word, and to repeat it, and so pray it into thy heart, and to pour out thy soul in daily faithful prayer, and to deal plainly with God in confessing thy sins to him in private prayer, and to tell all, and to deal as honestly in confessing and forsaking as thou wouldst have God deal with thee in forgiving, and to turn thy heart inside outward to him—art thou herein also willing and careful to obey ? Thou art a good servant. And God also requiring thee to sanctify the Sabbath, and to be at more cost than ordinary in a strict care of thoughts, words, and actions, Isa. Iviii. 13, 14, art thou willing to submit? Thou art a good servant. And God also requiring thee in outward conversation, not only to avoid such actions as are scandalous before men, but to beware of unprofitable speeches, of spending away of time, as also to have an eye to the carriage of thy heart, watching over it continually to see how it is within doors, searching and ferreting thy corruptions out of their lurking-holes. This strictness God requires, and it is that great commandment given: Prov. iv. 23, ' Above all keeping, keep thy heart.' Art thou careful to do this ? Thou art a good servant. I could name an abundance more of that spiritual strictness and righteousness, but I should be too long. By all the instances mentioned, examine yourselves whether your hearts have been brought to stoop and submit to be made ' subject to the will of God,' Rom. viii. 7. 2 Cor. x. 5, Is ' every thought brought into the obedience of Christ ?' that is, is it made pliable, willing, ready and glad to yield, whatever comes of it ? Dost thou come to God saying, ' Lord, what wilt thou have me do ?' Oh how many are there in the world that would go for the servants of God, whose hearts yet will never yield to half of this, that never left any of their old sins for God, nor set themselves in a true earnest course to do any of these good duties; nay, whose hearts are so stout and proud, as they stand out against, and are at enmity with, all these ? They cannot endm-e this strictness. Tell them of sanctifying the Sabbath, and what a waspishness, a peevishness, frowardness, and perverseness appears in them, for they cannot endure to hear of it!

(5.) A good servant is he that sets himself apart from all other men's business, yea, even his own, to follow his master's. We use to say of servants, that they are not their own men, much less other men's. * If I seek to please men,' says Paul, ' I am not the servant of Christ,' Gal. i. 10 ; that is, a good servant lives no longer to the lusts of men, no longer

squares his life so as to please them, by living in the same lusts as they do. No; but he lives to the vt'ill of God, 1 Peter iii. 4. We must not do our own cursed wills in anything, we are not our own, that we should live unto ourselves, but to him that paid a price for us. * If any man serve me,' says Christ, ' let him follow me,' John xii. 26. And you know what elsewhere follows upon the denying of a man's self. A man must deny his own will, his own business, and not follow the strain of his own heart in doing what he pleaseth and leaving undone the rest. How far short do men come of this, as those that will not deny themselves in their carnal credit, ease, or sloth, for the performance of good duties. They will serve righteousness but so far as it may stand with the good liking of their parents, friends, wives, husbands, masters, neighbours; and for fear of displeasing them, cut themselves short and pluck in their hands.

(6.) A good servant, as he knows and is content to submit, so he makes a necessity too of doing his master's will, and whatsoever comes in the way is not so necessary to him as this, David, a tried servant of God, says of himself, Ps. cxix. 31, ' I have stuck to thy testimonies;' it is not meant only in regard of defending them, but practising them ; he sticks to it as a conclusion. This must be done, this sin must not be committed, this duty must not be omitted constantly, whatsoever comes between ; as Paul thought that a necessity lay upon him to preach the gospel, and whenas his friends persuaded him not to go because of persecution at Jerusalem, ' I count not my life dear,' says he ; die or live, I will go. Daniel also is an example without all contradiction in this case. When the decree was made that no petition should be put up to any God but the king only for thirty days, Daniel would not baulk a whit of his praying thrice a day, though it should cost him his life ; he made therefore, you must think, a case of necessity of it, he could not live thirty days without private prayer. Every man's heart pitcheth upon some cause as necessary for him to follow, and to it he sticks, and will not be beaten off of it. Thus a covetous man layeth this for a conclusion, that he will be rich (it is the apostle's own phrase), and an ambitious man is for applause, and a voluptuous man is for pleasure ; let the commandment do what it will, what care they ? There is no wicked man but sticks to false necessities, and they hinder his heart from turning. One man is hampered with correspondency with friends, another entangled in the world, and his heart hath interest in many things, and when he thinks of turning to God he sticks to these things as more necessary. But those that are servants to God in righteousness, in .deed, and in truth, count obedience to God the one thing necessary, and that in comparison to it it is not necessary to be rich or learned, &c. There is in every man's life, yea, even in every day, a time that falls out wherein a man's dearest lusts will be hazarded for righteousness' service. Observe now in such passages what it is your hearts stick to as most necessary; is it either the obeying thy lust or doing thy duties ? Let men have a calling in which they must uphold many unlawful practices or they cannot live, what doth the man plead ? It is necessary (says he) that I must live. When men are cast into straitness, that either they must sin or lose their credit, what is the usual plea ? It is a case of necessity (say they), what would you have had me do ? Our own lives afford many of tlae like instances to them ; examine now yourselves, what in these cases you usually do. Do you rather lay this conclusion. Let things be how they will, howsoever God must be obeyed; thy will, 0 Lord, not my will, be done. Hath thy heart such an eye to the will and command of God ? Thou art

then a good servant, and though thou failest sometimes in a particular action, yet still thy heart in thy course is firmly set for the commandment, and makes account so to be wheresoever thou goest. Thou knowest what thou meanest to do, and all the world shall not beat thee from it. I confess a child of God may have a great deal ado in his own heart to deny himself in some cases, yet still his heart cleaves to the commandment, and still thinks that to be more necessaiy ; whereas a wicked man's heart slights the commandment in such a case, and thinks much it should stand in his way, and he leaps over the biggest of all, if need be, for his master lust commands.

(7.) Another property in a good servant is to expect warrant from his master for what he doth, and not to go about his business hand over head, or to do so much as he lists, and leave the other undone. Those that are servants of righteousness should look into the word as the great counsel, and should inquire of the Lord and of his word. Servants use every morning to come to their masters and know what their will is; and so should we in all our actions, that we may have warrant for them. He who in Micah vi. thought to serve the Lord with will-worship, says, ' Wherewith shall I come before the Lord ? shall I offer up rivers of oil, or a thousand rams ?' What says God there to him ? ' He hath shewed thee,' saith he, ' 0 man, what is good; and what the Lord requireth of thee in his word.' Mariners that sail at random often cast their ships away, whenas if they would sail by compass and chart, they might safely arrive at the port. That which is called in Scripture walking with God is to do as Enoch did, who had God ever in his presence, had an eye to his commands, and observed his orders in every particular case, directing him. This thou shalt not do, this thou shalt now do. ' As the eyes of the handmaids were upon the mistress,' as David speaks in the case of salvation, Ps. cxxiii. 2, so should our eyes wait on the Lord in the case of his service. The apostle condemns eye-service in the servants of men, because their masters are not always present with them, and cannot behold them always; but it is commendable in the servants of God, because they are always in his presence, and his eyes behold whatever they do; and therefore they should do all as seen of him.

(8.) The last, and indeed chiefest, property of a good servant (which must be added to all these) is not only to know his master's will, and to be content to submit to it, but to do it effectually. You know there was one said he would go work in the vineyard, but yet did not, Mat. xxi. 30, 31. It is not enough to enter into the profession of God's service, and to call him Master, and give him good words: 'For not every one that saith. Lord, Lord, but he who doth the will of God the Father, shall enter into heaven,' Mat. vii. 21. For the same purpose John speaks, 1 John iii. 7, 'Little children, let no man deceive you : he who doth righteousness is righteous.' And as he that doth sin (as in John viii. 34) is the servant of it, so he that doth righteousness, that is, that makes it his trade, constant practice, and his course (for the word cro/sTi/ notes out an habitual continued practice), is the servant of it; and ' herein,' says John, 1 John iii. 10, ' are the children of God and the devil manifest: he who doth not righteousness is not of God.' There be many that in their good mood will come and proffer their service, and set their hand to God's work, but they look back again, and as those in Hosea vi. 4, their ' goodness is as the morning cloud, and as the early dew' it goes away; like as a mist, or dew fallen in the morning, and seems to water the earth, but when the sun ariseth, it vanisheth

away. When they had heard a powerful sermon, and had judgments threatened, being ' hewed by the prophets ' (as it is at the 5th verse), and being wounded, pricked, terrified by the word of his mouth, then they would come and submit themselves, and do God a spurt of service. But yet, alas ! their reformation was but as the lightning (as it is at the 8th verse), that flasheth, and is soon gone again. For (as it is at the 7th verse)^still they broke their faith, and dealt treacherously in God's covenant. Thus traitors, when they ai-e in prison, will do anything till released ; but their traitorous heart remaining still, they are as bad as ever when at liberty. These are not servants, but runaways, and God wiU not own them, for he can scarce keep them for one day together.

Xor is it enough to do service to God constantly, and to abide by it, but we must do it thoroughly, having a respect to every commandment. This is God's testimony of David his servant, Acts xiii. 22, * that he did perform all his will;' and it is Paul's prayer for the Colossians, that they might ' walk worthy of the Lord, and please him in all things, being fi-uit-ful in all good works,' Col. i. 10. To walk worthy of him, is so to walk as God may not be ashamed of us, but may say, rejoicing in us as he did in his servant Job, Job i. 8, ' Seest thou not my servant Job, an upright man, one that feareth God and escheweth evil ? ' We must endeavour to please him in all things, to obey him in one thing as well as another. A man will not own a servant who does but what he hsts, and what pleaseth himself, and leaves his master's choisest business undone; who insists on tithing mint and cumin, and leaves the great things of the law, as sanctifying the Sabbath, and constant private prayer, unperformed. And we must be fruitful in all good works too; that is, making trial, and doing some of all sorts, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Let us look to ourselves, for there are many, Titus i. 16, 'that profess they know God,' and acknowledge him for their Master, wear his livery, ' but yet in works they deny him.' When a man in a constancy acts contrary to what God wills, he denies him. For if his course was but traced, it would be said, Surely God is none of his master, he will own no such servants; and therefore in works they deny him.

BOOK III.

Evangelical motives to obedience, drawn from the obligation which God hath laid upon us, by his appointing us unto good words, in his election of us, and by the greatness of his love manifested in the several instances of it. — Other motives urged from the consideration, that Christ having by his death conquered the devil, and destroyed his kingdom, ive are by our Christian profession engaged to hate him, and fight against him as a j)ublic enemy to Christ and us, and by all our actions to endeavour the ruin of his dark kingdom of sin. — Other motives deduced from the divine presence and majesty apparent in our holy services and performances; and also from God's design in the revelation of his word, that we should not only read and know it, but practise it too.

This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they ivho have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men. — Titus III. 8.

CHAPTEK I.

A motive to love and obedience, drawn from the consideration, that this obedience is a business, an holy emplotjment committed to us, which we should be careful to discharge. — "That the doctrine of free grace enforceth the performance, and suits our spirits to it.

My design is to consider the motives which the New Testament affords to invite men regenerate, to hohness, obedience, and fruitfulness in all good works ; and to this purpose I have chosen this text as the most eminent, which hath in its coherence and connection a comprehension of many the chiefest things that might move us thereto included in it. The introduction in those words, ' This is a faithful saying,' refers to what forewent, of which he gives that encomium, and should rather close the former verse than begin this, as Luther and others observe. But because the apostle's scope is to bring upon those he would exhort to good works, the weight of all said in the foregoing verses, therefore it is fitly joined to this in this coherence, and is as if the apostle had said. That which I have now spoken is of all sayings or doctrines the most faithful, and tends the most of all others to provoke them that believe it to be careful to maintain good works ; therefore, says he to Titus, affirm these things constantly. Ere I insist on those motives, which this so faithful a saying affords to good works, I am to speak to four things which serve to open the text.

1. That the exhortation to good works and obedience follows their having believed : ' that they which have beheved in God,' &c.

(1.) Faith, then, is clearly founded upon no work m us or upon us, which

is the apostle's scope to prove, as appears by the 5th verse, where, treating of that which is the ground of faith for salvation, he says, * Not by works of righteousness, but according to his mercy, hath he saved us.' What God doth to save us, that is the only foundation for our faith ; and a man therefore clearly and nakedly believes on God without consideration of works, * that they who have believed in God,' &c.

(2.) It is in vain to exhort any to good works till they have first believed. Papists slander our doctrine, that by crying up free grace and faith, we deny good works ; and upbraid us, that our doctrine afibrds not any motives thereto sufficient; and because (forsooth) we do not urge them to that end for which they would have them, namely, to merit heaven, therefore they reproach us that we proceed not upon sufiicient grounds. But we do indeed proceed in the right order: first, we teach men to believe on free grace as if there were no works; and then to fall a-doing as if there was no faith to be justified by: ' that they who believe in God may be careful to maintain good works.' Yea, we add further, we urge good works upon a higher gi-ound, for a better and more noble end than they can pretend to who assert that we are justified by them. You will say. What is that ? It is to glorify God. All the world must needs gi-ant that to glorify God is a higher end than to justify man: John xv. 8, ' Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bring forth much fruit.' That is the motive which Christ urgeth. Again, they say, we proceed not on good ground, because we do not good works to merit by them. Ay, but we go on a better ground, which is love and thankfulness; whereas theirs is a motive suited only to self-love. The devil endeavoured to blemish Job : Job i. 9, ' Doth Job serve God for nought ?' And indeed religion founded wholly on self-love and interest would be mercenary and base; but to serve God from a principle of love and gratitude, is a noble act of friendship: John xv. 14, ' Ye are my friends, if ye do whatever I command you.' But of the others it might be said. You are my hirelings only; you only seek to merit by your services, and do all to merit heaven. When Paul, Rom. vi. 22, exhorts to sanctification, he gives this as a motive, that ' the end is everlasting life;' but yet this life is a free gift of God, not what we merit, but what he freely bestows. That is a poor religion in which, when men have done all, they are workers of iniquity; but now if men work only for self, they are workers of iniquity, for setting up a man's self is original sin; and therefore, if we live according to that principle, we rise no higher than corrupt nature.

2. It is to be considered what is the import of that phrase, * maintain good works.' The words are, 'x^oardedai kuXuv soySjv. Beza renders it, that they excel, or go before others (namely, heathens) in good works. The same word is used ver. 14 ; and that sense of comparison is favoured by that expression, Tit. iii. 14, ' Let ours also,' &c., speaking of Christians as in distinction from heathens ; and so then they that have believed (in the text) are set in opposition to unbelievers. It were the greatest dishonour to Christian religion (which the apostle boasts of to be so glorious and faithful a doctrine) if it should produce less, or not eminently more, of good works than moral principles in heathens have done: ' What singular thing do you ?' says Christ; ' for these things do the heathens and publicans,' Mat. v. 47. T/ 'xspiealv, what over and above other men, yea, what that is abundant in comparison of them, and which they think superfluous ? Christ had used the verb of the same noun, ver. 20, concerning the Pharisees, w^ho were so full of works that they looked to be

justified by them. But, says Christ, except your righteousness doth -ziiia-oixjiiv, overflow, exceed their righteousness, you cannot be saved.

Another meaning is, that they should take care of good works, as their business, function, otfice, which they are set over, so the word more naturally signifies; as in 1 Thes. v. 12, 'Know them that are over you' (speaking of officers). It is the same word, and doth govern a genitive case, as here also; so likewise the apostle, 1 Tim. iii. 5, when he speaks of ruling one's family well, useth the same word to express a man's being over it as chief orderer, governor, and disposer of it, as a president, which is applied to being over things as well as persons. Take any ofiice of charge or trust, especially such wherein one hath others under him, and it hath such a name in the Greek and Latin tongues as to express the matter committed to his charge; and so we in English express the office in the title of the officer when we call him the treasurer, master of the ordnance or ammunition. These names import an office, and a man's having a gi-eat charge committed to his trust to manage, and this not as a petty under-officer, but as in chief. And so the word vPooTas^ai in the text is an elegant metaphor, and is as if he had said, Exhort them that believe in God to consider what office and function by so doing they have taken on them, and are hereby engaged in, even to be in chief over good works. And thus it imports three things :

(1.) Thp.t they have all sorts of good works committed to them, as their business and employment.

(2.) That they have them committed to them as the ware, the goods, the treasure they deal in, to see to it that no kind of good work be wanting (as one when anything is committed to his charge is careful of it), and which they are to improve and manage, as the most precious treasure committed to them as a trust by God. They are to husband it, and to have the care of it; and therein they are in chief too, in comparison of all other men, and are therefore to excel all others by far in faithfulness, care, and diligence therein. Moral civil heathens and formal Christians may pretend to this, but you are in chief; you are bo)wrum opemm prafecti, the foremen, the presidents of the good work office ; and God will require that at your hands which he will not at theirs (as states and princes do of their chief officers the account of such things), and therefore as your place is, so let your care be to abound and excel therein. And this interpretation, as it is more natural to the Greek phrase, so it is more genuine to the former words, ' that they be careful.' That which such places and offices of trust do properly requii-e is care ; and therefore the apostle using this metaphor, that he might answer the force of it, useth also the word ' careful;' and both together do urge with a doubled strength this that is required of them. And with this falls in (though expressed here with a more emphatical addition) that which is used as a more ordinary ground of exhortation to holiness so frequently in Scripture: 1 Thes. iv. 7, ' He hath not called us to uncleanness, but to holiness;' you are to make holiness your vocation, your calling, trade, and business ; and so in 1 Peter ii. 21, ' whereunto you are called;' and every one is to walk in his vocation. Thus good works are the very calling of a Christian.

(3.) The third thing to be considered is the motives, the incentives here used, which the former part of the words does direct us to, when he saith, • This is a faithful saying, these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that,' &c. It directs us to the words or sum of doctrine afore delivered. Now, that doctrine delivered afore is the doctrine of fi-ee grace, as it is set

out to US in the work of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which he had insisted on to this very end in the verse immediately before, and in the foregoing chapter, ver. 11-13, all of which came in under the comprehension of these things in the text, and all which he himself here brings in (as, if you read what is afore and after, appears) to this end, to urge all sorts of good works upon all sorts of beUevers. Now, the doctrine of free grace is that to which in an eminent manner the apostle useth to give the style of a faithful saying. Thus, 1 Tim. i. 15, 'This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, whereof I am chief.' Which doctrine he would have ministers most frequent in, to affirm constantly, and to affirm with a special certainty and assurance; for so the word to affirm imports, to speak of them as things that hath the greatest reaUty in them, and which, when so delivered and so uttered, do mightily work upon men. And so, I come to the main doctrine intended, which shall be made good out of this context and epistle, viz., that the doctrine of the free grace in God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, doth afibrd sufficient motives and inducements to men, already saved by faith through that grace without works, to cause them to be careful to abound (above all others) in obedience and good works.

1. The doctrine of free grace is that faithful saying here intended, as that which he sets his probation est upon to be effectual to this end. * These things,' saith he, namely, to teach, ' are good and profitable unto men.'

2. You have here the free grace both of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in their several works ; you have them all here.

(1.) You have the free grace of God the Father. Ver. 4, ' After that the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared.' He intends the Father of our Saviour Jesus Christ, viz., God, so in the Greek, whom he calls Saviour in distinction from Christ; ver. 6, ' For he,' says he, namely, this God our Saviour, ver. 4, ' through Jesus Christ our Saviour,' &c. Therefore these are two distinct persons, and both our Saviours: the one the Father, the other the Son; and he speaks of this his grace as an hidden mystery, which we knew not of, being of old concealed in his breast towards us, and therefore used the word ' appeared,' imi^avri, broke out suddenly, unexpectedly, as Joseph's love to his brethren did.

(2.) There is the grace and love of Jesus Christ and his work, whom he therefore calls our Saviour; and he says no more there, because he had told'us (but seven verses afore, chap. ii. 4), that ' our Saviour Jesus Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.'

(3.) There is the grace of God seen in the Holy Ghost, and his work.

[1.1 The gift of him and his person unto us to dwell in us. Ver. 6, 6,

* The Holy Ghost, whom he shed on us richly,' as the word is ; and it is indeed the richest gift that ever was given.

[2.] In his work upon us, that he regenerated and renewed us; ver. 5,

♦ By the w^ashing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.'

[3.] In the concomitants of the gift of him unto us, expressed first in general and comprehensive terms, ' saved us,' estating us into the w^hole of salvation, absolutely and indefeasibly, fully and completely, in respect of the right to it; and this not of works, but according to his mercy, mei'e mercy. And then, secondly, it is particularly expressed in the parts of it: 1, justification from all sin, and a fulness of righteousness, ver. 7, 8 ; and, 2, a perfect title to eternal life, ' He then make us heirs of eternal life ;' not

children onl}^ which is Peter's motive, ' hut heirs of eternal life accordinj^ to hope,' for so the words are to be divided from the other. Heirs of eternal life being relatives one to the other, these intermediate words, and ' according to hope,' being intended to distinguish our being made heirs here in this life from that hereafter. Here it is in hope, * we are heirs according to hope,' but not according to possession ; for as the apostle says, Rom. viii. 24, * What a man sees (or posscsseth) why doth he yet hope for it ?' Yet so as it is as sure as if we had it, for it is an inheritance, and we are saved, ver. 5, fully, completely already; and so the last clause of this doctrine is made good out of the words, that to men already saved through faith, or of grace without works, the doctrine of this grace affords motives to all good works. Now before I come to demonstrate this in each particular, I shall premise this general proof concerning the whole of the grace of God in all three persons. 1 Peter i. 13, when he would exhort them to behave themselves as obedient children, and to be holy in all manner of conversation, ver. 14, 15, to move them to this, he had said before, ver. 13, ' Trust perfectly in the grace that is brought unto you in the revelation of Jesus Christ.' So do I rather read the words, than as our translators have rendered them. Trust, nXiiui, is perfectly, not by halves (so in the margin), for this grace afibrds a perfect ground and stay for faith to rest upon ; and then it is plain that (pioo/MsvTiv, which they translate, in the grace ' which is to be brought,' as in the future and for time to come, may more naturally be understood, ' is brought,' it noting what at the present is brought, and so is to be read. It was the word ' hope,' and the Syriac translation together, that diverted this reading ; whereas hope is often put for faith and trust, both in the Old and New Testament. In the Old, Job xiii. 15, that known place, ' Though he kill me, yet will I trust in him ; I will hope in him,' And in the New, Eph. i. 12, ' That we should be to the praise of the glory of his grace, who first trusted in Christ.' In the margin it is 'hoped,' and so in the Greek. Thus then the words, 1 Pet. i. 13, may run, ' Trust perfectly on the grace which is brought to you,' or, as the vulgar, * is offered to you.' And the other phrase, rendered ' at the revelation,' as if it were at the day of judgment, is manifestly, h d-zoxaXv-^si, 'in the revelation of Jesus Christ,' in whom this grace is made known, and is termed a revelation in respect of the former hiddenness and secrecy of it compared to the manifestation of it now, God having kept it secret in the times of the Old Testament. Thus, in Eom. xvi. 25, the preaching of Christ is called ' the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.' And at this Peter hath as evident an aim in using this word here, having, in the words before, ver. 12, 13, said that it was kept hid from those of the Old Testament, yea, the angels, who desired to pry into it; but it is brought to you, even home to your doors, in the revelation of Christ, namely, through the gospel-Now having thus restored this Scripture in 1 Pet. i. 13 to its right meaning, that which I produce it for and apply it unto is, that the trusting perfectly in this grace should make us obedient, yea, and the more perfectly we trust, the more we shall be obedient; and you can never trust enough or too much upon it, and upon it alone, whilst (as it follows) you are obedient children, or as the children of obedience, made up of nothing else, you carry yourselves towards this grace. For why should the apostle upon this connection and coherence mention their relation of children, when he would have the grace of God to move them, but because it is the sweetest connection and comprehension of these two in the heart ? For no man rationally is moved to anything which he hath not a principle within him

suited to, and which answers that motive, and which is to be the life and soul of it. If a man be a slave, one of a mere servile spirit, this gi-ace speaks not reason to him; for that is practical reason to every one that suits his spirit. Now one under the law, as the apostle opposeth it to grace, Eom. vi., can find no reason, no strength, no efficacy in such cords of love and free grace, no more than a beast doth in principles of common reason ; but if one be a child, and have the spirit of a child, and is ' under grace,' as the apostle speaks, then this grace, that is his sovereign, teacheth him this obedience, and he obeys it naturally, for he is a meet scholar and disciple to be taught this lesson. And this another parallel place in this epistle to Titus confirmeth : chap. ii. 11,12, ' The grace of God, that brings salvation, hath appeared.' Which is all one with what Peter had said, 1 Pet. i. 13, ' Which is brought to you in the revelation of Christ.' And because that this grace, that is in God himself, is the subject of the gospel, therefore that doctrine of it is called grace ; as likewise because withal it is the object of our faith, it is called faith, ' teaching us, 'rraihimusa,'' teaching and instructing us, as children are taught by their instructors and tutors. Now therefore as in the Old Testament they are under the law as their ' schoolmaster,' as their ' tutor ' and ' governor ' (I put two or three of the phrases together used by the apostle, Rom. vi., Gal. iii.), so being under gi'ace, their spirits are taught and disciplined by it, formed and framed to the principles thereof and the lessons it reads, which do all teach denying of ungodliness, and subjection to* all dispositions and duties to God, as he is holy and gracious, which may make him perfect to all and every good work of all sorts, which he owes to himself in temperance, to live ' soberly ' to his neighbour in justice, to live 'righteously ' and to God in living ' godly.' That is, it teacheth perfect holiness to all we owe any kind of duty unto ; for all we do, or can be supposed to owe, are either what is due to God, our neighbour, or ourselves ; and it teacheth, as for the motive or incentive thereto, all these in one lesson, the grace of God appearing to the heart, and being manifest to a man's soul.

CHAPTER II.

That God's love, in electing us, is a great motive to all acts of love and obedience. That in this his election of us, he hath ordained and appointed us to

love and good works.

1 come now particularly to demonstrate that the grace and love of God, manifested in our salvation, eugageth us to holiness, obedience, and service.

The proper work of God the Father is election, and his grace shines most eminently there. Thus in the mention of all three persons, and in the ascribing the proper work to each, the apostle, 1 Pet. i. 2, attributes election to the Father. Now, therein I consider two things : 1. the act itself; 2. the love, the greatness of the grace and love shewn in it, and how strongly by both we are obhged to holiness and obedience.

1. That God should choose, and single, and design thee forth to this prefecture, to this office of care over good works, engageth to all diligence and faithfulness. The apostle judgeth it but reasonable, and upon that ground urgeth Timothy to give himself wholly up to that office the great God had chose and designed him unto ; and he urgeth his engagement to do so by what obligation is found amongst men : 2 Tim. ii. 4, ' No man *Qu.'of'?— Ed.

that warreth entangleth himself with the aflfairs of this life,' but gives over all other callings whatever, as the law of a soldier then was, ' that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.' Paul, when he was chosen to the greatest service that ever man underwent but Christ, was told by Ananias, Acts xxii. 14, ' The Lord God of our fathers,' that chose them, * hath chosen thee, that thou shouldest know his will,' &c., ' and hear the word of his mouth,' that is, obey him ; and the sense of this fired Paul's heart. And Christ also. Acts ix. 15, calls him * a chosen vessel.' To what end ? ' To carry my name;' that is, to bear my name about the whole world, and unto all ages after, in holiness of life and purity of doctrine ; a vessel singled out to do it, purged, and ' made meet for his Master's use, prepared to every good work ;' God having known, owned, and set his seal upon him for his own by election, as Paul speaks, 2 Tim. ii. 19, alluding to that in Isaiah, * Be ye pure, ye that bear the vessels of the Lord: touch no unclean thing,' Isa. lii. 11 ; much more the vessels themselves, chosen to bear his name, ought not to do so. It was a great and effectual argument to Cyrus, though an heathen prince, to persuade him to give leave and commission to the Jews to build the temple, even this, that God had, so many years before, designed him by name ; that God had said, in Isaiah's time, of Cyrus, ' He is my shepherd, that shall perform all my pleasure,' Isa. xliv. 28. This thus written of him long before he was born, and this coming to his knowledge, he was moved, and efiectually moved hereby to perform it: Ezra i. 2, ' Thus saith Cyrus, King of Persia, The Lord hath charged me to build an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judea.' How much more should it move thee, that hast found, or hast good hope of (or thou hast hope of nothing), that God hath writ down thy name in his book from all eternity, as a chosen vessel that should know and perform his will ? Paul, in like manner, strengthens this charge to Timothy with those prophecies that had been given forth of him at his ordination, when he had hands laid on him by the appointment of the Spirit of prophecy: 1 Tim. i. 18, ' This charge I commit unto thee, son Timothy, according to the prophecies which went before on thee, that thou by liiem mightest war the good warfare.' By them, that is, to be stirred up the more by them, because it was thus foretold of thee; much more should we be stirred up to our holy duty, when from everlasting God hath chosen us hereunto. Now, Eph. i., Paul expressly tells us that ' God hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love.'

2. Holy obedience being found to be the main thing pitched upon by God in those decrees of his, as the principal end, under his own glory, unto which he designed us, we should be the more excited to it. The first and primary, yet so in that place the apostle makes it; for the apostle's scope is, ver. 3, to enumerate the blessings, and the acts of blessing, with the proper designments of them as we are blessed with them in Christ, and to set them in their order. He begins with election: ver. 4,' According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world;' and withal lays forth the proper principal designment of election, as the first act of all other towards us ; and the first and principal is holiness, ' to be holy and unblameable before him in love.' So that as the act of election is distinguished from predestination, and is the fu-st of the two, so the primary and first aim God in that first act of election had was holiness, as essential to the person who was to be in Christ; and then adoption, or sonship, or right to eternal life and glory, which is the act of predestination, as it is

distinguished from election, is but as an outward privilege or dignity superadded. When God chooseth a man, he chooseth him for himself, Ps. iv. 3; for himself to converse with, to communicate himself unto him as a friend, a companion, and his delight. Now, it is holiness that makes ns fit to live with the Holy God for ever, since without it we cannot see him, Heb. xii. 14, which is God's main aim, and more than our being his children ; as one must be supposed a man, one of mankind, having a soul reasonable, ere we can suppose him capable of adoption, or to be another man's heir. As therefore it was the main first design in God's eye, before the consideration of our happiness, let it be so in ours. It is not only the means through which God hath chosen us to salvation: 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14, 'Who hath chosen you through sanctification,' &c. So sufi'erings are also said to be the means, but this is the end also, and that more than our glory and happiness; and therefore holiness for ever remains, and love, 1 Cor. siii.; and we are ' chosen to be holy before him in love.' This portion has made me understand the reason of that order and placing of those benefits and fruits of election, namely, why election to sanctification is put fii-st, and so sprinkling of Christ's blood put after it, yea, after obedience: 1 Peter i. 2, * Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.' It is not to shew that sanctification, obedience should go before the sprinkling of the blood of Christ upon us, which is our sanctification; but his speaking of election sheweth (as Paul also doth) what was the most eminent and principal designment and end whereto we were elected, even sanctification unto obedience. Election was unto holiness immediately and primarily, and was first and chiefly intended—I do not say it is greater in the worth of the thing, so Christ's blood is of infinite value—as that which God ultimately aimed to bring us unto. And though Christ's blood is of infinite more value, yet this is more than the sprinkhng of that blood on us, for it remains for ever in heaven, when we need no more sprinkling of that blood.

3. To make this obligation laid on us by election the stronger, let us consider that as God hath chosen us unto holiness, and unto good works, so it is said reciprocally that he hath ordained good works for us. Thus the Scripture, that it might infonn us, turns it both ways, that as he ordained us to good works, so he ordained good works for us to walk in ; even as when election to glory is spoken of, to shew the certainty, and God's love in it, the Scripture doth not only say we are ordained and prepared to glory (as in Piom. ix. 23, and elsewhere), but that this glory is prepared for us : ' Come and inherit the kingdom prepared for you,' says Christ; and so says the apostle, 1 Cor. ii. 9, ' Eye hath not seen the things prepared for them that love him,' suited aforehand to make them happy. The same we find of good works, that a chosen vessel is said to be prepared for every good work, as you heard out of Timothy. And so in Eph. ii. 10, good works are said to be prepared for us to walk in; not ordained only by way of precept, for so they are ordained to wicked men, but by decree and predestination, set out as a man's work and way; ■whence that phrase of Solomon is, ' "V^Tiat thy hand finds to do, do with all thy might.' A godly man's work (as Christ's was) is given him ; and the apostle speaks it to shew what ordination good works have in our salvation, yet so as they might not derogate from free grace, for by grace we are saved without works. God, that made us new creatures, and suited

us to good works, bad prepared and ordained all sorts of good works, to which this new creature was fitted; as when he made man, he made paradise for him to walk in, and set out his way beforehand. Thus God hath chose out work for us, and (as Christ says, John xv. 16) 'hath ordained us to bring forth fruit, and that our fruit should remain;' for both are of eternal purpose.

4. The consideration that he hath chosen you, not others, how doth it call for holiness! 1 Peter ii. 8, 9, 'Christ,' says he, 'is a stone of stumbling to the disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed;' that is, with that kind of appointment which is to permit them to act as creatures, and to shew themselves such. He needed not have added that (for he brings it in with an also, or over and above), but to that end, to move them the more to obedience; now then, to move them, he adds, ' But you are a chosen generation, that you should shew forth the praises of him that called you' (which follows), so that he chose you, as in the former words; and this is spoken as in manifest opposition unto appointing others to disobedience. The like you have 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14.

CHAPTER III.

That the great love of God in electing of us should be a strong motive and incentive to love and good ixorks.

I come now to the love shewn in these acts, and shall demonstrate that all the mercies and other graces or love that are to found in election should move us to obedience : Rom. xii. 1, ' I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' It is a transition from doctrinal points to practical duties; and the illative therefore sends us to justification, sanctification (handled in chapters iii. iv. v. vi.); but it especially sends us to election, and the mercies in the bowels of it, of which he had treated in three chapters immediately before. This love of God bestowed on us, in and at election, the Scripture makes use of a double way to work holiness and obedience in us.

1, By way of imitation, it some way or other teacheth all sorts of graces, and is the lively pattern of them to us.

2. By way of incentive or motive, so as in such things wherein it doth not so fully serve as a pattern to be imitated (as in all it cannot), yet in those it serves as motives and inflamers thereunto.

1. By way of imitation. God's love in electing us is propounded as a motive to obedience: Eph. v. 1, ' Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children, and walk in love,' He speaks it of God's love, as distinct from Christ's ; for of that he speaks as a further motive in the next words. I confess he speaks it upon occasion of God's love in justification there, that we should imitate it in forgiving others, as God, for Christ's sake, hath forgiven us, Eph. iv. 32. Yet the force of the argument therein holds as strong, yea, more strong, in all considerations about his eternal love, which was the original, the spring, the fountain, the cause of justification, and all else ; yea, out of which he then justified, adopted, bestowed all blessings upon us in Christ. And as the virtues in a sovereign water are stronger in the spring than in the streams, so is this love in God's heart; and though it be appUed only to love to brethren, yet it extends to all obe-

VOL. VIT. Q

dience, the fountain whereof is love to God; and the terms he expresseth himself in this are generals, which will reach to all in his love, and to all compliance therewith in us unto all commands. For when we are exhorted to be followers of God, it is a general that comes in upon occasion of that particular act of love shewn in forgiveness; as often general rules, and reasons, and promises are brought in upon occasion of particular instances, to confirm and enforce them. Then when it follows, ' Walk in love,' what! doth he mean it in this one act of it, of forgiveness, which is a going forth of love ? No; but in all the duties of love besides. And though the apostle instances in this as a more broad and conspicuous way of God's love in forgiving us, and thereupon more particularly exhorts us to chalk out the like path to ourselves to walk in, of forgiving others, yet this is but one of those walks his love delights in. He hath dwelt in love (as John speaks), walked in love within his own grounds, within himself (which I speak as warranted by that phrase, ' which he purposed in himself to us,' Eph. i. 9), with infinite delight from all eternity; and in all these, all so far as he hath made known to us, the head ways of them, we should be followers of him, as well as in forgiveness or the duties of love to brethren. Thus we should walk in love, and out of love to him, in all those ways which he hath chalked out for us; and this we should do to shew our love unto him by it. This word, ' Be ye followers of God' (that is, as one that follows another in the same step), is too dull, too flat a word, falls short of what the apostle seems to intend, and therefore is to be taken in, corresponding with those that follow, 'and walk in love'; that is, in the same steps. In the original it is, be ye imitators, //.i/xt^rai. This farther sense is also aimed at, that we should be like unto God in his love, as children are to their parents in feature and disposition; let our love answer to his, as limb to limb in a parent. Therefore he adds these words, ' as children,' that resemble the father, yea, often the grandfather most. And everlasting love is as the grandfather that begat, and brings forth all these effects and fruits of love, adoption, forgiveness, &c. Yet still this word /xiixT^ral would speak something more, viz., we should act over to the life the love of God, as actors do stories; we should not only have in our hearts the image of it, but we should act to the life the postures, the passions, the gestures, the looks, and the casts of that love of God; and we should have all these continually, as far as may be, before our eyes, to imitate them in our ways.

2. We should set up God's love, not as a pattern only to us, but as an incentive to inflame us; and therefore he adds these words, * as dear children.' The words are in the original ug Tixva aya'K'riTa. 1. As children, to imitate, to act over his love in all your walkings towards himself and others. And 2. As beloved children, to take in his peculiar love to you, to invigorate and act you. Children are to imitate their parents, as they are their parents and their superiors; and so Christ urgeth it. Mat. v. 48, • Be ye perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.' And so the apostle urgeth it, 1 Peter i. 14, ' As obedient children, fashion not yourselves;' that is, imitate not your former lusts, iiri G\j(syjriixaTiZj)(x,iwi; that is, be not cast into the garb, the mode of them, frame not yourselves to them; but be holy as I am holy; imitate me your Father. But the apostle, in Eph. V. 1, was enforcing a point of love. 3. And therefore he adds, * as beloved children ;' as darlings whom God loved and delighted to love; this is put in to make God's love the enkindler and incentive of this divine fire in us. Consider but how beloved, how dear you are and have been to him;

consider the endearments of his lovo in all the sinf^alarities and eminent properties of it. What love was it you were wrapt in when brought forth ? Everlasting love. What womb of lovo was it in which you as children were first conceived ? It was in everlasting love. By what love were you chosen and predestinated to the adoption of sons before the world was ? Eph. i. 5. It was that love which made you children; neither can any come to know how dear you are to God till they come to discover and drink of this love, the fountain, the original of all. And indeed it is with respect to having been beloved with this love that they are called beloved children. As also, in 2 Thes. ii. 13, ho gives them this title and com-pellation on purpose, in reference to election : ' We are bound to give thanks always unto God for you, brethren and beloved of the Lord, because God hath chosen you from the beginning.' He contents not himself to have called them brethren, but on purpose adds the other word, ' beloved,' because it was in election they were first and chiefly beloved. And, ia Col. iii. 12, Paul joins both, and makes them an argument to all graces of every kind: ' As the elect of God,' says he, ' holy and beloved, put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering.' It is easy to conceive how bowels of mercy and kindness are required of us, as resemblances of that love which was accompanied with such infinite bowels and heroic kindness in God towards us ; for out of these God chose you at first. It is also to be considered how much kindness, meekness, riches of long-suftering, and forbearance, and forgiveness God ordained in election to shew forth toward you. The fountain of them all was electing love, and in electing love was found all these, or it designed to shew forth these ; only how humbleness of mind was shewn therein as a pattern to us may be a doubt; but it may be easily resolved by what I have said on Eph. ii.,* where I shewed the greatness of God's love, in this respect, that it was an humbling condescension in him, the great God, to look down on creatures. Ps. cxiii. 6, * Who humbleth himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth.' If to look on them is condescending goodness, much more to love them, and ordain them sons, and friends, and companions with himself. And it was yet a greater condescension to ordain his eternal Son to dwell in human nature, and that nature to become one person with him, which was the fundamental decree of all, for we are chosen in Christ as in our head, Eph. i. 3. Look, therefore, whatever singularities, particularities there are of graces of any kind to be found in this love, they should either be patterns or motives unto us, to answer them in love and obedience: Eph. v. 1, 'As dear or beloved children, be imitators of God.' Take the words as a motive, and judge within yourselves how forcible it is to any heart possessed with childlike love to God. Suppose God from heaven should say. What, my child (as that mother to Solomon), my beloved child, yea, as thou art my beloved child, do this or that, and therein obey me ; how should this move any of you ! Set this before every command, and think that God thus speaks to thee : ' As thou art my dear child, thou shalt have no other gods; thou shalt not commit adultery, murder,' &c.

Let us now run over all those special properties and singularities by which this love is commended to us, and see how they all enforce and persuade to holiness and obedience, and the giving of all love to God.

1st, Let us view the priority of this love, that he loved us first, not we

* In Vol. I. of Ms works. [Vol. IT. of this edition.— Ed.]

him. Upon this ground Christ first, then the apostle John, enforceth all obedience to all commands.

First, Christ doth it, John xv. 16. When Christ would move his apostles to that great and hazardous work of preaching the gospel over all the world when he was gone (as he moved Peter in those words, ' Lovest thou me?'), he urgeth this, that he had loved them first: ' You have not chosen me' (says he), ' but I have chosen you.' He mentions election to them, and therein this endearing consideration, that he had first chosen them, not they him; and then subjoins that he had ordained them to go all the world over, and * bring forth fruit, and that their fruit should remain.' It is as if he had thus spoke to them : You did not first provoke me to set my heart on you, and single you out, but I freely chose and loved you. Then John (1 John iv.) insists on the same argument, which he expresseth more takingly thus: * Not that we loved God, but that he loved us,' ver. 10; ' and loved us first,' ver. 19; and we loved not him at all for a long while after his love and pity shewn to us. All the commandments are by Christ reduced to two heads : Mat. xxii. 37, &c., ' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.' Now John's scope also (in 1 John iv.) is to exhort to both, and to move to both. He useth this as the argument twice in that chapter: 1, in verses 10, 11; then, 2, in verses 19-21. At the 10th verse he heightens the love of God: ' Herein is love ;' that is, herein is love indeed ; and he doth this on purpose to draw from us obedience to that command, and love to our brethren. Ver. 11, * Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.' Therein are comprehended all the duties of the second table : Rom. xiii. 8, 9, ' He that lovelh another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet: and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this. Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' Then again, says John, 1 John iv. 19, ' "We love him' (so ours render it), or ' Let us love him' (so others render it, and indeed the word uyaTrxfj^sv is indifferent to both, and favours both alike), ' because he loved us first;' and from thence, ver. 20, 21, he infers love to our brethren, and that as a commandment from that God that so loved us : ver. 21, ' This commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.' So that love to God, the sum of the first table, is enjoined, or rather sweetly flows from what the law of love requires; and we are bound to requite love with love to one that loved us first, and so highly loved us too, ver. 11. The other argument is fetched from a superadded commandment, 1 John iv. 21, from him that thus loved us; and it is enforced from what Christ had said, John xiv., * If ye love me, keep my commandments.' Now in the midst between both these arguments he inserts this axiom, 1 John iv. 17, * As he is, so are we in this world.' This belongeth to the argument, why we should imitate God. The coherence carries it to God in his love, especially that love before all worlds, which he had treated of so largely before : ver. 16, ' We have known the love that God hath to us. God is love, &c. And herein is love, that he loved us first, &c. If then, as he is, so are we in this world, we shall have boldness at the latter day, because we behave ourselves so as to be like him.' Because as he is, that is, as he is in loving us first, and giving his Son for us, such we are in this world

in loving others in imitation of him ; or ' as he is, we are in this world ;' that is, wo being imitators of that everlasting love of his, * wo shall have boldness at the day of judgment,' it being impossible God should disapprove of those that are like him in that which is most dear to him, viz., his love and the eternal acts of it. Thus Piscator and others interpret it.

2dly. Consider the peculiarity of his love, that he hath loved you above all others, in which there is another eminency of love : Deut. x. 14, 15, ' Behold, the heaven, and the heaven of heavens, is the Lord's thy God, the earth also, with all that is therein. Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and he chose their seed after them, even you above all people, as it is this day.' He here sets out the special love of God in choosing them.

(1.) He had choice enough; heaven and earth lay all before him, and all things in both, and he could have made every star, every pebble, so many eons to Abraham. As in the mass or chaos, the matter of all creatures, which lay alike before his power, out of the same matter he made the dull earth, he might have made the vigorous and shining sun ; so he had all creatures in heaven and earth out of which to have made sons to Abraham (as John the Baptist speaks), but he chose them out of mankind, the seed of mankind.

. (2.) He had before him all people of mankind, made all of one blood. Acts xvii., and out of all ' he chose thy fathers and their seed,' out of all (as choice implies), yea, above all.

(3.) And 3dly, He made this choice, not out of a bare act of will, as one resolved to choose some person with a delight to love them, and deHghting to shew this peculiar love to them.

(4.) And 4thly, That love and delight was all, and the alone cause thereto him moving, as that word 'only' (in Deut. x. 14, 15) implies: * Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers,' &c. Now to what end is all this electing love thus set forth to us, but to the point I have in hand ? Deut. X. 12, 'And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good ?' This Lord, the God of gods, Lord of lords, a great God, ver. 17, who is withal so good, so full of love, of all love to thee,.what doth this God require of thee (the Hebrew signifies also to ask, request, entreat; so 1 Sam. i. 17, 20, 27, in the petition which Hannah put up to God, the same word is used) ? What doth this glorious God, after all this love manifested, fall a-petitioning thee for (as though God did beseech, as the apostle hath it, 2 Cor. v. 20) ? What doth he ask again of thee, as in answer to all this love ? Nothing but thy love and thy obedience, which by the law of justice is a debt from equals, namely, to requite love with love, Rom. xii. 8. He requires nothing but love, which (as Christ says) sinners, the worst of sinners, the most notorious sinners in the world, pay mutually: ' Publicans and sinners love those that love them,' Mat. v. 46, Luke vi. 32.

CHAPTER IV.

Another motive to obedience deduced from God's great love in givinrf his Son to die for us. — That he requires nothing in requital of so inestimable a gift, hut that v:e should love, obey, and serve him. — Other considerations of God's love urged, as motives to obedience; that he delights in loving vs, and therefore it should be our delight to love and obey him. — The eternity and immutability of his love, urged as motives to faithful and constant obedience.

The gi-eatness and immenseness of God's love in electing us was such, that he designed to shew it hy a gift answerable: and that was the gift of his Son to death, to be a propitiation for our sins; and for this let us return again to that scripture in 1 John iv. 10 ; ' Herein is love, not that we loved God, but God loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.' And then it follows, ' Beloved, if God so loved us', &c., he puts a so upon it, as leaving it to the Holy Ghost to heighten this so by him unutterable. Our Saviour had done the hke : John iii. 16, ' God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son'—a gift so great, that he hath nothing now left he values: ' He that spared not his Son, how shall he not with him give us all things ?' Rom. viii. 32. Kow then consider, 0 man, what doth this God, that designed to give so great a gift merely to commend his love, require of thee again '? What! ' Thousands of rams, ten thousand I'ivers of oil, thy first-born in requital of his first-born ?' lie twice renounceth all or any of these, both in Ps. 1. and Micah vi. WTiat is it the Lord asks of thee (says Moses also, Deut. x. 12j ? It is all a diminutive : alas ! as good as nothing to him. It is but thy love, thy service, which when thou hast returned to him to the utmost thou art able, fall down on thy knees, and say, thou art an unprofitable servant. All of it is that which he hath no need of, of which he might say as of sacrifice, ' If I had need thereof, would I ask thee ?' It is that God who asks thy service, who might command it, and it is a favour that he gives thee leave to love and serve him. And it is but that love and service, which the worth and excellency of this God, if known by thee (though his love to thee were as yet unknown), would draw it from thee, and move thee to fear him that is so great, ver. 17, to love him that is so good and loving, ver. 15, 16, and to serve him, namely, in outward obedience, by walking in his ways, who commands all he doth command for thy good, ver. 14, and so thou seiwest, providest for thyself most in semng him. And as for that which he desii-es thee to pai't with for him, what is it but what is merely an hindrance to this love and service of him according to his greatness and excellency ? and to part with it is for thine own good: ' Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your hearts, and be no more stifl'-necked,' Deut. x. 16. It is an inference fi-om what he had said before. Now what is that foreskin that makes thee thus stifl'-necked ? It is inordinate self-love. Self-love is the sum of the law of sin, as love to God is the sum of the laws of God. The laws of sin tell thee, thou shalt not fear God, nor worship him ; thou shalt take his name in vain, thou shalt kill, steal, or commit adultery, &c. And if there be any other commandment of sin, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, engi-afted so deep in all men's hearts,\^' Thou shalt love, thyself above all things whatsoever.' But the law of God commands love to God, and obedience to him springing thence, and requu'ing the whole soul and strength (as Christ speaks) to love God above one's self, as by the pro-

portion Christ sets is evident, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, therefore God above thyself. Hence this self called flesh, which opposeth true love to God, is enmity with God and his law, Rom. viii., and must be therefore cut ofl* and cast away, ere we can love him and be subject to his law, as the apostle there speaks. And to this purpose the same Moses, preaching the gospel in another place, speaks, Deut. xxx. G, ' The Lord will circumcise thy heart, to love thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul.' What is it that this great God, that hath out of his love given a gift so great, and so dear to him, requires of thee ? Not any part of what is truly and substantially love unto thyself; he permits the whole of it in substance still to remain, and requires only the superfluity of it. The Hebrew word used for the foreskin, which is to be cut ofi", signifies a superfluity, as that part of the skin which the Jews in circumcision did cut off is. And therefore Ainsworth emphatically translates it so here, and usually elsewhere, circumcise the superfluous foreskin; and by the choice of that superfluous skin to be the subject of circumcision, was fitly signified how little and small a matter it is that God requires of self-denial in us. What doth the Lord require of thee ? Not to cut off self entirely, but only the inordinacy, the excrescency; and so some have understood that of James i. 21, ' Lay aside all superfluity of naughtiness.' God requires no more than that thou shouldst part with what will hinder thy loving him above thyself; and the word in its signification suiteth this also, for it signifies a stoppage that hindereth, and so is to be cut off", as that which letteth thee in thy loving and obeying him. And upon the whole to conclude, consider that in Deut. x. 12, 13, it is expressed, that ' it is for thy good that thou art to serve the Lord with all thy soul, to keep the commandments w^hich he commands thee for thy good.' These words, ' for thy good,' are added to this thy loving and serving him; and so to bring this further home to the thing in hand, herein thy love and obedience unto God doth but fitly and meetly answer as an imitation of that his love in election, and the contrivements of it, as was observed. For as God in that his loving us had eminently and above all a respect to his own glory, Eph. i. 6, ' to the praise of the glory of his grace,' yet so as he did withal take in such conspicuous aflections of love to our persons, that he is said to have delighted to love us, and to love us most in this, that he makes himself, and his love and glory, our happiness and highest end, and accordingly so contrived his designs therein, as to hold forth both these, decreeing all for our good, as well as his own glory; thus in the like proportion and subordination, in imitation of this love of his, he allows us to love ourselves in loving him, and to that end hath given all his commands for our good, as out of Moses was observed; yet so as to set him up above ourselves, and make his glory, and the praise of it, our chiefest and greatest good. And thus Moses concludes that 10th chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 21, * He is thy praise, and he is thy God.'

Let us proceed on to whatever other singularities or rarities are to be found in this love, and shew how we should answer them all in love and obedience, and that all and each should become the highest and most inflaming motives to us. Concerning all which let me premise this general consideration once for all, that by the same reason that the apostle urgeth this circumstance in God's love, viz., the priority of it, that God loved us first, as a motive to obedience to his commands, 1 John iv. 19-21, and as Moses urged the peculiarity of this love, Deut. x., by the same reason may and should any other consideration that commends it move us.

Therefore consider that God, in choosing thee, not only loved thee, but delighted to love thee. It was not barely an act of will that he would choose some, he cared not whom, as being indifferent about it; but it was an act of love, and not of love only, but of good pleasure, Eph. i., and of delight too, as you heard, Deut. x. How should the consideration of this sweeten obedience to thee, not only to do his will, but to do it willingly ? This love should make not only the commandment not gi'ievous, 1 John v., but a delight. It is hard to find an instance of this in the hearts of the ordinary sons of men; only in Christ our head we may find and have the great example. How ready and wiUing did the fore-mentioned consideration make him to do God's will in all things, to fulfil all righteousness, and to make this work his meat and drink ! ' I have a baptism to be baptized with,' says he, ' and how do I long till it is accomplished.' And what was one spring and motive hereunto ? It was even the consideration that God had chosen him and delighted in him, which made him his servant and obedient: Isa. xlii. 1, ' My servant whom I uphold, my elect in whom my soul delighteth.' And therefore he took courage and resolution to go through with the work he was chosen to. Thus it follows, ' He shall not fail, nor be discouraged,' ver. 4. The sense and apprehension which Christ had, that God had written his name as the head, at the top of his book of life, and that his name was also engraven deeply on his heart, made him speak thus in Heb. x. 7, ' Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) to do thy will, 0 God.' But if you consult the place this is taken out of, there is more of the disposition of his spirit added: Ps. xl., ' I delight to do thy will, 0 God.' And in both places this it was that moved him, ' In the volume of thy book, thus it is written of me.' God had predestinated him as a man before all worlds, 1 Peter i. 20; God had delighted in him, as thus decreed, before his works of old, Prov. viii. 30. And now that his time came to shew his love to God, and work for him, this infinitely quickened him; and therefore, having run his race and despatched his work, he says, John xvii. 4, ' I have glorified thee on earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.' And it follows, ver. 5, ' And now, 0 Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with tlie glory which I had with thee before the world was;' which is interpreted by that verse 24, ' The glory thou hast given me' (and so ordainedst it) 'before the world was: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.' You may easily discern by the connection of the 4th and 5th verses, interpreted by the 23d, what had set him on work, and what he had in his eye, in despatching all his work on earth so willingly, so eagerly: it was God's everlasting love, that had designed to him so great a glory, which therefore as soon as now his work was done, he utters as that the thoughts of which, and of his having been eternally ordained unto it, out of so great a love, had set him a-work. Now, then, hath God rejoiced over thee from everlasting, in his intentions to do thee good, with his whole heart and his whole soul (as Jeremiah speaks) ? How should this consideration draw out, suck out thy whole heart from thee, to love and serve the Lord with all thy heart and with all thy soul! Was his whole soul thus delighted to love'thee ? Deut. x. 12, 15. Was it a pure act of good pleasure in him ? Oh how shouldst thou strive, Col. i. 10, ' to walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.'

5. Consider that this love hath been from everlasting, Jer. xxxi. 3. This antiquity of it, that it is of so long continuance, of so long a stand-

ing, should have its distinct influonco also upon thco. This is therefore inserted, Eph. i. 8, ' who hath chosen us before the foundation of the world, to be holy before him iu love.' Paul minds the Thessalonians of it also, to move them to holiness : 2 Thes. ii. 13, * God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.' ' From the beginning,' that is, from everlasting : 1 John i. 1, * The Word of life, that was from the beginning.' This consideration hath much in it to move us.

(1.) When one hath had his eyes and his heart long upon a thing which he desires to see accomplished, how greedy of it, how delighted in it is he, when he sees it begun to be accomplished! As Christ sitting in heaven, and expecting till his enemies be made his footstool, when he sees any new degree of it accomplished, how doth it rejoice him ! If God hath so long since, even from eternity, designed out holiness for his children, he expects earnestly to have holy obedience and service from them.

(2.) Consider, that as this hath been in his eye so long, so how little a time it is since thou wert holy, or begannest to look towards it. His eyes and heart were toward thee before the foundation of the world ; and it hath been half thy time perhaps before thou begannest to look after him or his ways, or to set thyself to be holy before him. And when thou didst begin after so long time, thou didst find thyself enwrapt in the designs of eternal love upon thee, that ordained thee to this very thing before the world was. Oh how should this quicken thee to hasten thy work, and to make speed, as one born out of time ! God loved and chose thee from the beginning, 2 Thes. ii., and had no other thoughts nor stirrings of affections but of love and kindness to thee ; but thou from thy beginning hast had no other but thoughts of provocation and enmity against him, for thy thoughts had been only evil from thy infancy, Gen. vi. 5. As therefore when David would move God not to cut him off in the midst of his days, what says he ? Ps. cii. 24, 25, ' I said, 0 my God, take me not away in the midst of my days : thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth.' This speech of David I turn into an exhortation unto thee. His love hath been to thee before he laid the foundations of the earth, and throughout all generations; thy being and existence was but as this morning unto him, and it was the midst of thy days ere thou brokest off thy iniquities by repentance. Thy time of love is short, and thou hast already shortened it; Oh now fall to work and ply thee, and make, if possible, the rest of thy life an whole life to him. Peter had a touch of it, 1 Peter iv. 3, yet without upbraiding; for our God is so good, as he upbraideth no man that turns to him from his former sins. Well, what says Peter ? * The time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles.' He says no more, yet it is enough to quicken us ; yea, it is the scope of the apostle to do it. The consideration of this, with the other of God's love, he sets together on purpose to press this exhortation, that those that have believed should maintain good works. He fetcheth his rise from the third verse : ' We ourselves were sometimes' (too long a time) ' foolish, disobedient, serving divers lusts ;' and j-et God loved us all that while. So ver. 4, ' When the love of God appeared, that had been hidden,' &c. You therefore that served nothing but sin before, should be the more diligent now in serving God, &c.

6. Consider that this love of God hath been constant to thee and unchangeable, ever since and all along from the beginning, the same.

2 Thes. ii. 13, and so continues to the end, John xiii, 1. Yea, it is such as nothing can separate from it: Rom. viii. 38, 39,' I am persuaded that neither death, nor Hfe, nor angels, nor principaUties, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ our Lord.' And this should move to constancy and continuance in well doing always, in which we should suffer nothing to interrupt us, nothing to separate us from it. The apostle (in that 2 Thes. ii., from verse 13 to the end, and chap. iii. 5) improves this consideration of the everlastingness, unchangeableness of God's love (for this place speaks at once to both) to move them to stability in every good word and work, and to cleave fast to all the doctrines and commandments both by faith and obedience. He had spoken before how God would give up the reprobate number of professors of Christianity to antichristian doctrine and unrighteousness (in plain words), ' that they might be damned.' But (says he, ver. 13) ' We are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth ;' both these two being necessary to salvation. 1st, It is necessary to believe the truth as it is in Jesus; 2dly, to be sanctified and made holy men by it, and God from the beginning hath chosen you to be saved through both. Therefoi-e, says he, vers. 15-17, * Stand fast, and hold the traditions which you have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle. Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.' It is therefore an exhortation, seconded with a prayer for their establishment in faith and holiness, ver, 16, 17, manifestly founded upon and deduced from what he had spoken, ver. 13, now alleged, God hath from the beginning chosen you. In verse 16, he makes use of it as a prayer, ' God, even our Father, who hath loved us, and given us everlasting consolation, establish you in every good word and work.' The sum of which is, that God hath out of love chosen us from the beginning or everlasting, and thereby hath given us consolation everlasting ; the object of it being his unchangeable love, his love which hath been from everlasting, and will be to everlasting. Consolation is put chiefly for the object matter, that might and doth afford everlasting consolation, as the doctrine of faith is called faith. And thus it is rather to be taken, because his petition thereupon in the 17th verse is, ' Comfort your hearts,' namely, with this which is so comfortable a ground of everlasting comfort; as also because he adds in the 16th verse, 'And good hope through grace.' He might well say so, for the matter and ground of consolation is founded on the pillars of eternity, on that unchangeable love of God of which he speaks, whose love and gifts are without repentance. Now the things he suitably exhorts to and prays for, as that which is and should be the fruit and operation of that love in our hearts, are two. The first is, ver. 15, to stand fast against all opposition made against the truth deUvered, as soldiers that keep their ground. The second exhortation is, to lay hold, sure hold, and hold fast with strength, zpaTiTrs ; therefore the Syriac adds fortiter, as Judas bade them hold Christ: Mat. xxiv. 40,' Whom I shall kiss, hold him fast.' Be you as stable, fast, and immoveable in your faith and obedience, as God is in his love, who hath loved you from the beginning, from everlasting. God hath held you fast, and none can, or shall pull you out of his hands ; do you hold as fast to his commands.

The word signifies also studiously and carefully to observe, Mark vii. 3, 4, and so it relates to commands given for practice and obedience, and imports withal constancy therein. And by the way, as for their direction to know what was truth to hold, and duties and ordinances to be observed by them, what to stick to when in those times antichristian dreamers should come to draw them away from the truth with all deceivableness of unrighteousness, he refers to what they had been taught, either by word or by epistle, Bo leaving nothing tOjTevelation immediate as their rule. Now they had then the apostle's teaching by word of mouth; we wanting that, are left to stick to what is written as sufficient for us, and as having nothing else to have recourse,to, and therefore we must not leave the Scripture, or admit any other dui-ing all the time that antichrist is to deceive the world (for this is the only direction that is given for the whole of those times), and we are sure antichrist is not yet out of the world. Now this standing fast in the doctrines, and holding fast the observation of these traditions given them, he further interprets to be constancy in well-doing : chap. iii. 4, * And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that you both do and will do the things which we command you;' that is, will be constant and immutable in your obedience, which still in the enforcement of it hath a correspondency with, an aspect upon, and an inference from, that love of God from the beginning. This is in his exhortation. Then, 2dly, in his prayer, by which he further insinuates their duty, this inference may yet a little further also appear; for he grounds his petition upon those acts of God's eternal love: ' God, even our Father, that loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation, and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.' And chap. iii. 3, he interprets this establishing to be keeping them from evil: ' But the Lord is faithful, who shall stablish you and keep you from evil;' and he adds in ver. 4, ' And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that ye both do and will do the things which we command you;' that is, will be constant, immoveable, uninterrupted in the doing of them. You both do and will do as God hath loved you and will love you evermore; so then, to be stable in every good word and work is to keep themselves from evil, both for the present and for time to come for ever. This becomes those who profess to hope that God hath chosen them from the beginning, that God hath loved them with everlasting love, and thereby given them matter of such everlasting consolation. And look what arguments Paul in prayer useth unto God to grant this to them, which are thus suited to the matter of his petition, as you may discern ; the same may be turned upon us as motives to move us thereunto; for what we would move God with in prayer, God expects should move us in practice. Now it is the eternity, stability, and the immutabihty of that love, which he useth as a motive, to stablish them in every good word and work.

The very same exhortation to constancy, diligence, and unchangeableness in well-doing, if I mistake not, the apostle in like manner foundeth upon the immutability of God's counsels towards the heirs of salvation, expressed in his promises to them, out of the coherence of Heb. vi. 11-13, 17, 18 verses compared, 'We desire' (says he, ver. 11), that is, exhort, 'that every one of you do shew forth the same dihgence,' which out of love they had formerly and at first shewn, ver. 10, ' to the full assurance of hope to the end.' He provokes them to diligence with constancy, that they be not slothful, but laborious, ver. 10, in every good work, and ' followers of them who, through faith and patience,' or constancy in well-doing, joined with

patient suffering for it, ' inherit the promises.' And what promises are they he lays before them, and what is more eminently held foi'th in the promise ? As he had exhorted them to diligence and constancy without slackening, so suitably he lays before them that in the promise which answereth thereto as on God's part, citing the great promise made to Abraham the fother, in the name and for the behalf of all the heirs of promise : ver. 13, 'For when God made promise to Abraham,' who after he had patiently endured, obtained the promise, ver. 15. And in the promise the apostle, to quicken them hereto, singleth out (with an eminent observation) the faithfulness and immutabihty of God's counsel, which is the point in hand, and unfoldeth in the tenor of the promise the oath annexed to it, ' Wherein,' says he, ' God willing more abundantly to shew to the heu'S of pi'omise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it with an oath,' ver, 17. As God therefore cleaves to us in his love without separation, we should in obedience cleave to him therein ' with full purpose of heart,' Acts xi. 23. As God hath stuck to us, and would suffer none to divert his love, we should inviolably stick to his commands, as David did : Ps. cxix. 81, 'I have stuck unto thy testimonies.' And as nothing shall or can separate us from the love of God in Christ, as on his part; and as none of all those miUions of heroes far excelling us, that have been in all generations, so took his heart as to alter his purpose of love towards us, or to allure him from us ; so neither let anything ever separate us throughout our course from pursuing after communion with that love in keeping his commands. Let not wife, children, honours, riches, pleasures, temptations on the left hand or right hand, or whatsoever can fall out or present itself unto us, ever separate us from the love and service of God. He that forsakes not these, being wooed by so great a love (as hath been described), he is not worthy of him and his love, nor of the least beam of it. An heart inflamed with this love will do or suffer anything. I make a great observation of this in the instance of Paul, when Christ had brought him first upon his knees, and had humbled him, having struck him off his horse. ' Lord,' said Paul then, ' what wilt thou have me do ?' But when afterwards this love of God had fired his heart, then what was it he was not content to do and suffer ? And when (in this Eom. viii.) the tide and full sea came in and overflowed his heart, insomuch as he cries out, ' Who shall separate me from the love of God in Christ ?' then it was that he was willing to have been himself separated from Christ, accursed from Christ, as Christ was from God on the cross, for the glory of God in the conversion of his brethren. Now nothing but this love could have raised up his heart thus high.

I shall conclude this part of this discourse with what Paul concludeth his in the 2d and 3d chapters of the 2d Thessalonians. He had exhorted them to constancy, praying for stability in every good word and work, laid before them the eternal love of God to move them, and also put the Lord in mind of it to move him to gi-ant it to them, and had expressed his confidence herein : chap. iii. 4, ' And we have confidence in the Lord touching you, that you both do and will do the things that we command you.' But how should we attain this ? might they say, and what is the best, the readiest way of all other to arrive thereunto ? He immediately adds, ' And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God !' So prays he, and in praying thus for them suggests the most effectual way to attain to this obedience. By the coherence before mentioned, I understand it of the love of God towards them, that love spoken of chap. ii. 16. And this is that single,

and only, and all-sufllcient direction Paul gives them unto all obedience, viz., to iiavo their hearts guided into that love, and the comprehension of the heights and depths of it, as elsewhere he prays for the Ephesians. And this is to be obtained no way but by prayer to the Lord to lead them into this. When you hear any duty pressed, you presently call for directions; and those are usually as dithcult to practise and attain as the things or graces they are prescribed for. Paul here prescribes but one, but it is a sovereign one, and withal the only way to attain it, viz., prayer. The Lord or person he prays unto is the Holy Ghost, manifestly distinguished from God, namely, the Father and Jesus Christ. The love of God the Father, and the longing after and waiting for the revelation of Christ in his glory, are here made the subject matter, the journey's end, the sight, the enjoyment, the object of the Spirit's giving them. And so elsewhere it is made the proper office of the Holy Ghost, to lead us into all truth, John xvi., to guide our feet into the ways of peace, and as meetly it is appropriated to him here to direct our hearts into the love of God, and longings after Christ. For as he it is who is given us of God, to communicate the love of these other two, who sustain the consideration of objects to be revealed and communicated by him, so, Piom. v., * the love of God' is said to be ' shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost,' whom he hath given unto us, as on purpose to that end. So then you have all three persons in this small verse, and a prayer is made to the Holy Ghost under the title of Lord, M'hich some deny to be found in the Scripture. The word that is here translated to direct is xareuduvai, that is, to guide you by a straight way, or by a right line. It hints this further to me, which hath been in my heart from other considerations, that of all ways and means that tend to work and keep us, the love of God apprehended, and inflaming love in our hearts to God again (for so I take the love here, both passively and actively, for he leads us into love unto God, by discovering the love of God), is the direct straightest way of all other ; the shortest cut, as we use to say, for it is by a straight line. There are other motives and persuasives that have done victoriously, but this excels them all. As I use to say of that way of living by faith immediately, in comparison of poring upon graces in ourselves, and importing assurance therefrom, that this latter is rather a going about, and fetching a compass with a great deal of difficulty and uncertainty ; but that other way of faith is as the north-east passage to the Indies, the shortest and speediest way of comforting and upholding the heart when found out. The love of God shed abroad will contribute more in a moment towards our comfort and peace, than all other considerations in a man's whole hfe. And therefore pray as Paul did, that ' the Holy Ghost would direct your hearts into the love of God. And withal, this prayer informs us, that our hearts do of themselves seek out other ways to encourage and uphold them in obedience, and other motives are more suited to the natural disposition of them, and we are apt to neglect these considerations of God's love ; therefore it is that he so solemnly prays to the Holy Ghost to guide and direct them into it, because otherwise they would never find this \ia.y, or light upon it.

And observe lastly, that the subject of this the Spirit's guidance is said here to be the heart, for indeed that is the proper seat and vessel for God to shed abroad his love into, as, Kom. v., the apostle doth in Hke manner express it. It is the heart, and not the understanding (for this love passeth knowledge). And I having upon occasion of handling the greatness of this love (on Eph. ii. 6), viewed all that I could find in the Scripture to set

out the greatness of this love by, found little to what might have been expected, to exaggerate and greaten a subject of that magnitude this is of. I resolved the reason of it into this, that it is left to the Spirit to make an immediate report of this love by impressions of it, rather than by notions, or rational arguments, or inferences. It is left to him to speak that to the heart which can be but whispered unto the mind. It is too big for words, and too glorious to be clothed with man's apprehensions, much less expressions, and it is fit only to speak itself; and that may be a reason also, why we find so little of rational inducements drawn from this eternal love to enforce obedience. I have given you all I could find in the New Testament. I attribute it to this, that this love spoken by the Spiritto the heart persuades to it without any more arguments, and will not take in the assistance of reason, or notions, or inferences to urge the commands of itself, but will itself do it, and doth it abundantly. It remains that I pray as the apostle doth, 2 Thes. iii. 5, ' The Lord dii-ect your hearts into the love of God!'

CHAPTER V.

Motives against sin, because it is Satan s great work and interest, who is Christ's greatest enemy.

He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this jmrpose the Son of God tvas manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. —1 John III. 8.

The subject on which I intend to discourse, is motives to holiness and against sin, drawn from such arguments as the New Testament aflbrds, such as arise from the thoughts of Christ and his love, and fi'om the consideration of the end and design of his death.

One great end of his death I have already shewn in another discourse,* to be his overcoming Satan thereby, and so redeeming us from the power of him that had the power of death. What motives to holiness the consideration hereof will afford is the thing now to be considered, and what use faith may make hereof to strengthen and help the heart against sin. Now the scope of this test is punctual to it. The apostle's scope is to give an exhortation unto holiness and against sin ; and to this end he sets forth Christ and Satan as two opposites and antagonists: Satan, as is denoted to us, having set up sin as his work ; and Christ is described as the founder of holiness, and destroyer of Satan's work. These two have drawn after them all the sons of men into two several parties, who are here, and shall be hereafter, distinguished for ever, by the poise and inclination of their spirits, and course and sway of their lives, as they stood to sin or righteousness, and shall accordingly be judged to belong to either Christ or Satan. * Little children' (says the apostle, verse 7), ' let no man deceive you: he that doth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. And he that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose was the Son of God manifest, that he might destroy the works of the devil,' verse 8.

Christ the Son of God is the fountain of holiness and righteousness to all that hope for, or expect, salvation from him; verse 3, ' Every man that * In the discourse of Christ the Mediator. Vol. III. of his works. [Vol. V. of this edition.— Ed.]

hath this hopo in him purifieth himself, even as ho is pure.' And vcr. 5, ' In him is no sin.' And vcr. G, ' Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not : ■whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.' So as (verse 7), ' Ho that doth righteousness is righteous, even as ho is righteous.' Christ requires of all he justifies (although ho imputes a righteousness of his own to them), that they themselves bo so truly and really righteous in their hearts and lives, as rightly from thence to be denominated righteous, as truly as all other denominations are from what qualifications are in a man, from which he acts accordingly. A man is termed a wise man, that hath a principle of wisdom, and acts wisely, though he may have mixtures and strains of folly ; so giving the like allowance to a holy man, he that doth righteousness, makes it his business, work, trade, and study to do so, is righteous. Let no man deceive you with the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ, as if it dischai'ged you from having a true inherent hoHness of your own, such and the same for kind as he had. No; it obligeth you unto it, to be yourselves * righteous, even as he is righteous.' Now to sharpen the exhortation, and make it yet more pungent, he sets forth withal Satan, Christ's enemy and opposite, and the contrary head, fountain, leader and author of all sin, and opposer of all righteousness, who sinned from the beginning, and was himself the first that brought sin into the creation, perpetrated it himself, and was the cause of it in all others ; and who not only then sinned and diffused it, but he ' sinneth from the beginning,' that is, hath continually made it his trade to sin, and to cause others to sin. Though Adam brought it in among men, yet it was but by one act, and of that act Satan was the designer; but Adam was not the continual cause of sin to others, and is dead long since, and ceased to sin, but Satan sins still from the beginning. He sins not only personally from the beginning, but by provoking and tempting others continually ; for so the devil's sinning from the beginning is here principally to be understood, as he is the causer of men to sin, as at the beginning he did to our first parents, and he thereby makes the sins we commit his works ; for our sins, or the sins in us, as caused by him, are called his work.

1. Our apostle brings in this of Satan's interest to sin as a distinct, yea, a farther motive to the saints against sin, to be superadded to the former. He had said that sin was a transgression of the law, ver. 4. That consideration is to move you as creatures and subjects to God, for you are therefore to be such as live under law and obedience ; but that is denied now-a-days to be any obligation, though to John it was. But consider yourselves as persons redeemed by a righteous Saviour, bearing your sins, who took sins away, ver. 5, and in whom is no sin; he could else never have taken sin away in us, nor could he have any other end in dying than to take sins away, seeing himself had none. Will not the ingenuity of this move you ? Then (as the apostle John says) consider whose interest and whose cause sin is ; it is the devil's work, and if the law of subjects will not move you, let the law of arms. That sin is the force and strength of the kingdom of Satan, Christ's enemy, is an higher aggravation of it than [that] it is a transgression of the law. What is but felony in time of peace as a breach of the law, is treason in time of a common engagement; and to gratify a professed enemy at such a time is as witchcraft and rebellion.

2. As he thus sets forth sin as the devil's proper work, thereby to deter from it, and exhort the more powerfully to constant holiness, so he pro-nounceth every one that commits sin to be of the devil, and that hereby

tlie children of God and Satan are manifestly distinguished : ver. 10, 'In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.' He instanceth in that one dutj', and he turns it both waj'S, either to omission or commission ; and the reason he gives is full, for the devil sins from the beginning, that is, makes a trade, a practice of it. He interprets it to be meant of a way or a course of sinning, as by the other he signifies a course of righteousness. Of the devil he saith, ' he sins' (not, hath sinned) ' from the beginning;' he hath made it his work without interruption, without ceasing ; therefore whosoever he be that continues in sin, commits it, makes a trade and practice of it, is of the devil, for he sins as he doth. As a gentleman may do an ignoble work of a tradesman, but yet ceaseth not to be noble by it, for he lives upon his lands, and not upon his work, so may a godly man do a piece of a sinner's work, and he doth it too often ; but he doth not make it a trade, nor live on it (1 John i. 10, and ii. 1, 2): he lives on higher things, and if he belongs to Christ, Christ will not suffer him to continue in sin ; for Christ came to dissolve the work, as the trade, the haunt of the devil in him ; and he would wholly lose his end if he preserved not his own, if he broke not that haunt, that way of sinning, and the dominion, the rule, the work of Satan in him, and so defaced that character wherein the children of Satan resemble their father, in being workers of iniquity, as Christ calls those, Luke xiii. 27, that have been the greatest pretenders to him. They shall be found to have been (if you take their whole course) ' such workers of iniquity' ('Eoyara/), Luke xiii. 27. And in this sense he that commits sin is here taken, as by the opposite afore, he that doth righteousness is righteous. Where not one alone act of righteousness, but he that worketh righteousness, that makes it his study, business, and life, is meant : ' He that lives in sin is of the devil.' He speaks of the differing states of a believer and unbeliever ; because! Christ was manifested to do this (or to do nothing), namely, to dissolve the devil's trade and work in us. He hath spoiled the devil's business, and he will suffer no man (whom he died for), after he is engrafted into him, to be the devil's factor.

3. The apostle holds forth Christ and Satan to be two fountains, the one of sin, the other of righteousness. All mankind (according as their courses and ways are) fall either to the one or the other, and are either of God or of the devil. Though men consider it not, they hold of the one or the other in capite, as of their head ; yea, they are children of one of these. John viii. 44, ' You are of your father the devil, and his lusts you will do.' Their indoles, genius, disposition, and practices, are the same that his are, and he is their prince, their sovereign, their natural, or rather unnatural, lord ; and in this the children of God and of the devil are manifest; even as here the apostle says, ' He that commits sin is of the devil, and he that doth not righteousness is not of God.' He knows not Christ, nor ever truly saw him, or was acquainted with him, ver. G, for he came to take ein away, to dissolve the works of the devil, &c.; and therefore, all you that profess the name of Christ (says John), look to this, and examine yourselves by it, deceive not yourselves, but walk by this example.

I have thus given you the general scope of the apostle's words; and the design of my following discourse is not now to urge that point of the distinction of a regenei-ate and unregenerate man, by their several courses of sin and righteousness, but to exhort believers in Christ unto all practices of all sorts of righteousness, and to dehort them from all sin upon all

occasions. Now unto this end (which is also John's scope), I shall present unto you, which this scripture is so great a ground for, the great and dividing interests of these two opposites, Jesus Christ and Satan, in respect of sin and righteousness. The devil sinned from the beginning, and drew men after him, and set up his design; and Christ was promised from the beginning, and in the end appeared to bi-eak this design of Satan. The devil had always a faction for him and for sin from the first; and therefore John instanceth, 1 John iii. 12, in the eldest son of reprobation, Cain: * Not as Cain,' saith he, ' who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother.' So that if you profess yourselves to belong to Christ, you are thereby instantly engaged to set upon the practice and advancement of hoUness and righteousness; and to oppose and destroy sin, upon this interest and account, that you are engaged together with Christ, and so his interest in this became yours. And to put an addition of strength hereto, and to encourage you the more therein, I shall join to this another scripture, which is the close of Peter's first epistle : 1 Peter v. 8, ' Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.' The things which out of this text I have designed to handle are principally two.

1. That there is a general engagement of all Christians against Satan, as against a common enemy, against whom as such they should all direct, intend, and point their opposition in fighting against sin, and the force of that engagement.

2. I shall propound the encom-agements we may take to ourselves in this great conflict.

1. There is a general engagement of all Christians against Satan as their common enemy.

(1.) The devil is a common adversary (so Peter speaks of him), a malicious enemy, ' seeking whom he may devour,' making that his chief end and business, to destroy and devour men's souls, as a Hon doth his prey—an industrious enemy, walking about, and spying out advantages privately and particularly against every soul.

(2.) Satan's chief work and business, wherein he shews himself our adversary, lies in drawing us to sin. This the coherence of the apostle Peter shews, for his exhortation is, ' Be sober, and watch,' which evidently hath respect unto lusts, inordinate affections growing upon a man's spirit, and those are the advantages which Satan seeks; and by the prevailing thereof it is, that a man is devoured by Satan, and to effect this it is, that he walks up and down to do this his business.

(3.) The saints' resistance of Satan herein is a common engagement. He is your adversary (verse 8), and not yours only, but of all the brotherhood (as the word is) * that are in the world,' who suffer and are in danger and jeopardy in this respect from him; who therefore, as one man, are all engaged against him to resist him. And in fighting against sin, they should point, and direct, and intend their opposition against Satan also (whom resist, says Peter), and have an aim at him in their resisting of sin, sharpening and whetting up their spirits against him.

(4.) The force of this engagement is to be considered.

[1.] For the fia-st, that the devil is our adversary, and a common enemy, I will not insist on it.

[2.] That to draw us to sin, and to preserve ourselves from sin, is the great interest on both sides : namely, to draw us to sin, and to move us to yield to loose affections, is the devil's interest; and to be sober, and to

VOL. VII. K

resist him herein, is ours. Heb. xii. 4, ' You have not yet resisted unto blood, fighting against sin,' To what purpose comes in that addition, ' fighting against sin' ? It is to shew that the eminent matter of contest, and contention, and scope of a Christian is to fight against sin, which every true behever hath set up as the principal business of his life in this world. A Christian is sin's antagonist, as the word here rendered ' fighting against' is in the original (di'7aywi'/^o'/>t-si'o/). Well, but how is it connected with the former speech ? He had minded them, chap, x., how they had already in their goods and names been prejudiced and spoiled. What was the bottom cause of it, but fighting against sin, because they would not deny Christ, or forsake their profession, and so sin against Christ! On this account the apostle puts all those their former sufierings. Now (says the apostle), for this principle and resolution, if you continue in it, as it is indeed your end and interest, you may be brought to martyrdom, unto blood, which yet j'ou have not been, as many others have afore you. And it hath not been resisting authority, or opposition to men, and a contending with them about a worldly power, or interest; but the world through Satan's instigation comes upon them, to urge them to a compliance with sinful customs and practices, and they hold fast to their principle, to fight against sin (that they would not sin, was the bottom ground of their opposition), and so chose to suffer rather. So then not to sin, to fight against sin, is at once the interest of all Christians, and the cause of all persecutions, which by sinning they might avoid ; but (as it is in chap, xi,) ' they chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,' This is our part and interest; but then, on the contrary, the devil's part is to sin, and to draw men to sin is his interest; yea, it is the main end and design of that other part of his power, viz., the bringing persecutions on the saints, for he doth it to draw and tempt them unto sin; that is in his eye and design more than to vex them, or to bring an outward misery upon them.

That subject therefore which I shall a little insist on, is the demonstration how much, and how properly and peculiarly, our sinning is both the work of Satan and also the interest of his kingdom, to set forth both which, that place, 1 John iii. 8, doth most fully serve of any other scripture.

1. That scripture tells us he hath sinned from the beginning, therein charging him, as he that was the first that brought it into the creation of God. He was the first that sinned himself; John viii. 44, he is said to ' speak a lie of his own,' for none tempted or tempteth him to sin ; and he is ' the father of it,' as the first inventor of any trade is termed in Gen. iv. 20, 21. And, moreover, he was the cause of it in all others, and that in a far different manner than Adam was, or any of mankind have been to others, as Jeroboam or the like. Adam brought in sin by one act traduced down to us, but himself is long since dead, and hath ceased to sin ; but the devil sins from the beginning, and hath made it his trade continually to sin, and draw others to sin ; and they are the sins in us men, as caused by him, that are termed his works, for they are those works of the devil, which Christ came to dissolve and to take away, verse 5. But Christ was not manifested to take away the devil's sins that are personally in himself, nor shed a drop of blood to hinder him from sinning ; but his sins and his works as in us, these Christ came to dissolve, these sins which are his wicked work in us.

2. Sin is in a peculiar and proper manner termed his work more than ours, and is owned by him accordingly; and thus though we are the actors

of these sins more immediately, yet it is Satan who loves sin, as it is a work of iniquity. He is the very inventor, and loves the very workmanship of it in us, as Christ loves in a believer the new creature, ' which in Christ Jesus is created unto good works,' Eph. ii. 10. A mechanic that works to get his living, loves not so much the work ho makes, as the livelihood that comes by it (as of the makers of Diana's shrines it is said, Acts xix. 2-4), and so men love sin for the pleasure, that cannot be enjoyed without it; but there are principal'artists (as they are termed), the curious painters and inventors, who when they have invented a curious piece that pleases their fancy, love the work itself. Thus doth the devil love sin as his own work ; and as God, having made the world, upholds it, gives virtue to nature, and works hitherto (as Christ says), so sin being the devil's creature, he preserves it, upholds it, diffuseth it, and so sins from the beginning in tempting and provoking us. Adam, poor man, when fallen (by whom it is said that sin entered into the world, Rom. v.), as also our mother Eve, but looked upon all the sins he or she saw any of their sons commit, as evils of which themselves were the cause, and viewed them with a sad and heavy heai't, and with this mournful reflection, I have made all this work in the world. But the devil looks with another eye upon all the sijis which are done under the sun ; and says as Nebuchadnezzar, This Babel and confusion in the world have I built for the honour of my majesty, in my opposition to God. He looks as God did upon his works, and is refreshed, for it is merely, purely his own.

3. It being his work, and he the inventor, he hath the monopoly of it, the gains of it,—and let him enjoy them, as by the ordinary law all first inventors use to do,—and all we men work but under him, though we are also said to seek out many inventions, as Solomon speaks, but so as he hath the chief business and affair in it. Sinners take pains, like the merchants from far that travel sea and land, that is, go over all things delightful in this world, the delights of the sons of men, and seek to and fro to bring in pleasures from them to themselves, and fall into mauy snares and temptations, that pierce their souls with many sorrows ; but the devil hath the custom out of all, and they bring in but the buUion to this great sovereign's mint. The coinage, the prerogative thereof, is his, and it is his stamp and superscription the works bear. Sinners, like the poor Israelites, gather straw where they can find it, do burn, 1 Cor. vii. 9, and are inflamed with lusts, but it is his brick which they make. If you ask how his glory, his kingdom, his greatness is increased by it, I answer,

(1.) The power, the glory of his kingdom lies in sinning ; for sin, as sin, is his interest, and sin (as it opposeth God) set him up at first to build pyramids and trophies for his own glory in dishonouring of God. You are busy like bees flying to and fro to a thousand flowers ; and, poor souls, you aim at honey, but then you return with it unto his hive, where you, and he, and honey, are all burnt together. Look as Christ's kingdom consists in peace, joy, righteousness (Rom xiv. 17, Heb. vii. 2), so the devil's kingdom consists in sin, and his throne is established by it. Eph, vi. 12, the devils are called * rulers of the darkness of this world,' and the world is the bound of his dominion; but that wherein properly his rule lies, is the * darkness,' the sin of the world, which he is the ruler of; insomuch as that which is his top interest is sin, and his throne is established by it, and founded and built upon it, as Christ's sceptre and throne is ' a sceptre of righteousness,' Heb. i. 8. A sceptre is an ensign of power, and kings' sceptres are made of gold ; but Christ's sceptre is formed of right-

eousness, pure righteousness ; and this is that interest of his kingdom, so as iniquity is the interest of that of Satan.

(2.) Our sinnings through his temptations are the greatest, if not the only deHght and pleasure he hath. They are as meat and drink to him, his food and nourishment, and we thereby become caterers and providers for the devil's banqueting. This is founded on 1 Peter v. 8, for wherefore is it that Peter gives him here the character of a roaring lion, and compares him thereunto, but to represent him as one that seeks for a prey ! for roaring is here attributed to him, as to terrify, in respect of the dreadfulness of the danger, so in relation to his own hungering after a prey ; a soul acting sin is his prey: Ps. civ. 21, ' The young lions roar after their prey,' and so the devil doth too; for it follows in 1 Peter v. 8, that he seeks whom to devour, and to that end walks up and down, and seeks a prey both by spying out a Christian's looseness of spirit, and also by eyeing God to have a commission from him to fall upon him. In Ps. xxviii. 5, a roaring lion is translated by the Septuagint X'suv 'tthmuv, the same word which Peter here useth for devouring.* When a lion is hungry, he roars more terribly ; and as roaring is from the speediness and impatiency of desire, so the satisfaction of that appetite is delight, and devouring the prey is his pleasing enjoyment; suitably his pleasure is sin, that is his prey, and when you sin much, and draw others to sin, you feast the devil with the blood of your own souls. His curse was to eat dust for his food. Gen. iii. 14 ; being banished heaven, he lives on men's lusts, and on things earthly, in which yet he delights not, for he tastes not meat or drink ; but to tempt others herewith, and to draw them to sin, this delights him, and is a joy to him. The apostle termeth all our righteousness ff/cu/SaXa, dogs'-meat; but sins are the devil's meat, and therefore he walks to and fro seeking it, as lions do their food, Ps. civ. 22 ; yea, he calls other devils to feast with him. Plutarch says, the manner of young lions is, when they have their prey, to roar to invite other lions to come and eat with them; so the devil brings seven other devils worse than himself; and as there is joy in heaven if a sinner be converted, so in hell when a converted sinner falls into sinning.

4. Let us but view what expressions the Scriptures use of men's sinning against God, and turning aside from him to serve any lust, and we shall see that they evidently argue that our sinnings are the devil's interest. Thus the apostle, 1 Tim. v. 15, speaking of younger widows marrying again when they had vowed themselves to Christ, as was the practice then, says, that they had ' already turned aside after Satan.' If we never so little decline from Christ, return to Satan ; and if we give way to any passion, it is to ' give place to the devil,' Eph. iv. 27. And what he says of anger, wrath, &c., he intends also of any other sin or lust. ' Let him that hath stolen, steal no more,' as giving place to the devil. Thus also when Peter would exaggerate Ananias's sin. Acts v., he saith not only. Why hast thou sinned ? but ' AVhy hath Satan filled thy heart ?' Thus ' he that commits sin is of the devil,' 1 John iii. 2. He is of his side and party, yea, of the devil as of a father, John viii. 44. Yea, the measure of men's wickedness, more or less, is expressed by their having fewer or more devils in them. Mary Magdalene had seven devils, Mark xvi. 9. And the devil is said to return to an apostate backslider with seven devils worse than himself, to

* There is no allusion to a ' roaring lion' in Ps. xxviii. 5; and Peter's word for ' devouring,' is not 'mimv, but zc.ra'riojv. The reference is probably to Ps. xxii. 13, where, in the Septuagint version, the expression X'iuv <Ajgv6f/,evog occurs, identica with that in Peter.— Ed.

exj^ress that bis latter days shall be more wicked tban bis former ; yea, the Scripture calls a sinner ' devil,' John vi. 70. And as Judas joined with the devil in betraying Christ, the devil is said to have ' entered into him,' Luke xxii. 3. Yea (consider it, brethren), though a man be a good man (as Peter was), yet in any foul act or sin he puts off the Christian, and turns devil for that time. It was the sharpest word that ever Christ uttered to a man that was holy, ' Get thee behind me, Satan : thou art an offence to me,' Mat. xvi. 23. It was the worst word that could be given him, and yet Christ, who is truth, spake it; and he exceeded not in passion above the merit of the thing, for guile was not found in his mouth. And he speaks it with indignation, as of one he abhorred, Get out of my sight, I cannot endure to look on thee. It doth not signify that Christ loved him not, but Christ spoke thus, that he might the more pungently and piercingly set on his sin upon him. Thus the incestuous Corinthian, though a good man, 1 Cor. v. 13, is called rov rro^^hv, that wicked person. The man was good ; he had spirit or grace in him to be saved, ver. 5, yet in the act he was a devil; for 6 'rovrisoi is the style of the devil in John, and elsewhere. And therefore it is that excommunication is to be a delivering up to Satan ; and the apostle would have him delivered up to Satan, ver. 5, as a suitable punishment. Thus you say, when you turn an untoward servant or child out of doors. Now go to your companions. And thus an excommunicated person is delivered to Satan, as it were in these words, You acted the part of the devil in sinning; he entered into you, and you cast your lot with him (as Solomon speaks), and therefore let the devil keep you company a-while, and affright and torment you, that so you may learn what it is to have the devil again. And accordingly at last wicked men, as having followed the devil's design, are cast into ' the fire prepared for the devil and his angels,' and they and he are tormented together in the same lake of fire and brimstone common to both, because the cause, the engagement, was common to both. All these and many more expressions, which might haply be gathered together, evince this, that sin is the devil's great interest, and that to sin is to maintain the devil's quarrel, to fight Satan's battles against the Lord, to build up his kingdom, to strengthen his cause, to side and take part with him.

Use 1. If it be so, as I have proved, that sin is the devil's great business, and the interest of his kingdom, then we may be sure, that in every sin to which we are indulgent, we have dealings with the devil: whilst we are in this world (as Peter speaks), we are subject to be tempted (as Paul says. Gal. vi. 1), and therefore ' let us be sober and watch ;' and (as Christ exhorts. Mat. xxvi. 41), ' watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation.' Our dear Lord had then taken three of his strongest disciples to assist him in his temptation, the sorest that ever was : they fell asleep. Well, says he, you will have your turn; your time of temptation will come, and you had need watch better for yourselves than you have done for me, or you will be undone. And in that compendium of prayers our Lord gave us, he puts in two petitions much to one purpose: ' Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from that evil one' (so in the Greek), the head, the author of all evil. That particle aXXa, but, shews its coherence and conjunction with the former petition; and so the meaning is, that God would not so give us over to Satan, as that he should devour us, or undo us. He doubles this petition, and twines it both ways, because temptations to sins are all our lots; and therefore we should eye the devil in them, as one with whom we have to do. And though it is true that no man is tempted but of his

own lust (saysjTames, chap, i.), yet there is no lust stirs, but this temper blows it up. He observes which way the stream is inclined to run, and he applies his winds to blow in accordingly: there is no great sin but he hath a hand in it, if not by beginning it, yet by promoting it. This' you may leam of the same James: ' From whence come wars T says he, James iv. 1. It is true that they arise from our lusts, that war in our members, prone enough to rise up in arms upon every occasion, and from thence is all inordinate love of the world. And the spii'it that is in us lusts after envy fast enough of itself; but yet there is over and above a devil that acts and inflames all these ; and therefore when he gives counsel against all these, he closeth all with this, ver. 7, ' Resist the devil,' as the great leader of all these warring lusts. • If you have bitter envyings and strife in your hearts, this spirit' is not only ' earthly and sensual,' but the devil is in it, ' it is devilish.' Are there divisions and offences in churches ? Rom. xvi. 17, the devil is in them ; so Paul suggests, ver. 20, comforting them, that the God of peace, that loves peace, and is among them, would tread down Satan, the head, the ringleader of them, shortly. Doth anger arise ? Take heed, the devil stands at the door watching to enter : Eph. iv. 26, 27, ' Be angry, and sin not,' &c., ' neither give place to the devil.' A lust given way to, opens the door for him to enter and fill the heart; and what he speaks of anger, is true of all those sins he there names afore and after, viz., lying, stealing, uncleanness, &c. Is a man covetous, and resolved to be rich ? ' He falls into temptation and into a snare,' 1 Tim. vi. 9. Whose snare it is you mav'^ easily know by what is joined with it, viz., temptation. It is the snare of the tempter, which in 2 Tim. ii. 26 is called ' the snare of the devil.' Thus every lust is, and by it he entered into Ananias's heart and filled it. Acts v. Hath a man an evil tongue ? Though it is bad enough of itself, yet the devil heats it in his forge, inflames the lust of it, and sharpens the wit to it: James iii. 6, ' The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity amongst our members ; it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature ; and is set on fire of hell.' In like manner, with respect unto uncleanness, this unclean spirit takes all occasions to tempt us, 1 Cor. vii. 5. The apostle exhorts man and wife not to be a long time asunder (but upon absolute necessity), ' lest Satan,' says he, ' tempt you for your incontinency ;' that is, whereas the most of men have not that gift of contincncy (which, ver. 7, he says he had), and therefore to avoid fornication and burning, are supposed to marry, ver. 2. Satan spies out all advantages to stir up that lust ere 3"ou are aware, you having that in you which the apostle calls your incontinency, and to provoke you to some unclean act. All lusts else are the devil's snares; and in a word, in all these cobwebs there inhabit spiders, and every straggling love of inordinate affection that goes out, and is fastened to anything in the world, is the spider's dancing-rope to go in and out of his house upon.

JJse 2. What weight should the serious consideration hereof have upon our spirits, both to preserve us from sinning, and to humble us for having sinned.

(1.) To preserve us, and to be a motive against sinning. Doth any lust begin to boil within thee ? Think with thyself, and say, This is Satan's scout, he is in ambushment not far off, and the devil is now approaching, for, lo, I feel his darts, his fiery inflaming darts, as Paul calls them. These ■ darts cast into my heart came out of his forge, I feel them as fire in my bones; and as in war darts use to be thrown at the first onset, when the enemy is approaching, so are these ; but he will come on with sharper weapons and sorer assaults, and enter into me if I take not heed. Our

Saviour Christ espied him afar off: ' Now is the prince of this world a-coming,' says he; so mayestthon, as one army doth another, when their forlorn is approaching. Christ indeed could say with comfort, ' He hath nothing in me;' but thou canst not say so, for he hath that in thee will betray thee to him, and join with him against thee. Think then with thyself, Now I have to do with the devil; and now resist, and give not place to the devil. If thou wert sure thou hadst to do with the devil, thou wouldst avoid him; if he took a shape and appeared to thee, thou wouldst not deal or truck with him ; but know, that when thy lust, thy passion, thy pride or covetousness is up, he is surely at thy elbow. As therefore the apostle, Heb. xiii. 2, exliorts to works of hospitality, because ' thereby some unawares have entertained angels,' as Lot and Abraham did; so for certain thou, by letting in this or that sin, lettest in the devil, and entertainest him, though thou seest him not. And though thou yieldeat but to one act of sin only (as thou thinkest), yet thou servest the devil, and dost his work, yea, and hast communion with him. The poor prodigal aimed but at husks to fill his belly, Luke xv. 15, but he could not enjoy them but by joining himself to the farmer, the devil, whose all the swine and pleasures of sin in this world are. Oh consider this ! ' I would not,' says the apostle, 1 Cor. X. 20, ' that you should have communion with devils.' All men, especially Christians, abhor that; he takes that for granted, and yet it is in the nature of the thing itself; by yielding to sin, you become companions with the devils, as they in eating things sacrificed to him did. In eating his dainties of sinful pleasures he seems to feast you, but really and indeed you entertain him. In sinning, we have communion with Satan, as in righteousness we have with God ; only with this difference : in works of righteousness we have communion with God in a work that is God's (for as Christ saith, we ' work the works of God'); and then, further, we have communion with his person by faith eyeing him, and walking in the light of him, and in so doing he often manifests himself to us; but though we have not such sensible communion with the person of Satan as with God by faith, yet having to do with his works wherein he acts us, we have remotely to do with his person. For as merchants each with other, we have to do with his wares, and his commodities, not only for the present, but for hereafter. Now then, in the entrance to any sin, consider upon what is said, that it is the devil who is thy guide, and wilt thou follow him ? Thou makest thereby a kind of covenant to serve him ere thou art aware of it. All men do it implicitly, as we say of them that go to cunning wizards, but in such a case thou wilt do it explicitly.

(2.) Hast thou sinned, and therein acted the devil's part? Humble thyself greatly, and that upon this consideration, that thou hast sided with Satan, and the devil hath cause to say, thou hast manfully, or rather devilishly, took my part this day. The apostle James having shewn, that in yielding to their lusts they closed with the devil (chap. iv. 1, 2, and 7 compared), exhorts them to renounce Satan, and to draw nigh to God, and then to be afflicted and mourn. * Humble yourselves,' says he, ' in the sight of the Lord.' Would it not break thy heart to hear Christ from heaven, after such or such a sin or fact, to call thee devil, and to bid thee get thee behind him, as he did to Peter ? Now Christ hath the same affection in this respect whilst he is in heaven, and when he was on earth, not only to turn away his face, and withdraw the light of his countenance from thee; but with indignation (for the present) to reject thee, and cast thee behind his back, and to remove thee as an accursed thing in his sight.

Christ said thus to Peter, and thou deservest it; but humble thyself and be not discouraged; for at another time, when the same Peter had played the devil worse by far, in forswearing his Saviour, and had acted the devil in his colours—for the devil is a blasphemer, and the father of lies, and Peter had done both by lying and forswearing Christ—yet then Christ turned not his back but his face upon him. Christ looked back, and one look of Christ cast the devil out, as the believer doth experience, that when Christ appears by faith in the heart, the devil is gone, and Peter went forth and wept bitterly. Be not therefore discouraged, for Christ still loved and prayed for this Peter, and exercised these varieties of dispensations to the same Peter, to shew us that he useth both upon occasion to his children, and we should have the one in our eye to humble us, the other to encourage us. We have an enemy on earth, Satan, but an advocate in heaven, 1 John ii. 1.

CHAPTER VI.

A motive to holiness, and to frjlit against sin, drawn from the consideration, that this holy icar is a common engagement in vsliich all angels and saints are confederates.

' I shall now demonstrate that there is a common engagement of all believers against Satan in fighting against sin, and that they are to point and direct their opposition against him. My purpose is not to enlarge upon the warfare of a Christian, the subject of so many tongues and pens, but my scope is to whet and edge your spirits against sin, whenever you find your spirits tempted and lusts high, and to animate you unto an opposition to the devil.

I shall give you the story of this war against Satan, and shew how ancient and how long a continued and universal an engagement this is.

1. God in paradise proclaimed this war, and stated it there, so old is it'; it began there, and it was proclaimed there. I will not for the present go so high to say, that it began before between the Son of God and these evil angels in heaven, though some affirm it. This devil he afironted our great God in both his courts: his court in heaven, where angels are; and his court on earth, paradise, which God himself built for Adam personally, as the seat of him who was made king of all the earth, and flither of all men. The devil, by tempting our first father and mother, was the cause of their first sin, which was the original and fountain of all ours. ' Because thou hast done this' (says God, Gen. iii. 14), and done it enviously, maliciously, and subtilly, knowing what would be the consequence of it to all mankind, ' thou art therefore accursed.' The man and woman were deceived, as birds by the fowler, but the devil was the deceiver, and therefore he is cursed above all. It is therefore the common quarrel of our nature, as we are men, to make war against him.

This engaged God himself. God laid it to heart on our behalf, and shall not we ? Yea, it drew in all the three persons, who appeared in making man, and said, ' Let us make man after our image,' which this devil sought to deface. They are all auswerably" disgusted at this destroying of their image, and are resolved to renew it.

1. It was God the Father who dealt then personally with the devil, and who cursed him; for it was he that gave the law to Adam of not eating the forbidden fruit, as appears by this discourse, and it is the same person

that cursetli Satan, and ho it is that is that God of peace who treads him under, Rom. xvi. 20. And it is the same * God of all grace' that helps us against him, 1 Peter v. 9, 10.

2. God the Son was hu that was to become the promised seed, and who was on purpose designed out by God to deal with him. It was he who was instantly proclaimed the general upon the place of the aflront, and the head of this quarrel; and so he was then professedly engaged, and that by his own consent standing by.

3. The Holy Ghost, though not mentioned, yet to be sure we may find him to be there, as he must needs be Satan's opposite hereupon. For the devil spoiled that in man which is more properly his work (holiness being the work of the Holy Spirit); and their very titles ever hereafter shew their opposition. Thus the one is called the Holy Spirit, and Satan is termed the unclean spirit in the Evangelists and in the Acts no less than tvvo-and-twenty times; and so he is called too in the Old Testament, Zech. xiii. 2; and he and his angels are frequently called evil spirits both in the Old and New Testament. And the opposition of these two is seen in every saint's heart every day. These words also in Gen. iii. 15, ' I w^ill put enmity between her seed and thy seed,' do involve the whole seed of elect men as well as Christ, as I have shewn in another discourse.* Thus it is an universal engagement; yea, and as you see God's heart was so upon it, and his counsels and resolutions in this point so ripe and ready, as he stands not deliberating; but upon the ver}' place in paradise where the mischief was done, and well nigh as soon as it was done, he proclaimed war. He stays not so long as till he had turned man out of paradise; yea, and he professeth himself to be the beginner, contriver, and undertaker of this war : ' I will put,' says he, ' enmity,' &c. It is a war, then, of God's own making; and properly hi,s more than ours. Thus great and solemn it is, not a quarrel only against sin, but against the devil; between thee and the serpent, that is, the devil.

As the war was thus early proclaimed, so you read how accordingly it was carried on from the first, that men began to multiply in the earth, even by the two fu-st sons of men, sons of Adam, that were in the world ; the devil took the one, Cain, and God took the other, Abel. This early division and parting of the seed John takes notice of: 1 John iii. 10-12, ' In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother. For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him '? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.' As if he had said. This diflerent seed and quarrel, which in Gen. iii. was spoken of, caused arms to be taken up presently. The devil, as he had set up, so he carried on his design, and drew men after him from the beginning. He had a party for him from the first of the sons of Adam, Cain; and God carried on this quarrel in like manner against sin and the devil in the heart of the next son, Abel. Sin was the interest that made the division ; for Cain killed him ' because his works were evil, and his brother's righteous,' says the text. And these two, Cain and Abel, led on all that followed under the whole Old Testament; all under it fell the one way or the other. The elect, then, as they had the promised seed in their eye, so withal they had

* Of. Christ the Mediator, Book v. chap. xvii. in Vol. III. of his works. [Vol. V. of this edition.— Ed.]

Satan as their adversary in their eye, whom they should oppose; for by their being instructed in the one part of the promise, they were also in the other. And hence the word Satan (or adversary) was the usual name both anciently and frequently in the Old Testament given to the devil, even from Job's time: Job i. 6 and chap, ii., 1 Sam. xxix. 4, 1 Chron. xxi. 1, Ps. cix. 6, and Zech. iii. 1.

In the end, the general himself came down into the field, and he was ' manifest to destroy the works of the devil,' yea, and he died in the quarrel (I need not repeat what I have said at large about this*); and when he had by death destroyed him, he triumphed over him, and left it to you iTiTBT'.iiadai (as Peter's word is) to accomplish the victory. So then unto that war, which against Satan and sin as his work was proclaimed by God in paradise, Christ sounded the alarm, and upon his cross set up his royal standard thereon, appointed that the rendezvous to draw elect men to him when he was lift up, John xii. 32 ; and unto it and him hath been the gathering of all the saints ever since. Know then that Christ, in redeeming us, not only intended an obedience to his Father, and glory to him, and our salvation with it, but withal he aimed at the destruction of Satan ; he acted not only the part of a son that learned obedience, and of a saviour, but also of a warrior, an avenger and destroyer. Now, the saints are to fight in this quarrel out of the same interest Jesus Christ doth, and they ought to be spirited with his aims and ends; and therefore, 1 Peter iv. 7, we are exhorted to arm ourselves with the same mind that was in Jesus Christ our general, and therefore to direct our opposition as Christ did. And whereas, Heb. ii. 14, he is said to have ' destroyed him that had the power of death,' in the 10th verse he is set before us as the captain of our salvation, d^-^riyhv.

No sooner was Christ gone to heaven, but unto his standard all the saints and brotherhood on earth, the church universal, have and do flock in all ages, and enrol their names : ' We,' says the apostle Paul, ' wrestle against principalities,' &c., Eph. vi. 12. We, he speaks it indefinitely in the name of all the saints ; and so Peter speaks too : * Resist your adversary,' says he, ' knowing that the same afflictions' (that is, the same temptation from him) ' are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world;' that is, this is the common cause in which all saints ai'e engaged, not one excepted; and is not this a great engagement, then ? That which is translated 'brethren'is in the original 'brotherhood,' udsX(p6Tr}Ti, shewing that they are engaged, not only all and every saint, nor singly all and every one, but as a joint body they all strive together as one man ; so then these are the two eminent parts of the communion of saints, namely, to love the saints and to resist this common enemy; and the whole brotherhood is engaged in both. And the same God that hath put in love into the brethren, hath put into all their hearts also an enmity against Satan in fighting against sin. The apostle adds, ' in the world ;' and so speaks of all saints in all places, and in all times present and to come. The catholic church and the communion of saints are joined together in the creed, and are of equal extent in this.

Your baptism is the sign and sacrament of this universal engagement, so the primitive Christians understood it. Hi sunt anyeli quibus in lavacro renwttiamus.]- In the Common Prayer-book it is made sacramentum militare, manfully to fight under Christ's banner against sin, the world, and the

* In the Discourse of Christ the Mediator, in Vol. III. of his works, t TertuU. rle habitu muliebri, c. 2.

devil, and to continue Christ's faithful soldier; and a^^ain particularly it is interpreted to be a promise to forsake the devil and all his works ; and the scripture is not averse to this very notion, if the whole coherence of the Gth chapter of the llomans be observed. The apostle speaks of our being baptized into Christ, and our conformity to him professedly avowed in baptism, ver. 3, 4, to the 12th; and what is his inference from thence? ver. 12, 13, ' Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, neither yield you your members, as arms, or weapons of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves unto God.' So then through baptism, they were viilites sncrameulo ohstrkli duel, in allusion to the lloman custom of being by an oath (which was called sacramenium) engaged to their general. And whereas he says, yield yourselves unto God, add but that of James iv. 1, and it carries it to this engagement against Satan I insist on; for whereas the apostle (in Rom.vi.) had in mihtnry language expressed it thus, ' Let not sin reign, to obey it in the lusts thereof, but yield your members as weapons to God,' James following the same metaphor (chap. iv. 1-8) thus speaks, ' Whereas lusts war in the members, yield yourselves to God, resist the devil.' The devil is the leader, lusts are but the common soldiers.

All men therefore must of necessity fall to one side or the other, either he subject to God, and so resist the devil, or be subject to that evil spirit. He supposeth every man, when tempted, to be set in the midst between God and the devil, putting themselves under God's protection, or yielding themselves unto God ; they are engaged in a war as against their lusts, so against the devil, and are thus to direct their opposition'in fighting against sin. Calvin* hath a good speech on those three passages of James, as they lie, whereof the first concerns our duty to men, humility: ' God gives grace to the humble.' 2. Submit to God. 3. Resist the devil. He shews (says he) whither or against whom we should direct our opposition ; for whereas he had taught modesty and humility towards men, and submission towards God, he with the same breath sets Satan as our professed enemy, whom we should rise up against and resist, and give no quarter to him; but whenever thou wouldst mortify a lust, in laying the knife to the throat thereof, thrust it down even unto the devil's heart also, give that one blow, and all with the more violence as;"spiting him therein. Reach him in thy intention and aim, for God warrants thee to do it in that blessed curse, ' I will put enmity between thee and the serpent;' and Christ loves that you should do it (for himself did so) for his sake, and in his quarrel.

The last thing to be considered is, what force and eflficacy this engagement against Satan should have upon our hearts to make us holy, to resist the devil, and to fight against sin, as it is Satan's interest; which, if you please, you may take and turn into the use of the former. We have lived an times in which we have all felt, more or less, the power of a public engagement in our spirits, and have seen by experience of what efficacy it is. Let me speak to you then in the language of the times you have run through. When, after thou first gavest up thy name to Christ, thou didst oblige thyself in this so solemnly a stated and public war, yea, and further from that time, every one of you was then set as in a garrison, to keep his own soul, and to preserve it from lusts which fight against the soul; so as it is not to be looked at by thee only or singly, as thine own soul, and thine own salvation, but also as now made a castle and fortress of Jesus Christ

* Ostendit quorsum referre debemus nostram, contentionem, ubi erga homines modestiam, erga Deum submissionem docuit, Satanam proponit liostem, inquiens suigeie debemus.— Calvin in Epist. Jacobi.

delivered up unto thee to be kept as with a garrison. This allusion is warranted by all these scriptures put together, Luke xi. 21, 22, and Peter's words, 1 Epist. i. 5, ' kept as with a garrison,' and Paul's words, Philip, iv. 7, to which may be added that of 1 John v. 18, ' He that is born of God keeps himself, that the evil one touch him not.' So then thou hast iu charge, as John speaks, to keep thyself that the evil one touch thee not, nor come within thee. Now think what a trust this is, not only of thine own soul, but of a garrison of Christ's, and what a wickedness must it be at any time to betray it, or to hold correspondency with the enemy ; yet so in every indulgence unto sin thou dost. And moreover, consider that though a transgression in time of peace is but a small matter, as to steal some trifle, or for a servant or apprentice to run away, yet to run away, yea, to step aside in time of war, is death. Adam's sinning at the first was a transgression of the law, but it was but as in time of peace ; yea, all thy sinning in unregeneracy, was but'as in a time of peace, in comparison to this now (when Satan kept his house, thy heart was in peace, says Christ, Luke xi. 21), but every sin now is against the law of arms ; it is a sending supplies to the enemy, or a letting in a foreign power into Christ's quarters and dominions. But to urge more particularly the force of what hath been but even now discoursed, Peter's exhortation here, you see, is to resist the devil, which is done in resisting sin, and in doing that we must have our aim at Satan, and be moved the more with an opposition unto him ; and what spirit truly exalted would not the consideration of each of those particulars move and raise ? The next time then that thou art tempted to pride, uncleanness, envy, revenge, covetousness, or any other lust (in which the devil is always at the head), make use of these considerations to strengthen thy spirit against both them and him.

1. Is it nothing to thee to consider how ancient a war this is, and hath been, an old feud descended from hand to hand, till brought down to thee from paradise, and an old hatred though in a successive body, as a nation whets on to pursue the destruction of the enemy ? Ezek. xxv. 15. The devil as he is the old serpent, so he is the old enemy. As Solomon says, to sharpen friendship, ' Thy friend and thy father's friend forgot not!' So say I, to sharpen thy hatred against the devil, thy enemy and thy father's enemy forget thou not. Satan is thy enemy, thy first father's enemy, the empoisoner of our nature, the adversary of all the saints, remember this and resist him. Therefore, when the next temptation from him riseth, think with thyself, Shall I ever yield to such an enemy ?

2. All that is holy in heaven or earth are combined with thee in this quarrel, thou art environed not only with a cloud of witnesses and spectators, but with a crowd of fellovr-engagers. All the three persons were drawn in, and espoused this thy quarrel; all the holy angels have fallen in, and in respect of their opposition unto Satan it is that they are termed an heavenly host, the militia of heaven, Luke ii. 14 ; and their opposition to the devil is on our behalf, as appears from Kev. xii. 7. And as these engaged with thee are greedy and curious spectators and beholders of the issue of every temptation, and as I told you there was an invisible world you shall one day judge, so there is an invisible world that beholds you in all your actings with or for Satan. We are members of that other world, and in fighting against sin do carry on that general cause of that other world, striving to do God's will on earth as it is done in heaven. God hath ' made us a spectacle to angels and to men' herein, 1 Cor. iv. 9. When Christ had to

do with Satan in the wilderness and in the garden, he had angels both times to view him and to guard him, and minister unto him. I have shewed in another discourse •'■• how Christ had made the devil a public example before the world. Col. ii. ; and if the devil gets thee to sin, he makes thee a public shame before the same world. ' I charge thee,' says Panl to Timothy, ' before Jesus Christ and the elect angels,' walk so and' so, 1 Tim. Y. 21. And as the things of this life are made small matters in comparison of those of the other world by the apostle, 1 Cor. vi., so thy sin, as it is known amongst men (which is but man's day) is a small matter unto the blot thou hast in thy reputation before God and Christ, and the angels in that other world. And God himself and Christ are the greatest spectators of all: 2 Chron. xvi. 9, ' The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect towards him : herein therefore thou hast done foolishly,' said Hanani the seer unto Asa. Thou hast shamed thyself quite before the great God ; you may behold this in the case of Job (and it is worth our considering), how both God's heart wrought, and how the devil's, concerning Job. That conference between God and the devil about him is carried so, that you see the heart of each how they are afiected with this spectacle; You find God begins and boasteth of Job, as one he liked to talk of: Job i. 8, ' Seest thou not my servant Job ? There is none like him on the earth, fearing God and resisting evil;' which the devil could never fasten on him or bring him to, as you may see by his conversation. Job xxxi. throughout. God boasts of him, as a general would do of some eminent worthy that was never yet foiled or taken captive, or as a master or tutor would boast of some eminent scholar; and Oh how this pleased God at the very heart, as I may speak with reverence ! Well, when he had given Satan leave to bring all these evils on him, and Satan came before God another time, chap. ii. 10, the thing God again spoke of was still concerning Job : ver. 3, ' And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job ? There is none like him in the earth, fearing God and eschewing evil, and still he holds fast his integrity.' And though thou hast moved me against him, yet all thou hast done hath not moved him. Those words, * and still he holds fast his integrity,' God let fall on purpose to vex and confound the devil, and to shew how much he gloried in it; and the devil, as put to the foil in it, puts it off upon want of some further and greater trial, in which God lets him use his skill. The result of both maketh this apparent, how much it confounds the devil, to think, I have tempted this man, and I cannot for my heart get him to yield ; and on the contrary, how much it rejoiceth God to see Satan so often assault a man, and yet still to hold fast his integrity. God puts the emphasis there, as on the other side he observes with grief how often a man hath been foiled: ' This they have done these ten times,' says God, Num. xiv. 22. It mightily heightens the spirit of a soldier to fight in the view of his general, that, as Paul says to Timothy ' he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier,' 2 Tim. ii. 4. True stories have many instances, and romances imitate the truth herein, and bring in great champions fighting in the sight of their lover, whose honour and service they have undertaken. Let us look to Jesus, the author, finisher, and crowner of our faith. ' Blessed is he that endureth temptation ; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him,' James i. 12. This Paul had in his eye. ' I have fought,' says he, ' a good fight; henceforth there is laid * In discourse of Christ the Mediator, B, v. in Vol. III. of his works.

up for me a crown of rigliteousness, wbich God, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day,' 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8. He eyed God (as they in their Olympic concertations did the judges) to see how he stood with a crown and a shield. Ps. v. 12, ' Thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous with favour, thou shalt crown him about as with a shield;' so in the original, God both assisting as with a shield in the combat, and ready afterwards to crown him that overcomes. Oh, whom would not the consideration of these things hearten to stand out against sin and Satan therein ! Oh, where are Jobs and Pauls to be found on earth, that hold fast their integrity !

3. Consider how the general came down into the field, was tempted in all things as 3'ou are, and at last died in this quarrel, to overcome on your behalf. Now the death of the general enrageth the soldiers, as was seen in the battle where Gustavus Adolphus, king of Sweden, lost his life, and they make their enemies' lives go for it; and by his death Christ hath begun to make thee free, and hath, as was said, betrusted thine own soul to thee, as a castle for thee to defend. If a town or castle hath cost blood, the blood of many soldiers to win it, and he to whom it is betrusted should yield it up, how heinous would the action be! So much blood as it cost the gaining, so much will be reckoned to the betrayers of it. But hath it been the life of ordinary soldiers, or your own conquests, that gained you Hberty ? No; it was the precious blood of Jesus Christ, which redeemed you from your vain conversations; and shalt thou now give it up to his utter enemy whom he came to destroy, and whom he by force threw out ? and M'ilt thou do this for a few good words, for husks, and such wretched allurements ?

4. Remember bow it was told thee that thy Saviour perfectly triumphed for thee over this devil, as conquered in thy name and stead. Now this is a great incentive. As the apostle reasons from his death against sin—' How shall we, that are dead, live any longer therein ?'—so I from his triumph. Thou art more than a conqueror in him, and conquerors fight with other spirits than other men, as those that know not how to be foiled. This know, that it is thy duty by faith, and thou oughtest and art bound to triumph in Christ, and to give thanks for the victory as already past. Paul in the midst of the conflict falls a-thanking God: Rom. vii. 25, ' I thank my God, through Jesus Christ.' And, 1 Cor. xv. 51,' Thanks be to God, that giveth us the victory, through Jesus Christ our Lord.'

Now then, 1, if it were but barely betraying what Christ triumphed for, how dishonourable were it! In so doing, look as Christ put the de\'il then to open shame, thou puttest Christ to open shame before the devils: as Heb. vi., the apostle speaks. Thou makest what in thee lies, Christ's glorying void, which Paul professeth be would rather die than do. But it is more especially so when thou thyself hast also given thanks for the victory through faith. View this in the glass of the times, if public thanks have been given for a victory, or the gaining of a stronghold, and a triumph made upon it, and the great guns let oft'; for the same persons to yield up what themselves thus joined in triumph for, how dishonourable and hateful were it! As thou art to shew forth Christ's death till he comes, so Christ's triumph also, and so to act as a conqueror, as to be able to say, I have overcome that evil one. Nay, let me tell thee, in case thou yieldest to thy lust, thou givest occasion to Satan to triumph; and that not only against thee, but against Christ also ; and so thou not only failest Christ, but sharnest hirn. Oh that ever Satan should with an easy suggestion win that from Christ which he so triumphed for! The reason why the devil and wicked men rage so in open scandal, and a saint's known falling, is.

because be remembers tbe sbame Cbrlst once put bim to ; and now, tbiuks be, I am revenged for it; and so witb tbe greatest joy bo spreads and multipHes tbe report of it, so infinitely dotb be please bimsclf witb it. You find in tbe Psalms bow David still prays be migbt not be made a scorn to bis enemies, nor tbat tbcy sbould triumpb over bim ; tbe same bolds mucb more in respect of spiritual enemies.

Add unto tbis tbe further baseness of it in this respect, to yield to, and to be overcome by, a routed enemy rallying again, by a stigmatized enemy (for remember bow Christ used bim), by an enemy tbrust through. If a known cheater sbould come to your shop, whose nose is slit, or ears cut off, would it not be accounted the greatest folly to be gulled by such an one ?

Last of all, let it something move thee that we are to be his judges. You are to judge the fallen angels ; how will you be fit to do it if you sin witb them ! How dishonourable is it for judges to be found to have cast their lots with cut-purses and thieves ; or for judges to leave their seats (now you ' sit with Christ in heavenly places,' Eph. ii. G), bow unworthy and unbecoming is it!

I shall conclude witb a few words of further direction and encouragement, drawn from what Peter says, 1 Peter v. 9, ' Whom resist.'

1. From the word ' resist,' consider tbat Satan, who tempts you, is an adversary without you, the word dvr/rr-'/jrs dotb import this. Peter speaks of them in whom Christ dwells, and bids us understand ourselves herein ; that when Satan tempteth any of us, be is but as one that stands without us, and we are to withstand bim as one tbat attempteth to come in upon us. Compare tbis 1 Peter v. 9 with Eph. vi. 13, ' Take unto you,' says Paul, ' tbe whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand,' dcr/ffr5;!/a/, those principalities and powers spoken of, ver. 12. Not only the like word avTiorr^mi, u-ithstand, imports this, but the other metaphor here also ; for it were in vain to exhort a man that bad his enemy in bis bosom to put armour on (which is a thing be is clothed with), to withstand bim. It is tbe case indeed of every unregenerate man, to have tbe devil within bim, who is therefore in the first place to be exhorted to turn from Satan to God, and to have Satan cast out of bim; but a godly man is assaulted by Satan from without. Tbat other exhortation also (Eph, iv. 27, ' Give not place to the devil') argues bim without us, seeking to come in, and to get room or place in our hearts. If you give way to a lust, be enters in ; yea, it is made one eminent difference between a man unconverted and converted, tbat Satan is within them whilst unregenerate. Hence Christ is said to have cast out of Mary Magdalene seven devils that were within her, dwelling as in their own bouse, Luke xii. 24. So in 1 John iv. 4, tbis difference is put between the world and godly men, that Christ is in one, Satan in the other: ' Stronger is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.' He doth not only work in wicked men effectually, but be himself is ' in them ;' yea, as Christ is said to be in us, and we in Christ mutually ; so of tbe world it is said, tbat the devil is in them, and tbat they are in the devil: 1 John v. 19, ' The whole world lieth in wickedness.' The words in the original are, 0X05 Iv rw ffovjjew -/.u-ai. He bad said before, ' He that is born of God keepetb himself (that is, take bis ■whole course), ' that tbe evil one' 6 rrcr/ifog, ' toucheth him not;' which evidently argues tbat Satan is not in bim, but without him, mucb less is be in Satan ; and then be adds these words, ' the whole world lieth,' sv rSi <7rov7jsr2i, ' in tbat evil one' (as be had done in the former verse), tbat is, tbe devil,' the author of all wickedness. And John in this epistle had designed

out the devil by 6 vovTi^hg, that wicked one, chap. ii. 13, 14. Chap. iii. 12, * Cain was of that evil one.' And this is a deeper phrase than to say they are under his power ; for it implies in its analogy, that as of their natural life it is said, they ' live, move, and have their being in God,' so of their life as sinful, that they lie and move in Satan, and he is their element as it were. They are all as young ones in his belly, and are quickened and nourished by that wickedness they take in from him, as the child is by the mother. But it is a great advantage to a believer that his enemy is without him. A strong party may be kept out by a few that are in an house, and will stand to defend it; and therefore give not place to the devil ; but if he knocks, open not to him, for if he sets in his bill he will turn the master out. Yea, let me strengthen this yet further, that there is a stronger within us than is without us : 1 John iv. 4, ' Ye are of God, Httle children, and have overcome them ; because greater is he,' viz., Christ, 'that is in you, than he that is in the world.' And so it concerns Christ to help us to keep possession, more than it doth us, for we are his house, and he as a Son is to take care over his own house, Heb. iii. 6; and Christ's graces in us are the goods. Now it concerns the governor that hath a fort committed to him, and is in possession, most to defend it. It concerns him in point of honour, though the goods within be of little worth, to defend and maintain his own, especially whenas he hath already triumphed over the enemy. All our conflicts, therefore, are mainly to shew forth Christ's power the more in us. It is true, that against these ships that bunch forth with Christ in them, the devil (who is the prince of the air) wuU be sure to raise up storms ; but be of good comfort, Christ is in thee, though thou art but a poor cock-boat, ready ever and anon to be overwhelmed, and Christ will never sufier himself to be cast away. Julius Caesar said to the mariner in a storm. Tecum fortunam Casaris vehis; but a greater than Caesar is in thee. All those storms and waves are but to shew his power in rebuking them ; go to him and awaken him, and he will do it for thee.

2. Another encouragement is, that if thou standest stedfast and fixed in thine own wall, he cannot hurt thee; this both words, 'resist' and ' stedfast,' do imply. There can be no greater security given to combat with any adversary than this, that he cannot wound thee unless thyself will. I shall but add this illustration to it: when Christ was tempted by Satan, and he had had power to carry his body up to the top of a pinnacle of the temple, from whence a child with a push might have thrown him down with ease, yet the devil could not; which is the more observable, in that he could hurry and bring his body to the very place (as he can us to an object that shall tempt us and bring us into ticklish and tottering circumstances), yet still throw him down he could not, he must have his own consent to that, and he could do nothing but persuade. Thus it is with thy will, for Christ's temptations are the patterns of ours. Austin makes this the wonder, that whereas the devil is a dog in chains, yet lo, how he doth prevail, when yet he can only bark and solicit, but hurt and bite none but him that is willing, and joins himself to him.* The like hath Bernard: Videtefratres qudrn dehilis est hostis, qui von vincit nisi volentem.

3. Be but stedfast in believing and thou art victorious. Have but an inward courage, let not thy heart fail thee, and thou conquerest. ' I have prayed,' saith Christ, ' that thy faith fail not.' Keep up thy heart but in confidence (so saith the apostle, ' Hold fast your confidence'), for faith

* Neminem potest mordere nisi enm qui se ei conjunxerit; latrare potest, sollici-tare potest, mordere omnino non potest nisi volentem.

supports it; yea, it is but having an eye, a look unto Christ, * the author aod finisher of our faith,' and unto God, ' the God of all grace,' as the 10th verse points out. It is but to cry out to him for help in time of need (as the word signifies, and as the apostle, Heb. iv. 10, directs us); it is but to see our own weakness, and to look out for a strength in the grace that is in God and in Jesus Christ, and we overcome. 2 Tim. ii. 1, ' Above all, take' (says the apostle, Eph. vi. 10) ' the shield of faith, wherewith (alone) ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.' And the reason the apostle here puts the article, iv rn 'ziarsi, is not to note out religion in general, but the eminent use of that grace in this victory. ' This is your victory, even your faith,' 1 John v. 4. I enlarge not on this, only observe the easiness of such a victory, as an encouragement to us; as Christ says, ' Fear not, only believe,' Luke viii. 50.

I go on unto what is more directly propounded by Peter purposely for encouragement, in those words, ' Knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.' It ought to be a comfort and encouragement to us, that to be thus tempted is the common lot of all the brotherhood universally in the world. They are all fellow-sutferers with us in this kind, not from men only, but from Satan by sore and grievous temptations; and this will afford unto us a double consideration for encouragement against temptations.

1. That there are all sorts of temptations dispensed amongst them. If they have not that which thou hast, they have some other; yea, and every one hath that which shall be personally most grievous to him. There are ' manifold temptations,' as James and Peter says, and God eserciseth all with one or other; and the more to lead thee through them, is the more to make thee perfect, for Christ was thus made perfect that he ran through all; therefore be not discontented with thy lot. Yea, the apostle intimates that the same, the very same that befall any one, do befall some other in the world (which is a wide place, and hath many saints in it), ra aura ruv 'TraQri/j^d'Tuv, ' the same of sufferings;' that is, the same sort or kind of sufferings that befall one befall some other ; they have all sorts amongst them. We have heard Job complaining, says Calvin, did ever the Hke befall another ? (in his 3d, 4th, 5th chapters). But the apostle here on the contrary saith, that nothing doth befall us in this which we may not behold in some or other members of the church. In 1 Cor. x. 13, the apostle comforts the Corinthians with this : ' There hath no temptation taken you,' saith he, 'but what is common toman; but God is faithful,' &c.

(1.) He speaks to them as believers, and as considered in the state of grace, and as those that were under the protection of God and his promises. "Why else doth he comfort them with this word, ' but God is faithful' ? &c.

(2.) He speaks of temptations to sin; yea, of their having been overcome of sins, and great sins, idolatry, fornication, murmuring; and he had laid before them great punishments for such sins : 'Let him that standeth,' saith he, ' take heed lest he fall,' namely, into sin for time to come. And then to comfort them for their having fallen, he adds, there is no temptation hath befallen you but what is common to man; that is, to the saints of God as clothed with human infirmity, by reason of which a saint may fall into sin. Camero says, sins cannot be meant, because the pronaise is, * they shall be able to bear them;' now it is not a promise to the saints to be alDle to bear sins. But I answer, that promise imports two things.

1. That sins are sufferings to the saints, and the greatest. Why else doth he speak of bearing them, and speak of this as proper to a saint ?

2. The promise is not that their spirits should bear them, that is, brook them, as being contented with them as sins, but that they should be able to submit to the providence of God under them, and not despair, as Calvin saith; and submission to God in point of sinnings, and bearing up one's heart not to despair, is the greatest patience.

A second ground of encouragement is from this, that all the brotherhood's being involved thus in temptations is part of the communion of saints. Consider how not all singly, but all jointly as one man, are engaged with you in the same strivings ; and so helping one another, ye strive together as one man, and

Multorum manibus grande levatur opus ; one is fighting in one place, another in another ; one against one lust, another against another; and this should hearten all and every one. This mightily encourageth soldiers that they fight together. Now thou hast the hearts of all the saints with thee; yea, every one helps each other by their prayers, by their victories; yea, by virtue of this communion of saints, all the prayers thou puttest up for thyself are for the whole, and what thou losest is lost to the whole party. How doth this move the Jesuits in their undertakings everywhere in the world! What thou winnest is won to the whole party ; every prayer thou puttest up for thyself is put up for the whole, as Christ in that his form of prayer hath instructed us. And at the latter day you will all rejoice together, and stories will be told who did most valiantly at such and such a time ; how thou wert stormed, and the devil's mine sprung, which he had been a long while a-contriving, and how thou stoodest it out against all.

CHAPTER VII.

Motives unto holy obedience, and unto a boldness in our Christian profession, drawn from the majesty of the Lord that appears therein. — With an exhortation to preserve it, and the means of maintaining the honour of our profession.

For Herod feared John, knoiriny that he was a just man and an holy, and observed him ; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.—KhRS. VI. 20.

We have here a great and strange wonder—a wolf, or as Christ called him, * a fox,' afraid of a lamb. Herod, a king, is afraid of John Baptist, which shews a plain contest between two majesties, which should overcome. We have here a king reverencing a greater majesty than his own, in a subject, and in a subject too of the meanest outside, clad not in silk, ' as those in king's houses ' (as Christ said of him), but in camel's hair. I may upon such a strange encounter say, What ailest thou, 0 Herod, that thou fear-est John ? Look on him; what is it thou viewest in him to work the least degree of fear ? Art not thou a king ? Take heart, reassume spirit. Ay, but he is an holy and a just man, and overcomes me (says Herod), and that is all the reason indeed. ' Herod feared John, knowing him that he was a just man and an holy, and reverenced him; and when he heard him, he did many things, and heard him gladly.'

There are two doctrines natural to this scripture.

1. That there is a glory and majesty shines in the graces and lives of holy and just men, so far as they are holy.

2. That there is a special majesty and authority discovers itself in the ■word of God preached, when it is delivered and administered by holy men. Here is both fear and reverence, as the etfects assigned to a double cause : (1.) Reverence to his preaching upon hearing of him. (2.) Fear, because be knew that he in his person was a just and holy man.

1. I say there is, as an authority, so a majesty, for it encounters here with the majesty of a king, and outshines it to an awe and reverence: and therefore must be in its kind, a majesty greater than what was stamped upon him. There are other proofs of it, as in Isa. xxvi. 10, ' the majesty of the Lord' is said to ' shine in the land of uprightness.' And these two sentences are strictly to be conjoined as to this sense, that where uprightness in righteous men dwells, there, in those upright men, the majesty of the Lord shines and appears, which wicked men's consciences, though glimmeringly, do discern, although they will not behold, that is, acknowledge it. The reasons of the doctrine are,

(1.) Because God is in them, and darteth eminent beams of his majesty out from them, in their conversations : 2 Cor. vi. 16, ' I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people;' and 1 John iv. 16, 'He dwelleth in God, and God in him.' God is said to be in them ; therefore, as the body hath a majesty in it, which appears in the subjection of beasts to the face of man, because a reasonable soul dwells in it, and a majesty answerable to such a soul appears in it, so it is here. And as Solomon's temple, wherein God manifested his glorious presence, is therefore said to be glorious in the Scriptures, much more are these living temples of the Holy Ghost, wherein God keeps his court and residence. The King of glory cannot come into the heart (as he is said to come into the hearts of his people as such, Ps. xxiv. 9, 10), but some glory of himself will appear; and as God doth accompany the word with majesty, because it is his word, so he doth accompany his own children, and their ways, with majesty, yea, even in their greatest debasements. As when Stephen was brought before the council, as a prisoner at the bar for his life, then God manifested his presence to him, for it is said, ' his face shone as the face of an angel of God,' Acts vi. 15; in a proportionable manner it is ordinarily true what Solomon says of all righteous men, ' A man's wisdom makes his face to shine,' Eccles. viii. 1. Thus Peter also speaks : 1 Pet. iv. 14, 'If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you : for the Spirit' not only of God, or of grace, but ' of glory resteth upon you.' And so in the martyrs, their innocency, and carriage, and godly behaviour, what majesty had it with it. "What an amiableness in the sight of the people, which daunted, dashed, and confounded their most wretched opposers; so that, although the wicked persecutors ' did eat up God's people as bread' (as it is Ps. xiv. 4, 5), yet it is added that they were in great fear upon this very account, ' that God is in the generation of the just.' God stands, as it were, astonished at their dealings : '_Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge' (so in the words afore) ' that^ eat up my people as bread,' and make no more ado of it than a man doth that heartily eats his meat ? They seem to do thus, they would carry it and bear it out; but for all that they are in great fear whilst they do thus, and God strikes their hearts with terror then when they most insult. Why ? For ' God is in the generation of, or dwelleth in the just,' and God gives often some glimmerings, hints, and warnings to the wicked (such as Pilate had concerning Christ) that his people are righteous. And this you may see in Philip, i. 28, * And in nothing terrified by your adversaries, which is to

them an evlclent token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.' In that latter passage I observe, that an assurance of salvation, and a spirit of terror, and that of God, is given to either. In the Old Testament it is recorded of David, 1 Sam. xviii. 12, that although Saul hated him (ver. 9) and sought to destroy him (ver. 10, 11), yet ' Saul was afraid of David, because the Lord was with him, and was departed from Saul,' which is the reason in hand. God manifested his presence in David, and struck Saul's conscience with his godly and wise carriage, and that made him afraid.

(2.) The second reason is, that God hath subjected the consciences of all men to the graces and uprightness that is in his people, which will appear by three things :

[1.] There is an assenting to and approbation of their courses in men's consciences. There appeareth to them an amiableness and a beauty therein, so as they cannot but say, their ways are good. Thus Paul says of himself, who yet was spoken against more than any man : 2 Cor. iv. 2, ' We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, but commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.' His conversation was such, as any man that knew his ways and manner of life, could not but in his conscience approve of what he did as good, and holy, and just. And thus David was so upright in his actions, that Achish the king of Gath, an heathen, acknowledgeth it: 1 Sam. xxix. 6-8, ' Surely, as the Lord liveth,',thou hast been upright, and thy going out, and thy coming in, is good in my sight: and I have found no evil in thee ; yet the lords ' (for their envy at thee, and their own particular interest) ' favour thee not.' The like he says too at the 9th verse, ' Thou art good in my sight, and as an angel of God.' And such trust did he repose in him, ' he made him keeper of his head,' and committed his life to him, 1 Sam. xxviii. 2. And the reason of all is, because holiness is light, and so is to the conscience as light is to the eye : Eph. v. 8, ' Ye are now light in the Lord: walk as children of the light.' If you ask what that light is which is in them ? he answers, that ' the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth;' so that their godliness, and what is the fruit of the Spirit in them, is light. And as sore eyes, that cannot endure to behold the light, yet cannot but say that the light is good, it is amiable, it is glorious and beautiful, so it is here, an holy profession and life is as beauty is to the eye; if the eye be opened, and beauty laid before it, it cannot but acknowledge it such.

[2.] An holy profession and life hath not only an amiableness in it, but an authority also to reprove wicked men: Eph. v. 11, by ' walking in the light,' you (the saints) shall * reprove their works that they are evil.' And this authority ariseth thus, that holiness doth manifest sin and the vileness of it in evil men, and lays open their consciences to themselves, by the light shining in a believer's profession and life, and so reproves them, for their consciences have in and of themselves a light that shews them their villanies, and therefore they practise their wickedness in secret: ver. 12, * It is a shame' (says he) 'to speak of what is done in secret by them.' There is a shame in it, a guile in their courses, which they avoid by secresy; but by the coming in upon them of the light of a contraiy hohness, which hath a glory in it, the shame of their secret wickedness riseth up with the gi-eater power upon them.

[3.J Holiness in the saints hath the authority of a judge, as to the consciences of wicked men, and it is a forerunner of what authority they shall

one day exercise; for they have the honour to be judges in the world to come, and they do begin in their lives here. So Lot was among the Sodomites, and therefore the saints are said to bind wicked men in cords, Ps. ii. And wicked men look upon a godly man as a judge, and fear him as a judge ; and as they fear the word, so they dread the lives of the saints, as Herod feared John, ' because he was a just and holy man.' And thus, so far as any severity of righteousness did appear, the wise and grave men obtained authority amongst the heathen upon this very principle. God gave them restraining graces of his Spirit, and an authority accompanying them, insomuch as we read of Cato being a man of immoveable justice and austerity, that the generality of the people would cease their plays, and such sinful spectacles, till he was passed by. It is the counsel Seneca gives, that a man should set before his eyes a Cato, or a La;lius, as a judge of his actions; Cofilta Catonem jndicem. Now, if these glow-worms that shined in the dark had this authority on men's consciences, what honour have all Christ's saints, if they endeavour to hold forth holiness, who ought to be burning and shining lights in a crooked generation !

(3.) Lastly, True and genuine holiness is the lively image of God; and so much as there is of the image of God, so much glory and majesty is there : 2 Cor. iii. 18, ' But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' The image of God, according to the proportion of its appearance, in any kind or degree, hath a majesty in it, as God himself hath ; and still so much of the image of God as appears, so much majesty. As for instance, in man, though fallen, there being left some prints of the image of God and superiority over beasts, answerably there is a majesty in man, by reason of which beasts do fear him. Thus also there is an impression of majesty upon kings and magistrates, of whom God hath spoken, ' I have said ye are gods,' as in relation unto men; and God accompanies them with a majesty and an authority answerable. And so far as God doth back this his image, so far they reign and rule, and their subjects' hearts are touched to obey them, as Saul's subjects were when he was made king. So of David, it is said that ' God had subdued the people under him,' Ps. cxliv.; and the church is called the queen, Ps. xlv,, as being the spouse of Christ, and her children are styled princes; and as Christ is said to have glory and majesty in the third and fourth verses, so in like manner, ver. 9, she is said to be ' all glorious within.' As queens participate of majesty with their husbands, so the church with Christ.

The doctrine thus proved, an objection is to be prevented. You will say. Experience confutes all this; for there are no people counted viler than the people of God, and their ways are esteemed foolishness, and they are insulted over and opposed; where, then, is this majesty you have spoken of ?

1. I answer, that some, though brought up in the church, yet never saw the light, nor were acquainted with the power of godliness, or the possession of it, but have lived as men in vaults, and were never brought forth to see the light, and so speak against what they know not, Jude 10. Peter also attributes it to ignorance, that foolish men speak against the people of God: 1 Peter ii. 15, ' That you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.'

2. Godliness is yet further prejudged to many such by misreports. Men look upon it through false mists and distorted mediums, false glasses, false prejudicate suggestions which enemies have instilled into them; even as

Bernard, an holy man, did upon the Waldenses, whom he wrote against. ' Report' (say they in Jer. xx. 10), ' and we will report it.' Thus of Christ men spake by hearsay, some one way and some another, John vii. 12.

3. The real scandals, yea, the utter fallings away of many professing godliness, confirm them in this opinion, so as indeed the majesty of God's ways, and of the profession of them, by this means comes to be much obscured, yet so as it still appears ; for though many withdraw and fall back, yet they may see some who are true, that hold out, and rejoice as a giant to run their race.

4. Godliness being clothed with so mean an outside (as it was in Christ, that there was no form nor beauty in him, Isa. liii.), is therefore obscured ; for the world looks for the kingdom of God to come with pomp, as did the Pharisees; but the best of the saints are said to have worn sheep-skins, Heb. xi. They were leather-coats, of whom yet (says that scripture) ' the world was not worthy;' who (as that insinuates) dealt unworthily with them, because they discerned not their worth by reason of the meanness of their condition. And Christ says, because the poor received the gospel, therefore ' Blessed are they that are not offended in me.'

5. The blame lies much upon true Christians themselves, who do not labour to express the beauty of holiness, and to put forth that majesty as they ought and should. They soil it by too many infirmities, and suffer their hearts and lives to lie bedusted till all the glory is covered over therewith. There is too much indifferency, not a due resoluteness and per-emptoriness for the ways of grace. There is too much self-seeking and earthly-miudedness, and conforming to the world; and carnal men view only (as the Egyptians did) the dark side, are intent upon the bad that is in them, but despise and turn away their eyes fi'om their graces.

G. Though all men should see it, the holiness of the saints, and have glimmerings of it more or less, yet God, Isa. xxvi. 11, tells us that ' they will not behold it,' that is, acknowledge it, but deal unjustly with it, oppose, scorn, and deride it, for it is the majesty of God shining in uprightness, which they are said to deal (oppositely) unjustly with, which also is in the next verse interpreted to be their envy at God's people.

And this will easily appear if you consider but two principles that are in the hearts of men.

1st, There is conscience, to which godliness approves itself more or less, as conscience itself is enlightened.

2dly. But there is withal another principle more prevailing in the hearts of carnal and unregenerate man, viz., a wisdom devilish, earthly, and sensual, as James speaks ; by the dictates and principles whereof men are guided and ruled, imprisoning that light of truth in the conscience, labouring to blind it and put it out all that may be. Now these lusts and sinful dispositions, making men drunk (as the phrase is, Deut. xxix. 19, they are said to ' add drunkenness to thirst'), though they have some glimmerings of this majesty, yet whilst this drunkenness lasts, they stand not much in awe of it; and therefore it is no wonder they are so neglective of it. A servant over whom his master hath a great hand and authority, and he fears him exceedingly, yet if he be drunk, he is regardless of his master, is not afraid to abuse him; and thus, whilst men are drunken with lusts, they mock, and contemn, and slight godliness and godly men. But observe them on their death-beds, and in their month of pangs of conscience, as

the prophet speaks ;* when their lusts are allayed, and the heat gone, and the drunkenness over, and they are a little soberised, as at the day of death or sickness they will all be, then the remembrance of their ways and carriages, and their revilings and misusings of godly men, dashes them and confounds them; and then they will send for a good man, as Pharaoh sent for Moses at midnight, and desire them to go and serve then- God, and to bless them also. You will all be made sober one day ; 1 Peter iv. 1-7, the apostle there uscth this phrase of ' living to the lusts of men ; ' for it is one thing to live and please their lusts, and another to live to their consciences.

7. And lastly. Their opposing of godhness doth not argue but they may have some glimmerings of the majesty of it, and yet not sin against the Holy Ghost in their opposition. For they may hate it out of love to their own evil works. John iii. 20, ' Every one that doth evil, hateth the light, neither cometh to the Hght, lest his deeds should be reproved.' For sin causeth rebellion, and puts all out of order ; and so as beasts, though there is an innate majesty in man over them, yet at times they wall (as Christ says) turn upon you, rend and devour you; so it is here in this case: Ps. xiv., 'And have they no knowledge' says the Psalmist there, * who eat up my people as bread?' And so in Ps. ii., * Let us cast away their cords from us.' And truly thus men deal even with God himself; there is no principle more rooted in the heart than that there is a God, and that he is a judge, ' yet the fool says in his heart. There is no God,' and ' there is no fear of God before his eyes.' Yet it cannot be denied but that the majesty of the Lord himself appears to men's consciences.

Use 1. Is there such majesty stamped upon the graces and lives of upright ones ? Then, first, this may be an encouragement to them to go on and persist in these ways, and to abound in holiness, and to strive to get a reality and excellency therein. For look how much more real, serious grace, sincerity, and holiness, appears in you, so much more majesty and authority appears also. Be bold in that holy profession, which hath been grounded upon the rock, and which hath a spring of regeneration and sanctification to maintain it; for there is such a majesty annexed to it as will bear out itself, and dash, and confound, and muzzle its foolish opposites in the end. This is a great motive unto godliness, and so the prophet useth it: Isa. Iviii. 8, ' Thy righteousness shall go before thee;' that is (as Calvin hath it), the testimony of thy goodness and uprightness shall appear before God and man, and be an usher to make way for thee in the hearts of men. ' And the glory of the Lord' (that is, the majesty of the Lord) ' shall be thy rear-ward,' fighting for thee in the consciences of wicked men, or shall environ and encompass thee round, as that light did Paul when he was struck off' his horse. As the apostle makes this a discouragement to sinful ways and courses, that shame attends them, and is the fruit and issue of them, Puom. vi. 2, so on the contrary it may well be an incitement to holiness, that majesty, and glory, and honour, and fear, and reverence in the consciences of men, doth accompany it even here in this life. And so the apostle makes it his concludent motive to the Philippians, which he shutteth up all with, Philip, iv. 8, when he had exhorted them to walk in those ways they ' had heard and seen in him' (ver. 9); see with what elogies he adorns them; ' Whatsoever things,' says he, ' are true, and to be reverenced'—for so the word is, offa gif/.va,,\ veneranda —' whatever

* Perhaps tlie allusion may be to Job vii. 3.— Ed.

t See Beza on both words.

are pure and loTcly, or amiable ; if there be any virtue or praise'—that is, anything worthy of commendations, as all virtue and godliness is—' think of these things.' By these epithets the apostle allures them to godliness, holiness, and purity, even because they are amiable, lovely, drawing reverence and praise with them. So he calls them, because they are so in themselves, and they are thus to the consciences of men. And it is their consciences that is the noble part that is in them, and chief relic of the image of God ; and therefore though by reason of their lusts they distaste and despise you, as being contrary thereunto, yet in the highest, noblest part, and most retired thoughts, they do approve and praise you : Cant, vi. 9, ' The daughters saw her and blessed her, and the concubines they praised her.' And the testimony of an enemy is the best testimony in the world, as Moses urgeth it, ' our enemies being judges,' Deut. xxxii. 31. Be therefore encouraged to hold forth the word of life, as hghts in a crooked generation: Philip, ii. 15, 16, ' That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world: holding forth the word of life.' Although the majesty of true godliness be under clouds now, yet the time will come when the sun shall break forth as at noonday : Ps. cxxxvii. 6, ' And he shall bring forth thy righteousness as the hght, and thy judgment as at the noon-day.' And even in this world when thou art dead, the envy of wicked men against thee will cease; ^jos^ mortem cessat Uvor. But thy name will live and be precious, for the rust will wear off, and the precious metal appear. Read throughout the Scriptures, and the stories of all ages of the church, and look what a man, or company of men, professing piety and the truth were in any age, such in the end will their name be, and be owned in after ages to come ; and the reason is in Micah vii. 8, ' When I fall, I shall arise ; when I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light unto me.' And ver. 9, ' He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.' And the reason of all is, that there is a truth in thy holiness (as the apostle John in his 2d and 3d epistles styles it), yea, and the greatest truths ; for if the word written be such a word of truth, as heaven and earth shall pass away sooner than the least tittle of that shall fail, and therefore God preserves it in the truth of it for ever, then much more the truth writt^n in men's hearts and lives, not with ink, but by the Spirit of God, will be verified and ratified by him in thee ; and God thinks himself obliged to back truth, being the God of truth, and cause it to obtain and prevail. But there is another reason, that is, the glory of God that is in thee : Isa. xlvi. 13, ' For Israel my glory.' And the saints are the glory of Christ, 2 Cor. viii. 23, and Christ will see to his own glory, as it is engaged in them ; and therefore in Isa. xxvi. 11, he says, ' They shall see and be ashamed for their envy at the people.' However, know this, that by a bold holy profession of Christ and his ways in sincerity, though intermingled with veiy many, and perhaps great infirmities, you make work for the day of judgment: 1 Peter ii. 12, ' Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles ; that whereas they speak against you as evil doers, they may by your good works, M'hich they behold, glorify God in the day of visitation.'^ They now speak evil of you for what they espy to be faulty in you, and wickedly pervert your best actions, and brand you with hypocrisy and carnal ends ; yet they shall be forced to glorify God then, and all the glimmering convictions or suspicions they had darted into them will rise up against them in that day. And though now the seeds of these convictions are sown in weakness in their

consciences, and pass through them but as ordinary, cursory, and common thoughts, yet they will rise in power when Christ shall revive them.

Use 2. Let me exhort those who are invested with this glorious profession, to manifest, and preserve, and maintain this majesty, and not to sufler it to be soiled and justly debased in the eyes of men. It is not considered by godly men as it ought, what they have committed to their trust, even the majesty of the Lord, and that they carry the majesty of the Lord about with them; and that therefore they should be careful how to behave themselves, as we see men of place and of authority are, lest they should do anything unworthy of it, so as to debase and vilify it. For were this considered, our lives and carriages in the world would be other than they are. What manner of men should we be in all holiness of conversation ? But professors do not consider this, that they have that in them, which if it were maintained and preserved as it ought, and in that purity it might be, would not only reprove the unfruitful works of darkness, Eph. v. 11, but put to silence also the opposers, 1 Peter ii. 15, yea, cause them to be ashamed who speak evil of the ways of God, as it is in 1 Peter iii. 16. It would plainly dash and put out of countenance the pomp, glory, and splendour of all unregenerate men's com-ses, whose glory, when it is at the highest top thereof, is but their shame. That therefore you may have this consideration of, and respect unto, the majesty of the Lord in you, consider but these grounds and motives,

1st. If you consider it but barely in itself, as an honour put upon you, you ought to have a regard to it and a care of it; and therefore the apostle, 1 Cor. vi. 19, when he would dehort them from uncleanness and fornication, he puts them in mind of the honour that was in their bodies : ' Know you not,' says he, ' that they are the temples of the Holy Ghost ?' As if he should say, if you considered the honour that is put upon your bodies in that relation, you would not debase them and defile them, and take the members of Christ and make them the members of a harlot; and therefore, 1 Thes. iv. 4, he speaks of possessing a man's vessel in holiness and in honour, that is, they were to labour to keep it undefiled, in respect of that honour that is put upon it. As fornication is thereby aggravated, that it is the defiling the honour of the body, which ought to be presei-ved, so Hkewise by the same reason, all soil, and scandal, and filth in you, above what it is in other men, may be aggravated by this consideration, that it is a debasing of the majesty of the Lord in you; and therefore also this is made one of the chief and main aggravations of drunkenness, that it debaseth the glory and honour that is put upon man, and the image of God in him, and lays a beast in a man's room. Take example from customs among men. You see kings having majesty stamped upon them, how-careful are they to preserve it inviolate and undiminished and undebased, though they are men subject to infirmities as others, heaps of dust as well as we ; therefore what actions of state and distance are invented and observed merely to preserve the dignity of their character !

2dly. But it is the majesty of the Lord; it is not yours, but his, put upon you by him. Magistrates have an especial care and endeavour to preserve their authority ; and therefore, though they would put up many things, were they only personal wrongs and debasements, yet if that authority they have comes to be debased, they will stand to maintain and preserve it, especially when one represents a king, as ambassadors do. They use strictly to stand upon all points, to advance the majesty of their master, and take that on them which otherwise they would not, and forbear to do,

not that it is unworthy of them, but of the person they represent. Now therefore consider this, you that are saints indeed, you that bear about you the divine or godlike nature, 2 Peter i. 4. Consider that God's majesty is stamped on you ; the beauty of the Lord is on you, Ps. xc. 17. You are his glory, Isa. xlvi. 13. You represent him in this world, and are in his stead. Consider therefore ' what manner of persons you ought to be, in all holiness of life and conversation,' 2 Peter iii. 11, and therefore endeavour so to live in the world as God would, if he were now amongst us as in the days of his flesh, according to that speech, 1 John iv. 17, ' As he is in the world, so ought we to be in this world.'

3dly. If the interest God hath in it will not move you, then let your own engage you to have a care to maintain the majesty of your profession. (1.) Consider that you are to be the judges of the world hereafter, 1 Cor. vi. 2, and therefore how ought you to behave and demean yourselves, that you may have that authority in men's consciences therein, and that you may be a witness against them without exception. But if you are guilty of the same crimes whereof other men are, they may except against you as incompetent judges. As therefore you look to be honoured with this prerogative at the latter day, lay the foundation of it here.

(2.) If you look no further than this life, you have need to look to maintain this majesty, for you will else be unfit instruments in doing good to the souls of others; you cannot rebuke, nor can you exhort, unless you have authority and acceptation in men's consciences. And therefore Paul bids Titus rebuke and teach with all authority : ' Let no man despise thee,' Titus ii. 15 ; that is, preserve thyself from all just contempt and occasion of men despising thee in their hearts, that thou mayest be fit to reprove, and rebuke, and teach others, and do good to their souls. One that keeps himself without rebuke and reproof, blameless, may with authority rebuke another, and it will be taken well; and the rebuke will stick the faster, as being thrown by a powerful hand. For as God first accepts the person, then the offerings, so do men ; if the person be not accepted with them, and in authority over them, their reproofs and rebukes will be the less acceptable also ; and therefore the apostle requires that a minister, because he is to be employed in bringing home of others to God, should be one ' of a good report even among them without,' lest he fall into reproach, and so his ministry do little good upon them. So that if ministers or others would do good to the souls of others, they must labour to preserve the majesty and beauty of holiness.

(3.) Suppose you will not be moved by these considerations, yet if you respect your own safet}', and would preserve yourselves from the injuries of a malicious world and from the strife of tongues, so as to muzzle men's mouths, and silence them from speaking evil of you, or chain their hands from violence towards you, then preserve the majesty of God in your possession, for it will preserve you. This kept Herodias and Herod's fingers off John from killing him, though they itched to be at him ; Mark vi. 19, 20, it is said she had a grudge against him, and would have killed him; and Herod, as it is likely, had a mind to do so too. But it is said she could not, ' for Herod feared John as a just and a holy man.' And when he did murder him at last, it was with much reluctancy, grief, and sorrow of heart. It was this kept Christ safe a long while also. The rulers of the Jews would have often laid hands on him, and would have spoken against John, but that they had by their holiness won such authority in the hearts of the people ; therefore it is often said, when they would have attempted this they dared not, ' because they feared the people.' And

therefore, if rulers' hearts were set against you, yet this might be a means to keep you safe, and keep oil' many attempts and abridgments of liberty which else would light upon you. And the truth is, it is one of the greatest wonders, that the world and devil, being such strong and deadly enemies to God's people, should keep their hands off of them, they being so few and the other so many. But it is this majesty of the Lord appearing in them that is a curb upon men, and God's being with them casts a fear upon their hearts. There is an excellent place for this, Ps. cv. 12-15, where, speaking of the preservation of the patriarchs in the midst of the Canaanites, their utter enemies, he brings it in as a wonder, that when there were but ' a few men in number, yea, very few,' and strangers also, exposed to indignities, yet God ' suffered no man to do them wrong,' yea, secretly • reproved kings for their sakes,' speaking and suggesting to their hearts and consciences that they were his anointed, namely, his people—anointed with the graces of his Spirit, as all Christians are, 1 John ii. 20-27, and that they were prophets. The conscience of this restrained Abimelech from doing Abraham wrong, Gen. xx. 7; yea, and this was a means at the first for the primitive Christians to have peace, Acts ii., there being some converted by the apostles, who continued stedfastly in their doctrine and fellowship, and breaking of bread and prayers ; and ver. 43 it is said, ' fear came upon every soul,' so that they were a terror to the wicked amongst them. Ah, my brethren, were the majesty of the Lord but advanced and preserved in this kingdom by continuing the word and ordinances, and giving them full scope and liberty to make the desert places of this kingdom to see the excellency and glory of our God, as it is in Isa. xxxv. 1, 2, then should our enemies bow down before us, and lick the dust off our feet, Isa. Ix. 14 ; and as the fear of the Lord fell upon the nations when the Israelites came into the land of Canaan, so it would now on our enemies. Eut because it is so much depressed among us, and the majesty of the Lord not beheld, acknowledged, and advanced, therefore God goes not out with us. See this in Jehoshaphat's time, 2 Chrou. xvii. 7 ; because he sent his princes and priests into all the cities of Judah with the book of the law, the priests to teach, and the princes to back the word and cause the people to yield to it, therefore the fear of the Lord fell upon all the kingdoms of the nations that were round about, so as they made no war against hina. This is the way to secure the kingdom, by thus advancing the majesty of the Lord. (4.) To conclude all with this, as the last motive hereunto, consider these opposing times wherein there hath been long a great battle fighting in heaven (that is, in the church), whether godhness, or civility and formality, &c., should get the victory, as of old between Michael and his angels, and the dragon and his, whether Gentilism or Christianism should prevail. Now you have a weapon in your own hands, if you would but use it, viz., the majesty of the Lord that is stamped upon you. Draw it forth and unsheath it, as Christ, when the soldiers came to take him with staves and spears, did but exert his majesty, and they fell all to the ground. And though your enemies be more in number, and have more swords and staves than you, yet if you would but hold fast that majesty that is in you, they would not be able to stand out. You are an army of kings, and a few of them against a multitude of slaves are likely to get the victory. _ When the Russian bond-slaves had rebelled, and gathered a great and mighty army, their masters agreed to meet them with no other weapons than their whips, whereby they used to lash them ; and all lashing them together, the remembrance of their authority over them, and of the smart of the whip formerly

felt, struck such terror into tliem, as they fled like sheep before the drivers. You, therefore, that are the ensign-bearers of God's majesty, be exhorted to fight it out, and to contend with wicked men, and godliness at length may prevail. The majesty of the Lord is your rear-ward, and therefore till the glory of the Lord departs from Israel, never despair of victory. Know that there is a promise made to the church under the gospel, giving this hope, Isa. Ixi. He speaks of Christ, and his coming to preach the gospel, which Christ himself, Luke iv. 18, interprets of himself, and of the church under the gospel. In the Gth and 9th verses there is this promise made, ' Ye shall be named,' that is, acknowledged, 'the priests of the Lord;' and it is added, * Men shall call you' (even the standers by) ' the ministers of our God;' and at the 9th verse it is said, ' Their seed shall be known among the Gentiles, and their offspring among the people : all that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed which the Lord hath blessed.'

But now it will be asked what you are to do, what means there are to manifest and preserve this majesty of the Lord in your souls and lives ?

Unto which in general let me premise but this, that then you do it when you so far approve your hearts and lives to men's consciences, by walking in this world as God himself walked, that men are convinced and judged, and say, Of a truth God is in you. This description in general I take out of that 1 Cor. xiv. 24, and what there is said of prophesying in the assembly of the saints I apply to their whole lives. When you so walk and demean yourselves, and so in all things approve 3'ourselves to men's consciences, that whereas now it is in report and profession that God is among you, and men are in doubt whether it be so or no, men are convinced that it is so, and that of a truth (as it is there) God is in you, then the majesty of the Lord appears in you.

1. I say, approving yourselves to men's consciences, for that is the subject party, or the territories of that majesty. That you may not conceive amiss of it, I do not exhort to surliness, pride, stateliness, keeping aloof of and at a distance, which is a thing the world objects to godly men. No; this is the devil's majesty, and of the princes and great ones of this world, which comes to nought, as the apostle says, 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7, distinguishing between the wisdom of this world and that which is of God, and between the majesty of the Lord and of the world. Now as the kingdom of Jesus Christ is not of this world, so neither is the majesty of his kingdom. And therefore it is not heaping up of riches, learning, worldly respect and authority that is a means to advance this majesty, but it is endeavouring to be holy as God is holy, 1 Peter i. 15. Therefore,

2. I add, it is by living holily, as Christ would if he were here. It is to be merciful as he is merciful, kind, faithful, true, as he is, pardoning of injuries as he doth, purifying 5^ourselves as he is pure ; in a word (as you have it, 1 John iv. 17), it is demeaning yourselves here as God would if he were in the world; and therefore think not thou canst no ways advance the majesty of the Lord because thou art poor, or contemned and despised, and not regarded in the world, for thy poor outward condition. For Christ was all these, and yet the majesty of the Lord appeared in him; and Peter says they were eye-witnesses of it, 2 Peter i. IG. And thou in all these estates maj^est approve thyself to the consciences of men, as Christ did. If thou art poor, yet if thou keepest thy sincerity, and dost not use shifting, base, unlawful means, but walkest faithfully in thy calling, and manifestest that thou livest by faith, and dependest on God, and shewest a contented-ness in thy condition, and that thou livest a more comfortable life by the

help of thy foitli, delighting thyself in the Almighty, than those that have most abundance, the majesty of the Lord appears more in thee than a professor that glisters more in the world in regard of outward things. Or art thou in disgrace, and in reproaches, abused and contemned ? Labour to approve thy heart to God, seek the honour that is of him, be patient, and revile not again; only take heed that thou suH'erest not as an evil doer, and be not discouraged from practising all the duties of godliness with constancy and cheerfulness, and thou shalt approve thyself to the consciences of men, and ' the Spirit of glory shall rest upon thee,' 1 Peter iv. 14. Keep but thy innocency, and let them do what they will, thy light shall break forth as clear as noonday. And that majesty which shall appear in thee shall melt all the disgraces cast at thee, as the sun doth snowballs cast at it before they come half way; or they shall all fall off' like burrs cast upon a looking-glass. For still know this, and build upon it, that nothing from without can debase the majesty of God in a man, no outward condition whatsoever (as Christ says of defilement, that nothing from without defiles a man, but all defilement is from within, a man's own heart), nothing from without can soil the majesty of God in him, but all that men lose is from within, from sin, and sinful, ungodlike, unChristlike, and unsaintlike carriages in their several conditions.

But I shall now shew some particular means whereby Christians may maintain and keep the majesty of the Lord from being soiled and debased in them, and preserve holiness in the beauty, lustre, and brightness of it, so as to commend it to men's consciences with authority,

1. Christians must be innocent and harmless. I premise this, not as though in itself simply and alone, or chiefly, the majesty of the Lord did appear ; for many are so, in whom the beauty of holiness doth not appear ; but yet it is a thing that is fundamentally and mainly necessary thereunto, and which serves much to commend it and approve it to men's hearts. For as in all pictures and paintings there are ground-colours laid, which though simply in themselves have little gloss, yet must first be laid, or else the brightness of the other colours, and oil and varnish, in which all the gloss lies, will not so eminently shine and appear ; so, nor will the beauty of holiness and majesty of the Lord appear to be in you, or come to be approved of in men's consciences, without innocency and harmlessness. And therefore when the apostle, Philip, ii. 15, 16, tells them that they were to ' shine as lights in the world, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation,' and they were to ' hold forth the word of life,' that is, to hang forth that holiness the word requires, as a light in a dark night, he withal admonishes them, that if they would shine thus indeed, they must be ' harmless and blameless,' which though simply it be not the light, yet it is the lanthorn, as it were, through which it shines ; which if it be not made of some diaphanous and perspicuous matter, as glass, and that kept clear too, the light is dimmed, though never so gi'eat, and is kept from shining; and therefore if they would shine as lights, and hold forth the word in their lives, they must be blameless and harmless, they must keep their innocency, they must keep their lives clear, pure and undefiled, and from being ' spotted in the world,' as James says, James i. 27. And he adds also this motive as the eff"ect of this, ' that ye may be the sons of God,' that is, manifest that you are of him ; that as he in this world doth no man wrong, so neither do you injure any man ; and by this, you shall both manifest yourselves to be children of your Father, and approve yourselves to men's consciences. And though a man hath never so much holiness and sincerity in him, yet

by any failing in this kind he shall never approve it to men's consciences, for men look upon this light through this lanthorn. As magistrates when they are not innocent, but oppressors in any kind, or bribe-takers, and do men wrong, are made obnoxious by it, and lose their authority by it, and their hands are often tied by it in punishing sin and wickedness, and they cannot execute justice as they ought and should, no more will ever holiness uphold its majesty and authority in men's hearts, when you are thus obnoxious to men. And therefore Samuel, contesting with the Israelites for rejecting him who had been their judge, professeth his innocency : 1 Sam. xii. 3, * Whose ox or ass have I taken ? or whom have I defrauded or oppressed ? or at whose hands have I received any bribe ?' If he had indeed been guilty, then to have despised and rejected his authority had been the less offence. You therefore that have this majesty of the Lord committed to you, should have a care so to carry yourselves in dovelike innocency and evenness to men here, that God may expostulate with those men at the latter day, who now reject and contemn his majesty stamped upon you. Whom of you all, then God may say, did they wrong, or deceive, or defraud, that you did so much speak against them ? Is it merely that they were holy and zealous in my service, and in those duties I require ? InNehemiah, chap, v., when some of the Jews had oppressed their brethren, by letting corn to use, and had taken mortgage of lands of their brethren in a time of dearth, and the like cruel uncharitable dealings were among them, see what he says at the 9th verse in this case : ' Is this good that you do ? ought you not to walk in the fear of our God, not to dare to do this ?' Why ? ' Because of the reproach of the heathen their enemies.' They had the name to be the people of God ; and how durst you do it, says he, knowing that God would be reproached, and your religion reproached by it ? And he, good man, professeth, that because he would credit religion, and shew the fear of God was in him, he had not been chargeable as former governors were, yea, had not taken that which by custom he might: at verse 15, ' But so did not I, because of the fear of the Lord.' He required not his due (verse 18), because of the hardness of those times; even that allowance which was appointed to him as governor he required not, and all this ' for the fear of the Lord.' His meaning is, that he did it in reference to God, whom he feared, that he might honour him, and credit his religion in him the more, and that there might be no cause of reproaching it, as it may be expounded by the 9th verse. And this was it which made old Jacob say to his sons, his cruel sons, Gen. xxxiv. 30, who oppressed the Shechemites, that they ' made him stink in the nostrils of the inhabitants.' And so injuries done to men that are enemies to the gospel by revilings, or defraudings, or by violence in any kind, will cause religion to stink ; for men being so gi-eat lovers of themselves, and haters of holiness, are sensible of injuries done unto them in any kind, and revenge all upon the religion you do profess. And as the injurious carriages of the sons of Eli, in taking off the flesh of the sacrifices where they pleased, against the law, caused the people to abhor the sacrifice of the Lord, so if you be found wrongful to men, and justly provoke their self-love in them by any means, it causeth them to abhor all your other profession, and all the duties of holiness, which otherwise they could not but approve.

2. Labour to do good to all as much as lies in your power. This is a second means to help to commend that grace that is in you to men's consciences, to cause them to think well of it. This you may see was the means whereby in the primitive times the Christians at fii'st got favour

with the people, notwithstanding their cleaving to the apostles, continuing in their strict doctrine, and separating themselves from the world, and meeting together and praying, Acts ii. 44, all which are matters at which the world so much storms ; yet because they parted their goods to them who had need, and brake their bread freely, it is said, ver 47, they had favour with all the people, whilst they did thus strive to honour their profession. And this is one thing that credits God himself much to the world, and wins good words from men of him, whom though they hate, and truly hate him as holy and as a judge, and cannot endure that majesty of his which appears in the world, yet because he doth good unto thenj, and ' gives them rain and fruitful seasons,' and thereby bears M'itness to their hearts of his goodness to them, therefore they speak well of him, and many say thoy love him because he is good to them; whereas should they only know him by his severe and strict commands in the world, and by those glimpses they have of his majesty therein, they would assuredly express revilings of him, and would not have that esteem of him that now they have. So when wicked men see and view in you nothing but zeal for God and duties of holiness, and feel none of your goodness extended to them, they will more purely hate you; but if besides your zeal to God they find you do good to them, then out of self-love men would be drawn to approve good courses, and to see and acknowledge that God is in you; for they love those that do good to them, and speak well of them; insomuch as the heathens used to ascribe divine honour to those persons, and thought something more in them than men, who did them some great, extraordinary, public good.*

Having despatched the preparing means to make godliness to be approved of men and acceptable to them, I come secondly to such things wherein it may appear and be put forth.

1. Shew forth the graces of the Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter exhorteth : 1 Peter ii. 9, ' Shew forth the virtues or praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light,' being ' holy in all your conversation.' In your eating and drinking, in your callings, express other ends, doing all in such a manner that it may appear all is done for God and to God. Whether you eat or drink, let all be to his glory; and, as Zechariah prophesieth, let holiness be written upon the bells of the horses and upon your bowls, Zech. xiv. 20, 21; that is, when you go to plough or cart, or sit down to drink, or go to war, let all these be done in a holy manner, that men may read upon your drinking-bowls as it were this inscription, * Holiness to the Lord;' that you dedicate them, yourselves, and all you have to God, that these vessels of common use may become as truly dedicated to God in a holy use of them as the bowls in the temple were; and even in these common actions endeavouring to express holiness, and fear, and reverence, and rejoicing in God, you may make as great a difference appear between them, as performed by you and others, as is between a picture varnished and oiled and another that hath but bare, dead colours. Moral virtues sanctified have a holiness, a glory put upon them : therefore Peter useth the same word to express the graces of Christ in that place that Aristotle doth to express his moral virtues by. Express you Christ in them ; let his holiness appear in you.

2. Abound much in holy duties, Isa. Ixi. 3, 6, 9, in praying, in mourning and humbling yourselves for sin, in sanctifying the Sabbath, &c. In

* Nihilo propius homines ad Deum accedunt, quam salutem hominibus imper-tiendo.— Cicero.

the 3cl verse it is said of those that ' mourn in Sion,' and are brokenhearted Christians, and ' fruitful trees of righteousness, that God may be glorified;' that they at the altar shall be named the priests of the Lord, for the holy sacrifices they should daily perform and abound in ; and ' men shall call them the ministers of our God,' when they are diligent in praying with their families, instructing them, and whetting the word upon them. Men shall call them so, and give that report of them; and ver. 9, ' All that see them shall acknowledge them, that they are the seed whom the Lord hath blessed.' Therefore, as Paul says to the Philippians, chap. i. 9-11, ' Be filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ unto the praise and glory of God,' that God may be glorified, as Isaiah there says, and so Christ also, John xv. 8, and then God will thus glorify you according to his promise, ' Those that honour me I will honour.' So to abound much in private prayer, though in secret, and none knows it, yet it will add a lustre to thee in thy conversation. Conversing with God so familiarly forty days, caused Moses his face to shine when he came oflf from the mount; and so conversing much with God will make thy face, thy presence to shine. As wisdom is said, Eccles. viii. 1, there to make the face to shine, so much more will prayer; for a man by much prayer keeps close communion with God, God walketh with him, and he with the Lord. Let all thy actions too shew forth thy meekness and humility, &c. The meekest man by nature must learn another kind of meekness of Christ: ' Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly.' Forgive injuries, because God hath forgiven you, you were sometimes injurious to others. That which did win Christ's authority was holiness and meekness : Ps. xlv. 4, ' In thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth, and meekness, and righteousness.' Meekness did add majesty and grace to him ; he that is holy God will exalt, and others will exalt the man who humbleth himself. Be patient in wrongs, nothing overcomes and wins ground more. It is the best victory; you overcome in the heart of the party that wrongs you, you melt it, dissolve it, and ' heap coals of fire upon his head;' you overcome in the eyes of others, and are in their esteem above him, and he under you. So David overcame Saul's conscience, 1 Sam. xxiv. 17, 18, when he had Saul, his enemy, that sought his life, at an advantage, and some bade him kill him when he was asleep, yet he spared his life and forgave him. This mightily convinced Saul, and drew this confession from him, ' Thou art more righteous than I, for thou hast rewarded me good, whereas I have rewarded thee evil,' ver. 17. And, vei\ 19, ' For if a man find his enemy,' says Saul, ' will he let him go well away ?' He looked upon his own heart, and saw he could not have found in his heart to have done this, and few men else would have done it. Such bowels of mercy ai'e proper only to God's elect. Such a person indeed will savour and smell of prayer, and having gotten God into his heart, the gleam of his presence with him will appear in everything he doth. It will compose the heart, and compose the countenance also, and thy conversation, and cause all to shine, that men shall say of thee, the contrary to what Job's friends said of Job; when they saw him impatient, they said, ' Surely this man restrains prayer from the Almighty,' but they shall say of thee. Surely this man prays much, and is abundant in it, his carriage all day long is so heavenly.

Labour also to humble thyself, and to mourn and confess thy sins with much and daily godly sorrow; for humiliation removes the shame that comes by sin, which covereth another's face, and which daunteth another's heart; but thou ' wilt shew thyself thereby clear inthis matter,' as 2 Cor.

vii. 11; and God also dwells in an humble heart, and draws nigh to him ; and so God's presence appears more in such an one, and God also will ' lift up him that humbleth himself under his mighty hand.'

Labour also to make peace betwixt others and God. This will make thy steps beautiful in their eyes, when they discern thou aimest at their soul's good, and sanctifiest the Sabbath strictly; for that day, by reason of the duties of it, is a glorious day, Isa. Iviii. 13 ; that day is as a Christian parliament day, wherein he rideth in his robes, as it were, and the majesty of God will appear in thee all the week after. So also be much in holy conference of the things that belong to the kingdom of God. Ps. cxlv., David, speaking of the saints, says, ' They shall speak of the glory of Christ's kingdom, and make known to the sons of men the glorious majesty of his kingdom.' Speak great words of God, your interest in him, privileges by him, and what glorious things are laid up for those who love him.

But then, 3, be sure you say and do. For the want of this the Pharisees lost their authority in the hearts of the people, and Christ won and gained it from them. As Paul says of himself, that he would make it appear that he was powerful not only in writing, but that he was so in presence also, so do you endeavour to express more power in your lives than in your speeches ; as Christ did not often in plain words tell them so much that he was the Messiah, but, says he, ' Let my works testify.' As man never spake as he did, so never any man did the works he did. Endeavour to be mighty in word and deeds also, Luke xxiv. 19. As kings will not dispute but do, so do you; do not stand talking only of the majesty of his kingdom, but, as David said to Solomon, ' do it,' 1 Chron. xxviii. 10, that all may come from you tanquam in verho regis et sacerdotis, you being kings and priests to God your father; and let all your principles of holiness appear to be with you, as the laws of the Medes and Persians, which you never turn or go from, but are in-evocable. This will preserve and maintain majesty indeed, as it doth majesty in a king.

•4. Do all you do with as much reality and fervency of spirit as you can; —ApoUos is said to be a mighty man, not only in regard of his eloquence, but fervency of spirit also. Acts xviii. 24, 25—that men may not see light only shining before them, but feel heat, and vigour, and energy also in you. John was a ' shining and a burning light;' it is not shining light only, but it must be burning light that confoundeth wicked men. There is light in the work itself when it is done, but the heat lieth in the spirit and manner of doing it: be ' fervent in spirit, serving the Lord;' contend earnestly, put forth your might in whatever you do, as Solomon says, Eccles. ix.; ' be zealous of good works.' Press to the mark, as aiming and endeavouring to reach as far as possibly you can; labour not to do much only, but to have your spirits shine much in that which you do, that, as the darkness of Egypt was not discerned only by the eye, but was felt also, so let the light of your works not be seen only, but let them be felt also ; express seriousness and reality in all, else they will think, as they do, that you act but a part. Actors on the stage, though they act the parts of kings upon the stage, yet who fears them ? There appears no majesty, because they do but act, and have not the spirit of kings, nor the affections of kings, though they take on them for a while the person, state, actions, and speak the swelling words of kings.

5. Endeavour to do all with sincerity, aiming to manifest holy ends in all, and manifesting and laving aside of vour own ends and aims. Thus

Paul did approve himself to men's consciences, 2 Cor. iv. 2, 'We have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty.' He had no secret ends and aims, no underhand projects for himself; nor have we 'walked in craftiness ' (unless it were to win their souls, as he says elsewhere), ' but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves to every man's conscience,' and to God also, 'in the sight of God.' And therefore, see how he endeavours to manifest and clear to them through that whole epistle, that he sought not theirs but them, and did preach the gospel freely to them. And so also in the 1st chapter of that epistle, ver. 12, 13, ' Our rejoicing,' says he, ' is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity' {ilXr/.Dmia, jjerspicuitatelanimi, with a mind you might see through) ' we have had our conversation in the world, and not in fleshly wisdom ;' that is, we have endeavoured to shew we have had no ends of our own (for fleshly w^isdom will still be progging for itself); as Job says, chap, xxii., a worldly wise man is profitable to himself, but still the event hath shewed that God was our aim, and we have walked in godly sincerity, and this with such plain-heartedness and cleanness of mind, that you might see through us in all our actions. And ' we write no other things to you than what you read and acknowledge;' that is, what we now say of ourselves by writing, you have formerly read in our actions and conversations; and you do acknowledge it, dvayivudKiri, recorjnoscitis, you may remember it was so, you know so much already, and may now remember that this is true ; and so ' I hope you shall acknowledge,' that is, have cause to do so, ' unto the end.'

6. Be constant and even in your courses; walk not unevenly, but steadily. The primitive Christians, who, as I said before at the first, won so much lapon the hearts of the people, are said to have ' continued in the apostles' doctrine'; and that 'well-doing' whereby, 1 Peter ii. 15, we should 'put to silence the ignorance of foolish men,' notes out a continued act of welldoing. Kings who sometimes take state on them, or any superior else, and then neglect it as much another time, lose majesty by it: Qui servut constantiam, servat dignitatem, vincet aliquando jiertinax bonitas. Gamaliel gave this sign and aim to know whether they were of God or no, if they go on and hold out; if not, they will come to nothing, says he; and constancy therefore overcomes and convinceth, because it argueth reality; for it is impossible long wholly to dissemble and act a mere part. The heathen could say of their Fabricius, by reason of his constancy, that virtue was incorporated into him, so as it was as possible to turn the sun out of its course as him out of his way of virtue.

7. Let Christians be unanimous and communicative each to other; this we have commended to us by the example of those primitive Christians who grew in favour with the people : ' They continued in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread and prayers,' Acts ii. 42, ' and fear came on eveiy soul,' ver. 43. For, as David says, Ps. xiv., ' God is in the generation of the just.' God is in every one of them ; but when there are more together, there is more of God among them, and he shines more. An army of kings banded together, strongly cleaving and entering into mutual leagues (as when the people of Israel came out of Egypt), a fear must needs fall on the nations about them. They fear your face, and they fear your prayers as cannon shot from heaven. ' Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye love one another,' if you cleave together; by this they shall know that God and Christ is in you.

Last of all, I will give you a caution or two.

1. If you woiild proservo authority in wicked men's hearts," have no fellowship with them in tho unfruitful works of darkness; distance reproaches them, and keeps authority in their consciences ; hut ' reprove them rather,' says tho apostle, Eph. v. Nlinia famlliaritas contemptum parit, they will espy out your weaknesses, and work upon them.

2. Take heed of violent passions, rash anger, impatiency. . As they come from weakness, so they will weaken you in their hearts; such passions make servants control their masters, children their parents. As drunkenness is to reason, so arc violent passions to grace; they are a short drunkenness, and so exposeth you to contempt; as Noah, when he was drunk, Ham mocked him though he was his father, for ho then discovered his nakedness and shame, and so dost thou in thy passion.

3. Take heed of earthly-mindedncss. It were debasement to a king, and would lose of his esteem and majesty, to load muck-carts every day ; so you who are heirs of heaven, it must needs debase you to lade yourselves with thick clay. Let your affections, your conversation, be in heaven, where your treasure is ; magnify not earthly things above their own rate, as the world doth. Alexander knew Porus to be a king by his contemning all things. Do not fear men, as kings do not; contemn the pleasures of Egypt, as Moses did. Nebuchadnezzar left his throne and fed amongst beasts ; his glory then departed from him.

4. Take heed of falling into scandalous sins ; like Delilah, it will shave thy hair, and then thou Vilt be as another man, and the Philistines who reverenced thee before will mock thee. Going up to his father's bed did lose Reuben his excellency. As Tamar said to Amnon, thou wilt be as one of the fools of Israel, and they all will laugh at thee as at a fool, and whither will thy shame go ? Thou thereby strengthenest the hands of the wicked, and they will say, Behold, he is become as one of us.

CHAPTER VIII.

Motives to evangelical obedience from this consideration, that it is the great design of the gospel to promote the life, and power, and practice of godliness.

But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving ■your own souls. —James I. 22.

Holiness of heart and life is urged upon us, as we stand in relation to the word of God, as written and engrafted in the heart, which holiness in other Scriptures is called, ' obeying from the heart that mould of doctrine,' that is, answering it in the life. Here in the text it is called doing of the word. James spends most of this epistle upon it to urge it, and to shew the vanity of that religion which is destitute of it. Now by doing the word in a large sense, not simply outward obedience is meant, but the whole conformity to the will of God in the inward and outward man ; it is a conformity to all that the word exhorts to. Now the word exhorts to faith, to change of heart, to inward sanctification in the will, as well as to a godly conversation, and so all inward holy dispositions and motions are doing the will of God. Thus the whole building from top to bottom, faith, and both inward and outward holiness, are called doing by Christ: Mat. vii. 24, ' Hearing my sayings,' says Christ, ' and doing them, is to build on a rock,' namely, on himself. The reason is, because doing hath relation to com-

mand. Now his command is to believe, 1 John v. 13. Faith is therefore called ' the work of God,' John vi. 29. It is indeed the work of all works, and so to increase in habitual grace, faith, knowledge, &c., is called doing: 2 Peter i., ' If these things be in you,' says he, ver. 8 ; but he says, ver. 10, ' If ye do these things.' When Paul disputes, as we do against the papists, that no man is justified by works ; what! doth he mean external works only ? No ; but he excludes from our justification our whole righteousness, both root and branch, the inward as the root, and outward as the branches, because under works of the law is comprehended a complete conformity to the law, and to what the law requires, and so he means hereby inward as well as outward holiness. For when the law says, Do this, it therein commands inward holiness in doing, as the root of doing, or the law is not fulfilled. And thus when the law forbids any evil work, it forbids original sin as well as actual, for law binds the whole man.

1st. It is the end of the word to enjoin such entire holiness. 1 Tim. i. 5, ' Now the'end of the commandment is charity, out of a pure heart, and a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.' The apostle in that chapter reckons up many particulars, and concludes, as if he had not mentioned all: ' K there be anything else contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel.' He concludes in general, to involve all particulars not enumerated, and he calls it the glorious gospel, as that whose gloiy would not love iniquity. Now, says he, the end of this commandment is love to God and man, out of a pure heart sanctified inwardly, and rightly directing it, and for pure ends, all which unfeigned faith worketh in him that believes. This, yoa see then, is the end of the command, and this is one end of believing the gospel if in truth. And his scope is to compare this doctrine with Jewish fables and tradition, ver. 4, which consisted in speculations and disputes ; whereas all our doctrine, in every part of it, tends to practice; and this is the glory of our religion, that all the truths of it tend to holiness and godliness, and are practical, or strengtheners of us in practice. The incarnation of Christ, God manifested in the flesh and ascended to glory, is termed the great ' mystery of godliness,' and the whole doctrine of the gospel is called the ' doctrine which is after godliness,' Titus i. 1, 1 Tim. vi. 3. For that is it which it all tends to, and all truth is practical; therefore John calls it ' doing the truth,' 1 John i. G, a strange phrase to a speculative philosopher, and ' walking in the truth,' 2 John ver. 4. In the epistle to Timothy, the apostle Paul had spoken of exhorting servants and masters to their respective duties ; for indeed every truth in the gospel, savingly known, will have influence into the actions of all relations, to make men conscientious in performing them, and holy in them. He instanceth but in one kind, to shew the like in all the rest, and to shew the glory of all sound doctrine in that respect. The same apostle, Titus ii. 1, calls the gospel sound doctrine, because it tends wholly to soundness and integrity, and to make the whole man such in all and every part of him, and to keep every one in their duties ; as aged men, ver. 2, aged women, ver. 3, young men, ver. 6, servants, ver. 9, 10 ; for the grace of God, namely, the gospel of grace, teacheth men all these duties. And because this is the professed end and scope of all the doctrine of Christianity, and of the word held forth by the professors of it themselves and in the nature of the thing itself, therefore if men profess the truths of it in any kind, thereby difierencing themselves from other men, and yet prove faulty in their lives, presently the word is blamed by others : Titus ii. 5, ' Let wives be obedient to their husbands, that the word be not blamed ;' or as you have it, 1 Tim. vi. 1,

' that the name of God and bis doctrine be not blaspbemed.' Not only the name of God, but even bis doctrine is mentioned ; and wby ? But because it is expected all bis doctrine sbould tend to boliness, and to make all relations (for of servants be there speaks) holy. And on the other side, walking bolily in all relations is said there to adorn the doctrine itself, as well as to glorify God. Thus every defect and miscarriage lights on the word and the truths professed, as being such truths which teach men otherwise ; and all boliness tends to glorify the word, as that which is the great design of it. And indeed all holiness and obedience is but the holding forth in the conversation that word of life which is in the heart, and cbangeth the audible word into a visible work. The saints are as ' lights in the world, holding forth the word of life,' Phil. ii. 15. As grace is but the word engrafted, so obedience is but the word held forth. When the apostle says you shine as lights, he makes use of the same word used by the Septuagint, Gen. i., for the heavenly lights; for as the light that is in the stars is ordained to be held forth to the world to quicken things below ; and as the gathering together of that light, which was scattered by the first day's creation over all the mass of matter, into those bright globes, the subjects of it, was the work of the fourth day ; so God in the new creation hath taken that light which is diffused through bis word, and bath gathered it into the hearts of his saints, to give light to a dark world. The word in the heart is as the light seated in the stars, which is called hu; and the shine of it, lumen, is the outward splendour of it; and as light in the stars is ordained for shining to others, so is the word to be held forth in obedience, that it might the more enlighten men. And unto this difference of lux and hwien, I'ufht and sluninfj of that light, the grace in the hearts of the saints being as the light, and good works as the shine of it for which that light is ordained, Christ's speech imports (and the apostle, as some think, alludes to it), ' Ye are the light of the world : let your light so shine before men, that they, seeing your good works, may glorify' God the author of that light, and that so you ' may glorify your Father which is in heaven,' Mat. V. 16. The like expression we have, James iii. 13, ' If any man be endued with knowledge, let him shew out of a good conversation his works.' A good conversation, full of good works, is the best demonstration of knowledge ; it is a knowledge shewn forth, and therefore it hath the same effects that preaching the word hath : 1 Pet. iii. 1, if not ' won by the word,' they may be ' won by their good conversation.' So God tells us also, Isa. xxix. 23, 21, ' When they see my children, the work of my hands' (God's workmanship \^ them created to good works), ' they that erred shall learn doctrine, shall come to understanding by it.' The end of the word is, not to fill men's brains with knowledge or speculations,^ but it is altogether practical. It gives rules for all actions of men, 2 Tim. iii. 17. The Scripture was written ' that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished to all good works.' The Scripture is not Uke a philosopher's lecture, that discourseth of the heaven, and the earth, and nature of all things ; but it is a school of action, that gives directions and rules for all sorts of Hfe, and motives enforcing them. God in bis word hath condescended to give directions and prescriptions about the meanest, lowest actions of man's life ; and to what end ? Because the religion it teacheth consists in doing : ' that you may hear and do,' Deut. xxx. 12. And God singleth out the ignorant and foolish of the world for his scholars, and bath revealed this mystery unto babes, and concealed it from the prudent. Had he intended only to teach matters of knowledge and speculation, he would

have singled out the rarest wits of the world, and have poured out all sorts of knowledge to fill them; but he hath stuffed his whole word with exhortations, directions to practice, and made all knowledge and mysteries in it but subserve to it; and he hath scholars answerable, the foolish of the world. And why ? Because they are capable of doing his will as the wisest. They can love, fear, and obey him as well as the wisest. It is therefore practice he aimed at in all the word he hath delivered ; and ' he,' says Christ, Mat. xii. 50, ' is my mother, brother, and sister, that doth the will of my Father.'

2dly. To do, and to be active in God's word and law, is the end and perfection of the reasonable creature, and of all the abilities God hath given man : Eccles. xii. 13, ' To keep the commandments is the whole of man.' So it is in the original, which is more emphatical than to say, ' the whole duty of man.' It imports that this is the adequate end and perfection of man, all he serves for, all he was made for. Man's soul is an active spirit, made for doing and action, and never doth nor can lie still from that instant it first began to think or desire. As the heart in the body sleeping and waking never ceaseth motion, the soul much less, but the pulses of its thoughts and desires are always beating. God himself is pure act: John V. 17, ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' And the nearer any creature comes in its degree and rank of being to God, the more active we see it to be. Heavenly bodies that are in place nearer to God, the third heavens being his throne, how active are they ; they never cease moving : the sun ' rejoiceth as a giant to run his race.' Now the perfection of the activity of all these lies in this, that they all are in their actions subject to a law, an ordinance, a statute of God, which they keep ; and from this consideration concerning them and other fellow-creatures doth David raise himself and others unto obedience, Ps. cxix, 89-91. His scope is in that psalm, and round about those verses, to shew that himself, a king, and all that are truly righteous, do live and act by the law and word; and he confirms himself and them in their obedience and allegiance, by what is common with them to the whole creation. God hath not (says he) given a word, a law and ordinances, and institutions only to men, but his word is established in heaven, and all the stars observe his ordinances, and are his servants ; and which is the wonder of it, they continue to this day according to his ordinance. These heavenly peers, from the sun to the least star, never transgressed the least constitution of his during three thousand years (as this place gives testimony in David's time) nor during two thousand and an half to our times. There is not a st^r hath crept an hair's-breadth out of the stage and course God set it in to run ; the sun nor moon never failed (but when God once or twice extraordinarily commanded them in Joshua and Hezekiah's time) of the minute appointed them for their going down. It knows its going down, Ps civ. 19, it moves, it winds about from one end of the heavens to the other, from south to north in a peer ;* and yet when it comes to the tropic, twenty-three degrees from the equinoctial, which is twice in the year, in summer when at the highest, and in winter when at lowest, it stirs not an hair's-breadth further, but returns back again (as a servant or confined person that is limited in his walk and pale), though it hath the whole heaven before it to expatiate in; yea, and though it walks about the world in a day. David gives the reason of it; it is God's servant. And the souls of men—as they are more active and more noble, so they needed more rules and laws to regulate their actions. * Qu. ' year'?—or perhaps ' pear'? a pear-sliaped, or elliptical figure.— Ed.

The soul hath as spacious a course as the sun in the heavens. ' The law of God is exceeding broad,' says David, to sport and delight ourselves therein, as the great waters are to the whales to play, and tumble up and down in them; and yet this noble creature, which in activity exceeds all other of this world, is not lawless ; but its perfection lies in this, that all its activity be exercised in the law and word of God, as the rule of it.

3dly. It is the end of inherent grace in the soul, and of our union with God, that we should be doers of the word, as needles are touched with a loadstone, that they may point due north. Sin is a weakener, and yet we see how active it is. How mad are men of their sports ; they sleep not if they have not done mischief, and ' commit uncleanness with greediness,' Eph. iv. 19 ; and yet the life of sin is but deadness. But grace is Hfe: 'You hath he quickened,' Eph. ii. 1 ; it is strength : * Strength in the inward man,' Eph, iv.; a hkeness to God, and therefore active: 'A workmanship created to good works which he before ordained we should walk in,' Eph. ii. 10.

4thly. As an holy activity is the nature of grace, and the soul of it, so the perfection of it; as it is the health of the body to act and stir according to the laws of nature, as to eat, drink, &c. Grace is called ' the perfect law of liberty,' James i. 25, and it makes the man of God [perfect], so that he who continues in it is blessed in his deed : Prov. xvi. 17, 'He that keeps his w^ay keeps his soul;' he that goes out of it is robbed of it. His fruit is in holiness, and ' in keeping the commands is his great reward.' Yea, the word itself, so far as you receive it into your hearts, is an active thing. If you have it but in your consciences, you cannot be quiet for it, it will put you upon doing, and it will accuse and excuse accordingly, as you obey or disobey it: Kom. ii. 15, It ' shews the work of the law written in their hearts,' and it works there, and all truth would break out in practice, if men did not ' imprison it' (so Rom. i. 18, the word imports). But if it have a place in the heart and the aifections, it shews itself to be ' the word of life' indeed, Philip, ii. 16, that would break out into the life. It is quick and powerful; ' Thy word was as fire in my bones,' says the prophet, Jer. XX. 9, ' and I was weary of forbearing, and could not stay.' You carry fire in your bosoms, and fire will not be smothered.

BOOK IV.

The danrjer of a loose, careless, and unfruitful profession ; or the danger of mens living under the disjmisation and enjoyment of the ordinances of the oosjjel; viz., the preaching of the icord, the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and church communion, if they live in sin, indulge their lusts, or be unfruitfxd. — Two cases resolved: 1. How far a regenerate man is capable of sinning against knowledge : 2. Wherein the sin against the Holy Ghost differs from other sins against knowledge.

CHAPTER I.

The text in Heb. vi. 7, 8, explained, with some observations from. it.

For the earth which drinkcth in the rain that cometh oft upo?i it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by irhom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God: but that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned. — Heb. VI. 7, 8.

My design is to convince men of what great moment and consequence the ordinances of God are to the souls of them that live under the dispensation of them, for a blessing or a curse, according as they are fruitful and obedient under them and improving of them, or remiss and negligent; and by this consideration, to move them to all strictness and holiness of conversation. To this end I have taken this text.

1. The apostle speaks to professors that had long lived under the doctrine and means of salvation, who yet had made but small proficiency. Thus he speaks in the foregoing chapter, ver. 12, ' WTienas for the time ye ought to be teachers, you have need of one to teach you again which be the first principles.' Yea, and they were fallen back to this (as those words imply), to become ' such as have need of milk.' Whereupon he exhorts them, chap. vi. 1, to ' go on to perfection,' namely, both in knowledge and holiness.

2. And he lays before them the danger that professors ar'e in, if the means of grace have not their due effect; and this danger he sets before them in the example of many that have been enlightened and fall away, and are never renewed again to repentance.

3. He represents the condition of men under a similitude of the earth (to which he compares men's hearts), when it either proves fruitful or barren. Those hearts that drink in the rain and bring forth fruit, have a blessing to bring forth more fruit; and, on the contrary, that earth or those hearts that bring forth thorns upon often drinking in that rain, are rejected and then cursed. The equity of this proceeding is taken from the same and like law, that by the same reason the fruitful should receive a blessing,

by the same the unfruitful should have a rejection, for so both God and man use to do with the earth in like cases. When man hath bestowed his pains to till it, and God seconding man's labour hath sent his rain upon it, and it brings forth nothing but thorns, then it comes to pass, and that deservedl)', that man rejects it (as the word is) and God curseth it; and the end or issue of it, is to be burned, together with its thorns.

I shall now open the particulars of this similitude, and unto what the allusion thereof should refer. Here is earth bringing forth of thorns, upon having the rain falling on it, rejected, cursed, and whose end is to be burnt, and the estate of men that fall away compared thereunto. What is there in other scriptures ?

No one place will help us to understand all of these jointly, but some places will give light unto the one, some unto the other.

More immediately Paul had in his eye the parable of our Saviour concerning the thorny ground : Mat. xiii. 22, 23, ' He also that received seed amongst the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the cares of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also heareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.' The thorny ground, the third ground, as it is termed, notes out the highest sort of those temporaries that fall away ; and answerably, it is the highest sort of those temporaries, and the eminentest gifts of them, Paul had been speaking of: ver. 4, ' For it is impossible that those who were once enhghtened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost,' &c. And as Christ there difi'erenceth a good hearer's heart (the fourth ground) from this thorny ground, that the good earth receives the word, brings forth fruit sixty and an hundredfold, so answerably in this place, the earth that is fruitful is said to be blessed, that is, to bring forth more fruit, but that which doth not is cursed and rejected. And again, as in the parable of the thorny ground this is added, that ' they bring not fruit to perfection,' that is, mature, kindly ripe, Luke viii. 14, so upon this place interpreters have generally made the like observations, that of the good earth it is here said, rixrovsa, it begets its fruits, brings them forth as a mature birth; of the other, the thorny, it is said, sxf ssouffa, it casts them out as abortive ; so Gi-otius. And the diflerent cause of these events in both places is in like manner resolved into the difference of the soil itself; for in all these sorts of grounds the seed sown is the same, the rain that falls the same ; but there are said to be thorns in the one, that is, the roots of lusts remaining unpulled up, and these grow up again after the tops have been cut off, and insensibly draw away the sap, and so their hearts are never regenerated. The other is a good ground or soil, where lusts are parted with, and the heart changed, 2 Peter i. 14, and ' made partaker of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.' And thus Paul distinguisheth of these here, declaring professedly, that those that fall away never had true and saving graces : ' We hope better things of you, and things that accompany salvation,' instancing in their ' labour of love,' which the enlightenings in those other had not. Paul's hope of these hearers, that the issue of them would be different from the other, lay in this, that although their standing at a stay and not thriving was a shrewd, ill sign, yet notwithstanding that, he believed that they should never so apostatise as those others had done, because this apostasy befalls only those that never had honest and changed hearts, nor a work that had salvation

in it; but lie hopes better things of them, and to have been wrought in them, and things that have salvation annexed to them ; as if he had said, When I consider that first work upon you, how sound and thorough it was: Heb. X. 32-34, ' When I but call to remembrance the former days, in which, after ye were illuminated, ye endured a great fight of afflictions ; partly, whilst ye were made a gazing-stock both by reproaches and afflictions; and partly, whilst ye became companions of them that were so used. For ye had compassion of me in bonds, and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves that ye have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.' He knew God would certainly revive them again; but yet in the mean time, to quicken them, he lays before them, and minds them of the example of those that fall away.

2. That other part of the similitude, ' the earth that brings forth thorns is nigh unto cursing,' alludes manifestly to the state of the earth before the fall, and after the fall, compared together. Before the fall, the earth was so blessed of God, that it was fruitful with very small pains, by virtue of that first word of blessing. Gen. i. Paradise is termed the garden of God, because so eminently blessed of God. And thus it is with man's heart: his soul was planted, in the original constitution of it, a paradise unto God, planted with a right seed, out of which all graces rose up and grew, and man so long inherited a blessing from God; but faUing from God, then, on the contrary, to shew how cursed man himself was, God cursed the very earth itself to bring forth thorns. Now as Adam was a type of Christ, and his world of Christ's world, so even this instance also represents what falls out under the dispensation of the gospel. Although man be fallen in Adam, yet to them that live under the gospel God sends his word and Spirit to manure them onco more, and try if they will be fruitful (so you have it both in Isa. v. and in the parable of the vineyard) God sends messengers and dressers early and late; and now the second time of itself it brings forth thorns, then (as of trees, Jude says, ver. 12) it is ' twice dead,' and so twice cursed, first in Adam through his fall, then by their falling from a second work which they have lost.

3. For that other piece of the simihtude, ' whose end is to be burnt.' It may be an allusion to the condition of the earth in Sodom and Gomorrah ; for as the inhabitants of those cities are made types of men under the gospel, Jude 7, so here their land or earth may also be supposed to be so. Now, Gen. xiii. 10, it is said of that land for the fruitfulness of it, that it was * watered as the garden of God.' So then, as the inhabitants of that land, the men of Sodom, are in Jude made ' examples of the vengeance of hell fire,' so the curse that befell that earth for their sakes, that was once the nearest resemblance of the earth in the state of innocency, may be considered to have been singled out by God to make it the shadow of the hearts of those most eminent professors, whom proving unfruitful, God above all other curseth. For, lo, this place and soil is not only turned into a barren wilderness, as the psalmist threatens, but into a lake (as hell is called) of brimstone. The vapours which arise out of it do kill all the birds that fly over it; and the apples that grow on the banks thereof to this day are a proverb, * apples of Sodom,' looking fair, but falling to dust when touched, and all things burnt and blasted. And unto this earth, thus cursed and burnt up, doth the apostle here compare the hearts of the apostates cursed for being unfruitful and unworthy, abusing the means of grace.

4. There is one thing yet more that, in prosecution of this similitude, he compares the means of grace which these enjoy unto: (1.) rain ; (2.) the

tillage or manurement of it, ' the earth that oft drinks in the rain, and is dressed.' This of the rain I know some apply to the preaching of the word, which is compared by Moses to the rain, Deut. xxxii. 2, and Isa. Iv. 10 ; yet I rather take it, "that here the apostle doth in this intend two sorts of means vouchsafed to men's spirits, whereof the one he compares to the rain which comes immediately from heaven, the other to that of man's work in manuring and tilling the earth—so noting out distinctly inward influences, illapses, and dews of the Spirit by the rain ; and denoting means outward dispensed by man's ministry by the other, as sacraments, preaching, admonition, or the like. And my reason is, because look as the things themselves in the similitude itself are different, the rain is from heaven, which God alone can give (who is thereby distinguished from the idol gods that cannot give rain), whereas the dressing, planting, yea, watering with waterpots,—Paul plants, Apollos waters,—are the works of man, and so a difterent means from that of the rain which God gives immediately; so answerably, in the means or dispensations vouchsafed by God, signihed by these unto men living under the gospel, I observe how Paul doth as distinctly mention two sorts of them in the former part of his discourse :^ 1. Inward, a being enlightened, a partaking of the heavenly gift, and of the Holy Ghost. 2. Outward, teachings by men, Heb. v. 12, which also that passage, having ' tasted of the good word of God,' that is, of the gospel as preached by men, implies. And so the two parts of the similitude of my text (verses 7, 8) correspond fitly with those two parts of dispensations by God vouchsafed (verses 4-6), for even unregenerate men partake of the Holy Ghost, as rain and water from heaven, and it falls as the rain both on the hearts of bad as well as good.

I shall now add two sorts of observations, whereof the one concerns the ground that is cursed, the other the good ground, where true grace accompanying salvation is wrought.

Ohs. 1. First concerning the bad ground that is cursed, observe, that in carnal hearts all influences from heaven and means outward administered, do but nourish self, and in the end their lusts, although by accident, as Paul speaks of the law's causing sin, Rom. vii. 7. The rain causeth bxiers to grow as well as corn and fruits, and a poisoned plant turns the rain into poison. Thus men turn grace into wantonness and presumption, and the power of men's lusts prevail over all such enlightenings. The thorns did not only overtop, outgrow, and choke the gifts and graces given, but did convert and turn the actings of those gifts into thorns. The rain rots dead oaks in the end, and so do the means these.

Obs. 2. That God, in rejecting such as are more deeply enlightened, proceedeth by degrees, and not until they have oft drunk in much means. So also the parable of the fig-tree holds forth, Luke xiii. 8 ; he first stayed two years, then afterwards one year longer, and digged and dunged it. He goes on by degrees : as, 1, he deserts it, which is here intimated by being nigh to cursing, that is, by withdrawments, in comparison unto what he once aftbrded in drawing nigh to them ; then, 2, he curseth with final rejection, if they become such as God hath no pleasure in, which he shews by being more strange to them ; yet he doth not presently curse thern, though they are next door to it, as the word niyh here implies, and as it is elsewhere taken, Luke xxi. 30, 31.

Obs. 3. That in this life God may curse such men, when it is a long while after that they are burnt and cast to hell. That indeed is the end of all, but it may come long after cursing. Thus the fig-tree. Mat. xxi. 19,

stood above ground after it was cursed ; and thus God sware against the Israelites in the wilderness long afore they died, ' that they should not enter into his rest.'

The second sort of observations are concerning the elect, those that here are supposed to have good hearts.

Obs. 1. That although they may stand long at a stay, and seem to go backward, yet God will not take the like advantage of them in the end. This is evident from this instance here. Many of these Hebrews that still professed were such, as ' for the time they might have been teachers ;' and yet they still needed milk, the lowest nourishment, they needed even the first principles to be taught them. Yea, it is added in that 12th verse, that they ' were become such as needed milk.' Even as old men that are decayed come to live most on milk again, their stomachs are so weak, and so are these too decayed in strength and appetite to things holy. These deserved that cursing that was executed upon those others, that by such degrees fell oti'; but yet the apostle says, ' We hope better things of you,' for ' God is not unmindful of your labour of love,' &c., which they formerly had. They had such a work, which (as he loved*) would again revive, and yet he sets this severe dealing of God's with others before them to quicken them, this being in itself an ill sign in any, and shewed they were nigh unto cursing, and had best look to it. Solomon committed the same sin against Jeroboam, whom God set up, that Saul did against David, and yet God pardoned the one and cast off the other. And the reason is, because God treats in his dispensations of grace to the one according to the tenor of a covenant of w'orks, but with the other according to the covenant of grace, which, Heb. viii. 9, 10, is differenced thus, ' Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel, after those days, saith the Lord : I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts ; and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people.'

Obs. 2. That even to good hearts the blessing of much fruit is not at first or presently vouchsafed, until they have oft drunk in the rain, and then a blessing from God comes, as it is said, Heb, xii. 11, of affliction, that ' aftencards it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.' It is afterwards, not presently, and after having been exercised thereby long.

Obs. 3. That the heavenly influence by ordinances compared here to the rain, is not always violent or sudden, but gentle and sweet. It sends down TO iii-'ov, moUiores ct minores r/uttas (so Hvperius observes the word here used is), signifying that smaller rain that falls softly, wets and soaks in by degrees, as Moses in Deuteronomy compares the word: ' Deut. xxxii. 2, ' My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew; as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass.' And in Isa. Iv. 10, the word is compared both to the snow and the rain ; the snow always falls gently and so soft, that if a man were blind he would scarce discern its falling. The rain sometimes falls more violently ; and the snow lies often long upon the gi'ound unmelted as it fell ; but then a thaw comes and melts it, and it soaks by degrees mto the earth, and sei-ves to make it fruitful as well as the rain. So ordinances work oftsn not so * Qu. ' lioped' ?— Ed.

much by violent but still impressions, as they alter the habit of the mind, as a diet drink doth that of the body, and work not as vomits, purges, or such like violent physic. For impressions that are violent have their violence from the stirring of self in men's hearts (which is an impetuous principle when once raised), and not from grace.

CHAPTER 11.

That our worthy and suitable Uvinrf under the ordinances of the gospel hrimfs a blessing, hut the contrary a curse on our souls. — The danger of those who, living under the preaching of the word of God, indulge their lusts, or are unfruitful.

The last and main observation is this, that our worthy or unworthy living under the outwaixi ordinances of the gospel, and those dews that accompany them, especially the word of God, is of infinite moment and consequence for blessing, or a curse unto men's souls; and therefore men should be wary how they deal with them.

I take in both sorts of means: 1. The rain; 2. The labour of the husbandman ; and add especially the word, for he speaks there especially of the doctrine of salvation. There are those that look for rain immediately and alone from heaven, but they shall never have the benefit of it, if they neglect or despise the means that are needful to make the ground fertile. Paul plants, ApoUos waters, God gives the increase, but by their watering and planting; and therefore they ai-e said to be co-workers with God, 1 Cor. iii. 9.

To make the main observation good, I shall go over the instances of all outward ordinances of the gospel, and shew the danger of neglect in making due improvement of any of them.

1. In the beginning of the gospel and the first dawning of it, when the kingdom of heaven was but at hand, John Baptist came preaching and baptizing. ' The law and the prophets were until John, but now the gospel is preached,' says Christ, Luke xvi. 16, and one seal thereof, and but one, viz., baptism, was administered together with it. Now see and consider what a more severe warning John gives thereupon, both to the receivers or the rejecters of it. Now ' bring forth,' says he, ' fruits worthy of repentance.' Now nothing will do but fruits worthy, that is, suitable, answerable to the profession of repentance, which by so powerful a means and ordinance God called for and required. By fruits worthy is meant, that they should behave themselves like to true penitents (as, Luke xii. 36, the phrase is), like unto men that wait. The words here in the text, ' fruits meet,' help to expound it. Fruits meet are such that are proportioned to the cost; as when he elsewhere says. Walk worthy of the gospel, because now God will not bear so long as formerly, for ' now the axe is laid to the root.' If before, when you sinned against the dispensation of the law and the institutions of it, God punished with temporal punishments, and did only lop oft' the branches, and did not smite the root, the spirit, but the outward man was then perhaps smitten, and it may be it was long first too ; yet now the axe is laid to the root, that is (as I take it), to men's souls ; for he compares the persons of men to trees, and the soul is the fountain of life, as the root is to the body of the tree. In the old law men were cursed in the field, and in the bushel; but now they are cursed in the

cburcli, at a sacrament or sermon. And he says 7}ow, to shew that God will not stay long with the most of men, ere he strike their souls with hardness and impenitency. Every word is in the present, the axe is laid, not shall be ; every blow, inward check, and motion tends to ruin, if there be not fruitfulness. The unfruitful tree is cut down, is cast into the fire, as elsewhere it is said, ' He that beHeves not is damned already,' John iii. 18. God takes less time to despatch men's souls, makes quick work with them, and either hardens or softens them. These threatenings (I take it) are not spoken of Jei'usalem's destruction, and rooting up the nation ; that was forty years after ; but this here is threatened more speedily to the persons he speaks to. ' Every tree in particular shall be cut down, and cast into the fire, even to hell.' All this John says of his baptism, and the doctrine that accompanied it, to forewarn them that if they took that engagement upon them, they should consider what they did. But then the Pharisees thought with themselves, if your baptism be such an edge-tool to cut to the roots, we will not meddle with it, and so avoid the curse you threaten. Hear what he says of them, and let all learn to fear and tremble ; Christ says of the Pharisees, Luke vii. 30, that ' they rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of John.' This baptism, thus requiring and obliging unto true repentance and regeneration those that received it, was called ' the counsel of God,' because it was that which by God's counsel or institution was appointed for their salvation. But seeing that in the end and intent of it as appointed by God, it required repentance and fruits worthy of amendment of life, they chose to reject it, they slighted or rejected it, it was against themselves they did this, and to their own ruin ; and so their rejecting of it God took more heinously at their hands than others' unfruitfulness and impenitence that received it.

2. Of Christ's ministry, that followed upon John's, Luke iii. 16, 17, it is said, ' He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire : whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner,' &c. That fanning there is in this life, for it is of the corn whilst in the floor (if you mark it), afore it be laid up in the garner, heaven; and by it is meant the speedy discovery and separation that Christ makes by his Spirit of the spirits of men by spiritual judgments for neglecting "the means, and thereby severing temporary believers from true, leading them forth with the workers of iniquity. Others take this fanning for that discovery which shall be made at the day of judgment; but to me it seems clear to be in this life, whilst the corn is in the floor, as the several degrees of this comparison do shew. The first whereof is the bringing in the corn into the visible church or outward profession, which in the analogy of this comparison is as the harvest. Answerable is that speech of Christ, 'The harvest is great'—that is, many are to be brought in—' but the labourers are few.' ' The regions,' saith he, ' are white to the harvest:' this was spoken when men yet stood as corn in the field, not reaped, but ripe for it; and the harvest was the bringing them in. The next to this is that fanning here spoken of, and the thrashing and fanning in the floor are the means used after they are come in. Then the third and last thing is the laying them up safe in heaven till the latter day, which is called ' gathering them into his garner.' Now, this fanning or severing here in the floor is more expressly intended of temporaries than of men loose or worldly; for it is the chaff whom the fan is said to deal withal, not the tares. And the harvest to which the preaching the word is compared, calls men out from the world; but this fanning is of the

chaff brought in by the harvest, and it is severing it from the corn. So then Christ prepares in this life for the day of judgment, severs, discovers men here ; and he does it by the fan in his hand, the Spirit accompanying his outward administrations, I shall close this of Christ's ministry •with that dreadful prophecy of Malachi, prophesying of the ministry of John Baptist that foreran, and also of Christ that followed. How terribly doth he speak of both as of a day of judgment! * Who may abide the day of his coming ? and who shall stand when he appearcth ? for he is like a refiner's fire, and the fuller's soap,' Mai. iii. 2. And in verse 5 saith he, * I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against the false swearers.' And chap. iv. 1 he says, ' Behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall be stubble.' This bright and hot season of the gospel ministry and ordinances concluded the rejecters under a state of hardness and condemnation more than ages before had done.

3. As to hearing the word preached by ministers to the end of the world, Christ in many parables gave great warnings concerning it, but more eminently in Luke viii. 18, ' Take heed therefore how ye hear, for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken, even that which he seemeth to have.' Compare this with Mark iv, 24, ' Take heed what you hear, with what measure you mete it shall be measured to you, and unto you that hear shall more be given.' He had shewed in the foregoing parable (as here in the text) the state of the stony and thorny-ground hearers and professors, and his conclusion or inference from thence is. Therefore take heed how and what you hear. I may add, from the drift and connection, take heed what kind of hearers you be.

(1.) What kind, for of four sorts but one is good; and therefore be solicitous that you have good and honest hearts, such as the fourth ground had.

(2.) Take heed what you hear, Mark iv. 24; that is, take heed to give answerable attendance to the weight of the matter, according as it falls out to be delivered, for these are the ' great things of the law.' And he adds a reason, ' with what measure,' &c. God deals in a proportion ; look what from a sermon one gets and brings again with him to the next, that will cause an increase by the next, else there is danger of a decrease.

(3.) Take heed Iww ye year; and Christ's reason in Luke is, ' To him that hath' (that is, useth that which he hath received by hearing well), ' to him shall be given.' For so Matthew, speaking of the talents, warrants us to interpret it: ' Whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away what he hath,' Mat, xxv. 28, 29. He that used not his talents is said not to have it, which is thereupon given to others, even what thou shouldst have had, but through careless neglect hast missed it.

Unto this so grave and solemn a caveat of our Lord and Saviour, add the consideration of these dreadful properties and efficacies and operations of the word set before us by the apostle, on purpose to make us know and understand of what moment and consequence it is unto us, how we shall have to do therewith; Heb. iv. 12, ' For the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discoverer of the thoughts and intents of the heart.' In the 2d and 3d chapters and beginning of this, he had given abundant warning to take heed of neglecting the word that was preached to them, and to enforce it

in this verse, bids them consider what a word they had to do withal; it is a living word, it is a quick word, and an eternal word. And therefore, as the apostle says, chap. x. 31, ' It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God ;' so say I of the living word, it revived the sense of sin ; when the light of it came into Paul's conscience, ' then I died,' says he, Rom. vii. As some metals will not melt till some other metal be put to them, so nor will sins melt or dissolve into the conscience till the word comes as fire and mingles with them; and when God sets it on work again, then it runs through the soul like hail shot, or like quicksilver.

It is a living word also in this respect, that it is eternal. You may think it vanisheth with our breath, but it lives for ever, and your thoughts will have to do with it for ever: 1 Peter i. 23, ' The word of God abides for ever.' And if you ask what word it is, even that, says Peter, which we preach to you. What if the word is conveyed and set on in that ordinance of preaching, if it is written in the heart, it goes to heaven with you; if it is neglected, yet the Holy Ghost will bring it to your remembrance, and so it will abide and go to hell with you. You shall repeat sermons enough there, and the sermons will be the doctrine, and all your sins will serve for matter of uses of terror and dread for ever; Isa. Iv., ' His word shall not return empty or in vain,'

2. The apostle adds in Heb. iv., that the word is mighty in operation; as in its own nature it is all life and spirit, so it is in operation. It will exquisitely torture, and become an executioner of men in hell: 'it divides,' says he, ' between the marrow and the bones,' which expresseth the most exquisite pains. God's wrath and his word do torment men for ever in hell: 2 Cor. x. 6, ' It hath in a readiness to avenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.' He compares it there to an armoury of weapons and instruments of death of all sorts, that are made ready (as the Psalmist speaks) and laid up to be brought forth. And the apostle there suggests to men's consideration what mighty eftects it will at last have in avenging all disobedience, by what in the mean time it hath in converting and bringing the godly into obedience, and in subduing their lusts. ' It is mighty, ' says he there, ' in casting down strongholds, and high towering imaginations.' Have you seen hurricane winds or earthquakes as they are in some parts of the world, that overthrow towers to the very foundations, tear up hills by the roots and throw them into the sea, toss up ships riding at anchor like tennis balls, and hurl them upon the dry land ? Or have you considered the power of lightning, when it breaks the bottles that hold it, or thunder when it roars in the midst of heaven, blasting every green thing where it lights, and withering them to a deaduess in an instant, shivering the mightiest trees to splinters, dishevelling and tearing ofl' the bark, drinking up the vital sap ? Such and so great (though not so visible to the outward view or present sense) is the power of the word. ' The voice of the crier cries, 'All flesh is grass,' and instantly 'the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it,' withers all the glory of the world to a believing soul, and ' every valley is filled, every mountain is brought low.' It tears men's hearts rooted in evil (as low as the centre of them) from their dearest lusts; it makes their consciences to boil as a pot, and the waves thereof to roar, and then with one word stills them, and calms the winds and the waves, and they obey it, and the heart is pacified. As an hammer it breaks the rocks, and as fire it melts the elements with fervent heat, melts and dissolves the most rocky, stony, and stubborn heart to water, and works it to such a softness as fits it to take any impression. Now the

apostlo from hence argues (as you see) the operations upon the godly in this world, in their conversions, to bring them to obedience ; and the same word will be as mighty to revenge when your obedience is fullilled, the word hath had its full work upon all the saints ; until then, these energies of it upon the hearts of wicked men are suspended; but then it will work as powerfully another way, yea, more powerfully, in avenging, because it will take hold of the whole that is in them, which is nothing but matter for it to work upon ; and it will work at once, whereas on the godly it works gently and but by degrees. Look, as strong physic, if it works not to purging out humours, works out to death and tortures, so in the godly, their lusts are purged by the word here, but in the souls of others it works pain and anguish. ' He shall slay the wicked by the breath of his mouth.' This sword which comes out of Christ's mouth (Rev., chap. i. and chap, xix.) will cut (Acts vii. 54) to the heart, and divide between the marrow and bones, and will be directed by his skill that gave it, and that knows how to torture exquisitely by it, and who knows what parts are most sensible, and who will apply it to them. Both the word of God and the wrath of God are compared to fire : Jer. v. 14, * I will make the words of thy mouth as fire, and this people as stubble, and they shall devour them.' Fire came out of the witnesses' mouths. Rev. xi. 5, the word spoken by them, which kindles the fire of hell in men's souls, and devours the adversaries ; and therefore take heed how ye hear. If you were to take some desperate remedy that hath a danger in it, ends or mends (as quicksilver in some cases), how wary would you be to take it right! Such is this word, and every portion of it; therefore take heed how ye hear. Meu feel not this now, nor do they imagine what a design God hath upon men in this disposition of hearing and preaching. He prepares and lays a train for the other world ; yea, and this instrumentahty serves to all his designs upon the ungodly that obey not his word.

1. It prepares for the great assize at the last day, by sending out hue and cry after wicked men, whose damnation pronounced slumbers not nor lingers, 2 Peter ii. 3. It also makes inquisition for blood, adultery, and all other sins, finds them out, and in God's name arrests the offender: these things hast thou done, and thinkest thou to escape ? It is a swift witness against the adulterer and forswearer, Mai. iii., because when they go to commit these sins, it comes in and says, ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' &c. Also, it serves to bind men over to hell even whilst in this life. As the truth of the gospel makes the believers free indeed, as Christ says, John viii. 32, so it claps irons upon others, and binds them over to the great assize. It is as the coroner's inquest that prepares the indictment for that day; as the devils are reserved in chains (as Jude speaks), so wicked men by the cords of this word; for whose sins we bind (if they repent not) they are bound in heaven. The word makes men's mittimuses for hell, that prison Peter speaks of, and wicked men resent this sufficiently, which causeth their opposition against it. It is to them the savour of death unto death, which sti'ikes them dead even here, as many poisonous vapours in caves and caverns use to do.

2. At the latter day the word will do its office yet farther.

(1.) Then the word will be the discoverer of all sins known and unknown. It searcheth the heart and reins, Heb. iv. It penetrates the thoughts and intents of the heart; and as a searching drug gathers all the humours into the stomach, so will this word gather the sad remembrance of all sins into the conscience; or as angels will gather together men's per-

VOL. VII. u

sons, so will the word gather thy sins from all the four comers of the world, in what place soever committed.

(2.) It will be men's judge: John xii. 48, 'He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him at the last day.' As if Christ had said, I shall not need to judge, my word will do it.

CHAPTER III.

The danger of those uho, leing partakers of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, do by ungodly or unfruitful lives act contrary to the institution and design of that ordinance.

Moreover, brethren, I uould not that you should be ignorant, how that our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea ; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloitd and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat; and did all drink the same sjnritual drink (for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them; and that Rock was Christ): but with many of them God ivas not well pleased ; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Koiv these things were our eocamples, to the intent ice should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. Neither be ye idolaters, as were some of them; as it is written. The people sat doun to eat and drink, and rose vp to play. Neither let us commit fornication, as some of them, committed, and fell in one day three and twenty thousand. Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and ivere destroyed of serpiejits. Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and ivere destroyed of the destroyer. Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they were tcrittenfor our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come. Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. — 1 Cor. X. 1-12.

The proper scope of this scripture is to set forth the high provocation and extremity of danger for men to live in their lusts, while they profess and partake of those two great ordinances, baptism and the Lord's supper. The coherence and can-ying on of his discourse was this : In the 6th and 8th chapters, he had setly by many arguments dehorted them, both from coi^poral and spiritual fornication; the spiritual was the eating in the idol's temple. Then, making a digi-ession in the 7th chapter, to decide cases about marriage (which was appointed as the remedy against fornication), in the 9th chapter he also closeth with a vehement exhortation unto the subduing and keeping under of every lust; ver. 25-27, ' Every man that striveth for the masteiy is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. I therefore so run, not as uncertainly ; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection; lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway.' And this is (as you read) of necessity unto the partaking of salvation. Now then, to enforce both those particular exhortations against those two sins, as also this general exhortation occasioned thereby unto an universal strictness and watchfulness, he lays before them (and insists upon it) the gi-eat and solemn obligation which their profession of having been baptized, and their usual partaking and communication of the body and blood of Christ, did put upon them; yea, and he prosecutes this up and down, and leaves it not till unto the end of the 11th chapter. And he enforceth the obligation

which lies upon us Christians from tho evident example of the Israelitish church in tho wilderness. And hero I observe how throughout tho epistles of Paul, Jude, and Peter, the state of that church, when in the wilderness, is more eminently set out, as the most lively shadow and typo of the condition and state of the people of God under the gospel, because the whole time of our lives after conversion is a passage from out of the state of nature to tho heavenly Canaan. Now these Israelites enjoyed for substance the like ordinances unto those two of ours, baptism and the Lord's supper, and yet indulged their lusts, yea, those very lusts from which he had in those fore-mentioned chapters so earnestly dehorted these Corinthians, namely, idolatry, ver. 7, fornication, ver. 8, remonstrating how God had in wrath, upon that veiy consideration of their living under such ordinances, broken forth upon them, had overthrown and destroyed them, and that therefore, under the gospel, the neglecters and profaners of these gospel ordinances must proportionably expect a sorer and severer punishment, by how much our ordinances exceed theirs in glory, evidence, and spiritualness. This scripture therefore is punctual to this argument in hand, and is indeed here handled tanqnain in prcrprid sede, as all other truths of concernment for the most part are in some one designed scripture or other.

I shall draw forth all the several particulars therein, unto these five ranks or heads.

1. That the Jewish church in the wilderness did enjoy, for the pith and kernel of them (although the fleshly rind or shell was thicker and more gross, and of a larger bigness than ours), the same ordinances of baptism and the Lord's supper as we do now under the gospel; for he terms them twice the same in substance: ver. 3, ' They all did eat of the same spiritual meat, and did all drink the same spiritual drink,' ver. 4. This sameness of them was then represented in a near outward likeness and distinct resemblance, even of the very two parts of our Lord's supper, as well as in a resemblance of that of baptism. Our Lord's supper hath two parts, or rather a distinct reiterated representation of Christ, in his body as food, in his blood as drink, 1 Cor. xi. 24, 25. So, in like manner, he finds out both these as distinct in their dispensations then; for the manna, the type of Christ's body, who is the man from heaven, was their food, and their drink was the water out of the rock, the type of that water and blood which came forth of Christ's side, as John for the history of it avers with a great solemn note of observ-aucy in his gospel, and interprets it for the mystery of it in his Epistle. And you may observe again here, how that to the end he might thus more evidently hold forth this sameness, and the parallel of their sacraments to ours, he omitteth the mention of circumcision and the passover (which yet were the standing ordinances of that church, both in the wilderness and afterwards), because these, though the preceding types of our sacraments, yet in respect of an outward likeness were more dark and cloudy. And he chooseth rather those which were but occasionally and extraordinary, and only in the wilderness. For as I said afore, that the estate of that church, whilst in the wilderness, was the liveliest and most momentary* type of the gospel times, so also those sacraments extraordinarily and peculiarly to them administered, were types of these of ours. They came near the life, both in the distinction of the parts of them, and outward resemblances to every common eye and first view. The sprinkling or mizzling of the rain in the cloud, and going through the water of the Red Sea, was even to the vulgar view a visible baptizing. It had the resemblance and appearance * That is, ' momentous.'— Ed.

which circumcision had not, unless to a more spiritual artist's eye, that could discern the proportions of the one and other. And again, their eating manna as bread from heaven, and their drinking of that rock, doth bear and carry more of likeness Jo our bread broken, and cup we drink of, in the outward appearance thereof. And it is an argument of no small weight against the papist, both for the number of sacraments, that there are but two (because the Jews had but of these two sorts answering to our two, but all, whether ordinary or extraordinary, are reduced unto two), as also for the cup or communication of this spiritual drink as well to all the people of God, without confining it to the priests or Levites, as of the bread, for so in their dispensation of it it was typified. ' They did all eat the same spiritual meat, and they did all drink the same spiritual drink, even as well as all were baptized,' &c., which ingenious Estius seems to acknowledge to be the mind of that ensuing passage, 1 Cor. xii. 13, ' By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body, and have been all made to drink into one spirit.' It alludes, says he, to the cup in the sacrament.

2. The apostle sets before these Corinthians, how greatly God was displeased with these Israelites that lived and continued in those sins, aggravated and made far more sinful by the participation of such ordinances : ver. 5, ' With many of them God was not well pleased.' He says indeed no more, but thereby means to express the highest displeasure; as in like phrase he speaks of apostates from God and Christ: Heb. x, 38, 39, * If any man withdraw, my soul shall have no pleasure in him.' But is that all ? No; but of all other men in the world, God's wrath and fury doth smoke against such a man, Deut. xxix., as of all men an apostate is most hated by him. And as the reason of this so sore a displeasure, he insinuates withal that one speech, that that manna and rock, &c., were Christ: ver. 4, ' That Kock was Christ;' that is, it signified, represented, and exhibited our Christ to them, and it is therefore called a spiritual rock. As our sacraments are not Christ bodily or personally, but spiritually, that is, mysteriously in signification and representation to our faith, as was also the brazen serpent. Jesus in the heavens, and that hung on the cross, is Christ personally; the church, his body, of which he is the head, 1 Cor. 12, is Christ mystically ; the sacraments are Christ mysteriously or spiritually, so as in them we see and behold Christ really and spiritually, partake of him, and have to do with him as if we were present with him : Gal. iii. 1, ' Before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you ;' that is, as really as if he had been crucified among them, as he was once at Jerusalem. One would wonder that so plain and express a saying, ' That Rock was Christ,' should not have decided Christ's meaning in that like speech of his touching the same thing, ' This is my body, this is my blood,' both being spoken in the same sense, and no other. Now that rock was Christ signi-ficatively and mysteriously, and the papists themselves dare not say the rock was the flesh and blood of Christ transubstantiated. Hence then it was that the Israelites in all their sinnings offered an open affront and contempt to that Christ, whom sacramentally they did eat and drink every day, and discerned not the Lord's body in it; and therefore, ver. 9, they are said to have tempted Christ, so as hereby it came to pass their sins were not barely transgressions of the law which was given them, but they were aggravated by this, that they therein undervalued that Christ, who was held forth to them, though but in those shadows.

3. He sets before them the severity of the punishments that befell them, which he alleged as tokens how highly God was displeased with them. For

in those days God shewed and manifested the proportions or degrees of his wrath upon men's sinning, by the visible and extraordinary punishments he executed. His expressions of those punishments arc, ' they fell,' ver. 8, ' they were overthrown,' ver. 5 ; both do import violent deaths, as of twenty-three thousand in one day. They died not as other men, but were taken away in heaps by the immediate hand of God. Then again it is said, ' For murmuring they were destroyed of the destroyer,' ver. 10. Now Heb. xi. 28 compared with this tells us that the destroyers were some of the angels (whether good or bad I dispute not) who killed the Egyptians outright at the passover ; you find it also Exod. xii. 23 ; and thus in like manner is this to be understood.

4. He plainly applies and bringeth all this home to the Corinthians, as living under the same and more spiritual sacraments that represented Christ.

(1.) That he applies all this to them his preface imports : ver. 1, * Moreover, brethren, I would not have you ignorant, how that all our fathers were baptized,' &c. ; that is, moreover, or over and above other considerations afore delivered to move you to strictness, I would have you lay to heart deeply the examples of God's former deaUngs with others, yea, of those that were therein your fathers, and you their children, in whose sins therefore if you tread, you, as their children, shall be sure to reap from God punishments answerable ; as the threatening in the second commandment given about oi'dinances runs, ' I will visit the sins of the fathers on their children.' And then in prosecution of this he further urgeth, that they and these Israelites had the same, the very same, ordinances for substance which he inculcates twice, ver. 3, 4. And indeed the whole discourse is bottomed upon that supposition, and had otherwise not been to the purpose, his scope being that they therefore must expect the same or sorer punishments, committing the same sins, aggravated by this, that they lived under the same ordinances. But yet, moreover, he brings all home to them : ver. 6, ' Now these things were our examples,' or types of us, ' to the intent we should not lust after evil things.' This nail driven thus home fastens all upon them. These things zaXna, were ruro/ niJ^m, types [of usj.

[1.] Prophetical, for types have the nature of prophecies to be fulfilled (as Adam was a type of Christ, Rom. v. 14), and so did foretell, that under the gospel many professing strictness of religion and conversion, which was as a coming out of Egypt, and boasting in their privileges in these ordinances, should fall into the like sin, and so incur like punishments. To which sense that first part of verse 11 strongly leans : ' All these happened unto them for examples ;' that is, God brought them upon them as types to us, he aiming therein at what should be again acted over, and more fully, under gospel times afterwards to come.

[2.] They were types monitory, that is, for admonition or warning, which the apostle expressly urgeth on that other part of verse 11, * And they were written for our admonition,' as buoys or sea-marks to warn us that we dash not upon the same rock, Christ, manifested to us under like and far more glorious ordinances.

5. He insinuates that God will be far more severe towards them that live under gospel ordinances.

(1.) Those, he says, were but types, which word is twice used; that is, all these things that befell them were rudiores imagines perfectionis, such as a draught with a coal is to a picture embellished and drawn to the life, wc iv TXjTtw, as Ai-istotle's phi-ase is.

(2.) These their sacraments he speaks of, though for substance the same

with ours, yet for their manner of administration were enclosed about with an husk or rind of a fleshly dispensation, which made them but shadows of ours in comparison. They drank of the rock which was Christ, but their beasts drank of the same, and so it served to another purpose besides that of representing Christ. Their baptism was cloudy, it was in a cloud ; and instead of its being said to be into Christ (as the gospel runs, Rom. vi. 3), the apostle says, they were baptized visibly but into Moses, ver. 1, and so into Christ but as at a second remote hand, typified forth by that Moses. In like manner their passover prima intentione, and nextly and immediately, signified to them their deliverance out of Egypt; but that being the type of our conversion from Satan to God, spiritual deliverance came therefore to be thus signified thereby at second hand, secundd intentione, and remotely (though yet mainly and in its primary intention designed), but yet that out of Egypt was the next and immediate deliverance signified. Now as their ordinances, as enclosed in this rind, were more outward and fleshly than ours, which have that rind now shaled off", and Christ is thereby immediately and only held forth, so,

(3.) The punishments for neglects or profane sinnings under them were but outward and temporary, as by bodily death, &c., which is but the breaking the shell, the outward man; but our gospel ordinances being more spiritual, have answerably punishments that are so. As God blesseth in spiritual things now, so he curseth in spirituals also, and they are the curse in solido. ' Of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy* (says the apostle, Heb. x. 29), that profanes Christ as revealed in the gospel ? For example, were they ' stung with serpents, ver. 9, and ' destroyed of the destroyer,' ver. 10, by a bodily death inflicted? We under the gospel that live in such sins are given up to Satan, 1 Cor. v., either by terrors to drive the elect to Christ, or by seduction and a cui'se to drive reprobates to hell, as the devil entered into Judas whilst he received the sop. I cannot say he received the Lord's supper, but the passover he did, and Christ sealed up his rejection at that ordinance.

(4.) The apostle having spread these things before them, his conclusive inference is, ' Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall.' Men use in their thoughts and speeches to boast themselves of their enjoyment of such privileges as these, and do bolster themselves up in them ; but know that they will not guard you from the curse, nor privilege you at all in that respect. Yea, let every such man know that this sacramental holy ground is the most slippery ground that men can stand on, as ice is ; and therefore if he falls, he falls most dangerously, he falls upon the rock Christ, and ' he that falls on this stone shall be broken,' Lukexx. 18. And also together therewith all the sermons he hath heard, and sacraments he hath received, fall upon him. ' The fall of that house was great' (says Christ also, Mat. vii. 27), therefore * let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall,' that is, fall under the participation of such ordinances. And this coherence of these words with the former discourse is manifest, and the proper drift of them. Nay, and the apostle judgeth not this one caution enough, but seconds it with another : ver. 15, ' I speak to wise men,' that is, men that know how to apply all this, and how fully it suits your case and condition; and (Sxi'Tren, see to it, consider or take heed unto what I say. Neither hath he done with this exhortation, but heaps on another : ' The cup we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ; the bread we break is the communion of the body of Christ. And ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils : and ye cannot be par-

takers of the Lord's table, and the table of devils,' vers. 19, 20 ; which speech or reasoning, I know, , is more particularly intended against that idolatrous practice of sitting in the idols' temple (which he had discoursed against, chap, viii., and which was one particular sin he gave instance for in the Israelites, ver. 7, for which God had punished them), yet for the ground and extent of it, it doth by way of application come home against fornication, or indulgence to any other lusts, feeding on the objects of them as aniinic pabulum, and worshipping them as God, and sacrificing the dearest of our intentions to them. These are idolatry, says the apostle, as some copies have it: Col. iii. 5, ' Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, these are idolatry.' A man hath therein fellowship with devils, for they are the devil's dainties. They that feed on these husks eat of the table of devils, have fellowship with devils, whose works these are, 1 John iii, ' I would not,' says Paul, ' you should have fellowship with devils;' it is an utter inconsistency, and will overthrow your profession and religion, and eat it out. ' Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils.' Well, the apostle prosecutes it yet further, for his close is, ver. 22, ' Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy ? are we stronger than he ? ' ' Jealousy is the rage of a man,' says Solomon, Prov. vi. 84. And it is the height of anger and displeasure in God, and if anything put him into it, it will be to find thee, that professest to lie in his bed of love, in his bosom—such is the Lord's supper—then going from it to lie in bed with the devil, engendering lust, malice, and mischief. If the veil could be taken away, men would see that whilst their souls brood upon their lusts, they are entwined close and coupling with serpents, yea, with devils. ' Do you provoke the Lord to jealousy ?' You may observe that God doth only (at least above all other) profess himself a jealous God, when he gave forth the second command, that is, the ordinances of his vrorship forbidding the contrary. Now the Lord's supper being the top ordinance of the second commandment under the gospel, to profane it by nourishing lusts, provoketh God to the greatest jealousy, and sets God at defiance ; and therefore those words are added, ' Are you stronger than he ? ' that is, can you encounter him ? which you must make account to do if you go thus on.

CHAPTEE IV.

Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should he ignorant, how that all our fathers ivere under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, do. —1 Cob. 'X. 1-13.

Concerning the danger of unworthy receiving the Lord's supper, either in being unfruitful, or Uving in lusts under the participation of it, I shall add some considerations that both aggravate the sinfulness hereof, and so heighten the danger of it; both which will appear if we consider the nature and intent of this ordinance in the institution thereof, either on God's part, or what is to be done by us on ours.

1st, On God's part, it is to represent and exhibit the whole of Christ as crucified for us, in the most direct, immediate, adequate, and expressive manner.

2dly, On our parts it is publicly to solemnise and shew forth his death, and erect a fresh memorial of it, with profession of our interest in his person, his death, and all the benefits thereof. Now, to sin against so great obligations arising from both, how much must it aggravate our sin 1

1. On God's part, in the institution of it, it represents these things to us.

(1.) It represents Christ in the most immediate and expressive manner, which will appear if we compare it with the other ordinance of the word read or preached. In the word read or heard, we have directly and first to do but with some truth, and so with Christ considered but either as the author and deliverer of that truth, or at most but as that particular truth concerneth him and treats of him, or of some particular benefit of his, or some excellency of his, or some action of his for us. And these are singled out to be treated on by piece-meal, unto which our thoughts are required immediately to be intent, according as the matter thereof is; yea, further, often some point of duty on our part; yea, some discovery of some sin by the law, and our sinfulness, with the threatening annexed thereto, are treated of. All which are remote from Christ, and but as a schoolmaster to drive us, and that too upon second thoughts, rising up unto him and his person ; even as the sick thinks of the physician upon a second thought, after the sad apprehension, and a long and deep consideration of his own malady. But in this ordinance of the Lord's supper we have to do with Christ himself, his person, &c. We are put upon him, let into him immediately and directly, and are to converse with him, as a spouse with her husband, in the nearest intimacies. He is the image in that glass, and not a glimmering collateral beam of him only which casteth a shine; but the sun of righteousness itself is the direct and adequate subject of that representation, and our eyes are called to view him with open face. The word preached is termed the word of Christ, Col. iii. and elsewhere, but it is nowhere termed Christ; no, nor is prayer or any other ordinance so named, but the rock was Christ, the bread is Christ, of which he says, ' This is my body,' and of the wine, ' This is my blood ;' yea, and it is Christ entire, whole Christ. We have to deal with the whole of his person, the whole of his death, the whole of his benefits, promises; yea, all that was purchased or procured by him. Yea, and we have to deal with all this in the most expressive, real manner; it is whole Christ represented as to the eye; whereas a sermon, if it did represent whole Christ, yet it would be but to the ear; and you know things by the ear strike more dully and slowly, but by sight more really, and make a lasting impression : ' Mine eye affects my heart,' as the psalmist speaks.

(2.) It represents Christ also as crucified, which is the top and eminent subject of the gospel, 1 Cor. ii. 2; we see Christ glorious, and sitting at God's right hand in heaven, and yet we see him too as one dying and crucified. Yea, and it is that Christ who is now in glory who is represented as crucified. It is his death that is shewn forth herein, 1 Cor. xi.; his body broken and his blood shed. Whilst one eye of faith is called to look up to his person as now in heaven glorious, and ' we see Jesus crowned with glory,' &c., Heb. ii. (which is necessary, for where else can the soul find his person as existing, and so make an address unto heaven, but where he now is alive in heaven ?), with another eye we look back upon him as formerly hanging on a tree, bearing our sins in his body, bearing, and representing, and undertaking for our persons. Now, what a sight is this ! and what a strong mixture of afiections must needs accompany a sight so strange !

Now, to raise up your thoughts a little, let me speak unto you in that language wherein Christ spake to the people concerning their going forth in troops to see John the Baptist as a sight of novelty. Mat. xi. 7, 9, thereby at once to reprove their common slight esteem of him, as also to

raise them up to a true value of him. When you come to a sacrament, consider, ' What do you go forth to see ?' a thing of small value, a trifle, a reed shaken with the wind ? or that which is of some more moment, as you would go to see an ambassador or gaudy courtier making his entrance in state and splendid apparel'? No, says Christ; I tell you, you saw a prophet; yea, more than a prophet. But this here is a sight of more than all prophets, than that of all angels and saints (which we shall have of them as assembled together at the latter day), if we could suppose it without them; yea, than of the glory of millions of worlds, if that could be represented in the twinkling of an eye.

Let me say further, men use to flock to other sights, either that are real, as to an ordinary execution, or some rare invention of men's art, or else that are in show, as the acting over of some story that hath some deep plot in it, or of some noble and heroic person ; the sum and height whereof comes to this, that such an one passeth through the lowest debasement, leaving* it and despising it with an unheard-of greatness of mind, to the end to save his country, and to rescue his contracted spouse, fallen into the utmost gulfs of dangers and miseries, and then'after that himself riseth up to that glory which as a king or lord was his inheritance originally; and then to the participation thereof he pulls up his spouse, and crowns her with glory and honour in the sight of all the world. How are men's fancies tickled and filled with the bare show, outward and empty appearance of such a story acted to the life ! How long do they stick therein! How are their thoughts and discourses taken up therewith a long while after! Yea, and this where all that is presented concerning such a person doth nothing concern themselves. The person had no relation, by race or country, or any way, to them; yea, it is but a very fiction. But here behold the greatest act or thing that ever the great God did, or means to do for ever, set forth but once in this world, actually performed in a few hours' space, containing in it the deepest mystery, plot, and contrivement that ever lay in the breast of God, or that his wisdom can bring forth, and in which all his other counsels are bottomed and centred; wherein also you have represented the King of kings, the Lord of glory coming disguised in the likeness of sinful flesh from heaven to redeem his church, his spouse, from sin, death, hell, and wrath, hanging on a tree, sustaining her person, bearing her crimes and miseries, and for her sake encountering with and conquering thereby all his and her enemies, and triumphing over and making an open show of devils led captive, because they were her enemies and great seducers; and then flinging ofl' that form of frail flesh, and in an instant appearing in the form of God, sitting down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, in so great a glory, as only the only begotten Son of God and Lord of glory was capable to be arrayed withal, at the sight of which, and his first taking that place in heaven, all the angels of God fall down and worship him. Is there any such sight elsewhere to be seen on earth ? Yea, doth heaven itself aflord such another, unless it be of him ? And is this a bare sight, an outward show, made to strike thy fancy ? Yea, is it not over and above of the greatest concernment to thee ? This person who fills this scene, and whose story it is, is of the nearest relation unto thee that ever any was, thy Saviour, head, and husband. Yea, and these actings of his that are therein presented, are of the highest moment to thee. Is not thine eternal redemption, the cancelling the fatal sentence of thy condemnation, * Qu. 'braving'?— Ed.

the taking away thy sins by his bearing of them, acted over before thee in thine own view ? Tua res a<jitiir. Thou committest new sins every day, and still seest anew how the book is crossed by the lines of his blood drawn over them; but these cross lines are like to those which are drawn with the juice of onions or lemons, not appearing until they are brought to this light of the word, and then upon this occasion they rise up either more dimly or more conspicuously unto faith's view. Either these things are true, and true of thy soul, or thou art undone, thou art lost for ever, for thou hast an heart like to Gallio, Acts xviii. 17, and regardest none of these things, and wilt not go over the threshold to see a thousand of such sights.

But take a farther prospect, and consider, Is all this, in the intendment and institution of it, a mere presentation to the fancy and memory, as those of other stories are ? No ; they are real, and the most real unto faith, as much as any sight thou seest of a thing when it is first done. The Holy Ghost is the presenter of this scene, and to a believing soul makes substantial and subsisting demonstrations of all these, and a thousand move concerning him ; for * faith is the subsistence of things not seen,' Heb. xi. 1. See how the apostle speaks : Gal. iii. 1, * Before whose eyes Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you,' as if yoxx had indeed stood and seen it. There is such an emphasis in those words, ' crucified among you,' that some have interpreted this scripture to mean their crucifying Christ by their apostasy, answerably to what he says Heb. vi. 5. But it is spoken of the reality of the representation which the Holy Ghost makes. And Christ tells us as much concerning this ordinance of the Lord's supper: John vi. 55, ' My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.' It is not fancy only, as when a man dreams he eats ; but if ever thou hast found a reahty, a solidity, a subsistence in any meat thou hast ever eaten and digested, there is (according to Christ's institution) a greater reality unto faith in this sacrament. The apostle also calls faith ' a discerning the Lord's body,' 1 Cor. xi. 29.

Tell me then now, canst thou come to, and daily live under such a sight as this (which was on purpose appointed by God to renew the impression often, and to draw all men's hearts unto him, John xii. 32, and chap, iii. 14, 15, compared), and then go away and sin, and live in thy lusts ? Or if thou dost, is it not an infinite aggravation of thy sins, if they be willingly indulged unto, and can the danger be other than answerably great ? I shall but urge upon you that which Paul doth. Gal. iii. 1 : ' Who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey tlie truth, before whose eyes Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you ?' He aggravates all by this, that it was a representation (or lively picturing, as the word signifies) of Christ, and him as crucified; and that so to the life, as it ought to afl'ect them. Yea, the thing in the nature of it was such and so great, as should have made an impression never to be impaired. Paul stands wondering and aghast at it, looking on them as men that had not their common senses : ' Who hath bewitched you'?' says he ; your stupidity must be from the super-addition of some evil spirit more than ordinary. Suppose thou hadst been an ocular witness and spectator of Christ's being crucified at Jerusalem, as Mary and John were, and thou hadst withal then known what had been the intent and purpose of God and Christ in his being crucified ; yea, and thou hast believed it had been to take away thy sins and to save thy soul, or it could never be saved ; and thou hadst known all this, and meditated so on it upon the place all the while it was

a-doing, ami liadst seen the nails knocked in, and tboughtest withal, Such a sin which I have so often committed, is the hammer that reiterates these strokes till they are driven unto the head; and suppose Christ had said unto thee then,—as he did to his mother, ' Woman, behold thy son,'— Sinner, behold thy Saviour : all this is for thy sake and sins ; I hang here bearing thy person, and thy body of sin is with mine nailed to the cross, and is crucifying together with it. Couldst thou have gone away from this sight, and sinned again as formerly ? Yea, would not this sight have so stuck with thee, as whenever thou wert about to sin, the thought and impression of it would still have risen up, and quelled it more than all the prohibitions and the threatenings of the law ? Let me now make an home push upon thee. Hast thou been at a sacrament ? and hadst thou true and real faith? That faith did or would have set thee down by the cross, as Mary was; and thou mightest stand by and behold all, and not only go over it in a way of fancy as over any other story, but in a way of subsistence of things not seen, as well past as present or to come. Conclude therefore (as Paul doth, Gal. iii. 1) that it is some extraordinary spirit of wickedness and fascination, which hurries thee to go afterwards and sin again.

2. Let us consider the sacrament of the Lord's supper, as on our part celebrated. It is a public shewing forth by us his death, one to another, that partake in it; and it is doing it before all others, ' in remembrance of him,' with profession that we hope and believe we are the persons for whom he hath done all this. This you have, 1 Cor. xi. 24-20, ' And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said. Take, eat; this is my body, which is broken for you : this do in remembrance of me. After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying. This cup is the new testament in my blood : this do ye, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me. For as often as ye eat of this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord's death till he come.' We do therefore avowedly give ourselves up to him, as his professed followers and disciples ; ' who thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead ; and that he died for all, that they who live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them and rose again.' This is the nature of your act in it. His giving himself to death was his own act, but this is yours, viz., to celebrate and perpetuate the memorial of it. Compare this a little with the passover instituted upon their coming forth out of Egypt: Exod. xiii. 8, ' Thou shalt shew thy son in that day, saying, This is done because of that which the Lord did to me when I came forth out of Egypt' (commemorating all the deliverance), ' and it shall be a sign upon thine hand, and a memorial before thine eyes, that the law of God may be in thy mouth,' &c. And when a Jew had taken a passover, and understood this to be the intent of it, and then looked but upon his ten commandments (the preface whereto is this, ' I am the Lord that brought thee out of Egypt,' and so in the force thereof sets on every command, both against sin and for duty), what a renewal of solemn obligation did that ordinance of the passover, the seal and memorial hereof, rise unto ! Now then, a Christian who joins in celebrating the Lord's supper (and therein, in a clearer manner than the passover, shews forth the Lord's death), cannot but discern that the action and intent of it speaks, that this is done because of that which the Lord did to Christ for me ; and this is a sign and a memorial I am to carry with me ever in my eye, that the love of God may be in my heart, and held forth in my life in suitable obedience. This is, and ought to be, the preface writ over every duty, or prohibition of every sin ; and thy con-

science necessarily dictates to tliee, I must carry the memorial of this in my hand, lest I put forth that to wickedness which I stretch forth to lay hold on that sacramental Christ. This is to be continually in mine eyes as a remembrancer, that look as if a dead father, who at his death had given such and such instructions and commands to his son, should often appear to him, or appoint a glass in which, when he looked, he presently would appear to him therein, on purpose to mind him of his commands, and oblige him to them ; this is the natui-e of that ordinance concerning Christ to me. What says Christ ? John xv. 14, ' If you be my friends, keep my commandments'; and it is edged with this, ' No man hath greater love than this, to lay down his life for his friends.' Oh how would we carry in our eye the apparitions Christ makes and gives at a sacrament, or offers to give unto us if we brought faith ! And if we are about to sin, the thoughts of Christ crucified, as renewed at such a sacrament, do or should come in and haunt us. And if we should notwithstanding indulge sin, and not divert from it, how do we aggravate thereby our sins against him, and provoke and tempt him ! For if Christ cruciled thus so oft appears and stands in oar way, and yet we go on to sin, it is worse than what the dumb ass did at the apparition of an angel, and as bad as Balaam's course was, who was reproved. This we are too apt to do, and therefore he bids us to renew often this remembrance of him : * As oft as ye do this,' 1 Cor. xi. 27. As the apparitions made to the patriarchs, all the ordinances of the Old Testament, and the obligations of them, are nothing unto this in comparison, by reason of the knowledge we have of Christ that accompanies this sacrament. And yet you read how heinously God took the sinuings of Solomon, * that had appeared to him twice,' 1 Kings xi. 9. And what sad punishment for transgressings after ordinances or obligations for temporal mercies held forth thereby, did the Israelites incur ! But now all the wondrous works and deliverances out of Egypt are but trifles unto this our salvation by Christ, commemorated in this sacrament.

2. Add to this, that on our parts we take an oath of fidelity to Jesus Christ in the most solemn manner, and we do it upon these considerations and obligations specified. You know the name of sacrament was given to this ordinance by the ancients upon this account; and (as I think) there is some aspect from Scripture that looks that way ; for Paul having discoursed of baptism, and the import of it as an obligation to holiness and obedience, Kom. vi. 3-13, he then subjoins thereto as the consequent thereof, how every such Christian had, as a soldier and servant, yielded up himself and his weapons or arms (so he calls his members, ver. 13), as weapons of righteousness unto God and Christ as his captain. You know what was the law of a soldier, 2 Tim. ii. 4 ; he gave himself up, and that by oath, to please him that had chosen him to be a soldier. You know the severity and danger of martial law in the case of running away or stepping aside. Now at every sacrament thou art drawn into an oath to Christ, thou avouchest him to be thy Saviour, as they, Deut. xxvi. 17, 18, are said to do at the offering the first-fruits : ' Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his voice: and the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments.' Thou forswearest all thy sins, and you know the danger of perjury, especially when it is the breach of such an oath, so oft renewed, and upon so solemn occasions.

3. I shall now spread the danger before you, as the apostle hath set it forth, 1 Cor. xi. By going on in thy lusts thou becomest ' guilty of tho boily and blood of Christ,' 1 Cor. xi. 27 ; that is, thou dost in effect do that which tho Jews did in crucifying him; and how heavy a sin that was to that nation, the curse ever since shews. What an heavy imprecation was that! ' His blood be upon us and our children.' The blood of any man is valuable, the blood of a saint is much more precious to God, Ps. cxvi.; but the blood of Christ, by which God redeemed us all as with a sufficient price, is much more precious. Now to have the guilt of this lie on thee. Oh think what it is ! By this thou becomest guilty of his blood, both by evacuating the shedding of it (as Paul says, ' then Christ died in vain'), and also by fostering that which was the cause of his crucifying, viz., thy sins, whereby thou makest thyself an abetter of that barbarous murder ; also by profaning that blood in undervaluing it, by preferring thy lust before it thou ' puttest Christ again to open shame,' Heb. vi. 6, X. 29 ; for as by thy joining in the sacrament thou didst undertake pubHcly to shew forth his death as undergone for thee and thy sins, so by scandalous sins thou dost as publicly contradict thine own act, and shamest him by doing the contrary unto what that death was intended for by him, and unto what thy celebration of the ordinance tended on thy part; thou defilest not only the temple of God on earth, the church of Christ, and body of saints (and such an offender will God destroy, 1 Cor. iii. 17), but thou disgracest the person of Christ, in whom the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily, and who is the tabernacle of God in heaven, Heb. ix. 11. This is the height of popish blasphemy, Eev. xiii. 6. The blood of the sacrifices under the old law, which were in their signification an holy thincf, were made by men's sinnings that offered them but as the cutting oft" a dog's neck, and so but as dogs' blood (as Isaiah says). But now in the New Testament the blood which thou dishonourest is Christ's blood, that hath been sacrificed first for thee, and by living in thy lusts thou dost shew that thou accountest it but as dogs' blood. Thou art guilty of that blood also, by making that ordinance (appointed to so high ends) to represent a mere nullity, and of none effect. For in the like case says Paul, 1 Cor. xi. 20, this is not to eat the Lord's supper; and ver. 27, it is termed but eating of bread, not the body of Christ, for it is but bare common bread to such an one; even as he accounted that body and blood but as a common thing, in still preferring his lusts thereto.

Yea, such a man ' eats and drinks damnation to himself,' ver. 28 of that chapter. Temporal judgments are often inflicted on the godly, and on the wicked eternal. ' I will curse your blessings,' says God in the prophet; and it is a certain truth that what is intended as the greatest blessing, if abused, is turned into the greatest curse. And to have the fulness of the blessing of the gospel, which Christ by being made a curse purchased, turned into a curse, how great a curse must that be ! Thou eatest and drinkest poison if thou comest in thy sins, or if thy participation of the ordinance doth thee no good against thy sins; and so thou art guilty of thine own death and soul's blood also, as well as of Christ's death. It will rot thy soul, as the water the woman drank did her. Num. v. 27, 28. So shall thy soul be cursed if thou returnest not. And whereas thou pro-fessest to come to remember Christ, and his death and suffering, God is provoked thereby to remember all thy sins : Hosea viii. 13, 'At their sacrifices now will he remember their iniquity.'

CHAPTER V.

The danger of those icho being in church fellowship and communion, yet their lives are inconsistent with such a relation.

The fourth ordinance of the gospel is the public censures of the church, consisting of admonition, rebuke, and excommunication. There is a great danger of a man living in lusts, having put himself under the capacity of these; for God is engaged the sooner to bring thy sins to light, 1 Tim. v. 19, 20, He had given directions to Timothy to deal impartially in church-censures, ver. 19, 20, and not to be rash in laying on of hands ; and then he concludes of both, ver. 24, 25, ' Some men's sins are open aforehand to judgment:' aforehand, going before to judgment; and some men's sins follow after, namely, ilg x^isiv, unto judgment: ver 25, ' Those that are otherwise cannot be hid.' As I take it, it is spoken not of the day of judgment, but of that judgment that is made at receiving in an elder, or a member, which was anciently done by laying on of hands. Whoso sins, though they have escaped the cognizance of the church, yet because they have adventured to take upon iheva so great and sacred an office, they cannot be long hid, if they repent not and forsake them. In like manner, men living under the peril of the censure of the church (which he had spoken of, ver. 19, 20), if they will venture to go on to sin, and think still to escape the knowledge of man, yet because they live and have put themselves under so great an ordinance, as is the judgment of the church (which he there also speaks of), and fear not that God by his providential discovery may bring them under it, therefore, if their sins be not such as go before to judgment, for a long time through God's patience, yet God will in his providence order it so that their sins shall follow after, dc zpIciv, unto judgment. And so the meaning is, that if men have lived long in a sin, and have escaped the publishing of it to a church which doth profess the exercise of exact discipline, and is accordingly heedful of miscarriages as it ought to be, God engageth himself (if the person repent not) the sooner to give him up to such sins as shall follow after to judgment, so as their iniquity, by reason of this dispensation, will find them out and cannot be hid. And upon the equity of that other coherence, namely, the respect to ordination and admission, this rule will in a proportion hold of this censure also. Now how dangerous a thing it is to be given up to the censure of the church, the apostle tells us, when he calls it a delivering up unto Satan, 1 Cor. V. Now if any will say. We will avoid this danger, and keep ourselves out from such a bond, let them consider what follows: 1 Cor. v., * Those without God judgeth,' and will do it sufficiently. I take it those words do insinuate a great privilege that those within a church, who live in a subjection to a judgment, if they sin, have in comparison of those that live without, be they heathen or Christian professors. For if they be •within, God forbears to judge them personally, till that means of the church hath been used, which, if neglected, he then falls on both, 1 Cor. xi. A man is under a protection (as it were), and God takes not the matter into his court, because it is under trial in another, which is a means to reclaim him ; but those that live without are immediately exposed to God's judging them, who will deal with them accordingly more severely: ' As whoremongers and adulterers God will judge,' Heb. xiii., &c. ; so that if'any man will stay out to avoid being judged, he falls under a more severe court.

Take the last ordinance of a church, viz., church contribution and col-

lection for the saints, it being not a m-il matter (as f^iving alms is) but an ordinance religious. It is a ministration, Xsirv^yia, 2 Cor. ix. 13, and it is reckoned up with prayers, and preaching, and breaking bread, Acts ii. 42, for so I understand that word, which is translated fellowship, and is carried in the translation as if it were the fellowship of the apostles that were there intended. But it is xoivc>jvia, communication, namely, of goods, more large!}' mentioned in the verse after; and also in Heb. xiii. IG, ' Be not forgetful ihrroitag xctl xoivojviag, of doing good, and communicating.' It is the very same word, as also in Rom. xv. 26, where it is translated, contribution to the saints.

1. I say, it being thus a spiritual ordinance and sacrifice, as all church-oflerings are (as Heb. xiii. 6, it follows, ' for with such sacrifices God is well pleased'), therefore, if men deal unworthily herein, they are in danger of having a greater curse hereby, perhaps not upon their estates, but in their spirits. If you will take an estimate how heinously God takes dealing falsely in this, because it is a matter of worship, you may see it in that first example of a judgment in those primitive times executed on Ananias and Sapphira; and thereby, as yon may see how heinously God takes it, so also why it was so, not that they were bound to have given all their whole estates—ver. 4, ' Whilst it remained, was it not thine own ? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power ?'—but they having dedicated the whole in an open appearance to God, to withhold part was a lying, not to man, but to God. It was not in a matter merely human, between man and man, as the promise that makes a debt is, or as a bargain between man and man, but the Holy Ghost (ver. 3) was the person with whom in that work they dealt, and with whom in all works of that nature we also deal now. And though God inflicts not such extraordinary punishments now upon men's bodies, yet you may from thence gather how much he is displeased at the like as a sin, and in what danger men's spirits are, in such cases, of a spiritual judgment and curse, which is more usual under the gospel, and which accordingly men shall find at the latter day. Mat. X. 15, he threatens those who should contemn the gospel, not with a temporal judgment, but (as if forbearing such under this dispensation) he threatens them with a greater and worse. Sodom and Gomorrah (says he) were punished with visible judgments, though extraordinary : ' But it shall be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah, than for these in the day of judgment.' Till when he may defer it. When therefore thou drawest near to God in this lowest duty of worship, yet because it is an ofiering to God, Mat. V. 23, * ere thou bring thy gift to the altar, reconcile thyself to thy brother;' and by like reason, if thou be guilty of, or livest, in any sin, reconcile thyself to God, otherwise even this act of worship will provoke him the more.

CHAPTER VI.

Two cases concerning a rejenerate man's sinning against knowledge. — The first case resolved, how far such an one is capable of sinning against knowledge ; and what is the difference between his sinning against knowledge, and an unregenerate man's sinning against it.

That a regenerate man may sin against knowledge, we will take the instance of Solomon only to prove it, who sinned against his knowledge, yea, and that the experimental, clear, and tasting knowledge of God and his

vravs, yet remained godly. That he sinned very far against knowledge, see 1 kings xi. 4, 7-9, where we read that his wives turned his heart away after other gods; that is, so far as to build high places for all his wives, ver. 7, 8, and this for them to sacrifice and to burn incense on to their several gods, ver. 10. And this sin of his is brought in by way of aggravation, that God had given him a special commandment against this sin, and so he had had a special light against it; yea (ver. 10), it is added, he (therein) ' turned his heart away from God, who had appeared to him twice;' that is, after he had strong revelations, and impressions, and appearances of the true God upon his heart, after he had known him, not only with a common knowledge of education, as others do, nor by faith only, as all believers do, but had superadded to it an especial appearing and drawing ni^h of God to him, with a great acceptation of his person and prayers, manifested by God to him, and this twice. Thus he sinned every way against an expressive, clear, experimental knowledge, the best and purest of knowledge he could have, unless he had been took up to heaven (as Paul was), and yet he says, Eccles. ii. 3, 9, that his ' wisdom remained with him,' namely, his grace and knowledge, for he speaks not of his gifts of wisdom (since that they should remain was no wonder, such common gifts remaining in the wickedest of men), but of that wisdom which in his Proverbs he so commends ; yea, and he says, that ' he acquainted his heart with wisdom,' ver. 3, though ' it took hold of folly,' that is, closed with sin; and therefore, in the opposition, by wisdom he means true grace, so that he sinned against knowledge, and yet still remained a godly man. Yea, and again, when for this the prophet had appointed Jeroboam, as from God, to be king over the ten tribes, when Solomon heard this, 1 Kings xi. 4, it is said, that ' therefore Solomon sought to kill him,' which was as du'ectly against God's will revealed by a prophet as was that of Saul, when for the same cause he sought to kill David, because he was assigned his heir and successor in his kingdom. But God had established his sure mercies with David and Solomon his child, and not with Saul; and therefore God pardoned Solomon, and turned him fully again unto himself, as his book of Ecclesi-astes shews, whenas he rejected Saul. Having given you this resolution of the question in the general from this one instance, I shall endeavour more particularly to explain the truth by answers to several questions.

The questions may be made concerning either some particular acts of sins committed, or concerning a regenerate man's whole course, as either of them do relate unto sinnings against knowledge.

Quest. 1. If the question be concerning particular acts of sin, we grant, Assert. 1. That a godly man may, against actual light and knowledge, commit particular acts of sin, and omit the performance of some acts of duties. Thus David had some light against the numbering of the people when he did it, for Joab reasoned the matter with him, and reproved him for it, 2 Sam. xxiv. 2, 3; and in the 4th verse, all his captains shewed their dislike (namely, of his pride in it), yet still he persisted and would have it done. But yet this was not such a strong smiting light as that which came upon him after he had done it; then it did strike upon his conscience, ver. 10, and although he saw it to be a sin afore, yet he saw it not in that manner ; for it is said, that then his heart smote him, which shews that before it had not thus smote him; he knew it before, but minded it not much, was not attentively apprehensive or struck with the sense of it; but now his heart smites him, and he cries out, ' I have sinned greatly,' and so recalled the doing of it.

Chap. VI.] in tue heart and life. 'S'll

Quest. 2. But then the question will be, May he not sin, when he hath a strong pulse of conscience against a sin, a smiting light, as I may so term it ?

Assert. 2. Yes, he may sin against a strong pulse of conscience. Holy Peter, without question, had a strong light to the contrary, when he denied his Master; and for the clearing of this, know that a regenerate man's conscience being sanctified but in part, there is much light in it that is not sanctifying light, all his knowledge about sin and grace is not the light of life ; so as he hath a remainder of mere natural light of conscience in him, as well as a regenerate part of conscience; and hence it may fall out, that natural conscience in him may stir strongly, and beat much against a sin in a natural way, but upon such motives and considerations as are common to him with carnal men ; when yet true light is not so fully stirred up against it, it being at the good pleasure of the Holy Ghost to work in us how and as he will; it is a new and peculiar work of the will and Spirit to do that, viz., to stir the regenerate part. David had a strong working and bustling of natural conscience in him, when he lay roaring under terrors of conscience, Ps. xxxii., yet still it prevailed not with him to confess his sin: the natural light of conscience was then stirring in him, when yet the regenerate part of conscience was not; for if that had wrought thus strongly, as the other did, it would have made him kindly to have confessed and mourned for his sin, as it did when he confessed his sin to Nathan. By the like reason, before a godly man commits a sin, natural conscience may have a strong work, when yet true light against the sin hath not. There may be thunderings and lightnings in his conscience, which God's sanctifying Spirit is not so much in, and so he may sin against much blusterings of that common light, when yet true light, which should cause him to hate it, and strengthen him against it, is calm and down ; for the light of natural conscience is as the light of straw or sedge, it makes a flame of a great blaze, and so glareth much in men's eyes, terrifies much but heats not; whereas true light, when it is kindled, is the light of solid fire, wherein there is less flame and flashing, but more heat and eflicacy upon the heart to restrain it from sin. No question but the apostle Peter's conscience strongly wrought in him, his heart throbbed within him, when yet it prevailed not to keep him; but one look of Christ conveyed the Spirit to him, and so stirred up sanctified light, and broke his heart presently. So when Nathan came to David to reprove him for his murder, though his conscience had strongly wrought afore, as appears by the 32d Psalm (which is thought to be made upon that occasion), yet the Spirit of grace came not on him to stir up sanctified acknowledgment, till Nathan came to him ; and then how easily did he confess it at the first! * I have sinned,' said he.

Quest. 3. But you will further say unto me. May not a regenerate man sin against a strong, smiting, and checking direction of sanctifying light, and of the Spirit of God moving to the contrary, and striving with him, by motives suitable to the regenerate part ?

Assert. 3. I answer. Yes; why else doth the apostle say, Eph. iv. 30, ' Grieve not the Spirit, whereby ye are sealed' ? Now then a sin is properly against the Spirit, when against that which is his proper work, which is to excite to good, to restrain from evil; and then we grieve him when we sin against such a working of his, as wherein, like a father, and as a friend, he gives counsel and direction to the contrary. We grieve him in going against such works of his, wherein he shews himself a father to us.

When wicked men sin against the common workings of the Spirit, they indeed vex him and provoke him ; but when a godly man sins against those peculiar stirrings of his as a Spirit of grace, then it is that properly they are said to grieve him; and yet herein they may go so far, even his own people, that they are said to rebel and vex his Holy Spirit: Isa. Ixiii. 10, he speaks it of his own people. Now rebellion is a sin against knowledge and light, and such light wherein as a friend he sweetly admonished them, for the punishment is, he turned their enemy, and fought against them, in rebuking them in wrath.

But yet these things are to be considered in this case.

1. That then the Spirit doth not put forth an overcoming light in such cases; for though in all such acts, whereon the salvation of his people depends, as their conversion at first, and his not suffering them to depart from him, therein the Holy Ghost works overcomingly and effectually in all that shall be saved; yet he works not so in giving light or strength in every act of resisting sin, or in persuading to duty ; therein the Spirit doth not always put in strength enough into our light, to prevail against the temptation, but only to bear a strong testimony against it, to the end that our weakness might so much the more appear. For as the Holy Ghost doth not sanctify you as perfectly at first, as he could do if he pleased, but in part only; so neither doth he persuade us effectually in every act or motion of grace, as he did not Hezekiah, but left him to himself, that he might see what was in his heart. The Holy Ghost, even when he stirreth up the light of the regenerate part, yet often doth it not so effectually as to prevail; he doth sometimes suadere, but not j)ersuadere, often movere, but not permovere ; as he stirs not up all his wrath against us, so often not all his grace in us, and then we fall. In Gen. vi. 3, there is a striving of the Spirit mentioned, which man's corruption overcomes: the Holy Ghost, being a free agent, putteth not always that full weight into the scale that might weigh down the other, though it moves [it much; but. Gen. ix. 27, there is a persuading Japheth mentioned, wherein he puts such weight into his light as it prevails with a man, whereby the Lord makes a motive, an apprehension to prevail upon the mind, as he made the counsel of Hushai to prevail against the counsel of Ahithophel, 2 Sam. xvii., and so preserved him.

2. The second thing to be considered is, that when a regenerate man sins against such motions of the Spirit, and of true light stirred and acted, that always then he is in a passion, some strong lust and motion of sin, and law of the members, is risen suddenly up in arms in him. And though he may sin deliberately, when passion is not so much up, or when his Spirit is bound and becalmed (as I shall shew afterwards), yet if such powerful light be stirring in him, if right motions and gales of the Spirit be breathing on him, it must be a strong tide of passion then that carries him against it, which yet it may: as Asa, a holy man, after a good sermon of the prophet's (wherein it is probable that the Spirit breathed), wherein the prophet had reproved him for his sin, was in such a rage with it, his passion and choler being provoked by that reproof, that he cast the prophet in prison; and the reason is, because a strong lust or passion doth break the intention of judgment, and weakens it, and so diverts it to consider in a more intimate manner the pleasure of sin, which his mind hath a present impression of, rather than to attend to the counsel of the Spirit. So anima dispersa Jit minor, the strength of the soul is dispersed and weakened, and so soon overcome, as vapours ascending in sleep, bind up the use of reason

and senses, and then fancy prevails. In like manner, a strong lust and motion of sin lays judgment asleep, that it is not fitly itself, but hath an interrupted, broken working and operation. And again, a strong lust doth alter a man's judgment, as a fever doth a man's tongue. The things he knows hurtful are relished as best, whereas good and wholesome food he hath no pleasure in; and therefore, though the physician be by, and adviseth to the contrary, yet often he will have what is hurtful; for quails itnitsqulsque est, tails el Jin Is vldetur. We judge of things as they suit with our desires ; therefore, when a strong desire is up, judgment is perverted against itself; and therefore, when passion is up, though there may be light enough to discover the evil and the sin to us, yet not enough to dispel the mist and clear up the mind, and so a man errs and is misled.

3. Yet, thirdly, this is to be added in such a case, that though the passion carries it, yet that light is not in vain, but hath an answerable eflect upon the heart in working an inward resistance there; and though it hath not its perfect work, yet a proportionable effect, so far as it stirs it works; so much stirring of light, so much reluctancy in the committing of it; for though that regenerate light prevails not to hinder the outward act of sins, yet it breaks the force of the blow and strength of the lusts within, it causeth a contrary lusting and reluctancy in the whole man against it, even in the act, and so hath a proportionable and good effect. Bo that though passion carries it, yet but by a few voices and with much ado, it finds a strong party of grace in every faculty against it, in the understanding disallowing it, in will hating it, in the affections lusting against it; a strong impression over the whole man, a strong stream running another way; so as he cannot do that evil in that full manner that others do, so as that light in the working of it avails so far, that he may still be able to say, It is not I that hath done it; so as thereby the Holy Ghost doth manifest the goodness of the heart, even in the midst of infirmity, that by their sense of that inward combat, and of a seed of God that cannot sin, the saints have as much comfort often, as discouragement in the fall.

Quest. 4. But you may further inquire. May not a regenerate man sin against light when he is out of passion, and so sin deliberately against light ?

Assert. 4. I answer. Yes; David did so in the matter of Uriah, wherein he went soberly on; and though it be true he was in a great strait, being afraid of shame and scandal, which he thereby sought to hide, yet that passion had time enough to cool. It was not properly a passion, which is a subitaneous flushing,—indeed, that of his adultery was from such a flush of passion,—but this of Uriah's murder was a more continued distemper, sedately stirred, and retained and considered of. And so Isa. Ivii. 17, one that is the child of God, is said, after God had smitten him for his covet-ousness, to go on frowardly in the way of his heart, and therefore without passion.

1. But then, when a godly man thus sins, it is when he hath been already disadvantaged and brought low, and into captivity by some former passion, which also was David's case. This more settled distemper began at his adultery, which was but a passion; but yet that having interrupted his communion with God, and his soul being thereby spoiled and left empty of spiritual comfort, God's Spirit was already grieved and withdrawn from him, and he left naked; and the regenerate part was knocked down with so horrible a sin, and lay under hatches manacled, and was through the deceitfulness and guilt of that sin exceedingly ' hardened from God's fear,'

as a godly man may be, Isa. Ixiii. 17. And he being thus already weakened, no wonder though he be quietly carried on to further wickedness; and though a sudden passion is not, nor was not much up, yet the spiritual part being so much down, and corruption fleshed, and he put into so great Btraits, no wonder if he was bold to proceed to further abominations. A wise man being made suddenly drunk may be transported to do strange acts in that drunken mode, yet but whilst that drunkenness lasts ; when it is over, and he comes to himself, he wonders at himself. But suppose, further, that though the drunkennsss be over, yet it may leave him so inflamed as to cast him into a more violent lasting distemper of a fever, which doth more continually distemper his brain. This was David's case indeed ; the passion that cast him into this fit was over, but it left him in an universal distemper; it had weakened grace, inflamed all corrupt lusts and humours in him, and now his spirit was fit for any abomination which he should by any strong temptation be put upon.

2. Or else, though a man is not fallen into any gross act of sinning, yet by long insensible neglects he may be brought into some consumption of grace, having neglected to stir and to keep up spiritual apprehension, so as his light is as a candle burning blue, or in the socket, and he sleeps (which was the case of the five wise virgins), insomuch as though a man hath many glimmerings and actual apprehensions come into his mind (and so his sins are against knowledge), yet they are not quick, fresh, and vigorous, but wan and stale. I say, when by reason of this spiritual aflections are brought very low and weak, starved, as it were, in regard of any communion with God, heavy and dull in regard of any endeavours after it; in this case also, no wonder if men deliberately steal out for comfort elsewhere. And some have understood this to be the case of the prodigal, as being meant not of one anew converted out of a profane course, but of the returning of one who hath been converted already, but whose affections, through fellowship with the pleasures of sin, have been estranged from God ; and thus, he being starved in regard of comfort from God, deliberately joins himself to another for husks.

Quest. 5. Now if, in the last place, the question be concerning a regenerate man's course, whether, in regard of his whole course, he may be said to live and practise according to his knowledge ?

Assert. 5. The answer is, that not only no unregenerate man lives according to his knowledge, but that no regenerate man neither doth live fully and exactly answerably thereunto, nor doth he, nor can he, fill up the measure of it with practice answerable in his whole course.

Which proposition I yet limit and explain by these four cautions:

1. That indeed it is true that he lives not (take his whole course) in any one track of sinning, or way of wickedness against his knowledge. * There is no way of wickedness in me,' says David ; it must be understood, none that he knew of; for he speaks it after he had now come from an exact and dihgent search made into himself and ways. 'Search me. Lord,' says he, for he himself had searched himself and found none; which search must needs be by bringing his course of life and ways and his light tof^ether; but yet it is as true, that through his whole course and the track of his life, he doth continually fall short of what he knows in all his actions.

2. But then, when we say he falls short of, and lives not according to his knowledge, the meaning is, he falls short of doing the things he knows in that full latitude, whereto he sees the commandment, which is holy and

spiritual, extends; for by knowledge in the assertion must bo understood not only the knowledge whereby a man doth know, but the things themselves which are known, in the extent of their being known; and so it is used in ordinary phrase of speech, for fides est vel qud creditur, vel quos creditur, it being taken both for the faith whereby we believe, or for the things we do believe. So is knowledge taken also ; and as the things believed are called faith, so we sometimes express the objects known, calling them knowledge. Now, if by living according to his knowledge be meant that he lives exactly according to all the latitude of what he knows concerning the commandments, and the utmost strictness revealed to him, ■which, as David says, so far as he saw into them, are exceeding broad, and broader than his life could extend to, so no godly man doth live according to his knowledge; he knows more for the object of his knowledge than he can reach in practice. Thus Paul, Kom. vii., comparing his heart and life with the law, saw a further spiritualness in the law than he could answer in his heart and life. And so Phil. iii. 12-14, ' I reach,' says he, ' to the things that are before, not as ifil had already attained it;' he speaks it of a Christian course, he had light which discovered still a further horizon of godUness, mightily beyond and distant from that to which at present he had arrived, a vaster latitude before him than he was able to stretch unto, a higher pitch than he was able to reach unto; as a child may have knowledge to discern what a fair copy that is which is set before him, and be able to read it and like it, when yet he wants skill to write after it. A man knows he should love God with all his soul, and all his heart; that he should pray constantly, fervently, without distraction; but how do we fall short of all this ! But if living according to his knowledge be understood of the knowledge itself by which he knows them, that axiom of divines will here take place : That so much as a man knows he practiseth; and ' he that says he knows God, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar,' says John, 1 John ii. 4.

3. But then this must be understood of true, real, practical knowledge:

* the light of life,' as Christ calls it; such knowledge as the apostle calls

* knowing as we ought to know;' for otherwise, we have much more light about the ways of grace and holiness than is sanctifying in us. Much of that light of conscience which is in a regenerate man's mind, remains in a great measure unsanctified, seeing conscience is but in part purified, as I said before, and then a regenerate man hath often a large addition of gifts of knowledge for the good of others, more than would otherwise serve his own particular only, as stewards have more money than for themselves; and therefore, if we take measure of all such knowledge as is in him of gifts and conscience, it must needs be too big and too wide for his practice.

4. And then, if practice be confined and meant of the outward performance only, then, so Rom. vii. 18, Paul himself says, he was not able to perform all he knew ; but if by practice be meant a continual serving of the law in the mind, more or less, as true knowledge is active in him, as he there speaks in the 25th verse, which in the same chapter is expressed by doing, and is so esteemed in God's account, so it is always true, that so much true knowledge as is stirring in the heart, so much practice is found throughout his whole course ; and though he knows more than he is able outwardly to perform, yet the best of his will is to do as much as he knows, verses 18, 19, and his will therein is as large as his knowledge,^ and both to keep the law exactly only. As his knowledge is intensive imperfect, though extensive and objectively much larger, as extending itself to all the

commandments of God, and the utmost strictness of them, so also his will, though it be intensively imperfect, and weak, or not able to bring all he knows into performance, yet it is extensively as large as what he knows, aiming and stirring after the highest perfection. So that look how far his knowledge reacheth, so far doth his will also, which is the principle of action ; and therefore his practice may be said to be likewise as large as both, though all imperfect.

And now we have explained how far a regenerate man may sin against knowledge, and fall short of it in his course ; it will be needful to add some difierences to all this, between his sinning thus against knowledge, and an unregenerate man's, lest wicked men be hereby encouraged, or godly men themselves made presumptuous. And herein my meaning is, not to handle all these difierences which may be given in their sinning, but only their diflerent carriage towards their knowledge ; and these differences we will severally fit to the main of the foregoing assertions.

And, first, we will begin to difierence this which we brought in last, concerning falling short of his knowledge in his course, which though it be common to regenerate and unregenerate men, yet with these difierences :

1. That though a regenerate man fall short of his knowledge in his whole course, yet he preserves and fosters all his knowledge still in the utmost extent of it, and keeps up his assent to all that strictness he knows, and which he hath been convinced of, and labours also to wind his heart up to it; and this still he endeavours to do. As he goes on to know more, he preserves the same opinions of the strictness of God's ways, and studies to confirm himself in the truth of them, and lets not his hght to settle, keeps it as his standard, which he measures his heart and actions by. But now an unregenerate man, when he sees his heart and life cannot agree with strictness, he labours to cut the standard, and makes it even with his bushel, to bring his opinion to his own heart and ways ; and what is more than he is able to do, or means to do, he reckons it too much preciseness. The former instance of a regenerate man you may see in Paul; and what he says of himself is true of all regenerate men in their measure, as it was true of him in his measure ; only his measure was larger : in which respect indeed he puts a wide difierence between a lower sort of Christians and himself in that same place. ' I see the mark,' says he, ' and what is before me.' Now (says he), ' I look not to what is behind, but endeavour to reach to what I want,' Philip, iii. 13. ' I do stretch to the utmost;' and, verse 14, ' press to the mark.' He sets up to himself the highest pitch of strictness (he knows to be so) as his mark, and that he alters not; he moves not that to himself, but moves himself to it. ' And as many as are perfect,' says he, ' are thus minded ;' that is, whose hearts are perfect with God. Now because it would be said. But some do not think God's ways so strict as you, have not so large apprehensions as you have of them, and are not so strict as you,—It may be so (says Paul), but yet two things he says :

(1.) That God will by degrees reveal it to them who are spiritual, in time, as fully as to me.

(2.) And he exhorts that nevertheless whereto we have attained, let us all walk ; that is, so much knowledge more or less that thou art convinced of, proportion thy endeavour unto, and not thy knowledge to thy endeavour.

(3.) And he insinuates as much as if he had said. Whereas I may seem too strict for some of vou, and to have attained to more than vou, therein

follow me, says he, think not to have me come back to you, but come up to me; whereas an unregenerate man now will persuade one, that is more strict than himself, to come to his pace, or else he hates him.

2. Though a godly man falls short in many particular acts of what he knows, and so can't make his hfe and his knowledge adequate and even, yet take his whole course, he brings his heart to subject itself to all he knows, makes it answerable and conformable to every particular thing known, and hath a care to do so and keep it so from day to day, but especially at such times when ho more solemnly reneweth his covenant with God, and sets himself to make his heart perfect with God ; which perfection Hes in this, in a willing subjection to all he knows. This you may see to be the fruit and efiect of David's knowledge; Ps. cxix. 104, David says there, he had ' gotten much understanding;' by the word he knew more sins than others, had a larger insight into duties commanded than others had ; and as he says in another place, ' Thy commandments are exceeding broad.' Now what was the fruit and effect of this knowledge in his heart ? He says, * Therefore do I hate every false way.' You may observe, that as his knowledge was such a knowledge as wrought hatred to the sins he Ivnew ; so he had compared particularly his heart with his knowledge, and surveyed the one and the other, and remarked all the particular sins he knew, and of them all he says in particular, * I hate every one.' He goes over to particulars, makes his heart and bis knowledge even, and brings it to a hatred of every false way, which he knew to be such ; and so for duties he doth the like, verse 106. He brings his heart in subjection to every duty he knew ; and though he had fallen often, yet he takes and renews often an oath of allegiance of his heart, to submit to every one : ' I have sworn,' says he, ' that I will keep thy commandments diligently ;' he will not suffer his heart to stand out as a rebel against any; but, as the apostle says, 2 Cor. x. 5, * he brings every thought into obedience to the knowledge of Christ,' and so makes his knowledge and his heart, in the subjection of it to every command, to be even of adequate extent. So that, suppose in a godly man that some duty and his heart have been strangers for some while, yet he brings them together again, renews his acquaintance, makes them friends ever and anon; and when they are brought together, though he hath omitted a duty, and hath been a stranger to it, yet after a little conference with his heart and it, they are as good friends as ever, he finds his heart is in it again. So, on the contrary, if he hath admitted any familiarity with any sin, yet he makes his heart and every sin to break friendship, and so makes his heart and his knowledge adequate ; so as he can look about them, run over all, and go through every particle of his knowledge, and can truly say there is no sin I know to be such but I hate it, and can part with it, no duty but I have a heart willing to submit to it, and is agreeable to it. And this making the heart perfect is that which should be done from day to day, when a man prays and renews his covenant with God ; so David did when he came to pray, Ps. Ixvi. 18. He made a separation between his heart and every sin he knew such, and especially when he came to the altar with his offering, as you to the sacrament; so as ever and anon he doth, as at his first conversion (every new act of renewing the covenant between-- a new conversion), go over ail particular sins, which either he hath lately been tempted unto or may be, and breaks his heart off from them; and so he views all duties either he is called to, or may be called to, and brings his heart into *Qu. 'being'?— Ed.

obedience to them, so as he hath a care to make all adequate, and to walk SO to subscribe to all often, as I may so speak, though he hath failed in that full actual conformity required at all times and upon all occasions. But there is no wicked man in the world that keeps his heart thus, and makes it thus correspondent to his knowledge, but either he neglects to do it, or if he goes about it, he cannot get it to part with every sin, nor to submit to every duty ; it stands out, and will not take the oath of allegiance to ever3'thing, at least doth not this ordinarily in his course.

3. In regard of particular acts of sinning, though a godly man may commit a sin against a smiting strong light in passion (as in the former assertions was discovered), yet these difierences may be assigned :

(1.) There is much in his whole heart that takes part with his light and backs it, and speaks on its side ; and though his conscience threateneth, terrifies, reproves, and checks, yet still there is something in his heart is glad of all this, and rejoiceth in it. So says the apostle, Rom. vii. 22, that he delighted in the law, and the light of it, and this as it wars and fights against his lusts; for there is a regenerate part suitable to that light, and is glad of all the buffets and blows that conscience gives the heart for the sin, for the light that is in him fights and speaks of his side ; but conscience, knowledge, and light in a wicked man hath nothing to back it and uphold it: Rom. i. 28, he 'likes not to retain the knowledge of God.' Indeed, to know the truth and view it, and the beauty and harmony that is in it, may be exceeding pleasant to him, John v. 35, but when this truth, being once received, begins to be busy with him, and to intermeddle in every action, as such light will, and to tell his heart this pleasure of sin ought not to be enjoyed, and this duty ought to be done, and so applies itself and sticks in to guide him in every particular action, this repx'oving light he likes not, and so desires not to retain it, nor to carry it along with him wherever he goes; though he was delighted with the bare shining of the truth, yet the reproving of the truth in his heart he likes not. But a godly man haviug a heart suitable to his light, delights in all the checkings and reproofs of it, as speaking on its side, and against his enemies. Here now a wicked man, who in a particular act dares not commit the act itself against light, yet his heart is against the light itself. As Balaam, ' If thou wouldst give me this house full of gold, I would speak no other than God speaks;' yet his whole heart was against this light, would have given another message, and would have reversed his blessing, and went with such a hope and full desire, so as his whole heart was against the light and truth though he obeyed it. But now, on the contrary, a godly man, though he may commit the sin which is against his light, and the truth of the law in his conscience, yet still his heart is for the light, and says, ' the law is holy and good,' Rom. vii. 14; and this not with an assent which he cannot but choose to afiord it, but so as he is glad there is such a law, though it condemns him and sin. Any truth of Christ that is revealed to him, which crosseth his aims never so much, he doth not only assent that it is true and good, but is glad it is a truth, and says it is best it should be so, and so takes part with it.

(2.) Hence ariseth a second difierence between the carriage of a godly man's heart towards his light, and a wicked man's, viz., that a godly man's heart is active in using the light he hath against his sin, and in provoking and stirring up his heart to duty; but a wicked man, though he may be active in getting light, yet is passive rather in the use of it in his heart against sin or to duty. It is common, indeed, to both to have light come

in against a sin, both before and after, yet so as a wicked man's heart is but rather a patient in regard of it ; but a godly man's heart is an agent that endeavours to bring it in, and to use it against his sin. This you shall find John iii. 19, where Christ distinguisheth a wicked and a good heart by this, by coming to the light. A wicked man comes not to the light, but the light to him. Christ puts the ditierence not in not having or having light, but in their coming or not coming to it, which notes out that wicked men's light comes in upon them, the other call it in, and come to it, and gladly bring their hearts, lives, and estates to it. For instance, before a wicked man commits a sin, whilst he is addressing himself to it, light of conscience may break in upon him, it being appointed as a controller and a watch over him and his ways, and not suffer him to sin securely and untaken notice of. But now a godly man, when he is tempted to sin, he himself stirs up that light which is in him to withstand it. When he hears the thief knock, he lights his candle presently, gathers his thoughts together, musters up such considerations as he can think of as weapons to resist it with, considers what motives, what arguments are against it, calls up such a place of Scripture as had lain sleeping in him, remembers such a piece of a sermon in such a corner of his heart laid up against this time ; and armed with this light, all he could muster up on the sudden, he encounters his enemy. So Joseph did : ' How shall I do this, and sin against God ?' He considered what God was, and what sin was, to keep him from it; whenas a wicked man, on the contrary, when he would enjoy his sin, he useth his light to find out shifts rather than arguments against it; he would shut the windows, but that there are some crannies at which light will come in, and find him out, even as Elias found out Ahab : * Hast thou found me, 0 my enemy ?' Such he judgeth his light, he would imprison the light that is come in, that it might not interrupt him ; and so when he had sinned, though light be brought in as a witness, and terrifies and checks, and whilst it follows him, he judgeth himself, confesseth it to God ; yet otherwise he would be content to pass it over, nor would set his thoughts to consider what he had done, to the end to humble himself, but that such thoughts are set upon him as they were upon Cain and Judas, when he repented himself, and upon Darius when his thoughts troubled him ; but he would not go about to trouble his thoughts about sin, but that sin troubles his thoughts, being set on by the spirit of bondage. But now when a godly man hath sinned, he stays not till his thoughts be troubled about it, but he sets his mind awake to consider his sin ; he stays not till a writ be served upon him, but sues out for one, useth his light to examine it, searcheth into every corner and circumstance of it, sits as a judge on himself, judgeth himself lest he be judged, calls in his conscience as a witness, and so goes and humbles himself kindly and willingly before his Father ; so they, Lamen. iii. 40, stir up themselves to set their light a-work, ' Come let us search and try our ways, and turn to the Lord.' They stir up the light in them, light the candle, and go down into every corner, as David did ; ' Lord,' says he, * I have searched.' He used all knowledge he had m it, and when he had done, he sets the windows and doors open, desires God to bring in light and search also.

(3.) The third difference is, that though a godly man may commit an act of sin against knowledge, and on the contrary a wicked man through knowledge and conscience abstain from sinning, yet in a godly man knowledge will overcome, and be too strong and powerful for his sinning, and not let him depart from God; but in the other, in the end his sin will be too head-

strong and oveq^owertul for his knowledge, so as to make him to depart from God, and to go on in sin. So, 2 Peter ii. 20, those who through knowledge had escaped the defilements of the world, were again overcome. Whereas, Rom. vi. 14, sin hath not dominion over a regenerate man who is under grace. Which places expound each other; for to be overcome is to yield a man's self a servant again to sin, Rom. vi. 16, so as to be pleased and rest in that condition, and so to go on in it. But a slave's spirit never returns upon the child of God, but the knowledge of his former condition rescues him again, and will not suffer indentures to be drawn between them and him, to become a constant servant to it.

Now the reason of this difference is, because knowledge in an unregenerate man hath the whole frame of the heart, and all the strength of the will and affections, armed against it, so as it governs but as a tj'rant, by threats, &c. But grace and sanctifying knowledge hath a great interest and party in the will and affections for to back it, so as it fights not alone ; but there is a whole man to fight with it, if it be but mustered up by knowledge. And now therefore, though knowledge in the one, ruling only as a tyrant, may for a time overcome a whole country and keep them under, and so conscience in a v/icked man rules the whole man, and restrains it from sin for a time, yet this cannot hold long, for the power of every king lies in the love, hearts, and agreement of his subjects, and willing obedience to his laws. Now therefore, knowledge and conscience in an unregenerate man, having none other than a tyrannical power, therefore, as all tyrants are, it is hated of all the whole, whilst it doth rule and curb unruly lusts, and in the end they rise up and overcome it, and depose it and imprison it (so Rom. i. 17), as Herod did John, though he feared him. And in the end they begin to slight his threats, and so overcome knowledge, going on in obeying the lusts of their hearts, let conscience say what it will ; and by how much the more they were overawed with it, so much the more they slight it now. But knowledge in a regenerate man hath an interest in the whole heart, even as its natural prince ; it hath the hearts of the chiefest and the strength of the subjects, namely, of the will and affections; and therefore, though it may be foiled in a particular combat, lose a field or two, the man carried captive, yet knowledge in him musters up its forces again, having such a natural interest in the house, as it rescues the heart again ; and therefore, though he be overcome in an act of sinning, yet he pitcheth another battle, challengeth it into the field again at new weapons, prayer and confession, and never rests till it hath overcome sin again, so as what it loseth at one time it recovers at another. If sin overcome one way, grace will overcome another, yea, and still wins ground, so as the believer never continues to go on in a sin, or is overcome of it.

3. Whereas it was said in the former assertion, that a godly man might deliberately and presumptuously sin, when he is out of passion, there are these two diflerences between his sinning and that of a man unregenerate.

(1.) Although a godly man may break a particular commandment again and again against knowledge, yet his knowledge never suffers him to go on so far as to venture knowingly to break the covenant of grace with God, and to depart from him ; when he hath gone on so far in a sin as he comes to apprehend he must break with God, and lose him if he goes on any further, this apprehension stays him, stops and brings him back again; he may presiimptuously venture (though seldom; and always to his cost) to commit an act of sin against knowledge, because he may withal think, that by one act the covenant is not broken, nor all friendship and love hazarded

between God and him, nor his interest in the state of grace, nor God, quite lost by it, though he may well think he would be displeased with him; but if he should begin to allow himself in it, and to continue to go on again and again in it, then he knows the covenant would be broken, it cannot stand with grace; and when this appi-ehension comes, and comes in strongly, he cannot sin against it, for this were to cast away the Lord, and to depart wickedly from him, now so he doth not. So David, though he sinned highly and presumptuously, yet says he, Ps. xviii. 21, ' I have not departed wickedly from my God;' that is, I have not so far departed from him as though I apprehended I should utterly lose my interest in him, yet I would go on. No; for he is my^God, there lies the consideration that kept him from departing from him : so Ps. xliv. 17, ' We have not dealt falsely in thy covenant,' says the church there. Many acts of displeasing him may pass and be ventured, but if the holy soul thinks that the covenant lay at stake, that God and he must utterly part and break off, thus far he will never go. And hence it comes to pass that a Christian finds it often harder to deny himself in small matters than in the great trials and turnings of his life; for usually in great trials a man looks upon them as passages appointed of God on purpose to try him ; and if he should fail him then, he thinks he should lose him quite, never look him in the face more, nor be owned by him; and in these cases, and when such apprehensions are set on, the heart sticks close to God, and returns from sinning, for God hath put his fear in their hearts that they should not depart from him, Jer. xsxii. 40. But now a wicked man Mng in a course of sinning, and being in the pursuit of his sin, although he apprehends he loseth God thereby by going so far and longer in it, and breaks quite with him, yet he will venture to go on still, as those that defer their repentance do, and such others ; as Esau when he sold his birthright, wherein he is made a type of such. So also Saul did; he knew God would cast him off if he destroyed not the Amalek-ites, yet for fear of the people he ventured to spare the best of them, 1 Sam. XV., and rejected the word of the Lord, and cast God away by that act. And so many, when they have gone so far in an estate of sinning, that they apprehend and are convinced that they are in a damnable condition, yet venture still as securely to go on as ever ; these sin against the very covenant and the terms of it, break the veiy fundamental condition of it; but this no godly man, apprehending or knowing it, can do, nor be false in the fundamental parts of the covenant, for such a violation of it would shut men out of the state of grace, for it is not compatible to it. As God keeps the believer from doing so, so his knowledge and fear doth, as Jeremiah says, Jer. xxxii. 40. A wife that is loving may venture sometimes to do many things she knows displeasing to her husband, but if she should apprehend he would certainly divorce her and cast her off, she would not venture on them, she would not lose her husband. Now to continue in any sin a godly man knows would break the covenant, and cause an utter divorce, this the fear of God in his heart, and the knowledge of the goodness of God, and of his interest in him, as the church reasoneth, Hosea ii. 7, will not suffer him to do. So also for the performance of a duty, though a godly man may neglect to perform it, and that long against his conscience (though it is dangerous so to do), j-et herein he acts as a man that hath a bond in a friend's hand, and may neglect such a day of payment, because he may hope to excuse it and humble himself; but in the end, when he shall come to apprehend, that if he takes not some order about it his bond will be sued, all his estate of grace mortgaged, an execution come

out, \vhen this is served upon his conscience, this rouseth a godly man, when an unregenerate man will go on for all this, as deferrers of repentance do,

(2.) Though a godly man may deliberately commit a particular sin against his knowledge, and therein despise the commandment of God, that is, make bold with it for that act (as David did, which is most fearful), 2 Sam. xii. 9, yet he doth not reject or cast away the commandment which he thus knows, so as to forsake or renounce obedience to it as to a commandment, which he cannot nor will bring his heart to be subject unto, as a wicked man in some one commandment or other usually doth. So Saul is said to do: 1 Sam. xv. 23, * Thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, and therefore God hath rejected thee from being king ;' because he cast off the government of the commandment, and would no longer be subject to God, therefore God took away his government over others. He stood out as an outlaw and a rebel in that act, and so the word intimates in that same verse, for his act is called ' rebellion and stubbornness.' Now though David made bold with the commandment, and did so much despise it, yet he stood not out as an outlaw, as one that would not come in to obey it, or that rejected it. A subject may presume in a particular act to transgress a law, and so David did, but yet intends not to shake off the yoke of obedience in anything to his prince, becomes not a rebel, an outlaw to any commandment, as every wicked man doth in regard of some command or other. Though wicked men know that the Sabbath ought to be kept strictly, they will not only in particulars make bold with it (which is a high kind of sinning), but their hearts cannot be subject to it, yea, will not, and so stand as outlaws ; they say in their hearts, ' This man shall not reign over us;' such a commandment they will not be subject unto, and so go on from day to day, not despising it only, but rejecting it, asjthe Jews did Christ for being king. So also did they, Luke vii. 30, who are said to reject the counsel of God within themselves ; they knew they ought to subject themselves to John's doctrine and be baptized, but they scorned to seem to follow a poor man. And so in the 50th Psalm, the hypocrite is said there, though he knows God's will (for he takes it into his mouth), yet to ' cast the law behind his back.' Now when a thing is cast behind a man's back, he hath no more an eje to it, but leaves it behind him ; but a godly man, though in a particular act he passeth by the law, yet he sets it before him, looks to it as a mariner to the loadstone to sail by it, he turns not his back on it, but (as Paul did, Philip, iii. 14) he sets this mark before him, and aims at it in a course of constant obedience; whereas those did the contrary of whom the prophet speaks, Jer. v. 5: these (saith he) ' have broke the bands and the yoke.' Every commandment which a man knows becomes a bond to tie him to God, and as a yoke to keep him in his compass and rank, and bring him into subjection. Now a wicked man breaks the bonds and yoke in pieces, will not be subject to some commandment or other ; but a godly man, though he may go astray against his knowledge, and run away, yet still he hath the yoke about his neck, he hath a resolution and heart still to be subject, and doth not break the bond in pieces, and give himself a liberty and allowance to be free from any commandment, though sometimes he makes escapes ; as an apprentice, though he breaks the conditions, yet tears not the indentures, as a wicked man doth.

Use 1. The first use is raised from the differences between a godly man's and an unregenerate man's sinning against knowledge; which is to exhort

you to examine yourselves by them, my brethren. All hero Lave some knowledge, all know some sins and some duties. Go and examine how thy heart carries thyself to thy knowledge; it is a short way to convince men by, used by the apostle in Rom. i.; for though the Gentiles had lived according to knowledge, it would not have saved them, yet it might negatively demonstrate their estate naught. Dost thou not desire to grow in knowledge, to the end thou mayest know how to glorify God more ? And as thou dost grow, dost thou not still desire to bring thy practice answerable to it, and to run the faster, the further off thy practice is from what thou knowest thou shouldst do ? It is well with thee. But dost thou rest in a pitch and course of duties and say. This is enough to save me, and •what needs more ? Thy estate is naught then. Hast thou not a care to keep thy heart even with thy knowledge, to make it perfect, when thou prayest and receivest the sacraments ? Hidest thou not thine eyes from any command, as it is said they in the prophet did from the Sabbath ? And when thou knowest it, dost thou not rest till thy heart be loosened from thy sin, and made subject to all duty, to pray, read the word, and sanctify Sabbaths, and, to examine thy heart, to confer holily, &c.? Thy heart is naught if thou dost not and wilt not be found perfect before God. Art thou afraid of any truth, and sorry that it is a truth when thou knowest it, because it crosseth thy lust ? Art not glad of that busy light that is in thee ? but dost thou wish thyself rid of it ? Art thou overcome of any sin, and though thou knowest it to be a sin, yet in the end goest on and allowest thyself in it, let conscience say what it will ? Hast thou a heart can defer repentance when thou art persuaded thy estate is naught, and go on in sinning when thou seest thou must lose God if thou dost ? Thy heart is naught then. Dost thou reject any commandment and daily walk, as if there were no such thing to be minded by thee, as if it were Dot to be put into thy memorandum to have a care of? Dost thou pass Sabbaths thus, and praying-times over thus ? Thy heart is false with God then. My brethren, believe it, at the latter day the first course God will take in his order of convincing and condemning men, will be to reckon and account what knowledge they had, and so then to examine how they walked accordingly: Rom. ii., ' Those without the law shall be judged without it;' for it will afford matter of conviction sufficient to take what sins they knew to be sins, and yet sinned in them. And therefore in the first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle goes no further, but instanceth in such sins as natural light taught them. Do thou so of what thou knowest, and see how thou answerest that knowledge.

And as for you that are pi'ofessors, and know more, I here charge you, either leave professing to know God, leave noting sermons, and repeating them, or else make your hearts perfect and your lives answerable. For St John says plainly, ' He that says he knows God, and keeps not his commandments, is a liar,' 1 John ii. 4, an hypocrite. Wherein lies the power of religion, but in ruling and moulding the heart to what you know ?

Use 2. Though a regenerate man may sin so far against knowledge, yet this is not to encourage any to go so far, and presume they may still be in the state of grace. No; but as the apostle says, ' These things we write to you, that you sin not.' Nor do I speak these things so to you that you may be discouraged, presently to think all is naught, and to call all into question. I would have such as would presume on what hath been said, not to make so bad a use of so true a doctrine, but consider the heinous-ness of sinning against knowledge, and withal the fearful consequences of

making bold witli the commandments of God. A sin of knowledge will stop thy mouth both to God and man. When thou goest to pray to God, it will clap a lock upon thy heart and Hps ; so it did on David's, as appears from Psalm li., where after that great sin he prays to God to open his lips, for that they had been sealed up; besides, it will cause God to give thee up to terrors, to lose the comfort of all thy grace. And as thou sinnest against knowledge, so knowledge and the guilt of thy sin shall fight against thee : and though he will not give thee up to thy lusts as he gave up these Gentiles, and to a reprobate mind, for thou art his child, yet he will give thee up to a terrified mind; and as seven devils enter into one that falls after knowledge, that belongs not to God, so in thy proportion shall seven devils be let loose to terrify thee; and_ as their latter end is worse than the beginning, so shall a worse humiliation cease on thee than at thy first conversion. If thou wilt go to the utmost of what is compatible with the state of grace in sinning, God will answerably bring thee to the utmost border of hell, as far as thou canst go and not go in, to the depth of that despair which may stand with faith. This often he doth; yea, happily he will shorten thy life, cut thee oif before thy time; for he that sins presumptuously. Num. xv. 30, 31, should be cut ofi'. And the laws of men not now taking notice of thee, God will cut thee oS, at least in thy apprehension, from the number of his people; thy own thoughts and speeches shall excommunicate thee, thou shalt lie roaring and cry out, thou art none of his. Therefore take heed of doing anything presumptuously by what hath been said, but make this use of it, that if in time past thou hast thus sinned, and art therefore now in the dungeon, and so thinkest because thou didst sin so grievously against knowledge, that therefore thou wert never truly regenerate, to comfort thee, consider what hath been said.

Use 3. Is it so heinous to sin against knowledge ? This should teach us to be vahant for the truth, if evil times come. Those truths which you are now assured of, flinch not from them; remember what St Paul says to Timothy : 1 Tim. vi. 12, 13, ' Fight the good fight of faith, that thou hast professed before many witnesses. And I give you charge in the sight of God, who is able to quicken you,' if you die for it, ' and of Jesus Christ, who himself witnessed a good confession before Pilate,' and denied not what he knew was truth, that you do so too, though others will say with Pilate, What is truth ? and make a jest of it; but never deny it. Be ye cast in prison, the truth will make you free, John viii. 32, and pay all thy charges ; and therefore do not thou imprison it as the Gentiles, for the children of God can do nothing against the truth, not heartily; they cannot deny it, and stand out denying it, as the martyrs could not, it will break prison doors ; for when they had subscribed, they could not be quiet till they had torn out their names again. We can do nothing against it, but for "it all we can, 2 Cor. xiii. 8.

CHAPTER VII.

The other case resolved, wherein the sin against the Hohj Ghost differs from other sins against knowledge.

There is yet another case or question to be answered concerning sinning against knowledge, and that is, what diflference may be between any other

sin against knowledge, and that great sin of all other only unpardonable, which is in an especial manner called a sin ' after receiving the truth,' and ' after enlightening,' Heb. chapters vi. and x. And this is necessary to speak a little of, for it is homogeneal to this head, it being an essential ingredient into that sin, and a necessary circumstance of it, that it is against the greatest light; and so the apostle in both places expresseth it, as also because many poor souls that sin after enlighteniugs, or have fiiUen off from the practice of what they have professed, think therefore they have sinned that sin, because against so much clear and tasting knowledge : and indeed there is no man almost, that hath been enlightened, but those places have had a blow at him, or may come to have. Now, therefore, as I have given you differences between a regenerate man's sinning against knowledge, and an unregenerate man's, so I will also between ordinary unregenerate men's sinning against knowledge, and this, there being a peculiarity in it; for it is not simply sinning against and after tasting knowledge, for then the saints should sin it—Solomon and David had done it; nor the resisting of the Spirit in the motions of it; for then they, Isa. Ixiii. 10, who were God's people, should be guilty of it: nor is it simply hating the light as contrary to our own lusts, for then every one that doth evil should be guilty of it, as John iii. 18, 19, not hating God as he is considered a judge, commanding such strict laws, for so the Gentiles should have sinned it, who never knew the gospel, Rom. i. 30, and then every unregenerate man, whose mind is enmity to God and his law, Eom. viii. 17, should be guilty of it. No ; nor is it speaking evil of, or injuring those we know to be saints, for then Manasses should have sinned it, who slew the prophets, and filled Jerusalem with blood, who yet was brought up well; for Hezekiah being a godly man, surely had him instructed, and he was twelve years old ere he died ; and at 2 Chron. xxxiii. 10, it is said, the Lord spake to him, so as he had notice of all. And also Herod had sinned it, who put John to death, whom he reverenced and knew to be a holy man ; but yet he did not sin the sin against the Holy Ghost, for he was sorrowful. Therefore to clear this to you :

First, It is not sinning against any kind of knowledge of things in the word that makes this sin, for it is not sinning against the knowledge of the law, to commit adultery, or blaspheme God against knowledge, which is this sin; for, Heb. x. 28, the apostle makes it a further kind of sinning than despising any part of the law; yet to despise the law was to sin presumptuously, and to reproach the Lord therein. Num. xv. 30, 31, and is opposed to sinning ignorantly: and Christ says, every blasphemy shall be forgiven but this. But it is a sinning against the light of things revealed in the gospel, the light of the offer of grace, of the Spirit accompanying that light, with tasting of the goodness of that offer: so Heb. vi., Heb. x. 29, and against the work of the Spirit in themselves and others ; and it is not yvuioig only, but i'^rr/vucig, a conviction and evidence wrought of the truth and goodness of them.

Secondly, It is not every kind of despising the truths of the gospel, but such as is accompanied with a despiteful causeless contempt of them, and indignation against them. It is not the undervaluing of the offer of grace to the pleasures of sin : so the young man did, who yet was sorrowful. So many do who defer their repentance, prefer their lusts to Christ and mercy, who yet are converted after; for this contempt is but because they cannot enjoy Christ and their lusts : if they could have him with their lusts they would. It is but comparatively they thus contemn it, joined with some

esteem of it, and desire after it. But this sin includes in it a simple contempt ; therefore the Holy Ghost expresseth it, by trampling under foot Christ's blood, and esteeming it as a common thing. If they had a cup full of his blood, they would pour it on the ground, not only preferring other things before it, but trampling it as mire and dirt, as the Jews did Christ, saying that he was a devil, yet knowing him to be the Messiah (as appears, Mark iii. 28, Christ speaking of that sin), debasing it in their esteem, and so also doing despite or contumely, as the word signifies, to the Spirit of grace; contemning, not resisting only, his work in themselves or others; not opposing the saints only, but having no reverence of them.

Thirdly, Their hatred to God and Christ, and the light and work of the Spirit, and his saints, is a revengeful hatred, therefore called a crucifying of Christ again, and doing despite to the Spirit; for you must know there may be a twofold hatred of God and Christ, and the saints : one primary, direct, and hating them as such; another secondary, occasioned and stirred up, because they are crossed by these and vexed by them; as Ahab hated Micaiah, not as a prophet, but because he said contrary to what he would have had him ; and so Herod against John Baptist, because he preached against his lust, it was not as he was a holy man, not sub eo nomine.

Now all unregenerate men may come thus to hate God secondarily and indirectly, because they look on him as a judge, and to hate the saints because their light reproves them and vexeth their consciences, and they cannot be quiet for them ; for it is in hatred as in love. And ^ as a wicked man may love a godly man, yet not as godly, but for some amiable-ness and profitableness by his godliness to him, as Darius loved Daniel, Pharaoh loved Joseph, and Achish loved David, for the usefulness and benefit they had by their grace ; so wicked men hate grace also, and they generally do it as being contrary to their lusts, and therefore speak evil of the saints. But now this revengeful hatred which is bounded primarily against the person of God and Christ, this causeless hatred (as Christ expresseth this sin, John xv. 24, 25), seeing and hating causelessly all the saints he knows such, in relation to the covenant of grace estabhshed with them, because they are saints and God's children, this may seem to be the form of this sin ; therefore they are said to crucify again to themselves the Lord Christ; for were it in their power they would do it; and that which is the devil's master-lust is theirs also: John viii. 44, ' His lusts ye will do,' says Christ, speaking of the Pharisees who desired to kill him out of a revengeful disposition, and so they sinned this sin. It was a revengeful hatred set them a-work, and thus they also are guilty of this great sin against the Holy Ghost, who do despite to the Spirit of grace, Helj. x. 28, and so against all saints as saints: for seeing they cannot be revenged on God, they persecute them; and so these love sin, not only secondarily for the pleasures that come in with it, but as sin, because it provokes God, because they know it will anger him ; which revenge is made their bosom-lust, and all resolved into it, and is stirred up in them, by reason they apprehend God to have cast them ofi"; therefore they are said to have Hhoyjiv xpiaiug, to receive judgment, Heb. x. 27, whereas others standing in terms of treaty for grace with God, have not this revengeful disposition stirred up in them, but those other mahcious sinners are desperate.

OF THE BLESSED STATE OF GLORY WHICH THE SAINTS POSSESS AFTER DEATH.

A DISCOURSE OF THE BLESSED STATE OF GLORY WHICH THE SAINTS POSSESS AFTER DEATH.

CHAPTER I.

Of the blessedness of a dying believer.

And I heard a voice from heaven saying, Write, Blessed are the dead it'hich die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. — Eev. XIV. 13.

My design is to discourse from this text concerning de'atli, which is the shooting the gulf into the separate state of souls.

1. It is apparent from the words immediately pteceding, that the season, and so the occasion of these, was an imminent danger of saints suffering unto death, and all other persecutions accompanying the 'keeping the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.' This is pointed at as with the finger, and that twice in that 12th verse. ' Here,' says he, * are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.' That particle here, in historical narration, is set to note out the time when some observable thing fell out, as well as it doth a place, wherein Piscator glosseth upon that word thus, In hac parte jyrojyhetia;, for an historical prophecy began anew at the 12th chapter, which from thence goeth over all times, viz., from the primitive till the day of judgment. And this particle here accordingly points at some special succession and occurrent that falls out in a particular time, as a time wherein there would be extraordinary trials of the patience of saints to the utmost; the word patience, by a metonymy, signifying the-objects or matters of the exercise of patience; the particle here likewise points at such sad occurrences to fall out at that time as would try every vein of their hearts who kept the commands of God, and also denotes that God would then vouchsafe such measures of patience to his people as should be signally eminent and singular, and deserving this remark, ' Here is the patience.'

If you be desirous to know the time wherein these things are to fall out, look back to and compare herewith another passage in the 13th chapter foregoing, wherein you have at once an entire scheme or representation of the rise, power, and cruelty of Christian Rome, when turned antichristian, and of her followers and adherents. And there you find a note of animad-

version inserted: ver. 10, ' He that leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: he that Idlleth -with the sword, must be killed with the sword. Here is the patiejice and faith of the saints.' And suitably to this, next ensuing 14th chapter, there is given another like entire map and representation of an opposite company, that followed the Lamb, ill a succession all along contemporary with the time^ of that beast's reign, 'and of his associates. And you find in the middle part of that story there the same reflections for substance that are here given, and there first uttered; and here in the appointed time marked out, when death and all cruelties were to be executed on these saints. It is again repeated here in verse 12 of this chapter, as that which occasioned these words of my text in verse 13, where you find death and dying also spoken of, answerably to their being killed in that passage of the former chapter. So then we know where we are, and the persons whom the words concern; and withal a punctual designation of the time, all which the 7th to 11th verses do instruct us in, teaching us to reckon from the beginning of the breaking forth of the light of the everlasting gospel in the height of antichristiTin darkness that went afore, preached by three angels, each after another, age after age, and more clearly the latter than the foregoing, discovering Rome to be Babylon, and ordained to ruin; and crying louder and louder against their idolatries, and calling upon meji to worship God alone ; and also detecting their unwritten traditions, which they had mingled with the gospel. All which you may observe to be apparently reflected upon in those verses 6-11, 'And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him ; for the hour of his judgment is come : and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and sea, and the fountains of waters. And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations di'ink of the wrath of her fornications. And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud •^oice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the (Lamb : and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, wto worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of hi^ name.' And the notice of this, as the special season, will conduce towards the understanding some things of mbment in the text, as you will more clearly discern when I come to open that word henceforth in the text. This for the season and occasion.

2. The scope and ultimate design of the words was to comfort, hearten, and strengthen those saints in their suffering death, when any of them should be called thereunto for Christ. And as to comfort, so withal to direct and excite them, that in their dying for the Lord and his cause, they should especially look to this, to * die in the Lord.' And that also all other saints, who were expectants of death every moment; should live as dying men, and. put and keep their spirits into ,a posture of dying daily, as those that might be hurried to death they know not how soon, and therefore ought to be daily in the continual exercis.e of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And though it might be their lot to die in their beds -a natural death, yet they should see to it that they, exert and, put forth all sorts of dying graces.

whereby to glorify Christ their Lord and God in their hearts in their dying, to the utmost they were able; as much as possible, as if they were dying at a stake for Christ.

3. The substance of the matter itself spoken, sufficiently sheweth this to be the scope of the words: ' Blessed are the dead,' says he, ' that die in the Lord,' &c. Which matter is summarily resolved into these three things:

(1.) That there is a state of full and perfect blessedness to be entered into, and possessed by the souls of saints, as soon as they are dead ; which is the mind of that first saying, ' Blessed are the dead.' Which blessedness is further amplified in the latter clause, because they then shall rest from their labours, and their works follow them. Unto which the voice from heaven super-adds a pronouncing them blessed that die in the Lord; that is, that die in a lively faith, and stedfast hope in the Lord.

(2.) That this might be efl'ected in the hearts and spirits of dying believers; and thereby that full blessedness, promised in the first saying, attained, and believers' hearts established in it, the Holy ^Spirit hath passed a promise of his own, to make it good in those suftering times ; and from thenceforth to bless multitudes of his dying saints so to die in faith, and hope, and the exercise of other dying graces. * Yea, saith the Spirit;' which I take to be an engagement and further promise of the Comforter himself, undertaking more than ordinarily to accomplish in believers' hearts what the voice had spoken, testifying to the truth of it, and engaging his word to see it performed.

(3.) With all these, take in the importance of that small word, ' from henceforth,' as denoting a special privilege of suffering saints, in those persecuting, bloody times ; and so running along thorough the succeeding gospel times downwards.

AH these things mixed together with, and digested by faith, having been spoken, and thus spoken—1, by an immediate voice from heaven ; 2, commanded to be registered into the sacred canon; and, 3, attested over and besides by a personal warrant of the Holy Ghost,—may perhaps be esteemed as one of the strongest and most spiritful cordials that ever was compounded for men that are a-dying, or that live in a continual expectation of death, they know not how soon. And perhaps it may come to be so valued by those, if not in this, yet in following generations, whom the efficacy of this following word, \fwm henceforth,'' takes hold of, it reaching and extending to the end of the world, and for ever, for our comfort, if we would apprehend i^; but for certain unto theirs upon whom the latter ends of the world are a-coming, in which the light of the everlasting gospel will grow. So as what the apostle says upon his own having discoursed of the resurrection and glory that follows thereupon,—in 1 Thess. iv. 18, ' Comfort one another with these words,'—the same you may write upon this alabaster box of cordial, the outscription on it. Comfort for dijing saints. And the precious ingredients within do speak it. It is no wonder, then, that this voice from heaven should so solemnly command the recording of this saying : ' The voice said unto me. Write ;' which puts a singular remark of honour upon it, in that this single passage should have so particular a command concerning it, to write it. Whereas in chap. i. 11, at the entrance of this whole revelation,*there had been a general command, ' Write,' once for all. And by virtue of that command it was, he still did write what he saw or heard revealed to him ; unless once when he was forbidden to write, chap. X. 4 ; but this, and none but two more other, have such an indigi-

tated redoubled command for them. And the one of them is the invitation of the Lamb's bride to her marriage with Christ: Rev. xix. 9, ' And he saith unto me, White, Blessed are they which are called unto the mamage-supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the,true sayings of God.' And the other is, when the marriage is consummated. Rev. xxi. 5. And read with them the verses afore and after, forjhey contain the saj ings he was to write: ver. 3, 4, ' And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying. Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them: and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be anymore pain: for the former things are passed away.' Then ver, 6, 7, ' And he said unto me. It is done. I am Alpha and Omega : the beginning and the end: I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life fi-eely. He that overcpmeth shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.' This is the blessedness of the new Jerusalem, which John saw come down fi-om heaven, ver. 2, ' And I John saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.' And this, in my text, is the blessedness of souls separate, who, in the mean while, go to heaven. Both are proclaimed by a voice from heaven ; and I believe it is the voice of God himself, that sits upon the throne, that uttereth both. And if of the whole scripture it be said, that ' whatever was written, was written that we, through the scriptures, might have hope,' as Rom. xv. 4, then surely this single piec6, the words of my text (which is commanded to be wa-itten), above many other scriptures; for over and besides its coming from heaven immediately, it hath also the broad seal of the grand witness on earth, the Spirit, 1 John v., set to it; after it is written and spoken, * Yea, saith the Spirit,' &c. And it so directly and solemnly speaking to the point of blessedness in heaven, to be presently enjoyed by dying souls, must needs be intended to give us hope, the hope of all hopes : ' That blessed hope,' Tit. ii, 13.

Obs. That for dying saints to have their souls enabled to exercise faith and hope on the Lord Christ in the hour of death, is a singular and superadded blessing, over and above that of being blessed in heaven.

' Blessed are the dead,' that is the common inheritance of the saints in light; but ' Blessed are those that die in the Lord' is an additional privilege. Even as to believe is a gift common to all saints, but ' to you,' says the apostle to the Philippians, Philip, i. 29, ' is given not only to believe, but to sufier ;' and yet to believe is far the greater gift of the two, for in that is our salvation, and it is absolutely necessary thereunto ; but so is not suffering, for a saint may be saved without it, though not without believing. Yet in that manner, and upon the same account that the apostle magnifies suffering when added to believing, and that it is a farther special privilege over and above believing, so it is here in this case of the blessedness of a believer who dieth in the Lord. I do not say that to die in the Lord is in itself a greater blessing than the glory that follows in heaven, or that no saint comes to enjoy the blessedness of heaven unless he dies in the full exercise of faith. There are many cases fall out to the contrary, and it may in that respect serve as a relief, that the blessedness of heaven is spoken of as distinct from this of dying in the Lord. But yet still it is a blessing in itself alone considered, to whomever it is vouchsafed, and it is a blessing over and besides that of heaven. And we may comfort such a

saint so dj'ing with this thought, that God hath given not only to enter into heaven when he dies, but hath blessed him in his dying with a lively faith, and stedfast hope in the Lord Jesus.

1. It is a great blessing, comparatively to the case of many other saints in dying, whose happy lot it is not to have such vigorous actings of faith and hope at that hour. And therefore such dying in the Lord is pronounced as a blessedness iu the second place, after the declared blessedness of all believers who die in a state of salvation, and as additional to it.

2. It is a martyrs' blessing, who are the eldest sons of blessedness among all the sons of adoption, and unto them it is generally vouchsafed. The design of this voice from heaven. Rev. xiv. 13, is to speak unto martyrs, and to comfort, encourage, and direct them in their dying, and to make a promise to them of their being extraordinarily blessed in the most violent and torturing death. And to bring a Christian's heart (especially in time of youthful or manly years) to be cheerfully willing to die in the ordinary way, there is need of great supplies of the Spirit; and the apostle had great expectation of them, whether he lived or died, Philip, i. 19, 20. And therefore to be in any measure assisted at such a moment is a special and singular blessing to a man. But to have faith overcoming unbelief, and triumphant in the victory, and to have the whole soul filled with joy unspeakable and full of glory, not only to hold his trust and confidence in Christ to the end, Heb. iii. 14, so as to die quietly and composedly, having his heart stayed on the Lord Jesus, as knowing on whom he hath believed, but to be ' filled with all joy and peace in believing,' and to ' abound in hope,' Rom. xv. 13, this is a martyr's privilege and portion. And now then, for any Christian to have a martyr's confidence and joys, without a martyr's sufferings, how inestimable a blessing must this be !

3. The soul is blessed who dies in the Lord, because in that very hour Christ admits him into the actual possession of the eternal inheritance which he had purchased. It was this reception which Stephen prayed for : Acts vii. 59, * Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit.' And he not only receives it into his own bosom, but he brings it to God, and presents it to him with a joy infinitely more abounding than can be in us. So that then it is that Christ is glorified and rejoiceth in us, and so we may be said rather to die to the Lord and his interest than to ourselves. And therefore,

4. The believer is blessed who dies in the Lord; that is, who dies in the lively exercise of faith and hope, because Christ is infinitely more glorified upon us by such our dying than ever he was in our whole lives. We do not only then take up from him a new estate, and are removed into it, and as truly admitted by him as our gracious Lord unto that eternal house above, not made with hands, as ever any tenant is admitted by the lord of the manor ; but he then makes us completely qualified for our new glorious habitation. He consumes all our lusts, and makes our spirits perfect, and perfectly meet for the eternal inheritance, 2 Cor. v. 1-5.

5. The believer is blessed who dies in the Lord, because he hath the Spirit to support him in that hour, which would otherwise be dark and gloomy. Tlae Spirit was given us for ' that hour,' as a friend is said to be ' born for adversity,' Prov. xvii. 17. And certainly he who was given for a comfort to thee all thy life long, and hath delivered thee out of all thy distresses and fears, will certainly carry thee through this; and though thy heart should for a while fail thee together with thy flesh, yet God and his Spirit will not fail thee, Ps. Ixxiii. 26. And truly the interest of the Spirit's own glory (besides that he is that good Spirit to do good to us),

his interest, I say, moved him. No merchant more rejoiced to bring his adventure home into the haven, after he had carried the same safe through so many storms, than the Spirit doth rejoice to bring a soul he hath wrought upon, and who was committed to his trust, safe to heaven. If a Christian be but ' reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you ; for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you,' 1 Pet. iv. 14 ; that is, the Spirit of God becomes a Spirit of glory upon them, and in them, viz., as he enables them to bear it with a glorious joy, surpassing what the greatness and heroicness of a natural spirit would do ; yea, exceeding that extraordinary assistance the same Spirit gives upon other occasions to the same persons. And thus the Spirit of glory rests upon the soul of a dying believer, and this is made good in many believers with joy at their death; and yet it is more ordinarily seen in supporting at the least the spirits of all, and in giving supplies of the Spirit to the most, as the apostle's word is, Philip, i. 19. And he speaks it in relation to death as well as life, as will appear by comparing vers. 20, 21.

Use 1. Let us look to it, that we die so as to be blessed, that we die in the Lord. To die is a business no man doth but once, and is a business of the greatest moment of any we ever performed ; and therefore, to be directed and assisted in it, is answerably a great blessedness. If we miscarry, and fail much in some acts that are of great consequence in our lives (as who hath not done ?), yet we relieve ourselves with this thought, that we hope to be more assisted, and to do better at other times in our following course. And oftentimes errors in our lives are sanctified by the Spirit to be a good warning, and provocative to do better afterward. But if we miscarry in dying, we shall never have an opportunity to amend the fault. If we were indeed to revive, and die a second time, the error might be rectified and repaired; but, alas ! it is appointed for all men but once to die ; and therefore to transact that well, must needs be a blessing indeed.

Use 2. Let us regard it as the end, and the last act which will finish the whole. Let us regard it as the conclusion, that shuts up the story of our days past, and through which we enter upon eternity. Let us regard it as the centre of all the promises that are made to us for this life, in distinction from the life to come. Let us look on it as the point, whereon we stand, between the life we have passed, and that other we are entering into. It is the end that crowns all, which is foregone in doing well; yea, dying in the Lord is the crown of perseverance. That and conversion are the two greatest blessings ; and as the one is the Alpha, so the other is the Omega. Conversion puts us into Christ; but death, and holding our confidence to the end, possesseth us of Christ: Heb. iii. 14, ' For we are made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence sted-fast unto the end.'

CHAPTER IL

TJiat the soul of a believer doth not sleep, or is not in a state of inactivity, till the resurrection.

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that helieveth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and ivhosoever liveth, and helieveth in me, shall never die. Believest thou this ? — John XI. 25, 26.

There is no truth but hath in this age, amongst us, been either controverted, contradicted, or questioned ; and among others, that great funda-

mental one, concerning the active life, and glorified state of a believing soul after death : some saying, it perisheth until the resurrection ; others, that it liveth not a life worthy of the name of a Hfe, nor of so much activity as it hath now by faith, but tanium non, or in effect in a state akin to death ; it slcepeth all the time, until the day of the resui-rection, when it is awakened with the body. And this they argue upon occasion of those speeches in Scripture, of the saints' sleeping. Now our Lord and Saviour hath, upon occasion of Lazarus his death, and his then present state after death, and also in relation to his resurrection, which Christ meant to effect afore their eyes, uttered something home unto this point.

First, Christ himself had termed his death a sleep, verse 11, for verse 13 it is interpreted by John to be spoken of his death. Now, then, in Christ's sense, to sleep and to die is manifestly all one : the one being a metaphorical or similitudinary expression ; the other a literal, plain, real expression, of one and the same thing, which is manifestly what is said, . verse 14, ' Jesus said plainly to them, Lazarus is dead ;' insomuch as death is, in plain terms, the same that sleeping was in the metaphor, which he was occasioned thus plainly to express, because they, his disciples, dreamed of no other sleeping as meant by our Lord, than of one who is still alive, and takes bodily rest; as appears by verses 12, 13, ' Then said his disciples. Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake of his death : but they thought that he had spoken of taking rest in sleep.' Hence in Christ's intention, that part of Lazarus only, that is, his body, which plainly died, that only is said metaphorically to sleep. And so Lazarus is said to sleep, as in respect thereof only ; so as those that will affirm the souls of just men to sleep, must affirm that, in plain terms, their souls do also die. For Christ (who began that expression, which the apostles after him used) intended both to be one and the same, and so Lazarus his sleep to be really a death ; and therefore both the one and the other were intended but of and in respect of the body, unless they will affirm that souls do die.

Now our Saviour Christ further, to vindicate his meaning for such a sense as I have assigned, doth at the 25th verse affirm two things of himself, and correspondently two things of us behevers, by virtue of our union with him, that are members of him. 1. Says he, ' I am the resurrection ;' and, 2, ' the hfe;' both which he speaks of what he will be effectively to us ; as elsewhere, John xiv. 19, he speaks, ' Because I live, ye shall live also.' And from these two, Christ draws two distinct assertions concerning us :

1. The first concerning the resurrection. ' He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.' So as if you should suppose both body and soul dead, yet I must not lose them, says Christ, but raise them up ; and so whatever of them any may suppose to die, as the body doth, I will be sure to raise it up, for I am the resurrection.

2. But then, secondly, Christ assures you, and delivers it for a certain truth, that the noble, chief part of every believer, and which is indeed himself, doth never die, after his believing. So it follows, ' And whosoever liveth, and believeth on me, shall never die.' That life which he had by believing, which is his proper life, he shall never lose ; nor shall that life ever cease, or sleep. Even as Chiist's own life doth not, nor shall not; for ' I am the life' (says he), a continual principle and fountain of life; that never ceaseth communicating Hfe unto those that are mine. I am the life, as to mine own soul, so to his; and therefore there is that in him shall

never die, and therefore not sleep (for in Christ's sense sleeping is one and the same with death); and that is his soul. And again, at the latter day, it is not his soul that is raised up, as it was not his soul that slept, or died, but his body only, or the man in respect of the body. And further, it is said of Christ, that he now lives a more glorious life then when on earth (as in Rom. vi. 10, it is said of Christ's life, after his death, ' In that he lives, he lives unto God'); and that likewise we are to ' reckon ourselves alive unto God, through Christ our Lord f that is, to be for ever alive unto God as he was; for he is the life, and the pattern of the life; and so there shall be no cessation of it, as there was not in his soul, in or upon his death.

And this, says Christ, as it is a certain truth in itself, so likewise so necessary a truth for you that are believers, that I would have you put it into your creed : ' Believest thou this ?' says he to Mary ; and accordingly it was put into the creed of all believers by the primitive saints. The resurrection of the body they limited only to the body; and so death and sleeping to the body only; but as to express the state of the soul, they added ' life everlasting : amen.'

So then, this is the result: that a believer, in respect of his soul, doth continue to live, after death, a life of activity and blessedness, and never dies nor sleeps. Christ pronounced it in Lazarus his case, whilst as yet dead, as a distinct thing from his resurrection; and speaks so not in respect of any new life at the resurrection. And indeed seeing that by death faith is done away, 1 Cor. xiii., that which is perfect comes in the room of it; and then for certain the soul is not in a worse case, enjoys not a lower life, to be sure, after death, but is made perfect with that which is the perfection of faith, and therefore with a life that is far more perfect than that of faith ; for the spirits of just men are then made perfect; and this life of faith is styled but imperfect, and therefore done away.

CHAPTER IIL

That the souls of believers, immediately after their separation from the body, live an happy life in the enjoyment of God, proved from the account which we have of the state of dying saints both in the Old and New Testament.

Of the glory of the body after the resurrection, I have discoursed largely in another treatise.* The design of my present discourse is to prove that the souls of dying saints do live a life of perfect holiness and blessedness in the enjoyment of God and Christ in the heavens, until the resurrection.

1. It is a life.

2. It is a life of perfect holiness.

3. It is a life of blessedness in the enjoyment of God.

4. It is a life of the saints living in a company together.

5. As for the place, it is in the heavens.

No one proof will comprehend all and each; but one will arise out of one proof, another out of another. Neither will I range the proofs to the method of these particulars as heads, but rather go over the Scriptures from first to last; which opened, you will sometimes see one of these par-

* ' Discourse of tlie Creatures, and the Condition of their State by Creation,' Book 11. Chap. xi. in Vol. II. of his works. [See this volume, supra. — Ed.]

ticulars arise, sometimes another, and out of the whole each and all of these.

1. I shall, concerning this estate, produce proofs out of the Old Testament.

2. Out of the New.

In the Old Testament I shall instance only in Abraham, because it will carry the condition of all other believers of the Old Testament with it; he being the * father,' and so the pattern, ' of all the faithful.'

I observe, that Christ and the apostles affected (if I may so speak) to use the instance of him to prove the greatest foundations of religion. Christ used it to prove the resurrection and the soul's immortality against the Sadducees, who denied both : Mat. xxii, 32, ' Have you not read that which was spoken by God to you, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.' And the instance of Abraham is also alleged by Paul in the point of justification, by James for sanctification. In like manner our divines have had their first recourse to Abraham's case, to prove this state of blessedness to the souls of men that die in the faith, immediately after their death. It is evident that God preached to him the foundations of the gospel in plain and real tei-ms; and so it falls out, that in one and the same chapter (namely. Gen. xv.) God delivers to him,

1. The great and fundamental point of justification by faith, and that by imputation, than which the gospel knows no higher. So ver. 6, * And he believed in the Lord, and it was counted or imputed to him for righteousness ;' which Paul invincibly urgeth in two epistles.

2. And, secondly, what heaven is, and wherein man's happiness consists. He declares it plainly. Gen. xv. 1, 'I myself am thy shield,' that is, in this life, ' and thy exceeding great reward,' after this life ended. For reward is after the finishing of work; and therefore, having said before, ' Walk before me, and be upright,' what is this reward but the blessedness of heaven without types or metaphors, nakedh^, and in the substance and quintessence of it expressed ? Christ himself (of whom, and for whom the 16th Psalm was professedly penned) says no other, nor no more of it: Ps. xvi. 5, 6, ' The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance,' &c. For the joy of which was set afore him it was that he laid down his life, endured his cross, and his ' heart was glad, and his flesh did rest in hope,' as in the psalm it suitably follows : ver. 9, ' For in thy presence is fulness of joy ; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore,' ver. 11, all in God alone.

3. Thirdly, God takes in the same chapter a fit occasion to acquaint him for his comfort what the condition of his soul should be: ' Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, thou shalt be buried in a good old age.'

Now the making forth of the happy state of his soul after death (then to have God his exceeding great reward), as also of the rest of the souls of just men, in the whole Old Testament, is absolved in these four particulars:

1. By a more narrow consideration of the coherence of these words, as here they stand circumstantiated with those observations, which the New Testament makes upon these words afore and after. The promise to Abraham was made in a vision given him, and is circumstantiated afore and after with the promises of Canaan to his seed after the fourth generation. ' And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge ; and afterwards they shall come out with great substance. And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace ; thou shalt be buried in a good old age. But in

the fourth generation they shall come hither again, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.' And Stephen plainly commenting on these very words, Acts vii. 5-7, takes notice, that as for Abraham himself, ' God gave him none inheritance in it, no, not to set his foot on ;' yet he promised that he would give it to him for a possession, and to his seed after him, when as yet he had no child. ' And God spake on this wise, That his seed should sojourn in a strange land ; and that they should bring them into bondage, and entreat them evil four hundred years,' verses 5, 6. Which is the sum of these very verses in Genesis. And Paul, afterwards further opening the mystery of this, shews, that God would thereby signify, that he meant and intended him, and those succeeding patriarchs Isaac and Jacob, a far better state and condition, expressed by country or city filled with inhabitants, which in the mean time was to be enjoyed by them, seeing that they to whom the promises were first made did not yet possess Canaan, but their seed. So Heb. xi. 9, 10, ' By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange countiy,'—observe that,—' dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise : for he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' And verse 13, ' These all died in faith, not having received the promises, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they which say such things declare plainly'—observe that—' that they seek a country.' It is evidenced by this, that they to whom the promise of Canaan was first made foil short thereof, verse 16. But now, that is, upon this declaration of God's that they should not possess Canaan, it was that they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly. The meaning is, it was shewed hereby, that their expectations were diverted and pitched by God on a state of blessedness in heaven in the enjoyment of God. For it follows, ' God is not ashamed to be called their God,' according to that elsewhere, 'I am the God of Abraham,' &c. And here it is said, * I am thy exceeding great reward ;' which speeches of God were greater words than the promise of Canaan, and God should have been ashamed to have spoken these things, if he should have disappointed them of the promise of Canaan, and given that to their seed after them, and if he had not reserved some greater and more excellent thing in the mean time to be possessed by them, which was worthy of that title, ' I am the God of Abraham,' &c. Yea, their seed should have been in a far better condition than they, if they must have stayed for that heavenly country till the general resurrection ; for then these to whom the promises were first and chiefly given, would have had far the worst of it in comparison of their seed. For their seed should have possessed the land, and yet have as soon been possessed of the glory of the resurrection as Abraham and Isaac were. Then observe, how in the entrance to this paragraph, Heb. xi. verse 13, there is this clause, ' These all died in faith.' Why is that so specially put in ? For it had been said, that whilst they lived, they had professed that they sought another country, and desired an heavenly, verses 14, 16. But over and above, jou see, it is added, they died in the faith ; because, upon their deaths it was, that God promised their entrance into that heavenly country, and they accordingly in dying believed to enjoy it, which they had here seen afar otf, but by faith, and pursued after but by desires.

Now to return again to Gen. xv. 15. After God had declared himself his exceeding reward, and declared him justified from all sins, and gave forth, that not he but his seed should possess Canaan, then to quiet him, he declares what should be his state after death, that so he might die in

the fiiith thereof. For thy bodily estate thou shalt live long, and to a good age, and be buried : this was an outward blessing. 2. Thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace, or as some read it ' into peace :' this for thy soul. And, 3, thou shalt pass into a country and city already better inhabited ; namely, with all thy godly forefathers. And this God mentions, first, because the height of his comfort and expectation lay in that. And this, says God, shall be thy condition in the mean time, whilst thy seed are possessing the carthl}' Canaan, instead of thine own personal possessing of it.

This, by comparing all these things together, serves to illustrate in the general the scope of these words, and this assertion out of it. More particularly, there are two phrases to be attended to : 1. ' Thou shalt go to thy Fathers;' 2, ' in peace,' or, as some read it, * into peace.' And both these phrases were first used of Abraham about his dying, by way of promise ; they are the first in all the book of God.

So then the second thing for the making forth of this will be the opening this phrase, * Thou shalt go to thy fathers.' By which some would have no more meant than this, thou shalt die; so Vatablus and others. And it is certain death is always thereby meant; and whenever it is said, they ' slept with their fathers' (which is up and down in the books of Kings and Chronicles), it certainly doth signify death only; the sleep, namely, of their bodies in the common receptacle of the earth. But when it is said, ' they go to their fathers,' or ' are gathered to their fathers,' the just query •will be, whether further what concerns the soul and the state thereof is not thereby principally intended ? Now, so it falls out, that when Abraham's dying itself cometh to be recorded, this here promised, of being gathered to his fathers, is distinctly and apart, and over and above his dying, mentioned, as importing some further thing after death, and that besides his burial also. And this being the promise beforehand, must be supposed to intend one of the greatest comforts God could give him against his dying, and his not possessing personally that land; and so it is to be interpret-ol by what we find in the records of his death. Now, chap. xxv. 8, it is thus said, ' Then Abraham gave up the ghost,' as of Christ it is said, ' and died, and was gathered to his people,' which inteprets this here of going to his fathers, ' and his sons buried him.' Here are enumerated (as I take it) all that concerns death distinctly or apart: 1, a giving up the soul into the hands of God; 2, the death of the man, or dissolution of the personal union between soul and body, namely, that he died and ceased to be a man as before ; 3, * and was gathered to his people,' and this is a thing distinct from death, for he mentioned that before, and it follows after his dying, and is distinct from his burial also, for that follows after this r ver. 9, ' His sons buried him.' So then that gathering to his people, which is distinct from giving up the ghost, from death and burial, imports something besides all those other.

Again, as this was then first promised and spoken of Abraham's death, so we find all these four things in the same words and in the same order, even the very same said of Isaac: Gen xxxv. 29, * And Isaac gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered unto his people, being old and full of days: and his sons Esau and Jacob buried him.' The like is said of Moses and Aaron in Deut. xxxii. 50, ' Die and be gathered unto thy people; even as thy brother Aaron died, and was gathered to his people.' So that to be gathered to his people in Abraham and the rest of these holy ones, was a distinct thing from death, and the consequent of it.

If next the inquiry be what more especially this means,* to go to his

fathers, and to be gathered to his people, taken thus, distinct from dying, burial, &c., the account lies fair that it respected the soul and the state thereof after his death. For to be gathered to his fathers and people, imports a company of people not only extant, but selected and gathered together already, to whom he goes and is gathered. Our Saviour Christ, speaking of this- our Abraham and all the godly departed, says, that ' now they live unto God,' Luke xx. 28, whenas to the world's eye they are not. There is then a people, a company of souls that live unto God, whom when an holy man gives up the ghost his soul is gathered unto, whilst the body lies buried in the grave.

1. Gathering imports a careful sorting or collection of things that were confusedly dispersed, as Isa. ivii. 8; * and so that, though all sorts are in this world mingled, both good and bad together, as tares and the wheat, yet now the good are gathered, sorted, and reserved, and kept safe together. The same phrase is indeed used in common of bad as well as good, as of Ishmael in the very same chapter the phrase is used as weU as of Abraham (of which Ishmael, where you will rank him I will not dispute, you know he persecuted Isaac, and is made a type of the covenant of works, if supposed wicked). In the same Gen. xxv. 17 it is said, • And he gave up the ghost, and died, and was gathered to his people.' But though the phrase is in common use of good and bad,f both having immortal souls to be gathered, yet each is to be understood in their respective sense. The one went to his people, the other to theirs, according as their condition was when they died.

2. More especially the souls of God's saints may well be said to be gathered to their people and their fathers when they die, because they go to that peculiar place where all their godly countrymen and ancestors are. Nor doth it hinder to be understood of Abraham, albeit the most of his cOuntrym.en and many of his fathers might be idolaters, seeing many of both ranks were pious, and went to God when they died, and might be styled his people, though little of kin to him, that were the people of that God whom he served. Yea, as well might all the faithful that were before him be termed his fathers, whether carnally he were descended of them or no, as all the faithful that came after him be termed his sons.|

And indeed, if there were such a gathering of souls into a company in the other world, that they all went to one and the same place, and to one and the same company, this would destroy what is here first spoken of Abraham as a promise and a blessing, as also of the rest, Isaac and Jacob, Moses and Aaron. It had been a loss and a disadvantage to have gone into the popish limhm, which differs little from hell with them for place ; it having also the punishment of loss accompanying it, which is the worst part of hell's punishments.

Abraham had a great company of holy and godly fathers, Adam, Enoch, Noah, &c., forerunners in hohness (which are termed our fathers), Abel and of the seed of Seth, which had been gathered afore him in the other world, whom God promiseth him here, that when he died he should go unto.

* Probably Isa. Iviii. 8, where the marginal reading is, ' The glory of the Lord shall gather them up.'— Ed.

t Gataker's Sermon on that text, Gen. xv. 15.

X Smith on the Creed, p. COO, on this text: ' It could not be meant of the bodies of his fathers, for they were buried in another country ; nor of their souls, for they were idolaters ; but it was meant of the fathers of his faith, to such as he was, holy and good men. For such as a man is, and converses with in life, he shall be gathered to.'

And the consideration of its opposite may greatly conduce to confirm and illustrate this diflerent respective gathering of souls to their several companies, as intended in that phrase, though common to both, Judges ii. 10. For this serves that notion of Mr Mede,- that in the Old Testament, the first and most ancient phrase to express going to hell was to go to the company of the giants ; so he renders it of many places of the Proverbs : Prov. ix. 18, ' He that goes into the strange woman knows not (or considers not) that the giants are there ; and that her guests are in the depths of hell;' and Prov. xxi. 16, 'The man that wandereth out of his way shall remain in the congregation of the dead.' The original is rephaim, of the giants. This Alapide and others have taken notice of also. The giants were those men eminently wicked, that lived afore the flood, upon whom the flood came and swept them to hell; for by reason of them ' the iniquity of the earth was great,' Gen. vi; And because hell had a flush of them, and was replenished at once with such a numerous addition, hence from their company it bore the name of the place of the giants. Yea, and they were those of whom Peter instanceth in, when he speaks of ' the spirits in prison,' or in hell, to whom in the ministry of Noah Christ preached, 1 Pet. iii. 20. So then, for wicked men to be gathered to their fathers (namely, in wickedness), was all one as to go to the giants; that is, eminently wicked, who were men of renown for wickedness.

Now then, if wicked men are gathered to the congregation and company of wicked men as severed from the godly; then answerably, when Abraham and Isaac, and Jacob died, and are said to be gathered to their fathers, it is meant of their predecessors in holiness. And that it is said of Abraham first, was because he was the father of all the faithful to come, and because by this time heaven had a considerable company of the spirits of just men made perfect, from Abel's time, even the godly out of many generations. And truly if we consider the importance of that, which in the first introduction unto this discourse was asserted, that Abraham and these fathers whilst they lived are said to have sought and desired a better country and city made by God, it comes all to one, for that was to go to a city and country plentifully inhabited and replenished with those of their own kind, tribe, and afiinity. This a country or city speaketh and supposeth, and so difi"ers not from going to his fathers, or being gathered to his people, that is, to his countrymen and kindred.

And which yet more adds to the confirmation of this, our Saviour, when he would express the Gentiles being gathered and going to heaven, he doth it thus : Mat. viii. 11, ' They shall sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.' Their going to heaven is set out by their going to these renowned fathers, to their company, to their place and enjoyments, to whom the promises of heaven more eminently were made, and therefore it is in effect to say that they should go to their fathers, even as wicked men do to theirs.

3. It was promised to Abraham that he should ' go to his fathers in peace,' or ' into peace,' Gen. xv. 15. By peace you know the Jews expressed the whole of blessedness, the affluence of all happiness. Answer-ably in the New Testament peace is wished as the effect, and the total effect of grace, or the utmost that grace in the heart of God hath designed to us. The Jewish ordinary wish at parting was, ' Go in peace,' which is all one with that usual phrase, ' I wish you all happiness.' When therefore God promiseth this to Abraham at his death, look as God's well-wishes and * Diatribe, Part I. on Prov. xxi. 16.

promises must bo supposed of greater good things than man can wish or give, so far doth this promise made by God exceed all that man can be supposed to desire of happiness unto another his friend, as Abraham was to God. And so this phrase also intends a future happiness after death unto his soul, when his body should be laid in the ground, as the next words shew.

I know the phrase of dying in peace is sometimes used in Scripture to express such a death or departure hence, as in a man, the great desires of a man's heart are accomplished, so as there is nothing left to detain him. As when Jacob saw Joseph, ' Now let me die,' says he, Gen. xlvi. 30; and as, Luke ii. 26, 29, in the case of Simeon, ' It was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ:' ver. 29, says he, ' Lord-, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word ;' whose speech may yet be well supposed to have this meaning. Now let me depart hence into that peace in heaven, which thou hast provided for those that wait upon thee, from which I have hitherto been detained to see this sight of my Saviour, and according to thy word. For else his soul may well be thought to have desired still to live and to see his works, and hear his gracious words, which ' kings and prophets,' Christ said, ' did desire to hear and see;' whereas he now leaves him in his swaddling clothes to go into this peace we speak of, on which his hopes were fixed.

But that which more confirms the assertion, that this great and first promise to Abraham (besides what hath been said, that it was made to his Boul, distinct from that made to his body), was intended not of an outward, quiet death only, but of going to rest and happiness, is the correspondency which this holds with that promise, which, in analogy to this made to Abraham, we find made to every believer, that walks in his uprightness, as Abraham did. Gen. xvii. 1. The state of all after death, who walk in such uprightness, we have expressed, Isa. Ivii. 1, 2,,' The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come.' Their state after death follows : ' He shall enter into peace, they shall rest in their beds. Whoever he be that walketh in his uprightness :' or each one walking, or that walketh, &c. ; which words are evidently spoken of the happiness of souls after death, and so do fitly interpret this promise he made to Abraham in the like case. It is their state after death is spoken of, for their death is spoken of, ver. 1, in their perishing (as to this world) and being taken away: and as the comfort and consequent thereof, it is said, ' He shall enter into peace.' He, to be sure, shall be blessed. The prophet Isaiah speaks of it as of a new state or condition succeeding the former, for it is entering into it; and it holds correspondency with that of Christ, * Enter into thy Master's joy,' Mat. xxv. 23 ; and it agrees also with another phrase of ' entering into life,' Mat. xviii. 8. And the words of Jsaiah are exactly parallel to that which was said of Abraham, and in the same order. 1. He shall enter into peace and blessedness, as to the soul. 2. They shall rest in their beds, that is, their graves ; death being the sleep of the body, as often it is expressed in the New Testament, unto which the words of the prophet answer in another place : Isa. xxvi. 19, ' Thy dead men shall live, together with nay dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in- dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead,' And this entrance into peace is therefore meant of the Boul's entering into joy and peace, during that time that the body rests in

its bed, namely, the grave. Nor is it spoken of martyrs only, that die in evil times by persecution, but, on the contrary, of those that die afore such times approach; yea, and universally, of every one that walks uprightly.

4. Now, fourthly, for a confirmation of all this, Christ in the New Testament hath termed (whilst yet the state and language of the Old Testament was in force) that state of bhss which souls then departing had, * Abraham's bosom,' Luke xvi. 22. And their being gathered thither, as expressed in the Old, is styled by Christ, a being ' carried by angels thereunto.' And indeed Abraham having been set up as the father of all the faithful, as their state on earth is named a life of faith common to him and them, so the estate of their souls also in glory, until the resurrection, is expressed by the state of his soul as the chief guest, in whose bosom they all are to lie, or sit down as guests with him at the same feast.

Now though that story of Lazarus and the rich man be but a parable, yet, as every parable, so that must have a principal and substantial scope, and main drift it centres in, and from that drift we may as safely argue as from any other scripture. Now it hath no scope but what is utterly insignificant, if this be not the scope of it; namely, to shew the different state of godly men and wicked men after this life. It signifies nothing, if not this ; and if so, again it is as evident, that that state of the soul afore the resurrection is there intended. For the time of the opposite rich man's torment was whilst his body lay buried, and the time of Lazarus's happy state immediately followed on his death. So ver. 22 : ' And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom : the rich man also died, and was buried.' It was also, when Dives had brethren on earth, capable of being warned to avoid coming into that place. See verses 27, 28 : ' Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house : for I have five brethren ; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torments.' It was also afore the general resurrection ; for, ver. 30, he pleads, that ' if one went from the dead, they would repent.' Lastly, it was whilst they had Moses and the prophets to attend unto, as the means of salvation, to whom Abraham refers them : ver. 31, ' And he said unto him. If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead.' And therefore also was it a state of souls, as supposed under the Old Testament, when Moses and the prophets were the chief means of salvation, and no scripture else extant. And that Lazarus his lying in Abraham's bosom was heaven, and an heavenly condition, may be confirmed by these two things :

1. That he was carried into it by angels. Now their only walk is between heaven and earth, ? ascending and descending upon Christ,' John i. 51. They go not to hell. It is also the place which the angels belong unto, for themselves are the inhabitants of heaven.

2. But secondly, and more expressly, the saints of the Old and New Testament are said * to sit down with Abraham in the kingdom of heaven,' Mat. viii. 11, which is not the state of the gospel, for Abraham lived not in those times, but a state of glory. For oppositely it is said, ver. 12, that ' the children of the kingdom shall be cast into utter darkness.' So then, put altogether, Abraham's soul upon his death, went to his godly fathers, into peace ; Adam, Enoch, Noah, and the rest of the saints in the Old Testament after him, are said to enter into peace, each of them after the example of Abraham, Isa. Ivii.; yea, in the New Testament, to be car-

VOL. VII. z

ried where Abraham is, to be laid into Abraham's bosom, as the common receptacle of souls ' gathered to their fathers,' says the Old Testament, and carried to their fathers, says the New. And this place is the kingdom of heaven, as Mat. viii. 11. Hence, then, the argument riseth strong, that all the godly of the New* Testament, from the first to last, from Abel to Lazarus, were upon their deaths carried to heaven. And further, that they were all found there that were dead, when Christ hung on the cross, appears by Col. i. 20 : ' And, having made peace through tne blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.' In which speech it is certain, that those of mankind in heaven are meant, however the angels may come in; for men are properly the subjects of reconciliation (the angels but analogically) ; for they are men, and not the angels, who sing, 'jThou hast redeemed us by thy blood,' Kev. v. 9. Compare the angels' song with this, ver. 12. And indeed, though the patriarchs were all in heaven already, yet Christ paid for their atonement, * for he died for the redemption of sins, that were under the Old Testament,' Heb. ix. 15. And I will say, that they must all have come down from heaven again, if his sacrifice for their redemption had not been offered up.

Now that which in the Old Testament was Abraham's bosom, and sitting down with Abraham, that in the New is called being with Christ, and paradise, and the kingdom of heaven. The style, indeed, is altered. * The God of Abraham,' said the Old Testament. ' The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,' says the New, Eph. i. 3. So ' to be gathered to their fathers,' * to be with Abraham,' was the old description of heaven; ' to be with Christ,' which is best of all, is the character of it in the New. * This day shalt thou be with me in paradise,' says Christ to the dying thief.

The Scriptures of the New Testament speak more punctually and abundantly this point, ' Christ having brought life and immortality' (and all the gradual advances of it) ' to hght.'

1. There are some w^hich are so plain that I shall not insist on them, viz., the example of the converted thief, to whom Christ said, ' This day shalt thou be with me.' And the instance of Stephen seeing, when he was to die, the heavens opened, and therein the glory of God, and saying, ' Lord, into thy hands I commit my spirit,' Acts vii.

2. Another set of instances is in Luke xvi. 9, ' And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations ;' and in 2 Cor. v. from the 1st to the 11th.

I shall explain that instance which we have in Luke xvi. 9. Those everlasting habitations there mentioned manifestly are in heaven, where are many mansions, and the words are the moral part of the parable of the steward. That look as that steward, when he saw he must quit his office of stewardship, and be put out, considered with himself, ' What shall I do ?' ver. 3, and resolved to make friends of his master's debtors, ver, 5, that when he was put out of his stewardship they might receive him into their houses, ver. 4; and this was wisely done, says Christ, ver. 8. And do you imitate this wisdom of his, though not the wickedness of it; as if Christ had said, ' In this world ye are but for a time, the places and stations, riches, power, &c., you must give over, and what will ye do then for the next world?'

1. Christ expresseth death, and the soul's going out of this world, by our * Qu. ' Old' ?— Ed.

* failing;' that is, cither as of a steward turned out of house and means, or as a merchant that breaks, that hath a statute of bankrupt sued forth against him. Such a statute is death, statutum est omnibus semel nwrl. When spirits fail, friends on earth fail, riches fail, and cannot deliver; when a man's soul goes naked out of this world into another, even as he came naked into it, then the rich, the great, the most potent and honourable, are bankrupts. And this time, ' when you fail,' is not the day of the resurrection, for then we are set up again and restored. The body is sown in weakness at death there, and then is the failing, but it riseth in power.

2, Christ shews that at that time the soul is put to it what it shall do, and whither it shall go? ver. 3 ; ' The steward said within himself. What shall I do ?' The soul hath reason (and Christ adviseth it) to consider what it should do next upon its failing; for the soul is immortal, and must go somewhither. Animula varjida qucc ahibis in loca, said the Emperor Adrian* when dying.

3. He compares the state of the other world in heaven to a city or country, where are many inhabitants gathered, already replenishing of it, and accordingly many houses built, and all accommodations. Abraham and the other patriarchs are said in the Old Testament to be gathered to their fathers. It comes all to one with what is said in the New; Heb. si. 10, * For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.' And ver. 14 it is said that ' they sought a country,' that is, an heavenly. As every city supposeth inhabitants there dwelling, and therein houses, &c. and suitable accommodations for inhabitants, so Christ in analogy expresseth it here, that when we fail, and are to be gathered to our fathers gone before us, ' they may receive us into everlasting habitations ;' that we having done good to them, or those of their kind and country, now gone to heaven, they may receive us, and welcome us into house and home. He expresseth it after the manner of men : when one comes to a strange country, what is more desirable than that a man should have friends there, that should, as it were, welcome a naked newcomer. What kind hospitality is it in God, that he should receive a man into his house and home for the good which he did here ! And this habitation is no other than in heaven, for it is called an eternal, real habitation, first, for the soul without the body, then for soul and body too, 2 Cor. v.; for where the souls and persons of just men live for ever, there to be sure is heaven. Now, that after the day of judgment they shall live in heaven, none ever denied; and if, when they die and fail, they are received into the same, then they are at that present admitted into heaven, and heavenly habitations, as well as afterwards. If the souls of just men were admitted into any other than what is heaven afore, into heaven only after their bodies were united, then the place which first received them could not be called eternal habitations.

Use. Do good, then, especially unto the elect and household of faith: do good to these above other, for thou wilt be gathered to them, and they ■will acknowledge it, or God at least on their behalf; and it will be a joy to thee then, and may be a comfort to thee now, to think that there are those in heaven to whom, or to their children or relations for their sakes, thou hast done good.

* Spartianus in ejus vita.

CHAPTER IV.

That the souls of believers do, immediately after the death of the body, pass into a state of glory, demonstrated from the design of the Aj^ostle Paul in 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.— To encourage the saiyits to endure all ajfflictions and calamities of this life; and from his design in 2 Cor. v. 1—4, to comfort them against all apprehensions of death.

For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, xvorheth for us afar mor$ exceeding and eternal weight of glory; uhilst ue look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which ai-e seen are tempor-al; but the things tchich are not seen are eternal. 'For we know, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this ive groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: if so be that being clothed, ue shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed iqoon, that mortality might be sivallowed up of life. —2 Cor. IV. 17-V. 4.

One eminent part of the good news of the gospel is the blessed estate of souls instantly upon the dissolution of their bodies ; and this, in the name of all the primitive Christians, doth the apostle here utter as their faith: ' We know,' &c. So, then, we have it not as Paul's doctrine alone, but as the common faith of Christians. And that,

In these two points :

I. That our bodies shall be raised at the last day. And,

II. That in the mean time our souls shall live.

In these two did Christ instruct Mary in the 11th chapter of John. The first is in ver. 25, ' He that believeth on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:' there is the resurrection of the body ; the second is in ver. 26, ' And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this ?' In answer to the resurrection of the body Christ had prefaced, ver. 25, ' I am the resurrection ;' in answer to the living of the soul he says, * I am the life.' ' Believest thou this ?' says he. Put this into thy creed, as the primitive believers did into theirs.

In correspondency to both these two so positive assertions of Christ, I observe our apostle's preface in the foregoing chapter, ver. 13, * We believe, and therefore speak;' and what are those points we believe, and therefore utter with confidence ? 1. The resurrection of the body, with the glory that follows thereupon. The ultimate object of our faith, ver. 14, ' Knowing that he which raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Jesus, and shall present us with you.' 2. The glory of the soul in the mean time presently after dissolution ; this is in verse 1 of this chapter, * For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.'

This is certain, that the Holy Ghost hath penned in the latter part of the foregoing chapter, and in these words, more lines about the state of glory than in any one scripture again together in the whole book of God.

And the controversy is, what state of glory it is that in these words is meant.

I shall fix the state of this controversy by these few premises:

1. That the apostle's punctual and proper scope is to comfort himself and all believers against death ; for ho puts the case in such terms : ' K this body be dissolved;' he speaks but generally afore, &c., in chapter iv., but he in the fifth chapter particulariseth the case of death; and again he otters this comfort in the name of all Christians in the world: * We know, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,' &c. And it is intended to shew what comfort and cordials believers have against fainting at the thoughts of death, for this verse, by this word for, &c., carries us up to, the 16th verse as a reason why * we faint not, always being delivered to death,' &c.

2.^ The question then next is, what it is should be that proper, special matter of comfort against death in this 5th chapter, ver. 1, &c. And hereupon comes the difference of the opinions to be stated.

1. Whether only that, if their earthly bodies be now dissolved, their souls should have instead thereof other manner of bodies, as compared to ' another house' for their souls to dwell in, namely, those bodies which shall be made glorious at the resurrection ?

Or, 2, it may be queried, whether the whole glory of the soul, either whilst without the body till the resurrection, or with the body after the resurrection, is meant? Yet'so asthat, however, immediately upon dissolution the soul should have a glory which is ready prepared for it, which the apostle calls here ' our house;' and which after dissolution it presently should enter into, and is entertained in, and takes as it were possession first of, until both body and soul shall be joined again together, to a more full and complete possession of the same glory for ever.

So as the difference in general between these two opinions is, that the one confines the whole only to the glory the soul shall have in the body; the other opinion of ours enlargeth itself to the glory of all states from the instant^of death, and so through all eternity, and afiirmeth that according to the intent of this scripture this glory commenceth or beginneth from the time of dissolution ; so as their opinion excludeth or cutteth off" all that part of the glory of men's souls out of the body, and not to be meant in this place; but ours takes in all, only it doth particularly contend for this, that the glory of the soul out of the body being that which is next, and of general concernment to the saints till the resurrection, and that being a space for so long a time to come, even almost two thousand years from the time of the apostle's writing, this meaning should therefore be intended by him.

But yet more particularly, to the end that the state of this difference of opinion may be understood, and thereby also what the conduct or steerage of our ensuing discourse is to be, it must be further related concerning that opinion of those that makes the glory of the body the subject of the apostle's discourse.

1. How that some of them seem to interpret the whole of the paragraph, from verse 1 to verse 10, of the glory of soul and body only when joined together. Yet it may be withal observed of those interpreters, that when they come to give the meaning of the 6th, 7th, 8th, and Qth verses, they there fall flat; or as treading upon ice do slide them over, not openly affirming of either which is meant; when yet they had openly interpreted the four first verses of the glory of the body when joined to the soul only. For indeed the words in those 6th, 7th, and 8th verses are so clear for the soul's glory apart, without the body, and for its presence with the Lord ■when separate, that they could not oppose that meaning. Only I find

Grotius' so daring as to interpret those words, ' present with the Lord, ver. 8, to be meant of the state after the resurrection, when yet the words speak of that presence whieh falls out when we are * absent from the body' in the very words afore.

2. Estius therefore, an ingenious papist, halves the matter, and takes part with this first opinion for the body's glory,* so far as the^^five first verses go; but then when he comes to the 6th verse he falls in with the other opinion, and says, that all the next words from thence are meant of the state of the soul after the resurrection, and accordingly he begins his comment upon the words of that Gth verse thus : ' That because some might say (upon this discourse of the apostle hitherto in the first five verses held), that this glory of the body (which you comfort us withal) is not presently attained after death, but perhaps is a long while yet to be expected, that therefore now, in the Gth verse, the apostle subjoins and falls upon the glory of the soul separate.' And from thenceforward Estius is as fully ours (as to this point) as could have been desired. He might have been 60 sooner, even from the very first verse; there was reason enough for it.

3. Calvin, upon the first five verses being to interpret what was meant by

* our house in and from heaven,' plainly says, it is uncertain whether it signifies a state of blessed immortahty which befiills (immediately) after death, or whether the body made glorious, such as it shall be after the resurrection. There is no inconvenience in either sense, says he ; but in the end^he closeth with this sense, that the blessed state of the soul after death (so then he prefers that of the glory of the soul when separate to be meant) should be the beginning of this building, but the consummation should be the glory of the last resurrection. And this exposition, says he, the whole context doth best make good. So that he also carries it to both states. This is his judgment of the first five verses. But then for the 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th verses he is fully in it, that the state of the soul after death is only meant. Thus, both in his comment on that place, ver. 8, as also in his set treatise de Yv/o^javovyja against the soul's sleeping, he argues it from the whole of this our apostle's discourse here, as a most plain and cogent scripture, which to resist (he says) were to resist the Spirit of God in it.

I profess to be of holy and most judicious Calvin's mind in this his sense of this scripture, and shall endeavour to make forth that the whole of this so large a discourse is meant of the state and glory of the soul after death, not excluding, but taking in that also after the resurrection, which that one word, if no more, doth invincibly argue and take in, when he terms it

* eternal in the heavens.' And therefore the whole from first to last, even to eternity, must be intended. Only I shall in this discourse of mine plead alone for the separate soul's glory, leaving the state after the resurrection to those that will read their comments, or any other that will contend for it.

4. It is meet also to take notice of what is the proper state of the question between us and other interpreters, whilst we shall be upon the first verse, distinct from what will be the state of the question, when we come to the 2d, 3d, 4th verses. In the first verse, they of that first opinion well near universally say, the apostle, for the comfort of all saints against death, delivers this doctrine, of their having one day spiritual, renewed, glorious bodies, instead of these earthly; jei so as withal they acknowledge his scope in that versa to be, that it is God's more general

* Estius in locum.

appointment for all saints first to die, and to bo dissolved, and then by a resurrection of their bodies, to have new bodies restored at and by the resui-rection. Thus they interpret the matter of this first verse, 'We know,' &c.

But then, as for the 2d, 3d, and 4th verses, they affirm his scope to be, that the saints, knowing that by the ordinary dispensation they cannot have such bodies glorious, unless first they die, yet this dying being abhorrent to nature, the apostle expresses thereupon the saints' desire, rather to be clothed upon with glory whilst they continue in their bodies alive, and so to bo immediately changed without dissolution, but yet with this correction or supposition, that they be found of the number (if it should fall out to be God's good pleasure) of those saints that are alive, and clothed with bodies at the resurrection, and not dead or naked, as the generality of the saints will, at the approach of that day, be found to be. Thus they interpret the 3d verse. So then with them the doctrine of the first verse is, that we shall have glorified bodies by a resurrection after dissolution first, and that as the general case of believers ; but that, notwithstanding, the object of the saints' desires expressed in the 2d, 3d, and 4th is, to have the privilege to escape that dissolution, and have a glory put upon their bodies without it, as an exception to that general rule ; and to have that change, which indeed is spoken of to be at the resurrection, of them that shall be then alive, at the same time that those that are dead do rise.

Now, 5thly, the state of the question which I propose to the proof is, whether the apostle's scope be not to comfort these Corinthians, and the generality of the saints, with this, that when their bodies are dissolved, they shall have a glory in the mean time until the resurrection ; and further, my undertaking is, that he carries this great truth (as his scope) uniformly on throughout all the following verses to verse 10.

Ere I do begin with the first verse, it will be very conducible to consult whether this had not been his scope likewise, in the last verses of the former chapter, immediately preceding this first verse, which I the rather choose, because, in doing so, I shall by degrees make approaches (beginning thus further ofi"), which I hope will in the end surround and carry this difficult stronghold of Scripture, which hath been so often taken and won by parties of different persuasions, as each have imagined to themselves. The connection between those latter verses of the former chapter and this first verse, is so innate and congenial, as we should lose some of our strength in this argument, if we did not take along with us what they aforehand have spoken.

The words of the latter verses of the former chapter are these, 2 Cor. iv. 16-18, ' For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen : for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.'

Which words, suppose they were considered absolutely, and singly, and as cut off" from their correspondency with this 5th chapter, do yet contain strong evictions, that not only the glory of the body at the resurrection, but the whole of the glory both of the soul separate afore as well as after, is aimed at in them.

1. In that whilst we live and continue here in this world, our inner man is said to be renewed daily, that is, grows young within us, whilst our

outward man, that is, our body and outward condition of estate, name, and whatever else thereto belonging, perisheth. So as though we lose every day on that hand, yet this inward man every day grows up stronger and more vig^ous. And what is or can be intended hereby, other than to make way and lay a foundation for this truth (as by an evident token), that between that utter perishing of the body by death, that will in the end befall us, and that restauration of it by the resurrection (spoken of, verse 16), this inner man is oi'dained to live in the mean time without that body or outward man, and therefore is growing up of itself alone unto a maturity, as that which is intended to live another day, as we say, when severed and apart ? To evidence which, you see (says he) how unto sense the body goes down, and the soul thrives (as the 3d Epistle of John 2d verse hath it), as being that whose estate God hath a care of; it being to live with himself during that inteystitium or meantime, even as the chicken grows in the shell unto a maturity, and then breaks it, and flies away into another and better estate, which is the prophet's comparison, Ps. xc. 10. And can you think that this inner man, thus nourished to a virility by God, shall be turned into a languid condition when severed ? or have a dead sleep or palsy take it, and so chill until the resurrection ? No; it is in a tendency to perfection, as Heb. xii. shews.

2. Consider in the words how, during this life (wherein the outward man is a-perishing), that glory to come is all the while a-working for this inward man ; and this inward man also is all that while a-being wrought upon, and making ready for that glory, and both fall out together, but during the space only of this life. The one you have in the 17th verse of the 4th chapter, and the other at the 5th verse of the 5th chapter. It is said, that God himself works us, ' for the self-same thing.' And God's renewing our inward man in the 4th chapter, is the same thing with God's working us, chapter v., and working us for that self-same glory spoken of in chap. iv. 17, which is wrought for us by afflictions ; yea, and (which is God's artifice in it) the self-same afilictions which work that so exceeding weight of glory, are used by God to work our inward man for that glory. And (which is most observable to our purpose) both these workings, the one of glory without us, the other of renewings of grace within us, are but in the space and during the time of this life, and both continue all the while and cease together. The afilictions work best in that moment, and our souls they are also wrought upon but during that moment, and the determining of both ends with our lives. For as it is but the afilictions of this moment that work the glory, so it is the dispensation of God in this life only that renews the soul, and but whilst in the outward man ; and at death, and with death, all such workings of either are at an end. And what doth this mean and argue, but that the working of both ending in that one period, that therefore these two, the inward man and glor}', that had gone as together, though divided, should at and upon death (the common period to both) meet, and be joined or married together, the inward man being made ready for that glory as fully as ever it shall be, and that glory made ready for it ? What then shall let, or who shall forbid, that these two should not be joined together ? Surely this is the time, the full time for this soul's enjoyment, and first entrance into that glory it was wrought for.

3. Add to this account of the apostle, the series, order, and succession of time he sets for these things. The time allotted for these workings, he says, is but for a moment, and that moment is but the term of each of our personal lives ; so expressly, Rom. viii. 18, they are called the sufi"ering3

of this present time. And the next stage he sets is an eternal hfe and glory, without any mention of any other space coming hetween. He mentions these two, and but these two, and these two immediately succeeding each the other ; and comforts us, not only that our afflictions are but for this moment, but withal chiefly to note the shortness of the time, unto the beginning or entrance into eternal life and glory, which is ready wrought for the soul, and the soul for it, during that moment. And that the ending of that moment is the beginning of that eternity, and that that ceasing, and afflictions therewith, eternal glory succeeds, so that these two divide time betwixt them. But if there had been so long a space as two thousand years afore that beginning of this eternity to come, between this moment and the resurrection, he either would have excepted it, or not have put this moment and eternity so together. It is the account of times which he here maketh. And believers that groan as they count and reckon the greatness of the glory, as Eev. viii. 18, so in these groaning they do reckon or account the time,'till their freedom and enlargement; and the thought of the shortness thereof doth comfort them, as well as the greatness of the glory expected. No apprentice or servant counteth his time more till he is free, and shall set up for himself, than a believer doth, and than the apostle doth for them, both in this place and that other in Rom. viii. And to be sure, that term of two thousand years, if these souls had been to stay for this glory so long (which the Holy Ghost, who wrote this, fore-knew, and we have the prospect and experience of sixteen hundred years being now past), is not to be reckoned as a moment. Therefore the apostle would not have reckoned this moment and eternity in so successive an order, and have left out the account of thousands that were to come between them, when he intended thus to comfort them, even to a moment's time, when the very thought of two thousand years' stay would have been a long time indeed unto such eager and groaning souls, as ver. 2-4 of this chap. v. they are set forth to be, unless the apostle had some way satisfied them about the interim, as appeareth by the cry of ' How long !' of those separate souls. Rev. vi. Nay, if these souls here wrote to (supposing them to exist and to be after death) should have had an intermission of enjoyment of God for two thousand years to come, this time of so long interval, that would have proved to be unto such souls, who had been inured unto communion with God already during this moment of afflictions, and sometimes had enjoyed the earnests of heaven (as in the 5th verse of this oth chapter you have inserted as an argument for separate souls' enjoyment), a far greater weight of affliction than what the afflictions of this present time amount unto, which is but for a moment; and the apostle might rather have indicated and termed them the afflictions of that interval to come, than those of this present time, as in Rom. viii. he speaks.

4. The like division of things, connoting the same succession of time, in the 18th .verse (which is the last of this chapter) seconds and confirms this : ' While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.'' In this division of things he sums up the whole of what we are to run through, or which can be supposed we should run through in and under all times for ever, or that shall befall us from that instant wherein any saint at present is, for they are all either temporal or eternal. Thej temporal he also calls things which are seen, visible here in this world by our worldly eyes or natural eyes ; the eternal, which are not seen, that is, not otherwise than by faith, which is ' the

evidence of things not seen, and substance of things hoped for," Heb. xi. 1. By temporal, then, he means the good or evil things enjoyed or suflfered in this life or world ; and by eternal, all and the whole that are to come, as the reward of what was done in this life, in the other world to come, which are things as yet unseen otherwise than by faith and hope, and therefore the things that are wholly to come are unseen, according to that Rom. viii. 24, ' Hope that is seen is not hope.' And further, by distinguishing or opposing these two, temporal and eternal, he withal connotates and divides the whole length of time we are to run through, even as he had afore more plainly done by his ' moment' and ' eternity ' in the words of the 17th verse. Now I would ask unto which of these two doth the state of the soul (of an holy soul) till the resurrection belong ? It is certain not to temporal, though it should be cut off' from the account of that time, which follows after the resurrection. It might indeed be said, temporal as in respect to the time, namely, of its duration, merely for the term of its widowhood from the body, which ends with the resurrection; yet to be sure, it is none of those temporal things which the apostle here terms temporal, for they are such things only as are for the term of this life, and so styled because they last but for this time, in distinction from those other to come. And besides this state of the soul, after this temporal ended, Js unseen in this life by us otherwise than by faith, as well as what shall be after the resurrection. So then, that state of the soul after death must be cast, as that which belongs unto eternal; and both that and all after makes up together but one entire eternal, whether of that state of the soul separate, or that of it after the resurrection. For so, and not otherwise, is the distinction or opposition unto the temporal enjoyments of this hfe made up full, and exact, and complete, whereas if this state of the separate soul were not included and comprehended under that of eternal, this division were utterly imperfect, unless any one will say that there are two temporal states of the soul afore the general resurrection, and that from that time only eternal things do commence and begin, which no man will dare to affirm. So then, as eternal doth begin, as we say, a new account, so the state of the Boul separate and that of the resurrection are made up, as to that one new era or account, and are summed up into one total of eternity. And we in common speech use tojsay, that when a man dies he enters into his eternity, because it is the beginning of a man's reward, whether of punishment or of glory, whether whilst his soul remains severed, or is joined again to the body. Now if this separate state must be put unto that part of the account of what is eternal, then you must necessarily take in glory too ; for so in the 17th verse he had said, ' an eternal weight of glory ;' and again, chap. v. 1, ' an house eternal in the heavens.' So then we must not exclude this separate state from glory ; for after temporal is ended, it is an eternal which succeeds, and that eternal, saith the apostle, is glory ; and an eternal house also stands ready to receive the soul, which is all one with glory. And although the state of it out of the body be temporal in this sense, that is but for a time ; yet this separate state being a part, yea, the beginning of the possession of that glory which shall never end, but be more perfectly and fully consummated when the soul and body are reunited, therefore the glory in both states is termed eternal, because from the time of the first possession of it that glory is continued to all eternity, and is the same glory for kind, though not for degrees.

So, then, the argument riseth strong from all these things. As we use to argue against purgatory, that there being but two ways mentioned in

Scripture, the broad and the narrow, and but two bounds and cndiri;,'.s of those ways, eternal life or eternal death, there are but two sorts of passengers, righteous and unrighteous, which the Scriptures speak of, and thcreioro no third or intermediate condition between ; so I argue (out of our apostle) there being but these two stages and measures of time, temporal of this life, eternal in the other mentioned by him ; and when and where the one ends, the other must be reckoned to begin, there being no state or space between, and also this eternal state being so expressly termed glory, eternal glory ; and the inward man or soul itself being eternal, and to exist when the body, the outward, perisheth, and this soul being wrought for that selfsame thing, shall not such a soul invincibly conclude, when it comes to die, My )iow, my present moment, and all temporal things, are ended with me'? Welcome eternity, and the possession of things not hitherto seen, but hoped for, which the apostle tells me is no other than * an eternal weight in glory,' which now begins, the other being ended.

A second head of arguments may be taken from the special connection I and coherence which the words of the text, 2 Cor. v. 1, hold with these / foregoing words in chapter the 4th, which the particle for doth carry us back again unto: ' For we know that if,' &c. It is an account, says Mus-culus, given, why that we Christians look so intently upon things eternal, and on that same eternal weight of glory; for we full well know, that if this earthly house were dissolved, we shall enter upon them. The things that are temporal cease, and our eternity then begins. "We come then presently to be partakers of that eternal weight of glory ; or, which is all one, of that eternal house in heaven. And therefore we have good reason to look upon, and intently to mind, those things eternal, so as to overlook the other. For there is but this little, so little a while, between us and our enjoyment of them, even but till our dissolution. This faith brings eternal things to us, and not to look at them as things afar off. And it is the nearness of things, and not the greatness only, if apprehended far distant, that doth affect men. Faith is a telescope, an optic glass (to which the allusion may seem to refer) that brings them near to us, as glasses use to represent things otherwise greatly remote ; and because they are so near as our death is, therefore we are affected with them.

These words, ' For we know,' &c., carry us also to the 16th verse, and so bring in a new reason, why ' we faint not' at the thoughts of dying : ver. 10, ' Therefore we faint not,' no, not at death. ' For we know,' &c. It is a continuation of reasons thereof. Now observe the parallel between his comforts, or reasonings to comfort Christians, both there and here.

1. There, against the miseries of life, this is made a reason, why we faint not; inasmuch as our outward man only doth perish, but then the inward man is renewed. But then, further, to shew God's uninterrupted care towards us in this life, in this renewal of the inward man, he further , adds, ' renewed every day.' ^ (J

2. Answerably here (ver. 1), and in as congruous an harmony, comes in this cordial against death : that even when this outward man is dissolved, our inward man shall, from that instant of time, without interruption or discountenance,* have entrance into glory. As there was not a day passed over their heads in this life, in which their inward man was not more or less renewed, so when dissolved, or upon death, in hke manner they shall not stay a day, not from being renewed only, but from being ' swallowed up of life' (as our Lord Christ says to the thief on the cross : Luke xxiii.

* Qu. ' discontinuance ' ?— Ed.

43, ' To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise'); and to insinuate this, the apostle adds these words ' eternal in the heavens,' in an opposite parallel unto that other expression, ' day by day.' Eternity is a continuation of time for ever, without succession of day by day, as the schoolmen have observed. Eternity is spoken of here to shew, that as upon dissolution there is a beginning of it to the inward man, so there is a continuation without intermission, in like manner as there had been in this life a continued renewing of them day by day. And it is therefore that he heartens us not to faint any more at death than at afflictions, because God is proportionably as much careful over us in one state as in the other. That as he did not renew us for one day only, and then suspend his work for a year, or many years, and then visited us again, but every day renewed us in this life, so likewise, when this outward man comes to be dissolved, this inward man hath an eternal house. For God stays not forbearing to glorify us for many thousand years, or until the resurrection. ' The days of darkness are many' (as Solomon says of lying in the grave) until then ; but here is an eternal follows upon dissolution, a beginning of a continued jEvum, when time shall be no more, as to this glorified soul.

Now, then, to bring it home to the point in hand; were there not an entering into glory for that inner man, as instantly to succeed dissolving, without suspense, as the renewal of that inward man is that accompanies afilictions, and which was continued without interruption, the souls of believers would not have had so full consolation,; against fainting at the thoughts of death and at its approach, as it had against those other miseries of Hfe. But if we take the apostle's words in the sense which hath been given, there is full and abundant consolation against all fear of death. For the believer may say, it matters not how soon I die, since whenever I die I enter presently into glory, and therefore I will not faint at death. I need not care when, or how, I lay down my life, seeing there is a present provision made. This one thought renders the consolation home and complete every way; whereas that other opinion, that he should post us off to the resurrection, reacheth not toUhis, for ' hope so long deferred would make the heart faint and sick ;' whereas here the nearness of it, and the greatness of that gloiy, both of them coming upon a man's soul both at once, do swallow up ail thoughts of trouble or discomfort any way. And this reason did in part cause Musculus to incline to our opinion, as it hath been stated.

And now, ere we go on, let us take a pause and consider a little, that after the apostle had forelaid all the things—1, of an inner man (in distinction from the body), which sure God had such a care of to preserve, &c.; and, 2, that these afflictions (which are but the perishings, the moulderings of the outward man) work an eternal glor}% and for whom but for this inner man on purpose renewed to enjoy it ? 3, that these afflictions are for the moment of this life, namely, whilst this inward man dwells in this outward man, which is going to destruction ; and then, 4, that this eternal succeeds, when this temporal life ends; unto'which eternal he calls all their intentions to be fixed upon it;—I say, when he had thus forelaid these things, and brought down the series of his discourse thus far, he then immediately, upon all this, brings in the supposition and mention of death in this first verse : "What (says he) if not only our ' outward man perish,' but be utterly ' dissolved,' the whole house ' pulled down.' "\Miat then ? Call but in a jury of all men, and of all saints, and what would their expectations be upon ? Certainly upon this. What should, upon that dissolution, become of that inner man he talked of, when left a

widow and alone, and separate from the body ? If a sage heathen, as Plato, or Socrates, had been discoursing so sadly of the immortality of the soul, how it grows wiser as the body grows older, and then had fallen into the supposition of the dying of the body, and had but said, if this body be dissolved,—surely all his auditors would expect and desire instantly to hear something of what should be the state of that soul he had predicated to be immortal, which, when this body is dissolved, shall still subsist. But our apostle had much more engaged himself from the materials of his former discourse to answer our expectations in this, for he had not only instructed them with the knowledge of an immortal soul, but how that soul was preparing to be furnished, fraught and fitted with graces every day, and how an eternal weight of glory was working for it. And he had called ofl" their eyes from all things in this world, and fixed them on these eternal; and then after all comes in with the case and supposition of death. He doth certainly, therefore, in his following answer, speak home and close to that which should be the common expectation of all men in such a case. As it is the voice of all men in general, ' Who will shew us any good ?' Ps. iv., so more especially, when we come to die, what will then next befall us, and come unto us ? This the parable of the steward shews us : I must (says he) be turned out of house and home ; ' what shall I do ?' Luke ivi. 3, 4 ; that is, what shall I do next, Animula vagida qmt ahihis in loca ? But above all men, this would be the special expectation of saints. The apostle Paul therefore, being to give an answer in this case himself, having started the question, he, for the comfort of all saints, may well be thought to frame his answer unto what is the more general care, the pressing and next thought or solicitude of all saints.

But then add to this the periphrasis, or circumstance of speech, by which the apostle chose to express the supposition of death, and it will still induce us to think that the answer or resolution he gives should be to this very point, namely, the state of the soul when separate. To this end, observe how he expresseth dying. He saith not in plain and shoxi; words, * if we die,' which is the usual way of speech, but frames it thus, ' if our earthly house of this tabernable were dissolved ;' which circumlocution of speech I look upon as the sluice between the apostle's former discourse (chap, iv.) and what he here discourseth (chap. v. ver. 1 to ver. 10) concerning what is to follow with respect to the state of the soul after death. As death itself is the passage between both worlds, so he lets in and applies all he had spoken but indefinitely of eternity and glory (in the latter part of chapter iv.), and brings it all down definitely ad articulum mortis, as we say, to the point and supposition of dying, as the time designed by God to be the epocha from whence all those glories fore-mentioned in that fourth chapter are to commence, and begin, and take place in that same ' inner man;' and so the stream onward unto the 10th verse carries on a more particular discourse concerning the state of this inner man after separation from the body.

It is, I say, most remarkable that by this circumlocution, ' if our earthly house,' &c., he doth most lively represent death to be such a separation of this inward man from the outward, the body, as that this inner man doth survive and still exist as it did afore ; and to that end look as in the former— Jinxit duos homines, saith Gualter—he represented the condition of the soul in the body by two men, an inward and an outward, on purpose to set forth how, whilst the outward perished, there was still an inward man was still renewed during this life, so in hke manner, now that death comes to

be expressed,/!»5rti duo domicilia, he sets up the comparison of two houses, ■which this inner man removes from, and unto, thereby manifestly declaring that it subsisted still, yea, and but shifted its dwelling-house at death; which could be to no other end done than still to make way to shew what would become of this inner man after this separation. Now to this end he termeth this outward man an house, as unto which the soul is the inmate. And who knows not that the indweller doth, and can live and survive without his house ? Neither his life nor livelihood depends upon it, nor none of his inward worth or wealth which he personally carries about him; it is but his removing out of it. And that word, * our earthly house,' plainly intimates that this inner man, the indweller, bears away the name of the person, assumes the title of lord and owner, and so carries it away alone from the body, as the lord of a manor-house doth from his house; as if the soul should say. My house is dissolved, but I myself am still safe, and as I was ; I myself am not dissolved, it is but my house. Yea, which more fully demonstrates this, he termeth it a * tabernacle,' when it is elsewhere termed an house, yet but of ' clay,' dissoluble, and whose ' foundation is in the dust,' soon thrown down, as the house built on the sand. But lest that should signify too much dependency of this inmate upon it, that by tenderness and obnoxiousness to cold and weather, when exposed, it might die (as shell-fishes and snails, when their shell is crushed, and they are separated from it, die), he therefore adds, it is a tabernacle. Now a tabernacle is a covering that hath not so much as a foundation which houses have, but it is merely a covering, and is set up but as for present conveniency for a shelter; and he that dwells in it is himself so little dependent on it, that he can take it and carry it on his back, and pitch it when and where he pleaseth: and it is used by pilgrims, and wanderers, and soldiers, as you know, that least of all depend upon these tents. Heb. xi. 9, it is said of Abraham that ' by faith he sojourned in the land of promise, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob; for he looked for a city which hath foundations,' &c. They were sojourners that dwelt in tabernacles, and tabernacles had not foundations. And this was a type and a shadow to them, and to us in them, that both they then, and we now (that is, our souls), do dwell in bodies, that are but tabernacles; for the apostle tells us, ver. 13, that by this, and other their speeches, ' they confessed they were strangers and pilgrims upon earth, declaring plainly,' namely, by these as types and sayings of theirs, ' that they sought a country,' ver. 14. Doth not this parallel further argue the apostle's intent to be to speak to that point. What should become of this inner man, now it comes to subsist alone ? Certainly he doth not ablegate us to the resurrection, when it shall have its body again, but means to shew what God will do with it in the mean time, in this interim of subsistence by itself out of the body.

Another head of arguments is drawn from the terms in which he forms and shapes his resolution unto this supposition of death ; or, ' If we die.'

1. ' We have,' &c. As this inner man is the person, and bears the title of it, so when by death it is turned out of house and home, we can comfortably say, 'i-^oij.iv, ' we have,' that is, instantly, presently, an house prepared, ready. It is not hahehimus, ' we shall have ; namely, at the resurrection. Look as the next thought of every man, good and bad, upon the supposition of death, ' If we die,' is, what is next ? so as readily, as roundly the apostle answers to it, and says, * We have,' &c. And truly what needed more words to persuade any that this was his meaning ? If he should say ' We have,' and yet intend hahehimus, ' We shall have,' which

is the sense that other interpreters would put upon it, he had, when so f^reat an expectation had been raised of what should be next and immediately, greatly disappointed us. Yea, and though you suppose that sometimes in the phrase of the New Testament the present tense is put to express the future, yet in this case the apostle would not have made use of such a criticism. Sure, if ever ho would speak plainly, and in the most direct sense, then surely now. As Christ, in the case of comforting his disciples with the promise of heaven, says, ' If it had not been so, I would have told you,' John xiv. 2, so here the apostle would not have held them underhand with an expression of * we have,' when yet he meant no more than ' we shall have,' retaining them under hopes of a reversion ; for distance of time is a great matter in the case. Now he intends their comfort here, as in 2 Cor. v., even as Christ did there, in John xiv. And he intended the utmost of their comfort; and so surely speaks as plainly as to the point of time, according to the tenor of his expression, as Christ did as to the reality of the thing itself. So then Estius is very dilute in his interpretation, when he says that the apostle, by the words ' we have,' only means * we shall have.' For it is certain that now we have the first fruits and beginnings of eternal life, and ' he that believes shall never die,' John xi.

2. Put the particle if, and the words ive have, together, and consult the analogy of speech in all languages.

(1.) Such a posture and form of speech ordinarily importeth when; and so to say, ' if it be dissolved,' is all one as to say, ' when it is dissolved.' And this speech here, and that of our Saviour, Luke xvi. 9, insisted on, is parallel as to the phrase, as well as in the subject matter (now Christ's words are, ' When ye fail,';they may receive you into everlasting habitations'); only this here of the two is more significant and punctual. That if it so fall out (fall it out when it will), we have a present provision. And it is as if a man should say, I have at present a mean cottage, a country house I dwell in; but if changes come by fire or tempest, wars or plunderings, that this be ruined, I have another dwelling, a city house (to which heaven's glory is compared, Heb. xi. 10), ready built and furnished to remove unto. Insomuch, that it is the same as if, in like speech, the apostle had said, We shall never want an house ; but if we be driven hence, we have another. But if his meaning were, that for that other house we must wait the resurrection, we should in the mean time have been left at a loss in our thoughts for an house.

(2.) The hke frame of speech to this, ' If this were dissolved, we have,' &c., we ordinarily use, when we look at the present condition as an hindrance to what, if that were removed, we should presently enjoy as more happy and more desirable. So that it is as if he had said (pursuing his begun discourse, and the eager intention and working of his mind, and its fixing on this eternal state, of which in the last verse afore). We should have possession of this glory presently, instantly, were it not for this same body that stands in our way, and keeps us from it. If it were but dissolved once, we have a glory ready. The apostle hereby expresseth how a Christian looks at this body, as at present, as an impediment, as that which lets (as the apostle speaks in another case) us in our way; and till it be taken out of the way we are detained. Thus we speak of one that bath a great estate in land, which is out in a lease to another, or of a widow's estate in a copy; if that lease were out, and expired, or that widow dead, I have instantly the possession of a great estate to fall to me; I have it, it is mine akeady; there is nothing but a little time, or such an one's life

between me and it; if they were but dead once, I have it. The like you say of an heir under age ; and so here, if this earthly house were dissolved, and the lease of this life but expired, I have another to enter into.

Now that which strengthens this to have been his scope in this form of speech are two things.

1. That he maketh the demonstrative effect of this to be a groaning: ver. 2, ' For in this we groan, earnestly desiring,' &c. Now, groans are expressions of earnest desires, that are obstructed, hindered, and oppressed, and kept from their attainment. Groans superadd that unto desires simply considered; and that phrase, Iv roiiTM, ^ in this we groan,' either refers to earthly house, that is, whilst we are in this tabernacle; or it serves to express time, h rox/rw yjovoo, interea temporis, ' in the mean time we groan.'* And both these come to all one, to shew the ground of groaning, namely, because either during the time of our being in the house, till the time of that lease is out, time hinders us, or that whilst this body lasts and remains undissolved we cannot arrive to that other bouse, but we are kept from it, and hindered ; or else h rovruj is/or this, or upon this account, we groan, namely, because we are detained from the enjoyment of our desires. These interpretations fall all in to our purpose.

2. In the 6th and 8th verses he expressly makes a being at home in the body an absence from the Lord and a man's own people ; and he makes these to be the two peregrinations, such as whilst the one lasteth the other is not attainable, nor doth or can begin ; so as in plain and express words, he teacheth them to look at our being in the body as an hindrance and a let to the enjoyment of the Lord. And therefore we desire rather to be absent from the body; and we groan, saith the 2d verse, in this body as that which hinders us and keeps us from our other house : ' For if this were dissolved, we have,' &c. Now, if either of these two senses given of this form of speech hit the apostle's intention, as both lie fair, either that if (as noting time) it were dissolved, we have, &c.; or that further, our being in the body is an impediment to the other; if eitber of these (as it is hard if one or both do not), it carries the point in hand.

3. Let us consider those two metaphors—of an house, ver. 1, and of a garment, ver. 2, 3—under the notion of which he shapes the substance of his answer, and by which the Holy Ghost chose to signify the condition we are to have if dissolved : * We have,' saith he, ' a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' ' And we groan to be clothed upon,' ver. 2, 3. And we shall find by the coherence of this place and other scriptures, that they fully fall in with and serve our assertion, namely, they serve to express the glory itself which we are to have in the heavens, as well of the soul whilst separate from the body as when again joined to the body.

Now, those that would exclude the glory of the soul whilst separate as having been in this place intended, they withal do narrow these metaphors to the body itself, when it shall be made glorious. And one great argument of theirs is taken from the opposition used here, that if by our earthly bouse of this tabernacle be meant our bodies, then by our house made without hands in the heavens must be intended also our bodies, as they shall be made heavenly at the resurrection, 1 Cor. xv.; even as there earthly man and heavenly man are set in opposition. And in this lies a great part of their strength; but now I turn it otherwise, not only by way of answer, but by way of argument to the contrary : that if by the meta-• Beza in locum in Acts siv. 16.

phors of house, and rjarmcnt, or clothinfj, the glory of heaven itself, whether of soul separate, or of soul and body, be meant in Scripture, and not necessarily the body alone as an house made glorious with and for the soul to dwell in, then there is an open way, and the plea lies fair for the separate soul's claim to this house and clothing upon in the mean time. But that under these metaphors the glory of heaven itself, abstractly considered, is meant, is evident,

1. From the context; for what is this ' eternal in the heavens' here, but that which, but two verses afore it, he had styled * an eternal weight of glory'?

2. It is evident from other scriptures.

An house : Luke xvi., ' Receive you into heavenly habitations,' ver. 9 ; and John xiv. 2, ' In my Father's house are many mansions.' And the glory itself is compared to an house, because a man enters into it, and dwells in it: ' Enter into thy Master's joy,' for it is too great to enter into the Master himself. It is called too ' a building of God, not made with hands.' The same is spoken of the glory itself, of heaven, and not of the body. It is 'a city which hath foundations, whose maker and builder is God,' Heb. xi. 10. A city is an aggregation of houses and buildings; of houses that are not tabernacles, but are fixed, and have foundations for perpetuity, which in the text is ' eternal in the heavens,' in opppsition unto this tabernacle house; and is the opposition made there also, ver. 9, ' dwelling in tabernacles.'

3. That other phrase, of a garment, you have, Rev. vi. 11, used to express the glory of the saints in that other world. Yea, those that are for that other sense, and interpret this house from heaven to be our bodies, are yet forced, or at least must acknowledge that phrase twice used, ver. 2 and 4, being clothed upon, to be meant of glory, for it cannot be meant that we remaining in these bodies should yet be over and above clothed upon with other bodies over them. It were absurd to say, he should mean a putting new bodies for substance over these we have already; as Mus-culus hath observed. So as even according to their 5 interpretation which they would put upon it, glory abstractly considered must be intended as that wherewith we are clothed upon; and if under that phrase, clothed upon, glory abstractly considered is intended by their sense, then under the word house also the same must be intended. For the apostle joineth both as one : ver. 2, ' To be clothed upon with our house that is from heaven.' And again, in ver. 4, it is life that is said to swallow up the mortality; and therefore glory simply considered is the thing the apostle intended in his discourse. And if so, this of an house, &c., are apphcable as well to the soul, to be clothed upon therewith, without the body, as when it is in the body; for that the soul separate is capable of glory, none can deny.

In the fourth place, to come yet nearer and more home to the point in hand, the glory of the soul when separate from the body is in the Scriptures (yea, it falls out in those very scriptures fore-mentioned) plainly and directly intended under these two metaphors, thereby expressing that state of glory men's souls have when apart from their bodies.

1. That the soul when separate from the body hath an house of glory, or a glorious condition compared to an house, provided for it. This is clear by that of Luke xvi., * That when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations,' which must be our house in heaven; for it is that

house in which everlastingly the soul dwells Loth out of the body first and with the body for ever.

2. The other, of being clothed upon, we have Eev. vi. 9, 11, * And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And white robes were given unto every one of them.' You see they are the souls of them that were slain, and that whilst going naked out of their bodies, that have robes given to cover and array them as a reward— as the word giren imports : ' The gift of God is eternal life,' Rom. vi.— white robes, ensigns of glory and blessedness. When they come to heaven they are anew installed, both kings and priests (as this book hath it), and accordingly clothed with new robes.

1. As kings: so David, 1 Chron. xv. 27; Joseph as governor, Gen. xli. 42; Mordecai, Esther vi. 11.

2. As priests, who, when first brought into the inner court of the temple, had their vestments put on, so these souls, when first entered into the holy of holies, that is, heaven (as the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks), are clothed in their robes. This is more plain, chap. vii. 13-15, ' 'These have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and sei-ve him day and night in his temple : and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.' It is an allusion to the custom of the priests when anew admitted into the temple.

' 3. And thirdly, "White robes are an ensign of glory. The angels of glory, when they appear, they do appear clothed in long white garments, Mark xvi. 5 ; John xx. 12. The same is said of these souls, because now

J made like the angels.

4. For souls separate to be thus ' clothed upon,' agrees with the phrase ' naked,' used in the text, as alluding unto the state of the soul new coming out from being clothed with a badge, and so having robes put over it. And this more properly than it could be spoken of souls continuing in their bodies without dissolution, of which more anon.

In the last place, It may be observed, that he speaks of this house and glory as now ready and built, standing empty as it were, and waiting for its inhabitants. It is 'a building of God, not made with hands.' And that you may see, I do not observe this without gi-ound; compare with it that parallel of Heb. xi. 10 : ' Abraham looked for a city, whose maker and builder is God'; and ver. IG, ' W^herefore God was not ashamed to be called their God : for he hath prepared for them a city,' and had done so when he first called himself his and their God. And Christ in like manner says : ' I go to prepare a place for you ; in my Father's house are many mansions.' Now of the body, that spiritual body to come, it could not be thus said, that it were built and prepared already. For it is as yet to be raised up, and it lies in the grave until that day, as Peter speaks of David, Acts ii. And again, when is this declared concerning Abraham and those patriarchs ? The words are spoken of what was provided and prepared for their souls against their death; as that which comforted them against their not possessing Canaan, but dwelling in tabernacles, and so also against that their deaths, as I shewed, and as the matter indeed evi-denceth of itself.

And the parallel and correspondency of that place, concerning those saints of the Old Testament, and of this my text concerning the hopes of the saints of the New, is very great and strong. In the verse afore, ver. 9,

it is said, ' Abraham sojoarncd as in a strango land, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob '—types both of their own, and of our dwelling in the term of this life, in these earthly houses and tabernacles. For when the Jews, his seed, were possessed of this land, and dwelt in houses of stone, yet they were to keep a feast in tabernacles once a year, to shew they dwelt but as in tabernacles at the best, shortly to be pulled down. And yet, ' looking' all that while * for a city, whose maker and builder is God'; when their tabernacle condition should be ended. And God, to comfort these patriarchs against this their tabernacle life at present, and their dying without the possession of Canaan, tells them he had already prepared a city (which is an aggi'egation of houses) for them. And in the styling himself their God and their great reward, as to Abraham he doth, he thereby sheweth at once, both that their souls should still live (for as Christ says, ' God is the God of the hving'), and also that he had took care of them, made provision for them, and would not for the least space of time leave them destitute, but had prepared another country and houses to entertain them in. Wherefore saith the text twice, ' God is not ashamed to be called their God' ; even because he had made such abundant provision for them, like to the great God indeed. If but a man should have a friend that were turned out of house and home, and should not have an house to entertain him instantly upon it, he would be ashamed. And so would God, says he, if he had not prepared a city for them. Abraham is called the friend of God, even as God styles himself his God. And Abraham therefore shall not want (no, not for a moment) entertainment when his tabernacle condition ceaseth. Nay, God hath prepared another aforehand on purpose for him.

CHAPTER V.

A state of glory for believers upon their dissolution, demonstrated from tliose vehement and earnest desires vjhich God hath implanted in them after such a state.

For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our home which is from, heaven: if so be that being clothed, ice shall not be found naked.—'2, Cor. V. 2, 3.

The sense of the first verse being thus fixed to specify the glory of the soul upon the body's dissolution, our next work is to examine whether the following words do give up themselves thereto, yea or no. For if they should be found averse to, and not correspondent herewith, or favour another sense in the second verse, we profess we must relinquish it in the first verse also, although we may safely and assuredly take the sense of the first verse as the cynosura or polestar, to steer us in the ensuing interpretation of the rest. This first verse, as it leads on the rest, so it holds the balance, which is evident by this, that he there utters what is the faith of a Christian concerning the glory to come, when he is dissolved. And in ver. 2, &c., he proceeds to shew the efi'ects or workings of the heart and affections towards this glory, as flowing from this faith. True saving faith or knowledge always works upon the affections suitably to the object believed or known : ' For we know,' &c., says the first verse,—there is the act of faith; ' For we groan, earnestly desiring,' vers. 2, 4,—^there are the

affections flowing from this faith, and flowing from it as the effect from the cause. Hence then it will evidently follow, that look what glory it is that, in the first verse, he hath proposed as the object of our faith, the very same we aforehand conclude to be the object of our desires and groanings, vers. 2-4, which is evident again by ver. 5 : ' Now he that wrought us for the self-same thing is God,' &c. This is the conclusion of his discourse from ver. 1, as from thence he draws a thread through the whole afore, and ties a knot of it at ver. 5, by telling us that the self-same glory which he had spoken of (ver. 1) as the object of faith, and as the object of our desires (vers. 2, 4), was the end aimed at in working all these, and whatever else effects of grace in us. I say, then (in the apostle's own phrase), it is one and the self-same thing of glory which still he professeth to carry through all these verses, from the first to the last. Let this be our rule then, and let us keep to the same, the exposition of all that follows.

But although (as I said) we might safely conclude and take for granted, that this is the sense of these second and third verses, the same which is of the first, yet we will still put the issue upon a particular examination of each word in the second and third verses. I shall go from word to word, and see how all will comply with this interpretation, that the glory of the soul, after death, is first in order here intended.

' For we groan.' He had said afore, * We know, if this tabernacle be dissolved, we have,' &c. This particle for leads on a demonstration from the effect. It is a demonstration or evidence.

\ 1. That there is such a glory for the soul. For God's Spirit would not otherwise have stirred up such groaning desires (which is Aquinas his note upon the place, and it is a good one), for if there be no regular desire in nature, says he, but that by God's ordination there is an object existent for it, then surely not in grace ; and therefore it must be so here, that if the Spirit of God doth work such vehement desires after such a glory, that then there is such a glory extant or ordained to be. * Blessed are those that thirst, for they shall be satisfied,' Mat. v. 6.

2. It is an evidence that our faith is real faith, and that we Christians do truly know, and really believe so much. Why ? For we constantly groan after this thing^we thus know, desires following upon knowledge.

3. This particle for, with what follows, comes in as an undoubted sign and evidence who they are that are the persons here that shall be partakers of this glory: they are such as, upon the faith and knowledge they have of this glory, do groan earnestly after it day and night, and thereby do particularly come to know, and are personally assured thereof, because they find their desires constantly maintained in them after it; and so the words run as to this sense. We know, and we know it by this, for we groan after it. ^For such continual groans are the infallible effect of true and sanctifying faith, and so tokens and evidences to the persons in whom they are, that this glory is ordained for them ; yea, and as the apostle says, Rom. viii. 23, They are ' the first-fruits of the Spirit,' and so the very beginning and earnest of that glory, as the 5th verse also speaks.

This may serve for the opening of the connection; now for the point itself afore us, I argue for it out of what hath been said. This second verse being thus intended as a demonstration that there is a blessedness estated upon holy souls upon dissolution (which hath been proved to be the full scope of the first verse), and that demonstration being founded on this, that if God hath wrought groaning desires after an object, he hath also designed that object to be existent, wherewith to satisfy those desires;

and if so, then certainly this blessedness of souls we speak of must bo tho very thing groaned after and desired in this second verse. For it is made the object of our faith, ver. 1, whereas if wo take the interpretation others give of this second verso, tho demonstration would then lie cross to itself, viz., that upon dissolution there is such a glory ordained the soul, because God daily stirs up desires in Christians after a glory, to bo put upon their bodies without dissolution at all. Now this were most incongruous and utterly improper, for not only tho one followed not from the other, but tho latter doth run upon a contrary supposition to that other, and therefore can never be made a demonstration of the former. I would exemplify the absurdity of this by a like instance. Suppose a woman hath an husband condemned to die; would this be taken as a legal evidence, that the prince had estated on her a dowry or widow's estate if her husband die; because, forsooth, it can bo proved ho set her on work to petition and desire of him that her husband might not die, but have an estate settled on him and on her, both living still together; certainly she could make no claim at all of an estate or widow's dowry after her husband's death thereby. For tho latter runs upon a supposition of what is clean contrary to the former. It might indeed be morally argued that the prince did bear a good will and respect to the woman, to take care of her if her husband were dead, but legally she could not plead that such a jointure or dowry were his declared intendment; and the like invalidity of evidence would be found here.

But if we understand it, that this groaning is a demonstrative of tho truth and reality of that faith which a Christian is said to have (ver. 1) concerning that glory, and of his propriety in it upon this ground ; because these groanings are wrought by God in his heart, as the sure and proper effects of such a faith, which carrieth his soul out in desires after that glory he believes; this doth absolutely and necessarily require that that very same glory which is the object of this faith for- knowledge, should also be the object of those his desires ; for knowledge worketh upon the desire in the virtue of the object known, or at least it must be granted to work it towards the object known. But now in this case to say we know, and know by faith, there is a glory for our souls when our bodies aro_ dissolved (as intended in the first verse); because wo are carried out to desire a glory of our bodies and souls, without any dissolution of our bodies (as intended in the second verse). Here is no consequence at all between these two as cause and effect, for they have several objects; it must therefore necessarily remain that it is one and the same individual sort of glory is believed and also groaned for, insomuch as if the glory of the soul upon dissolution of the body be in the first verse intended, as that which is believed, it must be the same and no other that is groaned for, ver. 2. And indeed the object of both is therefore specified and set out under one and the same expression in both verses, namely, ' our house.' Thus much may suffice for what this demonstrative particle/or doth afford.

2. The next words are, ' In this,' h rourw, ' we groan.'

There are three interpretations put upon this phrase, and each and all of them will comport and fall in with my argument in hand.

1. 'Ev ro-jrw, ' In this,' is put (says Bezaf) for interea temporis, h ro-jrut

Xeovw, ' in the mean time,' he referring us to Acts xxiv. 16 for the like

usage of the phrase. And so taken, the words of both verses will look at

one°another thus : ' Wo know, if our earthly house bo dissolved, we have a

*■ Qu. ' or' ?— Ed. t See Beza on this place and on Acts xxiv. 16.

glory then at that time to be given us : for in the mean time, namely, until that our dissolution, we groan for it.' This interpretation so connected evidently points out the time of dissolution to be the last period of that groaning, and the beginning of the enjoyment of that glory. There is only an interim, or space of time till then.

A second sense given is, that the phrase * in this' si.gnifies, ' in this tabernacle,' as ver. 4 seems to explain it. But yet even then, if unto this you join but that clause, ' if this tabernacle were dissolved' (which will still be sure to follow us, and enter its claim to be taken in as the terminus and occasion of our groaning), then certainly it falls most naturally to this sense, that in this tabernable we groan for that glory, which when it is dissolved, we shall have in a condition that is out of it; and that whilst we are in this earthly tabernacle, we therefore groan until it be dissolved, upon the assured knowledge that if once it were dissolved, we have a glory in heaven ready to be given to us.

The third sense given is, ' unto this we groan,' or ' for this.' Thus the oriental versions, the Syriac and Arabic, render it. A Lapide, out of the first of them, gives this sense in those plain words, that we groan for this, that our mortal house were dissolved ; and so the sense runs clear, that seeing we know, we cannot, in the ordinary course set by God, ver. 1, attain this glory unless dissolved ; we groan out of an eagerness of desire, even for that dissolution itself, in order, and in a tendency thereunto; even as Paul says, Philip, i. 23, ' I desire to depart' (as our translators have rendered it), namely, in order ' to be with Christ.' And truly although dissolution is not in direct words made the object of our groaning here, yet take the whole contexture, and it is tacitly, and perhaps necessarily, supposed and? implied in this place. And to that end it was the apostle made that correction and limitation of his meaning: ver. 4, ' We groan, being burthened : not that we would be unclothed;' that is, whereas I had said, even we groan for this alteration, being burthened, yet not simply, or for its own sake, or the natural consequent thereof, ease from burdens, or the like, but to the end to obtain that glory which cannot be had without a dissolution.

3. The next words are, * we groan.' The apostle having pitched the date of our expectations to be dissolution, there appears therein a special reason why we should be said to groan (that is his first word) as well as to desire (which he adds), which how it makes for our sense I shewed upon ver. 1. The effect of which lies in this, that because this earthly vile body stands in the way between us and the immediate enjoyment of this glory, this therefore gives us just occasion of groaning in this tabernacle. Groans, we know, are properly desires obstructed and hindered; and we in this tabernacle (till it be dissolved), looking upon ourselves as hindered and detained all that time from that desired glory, hence we groan. And further perhaps it is said, that we groan in this tabernacle, or, in the mean time of this life, for this dissolution, as in a distinction from'the desires which separate souls in glory have for that greater fulness of glory to come at the day of judgment; which are desires in them indeed, but not groans ; they being satisfied and quieted in the mean season with a glory suitable to that condition of separate souls, they being made spirits perfect, as perfect as the spirits of men separate from their bodies can be. ' A white robe being given every one of them,' Eev. vi. 11, they are bidden therewith to rest. But in saints on earth there is a groaning until their change from this burdensome life shall come, and their pilgrimage and

Chap. V.j of tue saints in glory. ST'j

apprenticeship be out. '.We that are' (that is, existent) ' in this tabernacle,' we do groan, and wo only, vcr. 4.

And hence a new argument maybe added, strengthening and confirming what hath been urged, that if the souls of saints departed had not such robes, that is, a glory instantly given them when out of this tabernacle, truly it would occasion, after their departure hence, new groanings, or the same to be still continued; and then the apostle would not have terminated our groaning only unto our being in this tabernacle, or in this meantime, nor would he have confined it only to this life. But if ' we groan here, being burthencd' (as verse 4 hath it), we should have had occasion to I have groaned a second time in the other world also, if gloiy had been suspended, and we had still been delayed, especially withal considering that ( eagerness of desire which the apostle there expresseth to be in us, after a being clothed upon. But, says our apostle, * in this we groan,' and in this only. And, therefore, there is a blessedness in the other world, that i waits for our souls against our coming thither, which is bestowed presently / upon the soul, which satisfies it, and prevents all groanings for ever, after ; dissolution.

Obj. Unto all this, it is objected by those of the other opinion, that in Rom. viii. the object of the groaning of the saints is expressly said to be that state of glory that follows upon the resurrection, and therefore that also is here intended. The words there are, * Even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body,' ver. 23.

Alls. For answer, 1. Neither we nor they can deny, but that both that fulness of glory at the resurrection, as also this entrance into and beginning of glory, which the spirits of just men made perfect do in the mean time enjoy, are, and ought to be the objects of Christians groaning for here in this life; and if both are, and ought to be, then look, as some scriptures mention the one more eminently as the object of our desires, so some other scriptures must also be supposed to do the other; and so that hinders not at all, that this should be the meaning of the apostle here, yea, it would rather seem, that as that of the Romans speaks of our groaning for the redemption of the body, so it leaves room for this here to speak more eminently of that, which is for the soul's glory in that meantime, until that of the body be added.

Ans. 2. Secondly, I answer. There is a different ground or occasion mentioned for that groaning there and for this here ; which distinct characters are engraven upon each to mark out the one for that one sense, the other for this other. The occasion of their groaning, Rom. viii., is the doctrine of the ' restitution of all things,' the ' revelation and glorious liberty of the sons of God,' ver. 19, 21, to be manifested to all the world, and to be accompanied with the freeing the whole creation from that ' vanity' and ' bondage' they are now in, and for them to have a participation of some privilege in a suitable proportion. And so that groaning, which the saints have thereupon, is after that which is common with the whole creation, in the universal perfection of it, and of us saints, as the object of it there; but this can no way be drawn as a necessary instance, that should give a law to the same intendment of this groaning here, where the occasion is upon another thing, which in the mean time falls out, ' What if our earthly house be dissolved,' which falls out to some Christians or other every day. But what then ? Why then, ' we have an house,' &c., a glory in the heavens ready for us ; and this groaning here coming in upon the mention

of glory in the interim, ver. 1, hence it hath for its object the state that is next, even of the soul upon its dissolution. So as the ground of this groaning is a particular case, and upon an occasion different from that other in Rom. viii.

Ans. 3. Again, 3, if they urge that place as parallel to this, because of the word groaning, we must take liberty to urge another parallel place, because of the word 'desiring,' which is in order of the next word in this verse to be taken notice of. We groan earnestly, desiring. Now, elsewhere, the object of our desires in this kind is made that glory the soul hath upon dissolution : Philip, i. 23, ' Having a desire'to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better;' yea, and to depart first, as it is in order to our being with Christ; that is the object of his desh-es there. So then set one against the other.

4. The next word is, desiring. The doubling of these two shew the instant eagerness of desire ; as in Gen. xxxi. 30, ' Longing, thou longedst,' or, ' desiring, thou desiredst.' Thus also, in Luke xxii. 15, ' With desire have I desired ;' as a woman longing, or groaning in travail to be delivered, and desiring to bring forth a child. Now such vehement longings and double desires are usually, if not always, pitched upon what is to be had presently, and not long delayed. When we see not much time in view betwixt, then it falls out that desires are quickened, and doubled, and sharpened, even by what is near, and very near. Now the glory at the resurrection, although greater in itself, yet is and was to them afar off, and so yet to us. ' But if we were once but dissolved, we should have an house.' This ' salvation is near' (as the prophet speaks), there are but a few moments between, but a few inches. It is this proximity, or nearness, that moves and stirs up a desiring. ' We desire,' &c.

But fm-ther, consider it is with groaning we desire. There is some emphasis, both put together, to our purpose. Groaning respects the present condition of misery and frailty : ver. 4, ' we gi'oan, being burthened ;' and desiring respects the glory that is to follow dissolution. Take a woman in travail, groaning under pains, and withal suppose her being told, and assured, or to know assuredly, that when she is delivered she shall have a son, a man-child, which man-child shall, thirty or forty years after, become a great emperor over many dominions ; but for the present, upon her delivery, he shall be born a king, and made happy and glorious : certainly, her groaning desires in this case would be pitched upon this that is next, and more immediately, to follow upon her delivery. Her very pains, and present throes and groanings, would rather so direct and guide her thoughts and desires, rather than to cheer herself merely with what should be many years after. For, alas ! she is in present pain, and in that case to think of a present deliverance, and thereupon withal of a present greatness and glory, though less, would move her much more in groaning to desire.

That which is desired is, ' to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven,' as it follows in the next words. That by ' our house from heaven,' which is also here compared unto a ' clothing,' that under the notion of both these metaphors and simiHtudes, the glory of the souls departed afore the resurrection was clearly expressed in the Scriptures, I shewed in opening the first verse. Therefore, I shall not at all insist on those words any more, but my business now is to be taken up about this expression, ' clothed upon ;' and so I shall shew why the glory of the soul, even afore the resurrection, should be termed ' a clothing upon,' implying

an upper garment unto the soul when separate from the body. And hereupon begins a second controversy, from what hitherto hath been prosecuted, upon ver. 1—this word ' clothed upon' being used twice by tho apostle here, and those other words that follow as an explication of it, clothed and naked, putting us upon a new disquisition. Those that understand the first verse to speak (under tho metaphor of an house, &c.) of our glorious bodies to be given us at the resurrection, do similarly, or in a correspondent like manner, interpret these words, clothing and nakedness, ver. 3, to refer unto our bodies. The soul of a saint dead, and separate from his body, is said (say they) to be naked. But we that stand for that other interpretation given of verse 1, that the glory of the soul presently upon dissolution is intended, do in a suitableness to that opinion say, that these metaphors of clothed and naked are used in reference unto the clothing by grace, holiness, or the righteousness of Christ. And so our being clothed upon with glory doth respect a putting of glory over that soul that is first found clothed with these here in this life.

And accordingly, either as the soul at dissolution wants or is devoid of these, it is said to be naked; as having put on these, it is said of it that it is clothed, and so in a prepared disposition unto glory; and answerably it is either left for ever utterly naked and exposed to God's wrath, or it is clothed upon with that glory in heaven provided for all such who are clothed with Christ's righteousness. Whereas the other interpretation says, the glory of heaven and immortality put upon both soul and body is the clothing upon that is here intended, our bodies, say they, being the natural clothing to the soul.

As to their opinion, they, to carry it on throughout, are constrained to make some variation in the sense of the 1st, 2d, 3d, and 4th verses, as I observed at my entrance into the 1st verse. For they say, that in that first verse the apostle intends to utter the general faith of all Christians to be this, that if they die, and their bodies be dissolved, yet, however, they are sure to have their bodies restored with glory by the general resurrection ; but then, as for the 2d, 3d, 4th verses, they say his scope should be, that in consideration they must thus fii'st die, and have their bodies dissolved, and their souls and bodies first to part (which is so abhorrent a thing to nature), therefore Christians do generally groan rather to have their souls continue still clothed in the body, and so without dying, both of them together to be clothed upon with the glory from heaven, which one day our bodies shall have; and this they make the meaning of the 2d verse : * For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven.' And yet, because such desires are not regular, nor such as they ought to be, if carried out to things impossible, or which God never willeth, therefore the apostle adds a correction to these desires, as grounded upon a supposition of what is God's ordination towards some saints : ver. 3, ' If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked;' namely, that seeing it will be the lot of some saints to be found ahve at the day of judgment, who shall not die, but have their bodies on the sudden changed and clothed upon with glory (as you have it in 1 Cor. XV. 51, 52, and 1 Thcs. iv. 15, 17); and this being then a known and common notion possessing the hearts of all believers in those primitive times, accordingly these interpreters do suppose that Paul here utters his own, and directs all their desires generally to groan after this privilege, that they might not die, but that, without being dissolved, their bodies might be changed into glorious bodies without any more ado. And unto

this sense they interpret* the 3d verse, ' If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked;' that is, say they, our desire or groaning is limited to this supposition; or with this correction, saith Piscator, * If so be' it prove to be our lot to live to that day, and so being then still clothed with our bodies, or alive, • we be not found naked'; that is, in the number of those saints that are dead; so that being clothed, they interpret, found clothed with their bodies; and nakedness they oppositely interpret to be death, and to be found naked, to be of the number of the generality of the saints who will be dead, and their souls separate and nakedfrom their bodies just at the resurrection. And then the words of the 4th verse do (as they suppose) with full stream fall into their channel: ver. 4, ' For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened' with daily miseries and infirmities: 'not for that we would be unclothed;' that is, we would not die, nature causeth us to abhor that, but we would be clothed upon alive; that is, living in our bodies until that day. We would rather have our bodies (which are but as a garment to the soul) clothed upon with that glorious state, that so 'mortality,' which is now the condition of our bodies, might be consummately, and once for ever, * swallowed up of life,' as at that day it will be to those that so remain, yea, unto all else that then shall rise, as in 1 Cor. xv. you have it. This is the brief sum of their opinion.

In which interpretation of theirs there is this apparent variation (I might say deviation, for such it will be found anon) between what they deliver to be the sense of the first verse, and of the other that follow, that the apostle should intend in the first verse the resurrection'itself of glorious bodies after dissolution, and death first supposed; but in the following verses, they divert to another supposition, namely, unto a glory of our bodies without dissolution or a resurrection, and under that consideration make it the object of all Christians' groans and desires.

But we on the other hand frame our interpretation uniformly, as to one and the same thing being the object both of our faith and groans, thus,

1. That the saints know by faith, that if once these earthly tabernacles were dissolved, they have, instantly upon that dissolution, an house and clothing of glory prepared and ready built to entertain them, both then, and so for ever, whether in the body or out of the body, afore or at the resurrection ; and they knowing this assuredly by faith, do therefore,

2. Groan for the time of their dissolution, as the next and first stage of that glory; as Job did. Job. xiv. 14, 'AH the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come.' They groan out of eagerness of desiring the possession of that glory which is thus to begin when this miserable life is ended, and then a life will begin which sliall never have an end.

3. Those who thus groan and expect are yet withal admonished to be careful, and earnestly solicitous to put on more and more the inner man, to be clothed with grace, and to be found having the righteousness of Christ, and to keep their garments close about them to the last, lest they be found naked, which is the case and condition of multitudes of professors when God takes away their souls; and unto that end it is that the apostle inserts this by way of caution or warning: ' If so be that being clothed, we be not found naked,' ver. 3. And to put them in continual mind of

* Hammond, Vorstius, Piscator. Est igitur qusedam correctio, quasi dicat, non tamen affirmo fore ut superinduamiir, sed turn deraum superinduemur si reperiemur [sc. in adventu Domini] induti scilicet corporibiis, id cbt vivi;, non autem exuti, j. e., mortni, Calv. in verba.

this, and to make way for this caution, as expressed under these metaphors, it was that he on purpose chose that other metaphor of being (whereby to express the possession of heavenly glory) clothed upon, as that which sup-poseth a being found under-clothed with grace and holiness, the necessity of which clothing by grace he illustrateth by the contrary condition of these men's souls that depart this life devoid of this clothing. How inconceivably miserable must they be that are ' found naked,' not of their bodies only," but of all spiritual clothing, and thereby lie exposed to the wrath of God, driven out of all shelter, house, and home, and covered with nothing but confusion of face!

CHAPTER VI.

That the clothing mentioned in the text, 2 Cor. v. 3, doth import the spiritual clothing of the soul in this lij'e as a yrcparalioa unto (jlory.

The difference of interpretation being thus stated, there are two things to be treated of in the 2d and 3d verses.

1. That clothing, and answerably nakedness here, are similitudes that do refer unto spiritual clothing of the soul while in this life, as it is a preparation unto glory, or to a being clothed upon.

2. I shall shew the incongruities that accompany that other interpretation, which asserts that clothing and nakedness should relate simply to our mortal bodies.

1. The account and demonstration of the first will be despatched by these ensuing conclusions or considerations.

(1.) No man can deny but that the ordinary and frequent use of these two phrases in these scriptures (when they are used as metaphors, and applied to the soul, both which is the case here, whatever sense be taken) is intended of spiritual clothing or nakedness, especially when thus conjoined, and set as in opposition together, clothed and not naked, as here, which doubling of it must have a special emphasis in it, and that as to our sense, and against theirs, of which more in the sequel. ' I counsel thee,' Bays Christ, Kev. iii. 18, ' to buy of me white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear ;' and in Rev. xvi. 15, ' Blessed is he that keeps his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.' He turns it both ways (as it is here), clothed and not naked. This last place I cite, because in many copies and schohas-* upon this 3d verse of my text, it is found in the margin thereof, and thereby we are referred unto it as a comment upon the words.

(2.) If the next inquiry be, what more particularly the Scripture holds forth, to be our spiritual clothing, to be obtained first in this life, m order to that order, it is to be considered, that the scripture last cited mentioned garments in the plural, as indeed in use amongst men the ordinary apparel of every man consists of more garments than one, and that in distinction from his uppermost garment he is clothed upon withal. So that the clothing of the soul in this life, though consisting of two garments, is reckoned but as one clothing, in distinction from that glory we are clothed upon withal in the other world. Now, this clothing in this hfe are (as Calvin observes upon this place) two: 1. Christ's righteousness. 2. Sancti-fication of the Spirit.

* iEstius.

[l.j Christ and liis righteousness put on by faith : Gal. iii. 26, 27, * For ye are all the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ;' which is fitly termed a clothing, for a clothing serves for a covering of nakedness and deformities, and sometimes sores and defilements. And our justification by Christ's righteousness is in that respect styled a covering to us, as well as an adorning of us, and making us righteous in the sight of God. Therefore in one and the same place righteousness is said to be imputed, and thereby sins to be covered, as the apostle clearly argues it, Rom. iv. G, 7. By his comparing the words used of David's justification, Ps. xxxii., expressed by covering sin, and of Abraham's justification, which was an ' imputation of righteousness without works' of our own, it is apparent that this righteousness with which we are clothed must be another's, for also it is said to be imputed to us. And whose but Christ's obedience, Rom. v. 19, is said to make us righteous, whose name is ' Jehovah our righteousness,' as the prophet hath it ? This his righteousness also is that fine linen, clean and white, given the church against her marriage: Rev. xix. 7, ' The marriage of the lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready ;' and ver. 8, ' To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the clean linen is the righteousness of saints.' This is Christ's, and not our own righteousness. For, 1, it is given her over and above her being made ready, under which is meant that readiness or her preparedness of sanctification for glory (as after will appear) to shew that it was her own; for it is said she herself made herself ready by the help of grace. ]5ut of this other righteousness it is said, that it is ' granted unto her' as a further gift and donary of her husband. The spouse, the woman, useth to send fine linen against marriage to the husband of her making; but here the husband sends the wife a clothing of his own making. Yea, and it is not only said that fine linen was given her, but that it was granted she should be clothed with it, importing a righteousness merely put over her, and so put on by faith, and not wrought by herself. And besides all this, what I assert is evident from another reason. Our righteousness is not fine, and clean, and white, but as menstruous rags, intermingled with defilements; but this righteousness imputed, and with which we are clothed, is both clean, without impurity, and white, as estating unto glory. Unto all this may be added, that he, in Rev. xix. 8, by way of eminency points at it, for he says, that this is ' the righteousness of the saints.' In the Greek it is, ' this fine linen are the righteousness[csJ of the saints ;' which Brightman with vehemency urgeth against the popish justiciaries, and layeth it at their dooi-. He asserts not (says he) the righteousness of the saints is this fine linen, but this fine linen, thus granted her to be clothed withal, is that which is the righteousness of the saints, that only righteousness which they stand righteous before God withal; even they that are most holy need to be clothed with it to come to the presence and enjoyment of their husband, and to be clothed with it over and besides their own righteousness. And what I have asserted is also evident from this, that every saint in particular is justified by this righteousness, hath a share in it, yea, hath the whole of it for his justification, therefore it is termed 6/xa/w/iara, in the plural. So then Christ and his righteousness is a clothing put upon the sonl in this life, in order to that other life.

[2.] The second thing is our own inward holiness, and our walking holily. You find both in Eph. iv. 22-24, ' That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful

lusts ; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on that new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.' And to the same eflfect the apostle speaks, Col. iii. 0, 10, ' Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put ofl" the old man with his deeds ; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.' And further, both places affirm, the image of holiness in man was at his first creation to have been a clothing to his soul, so as it might have been said of him then, He was clothed, and not naked; which accordingly appears also by this, that when by sin he had lost that image, he fled even from God, as naked in soul as well as in body, Gen. iii.

But let us in the mean time observe not a little of resemblance or parallel between these two places now cited, and this of our apostle that is afore us, which is something to the further carrying on the proof what should be the apostle's scope here. You may remember, we observed (as in order to our opening the first verse of this fifth chapter) how the apostle, by way of introduction, thereto had spoken of our souls, considered as distinct from the outward man of our bodies, as an inward man, which was renewed from day to day (so ver. 16 of chap, iv.), and then we made some parallel between these words, and some particulars in this first verse. Now observe how further this is carried on in these scriptures now cited under the metaphor of being clothed. For he useth the very same language. An inner man there is made the subject of this clothing ; also that inner man there, by being clothed, is still said to be further renewed. The words are express : ' Put on the new man, which is renewed in the spirit of j'our minds.' And that is the most inward part of our souls, in distinction from our outward man. Now then let us first take and put these things mentioned in this place in like manner together. 1. An 'inward man renewed,' whilst the ' outward perisheth;' and 2, when this outward man is dissolved, we, that is, our souls, be ' clothed, and not found naked.' And then let us bring these two alleged parallel places unto these, and they will readily inform us, that the soul clothed with the image of God, and found such at the dissolution of the outward man, is all one with that inward man, which in our lifetime was daily renewed, whilst the outward man did moulder and perish; which as you know is the plain sense that hitherto hath been driven at; so as he useth but a new metaphor in this second verse, chap, iv., of clothing, to express what he had afore spoken of this renewing.

2. The second consideration is, that this other phrase of being clothed upon with glory is fitly and congruously spoken in relation to this of our souls being first clothed with Christ's righteousness, and with holiness in this life, as in order to our being clothed upon with glory in that other, which will appear from those reasons.

(1.) Take the thing itself; it is evident that grace and Christ's righteousness are in this life in order unto, and a necessary preparation unto glory, as an under-clothing, fitted and suited to an upper clothing-upon. That look as if you will lay varnish, you must first lay some colour capable of it, or it loseth its gloss and verdure; so it is here.

[1.] Our being clothed with Christ and his righteousness is a necessary pre-requisite to glory, because it gives the right to it as to an inheritance : so in that place, cited for that purpose. Gal. iii. 27, 29, ' those that have put on Christ are heirs ;' and so in many places more.

[2.] HoHness in heart and life, that other part of our clothing in this life, which is next us, is everywhere termed a preparation to this glory,

' without wliicli no man shall see God,' Heb. xii. 14 ; yea, without which ' no man can see God,' John iii. 3. The church, therefore, by her decking herself with holiness, is said to make herself ready for the meeting of her husband, in that fore-cited Rev. xix. 7, which in Rom. is. 23 is termed ' a preparation to gloiy.' And thus likewise in Eph. v. 2G, 27, Christ ' sanc-tifieth and cleanseth his church, that he might present it to himself a glorious church.' And it is not to be passed over, that what is in 2 Cor. V. 2, 3, spoken in a way of metaphor, of being clothed, in order to clothing upon, our apostle, in the fifth verse of the same chapter, as to the reality of the thing, utters thus: ' He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God;' that is, he that by working grace and holiness in us hath fitted us for this glory, which in the phrase of this third verse is expressed, hath clothed us to be clothed upon; or, if you will have it in the language of the psalmist, Ps. xlv. 13, ' The king's daughter is all glorious within. Her clothing is of wrought gold; she shall be brought unto the king,' and his palace, ver. 15, ' in raiment of needle-work;' which how that answers to this, ' He that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God,' I leave to any man to judge. The context, then, confirms the reality of this metaphor.

[3.] The metaphor itself tells us that glory is a clothing upon, as a garment put over these garments first had in this life ; that is, it is an upper garment, which among all nations hath been made use oi pro veste liono-raria, as a sign of difference of persons of honour from others. Every man hath his ordinary clothes, but men of honour and rank have, besides, upper garments, to shew their dignity, superiority, &c. Kings and nobles have their ordinary wearing apparel for every day, but when they go to be crowned, or to be invested kings or nobles, or go to parliament, they have robes or mantles, upper garments proper to their greatness. Thus Joseph, when advanced second in the kingdom, was arrayed in vestments of fine linen. Gen. xli. 42, Pharaoh commanding them to bow before him. Thus Daniel was arrayed by Belshazzar, Dan. v. 29; and thus also was Mor-decai clothed, Esther viii. 15, 'He went out of the presence of the king in royal apparel,' as his upper garment, * being in a garment of fine linen and purple,' as his ordinary garment besides. And to this day the kings of these Eastern nations do put, as a sign of honour, an upper garment on those they favour. The Great Turk lets no ambassador with his followers come afore him, but he gives them upper vestments out of his own wardrobe, and lets them wear their own ordinary apparel besides. Thus the saints, when they are first actually installed kings in heaven, have Christ's righteousness, and their own holiness, which they had obtained and worn in this life. But these are but as their common apparel, worn every day, that is, both in this life and the life to come; and as ordinary apparel, though consisting of two garments, is yet reckoned but as one sort of apparel, taken in distinction from those upper, so both Christ's righteousness and our holiness are in that respect reckoned but as a clothing, because it is that in this life we are clothed withal; and this robe of glory also, unto which sanctification prepared, and Christ's righteousness gave riffht, is an upper garment, ' a clothing upon;' though indeed Christ is our clothinff in both. Christ in glorification is as an upper garment, but in justification he is an under garment, because in this life; but yet still • Christ is all in all' in both.

And this notion, that glory is as an upper garment, that place seems to favour: Rev. vi. 11, 'White robes were given unto every one of them'

(speaking of souls in glory), given them now when new come to heaven (as the context shews), and yet they did come clothed to heaven, with ' garments dipped in the blood of the lamb,' which they had in this life. Rev. vii. 14, yet now anew are robes given them: glory must therefore be said to be a clothing upon. And truly let it be considered by critics if croXai, robes, especially white robes, doth not sometimes, in the use of the word, properly and peculiarly import upper garments of honour and dignity which great persons are clothed upon withal. And if at any time the word is strictly used to express such, I would then say that it means so here ; for he speaks of robes of glory, and those granted anew. Sure I am that <yro'?.»i is so used rest rid im, sometimes as the word robe amongst us is used both pro veste scnatoria, the upper robes that senators wear (and so among the Greeks), and also }yro veste sacerdotali, for priests' upper gaiTnents ; in both which respects the Pharisees aflfected to wear such garments, Luke xx. 4G, Mat. xxiii. 5. Which places we translate, ' They desire to walk in long robes' (it is the same word), the ensigns, forsooth, of their dignity, rule, and greatness.

CHAPTER VII. What is meant by the phrase, 2 Cor. v. 3, of being 'found naked.''

The third consideration is about the import of this addition, ' and not found naked.' It must have an emphasis in it; for he contents not himself to say, ' if being clothed,' but he illustrates it also by its opposite, ' and not be found, naked.' One reason was, to knock off the hands of many carnal and temporary professors of Christianity found in all ages, who pretend to this hope of being clothed upon with this glory when they die, as well as sincere professors, for whose sakes he reasonably puts, ' us, if we be not found naked.' This is spoken in relation unto persons, and it is but a partial reason; but chiefly it is added to express the perfect contrary condition of such as are not clothed; namely, to connotate the woful and miserable condition of such. It notes out not only a bare vacuity of that clothing, though that fundamentally, but further the damage, the detriment, and misery that is the consequent thereof; namely, that they shall not only for ever be deprived of that glory others are clothed upon withal, but as naked souls be opposed to wrath, and have no fence or shelter from it. And this carries it far beyond what that other sense of theirs talks of. Now, to strengthen this sense of nakedness spiritual, there are three or four things help forward the arguing of it.

1. It is argued from the further analogy of the stoiy of Adam. As to understand that phrase of being clothed, we had recourse to the image of God in Adam at his first creation, so now, suitably to find out what it is to be found naked, we must have recom-se to him in his fallen state. Thus Beza, though to another purpose, sends us thither, and says there is here an allusion to that nakedness of his; and so he illustrates how the body at the resurrection is naked, if found without glory. But I shall have recourse to it, and to the identity of it, as shewing the condition of the soul's misery in appearing before God destitute of righteousness, in relation unto which appearing the word ' found ' is here added.

We read. Gen. iii. 7, 8,10,11, that ' their eyes were opened, and they saw (or) knew they were naked, and were afraid, and hid themselves from the pre-

sence of the Lord because they were naked; as really, so also in their own sense. They were bodily naked afore ; yet now, and not till now, they discern this nakedness spiritual, and are sensible, not of that want of bodily clothing, they needed not have fled from God's presence for that: ' Who will harm you, if you do that which is good ?' To be sure, God will not. But they found they had now lost the image of God. But that was not all, for that loss simply alone considered, corrupt man layeth not to heart, but the consequent misery ensuing hereupon was that which amazeth them. Their consciences found themselves now laid open to confusion and shame afore God's presence, and exposed unto his wrath, his image being gone. And therefore they out of horror hid themselves from God, being afraid, as the text there hath it.

2. A second evidence of this is, that in other scriptures wherein cautions about spiritual clothing are given, as also here, there the like caveat of taking heed of being found naked is in like manner given ; even as here, ' If being clothed, we be not found naked.' And, to my knowledge, to no sense else are the words thus turned both ways. I shall mention the places : Rev. iii. 17, ' Thou knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked: I counsel thee to buy of me white raiment, that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear;' namely, when thou comest thyself to appear afore God. So then it is not the want of that clothing simply, but the consequent of it, the shame of that nakedness, for which that nakedness is mentioned. And who upon considering this will not be ready to say that this to be sure is spoken in allusion to our first parents' spiritual condition, reproaching those to have been more wretched than their first parents. For in Genesis it is said that * their eyes were opened, and they knew they were naked ;' but ' thou knowest not,' says Christ here, ' that thou art naked,' yea, and blind too, in that thou art not sensible of thy nakedness, as they were. To the same effect, Rev. xvi. 15, he presents to them the misery and the woeful consequence of not keeping their garments, ' lest he walk naked, and they see his shame ;' the like is in Ezek. xvi. 4, 5, 7. Their spiritual nakedness is set forth by their being * cast out to the loathing of their persons in the day that they were born.'

3. And indeed otherwise the addition, ' clothed and not naked,' had been superfluous. For if it were intended as in our ordinary way of speech it is, not to be clothed, and to be naked, and so e contra, are all one and the same. So he had spoken in this phrase, but the same thing which in that other of ' being clothed ' he had done. But thus taken it puts a further and higher matter upon it, namely, that look as those who are clothed in that manner that hath been spoken shall be clothed upon with glory, so they that are found naked are exposed unto shame, and cast into utter darkness. It imports an opposite state of misery unto that glory which the true saints are clothed upon withal.

4. But that which, when added to these, chiefly argue the word naked to be taken in this spiritual sense, is the word 'found,' which the apostle would needs also put in, and not simply say, and ' not be naked,' but ' be not found naked.' Found ! I would ask, of whom ? Of God ? Yes, Burely. * We have a building of God,' so ver. 1, for to be clothed upon withal by God, according as we are found of him, ' if we be not found naked,' says the text, namely, by God ; which the apostle Peter thus expresseth, 2 Peter iii. 14, ' That ye may be found of him (God) in peace.' It is a judicial finding of God, as a judge now coming to dispose of us to life or death, according as he shall find us naked or clothed ; and it is put

to the worser part if found naked. It is a judicial word to this day, you say the jury ' found ' it so or so, upon trial, namely. So the phrase is in the Scripture too : ' found a liar,' Prov. xxx. 6 ; ' found guilty,' ver. 10. So when God punisheth, he is said to ' find out iniquity,' Gen. xliv. 16 ; as also in relation thereto he is said to ' make inquiry or search for blood,' Ps. ix. 12. And truly as the instance of Adam hath helped us to understand what to be clothed and to be naked is, so also it will help to find out what it is to be ' found naked.' God stayed a while, but in the cool of the evening he came, and came to make inquisition in what state Adam was. ' Adam, where art thou ?' Gen. iii. 9. Adam had lost God's image, and naked God found him, and cast him out of paradise. The phrase is yet more express, when Christ cometh to judge of men's conditions, in order either to life or death ; this is that very thing which (as in terminis it is held forth) God makes the subject of his grand inquest, ' clothed or naked.' Mat. xxii. 11, 12, ' When the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment.' If you will have it in the words of the text, he was found naked. * Friend,' says he, as to Judas, * how comest thou hither, not having a wedding garment ?' And you know what follows: ' Cast him where weeping and waihng is.' Christ hath a time when he purposely visits: ' When the king came in,' says ver. 11. And it is a day wherein he adjudgeth to hell, ver. 13, And his eyes search narrowly, and pry into every one's condition. He spies out a man which had not on a wedding garment; not one escapes him. And so, on the contrary, one that hath put on Christ, and is clothed with his righteousness, and with holiness of heart and life, which is the clothing we speak of, he is said to be found in Christ. Which was Paul's aim against that time : Phil. iii. 9, * That I may be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, but that which is through the faith of Christ.' Against that wedding feast, it is granted the believer to be arrayed with this robe, as you heard out of Rev. xix. 8. And now all these things, how far do they shut off that other interpretation ?

4. The fourth consideration shall be about the time of God's finding men, and making inquisition, whether clothed or naked, in order to glory or shame. Now if the time of our dissolution be a time in which this solemn inquisition is made, and at which every soul is found and viewed, whether clothed or naked, in order unto shame or glory, then this interpretation still lies faii-er ; for it is the point in hand. Let us consider : 1, As to the thing itself, whether this be not a time of such a judicature ? 2, Whether any hints make for it in the text ?

(1.) As to the thing itself, the time after death is the first most solemn time, wherein God makes this inquisition. Yov, first, then it is that God takes solemn cognizance of souls, and their spiritual condition; when he calls for them, and they appear solemnly afore him. This the instance of Adam is a precedent to us of. It was a private day of judgment, as this also is. God stayed a while, and was patient, but when he called Adam personally unto him, and he appeared afore him, Adam was found naked ; and God passed a trial and a sentence upon him. Why now at death it is that God * takes away men's souls,' Job xxvii. 8. It is God that doth it, whether it be he sends for it by a good angel, as he did to Lazarus, or by a bad one : Luke xii. 20, God said, ' This night they shall require, or call for thy soul back again ;' for, alas, it was but lent. You see there it is God gives the particular commission, and sends for the soul to himself: ' God said,' &c. His children he sends for home (as the phrase, ver. 8 of

VOL. VII. B b

this' 2 Cor. V. imports), as men for their xhildren at the university, or in traveh And wicked men he sends for, as a justice doth to apprehend a felon, to clap him up in prison against the assizes. So says Mercer on that word in Job, * He shall take away his soul;' that is, hale, and pull it out of its own dwelling, unto prison and judgment. So it is that it is said of all men, ' The soul returns to God that gave it,' and lent it, Eccles. xii. 7. It returns to God, then, or at that time when the body goes to the earth. I find in that great assembly, that glorious presence, Heb. [xii. 23, where ' angels and spirits of just men are made perfect;' that is, souls are swallowed up into life ; that in the next words there is this description of God, even as he sits amongst these, ' and to God the judge of all.' For even now, afore the great day of judgment, and whilst men's souls are in a separate estate, he sits, as a judge of all, both good and bad, amongst those glorious spirits ; which is seen in this, that the spirits of just men are taken up by a judgment passed on them, ere they sit down there. And in like manner he is a judge of others also (for of all it is he is said to be the judge), and so by the like judgment the souls of wicked men are cast into prison ; as it is expressly said of the souls of the old world, after God had taken them away by death, 1 Peter iii. 19. Now it is a certain rule, God never judgeth or casts into prison until he hath passed a trial upon those he so commits, and hath found them so or so. You find it in the case of Sodom. But especially, he casts no soul into prison until he hath found him naked. This the parable shews ; when the guests appeared afore him, he then saw a man without a wedding garment. He then took cognizance of it and him. And further, he examines him, and convinceth him he wanted it; and then, and not till then, cries, ' Cast him into utter darkness, where weeping and wailing is.' So then, if upon dissolution men's souls are cast by him into utter darkness and prison, it is, and must be, because they are then and at that time found naked, and judged so by him. And though there is a public judgment at the great day to manifest, justify, and publish this afore all the world, yet at death there is a more private and personal judgment, and a finding of souls, whether clothed or naked, and a disposing of them accordingly, either to a being clothed upon with robes of glory, if found clothed with grace (as the souls of martyrs, Rev. vi.), or cast into hell, as the rich man's soul was, Luke xvi. The one is as the assizes, the former as the private cognizance and commitment of the Justice of Peace, perhaps long afore the assizes.

(2.) If now, surrounded with this light, we will but with an impartial eye look round about the words here, and the context, we may easily discern, that they are most naturally accommodate to express the state of souls after their dissolution. Certainly, if they suit or fit any time or season that can be supposed, they are eminently applicable unto this, and therefore so intended, as may appear by some characters in the text.

[1.] To begin with what was last spoken of; there are two judgments, one at death, the other at that great day. Why may it not then be rationally conceived, that after his discourse of this separate state of the soul ended, verse 9, he therefore pui-posely brought in the mention of that public judgment: verse 10, ' For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad;' having in the beginning of that his discourse, verse 3, spoken of this other, that is more private and personal, at dissolution ; and so of both judgments, this as precedaneous unto the soul's glory whilst separate, that latter as fore-

going that ensuing glory of body and soul conjoined. Surely, the sotting the one thus with the other hath a great comeliness in it, and makes an harmony in this structure of his discourse.

[2.J But, 2dly, the apostle himself had set for us, and pointed us unto the time of dissolution, as the time when our hopes are, that if our bodies were dissolved, we have a glory to be clothed upon withal. And in these words he puts in a necessary caution, ' if so be, we be found' preparatively ' clothed, and not naked;' which no man can deny, but that as to tho thing itself complies fully with that time. It hath therefore been a wonder to me, that any should pass all this off to another time, and say, that of this time this is not to be meant at all. Truly, I will take the apostle's time afore any other, when all things thus correspond and agree with it. Nay, if he had not set it, I should have been induced to have applied it to that time. If j'-ou had any prophecy, and saw all things punctually to agree, and to centre in such a point of time, would you not say, This surely is the time, and these the fulfilling of it ?

[3.J But, 3dly, the very metaphor used by the apostle, and chose out here as exproposito to express himself by, viz., 'not to be found naked,' doth secretly and yet most elegantly connotate, together with and over and above all that else hath been spoken of the import of it, the very separate state of an ungodly soul, now come out of the body, to be the very subject he is a-speaking of. Such a soul at death goes naked forth of the body, for which I do not urge that we go naked out of the world in Job's sense, for that is meant of the body as well as the soul; for he had said afore, ' Naked I came into the world ;' and that, to be sure, is meant of body and soul conjoined, yet so as of the two, in worldly respect, the wicked man comes less naked into the world than he goes out of it; for at coming in, many children come clothed with right to inheritances in this world, and there is a great difference of persons in that respect; so as by virtue of their birth, they have all good things in a readiness for them richly to enjoy. Besides that the soul is then clothed with a body, which makes it capable of the enjoyment of all things in this world, therefore the apostle, comparing both conditions together, 1 Tim. vi. 7, says of the latter only, as more undoubted and apparent, that it is certain ' we carry nothing out of this world ;' for the soul then is stripped of the body also, and no such respects attend it into the other world. Nor will I urge, that death is as a birth, namely, into that other world ; and so the soul itself now goes naked, as soul and body once did into this, stripped of all. I will not follow the allusion, that the sorrows or pangs of death are usually termed birth-throes, ubtvai, nor how that angels (good or bad) attend the dehvery, as midwives, to catch the poor naked soul, and carry it to ' the Father of spirits,' as God is called, Heb. xii., who, if it be a true son, owns it, blesseth it, covers it with glory ; but if it be a bastard, rejects it. But I go upon that better warrant, that the apostle hath here a glance at the state of souls stripped of their bodies, inasmuch as at the 4th verse he expressly termeth death a being unclothed, as in relation to the body, which none can deny. But yet still (observe it), when he speaks of godly men (as there), he terms it but a ' being unclothed,' that is, a mere want of the body, for he is still clothed with grace. But speaking of wicked men's state when dead, he terms it ' nakedness,' not only or barely in respect of their bodies, but chiefly in respect of a nakedness every way, that doth accompany their souls, in regard of the want of grace, and of Christ's righteousness, and in regard also of shame, wrath, and everything else, that nakedness in

Scripture can and doth spiritually import. Now the taldnfr of unclothed, verse 4, to be all one with naked, verse 3, is one cause of the mistake in our intei-preters ; whereas the being naked is spoken by way of ignominy, as hath been said, and so shews how from that time such a soul is exposed to shame and misery, yea, and thereby actually enters into that misery, and that because it is now separated from the body. And that is the genuine notion I insist on, for explication of which, though indeed it is true that the soul was really naked when in the body (as Moses seeing God, that is invisible, did view the people of Israel naked, Exod. xxxii.), yet the miseries of its nakedness do not break in upon it until now, when it is despoiled of its body ; nor doth this appear till then. For confirmation of which consider.

First, That by God's own ordination the time of this life, and of the soul's being in the body, is ordained as a screen betwixt God and men's souls. The body is as a midst-thing between him and the soul. And so it becomes through God's ordination a time of .'patience, long-sufi'ering, as to those in Noah's time it is said to be ; and yet when they were dead, their spirits were cast in prison. And answerably, men's souls, whilst in their bodies, are said to be ' preparing for wrath,' Kom. ix., with much long-suffering on God's part, Rom. ix. 22. There is a sluice betwixt God's ■wrath and them; but in the other world, when out of the body, the naked soul and God himself do meet. The soul then, and not till then, returns to God immediately, though in this life, the apostle tells us, he is not far off from any of us, Acts xvii. Now the soul lies naked to all God's wrath, the cataracts of heaven are set open, and it hath no shelter, for the sluice of God's patience is with the dissolution of the body pulled up. And this following upon death, the apostle did most elegantly so express it, as connotating at once all these things.

Secondly, As there is this truce betwixt God and men's souls in the reality of the thing, so at the dissolution of the body, and not till then, it is that men find themselves naked. When is it that ' the hope of the hypocrite' is said to ' perish,' but when * God takes away his soul.' To the very last moment, he in the parable was ignorant of this, and therefore upon the challenge, that he wanted a wedding garment, it is said, * He was speechless.' Till then, many men * know not they are naked,' Rev. iii. 17. And therefore in respect of their eyes being then, and not till then, opened to discern it, they may be said to be found naked, as in the text.

6. The fifth and last consideration concerns the manner of these words coming in here, verse 3, ' If so be that being clothed,' &c. "Er/s, some express it by way of limitation, that is, of restraint unto the truly godly and believers, to shew this privilege of being clothed upon with glory to be proper and confined to them alone, with difterence from all others, that are found wicked and ungodly. I would rather call it, an wholesome and necessary both condition and caution, given by the way to the saints themselves, together with relation specially had unto carnal and presumptuous professors, who pretend assurance, and profess to know and groan for death, with the same expectations as the apostle brings in the saints.

(1.) It is by way of a necessary condition ; Col. i. 22, 23, ' Christ will present you holy, and unblameable in his sight,' hys, * if so be, ye continue grounded in the faith,' &c.

(2.) It is by way of a necessary caution unto saints, to keep and hold fast their garments ; in which manner that useful parenthesis comes in : Rev. xvi. 15, * Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments, lest

he walk naked, and they see his shame.' It is usual to insert such admonitions : so in this very 2 Cor. v. 9, ' Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may he accepted of him.'

(3.) It is by way of holding forth to all, the truth and genuineness of Christian profession in their expectation of glory: ' If so be that being clothed,' &c.; even as Eph. iv. 21, the same words is used: ' Ye have not so learned Christ, if so be that ye have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus.'

(4.) It is spoken with special respect unto presumptuous professors, that there being a faith and hope in them concerning these things that is not genuine but counterfeit, they might be put in mind to search into themselves, whether they had this wedding garment, yea or no. There were wise virgins that had oil in their vessels, and foolish which had not, and so were shut out; so here is the same case. Thus, Rev. iii. 17, 18, that admonition comes in, ' Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing ; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and bUnd, and naked : I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the lire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, tha thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest see.'

And truly this in the close, for the confirmation of that interpretation we have given of clothed, &c., as that which respecteth grace, as a prerequisite to glory, or being clothed upon. I may add some remarks on those words, ' If so be also that being clothed.' It is not 'iiyi barely (as in the places cited), but xa! also is added unto clothed. It is Calvin's* observation (and for aught I have elsewhere found), his alone. ' This sense,' says he,

* namely, of being clothed with grace and Christ's righteousness, is fetched out of the particle etiam, or also (as it ought to be translated), which, for amplification's sake, was without doubt inserted; as if Paul had said, There is and shall be a new garment upon death ready for believers, if so be in this life also they have been clothed.' And I must confess, the emphatical-ness that this etiam, or also, puts upon this being clothed, did as much serve to put my mind off from all those other interpretations as any passage else whatsoever in the words. And when I went to set down in my mind their senses of being clothed with a body, and then put but these words,

* if so be also,' in therewith, they seemed all dilute unto me, and there appeared not anything that should deserve such a notoriety, such an exaggeration or amplification. But if we interpret it of grace and Christ's righteousness, they are so rich, so noble a clothing, as are worthy of such a mark of notoriety expressed by the word also, and being pointed at thereby, as prerequisite to glory. And in the like way of exaggeration, or eminency, doth this word xa/, or also, come in: ver. 5, ' Who hath also given us his Holy Spirit.'

Obj. There are two objections, I find, made against these words being made a condition or caution given to saints.

Obj. 1. That, in the foregoing sentence, there being no promise made, nor no positive declaration of anything as requisite to be done, or to be in us, but only the common desire of all saints expressed, viz., to be clothed upon, unto which, as so expressed, a condition or caution to be added seema not proper.

* Atque liic sensus elicitur ex particula etiam, quae amplificandi causa baud dubi^ inserta est. Ac si dixisset Paulus novam vestem fidelibus a morte paratara fore, si quidem in bac etiam vita vestiti fuerint.— Calvinut in verba.

Ans. 1. It is true, it is not a condition of the desire or act of groaning itself, as it comes from them, but of the object or thing itself desired; namely, being clothed upon, which shall be (says he) if we be also clothed.

Avs. 2. Whereas there may prove an overweening and mistake in some that pretend to desire or groan after this, or a negligence in the best, to take heed to be fitly qualified'; such a caution is in that case seasonable to be made to them, though it be not properly a condition of the desire itself.

Ans. 3. And 3dly, We may carry up the reference of these words also higher, even to relate to ver. 1, as thus, ' We have an house in heaven, if this were dissolved: if so be. that being clothed with grace,' &c. And so it serves as a condition thereof.

Obj. 2. The second objection is this, that he speaking these things of the most eminent of saints, as himself and other the ministers of the gospel (chap, iv.), and so of all saints, whereof many were assured of their present condition in grace, and so of salvation—' We know,' &c.—or at least of such persons as he takes for granted are holy, in this case to add, if so be ye have grace, and be not found naked, was for him to detract from what he had supposed already of those he spake of.

Ans. I answer. It is to shew the necessary connection that is betwixt glory and having grace, and continuance therein to the end. Although the persons be such as have the things that accompany salvation, yet Paul of himself says, ' Lest, when I have preached to others, I myself be a castaway,' 1 Cor. ix. 27. And to the sincerest Colossians reconciled by the blood of Christ, Col. i. 21, he yet puts in this caution or condition (ver. 22) unto their being presented at the latter day by Christ, ' If ye continue in the faith,' &c. And thus too in Rom. viii., ' There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ.' So he begins, and in the end of the chapter, says he, ' Xone shall separate us from the love of God;' and yet (ver. 13) he gives this caution unto such: * If ye hve after the flesh ye shall die : but if ye through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live.' Other answers might be framed out of what hath been spoken afore.

Xor doth this interpretation, that it should be meant of the time of death, exclude the glory at the resurrection, as if being clothed with grace, and not found naked, were only a necessary condition at a man's death, but would stand a saint in no stead at the resurrection (which might be made another objection). No. But all this is true, fii'st of the soul at death, and then at the resurrection; again, also, for as then there will be a new and open judgment afore all the world, so a new inquiry, by ripping up our hearts and lives to be,* whether we had been clothed or naked in this life before and at our deaths. And grace, and Christ's righteousness that we had here in this life, will then stand us in as much stead as they did at death.

* Qu. ' see'?— Ed.

CHAPTER VIII.

The words of the text explained, and their coherence with the first and second verses.

For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, heinrj burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.—2 Cor. V. 4.

The first verse expresseth the common faith of the primitive Christians in this great point, that, when their bodies should be dissolved, they expected a glory for their souls afore the resurrection.

The second verse expresseth the lively and vehement working of their aflfections, in groaning desires thereupon, by and through dissolution to arrive at that glory ; which groans are the immediate effect of that faith.

The third verse is a caution intermingled by the apostle, as by the way, unto all that professed this expectation, to be sure to get and keep their garments, lest they be found naked at their dissolution, and so frustrated of that glory, and exposed unto shame and wrath. Rev. xvi.

In this fourth verse he returns afresh to sigh forth the groaning desires of himself and other saints after the same glory, with a greater vehemency and enlargement of afiection than was afore expressed. That he assumed the uttering the former desires expressed in verse 2 is evident in the very reading of the words, and confirmed by this parallel between them.

1. He had said, ver. 1, 'If this earthly house of this tabernacle,' &c., here in ver. 4 he says, * We that are in this tabernacle,' &c.

2. He had said, ver. 2, ' We in this do groan to be clothed upon with our house,' he speaks the same in ver. 4; so that he brings down, we see, the first and second verses into this fourth verse; and therefore the substance, spirit, and scope of both verses is by infusion soaked into and contained in this fourth verse, and is further impregnated and heightened.

If the question be, what in this repetition of his is added to what had been expressed afore in verse the second ?

The answer is, that in this fourth verse he farther gives the true and genuine account upon which a sincere believer is moved thus to groan, with a most accurate distinction from what are the false grounds whereupon all other sorts of men are moved to wish or groan for death, as Christians used to do. And so the thing which is new in this fourth verse is both the manner of these desires, together with the explicit ground thereof, neither of which had been so nakedly and distinctly expressed in that former 2d verse.

The scope which by many interpreters is put upon the words is, that many Christians knowing and believing that, in that ordinary way and course which is set and appointed by God, we are to wait until the resurrection for the accomplishment and perfection of our glory; and also, that in the mean time our bodies must first be dissolved ere we can come to or arrive at that consummated glory of soul and body together ; and that nature in us shrinking at this dying (all men naturally abhorring death), that therefore it should be here intended that the saints do groan as being burdened with the very thoughts of dying, and therefore do secretly desire not to die at all; which (say they) is expressed in those words, * not to be unclothed,' that is, not of their bodies at all. But instead thereof their

desires do vehemently soar to this, that they might, both bodies and souls (whilst they remain yet unparted), be glorified together without any more ado; and that thus at one leap they might, without taking the degree of death, be clothed upon with their house from heaven, in full consummated glory the first instant, whilst yet they were clothed with their bodies ; and this they would have etTected and by virtue of such a change as is mentioned in 1 Cor. xv., ' We shall not all die, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.' And this change, which is answerable to the resurrection of others from the dead, will swallow up all mortality of the body so as we shall be at once completely swallowed up of life. This interpretation they give under the countenance of the foresaid change, which will yet be but the lot of some saints, and indeed of those only who shall be found alive at the instant of the resurrection, which privilege yet these would have to be the desires of all the saints here, as that which they would rather wish ! As also because of that seeming parallel between those two following words of the apostle here, 1 Cor. xv. 53, 54, ' For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. And then shall be brought to pass the saying, Death is swallowed up in victory;' which words they judge exactly parallel with these words here, ' clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.'

But the scope and sense which I contend for runs upon a clear contrary supposition (which supposition the apostle did begin his discourse with, ver. 1), founded on those words, ' if our bodies be dissolved,' &c., wherein he doth not only tacitly imply that the ordinary course set by God for the saints' arrival at glory is the dissolution of their bodies, and that the saints generally know and make account of this, but he further makes the supposition of this as de facto in the event, that when that this shall once be done and come to pass, that our bodies be dissolved, and then ' we have an house,' &c. And this he lays as the foundation whereunto he suits the rest of his building, in this following discourse, to their relief against the time of this their dissolution, and the groanings and desires after .the glory which shall follow that dissolution. And as in the second verse he had begun to express their general desires after it, so here in this fourth verse he persisteth with a reiterated vehemency to set out their groanings continued still upon the same supposition, that if their bodies be dissolved once, they know they have an house to be clothed upon with ; they looking upon dissolution only as the common gate and passage appointed by God, whereby their souls, in their several ages and generations, shall first and soonest come to that blessed attainment which is their first entertainment in heaven.

Now, that the words of this fourth verse will comply with and give themselves up to this sense and interpretation, and fully suit with it, will appear when I come to open every particular in the words. In the mean while we may aforehand take up a new general reason for the confirming this our grand assertion, that the glory of the soul separate upon dissolution is in this fourth verse continued by the apostle to be set out as the object of a believer's groanings, as well as it had been in the second verse. And the reason hereof is drawn from the series and straight current that runs through all in a succession from the first verse, with the other verses down to this fourth verse, and likewise which this fourth verse retains with the former, and then descendeth down to the fifth verse also; which reason you may frame in this mould. That look what glory it is, and what subject in man

it is, that is tho object of a Christian's faith in the first verse, and of a Christian's groaninf^s in the second verse, the very same glory, and tho same thing in us, is that which the apostle intends as the object of a Christian's desires and groanings hero in this fourth verse. _ But the glory of tho soul separate upon dissolution is that glory which is held forth in verse the first and second, &c. Therefore the same is intended in this fourth verse also. That the glory of the soul separate, &c., is the house intended, ver. 1, I have before largely, and I hope invincibly, proved. And that the same glory in verse 1 is intended also in verse 2 as that which * we groan for, desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven,' is evident also. For as in the first verse he declares what their faith was—' We know that if this be dissolved, we have,' &c.,—so in the second he shews what their affections were pitched upon, this their groaning being the eflect of that faith. And indeed it is impossible in this condition but that the glory which by faith they expected, ver. 1, it should be the very same they groan for, ver. 2; for afl'ections follow knowledge home to the door of that object which knowledge apprehending doth propose unto us. And the other main proposition, viz., that the glory we are said to groan after, ver. 2, is the very same with the object of our groaning here, ver. 4, is evident.

1. Because this fourth verse is a reassuming, for the substance, of what was said in the second verse, and also in the first verse, as uttering the same groaning desires, though with a fi-esh renewed vehemency. But yet it is a groaning after one and the same glory, which glory is therefore in the fourth verse continued to be expressed under the same metaphor he had used afore, ver. 2, namely, to be clothed upon; even as ver. 2, ' Desiring to be clothed upon with our house, which is from heaven;' of which house also he had first spoken in ver, 1, 'We have an house in the heavens ;' although herewith he over and above adds a further and more plain explanation what that house and glory we are clothed upon with is, even a ' swallowing up this mortahty of life.'

2. Again, secondly, he utters the present condition of the saints till dissolution under one and the same metaphor which he had used in ver. 1 and ver. 2. In ver. 1, he speaks of 'our earthly house of this tabernacle;' in ver. 2, he says, 'in this,' (namely, this tabernacle) 'we groan;' and then he useth the same word again here in ver. 4 more indigitately, ' We that are in this tabernacle,' still to refer us to the first verses, as speaking to the same thing which this fourth verse speaketh to. For otherwise he might have simply said, ' We that are in the body;' but by repeating this metaphor of tabernacle, he again would mind us of the short continuance of the soul's abode therein, and also of that existence the soul, the indweller, is to have when that tabernacle shall be dissolved.

8. And thereby, thirdly, he shews he would have us carry down those words in ver. 1, 'We knowing, that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,' &c., as in common to be repeated and supplied in the fourth verse. And then the connection will thus run current through all the four verses: ' We who are in this tabernacle, knowing that, if this earthly tabernacle were dissolved, we have a house in the heavens to be clothed upon withal, do therefore groan to be clothed upon therewith, and therefore do also groan for dissolution in order thereunto; for we know that if this tabernacle were but once dissolved, we have another house ready,' &c. Thus those words in ver. 1, 'if this earthly tabernacle were dissolved,' will still follow us down hither into this fourth verse, and will

cliallenge that it should be admitted and taken into the interpretation thereof; and thereupon this will inevitably follow, that the glory of the soul upon dissolution is that which is the object of this groaning in this fourth verse.

4. Lastly, That one and the same glory is steadily and homogeneally thus carried along through the 1st, 2d, 4th verses, the very first words of the 5th verse do conclusively shew: ' He that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God.' What is this but that one and the self-same glory before spoken and treated of, whether under the metaphor of an heavenly house, and being clothed upon therewith, or more plainly expressed as a life that swallows up mortality ? This glory is one and the self-same thing that he had been speaking of in the fourth verse, and in all the rest of the former verses. The apostle's whole discourse is a woof of thread, and one and the same runs through all; and the want of attendance unto this strict uniform connection of the matter of these verses one with the other hath been the cause of those mistakes in those fore-specified interpretations, wherein some expositors have taken liberty to interpret these verses of several sorts, or subjects rather, of glory, as of the soul separate in one, and in another verse of the glory that shall accrue upon the resurrection of the body, and of that glory only; and then in another verse they inter-pi'et it of a third way of coming to glory, viz., that change of body and soul without either dying or rising again; whereas the apostle's discourse doth speak of one and the self-same thing, as in ver. 5 he on purpose and professedly speaketh. And so the whole discourse is spun of an even thread, and it is apparent that he speaks of the glory of a separate soul all along.

Only I shall premonish the reader in this place once for all, that this plea of mine put in of the glory of the soul separate, as now it hath been stated, is far from excluding that consummated glor}' at the resurrection to be also intended. For a believer may have in the first place, as next in prospect, the glory of his soul when separated, in his eye and desires, and yet withal he may have ultimately in view that further glory of the resurrection to come after, as that which he expects and longs for also, but yet each in their due order. These two, both the things themselves and our desires after them, may and do well successively both stand together, and therefore I oppose that opinion of the glory at the resurrection no further than as any would have that resurrection glory solely to be meant, and would exclude altogether the apostle's intendment of the separate soul's glory in the mean time. But as for the other sense of a believer's having desires not to die at all, but to be changed, if this sense I have now given be the genuine purport of the words, it will indeed (I confess) perfectly overthrow and exclude that other interpretation of a desire of non-dissolution; for that is contradictory to this of mine, and indeed unto the apostle's supposition at first, 'if our earthly house be dissolved,' that leads on to all that follows, as hath been observed.

I shall now give a general division of the words of this fourth verse. The groanings of a Christian after dissolution being the common scope and subject of this verse, the rest thereof, as belonging to and setting forth those groanings, may be divided into general parts, whereof some will admit of lesser divisions after.

1. The persons that groan are set out with their present condition, 'We that are in this tabernacle.'

2. The occasion of their groanings, and the cause why they groan, is expressed to be their ' being burdened.'

3. There is a vindication of Christians in their groanings after dissolution wiih difference from all other men, in these words, ' Not for that we would be unclothed.'

4. There is the true account itself why they groan: 'Being burdened, not that they would be unclothed, but clothed upon with their house in heaven.'

5. That glorv- is signified by that metaphor more plainly expressed : ' that mortality might be swallowed up of Life.'

1. I shall first consider the persons and their present condition, as represented in those words of this fourth verse, 'We that are in this tabernacle.' Some restrain the word ue unto the apostle himself, and his brethren the apostles, and those eminent fellow-labourers with him in the ministry, because of these he had spoken in the persons iff, and its, and our all along in the fourth chapter, in his setting out their sufierings, labours, and persecutions; and this, with some diflerence (as to the frequency and hazard of them) from other ordinary saints (as appears in verses 12, 14, 15), and so proposing themselves in all their sufferings, and in this their confidence of glory, as examples unto the vulgar ordinary Christians. And truly if we should measure this by the ordinary temper of Christians in our times, we would be induced to think that what the apostle speaks of groanings and desires after dissolution, and the glory that follows, should have been intended only of some of those eminent saints then, who had received 'the first fruits of the Spirit,' Rom. viii., beyond what in comparison other saints have received. And indeed, how remote are saints now-a-days from those desires to be dissolved, but on the contrary are fearful of dying. But yet, considering that the apostle speaks of and sets out those persons or subjects who were intended by the general character common to all saints in the next words, ' we that are in this tiibernacle ;' and also holds forth that assurance of salvation, and a joyful waiting for that day ; and also considering that an establishment, and anointing, a sealing, and the earnest of the Spirit, were privileges common to those Corinthian Christians, and other primitive Christians, together with the apostles (as he expressly says, chap. i. 21, 22 of this Epistle); this warranteth us to judge that this word ue was intended of the body of saints in those days; and if there be any (as in our days there be many) that do not thus desire and groan, it is yet their duty in this their condition, as well as it was the duty of the apostles. We, for imto the saints he had both intended it and appropriated it all along, appears from these words, ' ]Ve know ire have an house,' expressing the common faith of believers ; and in verse the 2d he says, ' We groan after our house ;' and he terms it ' oar house,' as being the proper demesnes of them as saints, their freehold and distinct property, and accordingly he annexeth their present condition in common as was said, ' we in this tabernacle.' The truth is, the popish commentators would fain carry it unto apostles and eminent Christians alone, who they say went immediately to heaven. And they assign a middle place, purgatory, for the vulffiis sanctorian, for the common vulgar saints ; whereas if the Scripture should be intended generally of them, and of their being taken up into glory at dissolution, that middle state would utterly fall to the ground.

' We that are in this tabernacle ;' that is, that have our present existence or being in the body, which is our present tabernacle, we that lead as yet a tabernacle life. He says not merely we groan in this tabernacle, but ' we that are in this tabernacle do groan;' putting a further and more

especial emphasis upon it. And thereby he doth not only tacitly insinuate,

(1.) The soul to be the person that indwells in that tabernacle our bodies at the present for a while ; but,

(2.) He intimates withal that there is another state, existence, and condition of other saints, namely, of souls out of this tabernacle upon dissolution, whose condition these tabernacle saints had in their eye, whilst they utter their desires after such a state, as far more desirable, and which they are aspiring unto, and thereby they are provoked the more to groan after the same ; and indeed our attendancy to this very discrimination of one sort, we in this tabernacle, and of another sort implied, expressed by the word ive in the word they, who are out of it, may have a great influence into this our interpretation, and add a mighty confirmation to it.

And to this purpose it is to be noticed that, as by that fore-mentioned character of the ground and manner of their groanings, he intended to distinguish saints from other men, as has been said, and will be demonstrated, so by this periphrasis, ' we that are in this tabernacle,' he intendeth to ditierence the state of saints on earth from their brethren and fellow-citizens in heaven, so styled Philip, iii. 20, Rev. vi. 10. It is as if he had said, Some of us are already housed in heaven, in our standing house there (as ver. 1 and ver. 4 he calls it), whilst others of us dwell yet in tabernacles to be dissolved. God's family is said to consist of some on earth and some in heaven, Eph. iii. 15. The words there, 'of whom' (namely, Christ) ' the whole family in heaven and earth are named,' speak of two parts of the same family, whereof some are in their country-house, some in the city-house. Thus in like manner here, he by way of discrimination setting out that one part or company of them abiding on earth, ' we that are in this present tabernacle,' he thereby insinuates another part or company that are in heaven, both making up the whole society aud fraternity of saints belonging to God. And there is a further difi'erencing character, and note of this distinction, which follows and confirms this, viz., that we only in this tabernacle are those that groan, whereas the other have their desires satisfied in a great measure, Kev. vi., and do not groan, not being burdened as we on earth are.

And this ditierence of state between the saints on earth and those in heaven, other scriptures do in phrases similar to this in like manner insinuate. Thus in this very chapter, ver. 10, he says, ' Every man shall receive' (at the day of judgment, namely) ' the things done in this body.' That clause of limitation imports, as another state to be of their souls out of their bodies till that day of judgment, so that they shall be responsible and answer only for the things done whilst in their bodies, and not for what they shall do when out of them in that separate state. Between men's deaths and that judgment day there doth intervene a long space of time, as for instance take Cain's soul, it hath been perhaps five thousand years out of his body in hell, and during all that time both his or others' souls so existing separate out of their bodies have not ceased to act some -way or other ; but yet (says the apostle) he or they shall answer only for what was done in their bodies, in distinction from what they do in the separate state of their souls ; and thus the distinction of ' we in this tabernacle' is in a like analogy to be understood.

And now if in this place, ere we go further, we shall look round about us and set all things together, but so far as hitherto we have gone, unto what other intent or purpose more imaginably congruous, and more arti-

ficially fitting one thing to the other in this his discourse, should the apostle insert, yea, reiterate and inculcate this clause, ' we that are in this tabernacle,' than that which we have been proving. For having begun his discourse in ver. 1, ' We know, if this tabernacle were dissolved, we have an house or glorv ready for us,' he (in this verse 4) doth again once more remind them of their souls being the inmates, and that their bodies were but temporary tabernacles, shortly to be taken down and dissolved, and that then their souls are to exist out of them. And he also makes this superadded insinuation, that other of their brethren who have been dissolved have taken possession of those eternal habitations, whilst themselves remain still in this tabernacle life burdened and groaning ; and why should they be brought in hereupon (in ver. 2 and in this ver. 4) again groaning, and groaning again, but because they have in their eyes and hearts, whilst they thus groan, that other state of glory which those blessed souls, that are out of those tabernacles, are in actual enjoyment of? And if they sigh and groan because themselves are burdened, they put forth another in the consideration thereof. And besides, what glory is this they groan for, but that which at the first was begun to be set afore them as a mark of their high calling ? ' "We know, that if our earthly tabernacle be dissolved, we have an house in heaven.' And what other house is it they groan to be clothed with (as it there follows), but that same very house which upon dissolution their other brethren that are out of this tabernacle have already taken possession of afore them; and with the thoughts of which house ready for them, they in the first verse had comforted themselves, that if this (their) tabernacle were (in like manner) dissolved, we have, &c. For it stands prepared for us, were we but once dissolved and absent from the body, as in Rom. viii. we find it more plainly spoken. And the consideration of those things do whet our desires, and make them more eager to be at home (as the 8th verse expresseth the state of glory of the soul separate), ' at home,' that is, in our aforesaid houses of glory, and in our own country, as that word importeth. How congruous and concinnate are all those passages round about us, fi-om first to last, in such their mutual reflections one upon another, and connections one with another, as to this sense we contend for.

We do groan earnestly, as ver. 2 it is translated. And have we not reason, think you, when not only by sense we feel such heavy loads as we that are in this tabernacle do hourly sustain and suffer ; and whilst with?-l by faith we know what blessedness there is ready for us in the other world, and which we know our elder brethren are admitted into, and do now enjoy (they having got the start of us by their being dismissed and got out of this tabernacle afore us), and have their mortality swallowed up of life, whilst we (poor souls) are the oppressed ones of the earth, under all sorts of miseries, and do carry about with us a body of death, and are restrained the while from that other enjoyment only by our existence in this tabernacle ; and nothing else lets or is between us and so great an happiness, which is our inheritance ?

The fresh and renewed thoughts of these things set together, as by the apostle they arc on purpose penned, how mightily, may we well think, would they move the heart of Christians, that are assured of their salvation ! No w^onder if he says at once, ' We groan, desiring,' ver. 2, and then says it twice in this 4th verse again. Even as on the contraiy he doubles it, ' Rejoice ; and again I say, rejoice ;' as with a joy of all the most intense and vehement. Oh, thinks such a soul, if I were but dissolved

once, it would not barely quit me of these burdens ; but it would instantly put me into that possession my fellow-brethren are already in. And what is dissolution ? it is but the shooting the bridge, the gulf between the one state of a dying life here, and that other of glory, when the mortality of this dying life shall be swallowed up of that which is life in the fulness of it. And thus, upon those terms, as it is thus stated and apprehended, the saints being surrounded with those thoughts, a dissolution becometh the joyful object of their groanings, as it is of the apostle's desires, Philip, i.; and though dissolution be not explicitly, said, yet it is virtually and implicitly in the scope, or in the strength of all manifestly intended, and desired as a means to that further end, ' We that are in this tabernacle,' and the rest that follow, from the making a not-dying at all, or an absolute non-dissolution to be the object of their desires in this place, which the other interpretations would put both upon it and us. Thus much for the description of the persons that groan, &c., and what may be argued therefrom. I shall now consider the occasion of their groaning.

2. ' Groan, being burdened ;' that is the second head, and is brought in here as the approximate occasion of their groanings, but chiefly as conducing to his illustrating that ditierence (which follows) between the sainls and others in their groanings after dissolution. The words, ' being burdened,' come in between these two speeches: 1, after the words, 'we that groan ;' and, 2, before those latter words, ' not for that we would be unclothed;' and so pays contribution to both, and hath its aspect to and influence upon both. That is, first, it hath a respect unto their gi'oaning as some occasion of it, though a less principal one ; for then, having done that service, it serves another, viz., that from thence the apostle should take rise to explain how and why it is, and how and why not, that we Christians do groan for dissolution, with difibrence from other men.

Two things are herein to be attended.

(1.) A tacit concession or grant, that indeed a Christian is a burdened creature ; and comparatively to other men, the most burdened of any other, which in the foregoing chapter he had related of himself and others his brethren.

(2.) That they are sensible enough of those burdens, and are unto their own sense and feeling thus burdened. For hereupon they groan, which must be out of a sense thereof.

[1.] There is this concession or gi'ant, that indeed of all other sorts of men a Christian is the most burdened, in respect of the multitude, variety, and greatness of his grievances : we having not only all the miseries that are trihuta vivendi, the common and ordinary taxes and tributes of life in this world, that come upon usiin common with others, as sickness, loss of friends, and the like ; but further, we have all sorts of persecutions, that are trihuta Christi, the double, yea centuple imposts for our religion. As to our names, ' all men speak evil of us,' and we are as ' the oflscouriug of the world' to this day. And then, in real damages, in estates, &c., we are by reason of persecution ' without a certain abiding place, we sufi'er hunger, nakedness, imprisonments, banishments, deaths' (all which he recites in chap, iv.); and all which he sums up into that total, in 1 Cor. xv. 15, 19, ' In this life we are of all men most miserable,' not to mention the burden they cany about with them in their own souls, from sins, which other men make the greatest comfort and happiness of their lives, and therefore are said to live in them, but which make us to cry out, ' Oh, miserable men that we are,' &c.

[2.] Ho would have all men know that they are as sensible of those burdens, as any other men are or can be supposed to be: and that the reason why they do bear them so patiently and silently as they do (only with groanings and sighings), is not from a sturdy stoical principle, as if they professed a want of sense and aftbction, which was the counterfeit and palliated profession of their wisest philosophers, who would be esteemed eminent and singular for wisdom and virtue amongst men. No (says he); in opposition hereunto, we acknowledge that we are burdened, and are sensible to the quick ; and groan after death, yet not like unto other men, but have another kind of rehcf which supports us.

CHAPTER IX.

The true and eminent grounds of a Christimis groanings after dissolution, severed from the false grounds of other men. — That a Christian doth not desire death mereJg on this alone account, that it will give him ease in freeing him from all the miseries and sorrows of this present life.

3. Of all other sorts of men that were, or had been ever heard of in the world, the Christians in those primitive times were observed to be the greatest undervaluers of life, and ambitious aspirers after death and dissolution. It is made the common character of them: Rev. xii. 11, ' They loved not their lives to death;' and it was our great apostle's public profession of, and concerning himself: ' I count not my life dear to me, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the gi'ace of Grod,' Acts xx. 24. It was observed that those first Christians came to martyrdom as young men and maidens use to do to their weddings; yea, as to their own marriages. They cheerfully, being called thereto, exposed themselves to death, v As we are always delivered to death, says the apostle, 2 Cor. iv. 11, so we are willing, says he, 2 Cor. iv. 8. And those heathens that were observators of this, being strangers to the principles of Christianity, not knowing the grounds and motives which inspired their souls hereunto, imputed these high most raised actions and aspirements unto false principles, or such causes as they found in themselves, and that might any way be supposed to be in the hearts of men.* And as in judging of a Christian's ways and general course of hfe, they attributed the singularity thereof unto pride, hypocrisy, afiectation, so in like manner in this point, of not loving their lives, they ascribed this eagerness after dissolution partly to stoicism and insensibility, which some of their own philosophers professed (of which sect you read, Acts xvii.), or to a wearisomeness of life, because they were so persecuted and spoken against, or (as the apostle hath spoken of their condition) because they were in this life of all men the most miserable. And so they were looked upon in that respect as men that wished for death and could not find it. And this (besides what might therein concern the spirits of Christians themselves) gave a just occasion to the apostle to lay down here that account of the principles Christians go upon in this particular, with difference from what are or were found in others, who at any time wish and gi'oan for death. But although the apostle also acknowledgeth that these burdens have some influence (as there is all reason they should)

* For these things I refer you to heathen writers of the primitive times, as also the apologies made for Christians.

into their desire after dissolution, yet then take the case as it is truly stated in our hearts, and all these burdens arise not so high, or prevail not so far upon us, as to cause us to desire death simply (as the heathens or others use to do) for an avoidance of present miseries; but know (says he) that our rehgion, and that alone, presents us with, and holds up to our faith, and assures us of a glorious crown and estate of life, when this mortal is ended, whereby mortality shall be swallowed up of life, whereof we have the earnest, ver. 5 ; and this is it that raiseth and ennobles our spirits to this height of confident willingness to die, as in the following verse Gth he expresseth.

He presenteth such a principle, ver. 4, in the name of Christians, as never was found in any carnal heart, nor is, nor can be understood by them. He presenteth this principle in these words, ' not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon.'

These words shew why and why not, how and how not, a Christian groans after dissolution, and so do of themselves fall into two parts.

(1.) Negative, or a removal of what might be supposed the ground : ' not for that we would be unclothed,' or not that that alone would ever cause Buch a desire in us.

(2.) Positive, or the true prevailing utmost ground why and from which it proceedeth: ' but for that we would be clothed upon.' And this centres in the highest thing that the object of their aims could centre in: 'that mortality might be swallowed up of life.'

It is of moment to know the meaning of the phrase 'for that,' since it is the hinge upon which both the negative and positive do turn; concerning which observe two things.

1. That in the Greek sip u),for that, is so placed as it indiflferently pertains to either of these ; for the tenor or station of the words in the Greek run thus : ' For that, not we would be unclothed, but to be clothed upon.' And thus read, it, having first served the negative (which is the first part), it stands as fairly ready, and was in its posture reserved to be carried to, and joined also with, the afiirmative or positive part, and is so to be joined therewith thus : ' But for that we would be clothed upon.'

2. The true import of the phrase is known to be to render the reason or the because why an act or action is said to be done or not done. It imports the ou y^apiv, or the ou hv/.a, \for the sake of uhicli,' or the respect ^ipon uhich, or the end or aim for nhich, anything is done.'* And so here it serves to set forth the genuine aim or meaning of the spirit of a Christian, and the true reason or inducement whereby he is prevailed upon as to the point of desires of his dissolution. "We ordinarily use the like way of speech. Suppose a brother or some other near relation, presenting a suit against a murderer of his friend or relation, should by way of account or vindication of his act, and his sincere aims therein, utter himself to this purpose : I prosecute this suit, being thus nearly related and concerned in the person, not for that I seek the death of this man simply as a man, nor for that I have been injured by him, that so I might be revenged, but that public justice might be done, and that both divine and human law, that he that sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, may have its due course and be satisfied; in this speech this particle/or that, though it be placed in the forefront, viz., the negative part of his speech, yet is what in common

* See Stephani Thesaurus upon the preposit. £T/ cum dat. (as here), put for ea lege, ea conditione; OiTid i'TTi for propter. See also Francims Vtfferius in prepositione i'uri. Also Glossius, Philologia, lib. 3. tract. 6.

is carried to the other, ' but for that I would justice should bo done,' «&;c. The parallel between that and this in the text is easily discerned.

1. Now then, I shall first consider the negative: ' Not that we would be unclothed.' These words are a professed renuntiation of such lower ends and motives from having the sway in a Christian's desires of dissolution, by which other men are induced thereunto, and which yet they, finding no other in themselves, were and are apt to impute unto Christians. The motives negative herein are two.

(1.) In these words, ' not to be unclothed,' being taken singly and alone, that is, we Christians do not groan to die merely to be unclothed or rid of our bodies, which was one of the noblest and highest grounds the wiser and great spirits among the heathens did pretend unto and gloried in, as that which made them willing to die. They had such valuation for that diviner part, their souls, and thought so contemptuously of the worst part, their bodies, that they looked on death as a freedom from the cumber of them. And thus under the metaphor of being clothed, the apostle hits and meets with that principle, which the sagest of them cheerfully embraced death upon, which was to put off the body, as a man would do a heavy garment, that clogs and hinders him, to the end to be more agile, nimble, lightsome, and active, as they thought their souls would be, when they had their viiltimiis from their bodies.

They taught the immortality of the soul as well as we Christians, and also the free acting of the soul without the body; but withal they taught their disciples to contemn the body, and complained of the conjunction or immersion of our souls with it and into it, as if the gi-eat God had done it wrong, to put so divine and vigorous a spirit into so dark and damp a dungeon or prison (that was their ordinary word, cZ/^a quasi cTi'Ma, so Plato*), and in the Book of Wisdom you may see how the effects of this principle had tainted the Jews themselves, for Solomon is brought in there saying, Was a soul put into a defiled body ? They thought the soul's high-born aspirements, and soarings, to be captived, depressed, obstructed, and kept down (as a soaring bird kept in a cage), and its active-ness to be confined and interrupted by the soul's conjunction with the body. Like as a man in prison sees but out of a loop-hole or through a grate, so (thought they) the captived soul takes in things by outward senses, and therefore they look upon being unclothed and out of it, and look consequently upon death as a gaol delivery, or as the letting a bird fly loose in the open air, the native element for it. The apostle contradicts this principle, and insinuates that we Christians have learned otherwise, that the conjunction of the body and soul was a happy match, when God first made it, and made man ' a living soul,' Gen. ii.; that is, a soul ordained to live in a natural body. This was that which originally from the first and for ever the soul was ordained for, although we do find that by being fallen into sin it is not only ' appointed for all men once to die,' and were it not for our hope that is renewed in the soul, and for the glory which upon separation from the body it shall be therefore clothed upon, the soul of itself subsisting alone would be a most lame, weak, and imperfect, and inactive creature. And further, that the body is thus a clog to the soul, is but accidental through man's own default; and hence we Christians dare not simply wish for a freedom from our bodies, or groan for death. Therefore we dare not in our desires wish for death, and so contradict and blaspheme God's ordination, as their best philosophers have done; but we * ffw/xa, i. e., corpus quasi ff^/xa, i. $., sepulchrum.

VOL. YII. C C

wait God's pleasure, to whom we live, and to whom we die. That the apostle in this passage should have some glance and eye upon those principles of the heathen, we perceive by the honourable eloffium he presently gives of the soul's dwelling in theJ;body, whiles he terms it a being ' at home in the body;' for so indeed it is in the ordination of God, and its natural institution and make; and therefore to be rid of it, and simply to be unclothed, is not that for which we desire to die. This is the first motive disclaimed in this negative.

But it will be replied, that the burdens that you otherwise bear in the body (which you confess) do yet raise up these eager desires in you. For answer to this there is,

(2.) A second negative wherein this other low and under motive more common to man, and which was more ordinarily imputed to Christians, is disclaimed, and that is, not for that we are burdened; that is, our being burdened is not the reason whereupon alone we would be unclothed, which word had immediately preceded ; and now put that into the balance with the former, yet both that and the former weigh not unto such a prevalency as would alone excite and draw forth those vehement desires in us.

This word burdened is placed (as you may well observe) purposely between these two, ' we that are in this tabernacle,' the words before it, and those that follow, * not that we would be unclothed.' It is placed so on purpose (I say), that it might illustrate the more, and render the genuine desires and aims of a Christian herein the more illustrious. It first, referring unto our being in this tabernacle, declares, that whilst we are in it, we are and shall be burdened. But then again, its reference unto these words, ' not that we would be unclothed,' serves to this sense, that although we be thus burthened, it is not upon the load hereof, that the saints do deteiminately desire to be unclothed, no ; if that were all, this alone would not be prevalent with us. And so it is as if he had said. We groan being burdened : not that we would be unclothed simply for ease from them, not upon that consideration alone or chiefly. Thus Beza renders the coherence: Kon tadet nos vitcB ipsius, not that we are weary of life, viz., by reason of our burdens, sed futures desiderio ardemus, but we are inflamed with desires after that other life to come. So as thongh it be said, we groan being burdened, as we have reason, and that may also be taken in to help forward such our desires, even as lesser aims, that alone would not be eflectual to move unto such or such a thing, do yet contribute together with a greater one. So here, our burdens are but the less principal; they are not that which alone or chiefly do sway, they are far from making up the full motive, why we should desire to die. They indeed may and ought to be considered, and it was fit the apostle should make mention of them, for the reasons before specified, when we opened the import of what was in that word; yea, they are some kind of ingredient motives thereunto, especially when we have so great a glory, as the certain consequence of death, in our view ; but yet otherwise these hold no balance. And you may observe how these words, ' not for that we would be unclothed,' come instantly in as treading upon the heels of the before-mentioned, 'being burthened,' as a correction and allay, as if he had spoken too much in saying, ' we groan being burthened.' And this would seem as if he were there upon the point of calling in again that word, at least, that though he let it stand, being (as we say) out, yet that he might not be misunderstood in it, as if that did cast the balance, he corrects the sense of it. No, says he; we would not be unclothed for

that, we are burdened, since that bears no weight comparatively in the scale. But more generous and glorious aims in the positive part weigh most, viz., that mortality should bo swallowed up of life. As if he had said, That of our burdens is not worthy of consideration in comparison of the other; they are but the smaller dust of the balance, too light to cast the scale; but it is that eternal weight of glory, which being dissolved we shall be assuredly possessed of, and which we have in our hearts and eyes, that mainly turns the balance ; whereas other men, especially the heathens in those times, if they were in a distress, and burdened, there was no other ho with them, but presently to die, so to avoid and escape out of their burdens, and so in a pet they were wont to die. This was ordinary amongst the gi'eat spirits among them.

But the Christians, who are more noble, have not so learned Christ, who himself gave us an example in this particular, who though a man of sorrows more than all other men, yet waited until he had finished the work his Father had given him to do, and until his time was come, yea, and also prayed not that we should be taken out of this world, namely, until the time appointed by the Father. Therefore, we that are in this tabernacle by God's appointment, set and placed there, as sentinels or perdues in war, are patiently to endure those burdens, as chastisements for our sins, which God brings upon us, or which by sinning we have brought upon ourselves. We are to endure them also to honour the profession of our religion, and with submission to the will of God to wait his time of deliverance, which we ought not to anticipate; we ought to attend the time which he hath fore-appointed, being well assured that of all things outward (which God hath taken upon him to determine in this world), the time of saints their being in the body is the most wisely set and fixed of all others. For if of men in general it be said, Job. vii. 1, ' Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth ?' then especially of holy men, that are so dear to God, whose death is said therefore to be precious to him, and therefore the time of their lives must needs be so too ; for in relation to their lives, their death is said to be precious, when and how he will appoint it. ' My times are in thine hand,' says Davidj; ' Our breath and all our ways,' says Daniel. Thus of all mankind the saints, ' whether they live, or whether they die, ai-e the Lord's,' Rom. xiv. 8 ; the Lord's in a special manner, and by a special property, and interest in them. He is a sovereign Lord both of time and of them, as he that is the grand master, and lord, and disposer of life, who * hath the keys of death,' and to whom ' belong the issues of death,' and therefore the saints are quietly to ' wait all the days of their appointed time;' and for this cause they do not, nor dare not, out of a weariness, or burden of life, desire to be unclothed ; though when death shall come, and God's will therein be manifested, they then will and do relieve themselves with the thought of being eased from those burdens, which are therefore in this argument here mentioned. And this, as it is the true posture of a truly instructed Christian, especially when assured of God in Christ, so it is the meaning and drift of the apostle in this place.

It is to this purpose observable, how to the end to shew that those persecutions and burdens are not the predominant incentives, or fomenters of such vehement desires of death, he in the 6th and 8th verses doth in his own name, and in the name and behalf of true Christians, in the conclusion utter their spirits thus : ' Therefore we are always confident,' or ' daring,' as the word imports. Then he says it a second time, verse 8; that is, our spirits do indeed rise up the more, and are steeled against all encounters,

come what will come through the will of God upon us. Indeed, we have a boldness in all, because if the worst come that can come, we know the certain issue. So far then are true Christians from pusillanimity, or shrinking of their spirits into that hole of death, as an evasion from their incumbent burdens, that there is a boldness and erection, or insurgency of spirit raised up against all these, as more than conquerors in them, and all by reason that we know (as he had said, verse 1), ' If our earthly tabernacle be dissolved,' we are secured and insured, ' we have an house in heaven.' And this speech in verse 6 and verse 8 doth come in as an inference from this doctrine, taught from the first verse downwards.

We being then set in this world by God, to live to him and unto his glory, and to abide his time and will for so doing, as Christ did ; nay, we being set in the midst of sufferings, ought to eye him, his will, his glory, and to have our desires so poised by our judgments, that though our desires run out in groanings to be swallowed up of life for our own happiness, yet our wills, as they are thus poised by our judgments, will return this modest answer which immediately follows in verse 8, ' We are willing rather to be absent from the body,' though as it follows there, it is ' to be present with the Lord.' Unto this last issue and determinate upshot doth all come, to be ' willing rather.' Indeed, the afiectionate part in their groans is vehement and ardent, but the determining and resolving part in their wills is moderate, and is uttered but by a rather, a little more than indifierence. And therefore, as if he had uttered too much confidence in the other word, ' we are always confident,' he corrects it by a softer expression, ' we are willing rather ;' for this consideration, after mentioned by their wills, deliberately rises in the greatest vehemency by the breakings in of glory upon them, as being men in a strait between two, like as a needle equally distant between two load-stones. As the apostle speaks of his own desires, Philip, i., there is such a mixture of considerations meet in it, as though they have great affections rise up one way, yet they are checked again with the thoughts of God's will, that they should do him service by their lives, which make them but ' willing rather.'

And the opening of this negative part of the apostle's vindication and renuntiation of these lower ends, argues a more noble, elevate, and generous temper and frame of spirit. And we gave* a character of a true Christian, worthy of the profession of our Christianity, whereof all other professions do fall short; and answerably this interpretation, that I have driven in this 4th verse, speaks of far greater spiritualness, suited to a gospel spirit by far, than that they should be supposed to desire a change without dying at all, such a desire having a foundation only in that loathness to die, which is so natural to us.

CHAPTER X.

The imsitive ground or reason uhy a Christian desires dissolution is, that the ueak and sinfxd life uhich he now lives may he swalloued up of an heaveidy and eternal life.

That which is next to be considered is, the positive account of what is the predominant reason and respect upon which we Christians groan for dissolution. ' But for'—this we have in these words,—' that we would be clothed * Qu. 'liave'?— Ed.

upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life;' in which are two things to be attended.

1. His expressing of that glorv upon dissolution under the same metaphor he had before taken up in ver. 2, and in the same sense and extent he had there used it in. It is as if the apostle had said, The aim of us Christians is not simply to die, and be unclothed, but that our souls be clothed upon with that glory which, upon our unclothing, is prepared for us; he intending * clothing upon' in the same and no other sense in this verse than he had used it in the second verse, this verse being a repetition of the substance of that. How being * clothed upon' in that second verse respects the glory of the soul at dissolution, and is thus termed a clothing upon, in respect unto the soul's first having been clothed with holiness in the time of this life, as the preparation to it, I have before largely explained and proved in the opening of that verse second, to which I refer the reader.

2. The second thing to be considered is, what is the issue or consequence, and likewise what is the aim, of being thus clothed upon? It is to have the mortality in which we live swallowed up of life ; which doth more really explain what is the substance of the soul's aims in its groaning, than what [is] described under the dark metaphor of being * clothed upon.' Herein he speaks plainly, and not in parables or metaphors, and interprets what he means by clothing upon. For indeed this latter clause, * mortahty being swallowed up of life,' doth swallow up into itself all that had been said of glory in the foimer words; for, 1, it oppositely answers unto the words, * we groan being burdened.' In the substance thereof is this word mortality, which is the opposite to this of life, and it includes and takes up into itself all those burdens the soul had, under that word burdened, complained of, as the subject-matter it groans to have swallowed up and abolished. 2. These words, ' swallowed up of life,' speak the whole spirit and quintessence of that glory which that other metaphor, of being clothed upon, can be supposed to intend. It is life, says the apostle, pure life; a life so rich, so overflowingly abundant, as by the overcoming vehemency thereof it doth in an instant consume all that is evil or mortal in the soul, and all misery and imperfection appertaining to that condition which it had whilst in the body.

There are two principles in a holy soul fore-mentioned which do carry it forth unto these aspirements.

1. The grace and holiness it is clothed withal, ver. 2, 3, which, being but an imperfect preparation to glory, maketh it restless to be clothed upon fully with that which is its sole perfection, even as naturally as matter prepared and disposed useth to long after that form which it is prepared unto. And this is more plainly insinuated in the next verse: ver. 5, ' Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.' It is what hath been wrought in us.by God, that puts us upon this desire of being clothed upon.

2. The second principle upon which a Christian desires dissolution is, the taste which a soul hath already had of an heavenly life here, which the words groaning and desiring do import, that taste being the drawer forth of those desires after a more full and perfect enjoyment of that life in God. Thus speaks the psalmist, * if so be you have tasted how good the Lord is;' and to the same purpose he says in another place, ' Thy loving-kindness is better than life.' These sweet sippings the soul hath had : a little further lift, says one, would have lift my soul to heaven. They do enthirst the soul unsatisfiedly to desire to drink down the whole of that sweetness and

blessedness that is in God, or rather (as the word here in the Greek signifies) to be drunk up of that life itself, as a drop is by the ocean.

Thus 3'ou have seen the inwards of a Christian, the secretest workings of his heart and aflections in his desires of death cut up before you, as by a two-edged sword, that divides bet^Veen the negative, what not, and the afHrmative, which declares ivhnt are a Christian's principal motives herein. This gives demonstration of the nobleness of a Christian spirit; and the apostle turns this flaming sword both ways. And indeed then a matter comes to be fully cleared, when that which is spurious, false, and counterfeit, and yet hath an appearance of truth, is separated from what is true and genuine; which our apostle hath here performed, even as in other aflections (to discover the spiritualness of them) it is his wont to do. Thus in point of godly sorrow and mourning for sin (which is a most spiritual disposition, when rightly stated, as it flows in a Christian's heart), in this very Epistle, he thus speaks, chap. vii. 9, 10, ' I rejoice not that ye were made sorry, but that ye were made sorry to repentance, for ye were made sorry after a godly manner.' It is turned both ways, you see (even as here), negatively and affirmatively, so to express with all clearness the genuine spiritual temper of that grace, with difference from all other sorrow, though for sin. And both alike are distinguished; this here, and that of godly sorrow there. ' I rejoice,' says he, not simply ' that ye were made sorry,' although it were for sin ; and in like manner says he here, ' not for that we would be unclothed,' as simply so considered, or merely to be eased of our burden ; so the negative in both are parallel. And then there giving the true and proper positive ground of that sorrow, he says that he rejoiced that they ' sorrowed after a godly manner.' And here in this text he ansvv-erably gives the positive ground of a Christian's groaning, viz., to be ' clothed upon, and swallowed up of life.' And thus the positive principle in both are parallel also. And so that text of 2 Cor. vii. 9, 10 most aptly serves to illustrate this text of 2 Cor. v. 4.

The interpretation of these words, ' that mortality might be swallowed up of life,' will best be managed by way of assoiling or answer to one of the greatest difficulties or objections that doth or may occur against this interpretation of mine, which I have again and again given—an objection which hath even almost universally induced interpreters to another exposition.

The first difficulty or objection lies thus, that this phrase is used of the resurrection of the iDody : 1 Cor. xv. 54, ' When this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death shall be swallowed up in victory.' And therefore, say they, this verse must be intended of the change of the body at the resurrection (for that is the argument the apostle treats of in that chapter, and thereunto is this speech of swallowing up applied); even then when there will be the last and total change and consummation of all mortality whatsoever. And the word ' swallowing up' imports with it also both a sudden and a complete change, a totality, a consummation, which is not made of all mortality until the resurrection. And I confess that ^stius his so pungent urging the parallel of the phrases there and here, that the phrase there carrying it to the general resurrection, therefore it should be so here, did the most stick with me of all objections else to move me to think that the glory of the resurrection should only be intended in this place also. It is also to be considered that it is the body which is in common acceptation the sole subject of mortality, as here the word is translated ; as also that until that day there is not a final swallowing up of mortality.

But on the other hand I found that there is at death a * mortal,' rh ^rizhv, and that which truly and in a most just sense is to be termed a death, which at dissolution is done away ; yea, and a far greater death than what is removed at the resurrection of our dead bodies. And this death is then swallowed up with as much suddenness, and with as great a vehemency of power, as shall in the resurrection be put forth upon our bodies. And this death is then swallowed up by a life which is trauscendently such, and only deserves, in some respects, the name of life; and into which now at dissolution the soul is taken up, and swallowed up withal. These considerations made me still adhere to this my interpretation. It may be farther added, that this phrase ' swallowed up,' &c., here, is at least as apphcable unto the change made upon the soul at death, as it is unto the change made upon our bodies at the resurrection ; and, indeed, is to be applied and intended of both. For if Calvin says it is uncertain of the two which was meant (although he professeth to incline unto our interpretation) thi'ough-out the whole of the apostle's discourse, then I dare be bold to say, if both may be meant, then both should be. It is and hath been a certain rule with me, that when a scripture doth equally, or some way alike, perpend or incline towards two acceptations of the words, and so may take in two senses that are not repugnant, that then it is to be in a latitude taken in both.

I shall therefore demonstrate that at dissolution there is a mortality swallowed up of life; and so the words are applicable as well unto the condition of the soul then, as at the resurrection they are applicable to the condition of the body.

1. In these words, ' this mortal,' we have the thing said to be * swallowed up.' And by reason of this word, those who are for the other interpretation think they have an advantage for them, because the soul is immortal, and so it cannot be said of it that ' mortality is swallowed up of life.' But most properly of the body at the resurrection, that phrase or words may be used.

But although the soul in the substance of it be immortal, yet take the condition of life which it now leads whilst in this tabernacle, and it may be most truly said it hath a mortality adhering to it, yea, inhering in it as the adjunct of it. There is a mortal state the person is in ; there is an animal life, as one calls it; there is a dying life, a hfe of death, in which as to_ a great part the soul now hves. And it is the present state, or this dying Hfe of the soul, which he here speaks of. For,

1. He speaks of that which we have in this tabernacle—* We that are in this tabernacle'—and so whilst we are in this tabernacle, we have a mortal body which we carry about with us, which shall be swallowed up. It is the present mortal body afore dissolution, as much as that future mortality after in the grave, he first points us unto.

2. What he had in the foregoing sentence expressed by burdens that accompanied this life, the same he intends and comprehends under the notion and name of mortal. And it is as if he had said. It is this mortal life that so burdens us. What is implied in both these expressions is that one and the same thing, though under two several words, which we groan at, longing to exchange them for the abundancy of that other life. And thus all the frailties and miseries that are now the adjuncts or tributes of this life, come into the total of this mortal life. For,

8. It is termed so, as it is set in opposition unto that other life (of which it is swallowed up), that which is hfe only, and only deserves the name of

life, the true and eternal life, life indeed. And as all those happinetsses and blessednesses, that are the concomitants of that state, are termed ' life,' so all the contrary miseries of this present sorry life we lead in the flesh, are .comparatively termed 'a mortal life,' or a dying condition. And you may observe how in that 1 Cor. xv. mortal there is set in opposition unto immortality, because the subject there that is said to be mortal are the dead bodies of saints, which are by the resurrection made immortal. But here it is opposed unto life in the quintessence of what is life. It is opposed to pure life, to the substance of eternal life, whereof the soul, we all know, is the immediate and most proper subject. And therefore oppositely this mortal or miserable life, which the soul leads in this body whilst we are in this tabernacle, is that which is stated ' the mortal' here ; insomuch as though the soul itself is an immortal spirit, yet the life it leads and lives in this body is (set those small twinklings of the life of grace aside) but a mortal, frail, dying life, that deserves the name of death rather than of life, which a gracious soul, being sensible of, therefore desires, and groans after this next change. In our ordinary language we use to say of dying, that it is the change of a mortal life for an immortal life.

Other proofs out of other scriptures for the analogy of this phrase are many. Consult that first fatal sentence against us. Gen. ii. 17, ' That day thou eatest, thou shalt surely die.' Did not Adam live after his eating the forbidden fruit nine hundred and thirty years ? how is he then said to have died that veiy day ? The meaning is, that from that day he entered into a state of a mortal life, insomuch as his whole life was but a lingering death, in regard of the frailties, miseries, and sorrows of it. It is the language also up and down in this very epistle. Eveiy danger a man is exposed unto is termed a death. In the very chapter afore my text, ' We that live are alwaj's delivered to death,' chap. iv. 11 ; ' in deaths oft,' chap, xi. 23. The like we have 1 Cor. ix. 10.* Every sickness is a little death, for it tends to death ; so every cross. All worldly sorrow of heart is a mortal thing, and so expressed, 2 Cor. vii. 10, ' Worldly sorrow causeth death' ; and sometimes it presently kills, as Nabal's heart died within him, 1 Sam. xxv. 37. Every worldly, carnal sigh and sorrow is a step towards death. Every infirmity hath a mortality in it, and gives a stroke at life ; for it is not the last blow fells the tree, but each, yea, every small one that takes away the least chip. Solomon hereupon plainly terms this present life ' a sick life ;' yea, Eccles. iv. 2, he terms it a life worse than death : ' Wherefore,' says he, ' I praised the dead, which are already dead, more than the living, which are yet alive ;' that is, I commended and valued the condition of a man that is outright dead, and put out of his pain, rather than of men living, but as between death and life, all whose motions are but throes to death, as those of a fish out of the water, its element. Now, forasmuch as he prefers death, his meaning evidently is that theii" life, in respect of the miseries that accompany it, hath in a true estimate more of what may be justly termed death than the mortal state of their tabernacle. So then, to be sure, there is 'mortal' enough in both these respects, which is fit matter to be swallowed up of life, and this at a godly man's dissolution.

I shall next consider the other phrase, * swallowed up,' which also is as

fitly applicable to this change at death, whether we consider the suddenness

of it, or the perfection of the attainments of the soul thereupon ; both which

this word imports as fully as it can be supposed to import them both at

* Qu. 'XV. 31'?— Ed.

the resurrection in 1 Cor. xiii. 10,' "When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.' The word -/.araiyrtdietrai is elsewhere translated ' destroyed,' ' abolished.' Thus in Rom. vi. 6, the apostle speaking there of the body of death which was crucified with Christ, says it is to • be destroyed,' which is at once suddenly, totally, perfectly done at death. And in the 8th verse of this 1 Cor. xiii. it is rendered ' vanished.' As the shadows do when tlie light comes in upon them, they disappear suddenly, in a moment, and perfectly. Thus that phrase there, ' done away,' and 'swallowed up' here, are in eflect all one; only there it is applied unto a doing away of what is imperfect, by a full perfection coming in upon it; even as the imperfect light of the very first dawn (if the sun were supposed to rise the next moment after that dawn) would be done away and swallowed up into perfect light in an instant. But this swallowing up here is applied also unto miseries, and frailties, and corruptions ; but the thing or matter itself comes all to one. For if there come in upon us such a perfection as doth away in an instant all imperfections of gifts and graces, and renders them perfect (whereof that speech, 1 Cor. xiii., is intended), then, to be sure, corruptions are done away together therewith, or else their graces would not be made perfect, as at death they are said to be by this life succeeding.

If the question be, Whether what is spoken in 1 Cor. xiii. be intended of the time of dissolution ?

The answer is fair on our side. For he speaks of that time when faith ceaseth and is turned into sight: ver. 12, ' Now we see through a glass darkly' (namely, by faith); * but then face to face : now I know but in part; but then shall \ know, even also as I am known. And now abideth faith.' But then faith, and the knowledge by faith, are done away, ver. 8. Now bring these words to the words of the apostle, in what follows my text. 2 Cor. V. 7, ' Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: for we walk by faith, and not by sight;' and so are absent, not seeing, as we are seen, face to face. But when we are ' absent from the body, and present with the Lord,' as ver. 8, then, as those that are present, we see face to face. So then, both places do speak of dying, and of the change that is made then : in the one, imperfections are said to be done away by what is perfect, and accordingly their souls are termed, ' spirits made perfect,' Heb. xii. 23 ; in this other, all miseries and burdens of a mortal life and condition are swallowed up. Thus then the phrase is matched, and that by the like (and indeed for substance the same); and that too in respect of the time of dissolution.

What is it that this mortal is swallowed up of ? It is swallowed up of ' life.' And upon a strict and narrow view and consideration, it will appear that it is more proper to apply this to the change of the soul at dissolution, than to that of the body at the resurrection. For what life is it ? rjj; (^^r,;, that life, the text calls it, that which only is true life : ' This is eternal life, to know thee the only true God, and him whom thou hast sent,' John xvii. And 1 John v. 20, ' This is the true God, eternal Ufe.' God and Christ is this life, who is the fountain of life: and • your life is hid with Christ in God,' Col. iii. 3. And of this life it is that the soul, the immortal spirit in man, is the immediate and proper subject, and capable thereof. The body hath but an overflow of it, viz., the shine of that brightness of glory which is in the soul, as the lantern shines with the light that is put into it; within the body is but a glory suitable to its capacity, as it is a body; but it is ' our hearts shall live for ever,' as Christ promiseth as the effect of

his death, Ps. xxii. 26. Now if it he such a pure life that is here said to swallow up this mortal (in the sense it hath been interpreted in), then that change which is made upon the single soul itself at death, when the soul alone exists, lies more fair to be intended. For this expression of life nakedly and barely speaks the very spirit and quintessence of that happiness which it then singly enjoys. It is a pure life of living in God, as knowing him, and seeing him face to face. You may observe in that 1 Cor. XV., when the change of the body is insisted on (whether the change of them that are alive, or of them that are dead, raised by a resurrection out of the grave), that there he expresseth that change of the body by an adjunct that is proper to the body: ' This mortal,' says he, ' shall put on immortality ; this corruptible, incorruption;' which are the opposite attributes of the old and new bodies : mortal and corruptible of the old, and immortality and incorruption of the new. But here he instead thereof says, life, that life (as hath been said) which is the proper happiness of the soul. Vor-stius,* who is of the other opinion, and would draw this verse and all the rest unto the change of the body, because of this word mortal, seems yet aware of this, and therefore takes on him to correct the apostle in his speech or saying, being ' swallowed up of life.' It should be rather (says he) svvallowed up of immortality, because that word would carry it to the change of the body. But, by his leave, the apostle, as on purpose, changeth the word in this Second Epistle, from what he had used in his First Epistle, and says, swallowed up of life; and life imports the substance, the essence of life, but immortality a continuance of that life. The one is the subject, the other the adjunct, and therefore these are mentioned as distinct, 2 Tim. i. 10.

And it doth indeed most elegantly and lively set out this great change of the soul's life made at death, that whereas, whilst it was in this tabernacle, it lived a sick, dying, mortal life ; for it is then taken up into the great element and fountain, both of souls and of life, to live in God, who is the Father of spirits and great element of souls, from whom they came and unto whom they return (as sparks do to their native element of fire); and who is the fountain of life (as the psalmist calls him), yea, life itself. So as by their being taken up unto him, they are of him, and by him, and into him swallowed up, even as darkness is swallowed up of hght; and indeed ' in him is light, and no darkness at all,' no death, no frailty, no sin. And therefore no sooner is a poor soul coming forth of the body, having yet had in itself (to that very instant) a body of death cleaving to it (like one of the palsy, half of him is dead, yea, quite dead), but this abundancy of life that is in God instantly shales off, works out all that filth, frailty, misery, and purifies and makes the soul white and perfect, and renders it to be all life, and joys, and activity in God, and it doth this in an instant; even as, on the contrary, men's natural spirits are licked up by a blast of lightning, or as if you should see a lump of metal, full of dross cleaving to it, cast into an hot furnace (made so vehemently hot as those are when bells are cast), you would see that fire in an instant purge away and consume all that dross, swallow it up, and assimilate the metal into itself, that the metal itself would appear all of it as fire itself. My brethren, this life of ordinances, and that communion we have with God therein, is but a dull furnace, our lusts melt slowly; yea, it is long ere we can get our hearts to melt in sorrow for them ; but this furnace of God's immediate presence, arrived unto at death, is a quick and fiery forge : melts, dissolves, separates the * Vorstius in locum.

soul from all its dross, imporfoction, corruption, and quits it of all in an instant; and further, makos as great a chango in it as if you should seo a diamond taken out (if you could suppose the sun had that virtue) of mud, and from a sink, and made to shine a glorious star in heaven ; to express all which the apostle most happily chose out this word, * swallowed up of hfe.'

I shall conclude, that if we will rightly and truly judge in this matter between these two, 1 Cor. xv. and this of 2 Cor. v., we must be sure to take and put these two together, both 'mortal' and ' swallowed up,' &c. And if wo compare that mortal that is swallowed up at death, with that mortal that is swallowed up at the resurrection, we shall find that at death there is a greater mortal (observe how I pitch on that) that is as a sacrifice to be swallowed up then, than there is by the resurrection. For here is a ' body of sin and death' swallowed up, besides all the casualties, calamities, miseries, obnoxiousnesses to sorrows, which, as so many mortal wounds that fester, will make an end of and swallow up this poor life in the end. But at the resurrection all the mortal that is swallowed up, is but the body taken out of its dust. There is no other mortal but this to be done away then ; for all these other mortals were taken away afore, at and upon the soul's departure from the body; and there is no other mortality then remaining to be swallowed up but this of the body only. I confess, indeed, that in this respect, that change at the resurrection will excel, inasmuch as it is the last act, and the consummation of all; and that then both soul and body will have a greater access and state of life and glory than the soul whilst separate had; yet still there will not be so great a swallowing up of so great mortality as there is at death, nor will it fitly be said that the life of the soul (that had a perfection of grace and glory afore the resurrection) is then swallowed up of life in so high comparison unto what it had afore ; but with respect of sinful corruption and mortality abolished, and so of spiritual life induced into the soul, there is at death that difier-ence as will justly .bear the style of a being swallowed up of life. And it is as sudden a change, and by as strong and vehement a power wrought in us, as at the resurrection.

CHAPTER XL

That as the soul is the immediate subject of grace, tvhich is a preparation to glory, and capable of it, so the soul is instantly, after its departure out of the body, received into that state of glory.

Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of his Spirit. —2 CoR. V. 5.

There is no point of more moment to all, nor of greater comfort to saints, than what shall become of their souls when they die. It is our next stage, and things that are next use more to atfect us. And, besides, it is the beginning, and a taking possession of our eternity.

That these words should aim at this ' self-same thing,' cannot be discerned without consulting the foregoing part of the apostle's discourse ; and yet I cannot be large in bringing down the coherence, having pitched upon what this fifth verse contributes unto this argument, which alone will require more than this time allotted, having also very largely gone through

the exposition of the foregoing verses elsewhere, and I now go but on where I left last. But yet to make way for the understanding the scope of my text, take the coherence in brief thus : » ^ In the 16th verse of the foregoing chapter (where the well-head of his {discourse is to be found) he shews the extraordinary care God hath of ' our ■ inward man,' to ' renew it day b}' day;' where inward man is strictly the soul with its graces, set in opposition unto our outward man, the body with its appurtenances, which he saith daily perisheth; that is, is in a mouldering and decaying condition.

In the first verse of this fifth chapter he meets with this supposition,

but what if this outward man, or ' earthly tabernacle,' be wholly dissolved

and pulled down, what then shall become of this inner man ? And he

resolves it thus, that ' if it be dissolved, we have an house, a building of

G-od, in the heavens.' And what is the we but this inner man he had

spoken of, renewed souls, which dwell now in the body as in a tabernacle,

/ as the inmates that can subsist without it ? And it is as if he had said,

[ If this inward man be destituted of one house, we have another. God,

that in this life was so careful over this inner man, to renew it every day,

hath made another more ample provision against this gi'eat change. It is

^ but its removing from one house to a better, which God hath built. As

• yourselves (to speak in your own language) if wars should beset you, and

your country-house were plundered and pulled down, you would comfort

yourselves with this, I have yet a city-house to retire unto.

Neither is the terming the glory of heaven, and that as it is bestowed upon a separate soul, an house, alien from the Scripture phrase, Luke xvi, 9, ' That when you fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.' Death is a failing (it is your city phrase also, when a man proves bankrupt). A statute of bankrupt comes forth then upon your old house — statutum est omnibus semel mori —and upon all you have ; and then it is that there is a ' receiving' or entertaining that otherwise desolate soul ' into everlasting habitations,' that is, into 'an house eternal in the heavens,' as the text.

Nor yet is the phrase of terming heaven a city house remote neither; for, Heb. xi., ver. 13, Abraham and the patriarchs 'died in faith' (mark that). In faith or expectation of what ? He had told us, ver. 10, 'he looked for a city, whose builder and maker is God.' What is a city but an aggregation and heap of houses and inhabitants ? Multitudes had died afore Abraham, and gone to heaven, from Adam, Abel, Seth, downwards; and God promised him peace at his death, and a being gathered to those fathers. Gen. xv. 15. There was then a city built, and already replenished with inhabitants ; and, amongst others, an house provided for him, that is, his soul, built of God, and ready furnished against this removal.

In the second verse he utters the working of the aftections of Christians towards their being clothed upon with this house; and so in order to this enjoyment of it, their desiring even to be dissolved, which Paul also utters of himself, Philip, i. Now if the first verse speaks of the glory of a separate soul when he calls it an house, this second verse must intend the same.

In the third verse he gives an wholesale caution by the way, and withal insinuates why he used the word ' clothed upon' in the foregoing verse, thus speaking of the glory of such a separate soul, even because it is absolutely necessary that all our souls be ' found clothed' first, and 'renewed' with grace and holiness, and not be 'found naked' at our

deaths; that is, not devoid of grace, and so exposed to shame and wrath, as Rev. xvi. 15.

Tlic fourth verse gives a genuine and sincere account why a Christian doth thus groan, and that after dissolution itself, in order to this glory, which he sets out with an accurate distinction of their desires of dissolution in difference from like desires in all other men. First, nerialivelij, not for that being burdened we desire to bo unclothed or dissolved, that is, simply for ease of those burdens; nor out of a despising of our bodies we I now wear, as their heathen wise men and philosophers did, and others do. No. But, secondly, posiiirch/, for this, as the top-ground of that desire, that ' we would be clothed upon with that house' (spoken of verse 1, and that still taken in the sense spoken of in the 2d verse), to the end that this mortal, animal life which the soul (though immortal in itself) now leads in the body, full of sins, clogged with a body of death and miseries (each of which hath a death in it), and so it lives but a dying life ; that this life may be exchanged, yea, swallowed up, by that which is life indeed, the only true life, the knowing God as we are known, and enjoying him; all which, as to our souls, is truly performed at our dissolution, although the final swallowing up the mortality of our bodies also doth yet remain to be accomplished; which will be done at the latter day, at that change both of body and soul, though in respect of the body it will be completed as then more fully.

The current of the four former verses running thus steadily along in this channel, the stream in this verse continues still the same.

There is one word in this verse— ilg aurb touto, ' for the self-same thing' God hath wrought us—which serves as a clue of thread drawn through the windings of the former verses, to shew us that one and the same individual glory hath been carried on all along, and still is in this verse also. So then we see where we are.

What this self-same thing should be, ask the first verse, and it will tell you ; it is that house eternal in the heavens, a building of God, prepared by him against the time that this earthly house is dissolved. Ask the second verse; it is the same house we groan to be clothed upon with, when the other is pulled down. Ask the fourth verse; and more plainly, it is that life which succeeds this mortal life the soul now lives in this body, and swallows up all the infirmities thereof. And then here it follows, ' Even for this self-same thing,' &c. So then, if the glory of the separate soul be the subject of any of these verses, then of all, and so of this verse also.

And to be sure it cannot be that extraordinaiy way of entrance into glory by such a sudden change, both of soul and body into glory at once, without dissolution, should be the self-same thing here aimed at. For it was not the lot of any of those primitive Christians, of whom the Holy Ghost here speaks this, ' he hath wrought us for this thing,' that they should be in that manner changed, and so enter into glory; but the contrary. For they all, and all saints since for these sixteen hundred years, have put off" their tabernacle by death, as Peter did, and speaks of himself, 2 Pet. i. 14, and therefore the Scripture, or Holy Ghost, foreseeing, as the phrase is, Gal. iii. 8, this change would be their fate, would not have uttered this of them, ' God bath wrought us for this,' whom he knew God had not designed thereunto.

Neither is it that those groaning desires spoken of in the foregoing verses, 2-4, is ' that self-same thing' here (as some would), for indeed,

as Musculus well, if the apostle had said, ' He that hath wrought this thing in us,' &c., that expression might have carried it to such a sense; but he saith, ' He that wrought us for the self-same thing;' and so it is not that desire of gloiy in us is spoken of, but us, ourselves, and souls as wrought for that glory.

If it be asked. What is the special proper scope of these words, as touching this gloiy of the soul ? the answer in general is to give the rational part of this point, or demonstrative reasons to evidence to believers, that indeed God hath thus ordained and prepared such a glory afore the resurrection. And it is as if the apostle had said, Look into your own souls, and consider God's dealings with you hitherto, viz.:

1. The operation of his hands. For what other is the meaning or mystery (says he) of all, that God is daily so at work with you in this life ? What else is the end of all the working of grace in you, and of God that is the worker ? This is his very design: ' he that hath wrought us' (that is, our souls) ' for this very thing is God.'

Besides the evidence the work gives, there is also, over and above, ' the earnest of the Spirit' given to your souls, now whilst in your bodies, in joy, full of glories of the same kind (as earnests are) of what fulness of glory they are both capable of then, and shall be filled with, when severed from your bodies : ' who hath also given us the earnest of the Spirit.'

We preachers have it in use, as to allege proofs of Scripture for the points or subjects we handle, so to give reasons or demonstrations of them. And so doth our apostle here of this great point he had been treating of. And such reasons or demonstrations run often upon hai-mony and congruity of one divine thing or truth kissing another; also upon becomingnesses or meetnesses, that is, what it becometh the gi'eat God to do. For instance, in giving an account why God, in ' bringing many sons to glory,' did choose to efi'ect it by Christ's death, rather than any other way,' ' It became him,' says he, Heb. ii. 10, ' for whom are all things, and by whom are all things,' &c. And so in the point of resurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 21, ' Since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead ;' that is, it was congruous, hai-monious, it should thus be ; the one answering con-espondently to the other. The like congruity will be found couched here, in God's bringing souls to glory afore that resurrection.

Xow there are two sorts of harmonious reasons couched in the forepart of these words, ' He that wrought us for this is God.'

1. That it is finis operis et operantis, the end of the work itself upon us, and of God as an efficient working for an end. God hath wrought on us for this very thing.

2. It is opus digmim Deo authore, a work as he is the great God, and as a thing worthy and becoming of God as the author of it. He that hath wrought us for this thing is God.

There is a third point to be superadded, and that is, it is the interest of all three persons : which, how clearly evidenced out of the text, will appear when I have despatched these former doctrines.

Obs. That it is a strong argument that God hath provided a glory for separate souls hereafter, that he hath wrought us, and wrought on us a work of grace in this life.

Ere the reason of this will appear, I must first open three things natural to the words ; which will serve as materials out of which to make forth that argument.

1. That the thing here said to be wrought is grace or hoHness, which is

a preparation i:nto glory. (1.) Grace is the work: and so, Phil, i. G, termed, ' the good work.' A frame of spirit, ' created to good works :' Eph. ii. 10, ' We are his workmanship, created unto good works." The text here says, ' who hath wrought us.' There similarly, ' We are his workmanship.' And (2.) secondly. This work is a preparation to glory: for, for one thing to be first wrought in order to another, is a preparation thereunto. Now, saith the text, ' he hath wrought us for this thing ;' and Rom. ix. 23, it is in tcnninis, ' the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared to glory ;' which was by working holiness : for it follows, ver. 24, ' even us whom he had called.' Likewise, Col. i. 12, ' who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.' Meet, by making us saints. So then, ' had prepared,' ' hath made meet,' is all one with who ' hath wrought us for this thing.'

2. What is the principal subject wrought upon, or prepared and made meet for glory ? It is certainly the soul, in analogy to the phrase here. We use to say (when we speak of our conversion), since my soul was wrought on. And though the body is said to be sanctified, 1 Thes. v. 23, yet the immediate subject is the soul; and that primitively, originally : the body by derivation fi-om the soul. And hence it is the soul (when a man dies) carries with it all the grace by inherency : ' All flesh is grass, which withers ;' that is, the body with all the appurtenances, saith Peter, 1 Epist. i. 24. But you, having ' purified your souls,' being 'born again of incorruptible seed' (our bodies are made of corruptible seed, which is the opposition there), ' by the word of God, which lives and abides for ever: And this is the word' he says he means) ' which by the gospel is preached' every day * unto you,' ver. 25, and by preaching is engrafted in your souls, ' purifying your souls,' ver. 22. In no other subject doth that word, as preached, for ever abide. For the body rots, and in the grave hath not an inherent, but a relative holiness (such as the episcopal brethren would have to be in churches consecrated by them), because once it was * the temple of the Holy Ghost,' who dwells in us.'

And that it is the soul the apostle hath here in his eye, in this discourse of his in my text, as that which he intends the subject here wrought upon, appears, if we consult the well-Jiead of his discourse about the soul, which is the 16th verse of the 4th chapter. • Our inward man,' says he, ' is renewed,' &c. (there is your wrought upon here), ' whilst the outward' (the body)' perish-eth.' Which soul, in being called ' the inward man,' connotates at once both grace and the soul conjunct together, and distinct from the body, as well as from sin and corruption. Elsewhere it is declared the subject first and originally wrought on: Eph. iv. 23, 'Be renewed in the spirit of your minds.' Look round about the text, and what is the us wrought on ? Plainly this inward man, by the coherence afore and after. Ask verse 1, ' If our earthly tabernacle,' that is, our bodies,' ' be dissolved, we have,' &c., that is, this inner man, our souls, have ; for the body is supposed dissolved. So likewise, verse 4, ' we in this tabernacle,' that is, our souls in these bodies. More expressly after, verse 8, our very souls, not only whilst in our bodies, but when separate from our bodies, have the we given them ; ' We are willing to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.' The we present with the Lord, and absent from the body, is, nor can be, no other than a separate soul in its estate of widowhood. And so here, verse 5, hath wrought us : the soul bears the person, carries away the grace with it.

3. Add to this the time here specified in the text in which we are

•wrought upon; it is but this life, and during the term thereof. ' Hath wrought us,' says the apostle; not in the future, ' who shall work us' for it ;* that hath tcrouyht, referring to the work of conversion at the first: ' Who hath made us meet to be partakers,' &c.. Col. i. 12 ; and who doth continue still to work us, the preterperfect being often put by the apostle for the present, God ' renewing the inner man day by day,' chap. iv. 16. so working upon it, in order to this self-same thing continually. Unto which words there, these here have an evident aspect, yet so as that time of working is but during this life; for it is whilst the outward man is mouldering, and that by afflictions, which during this moment work an eternal,weight of glory, ver. 17. And that is expressly said to be but this present time, Rom. viii. So then there is no parabit in that other world ; but, as Solomon says of man, there is no work after this life, Eccles. ix. 10; no remembrance, says David, Ps. vi. 5; namely, which hath any influence into a man's eternity ; so there is no working upon us in order thereunto after death; God hath done his do, hath icrour/ht, and man hath finished his course; as Paul of himself, and in this chapter of my text, ver. 10, ' Every man receiveth the things done in his body, be they good or evil.' Those things that are done in this body only; therefore only what in this life he hath wrought. And for this he hath wrought us, says the text.

These things premised, I come to the argument to be raised out of them, to prove the point in hand.

1. That because gi-ace or holiness are immediately wrought in the soul, therefore, when the body dies, the soul shall be taken up into life. That this is a meet and congruous ordination of God, the Scriptnre itself owns, and seems so to pitch the reason of it in Piom. viii. 10, 11: ' And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.' He gives an account of what is to become hereafter both of the bodies and souls of them in whom Christ is. (1.) For the body that is condemned to die, 'the body is dead because of sin.' By body, I understand the same which he in the 11th verse terms the mortal body to be raised up, which, says he, is dead, that is, appointed to die, as one sentenced to death you term a dead man. And this ' because of sin.' It was meet that that first threatening of dying should have some efiect to evidence the truth of God therein. Only God is favourable in his ordination in this, that he arresteth but the body, the less principal debtor. But that (to be sure) shall pay for it: 'It is appointed to all men once to die,' even for men that are in Christ, as this place of the Ptomans hath it. Then (2.) follows, what remains, the soul of such an one when the body dies. ' But,' says he (speaking by way of exception, and contrary fate too), 'the Spirit is life, because of righteousness.' The Spirit is the soul in contradistinction to the body. This, when the body dies, is life; he says not livim/ only, or immortal, but is swallowed up into life. And why ? ' Because of righteousness,' which is Christ's image; and so preserves, and by God's ordination, upon dying, elevates the soul, which is the immediate and original subject of it, which is the point in hand. For this thing it is God hath wrought it. But then, because the query would be, Shall this body for ever remain dead because of (this first) sin, and bear this punishment for ever ? No. Therefore (3.) he * Observa quud non in future dicit, ^jarahit nos. Non demum paraliiur ; ubi jam induendum est, &c.— Muse, in locum.

adds, ' Ho that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies.' So at last, and then bringing both body and soul together unto complete glory.

And the congruity of reason that is for this appointment is observable, something like to that 1 Cor. xv., 'As by man came death, so by man came also the resurrection from the dead,' For that sin that condemned us to this death we had from the first Adam by bodily generation, as the channel or means of conveying it, who was (as Heb. xii.) ' Father of our flesh.'

The arrest therefore goes forth against the body which we had from that Adam, because of that sin, conveyed by means of our bodies; for though I must not say the body defiles the soul, or of itself is the immediate subject of sin, yet the original means or channel through which it comes down and is derived unto us, is the generation of our bodies. The body, therefore, congruously pays for this, and the death thereof is a means to let sin out of the world, as the propagating it was a means to .bring sin in; but an holy soul or spirit, which is the ofi'spring of God, having now true holiness and righteousness from the second Adam communicated to it and abiding in it, and being not only the immediate subject thereof, but further, the first and original subject from and by which it is derived unto the body; the womb, into which that immortal seed was first cast, and in which the inward man is formed, and in respect of a constant abiding in which it is that seed is termed incorruptible. Hence, therefore, says God of this soul, ' It is life.' It shall live when this body dies. There is nothing of Christ's image but is ordained to abide for ever. * Charity never fails,' 1 Cor. xiii. 8; his ' righteousness endures for ever,' 2 Cor. ix. 9; and therefore is ordained to conserve and elevate unto life the subject it is in, and that is the soul. This, as a foundation of the substantial parts of this first reason, out of this one scripture, thus directly and explicitly holding this forth.

I come, 2, to the argumentation itself, which ariseth out of these things laid together. (1.) That the soul is the immediate subject of grace. (2.) The first and primitive susceptive thereof. (3.) And itself is alone and immediately capable of glory, which grace is a preparation to. And (4.) that God, afore our deaths, hath wrought all of grace he intends to work in preparation to glory. Out of all these a strong argument doth arise, that such a soul upon death shall be admitted unto glory, and not be put to stay till the time of the resurrection, when both soul and body shall be joined again together. And that this holdeth a just and meet con-veniency upon each, or at least all these grounds when put together,

(1.) Consider the soul as the immediate subject of this working and preparation for glory. Hence, therefore, this will at least arise, that the inherency or abiding of this grace wrought in this soul depends not upon its conjunction with the body, but so as it remains as an everlasting and perpetual conserver of that grace stamped on it; yea, and carries it all with itself, as a rich treasure innate unto wherever it goes, when separate from the body. I say, it either hath in it, or appertaining unto it, all that hath been wrought for it, either in it or by it. Rev. xiv. 13, ' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord : and their works do follow them.' They go to heaven with them, and after them. And in what subject else is it that the seed of God remains incorruptible, 1 Peter i. 23, or the word of God abides for ever? ver. 25. Or how else comes that saying to be performed, 1 John ii. 17, ' He that doth the will of God endures for ever' ? Having therefore all these riches by it, and as complete (as here it shall be), meet

VOL. VII. D d

it is it should partake the benefit thereof, and live upon them, now it is single and alone, and in its widow's condition. And it is an opportune season, that by a glory given it for that holiness, this should appear, that it was the soul which was the sole intrinsic and immediate receptive of all this holiness. This the first. Add also,

(2.) Its being the first and primitive subject of holiness, from which it is derivatively in the body. Meet it was this soul should not be deferred till the appurtenance of it be united to it, but be sei-ved first, and admitted into that glory ordained ; and by having itself first possession given of that inheritance, the body might in its season be admitted derivatively thereinto from it, after that renewed union with it by the resurrection.* Reason good, that look as in priority gi-ace, the preparation unto glory, was ■wTOUght, so in that order of priority gloiy itself should be communicated. And therefore seeing its fate is to abide awhile alone, therefore first to enjoy and drink both the juice and the fruit of that vine it is the root of.

And (3.) it being in itself, when separate, as immediately capable of this glory, as when it shall be again united to the body ; for what is the essential of glory, the substance of that life that swallows up all, but (as we said on ver. 4) God's immediate presence, and our knowing him face to face as we are known ? Kow of this the apostle doth in the 6th, 7th, and 8th verses expressly inform us, that the separate soul is not only capable thereof, but that it then begins to enjoy it: ' Therefore,' says he, ' we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are in the body, we are absent from the Lord (for we walk by faith, not by sight): we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord ;' where to be ' present with the Lord,' and to ' live by sight,' is expressly made the privilege of a soul absent from the body, which can mean no other state than that of the soul between the death of the body and the resurrection. For whilst it is present in the body afore death, it is absent from the Lord; and when it shall be present with the Lord, after the resurrection, it shall not then be any more absent from the body. This conjunction therefore of absent from the body and present with the Lord, falls out in no state else, but only in that interim or space of time between. And let us withal view this place in the light (by bringing the one to the other) which that passage, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, doth cast upon it: ' For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face : now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.' To ' see as in a glass, darkly' there, is to ' walk by faith' here : but to ' see face to face,' and to ' know God as we are known' (so there) is all one; and to attain to sight, and to be in Christ's presence (here). And to be sure the body is in no estate whatever capable of knowing God as we are known of him; none durst ever aflirm that. For besides that the spiritual knowledge of God is proper to an intellectual nature ; further, so to know God as God knows us, and so to be elevated to the similitude of God's understanding, is not communicable to the body. We may as well dare to afiirm God himself to be a body, as that our bodies are capable of ever being raised up thus to know God. Hence therefore, whether the soul be out of the body, as after death, or so in the body as it shall be after the resurrection, yet still it is the soul that is immediately alone capable of that sight and knowledge

• Quin mag^s conveniens videtur ut animje in qiiibiis perprius fuit culpa et meri-tum, prius etiam puniantur vel prsemientur.— Aquinas cont. Gent. lib. 4. cap. 81. sect. 3.

of Goil. And therefore seeing it depends not on the hody, it is as well capahlo of it afore the resurrection without the body, as after the resurrection in the bodj\

Only this must be added, that whilst indeed the soul is * at homo in this body' (this earthly tabernacle), it is not capable of this sight of the glory of God, that is, so as to continue in the body and enjoy it, for it would crack this earthen vessel; as 1 Cor. xv. 50, ' Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.' And although Paul, as a standcr by, was an overhearer and an eye-witness (by way of revelation and vision) of what the spirits of just men in glory do enjoy, 2 Cor. xii. ; even as on the contrary the angels are often standers-by on earth, and overseers of us what is therein done (as the phrase is, Zech. iii. 7); yet he was not estated into it, or admitted a possessor thereof himself, no more than angels into an earthly estate, and therefore could not say whether the revelation vouchsafed him might not be in the body as well as out of it; whereas God had otherwise long since peremptorily determined that question, that no man could see God and live, that is, at once continue in this body and see him face to face. And Paul here in my text also determines it, that ' whilst we are at home in the body,' as now, ' we are absent from the Lord;' they are two incompatible estates ; but still when that which thus lets (this body) is taken out of the way, the soul itself is sufficiently capable, as truly as ever it shall be.

(■i.) But if this argument from these be yet judged not home enough, but short; then let us in the fourth place add what force the third premise will give to it concerning the time of God's working on its, to drive all closer home, namely, that God hath wrought upon the soul in this life all that he ever means to work by way of preparation for glory. ' For this thing God hath wrought us,' which though it might, with the enlargements and sub-arguments that now shall follow, be made an argument alone, yet I choose to cast it into this total to make the whole the more strong.

Therefore (4.) gather up the demonstrations thus; if the soul be the immediate and first subject of grace, which is a preparation to glory, and capable of this glory when out of the body ; and God the great agent or worker hath wrought all that ever he means to work in it this way, by way of preparation to glory ; then, as Peter said in the case of admitting the Gentiles to baptism. Acts x. 47, ' What should hinder' that these souls should not be glorified instantly when out of their bodies ? If indeed, as the papists, and corrupted Jews, and heathens have feigned, there were any work to be after wrought, a purgatory or the like, then a demurrer or caveat might be yet put in to suspend this their admission into glory ; but the contrary being the truth, then, &c. Now the strength of the argument from this latter, superadded to the rest, stands upon two strong grounds.

First, If we consider what is common to God in this with all other but ordinary wise eflicients or workers, that are intent upon their ends, which must be given to him, the only wise all-powerful God (who is here said, as an eflicient, to work us for this end). "When any ordinary efficient hath brought his work to a period, and done as much to such or such an end as he means to do, he delays not to accomplish his end and bring it to execution, unless some overpowering impediment do lie in his way to it. If you have bestowed long and great cost upon any of your children, to fit and prepare them for any employment, the university suppose, or other calling, do you then let these your children lie truants, idle and asleep at home, and not put them forth to that which you at first designed that their

education unto ? Will you suffer them (in this case) to lose their time; do you know how to do good to your children ? And doth not God ? We see God doth thus in nature. We say when the matter is as fully prepared as ever it shall be, that the form enters without delay; now grace is expressly termed a preparation to glory. Also God doth observe this in working of grace itself, when the soul is as fully humbled and emptied, and thereby prepared for the Lord by John Baptist's ministry, as he means to prepare it, the work of justifying faith presently follows. In all his dispensations of judgments or mercies he observes the same. When men's sins are at full (as of the Amorites), he stays not a moment to execute judgment; so in answering the faith of his people waiting on him for mercies. And thus it is for glory, ' I have glorified thee on earth' (the only place and condition of our glorifying God), ' I have finished the work thou gavest me to do ; and now' (what now, and presently now remained there, follows) * glorify me,' &c. Thus spake Christ our pattern.

Secondly, There is this further falls out in this case and condition of such a soul, as doth indeed call for this out of a kind of necessity, and not of congi-uity only. For whereas by God's ordination there are two ways of communion with him, and but two, unto all eternity: either that of faith, which we have at present; and of sight, which is for hereafter ; into these two the apostle resolves all God's dispensations to us; ver. 7 of this chapter, ' We walk by faith' (namely, in this life), ' not by sight.' And again, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, * JS^ow we see in a glass, then face to face.' These two, noxc and then, do di^^de the dispensations for eternity of time to come. The like in Peter, 1 Epistle i. 8, * In whom, though now you see him not' (as you one day shall), ' yet believing.' If therefore, when the soul goes put of the body, that way of communion with God by faith utterly ceaseth, 1 Cor. xiii. 8, the door and passage will be quite shut up ; God having fulfilled all 'the work of faith' (' the work of God,' John vi. 28) 'with power,' 2 Thes. i. 11, that ever he intendeth ; then surely sight must succeed acccording to God's ordination, or otherwise this would inevitably follow, that the soul would be for that interim, until the resurrection, cut off from all communion with God whatever, having yet all its acquired holiness of sanctification abiding in it, and righteousness accompanying of it all that while. Look therefore as a child hath two, and but two, ways of living, and when the one ceaseth the other succeeds, or death would follow—in the womb it lives by nourishment from the navel, without so much as breathing at the mouth ; but it no sooner comes into the world but that former means is cut off, and it liveth by breath, and taking in nourishment by the mouth, or it must instantly die—so stands the case with the soul here between faith and sight; so that we must either affirm, that the soul dies to all spiritual actings and communion with God until the resurrection, which those scriptures so much do contradict: ' He that believeth hath eternal life,' &c., and ' shall never' (no, not for a moment) ' die,' John viii. 51, chap. xi. 26 ; and in those promises it is not simply a sluggish immortality, but to live, and act, and enjoy God (which is our life) must needs be meant. Or we must on the other side affirm, that the life of faith ceasing, and God yet having that way wrought all that ever he intendeth, that then sight of God face to face must come in its place; which indeed the apostle in that 1 Cor. xiii. affirms in saying, ver. 10, ' When that which is perfect is come, then that which is but in part is done away.' There is not an utter ceasing of the imperfect, and then an interval or long space of time to come between ; and then that which is

perfect is to come ; but the imperfect is done away by the very coming of that which is thus perfect. And in the 12th verse ho explains himself, that the imperfect is this our ' seeing noiv in a glass darkly,' that is, by faith ; and that perfect to be that ' seeing God face to face,' as that which presently entertains us in that other world. Nay, the apostle admits not so much as a moment of cessation, but says, that ' the imperfect is done away,' ver. 10, and ' vanisheth,' as ver. 8, by the coming in of the perfect upon it; and so the imperfect, namely, faith, is 'swallowed up' of the perfect, namely, sight. Now if we thus grant (as we must) this separate soul to have this sight, or nothing now left it to enjoy God any way by, then it is no other than glory it is admitted unto ; for the sight of God face to face, and to know as we are known, is the very essence of glory, as it differs from faith. Neither indeed is that ultimate enjoyment or happiness in God, which souls shall have after the resurrection, any other (in name or thing) than the sight of God, as it is thus distinguished from faith, and therefore the soul is now admitted to the same enjoyment it shall be then for kind, although it shall be then raised and intended unto far higher degrees of perfection.

And for a conclusion, that which follows in that place lately cited out of 1 Peter i. 9, ' Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls,' may as fitly serve for the confirmation of all these latter foregoing notions as to any other sense interpreters have affixed.

I am aware how these words, ' Receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls,' are interpreted of that 'joy unspeakable and full of glory,' which the verse afore had spoken of: 'In whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory ;' so as in those joys vouchsafed the saints are said to receive the salvation of their souls, as being the earnest of it in the same kind, and so a part of the reward of faith received in hand (as we say), and vouchsafed over and above the ordinary way of living by faith. This interpretation I no way gainsay, nor will go about to exclude ; for I know it doth consist with that other I am about to give, and is subordinate to it; but if this sense should obtain that it were directly alone intended, yet by consequence, and at the rebound, it doth strongly argue the point in hand. For if whilst faith continues God is pleased to vouchsafe such joys, much more when faith ceaseth he will vouchsafe a fuller enjoyment; for why else are these present joys termed salvation ? That is, in a sort, part of the taking possession of salvation aforehand, and that is distinct from the right to salvation, which faith in ordinary gives without such joys at all times to all believers ; they have the name given them as being an earnest of the same kind, of that greater sum. And again, why are these present joys termed the salvation of their souls? But because they are intended by God, being also now wrought immediately in the soul, without the body's influence, to be an earnest that it is their souls when without their bodies shall have that fuller possession given them, and so this earnest assigneth this payment to be made to this legatee, the soul, specified as the first receiver of it. [2.] Every payment having a day or set time appointed for it, which the earnest obligeth the trustee unto, as well as to make payment itself, and useth to be at the end of the performance on his part to whom the contract is made, this therefore is as elegantly designed to be ' the end of their faith ;' there is the day of payment. And [3.] it would be hard to think that God should give forth joys whilst faith continues, and then for so long a time as till the resurrection withdraw all communication of

himself, l:oth of fiiith, and joy tlirongh sight also. Surely they are not left worse than in this life they were.

I also know the soul, being the eminent part of man, is often in Scripture, by a S} necdoche, put for the whole person. And I must not deny but that ultimately it is intended here, it extending itself to the whole of salvation first and last after faith ended ; which sense, on the other hand, many interpreters are tor.

I only contend for this, that the salvation of the soul is intended also of that salvation which falls out in the midst between these joys (the earnest) in this life, and that ultimate salvation at the resurrection, that is the salvation of the soul whilst separate, as being the next. It hath a weight in it that salvation and damnation should so often be said to be of the soul by Christ himself, as Mat, xvi. 2G, ' What shall it profit a man to gain the whole world' (and so provide for his body), ' and lose his own soul ?' and again, in speaking of the soul, as considered apart from the body. Mat. X. 28, ' Fear not them that are able to kill but the body, and are not able to kill the soul.' But that which is more conjunct to my purpose, it is observable that this our apostle Peter should choose to use in this Epistle, more than any other apostle, this phrase of sovl in relation to salvation, either as being the eminent subject, and sometimes as the single subject both of grace and salvation ; so in this chapter, ' You have purified your souls,' &c., as the immediate susceptive of the 'incorruptible seed' (as was observed). Then again, in chap. ii. 11, 'Abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;' and ver. 25, ' Ye are returned to the bishop'of your souls;' which he speaks as being the eminent part, and (upon separation from the body) the special charge he hath pastoral care of. And more directly to our purpose, chap. iv. ver. 19, he exhorts them when they come to die, ' to commit their souls to God,' as then being to be separate from their bodies. Now it were hard to think that this salvation to come should bear the title and name of the ' salvation of the soul' in this and other scriptures, Heb. x. 39, James v. 20 ; and that yet when this soul shall in the other world come to subsist for a long time single and alone, and then be properly and without figure a mere soul, without a body, a lonesome soul; that during that state it should not be the subject of this salvation, and so intended here, when more properly and literally, if ever, it is the salvation of the soul. And it would be yet more strange that the phrase, * salvation of the soul,' should be wholly restrained unto that estate of the soul when remitted to the body at resurrection, and only unto that. And that word the soul should serve only synecdochically as a part put to signify the whole man, as then it is to be raised up; but especially it were strangest of all, if it should be confined and limited in this place of Peter, wherein this salvation of the soul is set forth for the comfort of such as were to lay down their tabernacles of their bodies for Christ (as this Peter speaks of himself in the next Epistle) and whose faith was then to cease with their lives, M'hose expectations therefore he would in this case certainly pitch upon that salvation of the soul next, which is this of the soul separate. To confirm all which,

That which further invited me to this place was this phrase, * the end of your faith,' especially upon this consideration, that he speaks it unto ■• such Christians who in these times were (as he foretells, chap. iv. ver. 16) shortly to be martyred, and at present were sorely tried (ver. 7 of this chapter); and in the last verse of the fourth he thereupon instructeth and exhorteth them to ' commit their souls' (when they die) ' to be kept by

God.' And so, understood in a proper and literal sense, this ' salvation of their souls ' is in all respects termed ' the end of their faith.'

First, In that it is the next and immediate event that faith ends and determines in, as death is said to bo the end of life; so noting forth that when faith ends, this salvation of the soul begins and succeeds it. The end of a thing signifies the immediate event, issue, period thereof; as of wicked men it is said, ' whose end is destruction,' Phil. iii. 19; and Hob. X. 39, apostasy and unbelief are said to be a ' drawing back unto perdition ;' and, on the contrar}^ there faith is termed a ' believing to the salvation of the soul;' and both note out the final event and consequent of each, and salvation of the soul to be the end of faith, when men continue, and go on to believe, until their foith arrive at and attaineth this salvation of the soul. To this sense also, Rom. vi. 22, ' you have your fruit in holiness, and the end everlasting life.' And the apostle Peter, having in the foregoing verses celebrated the fruits and workings of their faith in this life, as in supporting them gloriously under the sorest trials, ver. 7, and then sometimes filling their hearts with 'joy unspeakable and glorious,' ver. 8, he here at last concludeth with ' what will be the end' or issue of it in that other Ufe, when faith itself shall cease, and what it is that then they shall receive, ' receiving,' after all this, ' the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls,' Kofii^C/Msvoi, in the present, by a frequent and usual enallage of time, being put for the future ; for ye shall receive (or being about to receive), to shew the certainty of it; that when faith shall end, you may be sure on't, even of that salvation (that ' great salvation' so spoken of by the prophets, ver. 10) of your souls, which as it hath no end to be put unto it, as faith hath, so no interruption or space of time to come between, during which your souls should not be actually saved ; a salvation of your souls singly, whilst through death they shall so exist, as well as of the same souls primarily, and more eminently, when both soul and body shall be reunited.

Secondly, ' The end of your faith,' that is, of your aims and expectations in your faith; the end importing the aim or expectation, which is also a proper and literal sense of that word. And upon this account also the salvation of the soul, when they should die, that being the very next thing their eyes must needs be vipon, is therefore here intended.

And, thirdly, ' the end of your faith ;' that is, as being that for which the gi-eat God'(who 'keeps us by his power through faith unto salvation,' ver. 5) hath wrought this faith in you. Accordingly, we find it termed «the work of faith,' 1 Thes. i. 3, which when God hath fully wrought, and brought to that degree he aimed at in this life, or, to use the apostle's own expression of it, 2 Thes. i. 11, when God hath ' fulfilled the work of faith with power,' he then crowneth it with this salvation of the soul without end. As James speaks of patience, when it hath had 'its perfect work,' chap. i. 4, compared with ver. 12 ; and so speaks my text, ' for this selfsame thing he hath wrought us.' And therefore when this faith shall cease, which he wrought for this, he will attain his end without delay; and you, says he, shall attain your end also. And faith thus ceasing, if this salvation of the soul did not succenturiate * and recruit it anew, the end of this faith were wholly and altogether present destructive loss unto the soul in its well-being until the resurrection.

Fourthly, The end signifies the perfection and consummation of anything, as Christ is said to be ' the end of the law,' Rom. x. 4 ; and so the meaning is, that your faith, which is but an imperfect knowing God, shall then, * To ' succenturiate' is to fill up the centuries or companies of an army.— Ed.

%Yhen it ceasetli, be swallowed up of sight (which is all one with that salvation here) tanqnam perfectihile, a perfection, as that which is imperfect is said to be by that which is perfect, 1 Cor. xiii. 10. Thus much for the literal and proper import of the word eiid.

Now, then, if we take the word end in its proper meaning, and the word sold likewise in its native proper meaning also, which sense in reason should be first served (when the scope will bear it), then it makes for that purpose more fitly which we have had in hand.

That nothing may be wanting in this last place cited to make up all the particulars in the foregoing sections insisted on, so it is that the apostle Peter doth further plainly insinuate that this salvation here consisteth in the sight and vision of Christ (which was one particular afore mentioned), accompanied with joy unspeakable and glorious. The coherence, if observed, makes this forth clearly ; for whereas in the verse immediately foregoing he had commended their present state of faith by this, ' Whom now, though ye see not, yet believing, rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious,' that ' )ioiv you see not' (in this life) is set in opposition, and carries a promise with it of a time to come wherein they should see, even as Christ said to his disciples, John xiii. 33 and 36 compared, ' Whither I go, I vow say to you ye cannot come, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.' So here ' 710W believing (which is the principle at the present which you live upon) ' you see him not,' but when the end of your faith shall come you shall then see him ; and in this it is consisteth the ' salvation of your souls.' So that still it carries on what I have afore spoken unto, that when faith ceaseth, sight cometh, yea, perfects and swallows it up, as was said even now out of 1 Cor. xiii.

And let me add this, that the apostle on purpose doth bring in the mention of this supereminent fruit of faith, even now when we see not, that ' believing, ye yet rejoice with joy unspeakable and glorious ;' on pui-pose, I say, to make way for the raising up their thoughts and apprehensions how infinitely transcending that salvation oi their souls must be, when faith ending, they attain to sight, to see him face to face whom their souls have loved. It is implicitly as if he had said unto them. Oh think with yourselves what joy, what glory that must needs be, which exceedeth and sur-passeth this that now accompanies your faith, in an answerable proportion, as much as sight of Christ's presence, and face to face, must be supposed to excel the knowledge of him by faith, w'hich sees him but as absent, darkly!

And further, give me leave to improve this notion; you may take this assured evidence, that your souls shall then see and enjoy God when your faith shall cease, which will be [when once your souls shall come to be separate from your bodies by death, in that even now in this life it is your souls and spirits that are the immediate receptives or partakers and subjects of such glorious joys.

The soul enjoys them, though in the body yet, without the help or concurrence of the body, or the phantasms of it. Yea, such raptures do ' pass understanding,' that is, the common way of understanding, which, by the use and help of the body, or images in the fancy, the mind exerciseth in other things, and which do concur with the understanding ordinarily in faith. But this joy falls into and is illapsed within the soul itself immediately ; yea, the weakness of your bodies and bodily spirits will not permit you to have so much of this joy as otherwise the soul is now capable of by faith. And therefore by this experimental taste aforehand in your

own souls, you may bo ascertained that your souls, when separate from your bodies by deatla, as well as when united again unto their bodies, shall enjoy this great salvation.

And thus much for the first point raised out of the words, which did undertake an argumentation for a separate soul's glory and happiness. (1.) From the coudition of the soul, as the immediate subject of grace wrought in it. (2.) From God's ordination of the work wrought, to raise the soul up to life, whilst sin should bring dissolution upon the body. (3.) From the scope of the worker, God himself, who as an efficient, will accompUsh the end, when his work for that end is finished. And all these as comprehended in what the very first view and front of the words of my text hold out, ' God hath wrought us for the self-same thing.'

CHAPTER XII.

The glory unto which the separate soul is received, demonstrated from this consideration, that God is the efficient of it.

But lo ! a gi-eater matter is here. It is not simply said, ' God hath wrought us for this;' but, ' he that hath wrought for this thing is God,' thereby calling upon us to consider, how great an hand or efficient is here, even God, who hath discovered in a transcendent manner his glory, in the ordaining and contriving of this work unto this great end. Take it not, therefore, as a bare demonstration given from God's working us to this end, such as is common to other agents (as hath been said); but further, a celebration of the greatness and glory of God, in his having contrived this with so high an hand, like unto the great God ; and is as if he had said, There is a design in this worthy of God ; he hath shewn himself in this to be the great God indeed. ' He that hath wrought us for this is God.'

When God's ordinary works are spoken of, it sufficeth himself to say, God did thus or this ; but when God's works of wonder, then often you find such an illustrious note of reflection upon, and pointing at him, to have done as God. And it is ordinary among men, when you would commend the known worth of the artist, to say, He that wrought this, is such a man, so to commend the workmanship.

And thus both when the Holy Ghost speaks of this glory itself (which is the end for which here), his style is, ' whose builder and maker is God,' Heb. xi. 10. And in like equipage here of preparation to that end, he saith, ' He that hath wrought us for this thing is God.' In this very chapter, 2 Cor. v. (to go no further), when the great work of salvation, in the whole of it, is spoken of, he prefaceth thus to it, ' All things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself,' &c. ; that is, in this transaction he hath appeared hke that God of whom all things else are, and so more eminently in this than in all, or at least any other, work. What there is said of salvation in the whole, is here of that particular salvation of a separate soul. You have the like emphasis put, Heb. ii. 10, ' of bringing many sons to glory;' ' it became him,' says the text. Now put all together, and the result is—

Obs. That to have provided a glory for separate souls of just men, wrought upon in this life, is a dispensation becoming the great God ; yea, and that there is an artifice and contrivement therein worthy of God, and like unto himself, such as he hath shewed in other his works of wonder.

There are two branches of this doctrine, which I set otherwise out thus:

1. That it is a thing becoming the great God, thus to deal with such a separate soul, having been wrought upon,

2. That God hath designed, and brings forth, therein a glorious artifice and contrivement, such as argueth him a God wise in counsel, and wonderful in working.

1. It becomes God. The account of this becomingness is best made forth, by comparing and bringing together into an interview, both the inward and outward condition of such a soul, and then the relations which God bears to it, such as should thereupon move him (through his good pleasure) thus to deal with it.

You know I at first undertook chiefly reasons of congruity or becomingness, and such always consist of two parts; and when the one answereth and suiteth to the other, then the harmony of such a reason is made up.

(1.) Let us therefore consider on the soul's part,

[l.j The species, the kind, and intrinsecal rank of being, which this creature we call the soul, thus wrought upon, stands in afore God.

[2.] The outward condition or case this soul is left in upon its parting with the body, unless God take it up into glory.

[1.] For its rank or kind of being, there are two things.

First, This soul was by its first creation a spirit, and that in the substance or native kind thereof, and in that respect (considered apart from its union with the body) is in a more special manner allied unto God than all other creatures (but angels) are. You have the pedigree of man both in respect of body and soul set out. Acts xvii., the extract of our bodies in ver. 26, ' He hath made of one blood all nations of men ;' so then on that side, as we say, in respect of our bodies, there is a consanguinity of all men, being made of one blood, between one another. But then, in respect of our souls, ' we are God's ofispring,' ver. 28, and so on that side there is an alliance (not of consanguinity) unto God, upon the account of having been created immediately by him, and in the very substance of our souls made like him, and in his image ; and yet we are not begotten of his essence or substance, which is only proper to his great Son. And in a correspondency unto this God is styled, Heb. xii. 9, ' the Father of our spirits,' in distinction from ' the fathers of our flesh,' or bodies (see the words); which alliance or fatherhood, take it as in common with all men's spirits, lieth in this, that he not only created our souls immediately out of nothing, but in his own image, as to the substance of them, which image or likeness other creatures did not bear, which yet were made out of nothing, as the chaos was ; both which appear by putting two places together: Zech. xii. 1, ' He frameth their spirits ' (speaking of the souls of men), and that ' altogether,' saith the psalmist, Ps. xxxiii. 15 (so Ainsworth and others read it); that is, both, each of those spirits, and also wholly and totally every whit of the substance of them, creatio est i^rotUictio totius eiitis; for creation difl'ers from generation in this, that it is a raising up or producing the whole of a being out of mere nothing, that is to say, altogether; whereas generation pre-supposeth pre-existent matter, as in the generation of our bodies, which are not wholly and every whit of God immediately, but the parents afibrd the stufi", the matter, and the formative virtue besides by which our bodies are framed. So, then, in respect of our first creation, our souls (apart considered) are thus allied to God, which our bodies are not, being spirits in the very being of them, that altogether do owe that their being to him. But—

SccnniUii, There is a taint come upon the souls of all men by sin, so as this alliance is thereby worn out, yea, forfeited, until it be restored. Now, therefore, these souls (the only subject of our discourse) being such as God hath 'wrought,' and so arc become 'his workmanship' by a new and far nobler creation, and thereby created spirit anew, according to what Christ says, ' that which is born of the Spirit is spirit,' John iii. G. Hereupon these souls arc spirit upon a double account; as you say of sugar it is double-refined, so this is now become a spiritual spirit, or spirit spiritualised and sublimated ; yea, and thereby the inward sanctuary, the holy of holies, the seat of God's most spiritual worship, Kom. vii. 22, 25, which the body is not, but only as it is the outward temple or instrument of this new-made spirit.

And hereupon that original affinity to God of spirit is not only restored, but endeared ; for now there is both the stufl', or the groundwork, and the a the workmanship or embroidery upon it, and both of them the works of God; that so look as the gold wrought upon commends the enamel, and then again the enamel enhanceth the value of the gold, so as both are considered in the price, so it is here with this soul wrought by God in both respects.

[2.] Consider we now again the case and outward condition of such a soul, that of itself would fall out to it upon the dissolution of the body.

First, It fails of all sorts of comforts it had in and by its union with the body in this world : Luke xvi. 9, ' When you fail,' says Christ, speaking of death; it is your city phrase when any of you break, and perhaps are thereby driven into another kingdom, as the soul now is.

Sccondhj, Then if ever a man's ' flesh and his heart fail,' Psalm Ixxiii. 26.

Thirdhj, And, which is worse, a man's faith faileth or ceaseth after death, 1 and all his spiritual knowledge as in this life; it is the express phrase used 1 Cor. xiii., at the 8th verse, and which is prosecuted to the end of that chapter. And so all that communion it had with God in this life is cut oti^ It is of all creatures left the most destitute and forlorn, if God provides not.

And yet, fourthly, it is now upon death (which it never was afore) immediately brought into the presence of God. Naked soul comes afore naked God: Eccles. xii. 7, ' Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was ; and the spirit shall return unto God that gave it.' It is put out of house and home, and turned upon its Father again. Thus much as to the soul's condition.

(2.) But, secondly, let us consider what it becomes God on his part to do. This is a special season for God to shew his love to such a soul, if ever afore or after; an opportunity, such as falls not out, neither afore, whilst it was in the body, nor after, when it is united to the body again at the resurrection. If ever, therefore, he means to shew a respect unto a ]:oor soul, which is his so near kindred and alliance, it must be done now. We read in Ps. Ixxiii. 26, ' My flesh and my heart faileth,' as at death to be sure it doth, ' but God is the strength of my heart,' both in this life and at death, to support me, ' and my portion for ever,' in the life to come, without any interruption or vacant space of time, as that ever imports. And that David spake this with an eye unto the glory to come, when heart and flesh, and all in this world he "foresaw would fail him, is evident by what he had immediately meditated in the words afore, ver. 24, ' Thou shalt me with thy counsel;' so in this life ; ' and afterwards,' that being

ended, ' shall receive me into glory.' The contemplation whereof makes him cry out again, ver. 25, ' Whom have I in heaven hut thee?' For all things else will fail me one day, when my flesh utterly fails me also, ' and there is none upon earth' (where he had at present many comforts and comforters) ' in comparison of thee.' You see God is the portion of the whole of his time, even ' for ever,' as ver. 26, and his estate in heaven and earth divide that time and portion between them, and no middle state between both, but when the one ceaseth the other begins, for between them two must be the for ever; and when all fail him, which he had on earth, then God alone becomes his happiness in heaven. But this only in general shews what God is and will be to a soul in this condition.

But I having undertaken to proceed by way of congruity, I must further more particularly shew how, in a correspondency to this inward and outward state of this soul, he shews himself God, and how meet and becoming a thing it is for God to receive it into glory, upon the consideration of many relations, which he professedly beareth to such a soul.

1. God is a Spirit, and thereupon, in a special manner (asWisd. xi. 26), the Lord is ' a lover of souls ' above all his other creation. So it is there, \ ' Thou art merciful to all because they are thine, 0 Lord, thou lover of ; souls.' ' God is a Spirit.' When therefore this naked and withal sublimated spirit (by its being born again by his own Spirit), and so assimilated to God himself, a pure spark, now freed and severed from its dust and ashes, flying up (or is carried rather by spirits, the angels, Luke xvi. 22, out of their like spiritual love to it as a spirit, Heb. i. 14) unto that great Spirit, that element of spirits, it will surely find union and coalition with him, and be taken up unto him ; for if, as Christ speaks, John iv. 23, ' God being a Spirit, therefore seeks for such as worship in spirit and truth ;' that is, he loves, delights in such, as a man doth in a companion or friend who suits him. And doth God seek for such whilst they are on earth ? Then, surely, when such spirits shall come to him, and have such a grand occasion, and (indeed) the first occasion in such an immediate way to appear before him in such a manner, and upon such a change as this, as they never did before ; these spirits also having been the seat, the inner temple, of all this spiritual worship and sanctifying of him in this world; surely God, who sought such afore, will now take them into his bosom and glory.

)W"e also read, Isa. Ivii. 15, 16, of the regard he bears to persons of a contrite and humble sphit, to revive them, upon this superadded consideration, that they are souls and spii'it, and so thereby allied to him, the lofty One. Hear how in this case he utters himself: ' The Spirit would fail afore me,' says he, ' and the souls which I have made.' He speaks of their very souls properly and respectively considered, and them it is which he considering, and it moves him unto pity, for he speaks of that in man, whereof God is, in a peculiar manner, the maker or creator : ' The spirit which I have made,' says he ; and it is one of the eminent titles he takes into his coat, ' The framer of the spirit^ of man within him,' Zech. xii. 1, as in many other places. This is argued also in that he speaketh of that in man, which is the subject sensible of his immediate wrath: ' I will not contend for ever ; nor will I be always wroth.' (This I have observed in what is public of mine.*) Now what moves him to remove his wrath from such an one ? ' The spirit would fail,' says he. Now doth God thus profess to have a regard to them in this life, and that upon this account, that they are spirits, lest they should fail or faint'? and shall we not think that when indeed * Child of Light Walking in Darkness. [Works, Vol. III. of this edition.— Ed.]

otherwise tbey do fail (as after death you have heard, even now, Christ himself expresseth they would), and would, upon all these considerations before-mentioned, sink into utter desolation, unless they were ' received into everlasting habitations,' as Christ there also speaks, do we think that God will not now entertain them ? ' The time is now come, the full time to have pity on them.'

2. God at this season forgets not, but full well remembers his relation of being their creator both by the new, and also first creation, the new reviving and ingratiating the remembrance of the first: * The souls which I have made,' said he in Isaiah ; but, in our Peter, this is more express, and mentioned as that which indeed moves God (and should be accordingly a support to our faith) to take care of our souls when we come to die, even/ upon this account, that he is ' the faithful creator of them,' 1 Pet. iv. 19 J

' Wherefore, let them that sufier according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him, in well-doing, as unto a faithful creator.' He speaks this specially unto such as were continually exposed unto persecution unto death for Christ in those primitive times; which therefore ver. 12, he terais the * fiery trial,' and ver. 17, forewarns them of a time of judgment' which was begun, and going on upon ' the house of God,' such as they had not yet felt; who yet, Heb. x. 32-34, had suffered reproach and spoiling of their goods, as Peter writes to the same Jews ; hereupon Peter pertinently instructs them to commit the keeping of their souls unto God ; at death it is that, when men's bodies are destroyed, and so the season when their souls to be separated therefrom should be committed to God's care, as our darling-;= (as our translation) or lovely soul, when separate (as others), as Christ in David speaks, Ps. xxii.; and Peter had in his eye Christ's example, and pointed them thereunto, who at his death committed his separate soul or spirit into the hands of God, Luke xxiii. 46 ; and the word ' commit' {'ra^adriso/juai) is one and the same in both these places, only there is this difference, that whereas Christ says, ' Father, I commit,' Peter substitutes another title of God's (there being more than one relation moving God, and strengthening our faith to this), even of ' faithful creator.' And I understand not the first creation only or chieffy here meant by Peter, but the second creation chiefly, which brings into repute and acceptation with God the first again together with its own, and so God is thereupon engaged to be faithful in his care and provision for such souls, according to his promises. And faithfulness doth always respect and refer unto promises. And my reason why thus I understand it, is, because I find God's faithfulness still annexed unto his calling of us ; that is, converting us, which is all one with this new creation: * Faithful is he that hath called you ;' that is, made you new creatures, 1 Cor. i. 9; 1 Thes. v. 24; and I find that David also urges it upon God as a motive, as in other psalms, so Ps. cxxxviii. 8, ' Forsake not the work of thine hands;' that is, this double workmanship of thine, of the first, and then superadded unto that of the second creation, which he urgeth thereby to move him to perfect the work begun, and to be ' merciful unto him for ever,' in the former part of that verse.

3, God professeth himself the 'Father of spirits;' which relation, though it speaks his being the Creator of them at the first, yet hath something more of bowels in it. It says withal something further, when it falls out that such spirits as he is a Father unto by the first creation are also the subjects of his eternal love, by grace and election unto the adoption of

* Psalm xxii. See Ainsw,

children, as Epb. i. 3-5 ; see the words; which love having accordingly taken hold of their souls by a work of grace wrought upon them in this life, thereby owning them as his in this case, that God that is a Father of their spirits by the law of the first creation, is in a more transcendent manner become the Father of the same spirits by grace, and the second creation superadded. Hence it falls out, in a parallel way, that (as was said) such souls were become spirit upon a double account; that is, spirits for the substance of their being, and again spirit by being born again of the Spirit; so answerably it is, that God stands in relation unto them as a Father of their spirits upon the like double respect. And this is equitable upon a very great account; for this relation of Father is more eminent to his grace by election, and then again by the grace of his second creation, than it could be any way supposed to be by the first creation; and therefore is set and pitched in like singularity and eminency upon the same object, that is, their spirits. And hence it may well, yea, must, be supposed and acknowledged, that if God did make such a darling of the soul, such an account of it by creation as to entitle himself so specially the Father thereof, then certainly this love of grace much more hath in like equipage taken up the same gracious special relation in its kind, of Father thereunto. Not only because nature shall never be found to exceed grace in its favours, but that indeed the motives are far greater, that God should extend the like and greater privileges, where he meant to love, by election and choice, than he did where he loved only by a due and meet law of creation. So that when God shall profess himself a Father to their spirit, speaking to such as are his elect, he strongly insinuateth thereby that he is by grace likewise the Father of their spirits in a peculiar manner. And truly that speech of our Saviour at his death confirms it: ' Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.' It was not barely as a Father of his spirit by creation (as you ali know), but by everlasting love, and so in that respect also in a peculiar manner the Father of his spirit; and therefore as to a Father he commends his separate spirit unto him. And this he did, although he was to rise again in less than three whole days' space.

Now we read,^Heb. xii. 9, the apostle, to hold forth this very relation of God's being a Father of spirits, with this promise thereunto annexed, that they should live ; which relation of Father, &c., although it be there explicitly spoken in respect of their first creation, which is common unto the saints with others, yet being uttered of and unto men in the state of grace (as those were supposed whom he there exhorteth, and that to move them to be subject unto him as such, with promise that they should live), it evidently respecteth not merely the relation of Father in respect of what was past, the act of creating tlaem, but it looketh to the future, that they depended upon him, as children do upon fathers for their future livelihood ; so these, for to live in him, and with him, as a Father to their spirits by grace, for I take hold of that word, ' and live.' This life is well interpreted by verse 14, ' They shall see God;' that is, be glorified. And so I conclude all this, that if he would have them be subject unto God in holiness, as upon that relation, as unto the Father of spirits, with this promise, that they should live, then surely one special aim of the promise is answerable, and hath this bye, that God, as the Father of their spirits, will therefore take care of their spirits singly, and so when separate, that they shall live; and that accordingly he Avill give demonstration of this special relation borne to their spirits (when the occasion shall be), considered apart in bestowing this life on them. And truly when is it more

proper for hiin to shew himself a Father, than when their souls, after their subjection to him in holiness here accomplished, and when that as naked spirits they come to stand in need, and stand afore him in his presence, being now turned out of house and home, and quite cashiered out of this world, and come stripped and naked of all but holiness unto their Father (for it is said, 'They return to God that gave them'), who proves to be their Father by grace ? And doubt not of it but he will certainly then own them, and give them a Father's blessing, and not reject them as if they were but bastards and no children (as that chapter to the Hebrews speaks), but as spirits, who [are] as sons that have served him, and been subject to him.

4. Add to this, fourthly, God his being our God, which is more home to the demonstration of this point than all the former. The text says, ' He that wrought us for this is God.' I add, he is your God. And this alone, if we will take the Scripture's verdict, will carry it; and, lo, as he is styled ' the Father of spirits' in common, and yet withal a Father of their spirits out of special love, so in like manner he is styled both ' the God of the spirits of all flesh,' Num. xvi. 22 (that is, of man. Job xii. 10), thus in common; and also to his elect, ' I am your God by grace.' And these two relations, God and Father, are commensurate, and exactly parallel, whether they be applied unto all men common, or to the elect in special; he is termed 'the God of the spirits,' and likewise 'the Father of the spirits' of all men; so in common answerably he is your God, and your Father by special grace to his elect, both which in this latter respect you find yoked hand in hand. Job xx. 17. Look how far he is a God of the one, so far a Father also extendeth in the other; and look how far that he is our God, so far reacheth also that he is our Father. If therefore the God of our spirits to provide for them, because he is our God, then answerably the Father of our spirits in the like peculiarness, because our Father. And so the proof of this fourth particular will add further strength and confirmation to that we presented in the former.

Now, that his being oui' God (which is the substance of the covenant of grace) doth engage him to provide glory for separate souls, that one instance of Abraham (the father of the faithful, and we all his sons personated in him) is a sufficient evidence. God did profess himself ' the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob;' and unto Abraham, Gen. xv. 1, personally, ' I am thy abundant reward' (which respected the life to come), and his friend, 2 Chron. xx. 7.

Now, the Scriptures of the New Testament do improve this relation of God's unto us unto two inferences drawn from Abraham's instance, whereof the one is the point afore us.

The first is Christ's inference from thence, that therefore Abraham's soul lives ; and Abraham, both soul and body, shall rise again: for ' God is not the God of the dead, but of the living,' Mat. xxii, 32. Thus Christ.

2. Paul's collection from the same promise is, that God had provided in the mean time for Abraham's soul, afore the resurrection, a city and an house therein for him. Thus Heb. xi. 16, ' But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God ; for he hath prepared for them a city.' To give light to this: Paul had represented the story and case of Abraham and the rest of the patriarchs in the verses afore to have been this, that God had indeed promised the land of Canaan to him and them, ver. 8, 9, whereupon, ver. 13, it is said, that ' these all died in faith, not having received the promises,

being strangers in the land;' yea, not having a foot of land in the land of promise, as Stephen speaks, Acts vii. 5-7. And also Paul, in the 9th verse of this Heb. xi. Now, then, when they died, what was it their faith expected instead thereof? The 10th verse tells us, * He looked for a city, whose maker and builder is God;' from which compared observe, that when he died, his faith is thus pitched to look for this city, instead of that land of Canaan promised. This was the expectation of their faith on their part. Well, but how doth it appear Jthat this flowed from God's having professed himself to be the God of Abraham, &c., his reward, and his friend ? You have this clear in the 16th verse, where you have the whole summed up as the conclusion of the story, and as the proof and ground hereof, ' but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly;' there is their faith and expectation when they should come to die. Then it follows, ' Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath prepared for them a city;' which is spoken in full answer to that their expectation at their deaths, to shew that God, in professing himself to be their God, he had thereby engaged himself, according to his own intent, in that promise, to make this provision for them at their deaths. The words are express : ' wherefore God is not ashamed.' What should this mean, in this coherence, but that his declaring himself to be their God did import and carry this with it, that he had provided this estate for them at their death, even an heavenly; and that otherwise (as the apostle glosseth upon it) he had not come up unto the amplitude of, not filled full this covenanted engagement and profession of his being their God. Will you have it in plain English (as we speak) ? If he had not made this provision for their souls, he would have been ashamed to have been called their God. Thus deeply doth this oblige him, that he is our God and Father, which is the point in hand.

And judge of this in the light of all that reason we have hitherto carried along; and again, let this inference of the apostle mutually serve to confirm us in all that reason. For poor Abraham to be driven out of his own country by God, who called him to his foot, and said no more, but as a master to his servant, Take your cloak and follow me (who must presently, ■without more ado, trig and foot it after his master), as Isa. xli. 2, and then to live a stranger in the land of promise, upon the faith that God would be his God: which faith in him was also to cease when he came to die ; if this God in this case should not have taken care to answer his faith in some greater way, instead of the possession of Canaan, and that after, upon his being turned out of that country too, which he sojourned in during this life; if God had not provided another house, or country, or city for his soul, that was to live, to bring it into, when it should be deprived of all in this world, the apostle tells us, God (in this case) would have been ashamed to have been called his God: which now, having provided so abundantly for him upon dying, there is superabundant cause to say, God is not ashamed; for that is a diminutive, implying that he infinitely exceedeth that their expectation could be supposed to be.

Let us but view the force of this inference of the apostle's (and so of all the reasonings hitherto read) but according to man, or what is found amongst men (and God will be sure infinitely to surpass men in his ways of favour). Take an ordinary friend ; if his friend be turned out of house and home, plundered, banished, driven out of all, as the steward in that parable, Luke xvi., was, and comes to his friend at midnight, as in that other parable, Luke xi. 5, G, will not his friends entertain him into their

houses, as verso 9 of Luke xv.; yea, and rise at midniqht to do it, as versos 5, 6 in that parablo of Luke xi. Shall profession of friendship engage and obhge men to do this, and shall not God's professing himself to be our God, father, and friend, engage his heart much more ? Nay, will he not so entertain them, as shall exceed all wonderment ? What need I say more than this ? ' Wherefoi-e he is not ashamed to be called their God.' He will therefore give you an entertainment that shall be worthy of his being your God.

5. The fifth and last consideration is, that these separate souls having done and finished all their work, that in order to glory God hath appointed them for ever to do, they now at death appear afore him as a judge and rewarder. And that is the fifth relation moving God to bestow at this season such a glory on them. How that then the soul returns to God, you have heard again and again out of Eccles. xii. 7, and that it is upon the account of his being the judge thereof at the end of their work in this life. The Chaldee paraphrase hath long since glossed upon it: It returns to God, that it may stand in judgment afore him. In this life it came unto God by faith, as the apostle speaks, ' believing that God is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him,' Heb. xi. 6; and now at the end of its faith it comes unto God for the reward of its faith, as some interpret that 1 Pet. i. 9 (which we so largely have insisted on). This is certain, that in that promise to Abraham, to be his God, Gen. xv. 1, he intended and included his being to him an exceeding great reward. And so we come to connect this fifth head with the foregoing. And, therefore, if the being his God moved him to prepare that city against his death (as hath been said), then surely his being his reward doth also then take place. I shall not omit it, because it falls in the next chapter, Heb. xii. 23, that in that stupendous assembly of heaven, ' God the judge of all' is mentioned between ' the church of the first-born which are written in heaven :' this afore ; and ' the spirits of justified men made perfect:' this after it; for there are none of these first-born, or the spirits of just men, do come to sit down there, but they pass the award of this judge first, for they sit down by him; and surely, having done all their work in the time of that day is allotted to each man to work in, it is a righteous thing with God to give them a reward in the evening of this day (which is Christ's time set for rewarding, and it is the twelfth and last hour succeeding the eleventh of the day,- Mat. xx. 6 and 9 compared), which is when the night of death comes. Now there is a law given by God, Lev. xix. 13, that the wages to a man hired should be given him, by him that set him a-work, in his day, that is, says the Septuagint, the very same day, so as his work, or the wages of his work, ' abide not with thee all the night until the morning,' says God, Deut. xxiv. 15. Did God take care for hirelings, when their work was done, not to stay any space of time, no, not a night ? and doth he not fulfil this himself unto his sons that serve him ? Surely yes ; he defers not, nor puts them ofi" to the morning of the resurrection, as the psalmist elegantly calls it, Ps. xvii. 15. It abides not with him all that dark and lonesome night, or space after death, in which their bodies rest in the grave, which is termed ' man's long home,' Eccles. xii. 5 : and, ' The days of darkness are many,' says Solomon. No; he rewards them in the evening of the day, besides what he will add to it in the morning. It is observable that Ptev. vi. 9, 10, concerning the separate souls slain for Christ, that whilst they cry for justice on their enemies only—' And * See Burgensis, Maldonat., &c. VOL. VII. E e

when he had opened the sixth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held : and they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ?'—that they had white robes given them to quiet them in the mean time : ver. 11, ' And white robes were given unto every one of them ; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season;' till they heard that vengeance also was executed on that Roman empire for their bloodshed. And thus to deal is a righteous thing with God.

Thus you have seen the point confirmed from all sorts of relations that God bears unto us, by congruous reasons, that so it becometh God, the great God, to do. * He that hath wrought us for this thing is God.' And so much for this branch of this second doctrine.

2. The second branch of it is this, that there is a glorious contrivement and workmanship carried on in this dispensation of his, like unto the great God indeed. This carries on this point yet higher ; for it is not only an ordination becoming God (upon the respects mentioned), but there is an artifice, a workmanship in it, such as he useth to shew in his works of wonder, even in this, that he should work upon men's souls in this life, and then bring them into a glory he had in the mean space been a-working also for those their souls. This is the great God indeed.

When God secretly bestows cost and curiosity in preparing matters for such or such an end, and then again as hiddenly hath laid out a greater art, skill, and workmanship upon that end itself; and then hath exactly suited and matched the one to the other: when all comes to be finished, and both wrought and brought together, then will an infinite surpassing glory arise unto God out of all, which deserveth to have this notoriety, that is here put upon it, ' he that hath wrought this for that is God.' And lo, this is found here, which is demonstrated, if we view, (1.) Each of these workmanships singly and apart. (2.) Jointly, as designed and fitted each to the other. (1.) Each singly : If there were no such ordination of the one for the other, yet so considered, they deserve to have each an * He that hath wrought this is God' to be written under it.

[l.J For his artifice in working us in this life. Learned Cameron- hath but one note upon this whole fifth chapter, and it falls to be upon this very word ' who hath wrought,' and it is this : This word (says he), as used by the Septuagint, signifies rem expolire rudem et ivformem. 6 ds xari^-yocud/Mivog, to polish a thing that is rude and without fashion ; for which he gives instance out of Exod. xxxv. 33, in Bezaleel's work (whom, as the 31st, 32d verses speak of him, ' God hath filled with his Spirit in all wisdom, in all workmanship, to devise cunning work'). And again, the same word is used of the temple-work (that other was for Moses's tabernacle), 1 Kings vi. 26, by Solomon, which how transcendent a structure it was, you have all read or heard. An infinitely surpassing art then hath the Spirit himself (who is the immediate worker in this) shewn in the framing, and hewing, and curiously carving and engraving those living stones, that grew up into a ' temple unto God,' 1 Pet. ii. 5; especially considering the utter remoteness, indisposedness, yea, crookedness, and perverseness in the matter wrought upon (our souls, filled with the contrarj' form and workmanship of Satan), ' Ye are his workmanship,' says the apostle, Eph. ii, 10. And truly, if we could enlarge upon all the varieties of dealings In his Myrotliecium.

God iisctli to each soul to work it, the several sorts of gracious clispositiona he impresseth aiul carvcth upon it, the manifold actings of every soul drawn forth by him, you may take a view of some in the very next chapter to that of my text, 2 Cor. vi., from the 4th verse: * In much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings ; by pureness, by knowledge, by long-sufloring, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true ; as unknown, and yet well known ; as dying, and, behold, we live ; as chastened, and not killed ; as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things, 0 ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.' What a glorious embroidery upon the soul of a poor believer will in all these things appear, when finished ! Ps. xlv. 13, 14 : ' The king's daughter is all glorious within : her clothing is of wrought gold. She shall be brought unto the king in raiment of needlework.'

[2.] For his art and workmanship bestowed in the glory of the soul in the other world; if any work (but Christ, God-man) be his master-piece, it is the framing of that house and building spoken of verse 1 of this chapter. ' We have a building of God, a house not made with hand : and the 11th of the Hebrews, ver. 10, expressly useth two artificial words, nyjiTri;, the artificer in it, and hr,ij.trj-joyhi, the builder of it, that is, who hath shewn his art and sldll in building of it. So then in each his w^orkman-ship appears. I do but add this towards the confirmation of the main point in hand.

Hath the great God perfected both works upon the soul, as much as he means to work, in heaven ? also prepared* a building for it ? and will he then (think we) let both lie empty? Of the one, says Heb. xi. 16, * He hath prepared for them a city;' of the soul, in like manner, ' he hath wrought us for this self-same thing.' Will God (think we) leave this his house to stand desolate, when he hath been at such cost in both ? Doth any man or landlord build or repair an house, and then let it lie empty, when he hath a tenant fit for it? God is said not to be a foolish builder in respect to perfecting; and he is much less a careless builder, to neglect to take his tenants into it, when both are ready and fitted each for other. This for the first, viz., the consideration of each singly.

(2.) Let us consider them next jointly; that is, as they are in such a manner wrought apart, so as to suit and match one the other, when brought together in that manner, as it must be said of them, ' For this thing hath God wrought us ;' yea, and therein it is he hath appeared to be the great God.

For therein, even to wonderment, doth the glory of God in his works appear, and that he is wise in counsel, and wonderful in working, when he hath hiddenly contrived one thing for another, whenas each are in themselves and apart glorious. It is said by David of himself (and it is true of all men in their measure), Ps. cxxxix. 15, ' I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth ;' that is, in my mother's womb, as the context shews; which are termed the lower parts of the earth, as when Christ is said, Eph. iv., to have ' descended into the lower parts of the earth ;' that is, to be conceived in the womb of a virgin. When * Qu. ' to work ? In heaven also prepared' ?— Ed.

a child is born, a lump of flesh animated with a soul comes forth curiously wrought, &c., but wrought for what? In David's person (in which this was spoken) it was for a kingdom, the supremest condition of enjoyments in this world. But in every other man that is born, it is, that he was curiously wrought, in a fitness and capacity to all things that are in this world, made and prepared exactly for it, long afore it came into the world ; you may see it in Adam (our first pattern) more lively. God was busy for six days in making this world ; the angels all that while stood wondering with themselves to what end, or for whom all this was prepared, Job xxxviii. 7. At the end of the sixth day they saw God to set down into the world this little thing called man, and then they ceased their wonderment; for they saw all this world (prepared aforehand) set in man's heart, and all in man curiously wrought and fitted for all things made in this world, richly to enjoy, as 1 Tim. vi. 17. We may apply that in the text to this; it appeared, that he that made man for this self-same thing is God; both works of wonder apart, and yet as fitted to each other. All wonderment exceeding—I might much more enlarge upon the suiting of Christ the head and husband, and the church his body and wife, wrought and growing up to him in all ages, both apart secretly and hiddenly prepared, and each so glorious in themselves, and yet put together. Let us refer our admiration hereat until the latter day. Just thus it is in fitting the soul for that glory ; and again, that glory in heaven for that soul: God works the one for the other apart. The very similitude in the former verses do import so much ; he styleth glory in heaven being a clothed upon, and holiness here he compares to an under garment, which that of glory is to be put over, or upon. There was never a curious artist in making garments that ever took measure of the proportions of an upper and under garment, to fit the one to the other, as God hath in proportioning his work upon us here, and his preparation of glory for each of us in the world to come. He hath took exact measure, and his law is (that designed his own workings on both hands aforehand), that ' every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour,' 1 Cor. iii. 8.

Now the artifice of God in both these lies in this, that each are hiddenly contrived apart, and yet so gloriously matched, as wrought one for the other ; which is an argument as if two artificers, the one in the East Indies, the other in the West, should the one make the case, the other make the watch, unknown each to other, and both workmanships of the highest curiosity in their kind, and when both brought together they exquisitely fit the one the other.

And what, have I been telling you all this while an artificial pleasant story ? Doth not this scripture tell the very same ? For a close, do but now at last take a view and prospect of our apostle's whole discourse, the round and circle whereof begun at ver. 16 of chap, iv., and endeth with my text; and do you not find it speak (to use the text's language) the very self-same thing?

1. He tells us there of an inward man renewed whilst the outward is a-perishing, to the end it may live and subsist alone, when the body is wholly dissolved (there he lays his foundation). And is not this all one with what the text says ? God works us (these souls) day by day, even as the child is curiously wrought in the womb, to subsist of itself alone in this world ; so this inward man in that other.

2. He then immediately subjoins, ver. 17, that all aflSictions (which are nothing else but the perishings of this outward man), as also all things and

dispensations else that do befall us, they are secretly at work too all that ■while ; so set to work by God (who works the inner man daily unto such a measure of grace) and these to work, and by his ordination procure a proportionable weight, for God works all these things in weight and measure;—* our light affliction works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory'—as shall in a comely and in the exactest manner answer and suit that curious workmanship on the inward man ; and it is observable that the same word for u-orknuj is used in that verse that is used in my text; but yet these are but outwardly a-work, as inferior artificers or instruments. Therefore,

3. He .further declares, ver. 1 of this chapter, that God himself is at •work about this glory, who as the master-workman that hath the draft and platform of all afore him, drawn by his own designing, he viewing the inward work on us, the outward work of means and dispensations, and knows aforehand what degree of holiness to bring us ultimately unto; he according unto these, as patterns, is a-framing a building for us in heaven, exactly suited to the working of all the other, which building he prepares and makes ready for this inner man to entertain it when the body is dissolved : ' If our earthly house were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands,' of either men or means, or of our own graces, but of God. But every soul hath a state of glory proportioned to all these, ready built for it against this time; even as statues in stone are framed and carved to be set up in such a curious arch framed for them by the builder. Now then,

4. Add but the words of my text, which is the close of this his discourse, and it opens all the scene, ' He that wrought us for the self-same thing is God.' The apostle's conclusion answers his beginning; he began in chap, iv. ver. IG, and the circle ends in my text! And this is God, who is wise in working and wonderful in counsel.

Ohs. 3. That it is the interest and engagement of all three persons to see to it that a righteous separate soul be brought to glory at dissolution.

And this carries it yet higher, even to the highest, and gives the most superabundant security and assurance of this thing that can be given, and superadds above all the former. But you will ask me how I fetch this out of my text ? Thus,

1. You see here are two persons expressly named, God the Father, namely, and the Spirit. This is a rule, that where the name God, and then some other besides of the two persons, Christ or the Spirit, are mentioned therewith as distinct, there God is put personally (not essentially only) to express the Father ; now here the Spirit or Holy Ghost is mentioned distinct from God, for it is said that this God ' hath given the Spirit,' which also Christ so often speaketh of the Father as I need not insist on it.

2. It is another rule, that in any scripture where two persons are mentioned as concurring in any thing or matter, there the other third person also must be understood to have his special share therein also, as when he wisheth ' grace and peace from God the Father, and from Jesus Christ;' it is certain the Holy Ghost is as specially understood, as indeed we find him in that apostolical blessing as distinctly spoken of as the Father or Christ. Thus it must be here, Christ must be taken in, who also in John is so often said to give the Spirit when the Father gives him, as it is said here he hath ' for this same thing.'

But, 3, you have even Christ also not far off interested in this self-same

thing in the next verse and verse 8: ' absence from the Lord,' whilst in the body, ver. 6; and ' presence with the Lord,' when separate from the body, ver, 8. This Lord is Christ; the phrase of the New Testament concerning Christ runs in this style, to be with Christ, * this day with me,' to be where I am and see my glory; so Christ. ' To be with Christ,' is best of all ; and ' we shall be ever with the Lord.' So Paul.

Use 1. Doth God work us for this thing ere he brings us to it ? What hath God wrought hitherto upon thee or thee in order to this end ? It is a blunt question, but the text puts it in my mouth, How many souls are there living in the profession of Christianity that know not what this means, to have a work wrought on them, anew upon them, over and above what moral honesty, which was nature's portion, and the common profession of Christianity adds thereunto by custom and mere education ? An honest Turk, professing also and observing the principles of his religion, upon the ground of his education only (and a religion every man must have), will as soon go to heaven as thou, for all thy religion is founded but upon the like foundation that his is. I tell thee, that Christian religion is not a thing so cheap, nor salvation by Christ at so low a rate. Thou must have a work upon thy soul suited unto all the truths thus professed, in the power and efficacy of them. They must enter thy soul by a spiritual faith and frame, and mould it anew to a likeness to them. Carry home therefore the caveat our apostle hath put in ver. 3, ' If so be that being clothed, we be not found naked' of grace and holiness wrought, and Christ's righteousness by spiritual efficacious faith applied (faith in earnest), bowing the soul to be obedient unto Christ, as heartily and as honestly as it expects salvation by Christ, as without which thou wilt never be saved. This is our religion ; and when at death thy soul, thy poor lonesome soul, being stripped of all things in this world—even the body and all—shall come afore the great God and Jesus Christ, what will the inquiry be ? as Mat. xxii. 11, ' When the king came in to see the guests, he saw a man had not the wedding-garment,' he spied him out; ' and the man was speecbless,' ver. 12 ; ' Take him and bind him,' says he, ' and cast him into utter darkness,' ver. 13. The other that were clothed were admitted unto the marriage; and as the psalmist, the words of which are here alluded unto, ' She w'as brought unto the king' (the very title which in both these places is given to Christ, see ver. 11) ' in raiment of needle-work,' and this clothing is of God's working, and so my text falls in with both ; there is no admission unto Christ without it. This is the first use.

Use 2. Hath God begun to work this good work in thee ? He will perfect it; whereof the text gives this assurance, that he hath wrought it for this thing, that is, for this end, and God will not lose his end. Besides he says he hath given earnest.

Use 3. Thou saint, be content to live; for whilst thou livest thou art under God's working in order unto glory. Value life; it is a season of being wrought upon ; and to be sure thou shalt live no longer than whilst God is some way or other a-working this. What an advantage is it that all thy sins, occasioned by living long, shall surely be forgiven, and nothing of thy score be uncut off for thee, but all the righteousness that is wrought upon thee, and wrought by thee, and therefore wrought by thee because upon thee,—for being wrought upon we work, and all is rather, ' God hath wrought us,' than that we have wrought—all thy righteousness (I say) shall remain for ever. All the time thou remainest in this life thy soul is ripening or maturing for glory.

How great a comfort is that! In explicating the doctrinal part, I gave instance of a child in the womb curiously wrought all that time in order to its living and subsisting afterwards in this world, Ps. cxxxix. 15. It is a dark place the womb which the child is wrought in ; and it lives there in a stifled condition, it cannot breathe, it takes nourishment but at the navel (a way invented and prepared of God merely for that season), it lies boiling, tossing, and tumbling, and sleeping away the most of its time, and gives now and then a faint stirring to shew it is still alive, and it is a life scarce worth the name of life ; well, but all this is a-being wrought and fitted to live another freer and braver life in this world. And this is your present case: your life is hid, it is to come ; all that you find in this world is but that God hath wrought you for the self-like thing. And if this child we spake of should be forced out of the womb afore the due time, it would have the more imperfect life in this world ; so here, if you could suppose a saint should die afore the full birth of his soul's being wrought on. Therefore be content to wait God's leisure until your change shall come.

Use 4. No matter what befalls thee, so it works towards this end; let whatever be, so thou findest God to go on with this design, that he works upon thy soul; be it upward, in communion with himself, or downward, in disowning thyself, thy vileness and corruptions, so it works. Thou hast afflictions that break thy heart, as reproach broke Christ's heart, says the psalmist in his name; no matter, so they work upon thy soul. Know then that they are set a-work by the hand that sent them, to ' work a far exceeding weight- of glory' for thee : ' If by any means' (says Paul), no matter what, so the work go on. A carver comes with his chisels, and cuts ofi"this piece, and cuts into that part of the stone; no matter, a stately statue, bearing the image of some person of honour, is to be set up for perpetuity, and is accordingly a-framing ; so, though God carves his image out of thy flesh, no matter. Comfort thyself, and think not much at any condition whilst (as Paul says) it turns to thy salvation. Election sent thee not into this world to have a great name (perhaps God will load it), nor to.be rich, or to have power, but to work thee for this self-same thing, and if thou seest that plough a-going (though it makes deep furrows on thy back, 3^ea, heart), yet so that this seed be sown therein, rejoice, 'for thou shalt bring thy sheaves with thee.' For myself, so that I find election pursuing its design, of making me holy, and blessing me with spiritual blessings in heavenly places, as Eph. i. 4,1 care not, I would not care, what befalls me in this world.

CHAPTER XIII.

Whether the state of (^lory into which separate souls enter after death, and in ivhich theij live until the resurrection, be not different from that which they shall possess after that glorious day, and in ivhat the difference consists.

Before I can set forth any positive particulars of their blessedness, I find it necessary to discuss this question, whether there be not two several states of glory after this life.

1, Of souls separate, differing from that which is,

2. After the day of judgment. Towards the resolution of this,

1. I give this explanation, that I intend not this difference simply of

degrees of glory, but of something further, although I confess I know not what term to express it by, as whether I should call them several removes from glory to glory, or several conditions of glory rather than states. However, I think there is more than a difierence simply of degrees, for this reason, because differing degrees of glory, in the several persons that are glorified, do accompany each of these states (if so I may call them). As lor example, one degree of glory is given to Paul, another to Apollos, or to any one is given ordinary, another to more eminent saints. Such degrees of glory are supposed to accompany them, with a various difference according to their works. The souls of men that die in the Lord have in their separate condition a variety of degrees of glory among them, according to their works; for of them it is said, Rev. xiv., that ' their works do follow them,' which is all one as to say, as of the last reward of judgment it is said, they have a blessedness proportionable to what that condition will bear and suit to, or according to their works. For to ' rest from their labours' is equal and alike to all; but of the positive reward it is said, that their works follow them (as the measure of God's dispensation), and follow them to procure an answerable and suitable reward unto that condition which such souls are then in. This difference therefore of degrees runs along through all, from first to last, unto eternity; but difiering conditions, or difiering states of glory is another thing, and of that is the query to be understood.

The propositions therefore which I assert are these,

I. That there are several states after the separation of the soul, or after death, which the souls of saints do run through.

II. That they attain not their fulness of glory, for all sorts of glory, till after the day of judgment.

It is evident from the instance or example of Christ himself, our pattern and forerunner in all ; for that rule which Christ utters upon the point of persecution is general, and will hold true here, that the servant is not above his master, who purchased all that the servant is to enjoy. Now it is evident that Christ himself, as to his soul, did not attain a glory during its separate estate in any proportion like unto that he had when risen again, nor such as he had after he ascended, and was received up to glory, as Paul's speech is, 1 Tim. iii. 16. Nay, his soul could not have attained it, although all that which his soul was to suffer was, as himself said, ' It is finished' (and unto the consummation of the sufferings of his soul doth that speech refer); yet his whole person, yea, and his soul, remained still under a state of humiliation, because his body, and in respect thereof his person, had not yet satisfied for the utmost farthing, which remained still to be paid ; and therefore it had been improper for his soul to have entered into a fulness of glory whilst that part of the man Jesus, viz., his body, the copartner of that soul, yea, of that person, was under that first curse, which was, ' To dust thou shalt return.' His soul also was in its widowhood or separation, and thereby as yet so far partaker of that first curse, viz., of being severed from the body, which was a part of the curse, and is a forlorn estate of itself in respect to the primitive ordination of God at the first creation of man.

Yea, Christ when ascended had not his full glory, neither hath it until that great day of the resurrection; for he is in expectation of his glory being more completed in the entire conquest of all his enemies, Heb. x. 13. Likewise till then he wants his body, which is the church, which is his fulness, Eph. i. 23, and therefore doth come then to be admired in all his

saints: 2 Thes. i. 10, ' When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe.' Only this privilege indeed falls ou his part, as he is Lord, and the first fruits of all, that as he rose on the third day, to the end that he might not see corruption, so being ordained our forerunner, Heb. iv., and to prepare a place for us, he therefore was first in the mean while to govern the world, and to enter into glory long afore us, he yet expecting our accomplishment, and we being expectants of that full glory he in the mean time enjoys. Hence, therefore, it may well become us, and it may well be entertained by us poor creatures, as to follow our Lord wherever he goes, so to pass through whatever conditions he run through; and that not only whilst our souls are widows to that other part of manhood, according to nature (and it is becoming that tho soul without it should not be perfect), but withal, in respect of that—curso I will not call it now, but—sentence of death pronounced against us all in Adam, which arrested the soul when it was first separated from the body, and is continued during its separate condition. The soul, therefore, cannot be supposed in this estate to have that full enfeofiment unto glory, whilst the other half of man, and itself too, remains under such a sentence.

Hence the stream of the New Testament runs and centres in the great day as carrying away the glory from all afore it; and also, as being ' that day' for the misery of the wicked, as if there were none else till then. All is everywhere almost referred unto that day, both for punishment to the wicked and reward to the godly. The bad are but as kept in prison, 1 Peter iii. 19, though with some torment, Luke xvi, but the great punishment is to follow after the resurrection and judgment, which is called therefore ' the resurrection of damnation,' John v. 29. I will name but one scripture common to both: 2 Thes. i. 7-9, ' And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ: who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.' Insomuch as it was the occasion to the fathers almost generally to speak so low things of this interim condition, and is an occasion unto others either wholly to deny any glory to souls separate, or greatly to diminish from it with respect to the generality of the saints departed, as the papists and others do. And it is certain that the glory of the last day will comparatively rise to be so great, as this of the soul separate hath no glory in comparison of it. And the principles of our common Christianity (which are related in Scripture concerning this point) afford this responsible ground for it, harmonious to reason.

1. For then, and not till then, Christ hath all his saints about him, and himself (as was said) is complete every way.

2. Then, and not till then, it is that the soul and body are united together again, for Christ redeemed the body as well as the soul; and if the fathers were not perfect without us, Heb. xi. 40, then by the same reason is not the soul perfect without the body. God's charge to Christ was, as to lose none of his number, so to lose ouosv, nothing of them, and therefore not only to entertain their souls, but also to raise their bodies.

• John vi. 39, ' And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.' God hath the soul of Abraham with him, but still he reckons he hath not Abraham, that is, the whole of him, until the resur-

rection; for from thence Christ argues that Abraham must rise, because God is called Abraham's God, Mat. xxii. 32.

' 3. At the latter day, and not till then, there comes to be a full assembly of aU saints: 2 Thes. i. 10, ' When he shall come to be glorified in all them that believe.' He shall then have all about him, and his body complete; and till then, before that time, it will still be said, as in another case, there are brethren not yet fulfilled. A general assembly there falls not out until then; and if it was reasonable to quiet the separate souls to stay till the rest of their brethren should be killed, then it is as reasonable to quiet them to stay out their full glory, till all of the saints (whether to be killed or not) are fulfilled, or their number accomplished, rrXriBUjgovrai, that so, as Christ says, ' All may rejoice together,' John iv. 36.

4. There is the solemnity, the pomp of Christ's entrance, when (as the apostle to the Hebrews, Heb. i. 6, speaks), where God bringeth his first begotten into the world, attended with all the angels, and appearing in the utmost glory of his Father, on purpose to be admii'ed in his saints, and by the glory he bestows upon them. No wonder, then, if the great glory be reserved to that day, whereas this admission of our souls in the mean time unto glory is as a secret entrance incorjnito, as we say, which is done every day, and apart singly.

5. The glory of our souls in the mean while is but an occasional dispensation for a short time, and brought in by death the fruit of sin. They are in the case of friends, who by some present disaster are put out of house and home, and come to us unawares and on the sudden. This condition is occasioned by the curse upon Adam's fall. Thou shalt die. Souls thereupon returning to God, do recommend themselves into his hands, as driven out of house and home. He therefore bestows them, as it were, in the mean while, as well as may be for that condition. He lodgeth them in beds, Isa. Ivii. 2, conveniently, suitably to that their estate, but this is but for a shift, and till they shall be better provided for; but the glory after the latter day was the great thing designed afore sin or death fell out, or redemption from sin. That fulness of glory the body and soul was ordained unto is the centre of all God's decrees concerning us. It is regmun antemvndanum, and it shall remain for ever without any accident'or change to intervene or interupt it. ',We shall be ever with the Lord,' whereas afore, though our souls were with the Lord, yet so as Christ and we seem for a season to part, and our souls come down into our bodies, and rise to meet the Lord (as the same place shews), but this latter dispensation of glory is once for all, and to hold to eternity one and the same unchangeably, 1 Thes. iv. 16, 17. The dead in Christ shall rise, and then be caught up to meet the Lord : ' And so we shall be ever with the Lord.' That is the condition afterwards, which admits not (no, not for the twinkling of an eye) so much as any looking ofi" from him, much less a parting for ever. No wonder then, if God hath so reserved the splendour of glory for that day, and then makes a new state of glory, as if there had been no gloiy afore.

The third is, 1, to find out what is common to the estate of glory of a separate soul, [what it] hath in common with the state after the day of judgment.

2. To find out what is properly belonging to the state of its separation.-

1. That we may find out what is common to both states, it is meet for

us here to know and consider that under the same expressions found in

Scripture common unto both, there is yet intended a vast diflerence and

disproportion in the glory vouchsafed either to the one or the otlior. Therefore we must bo aware of such expressions, and not presently think that the same are used common to both, therefore the same state of glory is indifiei-ently intended. Two great errors I conceive have been committed about this matter.

(1.) That the New Testament speaking so high and groat things of the glory both at and after the day of judgment, the glory of the souls separate hath been too much eclipsed to some apprehensions, and utterly denied by others, and but carelessly and negligently spoken of by most, especially the ancients.

(2.) Others treating of it do hand overhead, and confusedly shuffle together,* or apply what is said of the one unto the other, in such a mauncr as if there wei-e not any difference as to the soul's condition in either state, but only that the body is glorified at last; whereas certainly, by what the Scripture speaks, there must be found a vastly differing disproportion between those two states, and that not alone in respect of the conjunction of the body to the soul (which alone would not be so much, if the soul's happiness in itself were not in its proportion therewith also advanced), but in respect of God's communications of himself to the soul itself, the proper vessel of glory. I may safely say of this difference what the apostle in comparing the estate of the law and gospel doth, 2 Cor. iii. 10, ' That which is made glorious' in this separate estate, ' hath no glory in respect of that which excelleth' at and after the day of judgment.

Now that which hath occasioned this promiscuous or confused way of handhng the blessedness of both estates (as in respect to the soul), as if they were one and the same, hath been this, that the Scriptures utter the happiness of each estate in many things under one and the same expressions as common to both, and therefore it is inferred from thence that the thing itself is but one and the same, without any such excessive disproportion to be found between them, especially seeing that in that state after the day of judgment there is but only an addition of glory to our bodies then conjoined, but that of the soul is one and the same in both states. As, for instance, it is said that the state of separate souls is a being with Christ, which, as Paul says, is best of all, and what is there said more of that state after the day of judgment ? The place also wherein the souls are afore the day of judgment is said to be the heavens, and the same is said of the place after that day; and therefore it w^ould seem that there should not be any such difference between the one and the other. This is a common apprehension and inference therefrom. I shall endeavour to contribute some things in general unto the clearing of these confused entanglements about this matter, by these three assertions or conclusions.

1. That indeed the same expressions are used of the blessedness of the soul in both conditions, yet,

2. That these expressions must still be understood with a vast difference and disproportion. Which,

3. I shall confirm from this, that the very same expressions are used in Scripture of extraordinary communions with God and Christ in this life, that are used of the state of souls either separate afore or after the day of judgment; between which yet and that in heaven all do acknowledge a vast difference. And the inference from all will be, that notwithstanding the same expressions of these two states in glory, yet a great and exceeding difference may be found between them.

* See M. on Eev. xiv. 13.

1. The same expressions indeed are used of both states.

(1.) Both are called a crown, which is given to that state of souls immediately after death: Rev. ii. 10, ' Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: Behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days : be thou ftiithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.' And yet a new crown shall be set upon our heads at the latter day, 2 Tim. iv. 8, 1 Pet. v. 4, 2 Tim. i. 18; all which places refer to our crowning at the latter day.

(2.) Both states are a being present with Christ. The condition of the soul, when absent from the bod}^ 2 Cor. v. 8, is said to be present with the Lord, and to be with Christ, which is best of all. In like manner, of that state after the day of judgment it is said, ' We shall ever be with the Lord,' 1 Thes. iv. 17. That expression also in John xvii. is spoken of both states, ' that they may be with me,' says Christ, ' where I am, that the}' may behold the glory which thou hast given me.'

(3.) Both are termed the sight of God and Christ. That state after the latter day is so called: 1 John iii. 2, ' Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.' When he shall appear, namely, at the latter day. And he speaks it as if we had never seen him afore, and as if then only we began to see him, and then also only began to be like him. And tlaerefore a late writer doth boldly restrain that sight (1 Cor. xiii. 12, ' For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face : now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known') unto that of the latter day, for this reason, that Paul there not expressing whether he spake of the resurrection or the state in the mean time, therefore John here determines it, and confines that also spoken by Paul unto our seeing him at the latter day.* But it is certain that our souls shall see him afore, 2 Cor. v. 6, 7. Then it is, when we are in the body, that we walk by faith, and not by sight; but when absent from the body, we are so present with the Lord, as we walk by sight, as the opposition of sight unto faith there shews.

2. I now come to shew, that though the same expressions are used, yet ■we are to understand the latter state of the soul after the resurrection, as still exceeding the former, with a vast difierence and disproportion, which will much reconcile Scripture, and dissolve doubts about this doctrine ; the

^assertion is made out many ways.

/ (1.) All the saints are in the mean while presented as expectants, and so to have their eyes fixed on the last day, as if they overlooked this middle state between. And yet this interim of the soul's blessedness is a part of their eternity, 2 Cor. v. 1, Luke xvi. 9, where in both places that eternal house, and those eternal habitations, are spoken of the separate soul's condition. Thus in the Old Testament, David's expectation was, Ps. xvii. 15, • When I awake' (that is, at the resurrection), ' I shall be satisfied with his image.' And thus Job also speaks. Job. xix. 23-26. And again, in the New Testament, the character of a believer is, a person waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus. Thus the Corinthians are described, 1 Cor. i. 7. Thus the Thessalonians are deciphered, 1 Thes. i. 10. It was Christ's coming that their hope fixed and terminated on.

(2.) Yea, the separate souls that are in heaven wait for it. Rev. vi., and are comforted with this, that they shall stay but till the number of God's elect is fulfilled. That place also in Job xiv. 14, ' If a man die, shall he * Thornedyke"s Epil., 3d Cook, page 308.

live again ? All the days of my appointed time will I wait till my change come.' Ainsworthin his book entitled Communion of Sainls, interprets of the soul's waiting after death, till that great change shall be at the resurrection ; of which change it is elsewhere said, that ' he shall change our vilo bodies, like unto his glorious body, Philip, iii. 21, and 1 Cor. xv. 51. It was that which the eye of Job's soul was then, and should all along the time of his lying in the grave, be fixed upon.

(3.) Yea, Christ's hope whilst his body lay in the grave (although his soul •was in paradise), was fixed on the glory after his resurrection : Ps. xvi. 9, 10,

• Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth ; my flesh also shall rest in hope : for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou sufier thine Holy One to see corruption.'

(4.) Yea, the whole creation is brought in as waiting together with us : Rom. viii. 19, 23, ' For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our bodies.' The apostle here holds up that glory which is that day to be bestowed, as the great glory indeed ; in the fore-view of which it was, that those primitive saints ' reckoned not the sufierings of this present time worthy to be compared with the glory then to be revealed,' ver. 18; namely, at the redemption of our bodies spoken of, verse 23.

(5.) The reward of the saints is so spoken of, as if not any at all were given until that day; so 2 Tim. iv. 8, ' Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing;' which is also called ' Christ his day,' or ' the day of the Lord Jesus,' 1 Cor. i. 8, chap. v. 5, 2 Cor. i. 14, Philip, i. 6, chap. ii. 16 ;

* the day of redemption,' Eph. iv. 30 ; and xar iB.oy^v, ' that day,' 1 Thes. V. 4, 2 Thes. i. 10, 2 Tim. i. 12, 18; and the day unto which our reward is referred, as in those places is withal held forth; and in like manner Peter also speaks, 1 Epistle i. 4, that their life of hope lies in expectation of an ' inheritance reserved in heaven for them, ready to be revealed in the last times.'

(6.) The punishments of wicked men in hell, as well as this glory to be revealed, are both one and the other alike spoken of as then only, and not afore to begin. 2 Thes. i. 8-10, * In flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ,' &c. And this is spoken of that time ' when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, which is at that day.' And the spirits of wicked men are said to be in prison, 1 Peter iii. 19, and tormented, Luke xvi. 25, and the soul is said to be killed and cast into hell after the body is killed, as well as soul and body at the latter day, Luke xii. 4, 5. That which is inferred from hence at least is, that there is a super-excelling weight of glory then to be revealed, and communicated, •which is hid in God till then (as in Col. iii. 3, the apostle speaks), even as there was a sui-passing glory of things of the gospel, that lay hid in God during the times of the Old Testament, as Eph. iii. 9, and it may raise up our hearts unto an infinity of expectation of what this glory will rise up to in the end, by what we yet hear and read is the glory of souls separate afore that day. As Job saith of God, ' How little do* we know of him !' 60 as little can we know what he can or will do for his children, and what entertainments he hath for them in the other worlds, he who hath an in-

\

comprehensible power to effect, and an eternity of time before him to perform all in. When we hear of this next state of souls, and the glory-thereof, we cannot imagine what better thing there is, or can be yet behind which shall so much exceed; and yet there is so great an one as this foregoing comes not into remembrance, as the prophet speaks.

3, The third assertion, which tends to reconcile these two, is, that the like or some* expressions are used of such special manifestations of God and Christ to the soul, through faith here on earth, that are used of either of these states of glory. And therefore look, as a vast diiFerence is found between such dispensations on earth from those in heaven, so why upon the premises may not such a disproportion likewise be understood in an analogy between those two states of glory, under one and the same expressions ? Especially, if we make up the parallel, that look as there is a vast difference between those special dispensations on earth, and such other as are ordinarily vouchsafed to faith whilst we are on earth, so in a parallel way may in their spheres the like be found between those two states. Now the instances that prove the same expressions to be used of God's special manifestations in this life, that are also used of the state of glory, are many.

(i.) These manifestations are styled the sif/ht of God. Thus Job, speaking of an extraordinary manifestation of God unto him. Job xlii. 5, and comparing therewith his experiences in former times, ' I have heard of thee by thehearing of the ear,' saith he, ' but now mine eye seeth thee.' Thus in like manner the prophet speaks : Isa. vi. 5, ' Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts,' which Christ interprets of ' seeing his own glory,' John xii. Now, Job plainly termeth that his own last and present manifestation vouchsafed him sir/ht, in so vast a way of difference from all former ways of knowledges of God vouchsafed, or whatever foregone discoveries had been made unto faith, that he terms those but as an hear-iucf of the ear, as if it were by another sense, at least a lower sense, but this latter was by sight. And indeed such revelations, which he thus terms sight, are of the highest kind of those vouchsafed in this life, having 'joy unspeakable and full of glory' to accompany them ; which we yet find denied by the apostle Peter to be sight, in comparison of the lowest state in heaven, 1 Peter i. ver. 8, in those words, ' In whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.' This therefore of Job's and Peter's was indeed but faith, and not sif^ht, in comparison to that of the soul's after this life, of which Peter speaks, verse 9, terming the salvation of their souls the next end and reward of their faith. Take any Christian that walks by ordinaiy faith (which is but as walking in the common daylight of the sun, be it overcast), and let him be set down with Job's light, and his spirit be raised up to that presence and revelation that was made of God to Job, and that soul will instantly say. Now I see God so as I never did afore. And jei his former faith must be acknowledged a sight of God; but this latter to differ as much from the former as a man walking in a clear sunshine day, that looks full upon the sun itself, doth differ from his walking in the ordinary daylight in a dark, cloudy day. Thus far doth faith thus elevated differ and transcend itself at such times, and yet at this its highest elevation it is still but faith, but yet so far exceeding that ordinary converse with God by faith, that it is as no sight in comparison thereunto; for faith at this its highest elevation is but of ' things not seen,' Heb. xi. Why then may * Qu. ' same ' ?— Ed.

it not without offence be said, that vision or sight of God and Christ which ■we shall have at the latter day, shall bo so far raised and elevated above what our souls enjoyed afore, as it will in comparison be as if we had never seen them ; and yet both may be justly termed (as thcj^ are) the sight of God and Christ, utterly differing irom that of faith in this life ; for the sight is not as in a glass only, as that of faith is said to be, but face to face, each of them, as the apostle, speaking at once of the sights of both those states to come in the other world in opposition to that of faith, expresseth it, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. The sun, if it were further removed up into the heavens, would seem but as a star; and therefore some have fancied each star to be a sun, though at such a distance they seem so small to us as they do. Or if one looks through an inverted optic glass to view the sun, yet then it appears but as a star; but turn the other end, and it appears the sun indeed. Now, unto the souls separate (though in heaven) Christ is but as the morning star, Rev. xxii. IG, in comparison of what at the latter day God and Christ will appear to be. C^

(2.) A second instance, that the same expressions are used of communions with God in this life that are used of those after, is the phrase of seeimi GotVsface, which all acknowledge the highest expression of that gloiy in which the utmost of the blessedness in heaven doth consist; yet even this is attributed to an high communion with God in this life. Thus it is said of Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 30, ' And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for,' says he, ' I have seen God face to face.' It was spoken of an extraordinary drawing near of God to him; and so Moses also expresseth himself, Exod. xxxiii. 11, 'And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend,' &c. And yet he saw but his back parts: ver. 23, ' And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt see my back parts; but my face shall not be seen.'

(3.) In this life, under the gospel, we behold * the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ,' 2 Cor. iv. 6; which yet is made the difference between what is vouchsafed to us in the state of glory, 1 Cor. xiii. 12, and what we see in this life ; and yet again the same is used of the kingdom of Christ, Rev. xxii. B. In like manner in that holy of holies in the heavens, where Christ now is, and where we shall be with him after the day of judgment, the sight of God is termed a seeing his face and enjoying his presence. So Christ, Ps. xvi. 11, speaks of it: 'In thy presence is fulness of joy;' and therefore, Heb. ix. 24, he is said to appear adfacieni Dei, before the face of God (so Beza renders it), or in the presence of God, as our translation hath it.

(4.) The phrase of heinrf xcith Gocrand Christ is alike used of strong communion with God in this life, and also of that happiness in both states hereafter. David having his heart for some time taken up a-morning with strong fellowship with God, says of it, Ps. cxxxix. 18, * When I aw^ake, I am still with thee,' even in this life. And of the soul's state in paradise the like expression is used; ' To-day,' says Christ, ' shalt thou be with me in paradise.' ' To be with Christ,' says the apostle, ' is best of all.' It is spoken of the state of the soul after dissolution. Then, again, the same phrase is also used of the state after the day of judgment, 1 Thes. iv. 17, ' ' Then we shall be for ever with the Lord.'

(5.) The phrase of dicelUng in God is alike used of all states. In this life we dwell in God by ordinary communion : 1 John iv. 15, ' Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwellcth in him, and he in God'; and in extraordinary manifestations the soul dwells in God: John

xiv. 21, 'He that keeps my word, my Father will love him, and I will love him, and manifest myself unto him.' And, ver. 23, ' We will come to him, and make our abode with him.' The same expression is used of the states of souls, 2 Cor. v. 1, 'We have an house of God,' which is interpreted, Rev. vii. 15, ' that God shall dwell upon ;' so it is in the Greek. Finally, and above all, after the day of judgment, Christ will then give up his present kingdom to his Father, and God shall be all in all, 1 Cor. xv., and the kingdom he shall then give up lies in the dispensation and communication of himself to the souls now in heaven ; for during the time allotted his kingdom, he is as much in heaven as in earth. Mat. xxviii. 18. And how much this communication of God, when he is all in all, will exceed what is the communication of himself to the blessed saints now, none but God and Christ himself do or can know.

If further unto these several sorts of dispensations, through pure faith vouchsafed to Job and others,^ serving to illustrate the like difference in the other world, we shall also add those visions and revelations made unto Stephen and Paul, whilst they were in this life, it will much conduce to enhance the disproportion between two states of glory. For Stephen, to whom the heavens were opened, saw otherwise than by faith the glory of God, and Christ standing at his right hand; and;3^et this sight was but afar off, and but with his bodily e^yes. Now, assuredly, when his soul was out of that his body, he had a sight of both God's glory and of Christ, that transcended this, which his soul had, whilst abiding in flesh and blood, or indeed was capable of; seeing flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God in that manner, as when the soul is unclothed thereof. Some of the fathers, speaking of the receptacles of souls, term them atria a longe, but as the courts or suburbs of heaven, and as afar off in comparison ; and those separate spirits they style souls sub altare, ' under the altar,' as signifying, that in that state they do not see, nor can see the glory of God, and Christ at the right hand, in that manner as after the end of the world they shall see them; whereas of that other state their expressions are, that they shall be super altare, placed above the altar; yea, in the holy of holies (say I), and so behold God and Christ in a nearer manner.

If this comparison made of Stephen's sight, which was above the sight of faith, and yet below what his soul after enjoyed, be not sufficient to demonstrate the difierence aforesaid, then let us climb a step higher. Paul at his conversion had seen Christ appearing in his glory. Acts ix., as Stephen had done, and yet his soul was preferred to an higher sight, whilst he was rapt up into the heavens; and yet during that while also he remained and continued but an appurtenance of this world, an inmate belonging thereunto, and was to come down and live here again as formerly ; and yet this his rapture, and revelations, and visions, did far exceed either that of his own vouchsafed him at his first conversion, or that of Stephen's ; so as his face shining with it he was a candidate or rather inceptor of glory. And yet still we must say that Paul's separate soul, when it was carried into heaven and made perfect, did and doth to this hour enjoy that fruition of God and Christ which all his visions amounted not unto. For why ? He was not then admitted into the state and number of the blessed ones, but only taken up as a stander-by, that overheard things unspeakable; and yet this vision infinitely exceeded any revelation of any kind or degree formerly made to his faith or afterwards.

I conclude then, if God's manifestations in this life admit such variety

of ascents as wo sec by all these instances they have done, why may not God's dispensations yet remaining for us in the other world bo framed unto so vast a disproportion as I have been arguing for ?

CHAPTER XIV.

A particular enumeration of the tjlories of that state into which the separate soul enters immediatehj ajter death.

The Revelation being for the most part the representation of a long and j sad story of martyrdoms and suflerings of the church, ending in a glorious j kingdom of Christ, God was pleased to intermingle special comforts, suited ' to those suiferings in the mean while, till that kingdom shall appear. The deaths and martyrdoms of saints are everywhere up and down related in that book in several ages; as chap. ii. 3, 10, 13, 19; chap. iii. 10; chap, vi. 9-11; chap. xi. 7-10; chap. xii. 11, 13, 17; chap. xiii. 7, 10, 15; chap. xiv. 12, 13.

2. Our* character of the primitive saints (for all the rest) is in Rev. xii. 11, ' They loved not their lives unto the death.' I may say, that as the apostles were ' set forth unto death last,' so these Christians first, not in time only, but for eminency. Saints have more cause to prize their lives for the opportunity of serving God in this life than other men; yet that part of life they might have lived until natural death, and therein have done service unto God, they valued not; those that were young did not value it, but gave it up.

Now observe we his method of comforts for them, and all the saints from first to last, and all along.

1. In the very prologue to that body of prophecy that follows (chap. V. 10), ere any seals were opened, or trumpets blown, the representatives of the whole church comfort themselves with this, ' we shall reign on earth.' They looked on this, as that which would be the close and conclusion, whatever falls out in the mean time until then. And as answering thereunto, at the very end and close of all, we find the event to correspond. Rev. XX. 4, 6. Then when all enemies are destroyed, and after so long a time in suffering run out, this kingdom fore-understood by them is then given them. But yet still to shew what their souls should have in the mean time (for it was a long time unto the kingdom, especially to those first saints well nigh two thousand years), Christ takes special care to insert in this book, what the state of their souls after death should be till then; and he doth it setly, and at large, upon two eminent occasions. There were two eminent times of sufferings, and ranks of sufferers; 1, those under heathenish Rome, till Christianity overcame the red dragon ; 2, from antichrist, or Christian Rome, the beast. Now observe,

1. That in the midst of, or rather against, the time of the greatest persecutions under heathenish Rome, Christ to comfort them all tells them what glory he would in the mean time give their souls : Rev. vi. 9-11, * And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: and they cried with a loud voice, saying. How long, 0 Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth ? And white robes were given unto every one of * Qu. ' One''?— Ed.

VOL. VII. F f

them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a Httle season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren that should be killed, as they were, should be fulfilled.' This is spoken but to the first rank of sufi'erers, the first fruits of sufferers by heathenish Rome, and that now under the fifth seal, at the last and greatest of their sufferings, in Diocletian's time. He chose there to insert it, though it was intended for all that suffered afore also, as those words shew, *0 Lord, how long ?' They had brethren, you see, to come ; they had another company that were to Buffer under another power, antichristian Rome: Rev. xiii. 10, 'He that leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: he that killed with the sword, must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.' Lo, God, who speaks once and twice, speaks a second time in special to those, as he had done to those other, and that upon the occasion of a most eminent and general suffering by that beast: Rev. xiv. 12, 13, ' Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus. And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me. Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth : Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.'

Wherein, 1, observe the juncture of the time wherein it is spoken ; and to this purpose take notice, that this 14th chapter describes that company which Christ had had all along antichrist's reign, ver. 1, 2, &c. (as the 13th chapter had done antichrist's adherents) ; and the 14th chapter describes also the several progresses of the gospel by three degrees : and when it came to the third degree, ver. 9, that professors enlightened by the gospel began boldly and with a loud voice to challenge that beast of Rome to be the beast or antichrist, and that they would all be damned, ver. 10, if they entertained not the gospel, which was done by Luther, &c., then arose the greatest persecution that ever had been afore. The time hereof lasted long, between Luther's first preaching and the reformation, or quiet harvest by supreme authority crowned, which follows : ver. 14-16, ' And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to him that sat on the cloud. Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the time is come for thee to reap ; for the harvest of the earth is ripe. And he that sat on the throne thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.' It was a great time of sufferings. Thus twice God spake it, and that a part unto each.

Then, 3, at the 20th chapter he speaks at once to both, when all sufferings were over, and comforts them with the coming in of that kingdom or new Jerusalem, which they had rejoiced so to think of aforehand at the first, when it was as then almost two thousand years off.

1. The first sort is those that had been beheaded for the witness of Jesus and the word of God, those who were the primitive sufferers, witness that Jesus was their Lord, and King, and Saviour, and that themselves were Christians ; that was their testimony.

2. Another sort is those which ' had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands.'

And, 3, the first promise made, chap, v., is prophesied of to be fulfilled, they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, and had the honour of being priests and kings, which from the first was said of them :

chap. i. ver. G, * And hath made us kings and priests uuto God and his Father.'

Let me add this; I take it, the promises unto the overcomers at the close of every epistle to the seven churches, are for the most part, if not all of them, made concerning the blessed state of the souls of saints in heaven, and in Christ's kingdom afore the day of judgment, which I shall now describe to ^-ou, from particular instances concerning the state of a believer's soul departed, collected for the most part out of the book of the Revelation.

Having by these generals made my way, I come to the particulars that any way concern, or that are ingredient into, the glory of souls separate.

1. When the soul goes forth out of the body at death, the second death hath no power over it: Rev. ii. 11, 'He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death.' This promise is unto one who hath finished his course with a victory, which is at death, and so still in the close of all those epistles it runs, ' to him that overcometh;' and in the verse afore, ver. 10, it is expressly declared, that that overcoming is at death, as having been a conflict until then : ' Be faithful unto death,' &c. The promise therefore concerns the soul at, and upon, and so after death; and hence, to comfort them at and against that first death, it is said that the second death shall not hurt them, namely, then. This negative in view may seem but a small matter to the expectations of believers, but it is a great matter to us as sinners. For,

(1.) It imports that the devil, that hath the power of death, shall not lay an hand, or so much as a finger-touch, on them. A believer doth then after Christ's example commend his soul into the hands of God, and ' God, 'as a faithful creator,' 1 Peter iv. 19, will be sure to keep them from Satan's clutches. When thy soul goes forth, he shall not hurt nor fright thee ; for God will give him a charge, as he did to Laban concerning Jacob. There was a dispute indeed between a good angel and the bad in Jude, what should be done with Moses's body, but not the least altercating word passed about his soul; and God will cut 02" all disputes about thy soul also, as he did about the soul of Moses. God himself secured that from all debates of angels, good or bad, about it. Some have understood those words, Deut. xxxiv. 5 (which according to the Hebrew are read, ' Moses died,' ad os Domini, ' at the mouth of the Lord'), with this paraphrase (which some of the Jewish writers also did conceive to be the sense), od osculum. oris Domini, ' at the kiss of the mouth of the Lord.'* Even as the nearest loving friend (as was the Roman manner) useth to take the last breath of his dying friend into his body with a kiss, that so did God suck out Moses's soul into himself.

But believers have a plainer warrant, and clearer word of testimony (however that paraphrase is elegant), from the apostle, Heb. ii. 14, that \ ' Christ through death, having destroyed him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil, hath (thereby) delivered us from the fear of death' (and so of the fear of the devil at our death), unto the fear of which all men are justly subject, not at death only, but ' all their Hfetime.' But believers have no cause at all of any such fear, for that of our Saviour added may mightily add to our comfort at that hour: John. v. 24, ' Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is

* See Ludovicus Capellus in Epist. Jude 9. Deus ejus an imam quasi exsugendo eduxit. As A Lapide says upou Deut. xxxiv. 5.

passed from death unto life.' This is a great privilege for a man apt to fear that when his soul is forth the devils may appear about him. But do not fear ; Hands ofi", says Christ. Thou carriest a passport and safe conduct with thee, signed and sealed; and if thou need not fear the second death, thou needest not fear the devil, that hath the power of that death.

2. Thy soul shall have angels to wait on thee, to take thy soul when it comes forth, as the midwife doth the child, when it comes forth of the womb. The angels carried Lazarus's soul into Abraham's bosom, Luke xvi. 22. The devils take others' souls away. Of apostates while they live, Christ says, that ' men shall take them,' John xv., as the Pharisees did Judas, which is an heavy judgment. But at death the devils take their souls: Luke xii. 20, ' This night they shall require thy soul.' "Who are those they ? Hell is a prison ; so in Peter, 1 Peter v. Luke xii. 58, ' And the judge delivers to the officer, and the officer casts in prison.' This officer is the devil, that hales souls to that prison, and therefore Paul says of him, that he ' hath the power of death.' Indeed, at the day of judgment the good angels. Mat. xxv., are said to throw both men and devils to hell, but until then the devils are the chief leaders of wicked men's souls to hell.

Now that the good angels should do this for us at death, it is for state, and to grace us, as kings send some great noblemen of their court to attend those they would honour into their great city, and unto court; and it is by this Christ shews his value of us. And as at the latter day, when the wedding is to be solemnised, he will come himself and fetch us—John xiv. 3, ' And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also,'—so now at death in the mean while he sends his angels to bring his espoused unto him.

3. The soul is in heaven instantly. It was three o'clock afternoon when Christ died, and about after six the day ended; and the even of the passover the next day began soon after, as the Jewish scruple shews, about the thieves hanging on the cross any part of that day to come ; for which they brake their legs to despatch them afore the evening, which was the beginning of that next day ; as you read, John xix. 31, 32. And Christ knowing what would fall, and that they should die afore that evening of that next day began, spake unto the good thief on this wise: ' This day thou shalt be with me in paradise;' that is, afore night comes. Heaven is ready long since, and reserved for you, 1 Peter i. 4, 5, and thy soul hath been preparing and making meet for it, and in an instant it is ' swallowed up of life,' 2 Cor. v. 4. And the angels, like the sunbeams or flames of fire, are swift of flight, ' flying swiftly,' as the angel Gabriel said to Daniel, Dan. ix. 21. And hence, as soon as thou beginnest to be ' absent from the body,' or ceasest to be at home in the body, thou art ' present with the Lord.' And ' if this body be dissolved,' s^o^ji/, ' we have an house ready prepared,' for Christ went to prepare it, John xiv. ; and he hath prepared for every soul his proper apartment. Mat. xx. 23.

4. At thy dying, so far as thou hast been ' rich in faith and good works,' thy heart will be strengthened, both at death and thy passage to heaven, 'to lay hold upon eternal life,' 1 Tim. vi. 18, 19. And as thou art just a-comiog thither, and near to set thy first foot on that most holy ground, thou shalt find a ' rich entrance,' TrXouelug, or an ' abundant large entrance' into those holy courts. Those ' everlasting doors,' the broad gates of

heaven, will be thrown wide open for thee, for lo, here comes an heir, a rich heir of life.*

6. Either at the instant of death, or in that passage to heaven, thy soul shall be fully purified from sin, and made perfectly holy, Heb. x. 23. The church in heaven is said to consist of angels (whose style is the holy angels), and of 'the spirits of just men made perfect.' These just men, whilst men, and their souls abiding in their bodies, were but just imperfectly, though just in God's acceptation (as Job, and others we read); but the souls of these men now when separate are made perfect; that is, in that sort of righteousness (their sanetification) wherein they were deficient afore. To the same purpose the apostle speaks: 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10, ' For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.' It is to be understood of a comparison between the state of this life, which is the time and condition wherein we are imperfect, and oppositely to that other state, when this life is ended. ' Now we know but in part, and prophesy in part.' And there is the like reason of holiness, we are holy but in part. And that it is after this life ended that that which is perfect doth begin, is evident from these words, ' when that which is perfect comes, that which is imperfect is done away ;' ande contra, when that which is in part is done away, then that which is perfect comes. Now at and upon death it is that knowledge and prophesying are done away, and therefore then it is that perfection begins ; and although that way of knowledge or faith, which now we have, is done wholly away, yet love (verse 8), and so holiness, fails not, but is perfected. And the reason for this is, because God then takes up our souls into * the presence of his glory,' for us to * know him as we are known,' &c., which though it may admit of degrees, as the comparison of that after the day of judgment shews, yet it is for the kind of it a being admitted unto the glory of God, and not to know ' as in a glass,' but ' face to face.' Now though the knowledge of God, as imperfectly revealed in the way of faith, may consist with an answerable imperfect holiness (as here it doth), yet the communication and revelation of the glory of God itself unto sight, cannot consist with imperfect holiness. For if so, then it would be with a mixture of sin remaining, which God, who is a consuming fire to all sin, and every degree thereof, will not, and cannot bear, and the soul itself would have more torment than happiness in such a sight. Moses could not see God's face and live, but when he was made perfect he might. David says, ' I wall behold thy face in righteousness,' Ps. xvii. 15, which otherwise he could not behold. The substance of this reason we find in Jude 24, ' Now to him that is able to keep you from falling;' that is, into any grosser evil (for he speaks that of his keeping us in the midst of indwelling corruptions in this life); ' and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.' This is when this life is ended, and immediately succeeds the former, for there is no keeping us from falling in that other world, for the danger of sinning is over. But then we, being to be admitted to the presence of his glory, must be found faultless, for that presence of his glory can endure no spot, or imperfection in our grace, no, not the least. That the souls of saints are ' present with the Lord,' the apostle often tells us, 2 Cor. v. 8; and that we are admitted to the presence of his glory, that instance of Stephen shews, that Stephen when dying saw his glory, Acts vii. 55 ; and verse 59, he died crying, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;' that is, in respect unto a being received unto * Habebitis liberum et apertum ingressum.— Gerard in verba.

that presence of bis glory, it was that our dying Stephen, when his soul was DOW departing, cries, ' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' Now unto what it is that Christ receives our souls that Eom. xv. 7 informs us : * As Christ,' says he, ' hath received us unto the glory of God.' There indeed it is spoken of his having received us into the right of that glory in this life ; but tbia new receiving us at death is, and must therefore be, his receiving us unto the possession of it, which in this life we have not, and otherwise there were no new act of receiving, nor addition to the former, now when we come to die.

If any doubt or scruple ariseth in thee from hence, that thou findest at present an infinite depth of sin, lusts, and corruptions, and the greater part of thy heart like that of the earth overflown with that sea ; if thou art troubled, that thou hast had experience of so slow a procedure, and of so difficult a winning ground upon them for many years, though thou hast by faith been continually applying Christ's death to them ; and if hereupon thou art ready to say. How then shall I hope and believe, that in an instant all those corruptions will be purged out, and hoUness perfected in me ? for answer, consider,

1. That in this work thy soul is merely passive, whereas in working out of corruptions whilst thou Hvest here, God goes the pace of thine own faith and endeavours, and attempers his work thereto : Rom. viii. 13, 'If you through the Spirit mortify the deeds of the flesh.' But in this last completing and filling up of hohness, God doth that alone upon thee, as a reward of thy former imperfect endeavours, and as a part indeed, or rather foundation, of glorifying of thee ; and therefore, look as in believing thou art passive, so in this.

2. It is a new state and condition that thou art at death entering into, differing from faith. Thy enjoyment of God after death is to be by sight, and accordingly thy soul must be disposed for it, which it cannot be but by perfect holiness ; and therefore the like time and pauses to work out corruption as were during the hfe of faith are not to be expected. God suits the dispensation answerable unto the state and condition he puts us into.

8. You may help your faith in this, by considering the great change which at the latter day shall be in a moment wrought upon the bodies of the saints, by him who ' shall change our vile bodies to be like unto his glorious bod}', through his power by which he subdueth all things to himself.' The bodies of these saints that are then alive shall, ' in the twinkling of an eye, be changed,' and of mortal be made immortal, and of natural bodies spiritual, and the bodies of them in the grave, that not stink only, but are rotted there, and the atoms and dust of many of them scattered and dispersed, in an instant God will work that great change which the apostle so much celebrates, 1 Cor. xv. And why shouldst thou not believe the same for thy soul ? especially seeing thou hast had experience of so great a change wrought in thee in thy regeneration, from the state and power of sin that once held thee, which was a far greater change than this, being but of degrees of holiness ; but that was a change from a total state of sin, and the power of it, unto holiness, though imperfect.

6. There is a great solemnity used upon the soul's arrival and first coming thither. I shall take my first rise from that 24th of Jude, ' Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.' There are two words that import thus much: 1. A presenting to himself afore the presence of his glory; 2. A doing this with exceeding joy or triumph.

1, That latter of exceeding joy is a joy on all hands, both on the soul'a part, which now first enters into joy, and which, to bo sure, hath good cause to rejoice. The believing soul rejoiced when it saw not Christ, but only believed on him; and it rejoiced with a joy unspeakable ; much more now then when it sees him. There is joy also of the glorified saints, especially of those that knew thee, and were there afore thee, who are therefore said to receive us when we die into their eternal habitations, Luke xvi. 9. It is spoken after the manner of men, as friends use to entertain and welcome strangers formerly known to them that come from far, though they belonging to the same country themselves were in afore them. And if there be joy in heaven at the conversion of a sinner among the angels, as Christ says, then there is joy at the new coming of such a soul to heaven, especially among those angels that bring them thither, and among those other saints fore-mentioned. But, above all, there is joy in the heart of God and Christ. For if there be joy in thine own heart, and in the angels and saints, much more in Christ's heart; for Christ hath the great purchase of his blood now come home, and his long expected venture is now arrived safe, and past all danger. And there is the same joy in the heart of God, who chose thee, and had set his heart upon thee from everlasting, and thou comest home to himself, having been sent for by him, when thou hadst been long absent from him, and wandering in a sinful miserable world. Did the father of the prodigal rejoice, and make a feast, and justify by this that ' it was meet he should make merry and be glad, because he that was lost is found' ? Luke xv.; then meet it is also in its proportion that there should be the like joy when a soul that hath been absent from God his Father and his Father's house, John xiv. 1, 2, so many years, and during all that space in great danger of having been lost through manifold temptations and hazards, and which had been all along so miraculously kept, and * preserved in Christ' (as is said in the first verse of this our Jude), it is very meet that when;?he first arrives, and appears in the presence of his Father, there should likewise be great rejoicing; and there is great cause for it; and indeed the same reason is for this as was for the other. And truly, whosoever will consider each word used here, as, 1, presented to himself (now so as not afore), and, 2, but now first made perfectly unblameable and faultless, and now new come into God's presence as not afore, may easily discern that such a thing as this (though spoken thus after the use and manner of men) should be intended in this exceeding joy.

As also it is evident that it is intended of this first appearing of such separate souls afore the presence of God, which begins after this life ended upon dissolution. For at the first appearing in any one's presence that love us among men, there useth such exceeding joy to follow and accompany it. Besides, that this joy refers to their having escaped and passed through so many rocks and hazards which other souls had shipwrecked upon, as the whole foi'egone scope of that Epistle had shewn, and thereby is to be understood in the first place of that first admission into God's presence, as also that this time is the first when we are made completely faultless, a/M'jj/Moi, that devils nor angels cannot find any matter of blame, nor any such thing, no, not the least.

The first word (that imports solemnity) is, that it is said God presenteth them unto himself, as Christ elsewhere is said to present us unto God. The Greek word IsTri/Mi here used signifies both to make and to estabhsh ; and so understood, it imports God's making or establishing us in perfect holiness afore his presence. It also signifies to make present, or to set be-

fore one's presence. And farther, if we compare this with other like scriptures, it will prove in sense and scope the same as -rraPi'sTr^/xi; for we find, Eph. V. 2G, that word in Hke manner spoken of Christ: ' That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, hut that it should he holy, and without blemish.' And that faultlessness there is especially spoken of sanctification, as by the verse afore appears, ' that he might sanctify it,' &c. So, when he presents it perfectly sanctified to himself, as being her husband, and she his spouse, he is likewise said to present us to his Father, in whose sight and presence we are to appear, Col. i. 22, ' To present you holy and unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight,' &c. In his sight there is meant of the Father, and the word present in those places is a word of solemnity, used of presenting the male children unto God (and accordingly it is spoken of Christ when presented in the Temple, Luke ii. 22), or of a spouse unto an husband w^hen first brought into his presence, as of Eve it is said. Gen. ii. 22, ' God brought her to Adam ' as his wife. So, then, God the Father here, when he hath completely rendered and made us perfectly holy, presents us to himself as his chosen children, according to Eph. i. 4, 5, ' He hath chosen us to be holy, and without blame before him in love, and hath predestinated us unto the adoption of children to himself.' And we being now at death accordingly made perfectly holy, and without blame, he then presents us to himself (saith Jude here); and Jesus Christ, when any soul his spouse being made without wrinkle, and now cometh first so unto him, presents it to himself and to his Father as his spouse and his child; and he doth this by the same reason as when the Avhole church shall come together, being become ' without fault, spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing,' as at the latter day he then will present her to himself, and solemnly to his Father; though that is done with infinitely greater solemnity when it is of the whole church, as the apostle, Eph. v. 27,tells us; but in the mean time he doth it to eveiy particular soul, at first approach into the presence of that glory. The same reason in a proportion holds for this latter as well as the foimer; so it is confirmed by this, that at the saint's conversion Christ is said to present us to his Father, to own and take us as first given to him by Christ; and he doth this often afterward by intercession.

It was a memorable speech of an holy man, when dying, to this eflfect: Though I am now, said he, at present filled with the assurance of God the Father's love, and that he will receive me, yet I should^dread to appear afore so gi-eat a glory, were not Christ there in heaven to present me to him.

CHAPTER XV.

0/ the glories of heaven, and the happiness of glorified saints therein.

For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not northy to he com.: pared tilth the glory iihich shall be revealed in us. — Rom. VIII. 18.

My design is to raise up your hearts to heaven, and to consider that great glory which God hath prepared for them that love him, to open and describe heaven, whereof there are many uses, both to those that are in the state of nature, and those that are in the state of grace. There is nothing more powerful to bring men to Christ, nothing more proportionable to a

principle of self-love ; and there is nothing that is a greater encouragement to the godly, that they may willingly and with cheerfulness pass through the afflictions of this life, that they may pass through the evil world with their hearts raised up to heaven. The apostle, from the 17th verso to the end of this chapter, sends it in, beating this upon the hearts of God's people in stealing* their hearts, and raising them up against tribulations; and among the rest this is one encouragement, to consider the joy which shall not only be revealed to us, but in us, which we shall be made partakers of. The consideration of heaven, which is so Httle thought on by us Christians, this I would lay open to you. In the excellency of which glory, that we might more clearly behold it, wc might look upon many things, but I will only name two.

First, I will consider it comparatively; and this the text leads us unto, • For I reckon not the suflerings,' &c. Secondhj, Simply as it is in itself.

First of all. To know this great glory, let us compare it with all other things, with all the goods the creature can afford, with all the things here below, which our hearts doat so much upon, as pleasures, honours, riches, beauty, &c. They are not to be compared to it; it transcends all the glory of this world, all the good things we are capable of; one leaf of this tree of life is better than all the fruits that grow in this world, Kev. xxii. Out of the bowels of this earth are raised gold, silver, pearls, and precious stones, which serve but for the materials of the walls of this city and for paving the streets of it; the most glorious things this world bath, serve only for the gates of the temple. If the outside be so glorious, consider how glorious must the inside be, how beautiful must it be within ! No creature this world hath, is worthy so much as to shadow it; all the creatures be swallowed up with this glory, even as a drop is swallowed up with the ocean. Solomon, in all his royalty, the most magnificent, rich, and glorious prince the world ever had, lived indeed at the best rate; he had the very quintessence of all earthly glory and joys, insomuch that a queen herself was amazed to see his great glory. Yet let me tell you, this Solomon, which is now in heaven, ten thousand times exceeds all the gloiy and pomp he had on earth ; I say, the glory he hath now in heaven excels that glory he had on earth, being on his throne in all his royalty, even as much as he did then excel himself above what he was in his mother's womb. We see then the good things of this life are not worth talking of; they come far short, they are ' not worthy to be compared' with the glory of heaven.

In the second place, compare this glory with the afflictions we suffer here, and it doth, as the apostle saith, weigh them all down, not only the afflictions which befall one man, but all men. Take all of them, be they what they will be, and lay them in one balance, and heaven and its glory in another, and it will weigh them all down, even as a grain of sand will be weighed down of the whole world. There is no reckoning to be made of them in respect of heaven, and yet one of these afflictions will eclipse all the good we enjoy here; for if we are afflicted, we take no pleasure in all our worldly contentments. Therefore we see that the afflictions of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory which shall be revealed in us.

In the third place, to make a further demonstration of this to you, there

is a joy which God's people are capable of in this life, the joy of the Holy

Ghost, which is ' unspeakable and glorious,' one drop of which transcends

infinitely all the joy the creatures can afford us. My brethren, have you

* Qu. ' steeling ' ?— Ed.

ever heard of this joy ? have you over tasted of it ? hath God ever raised your hearts to see it and his glory ? If you have but tasted, as the apostle saith, how good the Lord is, you will say with David, Ps. iv. 6, 7, ' Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me. Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than in the time when corn and wine and oil increased.' This is the joy which comes fresh from the fountain. If the devil himself, when he transforms himself into an angel of light, affords more comfort to the heart of an hypocrite than the world can do, why then how much more doth the joy of the Holy Ghost, which comes from the true fountains, if it be shed abroad in your heart! And hence it was that the martyrs suffered so willingly, and ran through so many persecutions ; and yet the glory which is in heaven, if it be compared to this, infinitely transcends it. The joy which shall be revealed swallows up all these joys which we have here, even as the sea swallows up mole-hills ; it is nothing in comparison of heaven, it is but as a drop to the ocean; and yet one drop of this joy of the Holy Ghost is more excellent than oceans of worldly comforts. All the joy of this world is but as a drop to the ocean, nay, the infinite drops will make a sea, yet infinite worlds will not make heaven ; but indeed infinite drops of this joy will make heaven, because it is of the same nature. Yet this joy of the Holy Ghost is not comparable to the joys of heaven. Why ? It is but the earnest of our inheritance : 2 Cor. V. 5, * Now he that hath wrought us for the self-same thing is God, who hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.' God doth fashion and prepare his people here, by some small revenues of their joys, which shall come in hereafter; and all that the Holy Ghost makes us partakers of in this life is but as a sixpence in respect of the whole payment of glory we shall have in heaven, Phil. iii. 14. The Scriptures calls it no more but the sealing of the Holy Ghost, the earnest of our inheritance. Indeed, it is of the same nature with the great sum of which it is an earnest; for you know an earnest differs from a pledge in this, a pledge is of another kind, but the earnest of the same kind with the payment. And so the joy of the Holy Ghost is of the same kind with that which is laid up for us, but it is but an earnest; and there is a difference in the manner of producing it. Whatsoever we have here as our earnest is but from the light of faith. We cannot see Christ from whom we have it, we only believe on him as he is absent. We never saw him, and yet this works a joy unspeakable and glorious, 1 Peter i. 8. "V^Tiilst we appi'ehend him by faith, it is but as absent from him: ' Therefore we are always confident,' 2 Cor. v. 6, * knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.' And if we have such joy in his absence, and seeing but a small glimpse or cranny of light coming to us by faith, if this, I say, be so glorious, what will it then be when we shall see him as he is, in which is fulness of joy ? By faith we see him, but not all; and this causeth joy unspeakable and glorious; what then to see him in perfection, and have his presence in the fulness of it, whose presence in the least degree of it goeth far beyond all the sight of him we have in the highest degree of faith, yea, in all the degrees of faith! And yet the least degree of faith excels all the joy the world can give; and therefore do but think with yourselves what heaven is.

Compare it with those joys and that glory the saints that are now in heaven enjoy, which infinitely transcends both the good things of this world and the joy of the Holy Ghost; and yet there is a glory to be revealed after the day of judgment that will transcend the present joy of

the glorified saints. The least drop of joy hero that comes from the Holy Ghost trauscends the joy of the world ; the joy the saints in heaven now have as much transcends the joy of the Holy Ghost as it doth that of the world; yet after the day of judgment there is a fuller treasure of joy to be broken up ; and therefore let this raise up your hearts to conceive of the exceeding weight of glory laid up for the elect, the saints who are now in heaven at the well-head of comforts, who bathe themselves in these rivers of pleasures they have, and are capable of more joy than we can conceive of. One saint in heaven hath more glory and joy in his heart than all the joy that is on earth, and yet at the latter day, their glory will as far transcend that they have now, even us it doth ours upon earth. I may say of their condition as the apostle doth, Heb. xi. 40, ' God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should jnot be made perfect.' While the saints are without their fellows, they are not come to the highest degree of perfection : Heb. xii. 23, ' To the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.' There is a perfection to be given them (which they yet have not) when all their fellow-saints, all their fellow-brethren, when the whole number of the faithful are together; then shall a new treasure be broken up, 2 Thes, i. 10, ' who shall come' (saith the text, speaking of Christ) ' to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired by all those that believe.' "We do usually admire a thing when our expectation is exceeded; now the angels and the souls of the glorified saints in heaven have seen and enjoyed many glorious things already, and they look for far more glorious things ; but yet Christ will bring forth a glory at that day beyond their expectations: he will not only be admired by wicked men, but all that believe shall admire this, he will then put them to a new amazement. Let now the consideration of this glory raise up your hearts to seek for it, that so such an unvaluable and great price may not pass out of your bauds, even the exceeding great riches of glory laid up for us. Again, stand amazed at the love of God, that hath prepared such glory for you.

Thus much comparatively ; now, secondly, let us consider this heavenly glory simply as it [is] in itself; and because things are best known by their causes, we will begin with them.

And Jjrst of all, I shall consider the efficient cause of this great glory; and that is the great God of heaven and earth, whose greatness and glory we cannot comprehend, but only by his works. He is the efficient cause of heaven and all its glory; he built this great city, and all his works shall be like himself. If king Aiasuerus make a feast, he will make it like a king ; much more the King of kings will provide for his servants whom he feasts. He made a world, and how glorious is it! but if he make a heaven, think with yourselves what a heaven it will be. The Scriptures, Heb. xi., commend this to us, comparing the 10th and 16th verses together, ' For he looked,' saith he, 'for a city' (speaking of Abraham) 'which hath foundations, whose builder and founder is God; ' and then ver. 16, 'God is not ashamed to be called their God; for he hath built for them a city;' mark the reason. In the first place, it is said to be a city, whose builder and founder is God; God is the artist of it, he shewed his art in it; in this building of heaven God shewed himself an artificer; indeed, God hath made other great works, as the world, but he hath shewed no art upon this in comparison of heaven. The heavens which we see are but the feeling* * Qu. ' ceiling' ?— Ed,

of this heaven which God hath prepared for his saints, and yet they are very glorious; but yet he hath bestowed no cost in comparison, he hath shewed no art on it in respect of heaven; he hath bestowed all his cost on this, and in making heaven he shewed himself an artificer. And would you know the reason of it ? It is because heaven is his standing house. Kings, you know, use to enrich their standing houses ; they bestow more cost upon them than others. Now this world, my brethren, is not a house that hath foundation, but it was builded hj God as a stage upon which, when men have acted their parts, it is to be thrown down; it is set up for a few thousand years, which are nothing to him, and then he means to pull it down, and he will then burn it; but heaven is God's standing house, his palace; and therefore consider what great cost God hath bestowed on it. Again, it is said to be a city prepared: Mat. xxv. 24, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world.' He speaks as if God had been a gi-eat while in making heaven (God hath been long in contriving it); nay, further, saith Christ, ' I go to prepare a place,' as if it were still in finishing, or as if it were not yet finished. Not but that all God's works are perfect from the beginning, but it is spoken after the manner of men, that we might expect great glory, for which there is such great preparation. And, saith Christ, ' If it were not so, I would have told you.' Think what you will think of it, and it will be answerable, God will fulfil it. Heaven is a city prepared. If there be but preparation for a coronation of an earthly king a month or a quarter of a year, there are great things expected, and yet more is shewed; but now God hath been always in preparing heaven, he hath been making of it from the beginning of the world. David laid up materials for the temple, and Solomon builded; so God prepares heaven, and Christ builds it. And therefore, consider with yourselves, there are^great things to be found; expect what you can, and it shall be answered. And thus you see God hath made a heaven with a foundation ; he hath been long in preparing of it; he set up the world in six days, but he hath been setting up heaven, as I may so say, six thousand years; and therefore let this raise up your heai'ts to consider what a weight of glory God hath laid up for those that love him.

Secondly, Consider the meritorious cause of it, which is Christ the Lord of glory. Christ Jesus himself hath purchased it for us in his blood, he hath laid the foundation of it, his blood was laid out for it; he spun this thread of glory out of his own bowels, and therefore we may well argue the greatness of this glory, seeing that his blood hath obtained it, Eph. i. 18. It is there called ' the riches of the glory of his inheritance.' All the inheritance that Christ hath, he distributes unto the saints. This is said to be a purchased possession; why, now my brethren think with yourselves, what shall be the revenues of glory purchased by his death ? Think what a large possession the blood of Christ will procure. Consider with yourselves what this will amount to. And this is heaven, heaven is the revenues of Christ's blood. Think, I say, what glorious heaven it must needs be which Christ's blood hath purchased for us. This is that he aimed at in laying down his life for us ; for justification, adoption, and sanctifica-tion, are but the way to glorification; and we are justified, adopted, and sanctified all to this end, that we might be glorified. Consider, therefore, what Christ's blood will be worth, what the revenues of it will come to; and therefore what hath been said of heaven, let it move you, and work upon you. If I should single out any man present, any particular man in

this congregation, as our Saviour did the )'oung man in the gospel, and bid him forsake all, and he shall have treasure in heaven, this would be a great ofl'er. Now I single out every man here present; consider with yourselves, you all stand arrested before God, you deserved to be accursed, and to be eternally so, yet if you leave all your iniquities, repent and believe, you shall have glory in heaven. Methinks now you should lay hold on this offer, and think no strictness too much, so you could get •• heaven. If you were merchant-like men, you would not let heaven, this precious heaven, pass you; you would lay hold on it, and spend all you had to get it, and to be made partakers of those invaluable treasures. Do but think with thyself, thou canst not bid enough for it: 1 Cor. ix. 25, ' Strive and run, so run that you may attain ; and every one that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it that they may have a corruptible, but we an incorruptible, crown,' And if men be so careful here on earth to obtain temporal preferments, much more, then, run to get that preferment which of all other is the chief, even everlasting happiness in heaven. It is for heaven, an incorruptible crown, for heaven that transcends all other things ; and think with yourselves how it will trouble you if you come short of your prize ! What a fearful and sorrowful voice will it be to you—who can express your anguish ?—when you hear heaven and your crown is parted from you ! It was a pitiful saying to Nebuchadnezzar, ' Thy kingdom is departed from thee ;' much more will it then be to any of us to hear that we have lost heaven; how will it astonish thee to hear Christ say. Heaven and thy crown is departed from thee, thou must be turned to devils for ever, this will be thy condition to the end! It is our duty to speak unto you, we can but exhort you, we can do no more : Mat. X. 14, ' If they will not retain it,' saith he, ' shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them.' If ye look not to yourselves in this life, this will be the event of it. Oh, how will it fret you to the heart; what unutterable pei-plexities will you be in, when you see others follow Christ to his glor\-, and you yourselves have that curse denounced against you, ' Go, you cursed,' &c. Alas, then, it will be too late to get heaven ! Oh what terror and amazement, what bitter anguish, to think heaven came near unto me; it was offered me, and yet, because I would not part with some darhng sin, some beloved corruption, some base lust, I have lost my interest in it; I must not partake of those rivers of pleasures in heaven. This certainly will be the issue, except here, whilst you have space, you make sure of this crown to yourselves by faith and repentance. 3. I proceed, in the third place, to the exemplaiy cause ; and the greatness of this glory appears from this. This exemplary cause is the glory of Jesus Christ himself. Consider the gi-eat glory of the Lord of glory is the nearest pattern of it, and therefore in Scripture that glory the saints shall have in heaven is said to be ' like his;' we shall be like the Lord of glory. He is not only made the efficient and meritorious cause, but also the exemplary cause of this glory ; and what can be said more than this, we shall be made like to Christ Jesus, who is the Lord of glory, the eye of all things, the first-born of every living creature, in whom all excellencies remain, and all fulness dwells ! Oh, then, what infinite glory to be like what Jesus Christ now is ! Why, thou shalt be made like to him: John xvii. 24, ' That they may behold my glory which thou hast given me ;' but that is not all, though this was sufficient to make us happy. A beggar may behold the glory of a king, and be never the happier for it; nay, be more sad in his thoughts, because none of his glory reflects upon himself; but, saith

our Saviour, John xvii. 22, ' The glory which thou gavest me, I have given them, that they may be one, even as we are one.' We shall wear the same kind of glory which Christ wears, and he wears all the glory both of heaven and earth about him at all times ; what kind of glory shall we then wear ? We shall be made ' like unto his glorious body.' As we were all horn like Adam, so we shall be rnade like Christ; for we are said to be ' predestinated, to be made conformable to the image of his Son,' so that as we were predestinated to be made like him in grace and sufferings here, so likewise in glory. We ' see here but as in a glass the glory of Christ,' and yet ' ai'e changed into the same image from glory to glory: 2 Cor. iii. 18, • But we all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.' If we seeing him here upon earth as an holy and righteous man, conceive him to have such glory in him, consider, brethren, what that shall be when we shall see him as he is; what a comfort will that be, when we shall see him face to face in heaven, and being made partakers of his gloi'y, we shall be like him : 1 John iii. 2, ' Behold, now we are the sons of God ; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be hke him.'

|»i-r4. In the fourth place, let us consider both the object and subject of this glory. And first, the object of this happiness is not any other creatm-e, but God himself; no creature in heaven and earth is the matter of our happiness, but God himself will be made happiness to us ; he will not only be the efficient cause, but the material cause of our happiness : Gen. xvii., he sums up all in himself, ' I will,' says be, ' be an all-sufficient God unto thee." He promises himself, not heaven separated fi'om himself, but he will give us his own glory; and he doth not only promise us great and glorious things to be created by him, but he himself will be our heaven : Ps. Ixxiii. 25, ' Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none that I desire on earth, besides thee.' Mark the phrase, indeed there are all other things here on earth which we may stand in need of; but, saith David, though I have need of them, yet none of them all I desire besides thee. God alone made David happy, for indeed God himself makes heaven, though there were neither saint nor angel ; indeed, they are all there, but we need nothing but God and Christ to make us happy. It is said of the glorious city described in the E,evelation, this glorious city which is indeed the immediate forerunner of heaven : Kev. xxi. 23, ' The city had no need ■ of sun or moon to shine in it, for,' saith he, ' the glory of God did lighten \ it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.' Why, my brethren, though there ' be many glorious things in heaven, though there be the fruition of the company of saints and angels, yet that is not it which makes us happy; but God is our happiness. Indeed, the glorious societies^of the glorified bodies of saints is very delectable, and ten thousand times excels all the delights of creatures here below ; yet, I say, we have no need of them to make us happy, it is but overplus; God himself and Christ Jesus make our heaven and happiness. Think now with yourselves what heaven is. Are we all able to consider what it is to have God to be our happiness ? It is impossible for you to conceive it, and for me to express it. I can no more reveal what God will do to you, than this light can reveal the light of the sun, which can be known by'no light but its own. In the first place, God contains all things; all manner of divine perfections are bound up in him. The pleasures of this earth are scattered here and there, and therefore the soul goes wandering up and down from one creature to another,

from one flower to another, because some part of his happiness is in one, some part in another; but, my brethren, in God we have all happiness summed up, and wrapped together, all our delights are together in him : Rev. xxi. 7, * He that overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son.' Consider with yourself that God himself can but inherit all things, and indeed he is all things; and if we have God for our God, we shall inherit all things ; he will be meat and drink, wife, husband, and whatsoever else unto us, he will be all things to us himself; and therefore it is said, 1 Cor. xiv. 18, that at the day of judgment, ' when Christ shall give up the kingdom, then all things shall be put under him, that God maybe all in all;' which implies two things :— /

First, That God himself will be our happiness. He will be happiness enough, for he is all in all.

Secondly, That he will be all unto us in a more transcendent manner than the glory of the creatures. I may compare these joys of heaven to those receipts which contain the very spirits of things, the very life and quintessence of things extracted out, a little quantity whereof, as much as will lie on a knife's point, is of more virtue and efficacy to work upon a man's body (because they are the spirits) than a great quantity of all other drugs ; so now these contentments which God gives are the very spirits of comforts, which will add more happiness than all the drugs of worldly pleasures can administer unto us. For all the happiness that could be had here, nay, further, all the happiness God could create to men as men here on earth, are but as one drop to the bottomless ocean of God's glory; and yet this falls short, this is too scant a comparison ; for I say, infinite millions of drops will at length make an ocean, but ten thousand millions of the glories of this world cannot make up one drop of the glory which is in God. Thus God wdll be all things to us, and all things in a transcendent manner.

Again, third!ij, God will pour out himself unto us ; he will give us communication with himself of this his infinite happiness, he will pour out all his glory unto us; Eph. iii. 19, ' That ye might be filled with all the fulness of God,' which will give all comfort; open thy moulh wide, he is able to fill it; for one drop of God will fill thee full; he will fill thee with fulness, and fulness of the best kind. Oh, what ineffable comfort will this be, when the vessels of mercy shall be thrown into this bottomless sea of glory! Therefore do but think with yourselves, what a happiness this will be, when you shall be made partakers of God's glory, of all the blessedness that is in God; for although he cannot give us his glory essentially, yet it shall as truly seem to make us happy as it doth to make him glorious.

Fourthly, We shall be made one with him; they are Christ's own words: John xvii. 21-23, * That they all may be one ; as thou, 0 Father, art in me, and I in thee, even that they be also one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory that thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.' My brethren, what is it that makes God happy, but God himself; and what is that which makes Christ so happy, but that he is equal with God the Father ? Now, if God make himself happy, how happy shall we be then when we communicate with God in this his happiness. To be one with him, then, must needs make us happy. Indeed, we cannot be one with him

as Christ is, for he is the brightness of his glory, the express image and character of his person; he is the natural Son of God, and of the same nature with God; but we shall be made one with him so far as the creature is capable of, and the next union to that which God and Christ have one with another we shall have. And again, being made one with God, we shall rejoice in all that God rejoiceth in. That God is so glorious a God, it shall make thee glorious ; thou shalt have all those joys by revenues out of what he now lives in heaven, thou shalt rejoice more in God's happiness than in thine own ; the more happiness riseth to God, the more riseth to thee ; that which is the matter of God's glory be the matter of ours; it is the nature of love, that it rejoiceth in the love of the person beloved: John xiv., 'You are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.' Our Saviour sailh also to his disciples, ' If ye loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I said I go to the Father.' Now, my brethren, if we shall rejoice in the same God rejoiceth in, both in that joy which is intriusecal within him, and in that joy which is extrinsecal, whereby he delights in all his works and providence; if both these, I say, shall be in us, how glorious shall we be! John xv. 11, Christ saith, 'These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.' And this is not to be understood of our Saviour's joy, of the hopes he had of them, but that the joy which is in Christ shall be in us : that ' my joy,' saith he, ' may be in you.' We shall enter into our Master's joy. Mat. xxv. 23, 'and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God ; and not only so, but we joy also in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ,' Rom. V. 2. We shall not only rejoice in a created glory, which he shall bestow upon us, but further, you shall rejoice in God's own glory.

Use. Let us therefore take God for our portion, whatsoever else becomes of us, whatsoever befalls us ; let what will come, what afflictions, what throbs, what miseries or crosses will come, heaven will make amends for all; God will be better to thee than all. Put them all in one balance, and God with that glory he will bestow on you in another balance, and he will over-weigh them all, for they are not worthy to be compared to this glory. This was it that'made the martyrs run through so many persecutions and tortures, and that with cheerfulness ; they took God for their portions ; so they had him, they cared not what became of their bodies. For, saith Paul, ' we look not to things which are corruptible, but to things which are eternal.' And because it is probable, yea, and more than probable, that there are degrees of glory in heaven, that God will reward every one according to their works, do not only content yourselves to go to heaven, but endeavour to serve God more, that you may have great glory in heaven ; be abundant in good works, hoard up good works, according to which glory shall be weighed to you in heaven. Let not pleasures hinder thee of the least degree of glory, for to have but one pearl added to thy crown is more than the whole world. Commit therefore no sin that might hinder your attaining of glory, for what though God pardon thy sin ? Yet thou losest glory which thou mightest have gotten whilst thou wast committing the sin, the least shred of which glory transcends all the glory of the world.

Now we come to the subject of this glory, the vessel which shall receive this infinite mass of glory ; and that is the soul, for it is called the salvation ' of our souls;' the soul which will hold so much is the vessels of this glory, for the body shall be exceeding glorious, yet the soul is the receptacle which must receive this glory ; Rom. ix. 23, ' And that he might make

known the riches of his gloiy on the vessels of mercy, which he had before prepared unto glory.' And St Peter calleth Christ the salvation of our souls : ' the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls.' My brethren, your soul, howsoever you value it, is capable of more glory than this world can aflbrd, the pleasures of which will fill your soul no more than one drop will fill a cistern, or a little shower the place where the ocean stands, Eccles. iii, 11. Now, it is said that in this life God will put a world into the heart of man, and yet all that world will not fill it. Why, my brethren, your souls are narrow in this life in respect of that they shall be hereafter; they bold but little in respect of that they shall hold in heaven ; they are but little bladders which there shall be blown up; they are but clung bladders in respect of that they shall be in heaven hereafter, which may appear in this: Solomon had a very large heart, he had as many notions in him as the sands of the sea-shore for number, and yet the soul of the least child in heaven, happily but new come out of its mother's womb, exceeds all the knowledge which Solomon had on earth. Our souls are capable of more joys than the senses can give, they are not able to satisfy it; it will drink up more gloiy even in one hour than the senses can provide in many hundred years, it will drink them all up at one draught. My beloved, your senses cannot let in the King of glory; such narrow gates cannot receive such infinite great glory, Ps. xxiv.

In heaven the doors of your hearts shall be opened; and when those doors are open, even when the everlasting doors of your hearts are open, they cannot contain the glory, you must be contained in it; ' Enter,' saith Christ, ' into thy Master's joy.' If the joy of the Holy Ghost in this life pass all understanding and believing, and we rejoice* with joy unspeakable and full of glory, how much more in the world to come shall our joys pass all understanding, when we shall have fruition of God's presence, which is life itself? Your souls have two great gulfs, viz. the understanding and the will, which must and shall be satisfied.

1. The understanding shall be satisfied. Now, saith Solomon, the eye of the body is not satisfied with seeing, it can comprise half the world in it. And if the eye of the body be so hard to be satisfied, much more the eye of the soul. And yet in heaven this shall be satisfied, this gulf shall be satisfied: Ps. xvii. 15, *I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy j likeness.' He was to lay his head in the grave for a while, but he should arise when the heavens shall be no more. As Job said, * I shall see him again;' so David, ' I shall awake, and then I shall be satisfied with thy likeness.' ' Shew us the Father,' saith Philip, John siv. 18, * and it sufficeth us.' You will say, if you could but see God, it would suffice; and indeed you may well say so, for the sight of God will suffice you. Why, you shall see God, John xvii. 24. For Christ doth desire this especially, those who are his to make happy, to be with him, to behold his face: * Father, I will that they also that thou hast given me to be with me \ where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me.' \ So Mat. V. 8, ' Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God,' they ^ shall be able to behold him. If the Queen of Sheba, who had seen so much glory before, and being a queen had partaken of so much glory in herself, if she, I say, was so astonished, so amazed, that she had no spirit in her when she saw Solomon's wisdom, and his magnificcncy in honour and riches, how much more shall the glory of God ravish us, part of which we never saw; no, not the glimpse of it. Oh how wilt thou be amazed * Qu. ' and believing we rejoice' ?— Ed.

VOL. VII. G "

with joy -wlien thou shalt see his glory, and see him as he is, when we shall know as we are known, and God knows us as far as can be! 1 Cor. xiii. 12, ' For we now see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face : now we know but in part; but then we shall know even as we are known.' All our sight of him here, it is but as in a glass. Now, what a great difference it is to look upon a man who is behind us, and to turn our face and to look truly and stedfastly upon him ! There is infinitely more difference betwixt that sight we have of God by faith on earth, and that perfect sight of him, and fruition of his glory, which we shall have in heaven. Why, the eye of a man's body is but a small thing, and the apple of it much smaller, and yet by the help of this little sun the body is able to take half the world into it at once ; how much more shall the eye of our understanding conceive infinite joys (past our apprehension here) when it hath the light of God's glory shining about it: Ps. xxxvi. 8, 9, ' They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fulness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the rivers of thy pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life: in thy light shall we see light.' Whenas the sun of glory comes to shine about us, we shall even draw God into our souls; and thus, you see, the first gulf shall be filled.

2. The second gulf of man's soul is the will. Thou hast a will, and amongst all the affections of it, love is most comfortable. Now, that shall be fully satisfied; we shall be satisfied with God's loving-kindness. Psalm Ixxiii. For all other affections bring pain with them, but love is always comfortable: Philip, ii. 1, * If there be any consolation of Christ, if any comfort of love.' We love things here on earth that cannot love us again, as money, riches, and the like; how much more shall we love * itself ? Indeed, as Solomon saith, the love of friends is very delectable: Prov. xxvii. 9, ' Ointment and perfume rejoice the heart; so doth the sweetness of a man's friend by hearty counsel.' The same testifies David in his lamentation for Jonathan: 2 Sam. i. 26, ' I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan : very pleasant hast thou been unto me : thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of a woman.' But, I say, though the love of friends be great, Jonathan exceeding lovely, yet they are not so lovely as God; for it cannot be affirmed of them that they are love itself, as God is. Oh, then, how pleasant will it be when this vast affection of love shall be satisfied ! God will come into us and dwell with us ; and do but think what a pleasant thing it is to have the great God of heaven and earth to dwell together with the creature in unity, to have him who is love itself to dwell in us to all eternity ! It is said, 1 Pet. i. 8, ' Whom having not seen you love; in whom, though you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable, and glorious.' If that be a cause to make you rejoice so unspeakably, how much more joyful will you be when you enjo}'' his presence, not only to kiss him through the lattice, as here we do, enjoy only his presence through his ordinances, but to lie in the bosom of his love, to be enfolded in those everlasting arms of his mercy; to be loved of love itself, to be made partaker of all his goodness. And God's love is free, ho loves us without any cause in ourselves. Why, then, brethren, consider with yourselves what is the height, depth, breadth, \ and length of God's love, what it is to be ' filled with all fulness of God,' J Eph. iii, 8. Oh what a bottomless sea of God's love shall we be flung into, one drop of which is better than the gold of Ophir, yea, surpasseth the whole earth!

* Qu. 'love Love'?—EI).

In the last place, I will endeavour to ebew the final cause, and demonstrate the greatness of heaven, by the end why God hath prepared all this glorj^ and the persons for whom.

1. For whom is it that God hath been from everlasting preparing glory? . Is it not for his saints ? Is it not for his friend and spouse ? Is it not ^ for Sion ? Hcb. xii. 22-24, ' But you are come into Mount Sion, and into the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the first-born, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits \ of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of the sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel.' God hath reserved heaven for us ; heaven is made for the feasting

of his first-born; he hath in heaven all his children about him; there shall be called a general assembly of them, one will not be away. You know parents bestow the most cost when they have their children all at once together; they respect no cost, looking to the joy which is set before them. They have joy unspeakable in the presece of their children together, and therefore at times of rejoicing men winl send for their children home. Now, my brethren, God will have all hiis children home ; he will have a general invitation ; the great congregation of the elect shall be called together. He will have them all at home, and therefore he must needs make great provision. Consider what he hath vouchsafed to wicked men, the worst of men, who run away with the blessings of the world, though they are such as God hath set himself against to hate with an eternal hatred! Why, then, think with yourselves what he hath prepared for those that love him, whom with an everlasting love he hath loved in his Son, for his Son's sake, which is as great as himself! Certainly to them he will communicate himself to the uttermost. I say, then, think with yourselves what God hath prepared for those that love him.

2. Secondhj, Consider the end for which this is, and that is, to manifest his own glory. He truly hath had a great deal of glory out of this world already; for ' the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy-work.' He hath had a great deal of glory out of this world by justifying poor sinners, and sanctifying their hearts, and also by punishments inflicted upon wicked men; but all this is nothing to that glory he meaneth to have, not comparable to that he will have in heaven : 2 Thes. i. 10, ' When he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and be \ admired of all them that believe.' We think wonderful things of God, and ) yet all our thoughts shall come far short of the excellency of his coming. He will come beyond our expectation; he will come to purpose, to be admired of all them that believe. The matter of God's glory, the revenues of it, must come out of you; the chiefest of his glory, as for the manifestation of it, must come forth of you; for he will come to be glorified in his saints: he will then shew how glorious a God he is by manifestation of his glory. It must come forth of that, he will come to be glorified in his saints ; he will then shew how glorious a God he is, by manifesting what glorious creatures he hath made. It is not a little glory that will content God; it is not a little glory that will content a king when he meaneth to take state, Eom. i. He will glorify himself as God, or else he would never have begun; he would never have gone about it unless he meant to do it to the utmost. And in what doth this his glory consist ? Why, in making us glorious; and the manifestation of his glory, as he is God, comes from us. It is true, indeed, God's essential glory cannot be added unto us, bul

the manifestation of his glory shall arise to us ; we shall have it communicatively, as when you see the sun reflect upon the waters: though you see not the sun itself, yet you see as perfect a manifestation of it as if you should see the sun itself. So likewise, though you cannot have God's gloi7 essentially, yet you shaU have it perfectly communicated to you, manifested in you, i Cor. viii. 23; and therefore the saints are there called ' the glory of Christ.' Now think with yourselves, God hath had infinite vast thoughts of glorifying himself; there hath been a fountain of thoughts in him for that cause, and that unceasing spring which hath run in God from all eternity must needs make a vast sea; and who must be the vessels that must go into this, into whom all this must be emptied ? Are they not those that love him, those that he hath loved with an everlasting love ? Why, then, do but think with yourselves how unutterable are the joys we shall have in heaven.

I would add something more to it, if anything more can be added to it; and if I but mention the properties, they will further add to this glory, and make it abound. I will name no more than those we have already laid down to our hands; 1 Pet. i. 4, 5, 'Elect to an inheritance incorrupted and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, revealed in the last times.'

In the fii'st place, it is an inheritance, the deed of which runs for ever to Christ and his heirs. The subtlest lawyer that is, j'ea, such an one as can almost find a knot in a bulrush, shall not be able to pick the least hole in your evidence. It is an inheritance also to which every one of you shall be heirs, and shall have an everlasting possession in it. It is not in heaven as it is in this world, where the elder brother is only heir, and goes away with the inheritance, when many times the younger are beggars; but in heaven it is not so, for there we shall be all heirs and co-heirs with Christ. And the reason of it is, because it is called the inheritance of the saints : Col. i. 12, ' Giving thanks unto the Father, who hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.' WTiy, my brethren, now you know light is such a thing as is common to all, so that if there were ten thousand times more men in the world than there is, they might enjoy it; neither doth any envy at the light another hath. Kow heaven is an inheritance of the sons in light, which we shall be partakers of, and therefore there shall be no envying of one another's happiness and light in glory. You may be all heirs; yea, you ahall be all heirs; there are nc younger brethren. Again, alas! in this life the livings we possess, and the inheritance of them, passeth from one to another, from the father to the son; yea, and further, all the evidence they have will be burned one day; they will be made void at the day of judgment. The whole world will be burned, and what will become of their inheritance ?

2. But now, secondly, this inheritance is eternal, incorruptible : 2 Cor. ^, V. 1, ' For we know, that if this earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building with God, not made with hands, eternal in the heavens ;' an inheritance that will be for ever. Why, now think what eternity is, and think of it again, it will even amaze your thoughts. Length of time is that which multiplies our joys here upon earth; for to enjoy a thing many years is our greatest joy, and if we can so enjoy it, their lies our comfort; hence those words of the rich man in the gospel, ' Soul, take thy rest, for thou hast goods laid up for many years.' What a happiness then is it, not only to enjoy an inheritance many years, but for ever, to have goods laid up for ever ! What a mercy is it that they are for ever ! The eter-uity of them adds to our joys. It was a rejoicing to David that God would

give him a kingdom ; but more, that he would prepare a kingdom to bis liouse a groat while: 2 Sam. vii. 18, 19, ' Then went king David, and sat before the Lord, and said, Who am I, 0 Lord God ? and what is my house, that thou hast brought me hitherto ? And was this yet a small thing in thy sight, 0 Lord God, but thou hast spoken of thy servant's house for a great while to come.' David took it for a great favour, that God would bestow a kingdom upon him ; and yet, saith he, * this was but a small thing in thy sight.' What! Was it a small thing to give a kingdom ? No ; but there was another thing more than a kingdom, and that was, that his posterit}' should sit on the throne for a great while ; this made the mercy the greater. If heaven's glory should last but for a few days or years, it were worth more seeking after than all the things of this world. Now we make a great strife for momentary trifles in this world, but heaven shall last for ever. It hath an everlasting evidence, it shall never have an end. The day thereof is for a long day, for it is for eternity, and a day. Again, David was to die himself, and to leave the glory of his kingdom to another, yet he took it for a great favour and mercy that it was promised to his house for a great while ; but now in heaven we shall never die; we shall possess our kingdom in our own persons to everlasting: whereas the pleasures and riches we enjoy here must go to others. The rich man in the Gospel sings to his soul, ' Soul, thou hast goods in store laid up for many years ; eat, drink, and take thy rest;' but mark the answer, ' Thou fool, this night shall thy glory be taken from thee.' Now in ^heaven it is far otherwise, we shall never be deprived of our glory; why, let not the least thought of jealousy come into our minds. For this place is incorruptible, and not only incorruptible in itself, but also in those that enjoy it; we shall be ever with the Lord, we shall be the persons. The kingdoms of this world were brave places if they might have no end, the kings of them exceeding happy if they might never die, but live always. But, alas ! though they live like gods, they shall die like men. Now in heaven there is no such thing, there is no dying, nor talk of dying, but mortality shall be swallowed up of immortality; we shall enjoy those inexhaustible rivers of pleasures to eternity.

3. Now we come to the next property. It is * incorruptible and unde-filed,' 1 Peter i. 4. All the comforts we have in this life are mixed with sin, yea, with the impotency of sin and misery ; so that one saith well to this purpose. Though the joys of a king be many and greater than others', yet they have as many sorrows attending upon them as joys, and if not crosses, jet sin, the greatest cross of all, if men be sensible of it. But heaven is undefiled, there is no anguish, no grief, no tears, no sorrows, but joys to all eternity. There shall be no vexing Canaanites to trouble you, neither outward nor inward enemies : Isa. xxxv. 10, * And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come with songs, and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall fly away.' Here the [evil] of sin afflicts us, the punishments due unto the same affright us ; one man is troubled with a lust which he would fain master, another man cries out with the apostle, ' 0 miserable man that I am !' &c. Qualms come over many men's hearts for the guilt of sin, and how many throes have they before they can get sin abandoned ! Another is vexed with some tormenting malady and grievous sickness in his body ; but in heaven we shall be freed from these sorrows, there shall be neither soul nor body sick : Isa. xxxiii. 24, ' And they' in heaven ' shall not say, I am sick : the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their

iniquity.' There shall bo no thought of the pardon of sin, for the inhabitants that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquities; that is, those sins which they have committed in this life shall be forgiven there. There is no thought of sin in heaven, there it shall be everlastingly buried in oblivion.

Obj. But you will say, This glory may wither and decay; it may wax old and decline.

Ans. There is no fading in heaven, 'for with God there is no variableness,' no, not so much ' as a shadow of changing.' The glory of kingdoms decay daily, and monarchies fall; as the Roman empire, what a glorious monarchy was it! But now it is come almost unto a bare title. But in heaven there is no decaying, no falling, there is always a full spring-tide without ebb. The infinite mass of glory which thou shalt receive at the last day, thou shalt keep for ever. After as many millions of years expired as there are hairs on thy head, it shall be as bright as it was on the last day; and the reason of it is because of God's presence. We shall be present with him who is the fountain of life, whose streams of glory must needs issue to eternity; for ' at his right hand is fulness of joy, and rivers of pleasure flow from him for evermore.' So long as God fades not, heaven will never fade. When God himself fades, when that fountain can be dried up, then those rivers of pleasures shall cease flowing, but that is impossible, for he is the well of life. What is the reason that precious stones decay not, but that there is no dross or corruption in them ? As the diamond being pure in itself fades not away, but always keeps a lustre and splendour in it, whereas other base stones that have dross in them, soon decay and moulder away ; in like manner, though this world have dross in it, and by reason of that perisheth, yet in heaven there is no dross of sin or corruption, and therefore it cannot fade.

Why now you will say again. Grant all this you have said before, yet I doubt I may be bereaved of it. It may be taken away from me by violence, for kingdoms in this life are taken away, and kings are deprived of their dignities. But there is no fear of this in heaven, it is kept for you sure enough, no moths of corruption to make you sin, no violence of Satan's temptations to make you fall. For though the devil and sin crept into paradise, yet neither of them shall come into heaven : Mat. vi. 20, ' Lay up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, nor thieves break in and steal.

But you will say again. If I could once get thither, I had no cause to fear, I should never fall if I were once in heaven ; but I fear the vileness of my own heart, I fear I shall be defiled with my corruptions and by Satan. And as David said, ' I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul,' I am afraid I may perish hereafter; though I now be in the state of grace, I may fall and never come thither.

But look further ; it is said, ' it is reserved for you, who are kept by the power of God to salvation ;' you are kept for it, Christ hath reserved it for you, who saith further, ' Of those which thoa hast given me, I have not lost one.' If all the power of the Creator lie for it, you shall not lose it; but it doth, therefore you shall not lose it. And lastly, thou shalt not stay long for it, thou shalt not be a probationer, but till thy death at the farthest; it is laid up ready for thee, a crown of glory waits and stays for thee. But now all these things are shewed ; this is the misery, that we will not beheve : ' In my Father's house,' saith he, ' there are many mansions ; if it had not been so, I would have told you.' He will not deceive us; beheve him on

his word. Wc use to believe the promise of a man wo judge faithful; much more let us credit God, who is truth itself. Therefore, as ever wo would be partakers of these joys, and have part and portion in these eternal comforts ; let the belief of them bo stedfast, and though there be many uses to be made of this, yet this is the chief, that we would believe this truth. Indeed, you believe ; but I say tinto you, believe, and again believe. Those that entered not into the promised land, entered not because they did not behove. This is the cause that men perish, and enter not into God's rest. I say, therefore, beheve God, seeing he hath fulfilled all his promises, and hath not failed in one since the beginning. The land of Canaan he gave according to his promise long before : 1 Kings viii. 23, ' Lord, thou keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants; verse 56, ' Blessed be the Lord, that hath given rest to his people Israel, according to all that he promised by the hand of his servant Moses.' If he hath promised that ten kings shall destroy the whore (as indeed he did), she shall be destroyed. He will not fail in his promise ; he hath spoken, and he will make it good ; he is abundant in mercy and truth; yea, he will be better than his word. Let me speak therefore to you that are yet in the state of nature, M-ho still delight in your sins ; if you beheved these things, surely you would not doat on your sins as you do, it would make you utterly abandon them.

And also let me say something to you, whose eyes God hath opened, who are in the state of grace. Surely, if you laboured more and more to persuade yourselves of this, you would not be so glued to the world as you are; it would make you like men of another world, you would be transformed, and be even as if you were in heaven. Let, then, all your carriage and manner of conversation be here, as if you were in your inheritance above ; let all your thoughts be in heaven ; let your hearts take possession of this incorruptible crown, whilst your bodies are on earth.

THREE SEVERAL AGES OF CHRISTIANS IN FAITH AND OBEDIENCE

THREE SEVERAL AGES OF CHRISTIANS IN FAITH AND OBEDIENCE.

I write v)ito you, fathers, hecnuse ye have known him that is from the herjinyiing. I write unto you, younr/ men, because ye have overcome the ivicked one. I write unto ynu, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the heyinnimj. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God ahideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. — 1 John IL 13, 14.

CHAPTEE I.

The design of the apostle in the text explained. The characters of the several ages of Christians are drawn from what is found as an excellency in each of these ages in mens natural life.

This holy apostle, who had an advantage for holiness in his life above many of his fellow-apostles, in that he lived the longest of them, and so to grow up therein; and in the course of his life had run through all the several ages or seasons that any Christians do pass through; and having had experience in other Christians of what was eminent in and proper unto each age of men in Christ, writes distinctly unto all sorts accordingly, and sets down what eminency in things spiritual, and therewithal what duties, belonged unto these several ages.

These ages in Christ he divides into three, according to what nature divides them into, though custom of speech speaks four.

1. Fathers in Christ.

2. Men grown up, which is translated ' young men.'

3. Babes, or new converts not yet grown up, but true believers all. But this must be noticed by the way, for the right apprehension of these

three ranks or classes of Christians (which hath to our English readers occasioned a confounding of what the apostle intended should be differenced). The word ' little children,' twice so rendered in verses 13 and 14 by the

translators, seoms as if ' little cliiklrcn' in the 12th versa were the same with * little children' spoken of in ver. 13, whereas the wordsJn the Greek differ; zixv'ia, little children, in ver. 12, is filioli, or little sons; but 'Ttaihla, babes or hifants, in ver. 13, is another word. The first, nxvia, ver. 12, is the common appellation of saints in this life, involving the whole church, both fathers, young men, babes and all. Our Lord himself first used that word little children of and to his apostles, John xv. 33, and chap. xxi. 5, for they are all sons, as Gal. iii. 2G, and but little children all of them whilst in this life, in comparison unto what in the other world they shall be ; unto their elder bi'ethren in heaven • made perfect.' See 1 Cor. xiii. 10, 11: ' When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things,' &c. But in the 18th verse our apostle John distributeth those little children that are Christians into three sorts, expressed by three ages in Christ, and terms the new converted ones infants or babes; which are but one rank or sort distinguished from fathers and young men.

So that this first, this title of little children, ver. 12, denotes the whole church on earth jointly and in common; the second, in ver. 13, the whole church distributively cast into three ranges. In that first he mentions a privilege common to all three, namely, that ' their sins are forgiven them in the name of Christ;' as also Eph. iv. 3, this belongs to them all first and last. Even babes have all their sins forgiven at first, as the Colossians from their first conversion. Col. iii. As the title sons or children is common, so is this benefit of forgiveness.

This I pass, and handle not.

The three several ages are my subject.

By which the ages of Christians, according to their years as men, aro not so strictly and chiefly intended ; for if the discrimination be meant according to nature, that is, their ages as they are men, then veiy infants, that are sanctified, should be intended; but not so, for it is those only that were capable of understanding this epistle written by John, or else it were fi-ustrate to have said he wrote unto such babes ; therefore he means not infants according to the course of natui-e. And besides, it may and doth fall out that some old men may be ' babes in Christ,' that is, new converts ; and that Christians long converted, who should (for the time) be, as the apostle says to the Hebrews, of a full age, yet continue to be babes in Christ, Heb. v. 12-14, though then they are even old men, as men; and if they be in Christ, are to be treated and reverenced by all others as fathers, 1 Tim. v. 1, 2; because old age is ' found in the way of righteousness' in them, as Prov. xvi. 31. But these are not the fathers that are here meant by John.

So that these sorts of ages are three degrees in Christianity, or in Christ, sorted by their stature in Christ. There is a ' statm-e in Christ' spoken of, Eph. iv. 13, and these three are the degrees unto that stature. And therefore the apostle is principally to be understood of what several ages Christians are of as they are grown up into Christ, according as their measure is of the true saving knowledge in them of Christ; for according to that measure we find their ages computed. Thus the Corinthians, whom the apostle calls babes, and adds, in Christ, 1 Cor. iii. 1, to shew how ho meant it, namely, as they were in Christ; for otherwise as men they were grown up in years, yea, and had been some years converted; and suitably as he says these babes in Christ, so you may add the same here to and of

these whom our apostle speaks of, and say, to you fathers in Christ, old disciples, as in the Acts, of much standing and long experience ; and in like manner, young men in Christ, and babes in Christ.

My scope in handling these is to shew the peculiar appropriation that belongs to each age, which hero the apostle schematizeth them in, to the end that you may have some help to discern what aga you are of in Christ. Many are to seek as to the knowledge of their age in Christ. My scope is also 'to direct what each sort should aim at, and apply themselves to seek for at God's hands ; that they computing the time they reckon upon for their having been in Christ (though the exact time many know not), yet by several workings may guess at, and have lived such or so many years in having had such workings on them, so as for the time they might well be out of their babeship; they may see what for the time they ought to have attained, and seeing themselves to fall short, to humble themselves accordingly ; perhaps when old in years, yet babes in Christ still. It is a great part of wisdom to know the times, so in Esther i. 13; and Christ speaks of ' discerning the times;' but this is more, to know what the seasons that our particular persons are under, to the end to provoke us still to forget what is behind, and to seek further.

I come now to open these three characters of the three several ages in particular.

Towards the understanding the difference of these characters in particular,

First, Some cautions are to be premised, to prevent a misunderstanding either of the apostle's or my intent.

1. The first and principal one, and which is to be rememberecl and taken all along, both as a note and guide of interpretation, and finding out the apostle's scope, and to prevent mistaking in judging ourselves or others, is, that in designing forth these special characters or notes to these several ages, his meaning is not as if what is attributed singly were appropriated to the ages mentioned, in such a manner, as that the same are not at all to be found in the other two. For instance, it is the character of babes ' to know the father;' this is not to be understood as if that old Christians did not also continue to know the Father. The like of that other of middle-aged Christians, as if they only were ' strong,' and as if they only did ' overcome that wicked one.' No ; for that knowledge of the Father that is in babes, may be and is continued in them when grown up to be young men; and grows up in fathers to a higher degree than in either. And in like manner spiritual strength to overcome is continued also, yea, and increased in old Christians. We see that love of the Father, and so the knowledge of him, is common to Christians of all ages: ver. 15, 'If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him,' that is, he is not a Christian. Likewise, whereas young men are said to have overcome Satan, that is, his temptations, noting also how that age is incident to them; yet babes also have their temptations to sin, and sometimes are enabled to overcome; they have their deliverances and victories, and babes and sucklings have strength to still the enemy and the avenger, Ps. viii., which Christ applies to the Httle children that cried Hosanna. So as it is not the meaning that any of these attributes are so peculiar to any of these sorts, but that there may be found the same in some degree in each other; but his design is to set forth what is more singular in every of these ages, what more eminent.

Again, These three appropriated notes are to be understood with a potius, with a ' rather;' as that babes do at that age rather apply themselves to

pursue after, and are fond of the father and his love ; and so of the rest in theirs.

Again, Nor as if, -uhen they were babes, they had only this gi'ace of knowing the father, and not of him that was from the beginning. ' Newborn babes,' says Peter, 1 Epist. ii. 1-3, * have tasted that the Lord is gracious;' and that Lord there meant is Christ, as it follows: ver. 4, * To whom coming, as to a living stone, chosen of God, and precious ;' it is Christ he speaks of.

Moreover, when I say, what is more eminent in any age, I speak it not comparatively to the other two, as if the other two had less of the love of the Father, as they grow to be young men or middle-aged Christians, than when they are babes ; but it is specially in comparison of all other spiritual excellencies in themselves at that age, that this special character, that is appropriated thereto, is found eminere, and to abound in the practice of it. As, for instance, babes (which are the lowest) have their victories as well as young men, and the knowledge of Christ who was from the beginning, as fathers are said to have; yet if you would know what their hearts and affections are taken up with most, it is the fatherly mercy of God; to cry Abba, Father, to him, and to seek of him as such the pardon of their sins ; and perhaps also, further, to have the apprehension of the love of the Father, in his love and design in sending his Son to be a propitiation for sins (which in the fourth chapter is treated of) so that this comparison is (not more or above the other two, but) in respect of other spiritual workings of heart in themselves, and which is often more stirring than any other.

Again, The meaning is negatively, that in comparison to those other two, babes have not yet attained to the excellency of the other two; that is, they are not grown up to that strength as to go through those conflicts and tentations that young men are exercised withal, nor to know Christ in that manner which fathers have attained unto.

Again, It may also be that not simply what their hearts do most abound in at that age, more than in any other age ; but what is the top excellency which at that age they arrive at, in comparison to whatever else is in them ; and so to the excellency of the thing itself at that age, he aims to set forth. The thoughts of babes may perhaps be exercised more about humiliation for sin, or the like ; yet this of knowing the Father is the top excellency of any other exercise of grace they have in them.

Again, There is to be an allowance given to the liberty which God's free grace, in his various dealings with his children, is pleased to reserve to himself, and doth take and will take, according to his good pleasure; and his free grace will not be bound to such accessory rules as are not simply essential to our being Christians, nor of the essence of that Being, in the state of grace, and concern the betie esse, the well-being of them only; but his special grace will break in, where and how it pleaseth him. Some are begotten strong men in Christ (which is the property of the young men here), as Paul was from the first. He can ripen his corn soon, for his gathering them into his floor, as is seen in many converts, who shoot up to a strange degree and stature of holiness and communion with the Father and Son, when God means to take them to heaven to himself. Enoch attained to a higher strain of perfection, in three hundred years, than his fellow-patriarchs in nine hundred; it is therefore what, in the ordinary course of God's dispensation, falls out, plenanque, and for the most part. And to shew in what seasons saints converted grow up into, there are

several seasons, for buds to shoot forth in one month, then blossoms in another, &c.

Lastly, These characters, although they belong not simply unto Christians, according to their ages as men in this world (as was said), but to their degrees of stature in Christ, yet the characters aro borrowed from, and assimilated unto what is found as an excellency in each of these ages, in men's natural life, and not without a great elegancy transferred to the like falling out, in these ages in Christ.

1. Wisdom and experimental knowledge and remembrance of things long since past, is that which old men delight in, and is eminent in men wise; answering to which is, ' Fathers, you have known him who is from the beginning.'

2. The glory of young men, and men grown up, is their strength: Prov. XX. 29, ' The glory of young men is their strength,' wrestlings and victories ; answerable to which is, ' Young men, you are strong, and have overcome that wicked one.'

3. Infants, they rejoice in the sight and presence of their fathers and parents, and in their talking of them; answerably, • Babes, you have known the Father.'

A second thing to be premised, is an account touching my method in handling these characters, because I shall not keep to the order the apostle hath set them in ; which we see is fathers first, and the condition of young men or middle-aged Christians in the middle, and babes last; he proceeding and keeping to the order of time, and the due honour to be given, as to fathers first. But my aim in handling them being only to set out the just diflference of the distinct characters appropriated here to them, especially between those two, of babes and fathers, whose character in common is to know and have communion with one of these two persons, but distinguished by some special acquaintance with the Father the one, or with Christ the other. Whereas in his mention of the middle-aged, he doth not all speak of their communion with either of these two persons (though it is to be supposed such a communion with each is, in the measure of their age in Christianity, found in them also); but their character carries us only to consider their conflicts with sin and Satan, and their overcomings, to set them forth by. Hence I judge it meet, as to my now mentioned purpose, to link the handling the characters of those two, babes and fathers, together, finding it also to be the fairest and best way to come to discern the difference between them, in respect to the difi'erence of their communion, whilst we view and compare them together: the knowledge of, and communion with, the Father in the one; and of and with Christ by the other ; and then after this despatch to treat apart, and singly by itself, that of middle-aged Christians last, but these other two first.

And, thirdly, because a fellowship and communion with one of these persons, in a more eminent manner, is the diflerence the apostle intendeth, when he says, babes know the Father, and fathers Christ, I shall therefore enlarge my discourse, and take into my method the point of communion with these"^ persons, not in the latitude thereof, but especially the point of inequality of communion with these persons (which is apparent from the instances of these two ages in the text) which Christians may, and do often meet withal in successive times of their lives (and not only at those two ages), sometimes to be more with one person, sometimes with the other, S3 God is pleased to dispense it; and then, in the end, to give a more apecial account how, and why, babes know the Father, and fathers Christ.

The whole of what concerns these things, to which I limit 'myself, I shall proceed to prove, by God's grace, and explain by these*gradual approaches, fetched from out of the third and fourth verses of chap, i,, compared with the words of this 10th verse of chap. ii.

CHAPTER II.

Of cominimion ivith the two persons of the Godhead, Father and Son; and how a believer, in his several ages, hath suitably communion sometimes more . with the one, sometimes more with the other.

In successive times of a Christian's course he doth come to have more eminent communion with one of the persons than with the other, as with the Father more than with Christ, or with Christ more than the Father, in vicissitudes. This shall be treated and explained in several gradual proposals, with the reasons and uses thereof.

That which is common to both these ages of Christians is to have known either, or both of these persons ; and to know is not a literal doctrinal knowledge only, that floats aloft in the understanding, and rests there, but which takes and overcomes the heart—Prov. ii. 10, ' When wisdom enters into thine heart'—and is that knowledge which the apostle calls ' the excellency of the knowledge of Christ,' Philip, iii. 10. And in our John here, chap. iv. 7, 8, it is a knowledge wrought by regeneration and being born again: ' Every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God;' and ver. 8, ' He that loveth not, knoweth not God: for God is love;' and chap. iii. 6, ' Whoever sinneth' (whose whole heart is in some sin or other) ' hath not seen him, nor known him.' So as to know either the Father or the Son, is to have our dearest aflections and desires after, our love to, delights, and rejoicings drawn forth to them ; to have faith on them,—' They that know thy name will trust in thee,' Ps. ix. 10,—to have the multitude of our thoughts running still upon them: ' How precious are thy thoughts to me !' So David, * I am continually with thee.' Also, it is to have our wonted special recourse unto that person we know, in all wants and needs: John iv. 10, ' Jesus answered, and said to her. If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee. Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.' Also, to hold an intimate converse, communion, familiar fellowship with these persons in our treatings with them about our salvation, for the obtaining of it, upon those considerations which are most proper to that person whom we treat withal about it; as either according to what his person is, or his special work and hand in our salvation is; according to what he hath done for us, and the relations he bears to us of God as the Father, and Christ as the mediator for us. Which latter, in the former chapter, the apostle had expressed in one word, to have * fellowship;' and that fellowship mutual between us and them, ' one with another,' ver. 7. For thereby he means not the communion other saints have one with another, as the fruit of that fellowship with God; he is not speaking of that there at all; but it is a communion of God with us, and of us with God; and of Christ with us, * one with another.' And of that he had spoken immediately before, ver. 3 and 6.

Obs. The height and prime of Christian religion lies in fellowship and communion with the persona of God the Father and Christ. This the

apostle openly professeth to have been the top of his own and his fellow* apostles' religion; for in their names he speaks it and commends it to us, in saying, ' Truly our fellowship is with the Father and the Son.' And therewith (as their religion) commends it to all Christians to the end of the world. In that word ^ our fellowship,' he speaks of themselves, the apostles, who also were those 'u-e who have heard,' &c., ver. 1, 2. And certainly what was the top of the apostle's religion must be accounted the height of our Christianity in this life. And therefore the apostle also proposeth it at the beginning of his epistle as the ultimate scope thereof, and thereby to draw on all sorts of believers to make it their mark also, and to bring them to such fellowship as themselves had.

The height of popish religion, and of many others also, is to converse •with maxims and articles of faith; and take we the soundest of those truths they profess, yet their faith of them is but a fellowship as with so many propositions theological, with a general knowledge of and assent to them. And this faith they set up instead of faith justifying, which first draws our souls unto a communion with the person of Christ and to the Father, and to seek his grace and face through Christ to justify us, as persons that are in ourselves ungodly. This first brings us into fellowship with the Father. This faith is the first occasion of, and begins our acquaintance with either of them. But that other general faith is that which they ciy up as the catholic faith, as they call it, without drawign our hearts unto the persons themselves; and our applying ourselves to both or either, leaves us without intimate acquaintance with them at all, which that justifying faith, as we teach it, doth; and it is the nature and property of it so to do. But to believe on the pope, and on the church, as the judge and formal ground of ail their faith, which they term believing as the church believes; and so they finally issue in fellowship with the pope as their head. And the utmost end they have of exacting this kind of general faith is to bring men into, and retain them to hold communion (forsooth) with their church; and that is the main they drive at.

And then in their worship also, whom have they communion with but saints departed ? whom they pray to more than to Christ or the Father; and in prayer is exercised our highest communion; and theirs with God and Christ is conveyed mediately through them. And which falls lower yet, this communion in this worship is with the images of those saints; and accordingly they have but a dead, lifeless communion ; for their images are dead, and their worship of them is like unto them, and at best but the image of what is true worship and fellowship with the person of the Father and the Son.

Others, ask them their religion ; they declare it to be a belief of what the Scriptures say to be true, and to give assent to them (which we do also, and receive with all acceptation all the sayings and truths delivered in the word of God), as to believe that there is a God; that Christ is the Saviour of the world, and died to save sinners ; and unto which general faith they add a devotion (which is in all naturally towards a deity) out of which they worship him; having this good hap, to be cast upon the true God and Christ as the objects of that devotion. And then they stir up the principles of virtue that are in them naturally, edged by gospel motives ol heaven and hell, which, with the aids of the Spirit assisting these principles in the will, is the whole of their religion. But to have persona' communion with the Father and Christ, and tc keep such ado aboul getting Christ, and to hold and preserve communion with God the Fathe-'

VOL. VII H h

Hiid Christ, and to make them the great aim and work of faith; this they think to be at least needless.

But let them and all the world know, that the top and summitj of our religion is to obtain, and then to retain and hold, fellowship with the person of God the Father and of Christ; and that hereunto we exercise ourselves night and day, that though the general faith is our faith also, and that wo make use of that great principle of faith as the great engine, instrument, and means whereby to have communion with these persons, and that to live in a converse with them as persons; yet our faith rests not, can no way content itself with the belief of the things, truth or propositions, though about Christ and God the Father, or the Spirit, that is, those divine truths or maxims about them. For our communion is not with propositions, but the persons, and aspires and carries us still to come at and to the persons. We seek continually to have their love manifested, their hearts won to us, and behold the glory of God in the face and person of Christ; as the apostle speaks, Phil, iii., 'That I may win Christ,' and have the Father and Christ made ours; they are our rest, the centre of oar souls. We make use indeed of the faith and belief of the things or truth aforesaid, to afiect our hearts to the persons the more whom they are spoken of; as that, ' It is God that justifieth,' * it is Christ that died:' and therefore ' the love of God constrains us, because we thus judge, that Christ died for us, who were all (in ourselves) dead,' and condemned to :leath of soul and body; and this affects us, and draws forth love out of us, ' to live to him who died for us.' But the objects that ultimately terminate our faith are the persons of the Father and Christ themselves, to find and obtain their loves to our souls. They are not the things, abstracted from communion with their persons, that satisfy us, or which we live upon. Our faith makes use of them as helpers and inducers, and the bringers of our souls to them ; and then soul and person plead together, and we plead and urge those things spoken of them persons in the Scripture in our treatings with them. But it is their persons, and their hearts or their desires to be towards us, as the spouse speaks in the Canticles, that we seek. Also, v^ pray and are conversant in all. ordinances of public and private worship, serving God night and day; we seek, we pour out our souls, we repent, and turn from sin, and set ourselves to all known duties; but these are not our rest, no, not in this life. Bat all we do is in a tendency to arrive at an acceptable access and reception by those persons, even before we come to heaven, and thereby to keep up communion with them; as holy Jude, ver. 20, 21, ' But je, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.' If God would send angels down to us, or Mary tlie mother of God to converse withal, whom the papists make their greatest object of converse, and would not vouchsafe a gracious intercourse with his person, that would not satisfy our hearts; yea, if God should take us up to heaven itself, and there are many glorious things and privileges to be had there: rest, felicity, joy, the best company of all the angels, and ♦he spirits of men made perfect; we profess that our souls in the midst of the enjoyment of all these, if looking about us we should not spy out Christ and the glory of the Father, we should cry out. Oh, but where is Christ ? we see not him yet; we should be at a loss for want of him. Col. iii. 1, ' Seek those things which are above ;' and so we profess to do ; but how ? Because Christ is there, to whom our hearts run : ' Where

Christ,' says he, * sits on the right hand of the Majesty on high.' It is he draws our hearts upwards to the things above. And if he would continue (as now to our faith) being ' hid in God,' when we come thither, we should be damped; but if * he appear once, who is our life,' our hearts would live, and we should appear in glory with him. All the things there would not content our souls were he not there : ' Whom have I in heaven but thee ?' You know who said it. And not Christ only, but^God also, is the object of our aspirement: ver. 3, ' Your life is hid with;.Christ in God.' Even Christ's life is in God, and therefore ours much more; and to them by faith we go for it, even to their persons continually.

And our apostle John puts the reason for this upon the very same account that Paul doth there in that third of the Colossians. For having termed Christ ' the Word of life,' chap. i. 1 (and in verse 2, ' that eternal life which was manifested, and who was with the Father;' that is, who himself had his life in, and personal converse with the Father, during all eternity), hence, therefore, our eternal life also lies in communion with these persons of Father and Son : and therefore Christ in his last prayer to his Father, to move him towards us, proposeth this as the summary end of that errand, of his being sent by him into this world : John svii. 2, 3, ' As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. And this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' And this life is not enjoyable only in that life to come, but this fellowship is begun and attained, for so it may be, in this life, and hath a ' fulness of joy,' as the product of it; verse 4, ' And these things -write we unto you,' having of this fellowship, * that your joy may be full.' I say, to be enjoyed in this life ; for to that end it is, he says, he directeth them to these things which he wrote, whilst in this life ; even whilst we walk with God here, as ver. 6. And our apostle expressly says, ' Christ who is our life,' Col. iii. 4. And these persons are always living, for us by faith to have access unto : Eph. ii. 18, ' For through, him we both have an access by one Spirit unto the Father.* And we find them to be alive, and to give forth that life to our hearts when we come and make our addresses to them; and it is the converse with their persons, which puts life into the truths we beHeve, as without which they would be but dead things to our souls.

Let our opposites content themselves with their general faith for faith, and despise that faith of application and recumbency, and cry up their moral virtues, of which they boast that they are the principles and seeds

jgracious actings which are found in any; and that the whole and main

their salvation in this life, is but the restitution of them by Christ unto that state of holiness which Adam was created in ; unto which by the improvement of those virtuous dispositions left in corrupt nature, through an aid of the Holy Ghost, which is but external to the soul, they hope by their own endeavours, with imperfect steps, to attain unto. And in their catechisms, let some of them give this account why they omitted consulto to have put in the doctrine of the three persons, because forsooth they wrote a practical catechism; as if the notion of the three persons in-fluenceth not at all the practice of a Christian ! No; that is with them no part of their active exercise, but a mere contemplative speculation. Whereas we profess, with the apostle in this epistle, that the knowledge of and communion with these persons, is both that which is the ultimate end and tendency of all the other part of our practic religion; as also which all along quickens and gives life to our souls, in all that is of practice

whatsoever, and also into all otlier the doctrines that are found in that our religion. And observe but the scope and procedure of this holy man in this epistle, whose method in our religion and practice we profess to follow. Now he proposeth this fellowship as the supreme end of his writing, at the very beginning ; and therewith propounding the doctrine of the Father and Son, against all errors then extant, chap, ii., he then exhorts to holiness, and keeping the commandments, as the means to obtain, and keep our souls in, this communion. We profess we can no longer enjoy this fellowship with either Father or Son, than that thus we walk; even as he thus expressly, chap. i. verse 6, affirmeth, ' If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we he, and do not the truth.' And chap, iii. 3-6, ' Hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a bar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected; hereby we know that we are in him. He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.' I need refer to no more passages, for you meet with this doctrine of his up and down the whole epistle ; and this is the order and method of the practice which we profess in our rehgion.

I only add, to the end none may be discouraged, that Christians either enjoy this communion, or have their spirits restlessly carried on to seek it, and cannot sit down quiet short of it; and so are of ' that generation that seek his face,' as Ps. xxiv. 6, which must necessarily proceed from God the Father's or Christ's having first made himself known to them ; and so it is affirmed, ' God (first) said, Seek ye my face ; and my heart said, I will seek thy face,' Ps. xxvii. 8. And the constant seeking of communion with him is sanctified eff'ectually to cause such souls to keep his commandments, as well as to rejoice in the sensible enjoyment of that communion.

Ohj. It is a property common to all the saints, to have had from the first some knowledge of, and to hold and maintain some fellowship, in some measure and degree, with both these two persons, God the Father, and the Son. This is in common to all more or less, plainly or obscurely, either implicitly or explicitly ; therefore John in this epistle is not only peremptory that those who shall deny the one of them, doth consequently deny the other, chap. ii. 23, ' Whosoever deuieth the Son, the same hath not the Father;' but on the positive too : chap. iv. 15, ' Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.' He that confesseth, that is, believes on Christ, and receives him as a Saviour, treateth of his salvation with God in and through him,—according to that in Rom. x. 9, 10, ' If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness ; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation,'—and then it follows in that of John, that God, that is, ' the Father' (as in the verse before), ' dwells in him, and he in God;' which dwelling, in John's wonted phrase, notes such a mutual fellowship, as two that dwell in one and the Bame house, and under the same roof together, use to have one with the other; and therefore, * he that knows the Son, knows also the Father;' and vice versa. And truly when these two persons are in the heart, the Spirit must be also ; read the verse before that last, verse 18, ' Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us of his Spirit.' It is not therefore, nor can it be, that any true Christian should be utterly a stranger unto either, but if he knows the one, he must know

the other; although with Phihp they may not so distinctly reflect npon that knowledge. God the Father to save through Christ, and Christ to save as sent by the Father, are those fundamental points of New Testament faith; and both comprised by Christ in that summary, the famous and ordinary sanctuary of behevers : John iii. 16, * For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life :' unto which the 14th verse of our John the fourth chapter answers ; ' And wo have seen and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.' And the mind of that speech, * Whosoever believeth on him,' in that third chapter, verse IG, is thus to be understood of Christ as sent and given, out of such a love, by the Father ; and therefore Christ joins both : John v. 23, 24, '■ He that honoureth not the Son, honoureth not the Father that sent him. Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.' So then both Father and Son are the objects of our faith, if we be saved ; and therefore some knowledge of both is requisite in every believer; as if their faith be chiefly or more explicitly carried forth to God the Father, yet it is' God the Father in Christ. ' God was in Christ reconciling the world,' is the substance of the gospel ministry ; and in Christ comes in, and must come in, as God's instrument, sent to merit our salvation.

The fourth assertion from the words of the text is, that although it is common to all New Testament Christians to have a true, distinct, saving knowledge both of the Father and of the Son Christ, in some, measure or degree, yet that then the knowledge of the one may abound more than of the other ; but specially that in their growing up into acquaintance and fellowship with both, it may and doth fall out, that in successive times of their lives, through God's dispensations therein, they are led into, and have, and enjoy a more intimate fellowship, free and open-hearted, and enlarged converse with some one of these three persons more than they find to be with the other of them ; that is, both on those persons' part whom they converse with, they find one of them more accessible, more free and open-hearted towards their souls, more ready to entertain them, and receive them graciously ; and also on their own part, as they find themselves more disposed, according to their various ages, to treat with one more than another.

Now to the end I may explain this point of successive communion with the several persons thus at times and in this manner indefinitely to be understood, I shall continue to have recourse for help and light unto the third and fourth verses of the first chapter, which I have already made so much use of, and joined with this my text of chap, ii., and shall give those animadversions upon those words, comparing them together with these words of my text, as will conduce to this my proposed aim.

1. That it is that fellowship and communion (which I term the after-fellowship) which Christians hold after conversion, that this interchange-ableness I intend falls out in, in the course of the whole of their Christianity till death. I am not inquiring now into what falls out, as to the inequality of the knowledge of Father or Son at first conversion ; for it is this after-felloicship the apostle intends, and which he here exhorts those he wrote to, when he says, ' That you may have fellowship with us, and truly ours is with the Father and Christ;' that is, the same fellowship which himself and his fellow-apostles, whereof some were yet alive (in whose names, or at least in

his own, he speaks), who had heen long since converted, and had grown up into a high and steady continued converse and fellowship with both persons, in which they had lived to that day, and now enjoyed. And that is the fellowship he invites all unto (as being capable of it), being already believers, as he supposeth them he wrote to; and it is such a fellowship which in process of time would produce in the course of it a * fulness of joy,' ver. 4, which at first conversion usually falls not out. Lastly, it is that fellowship which Christians have in their walkings, that is, their course of Christianity, which he speaks of; for in ver. 7, * If we walk in the light,' that is, in holiness, &c., ' we have fellowship,' &c., having oppositely refuted and discovered false professors: ver. 6, ' If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.' The mind of his invitation therefore is, that all you that have an entrance (which is Solomon's word in the Proverbs) or a beginning of the knowledge of God and Christ, set your hearts and endeavours, with your whole might, by and with holy walking, to grow up into a further and higher fellowship and acquaintance with these persons, and then your joy will at length be full when your communion comes to be with both.

:: 2. The second animadversion from these words is, that our apostle John and the rest of the holy apostles had attained unto a fulness, so far as in this life men are capable, of this equal or like fellowship with both the Father and Christ in their daily walkings, and therefore it is attainable at once in this life by us Christians ; for else he would not have proposed his and their example to provoke us to communion with both. And when he speaks of himself and them he speaks indifferently, you see, of his fellowship with both, not mentioning either with any pre-eminence of one above the other. And his adding, 'that their joy may be full,' confirms it; for unless it be with both unto a like fulness, it would be but joy in part, not full joy. We find also the apostle Paul prays for the Thessalonians, for their communion with both, in 2 Thes. ii., that both Father and Son might * comfort their hearts:' ver. 16, 17, ' Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts,' &c. And to them that are grown up into much holiness in the diligent and faithful keeping the commandments, Christ promiseth, John xiv. 23, ' If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and will come unto him, and make our abode with him,' Hence therefore Christians, in their future course of walking, are capable of intimate communion with both (as to the Thessalonians), through the distinct manifestation of the love of both to their souls, as that in John shews.

3. Yet, thirdly, de facto, or in the event, it so falls out, that in the long progress of God's more slow and ordinary dealings with Christians by reason of, and through their J like uneven, unequal, and imperfect walkings with God, they attain not to a full enjoyment of fellowship with God and Christ in an eminency, in aconstancy, andat once together; for unless it be thus with both, their fellowship ariseth not to a full joj' here spoken of, which ariseth not unless an eminency of fellowship be held with both. But God with great intermissions vouchsafes it imperfectly; and what he doth is by turns and vicissitudes ; sometimes more with one, sometimes with another. One time Christ doth personally more openly visit the soul with his presence and love, sometime the Father, and that singly. This seems plain to me from comparing this text and that other, chap, i., that whereas in the first chapter he utters this as a general maxim, * These things I

write to you,' mcnning all, ' that you may have fellowship with the Father and Son,' which l.s a general encouragement given unto all Christians, and belongs to all to entertain it, as that which they were all capable of, and was their duty to seek ; yet mark it here in this place, coming to the particular sorts of Christians severally and apart considered, that then he should in such a severed manner say of babes, * I write to you, for you have known the Father ;' and of fathers singly, * I write to you, because you have known Christ the Son.' This his attributing it specially to babes to have known the Father, without mentioning their knowing of Christ, again in a special manner to fathers to know Christ, omitting the mention of their knowing the Father, argues that in the course and progress of the communion which Christians ordinarily do enjoy, it proves usually that babes do specially know the Father, and fathers Christ the Son ; and that, de facto, it had so fallen out in the apostle's observation ordinarily. The apostle writes thus out of experience, and upon a survey of Christians in his days, which were patterns of the like ordinary dispensations in after ages. However, I acknowledge, there might and may be some special exceptions, and more frequently in such as live not many years after conversion, and so are ripened thereby for their complete communion with all the three persons in heaven, growing up unto much holiness in a short space; as also in such whom God out of his good pleasure vouchsafes extraordinary dispensations of grace unto, above what he does to many others.

This assertion thus stated, and for the present indefinitely only proposed, as to particular times and seasons, without defining that communion with the Father unto babes, or with Christ to old Christians, or confining the one and the other to either of these ages, I shall endeavour to prove by instances.

1. Take a view of God's general economy, or dispensation to his whole church, comprehensively taken in one prospect and set together, that is, of his church in the Old and New Testament, from the first to the end of the world ; and perhaps it may serve aptly to represent unto you some image or pattern of his dealing with particular souls, the members of that church, and afibrd some semblance at least of the various manifestations of himself and his Son unto them. In the Old Testament you know how God manifested himself as the Father, far more abundantly and clearly than he did Christ his Son; and their common, frequent converse with him did accordingly far more exceed that of theirs with the promised Messiah, whom they yet all looked for to come into the world. Their thoughts, affections, hearts, prayers, addresses, and recourse, ran out to God under the title of Father; yea, and directly, and plainly, and expressly to him as such by name, and under that notion ran out unto the Father with a fall and open stream. Moses speaks it of him as a relation that was commonly known and taken for granted among those in his times : Dent, xxxii. 6, ' Do you thus requite the Lord ? is he not thy Father, that bought thee and made thee ?' thus speaking to the whole people. A Father by a double title : of creation, ' that made thee ;' of redemption, ' that bought thee,' which in the type is New Testament language. And they had it by tradition, for Moses speaks it as generally received. And so it follows, ver. 7, ' Ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee' as much. It was the common profession of that nation: Mai. ii. 10, ' Have we not all one Father ?' of that whole church, which therefore our translators in their margin parallel with that in the New Testa-

ment: Eph. iv., 'One body, one Spirit; one Lord Christ, one God and Father of all,' &c., ver. 4-6. And upon that account God, as owning it, urgeth them with it for obedience from them : Mai. i. 6, ' A son honoureth his father : if I be a Father, where is my fear ?' And when they or any of them were in any distress, they used to urge that same upon God for help: Jer. iii. 4-6, ' Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me. My Father, thou art the guide of my youth ? Will he reserve anger for ever ? will he keep it to the end ? Behold, thou hast spoken and done evil things as thou couldest. The Lord said also unto me in the days of Josiah the king, Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done ? She is gone up upon every high mountain, and under every green tree, and there hath played the'harlot.' This the wickedest hypocrites had learned; but the truly godly, when they began to repent, and turn truly and in reality to God, their conversion is set out by this, that they avouched him to be their Father indeed; and in another manner, renouncing all their sins, and cleaving to him as a Father; for in the same chapter, ver. 19, ' But I said. How shall I put thee among the children, and give thee a pleasant land, a goodly heritage of the hosts of nations ? And I said. Thou shalt call me my Father, and shalt not turn away from me.' They cried Abba, Father, as well as we, and in the same sense that we; this was the foundation of their turning to him. And again, on God's part, he avowedly declares that to be the ground and motive in his heart, why he did work a saving work upon them, even that he was their Father—Jer. xxxi. 9, ' They shall come with weeping, and with supplication will I lead them : I will cause them to walk by the rivers of water in a straight way, wherein they shall not stumble; for I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my first-born'—who from everlasting had loved them: ver. 3, 'The Lord hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee;' and that, I am sure, is the Father in the New Testament language, Eph. i. 4, &c. And unto these passages in that chapter of Jeremiah do our translators refer that promise, 2 Cor. vi. 18, ' And I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty;' the same person God the Father intended in both, which I observe to prevent an objection, that God as God is only so called in the Old. ^ And after conversion, their converse and fellowship with God was maintained, as with a Father to them, they claiming an interest in him, knowing him to be such, and pleading it with him: Isa. Ixiii. 16, 17, ' Doubtless thou art our Father, though Abraham be ignorant of us, and Israel acknowledge us not: thou, 0 Lord, art our Father, our Kedeemer; thy name is from everlasting. 0 Lord, why hast thou made us to err from thy ways, and hardened our heart from thy fear ? Return for thy servants' sake, the tribes of thine inheritance.' Their hopes of mercy and forgiveness lay therein, Ps. ciii. 12, 13. And the mercies of God (which are so specially attributed to the Father, and he as the Father of them) are more often and more largely dilated on and set forth unto us in the Old Testament, as the other attributes of the Godhead are, than in the New. And unto those in God they mostly had recourse, as exposed to them in the promises and large declarations thereof to them ; and conversed with God under the apprehension and faith thereon. It was a current character of an Old Testament saint, one that ' hoped in his mercy,' ' trusted in his mercy,' and you find the pleas of it in every eminent prayer almost; as by Moses, Num. xiv.; David in the Psalms, and others of the prophets • read Neh. ix., Ezra ix.,

Dan. ix.; also in their thanksgivings wo know the constant song of praise in the temple was, * For his mercy endures for ever,' &c., and of Isaiah the prophet, Isa. Ixiv. 1. And in this manner was their communion with God, distinctly and by name the Father, managed and transacted, and God's with them. Mercy's gates had all the suitors, the addresses went this way. All flesh came to him, because there was ' mercy with him, that he might be feared;' whereas Christ the Son was rarely in a plain, explicit manner named, that is, by his name spoken of, and his redemption was involved most in obscure types, which though they pointed their faith towards him as to come, yet their fellowship and converses with him were rare, as his also with men were extraordinary, and vouchsafed but to extraordinary persons upon extraordinary occasions : as to Abraham, in the case of Sodom; to Jacob, when Esau came with four hundred men to seek his life; to Joshua, under the title of captain of the Lord's hosts, to encourage him to those wars with the Canaanites. Nor did they put up their petitions in his name unto the Father ; none that I remember of them, unless Daniel in his ' for the Lord's sake,' chap. ix.; and David (as some interpret it), ' for thy Word's sake,' 2 Sam. vii. 21. Or unless that in the sacrifices they ofiered, when they worshipped, which was a converse with Christ at second hand, and but in outward shadows and figures, as in the Epistle to the Hebrews, types of Christ's sacrifice, and hiddenly signified thereby, which the carnal Jew understood not, and but as something understood by the godly themselves remotely, but not so clear and professed as the Father.

There may perhaps an objection start up in some men's minds, which I pi'eoccupated even now, by paralleling some of those scriptures alleged at first in the Old Testament with others out of the New.

Obj. The objection is, that it was the Godhead, or God in the three persons, was he whom, as so considered, the Old Testament saints had recourse unto under the relation and title of Father; but not with the Father as in the New Testament sense Christ revealed him, the first person of the Trinity, the Father of Christ, and in him our Father; and therefore this instance will not hold, as to the present argument in hand.

And besides what I animadverted to prevent this, I further answer,

Ans. 1. That it is one and the same person bore the relation of Father in the Old, and whom Christ came more clearly to reveal under the New : John i. 18, ' No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.' It is God, as the Father of Christ the Son, who is especially spoken of there; and it was he, one and the same, who bore the title of God and Father under the Old. There is but one God and Father under both, as Eph. iv., who had been honoured with that title commonly (and no other person commonly but he) by the Jews; unto which Christ gives testimony in saying, John V. 23, ' That all men should honour the Son, as they had honoured the Father.' He speaks it to Jews of the Old Testament, who had all along in an open profession honoured the Father, who was the Father of Christ as the Son, and had committed all authority to him ; that now under the New Testament they should honour the Son as professedly and knowingly as the Jews had done the Father.

Ans. 2. That under the Old he was known as the Father of the Son, and so as distinct from the Son, as the Father of him. To this assertion two scriptures, Ps. ii. and Prov. xxx., give witness. Prov. xxx. 4, '"What is his name, and his Son's name, canst thou tell?' And the same is evidenced by promise to Solomon, 1 Chron. xsii. 10, which in the type

was God the Father's speech, spoken to his Son, Heb. i. 8; and as a distinct person, as the Father is from the Son, the like to which see in Ps. ksxix. 26.

2. The other instances of some primitive Christians that, long after the apostles had diifused the knowledge of Christ upon the world, and it had taken root, and brought forth fruit over all the world, there yet continued upon divers Christians of these times, a very dim and obscure knowledge of Christ, through their being addicted to the Old Testament way ; and this not only upon the Jews converted to Christianity, which the apostle Peter insinuates, when writing to his countrymen, Jewish Christians, bis second epistle, as ho had also done his first, chap. i. 1. And it was in the latter end of his days too, when the gospel had long been preached by himself and his fellows, as in the 2d Epistle i. 14, he declares, * Knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ hath shewed me.' And Christ's words to him were, ' When thou art old.' He thereupon tells them, ver. 19, that though ' they did well to take heed unto that word of prophecy,' viz., the Old Testament prophesying of Christ, unto which they were so addicted, that they would entertain no more of Christ than they found fore-prophesied concerning Christ therein, as Paul before Agrippa testified of himself. Acts xxvi. 22, that he ' said none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come' ; j-et that that word, Peter tells them, was but ' as a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts;' and that day-star is Christ, Rev. xxii. 16; and the day dawn is the clear manifestation of the gospel, revealing Christ, as it had been preached in its full brightness, by himself and other his fellow-apostles. And the reason of their shortness herein was the want of an inward light of the Spirit, and manifestation of him that was yet further to arise and visit their hearts, whereby (as in 2 Cor. iv. 6) ' God, who commanded light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in the apostles' hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ;' whilst yet the knowledge of God as Father, shining more brightly in that Old Testament, which they attended more unto, must needs accordingly be ascendant to them, in comparison of their knowledge of Christ from thence.

Nor did this divine* knowledge of Christ, and an Old Testament spirit, abide upon these Jewish Christians only, but among many new converted Gentiles also, which I have formerly shewn from the third chapter to the Philippians (who were Gentiles converted), where the apostle having made discoveiy of his own personal exercise of spirit in his daily communion and fellowship with Christ, from ver. 8 to the 11th, ' Yea doubtless, and I count all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and may be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is by faith of Christ, even the righteousness of God which is by faith: that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, that I may be conformable to his death; if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.' And how much his soul was fired therewith, you may read in the verses that follow. But the close wherewith he shuts up that his discourse may seem strange: ver. 15, ' As many therefore as are perfect, let us be thus minded : and if in anything ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you;' which * Qu. 'dim"? -Ed.

manifestly rcfoi'3 unto that whole foregone narrative, how and what his mind and heart was, and had stood towards Christ and the excellent knowledge of him, so as to win Christ and have fellowship with him, even in his very suilbriugs ; wherein as many as were perfect and complete Christians, he says, were like minded with him herein, and were addicted and affected towards this knowledge of Christ and fellowship with him as himself was. liut there were but few of these (as his complaints and usage of that speech in other epistles shews); and if in anything of what I have now professed, says he, of the excelling knowledge of Christ, ye be otherwise minded (not in opinion so much as in the affections and exercise of spirit), otherwise, as the word in Col. iii. 1 is used, ' addicted,' ' affected,' and ' carried out,' more towards other things revealed, so as that your minds should at present bo diverted, the stream running in other channels more, ' God shall reveal even this to you.' Now I could not, when I considered the coherence of this text, and that how the occasion of the apostle's writing that epistle having been that the leaven of the doctrine of the circumcision, and thereby cleaving to the Mosaical law in force, had been urged by false teachers to be received by them; the doctrine of which, though we read not that it had taken place in their opinions, yet there remained so much of an Old Testament spirit in them, and so much effect that noise of the circum-cisionists' doctrine had upon them as to draw their eyes to look more wishtly upon the Old Testament way in the moral parts of it, as to incline and dispose their spirits more and more attentively that way. "UTien I con-, sidered these things, I could not, I say, put any fairer interpretation upon this passage and that in the following verse, or give any other account uboat these ' otherwise-minded,' who were true Christians (for that he plainly supposeth, and distinguisheth them from circumcisionists), but that an Old Testament spirit did so abide upon them, as they entertained not nor took in that excellent knowledge of Christ, as it shone in the gospel, in that eminent manner that the light that had shined about them did rcjuire; which though they had received and professed, yet in so remiss a degree, as caused him thus to speak. Their spirits were addicted unto the way of the knowledge of God, and the exercise of the fear of God, and motives to his commandments, which they met with in the Old Testament, which damped much their practical light towards Christ; and to live by the faith of the Son of God, and from being so kindly affected and acted by the motives of the gospel drawn from Christ.

And the reason was, that although all truth belonging unto the whole of our common salvation was once for all delivered unto the saints, as Jude, ver. 3, even the whole body and system of faith by Christ his Son, Heb. i., and his apostles, as fully as ever it was to be, yet in respect to the setting it on, and bringing home that faith unto their hearts (and we may say to ours of many to this day), in respect to such a ' sealing instruction ' (as Elihu in Job), and in some with a deeper impression than other some, and even those points of faith that are of necessity to salvation itself (as the knowledge of God the Father and of Christ are), God is therein pleased to go over them in some hearts with a slighter hand, and but as the first draught of a picture, with dim colours and less bright, and so lets them abide for a while, though yet he makes a true resemblance, such as that you may know the person by, whose image it is; whereas in some other hearts he goes over the same again and again, and ceaseth not, but works ti up unto a far greater life and glory. God takes several pauses, so as we msay ay of these teachings, that he doth it at ' sundiy times ;' even as well

as under the Old it is said he did. And herein God and his Spirit useth a liberty to whom and when, and knows not a certain method. 1 Cor. xii. 8, ' For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom ; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.' And hence the apostle speaks of ' supplies of the Spirit,' Phihp. i. 19, vea, of ' perfecting what is lacking in our faith,' 1 Thes. iii. 10.

2. I shall give the reasons of this disposition.

(1.) These two persons are both in themselves and in their works for us distinct, and would therefore accordingly be known distinctly of us ; and to be so fully known as to be honoured by us in the most ample manner in •which they are in the New Testament revealed to us : John v. 23, ' That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father;' from which place I observe ;—■

1st. That it is the design of the Father, that both himself and his Son be honoured by all men, yea, and the Son as the Father ; and this is the design of his ' sending his Son ' into the world, and of his committing that ' power of quickening,' ver. 21, and of ' judging men,' ver. 22, unto him.

2dly. I observe that this is yet effected at and by successive times, which is the point before me. The Father's being honoured by men, he speaks of in the present time, ' as they honour ;' as at that time wlaen Christ spake this, the Jews generally did ; but of the Son, as of that which was yet more and more to be done : * That they should honour the Son, even as,' &c.

(2.) If they come to be known as fully as they ought to be by us, and as they are revealed in Scripture to us, there are a great many things con-' cerning them, and belonging to either of them, to be known by us, which for us to do fully and distinctly will require successive times and successive impressions for either, and such as to have our thoughts to dwell upon them too; as,

1st. For the Father.

(1.) There is the person of the Father, as the * Father of glory,' Eph. i., the fountain of the Deity, the begetter of so great a Son, and fi-om whom the Holy Ghost proceedeth. This as to his person.

(2.) We ought to know the riches of his mercy, love ; for these are more properly attributed to the Father, as in the same Eph. i.; so 2 Cor. xiii. 14, ' The love of God,' the Father, spoken with distinction from Christ and the Spirit; and ' Father of mercies,' 2 Cor. i. 3, said of him who is ' the Father of Christ.'

(3.) We should know the whole of his work and hand in our salvation, as in choosing us in Christ, Eph. i., sending his Son into the world, which Christ in John's Gospel so dilates on, and our John in this Epistle, chap, iv. 8-10, ' He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love. In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins ;' and all spoken of the Father. And ver. 14, ' We have seen, and do testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world.'

(4.) The bestowing on us all spiritual blessings ought to be known by ns. It was he was the contriver, and is the donor of them all, Eph. i., whereof that one of sonship and adoption wherewith we have a right to glory, our apostle in this epistle also so admires, and sets out with a 'behold,' in chap. iii. 1-3 of this Epistle: 'Behold what manner of love

the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him. Beloved, now are we the sons of God'; and it doth not yet appear what wo shall be : but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.' There are multitudes of other things more like to these whereby the Father's part is set out, as in 'justifying us,' Eom. iv., ' drawing us to Christ,' John vi., &c. And to know the Father in and by all these distinctly, and to have our minds to dwell upon them, will ask time and multitude of thoughts, both to take them in, and then to be answerably affected with them : to dwell in God in the intuition of all these, which is our John's phrase up and down his epistle ; but especially upon this theme and argument of the Father's love, chap. iv. 16.

2dly. The like may be said of Christ, that we are to know and have fellowship with him, viewed in the excellency of his person ; to know and have communion with him in his offices, priest, prophet, king; also to contemplate what he did for us, in that he took flesh, bore our sins, suffered reproach, all sorrows, died, bore the curse and wrath of his Father, rose, ascended into heaven, and there appears for us, and brings us to God; intercedes for us continually, pleads the fulness and over-sufficiency of his righteousness, his ability to save to the utmost; then his mercy, grace, likewise in all these, bowels to receive sinners ; his gentleness, meekness, lowliness of mind to converse with them after they come to him ; his long-suffering to bear with them that come to him, his faithfulness to stand by them in all their needs ; his avowed resolvedness not in any wise to cast them out that come to him, but to raise them up at the last day.

I mention these on the persons' parts, and proceed unto those on our parts.

2. On our parts, we are in our capacities narrow-mouthed vessels, and cannot take in all at once all these things of either, which was seen in the apostles, as Christ tells them : John xvi. 12, ' I have many things yet to say unto you, but ye cannot hear them now ;' even the knowledge of the Father, wherein of the two they excelled in ; yet thereof he says, John xvi. 25, * These things have I spoken to you in proverbs ; the time cometh when I shall no more speak to you in proverbs, but I shall shew you plainly of the Father.' In proverbs ; that is, but obscurely. We in this life are children, 1 Cor. xiii., and our capacity of being taught is but as of children, * here a line, and there a line,' as the prophet saith ; and we say of the mind, Intuitio est tantum nnius, as the eye looks wishtly but on one thing at once ; so our minds. But these things, the mystery of God the Father and of Christ, are so great as the mind need go over them by parts, one piece of them to be presented and set on upon our hearts at one time, other of them at another; as in your great optic glasses the eye is fain to go travel over the body of the moon by parts and quarters. This scantiness and clungness, that the intention of our minds is but upon some one thing at once, we find in our knowing and minding of other divine objects and duties or exercises. As in humblings for sin, our thoughts are swallowed up therewith abundantly at some times, and are as it were wholly in it; then at another time we are all upon seeking for grace and holiness ; then at a third season, for faith and assurance, &c. We are as wholly intent on these by fits, if I may so speak, so as to be less on other duties and exercises. And so it may and doth fall out in our communion with the persons, as if we did cease to value the one as well as the other, or so

as if we were wholly taken off from the other ; but our actual intentions for that present are lessened through our narrowness, whilst they are intended and heightened towards the other.

But this deficiency on our parts is not simply to be understood in respect of that disproportion of our understandings, only considered as naturally, unto these so transcending divine objects; but from that dimness of true spiritual light in us, without which Bupernaturally given, the natural man understands nothing at all of communion with these persons, nor any other divine objects. Concerning which dependence upon spiritual light I propose these few things to clear this point to us.

1. We must know that there is a double sort of knowledge of spiritual things in the hearts of men. There is, first, a true spiritual understanding (which is proper to the regenerate), as the apostle, Col. i. 9, by way of distinction terms it: as likewise, in ver. 6, he calls it a ' knowledge in truth ;' and either phrase is used with connotating a diflerence from another sort or kind of knowledge, namely, a literal speculative knowledge of them. The first spiritual understanding is to be understood, not in respect of the object only, as because it is of spiritual things ; but further, from the manner of knowledge, to know them spiritually; and so the apostle accurately distinguisheth, to shev/ the difference of it from that knowledge of them that is in natural man, 1 Cor. ii. 14, 15. And in like manner the second, knowing them in truth; which is when the mind doth really attinge and take in spiritual things, as they are in themselves, being represented by the Holy Ghost to the minds of spiritual men in their real nature and excellency; and that is only true knowledge. The same you have in Eph. iv. 20, 21, to know the truth as it is in Jesus; even, as in Col. i., the knowing the grace of God the Father in truth; both which import a knowledge that is otherwise, and may justly be termed counterfeit, because it reacheth not to the reality of the things, but only entertains pictures of them. And the differing character and truth of this spiritual knowledge is, that it is operative, and carries on the heart with it unto the things spiritual it apprehends, and as they are represented and apprehended in their real Bphitual nature, and as such attracts and draws the heart to them; which is by a divine seed of light cast into the heart, that hath a formative virtue accompanying it, and that forms Christ really in them ; whereas natural light forms but false conceptions, as they are called; whereof the wombs that go with them do always miscarry in the end.

2. The second proposal is, that even in persons truly regenerated, especially that are knowing, there may be and is much of such literal knowledge of things that are spiritual, that yet is not true spiritual knowledge (in that sense it was explained and stated), but mingled with what is spiritual. This you may see in the Corinthians, 1 Cor. i., who were ' saints,' ver. 2, and ' sanctified in Christ Jesus;' of whom he gives this eulo^ium for their knowledge of spiritual things, in verses 5 and 7: ' In every thing ye are enriched by him in all utterance and in all knowledge; BO that ye come behind in no gift.' And yet of those persons, of them he thus sets out for gifts, he gives the true character of saints, ' waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.' And yet of these saints he, in chap. iii. 1, speaks thus : ' And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal; even as unto babes in Christ'; which could not have been, unless it be allowed that their knowledge in gifts and utterance about spiritual things far exceeded their true spiritual knowledge ; of which spiritual knowledge he had discoursed in the latter verses of the

foregoing chapter, vcr. 14, 15, which I even now cited. And then this immediately follows, and in respect thereunto he plainly says they were not spiritual: which if that knowledge ho speaks they had, had heen such in the total of it, it would have made their hearts answerably spiritual; which they were very far from, as if you read ou in that chapter you will easily acknowledge. And the reason why and how it comes to pass it is so, is clear; for as you all acknowledge that in a regenerate man there is in every faculty a great part that is unrenewed, a mixture of flesh and spirit, so by consequence it follows that there is such a knowledge of spiritual things as is common to other professors that yet remain unregenerate. And that part of understanding in men regenerated but in part, so far as it is unregenerate in them, is yet capable of a knowledge of them by common gifts spiritual, as well as those that are not truly as yet renewed are. Therefore the apostle distinguisheth in those believing Corinthians, spiritual gifts, and saving love and charity, 1 Cor. xii. 13.

It is true that this difference of knowledge being most conspicuous in what is in the several persons of men regenerate and unregenerate, in that in the unregenerate there is no true spiritual knowledge at all, no, not in the lowest degree, but it is but notional and hteral; whereas in the regenerate there is by regeneration a principle of this real knowledge inlaid ; and therefore we difference the spiritual estates of the one and the other by the difference of their knowledge, as well as by other characters : yet there is a mixture of notional knowledge with spiritual in the same regenerate person; which, though it prejudiceth not his being in the estate of grace, no more than his having sin in him, and darkness in his understanding doth, yet still that mixture is from a distinction and difference of the knowledge itself that is in him. When, therefore, we difference the knowledge of a man truly regenerate from that which is in a common professor and temporary believer, our meaning is not as if all and the whole heap and bulk of knowledge of spiritual things, that is in a regenerate man, were in the total of it all of it holy and sanctifying, affective and effective, according to the full extent of that his knowledge of them ; whereas in the other, the common professor, it is wholly unsanctified. Nor is it that the height, breadth, depth of a regenerate man's affection towards those spiritual things he anyway knows, should be adequately answerable to the dimensions of his knowledge, every way considered: no, but knowledge by gifts for the good of others and himself, and knowledge of saving grace, are distinct in such a man regenerated : and both being mixed and put together in his understanding, doth bear the name of knowledge, or the knowledge which that one man hath, and is the possessor of; we may as so considered in the general affirm, that his knowledge compounded of both, doth far exceed his holy affections, and that his heart is not in a measure sanctified according to the measure of his knowledge. And to that Christian that discerns by experience the difference of tliese two knowledges in himself (which is a great and true sign of grace to discern it), it becomes the greatest matter of humiliation to find that his knowledge of holy things objectively, doth exceed the hoHness of his heart affectionately and effectively, his life falling so short of it: yet still take it with this caution to be added, that their knowledge objectively considered, doth extend with some degree of spiritual affection accompanying it even unto all things which they know ; and which, in respect of the sincerity of their hearts, they have a respect and affection unto all which they know. But yet this is no more intensive, than according to that degree of trtie spiritual knowledge, more or less, that

is blended with that notional knowledge ; so as in respect of that additional of speculative and gilt knowledge, their hearts fall so much short, and are not adequate unto that knowledge.

If it be replied, But is not all the knowledge a godly man hath, sanctified to him ?

Ans. Yes; in that sense that all other things are sanctified to him, to be some way or other for his spiritual good. But it is not all of it sancti-fj-ing knowledge, and directly operative; and yet it hath this more near and appropriate tendency unto the sanctification of him than other things have, that it is in his heart as fit combustible matter, as tow and flax that lie near sparks of fire, ready to be enkindled by that true spiritual knowledge that is in him; and his case is, as if we suppose as if tow and flax encompass fire in the same hearth, and there wanted but a blowing up the fire, and it readily inflames the tow presently, and assimilates it into fire ; and then both work together upon the heart. Yet this falls out but as the Holy Ghost shall vouchsafe a special assistance, and shut up the spiritual light and fii-e in a man; which similitude agrees with the apostle's phrase in his exhortation to Timothy, ' Stir up the gift that is in thee,' which is done by the Holy Ghost's assistance. You have commonly heard that word stir up is in the original, as you do a fire. And the gift that was in him was that additional knowledge, which is always larger than a man's gracious knowledge, and lies in a great part of it like materials unkindled, yet laid upon the fire, to the end to be kindled by it; and so that gift knowledge becomes spiritualised and sanctifying knowledge together.

The use I put these premises to, and the corollary I draw from these two proposals, is to prevent a great objection which might be otherwise made against what was alleged in the former instances. The objection may be this, that the doctrine of Christ and his apostles having as fully discovered Christ as the Father, and the Father as Christ, unto their disciples in the primitive times, and that they were affected in some degree to either of the persons according to that doctrine, yet how should it come to pass that their spirits should be carried forth and addicted to communion with, and towards one, rather than the other?

The resolve of this appearing difficulty lieth in this, that though their literal notional gift knowledge, by the doctrine of the one, might be equal with their knowledge of the other, yet the true spiritual knowledge, which affects and turns the heart, was unequal; the Holy Ghost did not blow the fire to enkindle the one as much as the other. And so they came not to have that intimate, affecting, operative knowledge towards Christ as towards the Father, and so their hearts were not drawn out to a like communion with both of those persons at once. And then it was they were otherwise minded as to the knowledge of Christ (as the apostle's phrase is in that PhiUp. iii.); that is, otherwise affected, addicted, &c., as I opened it; unto which, the third p^joposal being added, will further clear.

3. The third proposal, that indeed the Holy Ghost doth direct, draw out, and intend more or less that true spiritual knowledge in the actings of it towards spiritual objects, that yet are of equal weight and moment, according to his own good pleasure, and therefore an unequal communion of believers with the Father and Son at one and the same time may and doth often fall towards them. This is certain, that the degi-ees of our spiritual communion with either of them depends upon a more large or less degree of spiritual knowledge, and that as it is at the instant time acted and drawn forth more or less by the Holy Ghost. And the Holy Ghost

may enlij^bten us with such an affecting and inflaming light, in a more intense degree to the one, whilst to a lesser degree towards the other. I added, iclwii. it is acted and drawn forth, &c., and the reason is, that though every regenerate man hath an inherent principle or habitude of spiritual knowledge, capable alike of all and each of spiritual objects, yet that which makes them more or less manifest is a divine light which God causeth to shine into the heart, and hereby to actuate that principle : ' It is light,' says the apostle, ' that makes things manifest.' And as the degree of light about them is, accordingly are our apprehensions of them; and according to our apprehensions of them, our hearts and spirits are affected, our communion with them is higher or less intense. We see in nature that it is not only the less or greater vigour in the eye, which is the principle of seeing inherent in us, which causeth the difference in seeing, but it is the light also shining more or less doth actuate and bring forth things to a visibility, to a greater or less degree, which, if wanting, the clearest eye in the world, if in the dark, sees nothing; or if the proportion of light be dim and small, it discerns less. Now, the vouchsafing of this spiritual light, and the degrees of it, doth depend wholly upon God's good pleasure, who takes a liberty to dispense it as he pleaseth; and the reason of this is, because we of ourselves are not sufficient to think one good or holy thought. And that though we are not totally in habitual darkness, but have a spiritual principle of seeing spiritually, yet in respect of trae actual sight, and the degrees of it, in that respect we should be continually but men in the dark. And therefore in the same place the apostle says, 2 Cor. iii. 5, 'Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;' we are not to be able to educe one good thought. And chap. iv. 6, 'For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.' It is not that God did at first once shine into our hearts and enlightened us, or that we have an abiding principle of light in us, but he must give us every moment light to see withal. And we are no wiser, nor spiritually know any more of things spiritual, than at the instant he gives it, which is the apostle's phrase to the Ephesians, ' Christ shall give thee light,' yea, command it, or create it continually, as he did light out of darkness.

And, which is yet more to this purpose, whereas other light, of the sun, moon, or any other lightsome body, do alike irradiate all the objects that are near them in a house or other open place, this of spiritual light from God doth not equally enlighten all or any spiritual objects, but doth in a more especial manner irradiate some one particular divine object at once more than another, which he casteth light upon more than others, and terminates the eye of the mind thereto ; or, like as a hand that manageth the light in a dark lantern (and such is his spiritual light shining in our dark hearts), that he ' opens and shuts,' as the phrase in the Kevelation is, as he pleaseth. And the Spirit of God, who is given to reveal these deep things of God, is the freest agent in this, and takes a liberty, ' dividing to every man as he will,' 1 Cor. xii. 11. Even as in John iii. he is said as the wind to blow where he listeth, and as to what person he pleaseth, unto what light or degree thereof he pleaseth; and hence also comes the un-equality in the point in hand. These reasons are from what is on our parts. I return again to such as concern the persons of the Trinity, to be now added after those that concern us, for I said I should sort and handle the one and the other intermingledly.

There are these farther reasons that concern the persons, that move them to this dispensation of this alternate communion with themselves.

1. They are willing and content to take their turns and vicissitudes of manifesting themselves, sometimes the one, sometimes the other, in our narrow hearts, to the end that each of them may have in the issue the fuller and more distinct manifestation of themselves, they are pleased to give way one to the other in their communion. From hence it was, as we said, that the Son suflered himself to be so much and so long concealed during the time of the Old Testament; and the Father had the vogue in the church then. And under the New, although all judgment is originally the Father's, yet ' hath he committed all judgment to the Son,' and ' judgeth no man' but in and by the Son, to the end that all ' might honour the Son,' &c., John v. 22, 23. We may observe, likewise, the Spirit under the New; also the third person conceals himself, insomuch as though it was he who indited all the epistles of the New, and therein wisheth grace and peace from God the Father and from Christ, not mentioning himself, from whom yet grace and peace do proceed equally with the Father and the Son, and although it is true that both Father, and Son, and the Spirit also, be in some measure and degree known by every believer, which the words of baptism shew, ' In the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit,' as having a joint and equal interest in our salvation, yet are they content that our intentions of mind and affections should run with a shallower stream at times towards some one than they do towards another; although appretia-tive, or in the esteem of them in their judgments, all Christians value and honour all three alike, as one God, three persons, blessed for ever. So that it must not be understood as if I meant that our minds were quite taken ofi' from the one, whilst they are carried forth to the other, whilst thus our afl'ections are more intentionally taken up with any one of them.

Yea, these persons are so far from jealousy in this case of one another, lest one should have more of us than himself, that they do help forward and advance the glorifying of one the other unto us. Jesus Christ the Son, when he hath once been thoroughly revealed and made known to any soul himself, it is he, when once believed on by it, that reveals the Father unto us: Mat. xi. 27, ' No man knows the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son reveals him.' And, vice versa, when Christ is revealed and made known to you, and your hearts drawn to him, and your hearts taken up with the communications of him, you must know it is the Father that concealedly doth this : John vi. 45, ' It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God: every man therefore that hath heard and learned of the Father, cometh unto me ;' so Gal. i. 15. And then Christ taketh his turn afresh and anew to reveal the Father: John xvi. 25, ' The time cometh that I will shew you plainly of the Father.' And the Spirit is as zealous and forward to glorify both: John xvi. 14, * He (the Spirit) shall take of mine and glorify me' (and take of the Father's too, and glorify him also to your hearts), ' by shewing it to you.' And I say, he glorifies the Father as well as Christ; for so Christ intends his speech: ver. 15, * All things that the Father hath are mine : therefore said I that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.' Herein they take their turns also : John xvii. 1, * The hour is come that thou, 0 Father, shouldst glorify thy Son, that thy Son may glorify thee ;' in their courses to glorify one another. And they, having an eternity of time to glorify themselves unto us in, are not hasty for themselves; they have time enough afore them to do it in, and take their seasons. And, however, in heaven they will

be sure then to manifest themselves to us at once, to the full, and together.

2, Seeing that by reason of our great sinfulness that remains in us, and through want of growth to a perfect holiness, we are long a-growing to be fit, prepared, and disposed to enjoy an emincncy of fellowship with both at once, and together alike (which is yet attainable), yet till then each person is pleased to take a singular contentment in such sole, single, private visits with a soul by turns. And the very privacy, that is done alone, doth afibrd a special delight to the person ; and the privacy of them, in that they are single thus alone, doth afford a special delight in the mean time to that person that communes with us, till we grow up to be meet company for both. This the whole book of the Canticles shews, wherein Christ hath those intercourses with his spouse, he and she alone. You may see how he caresseth her, and talks to her, and she again to him: ' I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine,' as ifnone's else; whenas yet she was the Father's as much as Christ's. But Christ was her husband, and by that relation having a special and appropriate interest in her, thence a peculiar private converse with her, came to have an answerable solace in it. The sweetness of a friend when alone enjoyed, hath some advantages in it in some respects, which a joint society of others with him, though friends also, hath not; as that alone one can be more free and enlarged in expressions of mutual love one to the other, and more parfcicalarly direct his love to that one friend alone, and the like. As in the way of our friendship we often do; when we would enjoy a special friend indeed, we invite him to supper alone, to have his company alone. And there is a resemblance of some such thing, as affected, as it were, by Christ himself, in that overture of Christ's: Eev. iii. 20, ' If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.' That reduphcation, ' and he shall sup with me,' denotes an aloneness of them two together, supping hand to hand, as we say. And he names no other but himself, to come with him in that eminent way that he himself came. It denotes also that it is mutual, that she entertains him, and he her, and each bring their cost with them. He sups with her, and she with him. He feeds her with his fruits and viands, and his love better than wine. Read Cant. v. 1, 'I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse : I have gathered my myrrh with my spice ; I have eaten my honey-comb with my honey ; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, 0 friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, 0 beloved.' And she again invites him to eat of hers: Cant. vii. 12, 13, ' Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grapes appear, and the pomegranates bud forth : there will I give thee my loves. The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, 0 my beloved : there will I give thee of my loves.' It is all of it her speech to him ; and thus this private intercourse of loves, proper to them two alone, doth, in the interim, serve to please, till the fulness of God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, come together in upon the soul.

3. They are all there in the mean while stayed and contented with private transactions during our narrowness and non-age; even this, that when we have a more eminent communion with any one person, we have a secret under-communion with the other two, though impUcitly with the other, and more distinctly with some one. And it is well it is so ; for otherwise we should be guilty of a forgetting the Holy Ghost in the most, whilst we have communion with the Father and the Son objectively ; that is, as the per-

sons whom our souls are taken up with, as the subjects of our converse, whilst the Holy Spirit is content to be the revealer of both, and to have the honour of that, as also that he knows he is honoured in their being honoured by us. And the reason is, because the foundation of our comfort in our communion with any one person lies in this, that that person we have the joyful fellowship with is God; that is, it makes our joy ' a full joy,' as chap, i., in such a fellowship. That is the spring, the source of all comfort, that in that person the fulness of the Godhead is, without which our converse would be empty, and but as with a shadow. Now if our fellowship with one of the persons be fundamentally with him as he is God, and all three are but one and. the same God, then in having communion with that one we have it with the rest. The common interests of the Godhead (which is one and the same in all) is glorified thereby in us, to us, and by us, and some give that as the full intent of the apostle's speech, 2 Cor. iv. 6, ' We beheld the glory of God in the face or person of Jesus Christ.' For why ? Because both he is looked upon by us to be God, and as in whom we apprehend, whilst we exercise our faith, &c., on him, and that the fulness of the Godhead dwells personally in him, and so we have communion with him as God, and in beholding him we behold the glory of God the Father also. Yet because this enjoyment of all three in some one is but impliedly, therefore hath God ordered a further special distinct fellowship with each. And hence the love of the Spirit is made mention of, Rom. XV., as well as of the Father or of Christ. The Spirit is God, and he that dwells in God dwells in love with any of the persons. And so, in having communion with the Holy Ghost in his love, or with any other person in their love, we have communion with God. And therefore in this case it is not a leaning to one person more than to another ; for they are all but one God, and each one glorified as one God : ' I and my Father are one,' says Christ. Likewise in honouring the Son we honour the Father who hath such a Son; a wise son is an honour to his parents, as often in the Proverbs.

CHAPTER III.

The cJiaracter of young men, or middle-afjed Christians in Christ. — 1 John II. 14.

The word here translated * young men,' says Grotius, notes out men militaris cEtatis, that have attained to the age and fitness of being soldiers, and in that semblance is here applied unto men in Christ, those that in a special manner are drawn out into the field against Satan. And this condition being the middle between that of babes, new converts, and that of old age in Christ, who in nature use to be exempted from war, hence therefore all that space between old age in Christianity and that of infancy in Christ is comprehended under the title of young men, who are in a special manner military men. By this rule the Christian era, or account of ages in Christ, is measured here ; whereas in nature, according to our wonted division, we reckon four—babes, young men, middle-aged, and old men ; whereas here but three, and upon this it is that the greater space of time is allotted to this of young men. New converts in Christ, though men grown, are not young men in Christ presently the first hour, and there is

a middle age besides to be passed through ere they come to be fathers; and thence all that time between those two, of babeship in Christ and old age in Christ, must be understood and meant by what is translated young men, comprising and taking also in that which answers to what in nature we call middle age, even all that time from babeship, till old age in Christianity comes, as a time of more usual conflict and fighting against lusts (which are the bloody battles); and it ordinarily falls out, God converting men more generally whilst young in natural years, that that middle age in nature is coincident with tliis middle age in Christianity.

There are two things to be handled as touching this age.

1. That during that age or space of time Christians are most assaulted with lusts.

2."How it is that they are said to have overcome, and that this should be attributed to them in so special a manner.

For the first.

1. The condition of a Christian is described to be a warfare : ' fighting against sin,' Heb. xii. 4. Their interest is to fight against sin and the tentations of it; and that is the ground of all other quarrels with the world.

2. Satan and his angels are at the head of this battle : ' That wicked one,' says the text; and Eph. vi. 12, 'We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.'

3. There are special seasons for war; so in the world, as Solomon says, Eccles. iii. 8, a time when kings go forth to battle; and so in Christianity.

4. The special time of this conflict against fleshly and worldly lusts is this middle age of Christians in Christ. It is true that old men to the last become not wholly emeriti, are not ' discharged from this warfare' (as Solomon's phrase is of death), for, Eph. iv. 13, the apostle speaks to them that have fought to the last, ' that after you have done all, you may be able to stand.' There are therefore assaults upon old Christians to the last to cast them down ; even those who have yet done all that good Christians are supposed they ought to have done in the foregone part of their lives ; yet ' when you have done all,' says the apostle, it is well ye have grace given ' to stand,' and keep your posts at last. And above all their danger lies, that the world is apt to ensnai'e them, and therefore the exhortation here in the 15th verse, 'Love not the world,' &c., is made unto both the middle-aged men and the fathers, according to their several inclinations. Piscator hath observed this. But to take heed of errors in faith, and the way of believing, is incident to babes, and therefore that exhortation, ver. 18, is more peculiarly made to them, cra/3/a, babes, &c. The Thessa-lonians were new converts, babes, when he wrote his epistle. And what was Paul's fear of them at that age, but lest their faith had been assaulted ? 1 Thes. ii. 5, ' For neither at any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak of covetousness ; God is witness.'

5. Yet this middle age is the eminent time of warfare unto Christians dui-ing that age of their Christianity. Overcoming importeth a fight, a warfare; and in that overcoming is attributed in a special manner to them, it argues the assault to be the fiercest then, then to be the heat of the battle with the adversary.

The reasons of this.

1. They are in a middle condition, between that lower of babes, and that of old age ; and so they partake in a great proportion of both. The working of corruptions doth follow men's inclinations in nature ; and mid-

die-aged Christians, in the posture of their natural inclinations, are precipitant* of both; of lusts of youth, as the apostle calls them, because of their violence and predominion, which is most in them, that flow from fancy, heat, vigour of nature ; as mirth, jollity, frolicness of youth, as you call them. And truly I think Christ had some little reflection upon such as these, in what he said to Peter: John xxi. 18, ' When thou wert young, thou gii'dedst thyself, and wentest whither thou wouldest.' Peter had shewn a forward youthfulness in verse 7, in casting himself into the sea with his coat girt on; it was a youthful trick, and what of folly and ostentation was in it Christ seems to reprove. Pride of parts also, and of gifts ; * Let him not be a young novice, lest he be puffed up.' Voluptuousness, in-continency, intemperance, overmuch delight in vain company, and such lusts as these, are not yet so abated and cooled in these middle-aged ones, but that they retain a great incUnation to them. And then they partake of old men's lusts. Pride and lusts of carnal wisdom, love of the world, and honour, and riches, are already begun to grow up in them, for they come to a ripeness of temper ; cares likewise begin to enter, and to come about a man, and to grow up with the word; their heads are full of business, intent upon things earthly. Children grow up, and call for a provision for them. And thus being in the middle of both, when it falls out as middle age, as they are Christians, doth contemporise with a middle age in nature, as often they do; they are then under their equinoctial, under which climate men's bodies are incident most unto distemper.

Babes are more obnoxious unto doubts and tentations about their estate in grace. The sun's rising is accompanied with clouds and mists, which, as it ariseth higher, are scattered; and Christians, in their infancy, are by the mixture of the remains of the spirit of bondage, with some dawnings of faith, and hopes of God's favour (which they are usually yet fuUyf assured of), kept more awful of yielding to sin, and indulgence to lusts, which by John Baptist's work of humiliation had stounded them more than mortified them; but the middle age having somewhat outgrown those fears, and attained more quietness of spirit, as to the hopes of their spiritual estate, the spirit of bondage being much worn out; and yet perhaps those are not grown up to a full and settled assurance neither, so continually actuated in them, so as to keep lusts down. Their lusts, therefore, are apt to gather up much of their crumbs again ; and assurance not being full and spiritual enough yet in them, they walk in a gi'eater exposedness to the rising up of lusts, and Satan's stin-ing them up in them.

Then, 2, their adversary the devil, he is let loose more by God upon Christians in that age, as to the point of stirring up lusts, for so still I state it. In the parable, at the first when he is cast forth of a man, he is much restrained as to entering into a man again, when he is thrown out for a while; and the measures and methods of his assaulting are ordered and disposed of by God; his times are in God's hands : ' Satan shall cast you into prison for ten days.' Now, in the parable. Mat. xii. 43, 'He walks a while in dry places, seeking rest, and finding none :' being put out of trade and dealings with that man he is cast forth of, as he had afore; not having power over and upon the man, as he had wont, in point of carrying him to sin and several lusts. This confinement thus against his will, notes a restraint of him from God, that in a punishment interdicts him to places that are dry, and as a wilderness to him; even as it is thought that when Satan hath tempted a man to actual murder, or to perpetrate some such * Qu. ' participant' ?— Ed. t Qu. ' not iully' ?— Ed.

great villany, which cannot be known by man, God often in that case confines that devil that tempted him to the house or place where it was committed, till by the disturbance he makes (which you call haunting the house), notice is given to some of mankind, whereby it may be known both that, and sometimes what the murder was, and where the man murdered was buried; that being come to men's cognisance, then let man look to it to search it out. Then the devil is released; God having made that promise, that by whom man's blood is shed, by man shall his blood be shed. So it is here : God for a present punishment to that devil, who had so long borne rule over a poor sinner, whom he had taken captive at his will, and been the tempter of to so much evil, throws him out, and banisheth him; takes away his power as to the violence of such kind of temptations, as formerly he had wont to use, namely, unto grosser evils of sinnings; puts him out of that employment; lessens his trade that way with his old customer, though he may permit him to tempt in another kind, as to despair or presumption, but not this way; which is the worst and most grievous of temptations, when a man is overcome by them.

And it is as to such defilements in point of lusts that Satan is thus restrained; for the man had refonned greatly upon the casting out of Satan; and there is both time and season allowed and allotted by God to do it in; for he sweeps the house, throws out the filth and dust, and gar-nisheth it with the outward paintings of many new virtues and gifts ; insomuch as Peter, referring to this, says, 2d Epist. ii. 20, that he is ' clean escaped the defilements of the world,' or which the world lieth in. And by the coincidence of the matter in both places, of Chrisfs here, and Peter's there, it is evident the apostle refers to this parallel of Chrisfs. Compare but the apostle's words—ver. 21, 22, ' For it had been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than, after they have known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered unto them. But it is happened unto them according to the proverb. The dog is turned to his own vomit again, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire'— with Christ's words in the parable; ver. 44, 45, ' Then he saith, I will return unto mine house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there : and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation.' So as they are worldly and miry lusts he assaulted them with, to turn them from the holy commandment.

And this is for some time also, that the state of this man continues in this freedom from Satan in these respects ; for when he hath walked his walk through diy places, vexed and melancholy at his disappointments, he, after a while, thinks thus with himself, to return to his old exercise and employment, and'makes trial (but so at first, ver. 44) ; 'then he saith, I will return unto my house fi-om whence I came,' &c., and finding a man yielding, he takes more and worse devils to aid him.

If the objection be, that this instance is of a man that falls away, and so not applicable to true Christians that hold out,

My answer is,

1. It is true that, in the point of falling away, these two, a true Christian and this instance, agree not.

2. My assertion stands good in this, that if God restrains Satan from tempting or prevailing over such temporary professors in grosser evils at

their first reforming for a time, then lie doth it much more unto true and real converts of his own.

3. Satan's new invading and returning upon this man who after apos-tatizeth is not from this, that he knew him to be not a sincere convert, with difference from one that is sincere. No; God reveals no such thing to him. Nor can he discern that soon; but the one and the other are alike at first in his eye. And so he returns upon the same opinion and apprehensions that are common and alike of either, one as well as the other. He makes his assault upon the like ground, hoping to prevail upon the one as well as the other, not knowing which God will preserve and cause in the end to stand, and which not. And therefore the argument I have used from that scripture doth hold good, and the case of a sincere convert and another comes all to one in respect to Satan's renewing his assaults; for the reason for his new assaulting the one is the same for the other, and he is by God alike restrained from the one as he is from the other, and let loose again by God in a like manner upon either. For otherwise, if God should therein put and discover a difference, Satan would have knowledge aforehand who are sincere and who not, if any constant difference were observed by God in this particular.

And 4. God thus orders it in a tender, gracious dispensation towards his own, whose condition at first needs this : ' They fall into temptations, if need be,' 1 Peter i. 6. But truly there is no need of the falling into, much less prevailing of such temptations at first; for they would utterly put them ofl', and split their faith quite. God reserves them till they are habitually grown stronger in grace, as the text here : ' I write to you, young men, for ye are strong.' God suffers not his east wind to blow upon tender plants at their first shooting forth: Isa. xxvii. 8,' In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it: he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind.' Nor lets he out ' any temptation they are not able to bear.' This holds in point of sinning as well as in point of suff"ering ; yea, much more.

5. This dispensation is in conformity unto Christ. When was it that Christ began to be tempted (and indeed he with all sorts of temptations by Satan at once), but when he arrived at the years of the middle age of man, at thirty years ? You read not that during his private life he was tempted afore (though we cannot affirm that he was altogether free and devoid of them), but there is an intimation that sometimes afterwards Satan did return : ' He departed from him,' says the story, 'for a season.'' And to be sure that all along after his entrance into that public life he was exercised with continual temptations from Satan and the world, insomuch as himself notes that time whilst he had walked with his disciples, to have been his special time of temptation: Luke xxii. 28, ' Ye are they who have continued with me in my temptations.' And at or about those years of natural age, unto most converts may the account of their middle age of Christianity begin.

Thus much for their incidency unto temptation, insinuated in that there is a conflict, an overcoming, which was the first thing singled out.

But there is a second, and of greater difficulty, and that is. How and in what respect they are said more eminently to have overcome Satan ? For are they not in their conflicts apt to be overcome, and to yield to corrupt affections ? and how far they may be overcome, is not to be determined by man.

1. This as a difficulty Calvin and others have took notice of. Vicisse

dicit, qui adhic sunt, in ipso heUandi ; alia conditio in hoc hello, Mars enim aliis duhius, et evcntus belli anceps: Nos priusqnam conrfrediamur, jam swniis viitores * quia caput nostrum Christus semel totum mundum vicit. ' Ho saith these have overcome, who are yet in the very act of warring ; the case is otherwise in this war, for the battle to other warriors is doubtful, and the event of the battle uncertain ; whereas we, before we encounter, are already conquerors, because our head Christ at once hath overcome the whole world.'

I 2. If Christ maintains a conflict in thy heart against sin, that there is a seed of God yet abiding in thy heart, that doth never, can never yield to sin, or an act of sin, although the corrupt law in the members carry them to the outward act, yet this reluctancy is a keeping the field, a not laying down the sword ; thus our apostle in his third chapter verse 9, ' Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in bun, and ho cannot sin, because he is born of God.' And Kom. vii. 24, 25, when you hear that outcry in your hearts, ' 0 miserable man that I am, who shall deliver me?' As Jehoshaphat cried out, when environed with chariots, fighting against him : 1 Kings xxii. 32, 33, and 2 Chron. xvii. 31, * And it came to pass, when the captains of the chariots saw Jehoshaphat, that they said. It is the king of Israel; therefore they compassed about him to fight: but Jehoshaphat cried out, and the Lord helped him ; and God moved them to depart from him.' So that man there in Rom. vii. 24 cries out, and by faith gives thanks aforehand, in the assurance of the victory ; ' I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.' When it comes to be a confidence, God hears our cry ; we then ' have the petitions we ask of him.' It is our apostle's rule, though the performance be delayed, and thou mayest still be actually overcome. Here this passage is added, ' The word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one ;' whence I gather, that if the word of God (which is that ' seed of God,' chap. iii. 9, as Peter tells us, 1 Epistle i.) abideth in thee unexcussed, not shaken out of thy heart, unchoked (as I may difference the case of true believers from others, the thorny ground, from Christ's word used in the parable, in saying that in the thorny ones lusts choke the word in their hearts), but in thee it remains rooted, and as a spring works out the mud that stopped it, and humbles you, and reduceth you to God again, this is a victory. Join these two together that are in the text, ' the word of God abides in you,' and ' you have overcome that wicked one,' to this sense, that this is an evidence you have overcome, because a seed of God still abides in your hearts unconquerably, so as the assaults of sin and Satan have not, cannot totally prevail against you.

3. But you will say. These are but generals, common to'all ages of Christianity. They all, yea, babes, in these respects may be said to have overcome, as well as young men.

4. The answer is, that this last mentioned consideration may in a more special respect be attributed unto middle-aged Christians, rather than babes ; for by that time this age is come and gone, they must be supposed to have run through much, and a long space in fighting against sin, and to have had many bloody noses given and taken in those conflicts ; and yet that they should be able to say after so many wounds received, I have still the same spiritual life of Christ abiding in me, I am yet alive, I am still heartened to fight it out, I will never lay the weapons down, this is an evidence to them, namely, that after so long a time, the word of God is still abiding

* Gualter; Uti maluit prseterito, propter certitudinem victorise.

in their souls ; ' the root of the matter is in them.' A single evidence it is that there is that in them that cannot sin, nor close with siu. Conscience alone will not keep the field so long, nor hold out; at best it doth clamour against sin, but will soon be flatted, and the edge of its resistance be taken off. But this is a constant principle of holiness abiding in them, that really fights against sin, which can never be stilled nor return thither. And this is a pawn and pledge of a certain victory in the end; and a surer pledge thereof than that which young beginners, who have not run through so great a time in so sore and so reiterated temptations of all sorts, can have experience of, such as these middle-aged Christians have ; and therefore this honour is rather attributed unto them than unto babes, that grace is preserved in the midst of violent assaults, tending to extinguish it; that a drop of oil should maintain itself above water, or in the end still get uppermost, notwithstanding all the stormy surges of the sea, when they rage most to overwhelm it.

5. Take the most of Christians, and their experience will tell you that, in their conflicts against grosser evils and lusts, they oftener not yield to the act, than are overcome unto it; for which I refer you to other writings.

6. Instead of many other answers, I will add this : that the estimate of overcoming lies not in accounting how oft thou hast been foiled, rather than overcome by not yielding; but in this, that if thou hast had many times in thy life, yea, and at any time thou canst remember (for such overcomings as I shall now mention, are more rare and less seldom discerned, than in reality they fall out and occur) that thou hadst a clear victory, out of pure motives and considerations, which are proper to true grace ; as which were drawn from the interest that God and Christ have in thy soul, and thy soul in them; as from the grace of God, union with Christ, the power of his death applied, through faith its having recourse to it, and the power thereof brought home to thy heart thereupon ; thou that hast overcome, shalt overcome. There fall out often to God's children many frustrations of temptations from lusts and Satan's assaults by providential occurrences and motives, whereby God restrains his own in the nick of opportunity, as he did David by Abigail, which we are indeed to bless God for, as David there did, 1 Sam. xxv. 32-34, for they are out of grace and favour towards us, when not out of pure grace in us. And therefore David blesseth God for that of his there, and so should we. Yet these are not so evidential to us of our overcoming, or of victories on our parts ; they are ' ways to escape' (as 1 Cor. X. 13) rather than victories; but such as are purely from our having had recourse to Christ for strength against them; and then motives that arise precisely from our converses and communion with God and Christ, as aforesaid, with strength coming in, with downright blows to dead them, and not jwr viodmn diverdcuU, by way of diverting the mind ; for so any other thoughts that get in do ; they may take ofi' and turn aside for the present the mind from a lust, a fancy, a strong incursion ; but such over-comings mentioned are signal, in open field, and by force of arms, spiritual arms, and may be recorded exploits of spiritual chivalry, and among the famous and wondrous works that God works in us and for us.

f/.se 1. The first use is an admonition to middle-aged Christians. It is an hour, or rather a long season of temptation ; and no man knows what trials he may in"temptations to sin run through, nor at what time most; we are therefore called to stand upon our ' watch' continually, and to ' be sober,' as in 1 Pet. v. 8, where at ver. 10, ' But the God of all grace, who hath called us into his eternal glory by Jesus Christ; after that ye have

suffered a •while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.' Suf-fei-iug a while is not only or mainly in a time of persecution for Christ, whereof he had spoken chap. iv. 17, but from temptations to sins, which are the greatest sufferings ; and the devil watcheth that he may devour or drink up a man's soul (as the word is), he swallows down some professors, as we do a draught; and so Judas was served by him. He springs a mine, and suddenly blows them up. Cities besieged stand upon their guard when an enemy is at the gates, and keep double watch and ward, and especially in the seasons, as in the nights, when the season is for onsets and assaults, and countermine their mines. This middle age is the time wherein most temporaries fall away, as the thorny ground, in whom lusts grew up with the word, till they had choked the word; so that there was some long time of profession passed first. Whereas the stony ground presently gave out, when the sun of persecution was up, they withdrew in the infancy of profession, and did not stay till their middle age. These were as rath ripe fruits, and are nipped with an April frost before summer comes. Those other, the thorny, abide longer, for their humiliation was deep ; yet not so deep but that the sense of the bitterness of sin went off' and decreased, and so they proved unfruitful for some time before they died : they are withered trees, as Jude compares them ; autumnal fruits, as his expression is. They fall as leaves in the autumn, in the declension of their years, before the winter of old age comes, and seldom or never continue till then.

Use 2. Again, you middle-aged Christians, set yourselves to overcome at that season with all your might; for as it is the special season of temptation, so of overcoming. Make it your glory to obtain victory during that season : ' The glory of young men is their strength,' Prov. xx. 29, which was seen in the wrestlers and strivings at the Olympian games, where crowns upon the public charge were given unto the overcomers; unto which the apostle alludeth, 2 Tim. ii. 5, * And if a man also strive for masteries, yet he is not crowned, except he strive lawfully.' And if you will know what it is to strive lawfully, read 1 Cor. ix. 25, ' And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible.' Therefore go on thus to fight that good fight, that you may lay hold upon eternal life, 1 Tim. vi. 12. And though you be often foiled and put to the worse, yet rise up, and to it again. And there are two motives : 1, it is a good fight, wherein you are to overcome, if you continue to fight, and faint not; 2, lay hold on eternal life; this is the reward, the bravium of your eye: ' He that is slow to anger, and ruleth his spirit,' that is, overcomes himself, * is better than he that takes a city,' Prov. xvi. 32.

Use 3. Reckon with "thyself how many victories thou hast had, how oft you have overcome, and how often been foiled; how many set battles thou hast fought, wherein the archers have shot sorely at thee, but thy bosv abode in its strength. These do turn greatly to thy glory at last at the day of judgment, and thy comfort now in this life. The promise that concludes all the epistles to the churches runs thus, ' To him that over-cometh.' The Indians in New England, fighting with short hand-clubs, wherewith they knock down their enemies, look how many men they have killed in several fights, they set down at the club-ends so many notches, which they keep and shew for their glory. How often thou hast kept thyself from thine iniquity, and how often thou hast been overcome, keep an account, to the end to humble thyself the more.

I come now to the opening of the first character given to these young or

middle-aged Christians : ' I write to you young men,' says he, ' because ye are strong.' There is a double spiritual strength: one that is radical in the soul itself, consisting in the strength and vigour of habitual graces; the other assistant thereto from the Spirit, according as he is pleased to arm and fill the soul with himself, joining with it by strengthening the graces in us, which you read of Eph. iii. 10, ' That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.' And this latter accessory strength is here meant, as that which is granted by God, as we have need of it, which we have every moment; but in special assaults and temptations, so as to overcome, it is a strength given to help ' in time of need.' There is some likeness in both these in the strength of the body; there is an inward and abiding hability in the limbs and inward parts, a sprightly vigour fit for any action whereto strength is needful to be put forth, which others that are children or sickly want; and this is abiding in them when asleep, as in the body of a lion or elephant; in Job xl. 17-19, ' He moveth his tail like a cedar: the sinews of his stones are wrapped together. His bones are as strong pieces of brass; his bones are like bars of iron. He is the chief of the ways of God : he that made him can make his sword to approach unto him.' And there is an assistant strength which strong wine or some spiritful cordial gives over and above the natural. The psalmist's similitude of a giant implies both : ' like a giant,' who is stronger than other men in his natural hability, ' refreshed with wine,' which adds thereunto, and makes him more potent to act. So there is an habitual strength in the inner man of a Christian, grown up from a child to be a man to a full age, which here the apostle hath in his eye. That as in nature babes are weak, children are weak, but middle-aged men are strong in respect of such an inward abiding strength in them; and so it is here intended. And in respect to this habitual strength it is that in other scriptures some Christians are termed strong, others weak, as in the 14th and 15th chapters to the Romans, and the prophet Zechariah, xii. 8, of the times of the New Testament saints : ' In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the Lord before them.' The angels they are said to ' excel in strength,' and so the opposition runs between weak and strong Christians. But then the assistant strength of the Spirit fiUing that inward man, whereof, Eph. iv. 18, ' Be not drunk with wine in excess, but be filled with the Spirit;' who filling you strengthens, cheers you as wine, and wherein is no excess, but an access of a mighty power, when he mingles with our spirits, and is as wine that flushes our natural spirits. And that is the strength that petition Eph. iii. specially intends; and the main strength also in respect of which these middle-aged Christians are said to be strong, and by which to overcome, for therein it is that indeed our strength now lies.

But although this habitual strength of the inward man may be intended here by John, yet we must know that the compare of our spiritual strength with that of the body, instanced in, runs upon unequal feet; for our spiritual strength lies principally in the supphes of the Spirit, as Phil. i. they are styled, and not in our habitual graces ; whereas the chief of bodily strength lies in the body itself and natural spirits; and the additional strengtheners are small comparatively. I would therefore, for illustration's sake of this great point, fetch my parallel or comparison from such persons, whose bodies, though by natural constitution strong, yet had that

strength intended and elevated by the Spirit's coming upon them, enabling them to act, and fight, and overcome, which was Samson's case ; and that indeed will serve to set forth this. Samson had no doubt a natural strength, far exceeding other men, in himself and in his limbs, such perhaps as giants, which yet we find not that he was: but then he had superadded to that the might of the Holy Ghost, falling upon him at times, and upon occasions; as when ho pulled down the pillars of that playhouse of the Philistines, like as it was aforesaid said of him : Judges xv. 14, ' And the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from ofl' his hands.' And ver. 15, ' He found a new jawbone of an ass, and put forth his hand, and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith.' And chap. xiii. 25, ' And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him at times,' &c. And this assistance he sometimes had by faith and confidence in God, that he would vouchsafe; as in the story of that 13th chapter he ventures unarmed, yea, bound, to meet more than a thousand Philistines, that were resolved to kill him; and the Spirit came not in him till he was amongst them: yet he ventured it afore. This was therefore in faith (whereof the apostle speaks, Heb. xi.) that such an assistance would come upon him : and so in the other case of the two pillars.

And this extraordinary supply of strength by the Spirit, suits best to set forth spiritual strength here ; though withal I profess not to compare such extraordinary exploits and achievements, wherein Samson was made to excel all other men whatever, and himself at other times, by the Spirit's coming on him, with those ordinary overcomings here; as if I intended that the middle-aged should be acted by such miraculous excesses and actions, comparatively to other Christians, [by] the Spirit's coming on them. No; but I make use of it to this purpose, to illustrate how as Samson's strength to do what he did lay not in his own inherent strength, but the Spirit's assisting him with his power, hiddenly joining with his, and elevating of his ; and that therein it was his strength did lie. Thus so here, in the Spirit's supplies it is that these middle-aged men's strength doth also lie, or any others' in spiritual actings and overcomings ; and that it wa3 not the habitual strength of their own graces. And the Scriptures are express in it: 2 Tim. ii. 1, * Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.' It were to contradict this passage, and dishonourable to Christ our head, to narrow this grace that is in Christ Jesus, unto that habitual grace inherent in us from Christ, as if that were our strength. No ; it is that which is in Christ Jesus his person, in his keeping, and his giving forth, as we are to act; for when he exhorts, ' Be ye strong,' &c., he speaks it as in order unto doing and acting, and the increase of strength. And it would soon be ill with us, if we should be left to that kind of strength alone, to act withal, as Adam was. No ; ours is in the person of Christ, the power of an endless life residing in him, and assisting us according to his strength, which by faith going to him for, he gives forth to us. For as ' he is our life,' Col. iii. 4, so he must be acknowledged our strength ; for what is strength but life in an active vigour ? And this the apostle tells us, from his own experience, was it that enabled him to do all things: Philip, iv. 13, ' I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me.' It was a strength in and for the act, ' that strength-eneth me;' and it was in what he was to do, ' I am able to do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me,' in the doing. Let us walk, therefore, in an habitual emptiness of self-confidence, waiting on Christ for

strength, remembering that of the apostle, that ' when I am weak, then I am strong;' and be in this sense weak, that the power of Christ may rest upon j-ou. There was one king, of whom it is said, he was helped till he was strong. Peter's confidence in the present sense of his own grace, ' Though all men leave thee, I will not,' was the ground of his fall; he went out in his own strength: Isa. xlv. 24, 25, ' Surely, shall one say. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength : even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.' We all profess that righteousness of justification—and that is meant there, as appears by verse 25, ' In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified'—that is alone in Christ, ' the Lord our righteousness.' Now the same is said of strength: our strength lies in him, and as he will give it forth, we have strength; and as ha withholds, we are weak. And there is the same reason for this as for that other, in their several proportions, wherein they may difier ; that in him we should glory, as it follows there : therefore look out to him for it, as the word is, ver. 22, ' And unto him shall men come.' Yer. 24, ' Surely, shall one say. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength : even to him shall men come.' Therefore go to him, come to him for strength; he will strengthen you.

But you will say to me. If you interpret this of middle-aged Christians, * because you are strong,' to intend chiefly the strength of the Spirit of Chi-ist, in respect of assistance to act; and not so much that inward strength, which is ia themselves, wrought by Christ and the Spirit; how could he make this to be middle-aged men's eminent property ? for this strength, though it works in us, yet is extrinsecal to our spirits. And again, even babes may be influenced as much with such a kind of strength as middle-aged Christians may be supposed to be; for it is wholly what is without themselves, till sent in at the time of acting; and babes are as capable and receptive of this kind of strength to overcome temptations (which is the matter whereto we speak) as the middle-aged, if the Spirit of the Lord come upon them. And what can the middle promise themselves more thereof than babes may do ; or the apostle for them, that he should say comparatively to babes, ' ye are strong' ? Doth not the prophet, speaking of the Messiah's times, Isa. xxxv. 3, 4, say, ' Strengthen je the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart. Be strong, fear not ; he will come and save you' ? And at verse 6, ' Then shall the lame man leap as the hart,' even from the first hour that the power of Christ and the Spirit comes upon him ; which is spoken not of the miracles in such men's bodies only, but of spiritual strengthenings also. For those words in verse 3, ' Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees,' that precede these other, are appplied by the apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews unto spiritual feebleness and strength.

It is true that the dispensations of assisting grace in the acting our inward man is depending wholly on God's good pleasure, as Philip, ii. 13, and he can and does sometimes ' ordain,' that is, vouchsafe, ' strength unto babes and sucklings,' Ps. viii.; and they are often carried at first as with a spring-tide of extraordinaiy assistance, which yet afterwards, when that land-flood extraordinaiy is run and spent, the stream is contracted to an usual channel, and falls into and becomes ebb-tides, and greatly decrease, as in my treatise of Growth in Grace 1 have observed. Yet for answer to the objection.

Am. 1. That God more ordinarily vouchsafeth adjuvant efficacious grace

to overcome temptation, according to the measure of grace habitual or inherent; and therefore when men are gi'own up to more radical inward strength, he gives more effective assisting strength; he meteth forth temptations to the ability our inward man is furnished withal, as that we are able to bear them, as, 1 Cor. x., he declares his measure to be. And then he vouchsafes his actual supply of aiding strength, according to the proportion of that inherent stock of ability he sees in the inward man, which, if it effectually assist us, will prevail; and then as the conflicts grow greater, our additional aids are together therewith increased. Now, if it be thus, then the objection comes to be in a great measure solved; for the additional is ordinarily proportioned to the inherent habitual grace, and so the measure of both comes to one. It falls out in this as it was with Samson; the Spirit assisted Samson, when grown up to the full strength of a man, far more than when he was a child and naturally weaker; although when of younger years he at times fell on him and by fits, as we heard out of Judges xiii. 25, yet not to perform such prodigious exploits as after he was grown elderly. The Spirit observed a decorum of his assistance, proportioned to his years.

The grace of God works freely indeed, and will shew his freedom; he obligeth not, nor ties himself absolutely to such rules and measures as these always, and to all persons ; but at his good pleasure takes liberty to withhold his supplies from such as have most of this inherent grace we speak of, to shew the weakness of all our grace as it is in us, without his further active influencing grace working the will and the deeds, and also that his grace is tied to none. This we see in David, when he was left to sin more foully in his middle age than in his first days (as they are called); and so in like manner Hezekiah, both grown up to a middle age in grace. Yet this assertion of ours concerns only what his more ordinary dispensations are. And truly of those I may say, that although God's grace is free, yet it delights to observe set rules in those dispensations, as to give promise that ' he that bringeth forth much fruit, he will purge to bring forth more fruit,' John xv. 2. That is one rule with himself likewise, ' He that is justified, let him be justified still.' Yet more and more. Rev. xxii. 11, and ' to him that hath, shall be given,' and the like. For therein his grace is seen to give grace, that he may be moved to give more grace. And thus it comes to pass that habitual grace being increased by the exercise and using of it itself, where it is once begun by regeneration, that then the influences of active and overcoming grace from God come to abound more, as habitual grace through long exercise hath abounded. It is like God's blessing some men in their outward callings (and it is God that gives power to get wealth), the promise being, that the diligent hand makes rich. God giving a man power to be diligent, superadds riches as cast in, over and beyond that diligence, as the reward of it. This we see in some merchants, who through diligence having obtained a large stock for trade, God in his good providence vouchsafeth them special hits (as they call good haps), singular overplus advantages that fall out in their way; and thus it is here. And that God increaseth the inward stock of habitual grace within us by gracious diligence in holy actings, I have long understood to be the mind of that in Rom. vi. 22, ' If ye be servants to God, you have your fruit unto holiness,' To be the servants of God is to be holy; the fruit therefore of serving God is a communication of more holiness. Fruit imports what is of the natural growth of a tree, according to its kind. If the good tree increaseth in bulky holiness, the fruit thereof

■will be more and larger holiness. And which is strange in nature, the tree will grow bigger in the body and sap of it by how much it bears more fruit. The fruit it brings forth in holy actions causeth the stock to grow more in quantity still greater. The ground I interpret that place thus is, that in the foregone verse 19 it is said that yielding our members servants to righteousness unto righteousness, that is, that our active righteousness in our walkings and obedience, or righteousness acted and exercised, is * righteousness unto righteousness;' that is, tends to an increase of habitual, intrinsecal righteousness, which is the principle of further acting.

"VNTiereunto I add, that God gives assisting grace in proportion to the measure of grace acquired and gained. " He crowns his graces in us with more grace; ten cities to him that had increased his one talent to ten. He crowns habitual strength, gotten by exercise of holiness, with more enlarged strength. And so the apostle might well say of them who through long exercise of grace had acquired much inward grace, that ' ye are strong;' and that in both these senses of a being strong, in comparison to babes.

Nor doth that objection wholly or universally enervate this assertion, viz., that he suffers some in their middle age much to decline and fall away in strength; for still it often in experience proves to be in the issue, that they are recovered to their wonted vigour again, and act more strongly than ever; as Sampson did at last, when his hair was grown again, which was the signal, and as a sacramental token, of his recovering the Spirit again, as it had been before the cutting of it. And it may perhaps prove the truth, that by falls, and great and long languishments, and gradual decays in actings of grace in some middle-aged Christians, it proves there is not so much a decay of the stock itself of habitual strength, in the root and principles of it, but in the exercises of it; such as we see in strong-bodied men, that fall into a consumption, or some other infirmity, that occasions a present languishing, that they become for outward motions as weak as children, when yet the radical strength of their constitution, and of that which they w^ere grown up unto, recovers again, as Samson's hair did, and they die in a far greater spiritual vigour than ever; as Samson at his death was empowered and clothed with a far more mighty strength by the Spirit than ever he had in his whole life, after the recovering of his hair.

Ans. 2. Middle-aged Christians have through long use and experience learned self-emptiness in their acting holiness more, so as to make them not to be so confident they can do this or that, in the strength of grace inherent. And this is a lesson long a-learning, and perhaj^s more hard to be learned than to go out to Christ for the righteousness of justification. And it is taught by long experience; for as experience breeds hope in the way and course of believing, so experience of having so often been foiled, through going about to act from the strength of inherent grace in ourselves, doth at last teach us the most effectually this dependence on Christ.

And truly there are divers things that concur upon and after our first conversion, that give occasion to us, if not to think it is from the strength of inherent grace received by regeneration that we do then act, yet so far at least as to divert our thoughts from so attentive looking out of ourselves for a further eflicacious assistance from Christ, to work in us both the will and the deed. As,

1. They find in themselves, as other men, a will, which by God is appointed to be the free principle of its own motion and of our actings.

Then, 2, upon rcfjcneration we find a new principle of holiness wrought in us by Christ, which, as another nature, poiseth and inclineth our hearts unto what is holy; and residing in our wills, disposeth them in some measure, though imperfectly, so to act; there being, by reason thereof, a natural agreeableness and suitableness between our hearts and such actions as such, so far as we be regenerated.

3. Christ leaves not this his new creature to itself, but himself with his Spirit dwelling therein chcrisheth and acteth it, as the mother doth the child in her womb, and nurscth it as when she hath brought it forth; yet this he doth unknown that it is he that doth all. He is a God that hides himself in these his actings at first, as in other things he useth to do; whether the soul puts forth acts of faith and dependency for his special help in the acting of it, yea or no. Christ bears from the womb as well as to the hoary age, as the prophet Isaiah, under this similitude, expresseth it; and it is said of Ephraim, when he was a child, God holding him up in his arms, taught him to go. In which case, though a child useth his own strength, else it were not a teaching him to go, yet the weakness of his limbs is such, as it is the strength of him who holds him up in the virtue of which he goes; and yet when it is thus holden up, it takes no notice of the other's supporting of it, but is ready to ascribe it chiefly to its own ability, and so to be confident in venturing to go alone, and then it falls. And yet Christ bears us, and carries the lambs, and those which are with young, in his arms; thus assisting, because he would encourage it in our weakness, and also to make a discovery of the quality and kind of this new creature acting itself in us.

And, 4, this new creature thus assisted, being a divine nature, and inclining us, as a nature useth to do, unto good works, to walk in, although we cannot but be sensible that the infusion of that new principle itself has been wholly from the power and efficiency of Christ, and not of ourselves, the new inward frame of our hearts being in a good degree so contrary to what was formerly in the unregenerate estate we had lived in; yet still as to the actings of that new creature, after it is wrought, we are not presently made so sensible and aware of that great power that carries it on, and so not of dependence on Christ without us, as of our Head that influenceth all those our actings also, but are apt not to look on it further than that it is, or as if it were, the jwndus and sway of that new creature, which as a new creature carrieth on our wills and affections, as in a natural way, so far as we are regenerated; even as in sinning we had found afore, and do after, that our corrupt inclinations naturally carried us unto the contrary. And this new infused nature we look upon working as a contrary nature to that other of sin, as two contrary streams running cross, as indeed they are. And having been but newly brought acquainted with Christ, that acquaintance begins at first chiefly in our seeking out our righteousness of justification in him, and receiving from him therewith this inherent principle of holiness, which is his image; as both being absolutely necessary to that season and the condition of a new convert, who having come forth newly from a state of sinning with full career and consent of will, and made sensible of sin and damnation, and possessed with fears of hell and wrath, the grudging fits of which we for a long time are not quite rid of; the strength and intention of the mind is swallowed up with these so necessary things, at that present to be had from Christ, as the sole remedy to the present case. And then the Spirit secretly supplying us with that assistance, we by faith should from the first go to him for it, but he hid-

VOL. vii. K k

denly performing that va us and for us, without our minding it or looking out for it, the Spirit mingleth his power (unperceivably to us) with the activity of our wills in the new creature. And further, we being as then fresh-water soldiers, not trained up enough to the observations of the many ebbings of the stream and the flowings again thereof to be from the Spirit of Christ, we do not discern his either increasing and raising up the flood, or his withholding so to do, to be the causes of such a variation in our actings, according to his good pleasure.

These things considered, it is no wonder if we be more strangers, for a while at the first, unto this great point in our Christianity (and all of Christ is not learned at once), of this continual dependence on Christ for acting, than we were of his power in regenerating us. For at regeneration we were convinced of that total contrary corruption that had invaded, possessed, and filled our souls, so that we saw no one spiritual good to have been in us; but now the activity of our will being thus furnished anew with that new stock of habitual grace so set up withal, and so vigorously assisted (though insensibly to us) by the aids of the Spirit, we are prone to think that we have a spring of good within ourselves, that bubbles up continually what is good; and so our thoughts are far removed from the sense that we are not able to think one good thought within ourselves, but that all our sufficiency is of God. And although it may be supposed we might more easily be brought to receive the doctrine of this our emptiness and insufiiciency to act, yet practically to discern it, so as to set our spirits a-work upon it, and inure our hearts to the exercise of it, it is no wonder if (considering what hath been said to be our case) we be in the course of our spirits apt and inclinable to put much of that hidden assistance the Spirit supplies us with upon the natural tendency and activity of the new creature, as a divine nature in us; ascribing the power and force of the wind we see not, that carries on and drives the stream, unto the natural jjondiis and propenseness of the stream itself to run that way; till we come to have had the experience of such interchanges, ebbings, and flowings mentioned, and thereby come to see and judge what little strength we of ourselves have, with all our inherent graces, and when left never so Httle by the Spirit, and his ceasing to act us, and what difi'er-ence there is when we are enlarged by Christ and his strength, to run the ways of his commandments.

But, 5, there is yet a further thing at the bottom of this matter, and is the ground of our aptness to be misled in this point; which is, that we are prone to it by nature, both that corrupt nature by the fall, yea, and pure nature also, as it was in Adam's first state by creation; for in that pure estate he, and we his posterity, if he had stood, had been under the covenant of works, in all its difierences from the tenor of the covenant of grace; whereof this was one part, to work and act from what is in ourselves. And though by conversion we are brought into the covenant of grace, yet the principles of the covenant of works do mightily abide in us, and the secret unperceived influences thereof greatly prevail in us, and at least obstruct us, and keep back our hearts from the clear knowledge, at least practice and exercise, of gospel principles. Although they be by conviction entertained by our judgments, yet the principles of the covenant of works cleave as the skin to our flesh; for they are the law of nature. This needs not to be largely insisted on.

It is evident enough that corrupt nature in men unregenerate, but enlightened and endowed with excellent spiritual gifts, gratis given them,

together with some supernatural assistances vouchsafed iu, and for the exercise of them in holy duties, doth convert them all, both gifts and assistance, to its own selfish ends predominantly, and from the strength of such ends moving and acting them, they perform what they do in holy things. I need not insist on this neither. But I carry up my demonstration higher, and deduce it from that of pure nature in Adam afore the fall.

1. Now Adam had first a will, that was to be the free inward mover and author of its own motion, and of those imperate acts his will should command to be put forth by him.

2. He had a full and perfect stock of holiness, and of love to God, con-created with and residing in his will, poising it only unto what was holy.

3. He had a concourse (as they speak) or concurrency (which we better understand) of an aid and strength from God, giving sufficient power to will and act what was holy and good; a posse si vellet, a power if he would act holily.

And these he had from God, as due by creation, or, which is all one, by the law of pure nature, which it was meet God should furnish him withal. If he would create such a creature reasonable, it was meet that then God should, at and by virtue of his first creating him, furnish him with all these; especially giving withal promises of life and threatenings of death according to his holy actings, or the contrary. And if we suppose him not sufficiently furnished with all these, his fall or deficiency had not been imputable as sin to him.

Now he that hath those two first principles of a will—1, its being the mover of itself from within itself; and, 2, a complete holiness swaying that will only to what is holy; 3, joined with a power of assistance from God as shall excite the will, and give his will sufiicient power to act, if he will,—he may and must be said to act and will fi-om himself when he acts or wills; for the will is his own, the holiness he acts from and with is his own due, and in that respect natural to him by creation-law ; and the concurrent assistance from God, that is, so much and so far as to have power to act and to will, is no less his creation-due likewise. And God, in vouchsafing such an assistance requisite to enable him to will, did therein no more for him in his kind—that is, according to the natural law and due of a free-will agent, which was to be its own mover from within itself unto the act—than he did in his concourse with each and every one of his creatures in their actings in their kind, who keep his ordinances to this day, through that concourse God gives them. But man, through his free-will, not using that power, fell by what was purely his own.

But my scope in this recital of theso three principles, which may be styled Adam's own strength, due to him oy the law of nature, is to shew that these principles of acting from ourselves, naturally sticking in us, as xohai moiai, common principles of nature use to do, are so prevalent, even after we have been entered into the estate of grace, and received the knowledge of Christ, that we are exceeding apt and obnoxious to those principles still, and to be misled and misguided by them in the actings of grace, and to go their way in seeking of salvation: and that, therefore, it is no wonder if new converts do so, when they find they have a will that must still be the immediate mover within itself of its own action now when regenerate; and that by regeneration they have a new principle also of holiness, the very same for the bulk and matter of it that Adam was created in after the image of God, Col. iii. 10, and find that principle to be fitted, suited, and disposed agreeably to every good and holy work; and though

■when they act, and have efficacious assistance, that works the will and the deed in them, they have it all from Christ living in them, effectually working in their hearts, heyond giving them a bare j)osse, power to act holily. Yet this exceeding greatness of his power they discover not, and therefore, Eph. i., the apostle prays that the eyes of their minds may be more and more enlightened, to know the exceeding greatness of his power that works in them whilst they act holily and spiritually, and yet conveying its influences so hiddenly, that they are apt to think it the efficacy of a new nature. For they finding they are, though supernaturally, yet secretly assisted by the Spirit in holy ways, so as to think and to find that it is as a nature in them, that they do it naturally with delight, &c.,—such is the suitableness between their hearts and the duties of holiness, when they are drawn out to them,—I say it is the less wonder that their hearts should think they act in that manner that Adam did from this strength as if it were their own (though, indeed, wholly received), and from themselves; or that they should attempt to act from those principles within them, and put so much confidence therein, so as to omit to look out for a continual renewed assistance from Christ, their new constituted head. We see the like ensnarement lies in the point of justification. Men find they have good works, perform holy duties, &c., and the Scriptures term it a righteousness, and the principle of pure nature in Adam having been, that he was justified by that righteousness of and in himself, how doth this principle, because it is the law of nature, adhere and'cleave to men's souls, and caused Paul to be afraid of his own righteousness, lest he should be found in it; so that it is a long time that believers stick in those weeds clinging about them, and obstructing them in their way of believing on Christ's righteousness alone. But so it falls out, that when they have, through long and often renunciation of their own, and wonted endeared embracements of Christ's righteousness alone, got free of that entanglement, they yet remain longer encumbered and obstructed in this other I treat of, of acting in their own strength. And as in a tree that is to be pulled up by the roots, after that some greater roots, whereby it was naturally fastened in the earth, are loosened and cut, yet it will stick still by some other lesser fibres, smaller strings that have no less holdfast than those other had, even so it is here. And till all whereby we cleave to old Adam's state be broke, which is long a-doing by degi-ees, we are not grown up into that completeness in Christ which we 'ought to have, and which union with Christ afi"ordeth. And although I dare not say the Holy Ghost may not secretly act them effica-ciously beyond these principles, whilst they discern it not, and so help them to overcome; and that the acts of holiness which the Holy Ghost draws forth of them, according to these principles, may not be acceptable to God, being in reality and truth from the image of Christ wrought in them by Christ; and Christ efiectually working in them, though they have not the cognizance of it, nor recourse to him for it, as hath been the case of many true professors; yet still there is this wanting to make them strong indeed, to act steadily and constantly.

And this hath been the case of many true professors at first for some time, and was of the apostle Peter, till by the woeful experience of so dreadful a fall he saw his own utter dependency on Christ, as without him he could do nothing, and therefore was to abide in him ; as Christ in his last sermons a httle before had instructed him, which he then understood not. And his sin lay not in this, that he had not a true and real resolution at that present time never to forsake his master (yea, to me it seems

certain that it was a resolution sprung from out of true grace, and cleaving to Christ at that time, and drawn forth by the Spirit, and it was not feigned; and take that purpose of his abstractedly considered, and it was acceptable so far); but his sin lay : 1. In that he discerned not that it was Christ and his Spirit who was the author thereof at that present, and was to be the maintainer of it and finisher of it in him, and ought to have, in the sense of his own insufficiency, prayed as David for the people : 1 Chron. xxix. 18, ' Keep, 0 Lord, this purpose in the heart of thy servants.' 2. His sin lay in the confidence he had for the future, or time to come, that he should ever retain that Spirit, whereas a man is no further holy than at the instant God makes him so to be. 3. In vain boasting of his present strength comparatively to all others : ' If all men forsake thee, yet not I;' and for this cause Christ let him fall, with this reserve, praying his faith might not fail, that he might learn, what Paul did in another case, not to trust in himself, but in Christ to strengthen him. And in like manner thus it is and hath been with many professors, till in the end, through experience of their own inability, they come to see and know what it is to have Christ a supernatural head to them as members, for motion, and a spiritual root to them as branches ; and thus as branches to bring forth fruit in and by him, Philip.^i., and^in him all their fruit is to be found, and therefore juice, and sap, and strength to bring forth, is to be fetched from him. And that therefore they in spiritual actings are to walk in an habitual self-emptiness, and a daily renunciation of this active power of their wills, as strengthened by inherent grace alone, though wrought in them by Christ, and still to be saying within themselves that which Isaiah prophesied of, ' One shall say, In the Lord have I strength,' Isa. xlv. 24, and sensibly to acknowledge that that power that is in Christ as their head united to them must give their effectual casting stroke in holy actings, and carry on the will to them with power. And this is the strength the apostle Paul, Philip, iv., and John here speaks of, which Christians, till grown and beaten out of self-confidence in their wills and inherent grace, do not learn suflS-ciently, and for want of this they come so much to fall, as Peter did, God having pronounced that in his own strength no man shall prevail. Now the experience of the saints' failings, through the want of these things, as also, on the contrary, the experience positive, that when they are weak in respect of their own strength, Christ's power doth rest upon them ; these two experiments, besides other lessons given by Christ in time, cause middle-aged Christians to live in a greater dependence upon Christ's strength to be communicated, as without whom they find they can do nothing, and that all their fruit is found in him. And this, I say, caused the apostle here in both respects, whether of habitual grace or assisting efficacious acting grace, to say of them, Ye are strong.

For it is a certain truth, that the more we walk in a constant sense of oui- own weakness, and dependence and waiting for Christ's strength to be put forth in us, the more strong we are; not in ourselves, but as the coneys are in their rock, as Solomon says. And this justly and deservedly is to be said in comparison of babes, who, like young boys in fighting with their fellows, have more eagerness and stomach, but find themselves weak, and easily overcome; whereas to say in our hearts, as David did against Goliah, 'I come against thee in the name of^the Lord of hosts,' confirms our strength.

Ans. 3. God vouchsafes occasional helps and assistances, according as our temptations do grow and increase, according to the rule of Paul the

apostle, that as his distresses abounded, so his consolations abounded also. And this proves true in temptations to sin, our greatest sulierings, as well as in any other. Now God having (as the doctrine was) allotted temptations greater to middle-aged Christians than unto babes, hence he is graciously pleased in the end and issue to afford strength to overcome; and in the view of this the apostle might deservedly say of them rather, ' Ye are strong.'

MAN'S RESTOEATION BY GRACE.

[ORIGINAL TITLE.

MAN'S Eestauration by Grace.

A

DISCOURSE

OP

The several parts which the Three Persons of the Godhead, tear in the accomplishment of our Salvation.

SHEVt^ING

That they have taken on them several works appropriated to them therein, and the distribution of our Salvation into three Parts according to the number of the three Persons, and the part which each of them have taken therein, viz. The Father in Election, the Son in Redemption and Justification, the Holy Ghost in Sanctification and Application.

By TUO. GOODWIN, D. D.

LONDON,

Printed by Thomas Snowden for Thomas Goodwin. M D C X C II.

MAN'S RESTORATION BY GRACE.

A discourse of the several parts ichicli the three persons of the Godhead hear in the accomplishment of our salvation, and that they have taken on them several ivorks appropriate to them therein. — And the distribution of our salvation into three jyarts, according to the number of the three persons, and the part uhich each of them have taken therein, viz., the Father in election, the Son in redemption and justification, the Holy Ghost in sanctification and application.

CHAPTER I. The design of the discourse. — The two texts of Scripture explained.

That their hearts might he comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ. — Col. II. 2.

This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood: and it is the Spirit that bearethiuitness, because the Spirit is truth. For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the ivater, and the blood, dx. —1 John V. 6-8.

1. We have heard of the estate of holiness man was created in ; 2. Of the estate of sin and misery he is fallen into. Now follows,

3. His restoration, or that part of the gospel which contains the doctrine of our salvation and redemption out of sin and misery, in all the particulars of it.

And this I shall divide into three parts, according to three distinct works of the three persons for the accomplishment of it; which division is natural and genuine, and suited to the things themselves, according to the division of these as the causes of them ; for man's salvation being the highest stage in and on which God shews himself, and all in himself, the three persons of the Trinity have in their infinite love to mankind discovered themselves, and appeared therein, not only taking the effecting of it in common among

tliem (as in all other works they have done), but severally and apart, undertaking to act distinct parts therein, sharing the works thereof unto three eminent acts or scenes, by which the whole is fully accomplished and perfected.

The method therefore which I shall pursue shall answerably be so to handle the doctrine of our salvation, as withal to glorify these three glorious persons in their several agencies therein.

The first of these texts, Col. ii. 2, makes God, as the Father, together with his work, and Christ, as the Son, together with a work of his likewise, to be both of them the subject of that mystery—the gospel, which in the first chapter he had been so much extolling; and as he there attributeth to the doctrines revealed therein a ' riches of glory,' so the very knowledge of this mystery in us he in this place dignifies with the same titles, calling it ' all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;' so parting and dividing the doctrine thereof according as these apart are the eminent subjects unto which all therein may be and are to be reduced.

1. Of God; the gospel being that mystery which displays in man's salvation all the attributes of the Godhead.

2. And of the Father; considered as the first person, distinct from the Son, and also from God, as here taken for the Godhead, as common to all three persons ; and in saying * the mystery of God and of the Father,' he means that besides the manifestation of all the divine attributes of the Godhead, which is one distinct part of the mystery, the Father hath as the first person apart discovered the glory of his person in a glorious design and agency, in the work of our salvation proper unto him, which collected out of the Scriptures and put together, makes up the deepest mystery.

3. And of Christ; He also, as a distinct person from the Father, hath both in his person as God-man, and in execution of his Father's design in his work committed to him, ' all treasures of wisdom and knowledge' objectively for us to know him by, and siihjectively in himself.

4. The Holy Ghost, the third person, though not mentioned here, yet elsewhere hath frequently assigned unto him a third work.

It is the work of salvation, as it hath been transacted by the three persons, is the subject afore me.

I come therefore to that other text of the First Epistle of John, chap. v. ver. 6-8. There we find all three brought in together as distinct witnesses unto man's salvation, or as ver. 11, that ' God hath given eternal life unto us' that are of the sons of men. They are indeed brought in as witnesses also to another grand matter, which he mentions in the verses afore and after, viz., that ' Jesus Christ was the Son of God;' but yet withal, the same verses all along do tell us that the end of that their witness to that great truth about Christ (as it is revealed to us) was in direct order unto that other about our salvation in him, and to draw us on to believe it, and give credit to it; ' and this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he - that hath not the Son hath not life. These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal Hfe, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God.' So that in the issue of all, it is our salvation that is made the great business and matter the three persons do appear as distinct witnesses unto here in this place.

Now, how do they witness thereto ?

I answer, Both by their contributing their symbol each of them apart to the eflc'ctiug it (as will anon appear), and then by bringing it home unto our faith and assurance, as ver. IB shews.

There are two things which I insist on out of this scripture :—

1. That they are set forth unto beHevcrs by the apostle, as three distinct persons in the nature of one God.

2. That in the matter of man's salvation they have appeared to be three persons, in their becoming three distinct witnesses thereunto, and that they are three distinct witnesses, in being three distinct workers and operators therein.

CHAPTER 11.

That there are three persons in the Godhead, icho have undertaken distinct offices in the work of our salvation.

Though I have already* handled this fundamental point, that in the essence and nature of our one God there are found this plurality of persons, yet I shall, both for the explication of this text in this Epistle of John, and for the making my way clearer to the understanding of the reader unto the second point, which is the main subject afore me, now add what was then reserved for this place. I then baulked any handling of this scripture, which, in that article of the Trinity, is made by all divines the emlnentest and most proper seat for the handling the doctrine of it. But I saw it would be behoveful, that when this great point of the three works of these three persons should, in their due place, come to be discoursed of, that something to prove that there are three such persons in the Godhead should immediately before precede and revive the doctrine thereof, in order to the clearer understanding of this about their several works; and, finding that this scripture in John gave a foundation for both, I chose to set both together, so far as this one scripture at once gives a bottom unto both; rather than part the one so far from the other, as I ^should have done, if I had treated of the trinity of persons, as this scripture holds it forth ; these and this other of their several works out of this same head, in this place only.

1. Then I shall give the proof of the trinity of persons in the one nature of God, who have such distinct works in our salvation.

The apostle, to evidence Christ to be the Son of God, and the salvation of us men in him, produceth two trinities of witnesses.

1. Three on earth, which witness but as things or evidences use to witness. I say as things use to be evidences ; as a bloody knife, &c., is of murder, or as effects are of their causes. Thus the blood of Christ is one of the witnesses on earth, as being sprinkled on the conscience, and pacifying of it, is an evidence that Christ alone is that Messiah and Son of God; his blood having such an effect. So water (the second), or sanctification wrought and inherent in us, witnesseth as an effect useth to do its cause. And so the seal of the Spirit, which is the third witness on earth, leaving the impress of itself on the hearts of men on earth, witnesseth as a seal useth to do; according to that in Eph. i., ' After ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.'

2. But then there are three in heaven, and these do witness as persons * In his discourse Of the Knowledge of God (he Father, &c,, Book i. Vol. ii. of his

Works,—[Vol. IV. of this series.— Ed.]

use to do, the Father, the Word, the Spirit; of which three he affirms that they are one, namely, in nature, and also concurring in testimony ; and then concludeth concerning this thing, a truth witnessed unto by these latter three: verse 9, ' If we receive the witness of men' (as when two or three men come in as witnesses to a thing, it is accounted vahd), ' the witness of God' (that is, of God one in essence, being these three in persons, and each of them God, and each [of the] three giving their distinct witness), this witness 'is greater,' because it transcendently containeth at once all that may be required in any sufficient testimony, according to the rules whereby men do estimate the vahdity of a testimony, and it is the testimony of God himself to boot.

1. Verity and faithfulness is required to a sufficient testimony ; that the persons witnessing be of credit, and reputation, and Jide digni, worthy to be beheved ; and this is superabundantly found here, in that it is the testimony of God ; verse 9, ' This is the witness of God,' says he, and ver. 10, ' He that believeth not God, hath made God a liar ;' which to do was to deny the whole of religion. God is of known repute with aU nations, it being a received maxim, ' God cannot lie,' Titus i. 2.

2. But besides, in this testimony of God there is found a plurality of witnesses, there being three in that one nature of God ; and a plurality doth, according to the laws of men, found a validity : ' In the mouth of two or three witnesses every word is established.' And this validity, as from a plurality of witnesses, the apostle had in his eye, appears in his using the plural when he speaks of the ' witnesses of men' in the plural (as will more fully appear after). No one single testimony of one man, though of never so good repute, is received. And both these do in the coherence, and the apostle's knitting things together, seem manifestly to .have been his scope, if we narrowly do eye and put all together in the foregoing 7th verse with verse 9; for, first, he had numbered and counted them three several witnesses : and yet of those three (though three as witnesses) he says they are but one ; and that oneness he means is not barely in respect of their concurring in witnessing one and the same thing ; for he by this doth distinguish this oneness of theirs from that of the witnesses on earth, that they indeed ' agree in one,' but of those he further says, that ' they are one.' Now what one thing is it that they should be said to be, but their being one God ? For the Father, who is the first of the three, he is acknowledged by all to be God, and that to be his nature. If therefore the other two and he are but one, then they are one God in nature with him; and so it necessarily follows they are but one God, and yet three distinct witnesses; and so it comes to pass there is both the highest verity, God, and a full plurality of three in God, testifying the same thing, they being one God. Now, he having premised and forelaid these two assertions thus in the 7th verse, he then brings down and contracts the strength of both into the 9f.h verse, thereby to m-ge and exact faith from us, in these words, ' If we receive the witness of men' (in the plural), the witness of God is greater,' wherein his scope is to greaten (as the word is) this testimony of the three, which is it he is now upon. For the clearing of which look what the one part of the sentence is not explicit in, the other part containeth and supplies (as the use and manner of the Scriptures is, when it sets things out by oppositions and comparisons made between two things, which is found in the Proverbs almost every verse), and thus by that rule there are two arguments to greaten this testimony suggested and involved in these two sentences: the one from the comparing a testimony of man with this, which is

God's; the other, couched in that he says of men, in the plural, in which his perfect reference and aspect is unto the plurality of those witnesses he had spoken of and counted three, verse 7 ; and so his drift is to set the number also of the three witnesses (there spoken of) in opposition to, and comparison with, a plurality of men that use to come in as witnesses, which plurality is that which makes their testimony with men to be received, and so the 7th verse, comes down into this of the 9th, and falls with this infinite and irresistible weight upon our faith, that if the witnesses of two or three men, who are but men, is received, how much more should the record of three such witnesses in heaven, who are God, be received by being so much greater, as witnesses that are God are greater than man or all men ?

It may be objected, that the next words that follow,—' For this is the witness of God, which he hath testified of his Son,'—being spoken particularly of the Father (to whom as a Father it only is that Christ bears the relation of being a Son), that therefore the sense of those foregoing words in verse 9, ' The witness of God is greater,' is wholly contracted unto the particular testimony of the Father, and so are understood of the Father's single testimony, whom all acknowledge to be God; to which I answer—

1. That this prejudiceth not, but strengtheneth rather this our interpretation of that former passage; for it was necessary that the Father's testimony should be in a particular manner on this occasion specified, because the thing or matter in a special manner testified unto by all was, that Jesus Christ .was his Son ; and so his relation as a father unto him as his Son, and his testimony thereby to own him as his Son, as in such a case it becomes a father to do, was in a singular way requisite to be added to the other. And thus the witness of the Word and Spirit is still involved in this of the Father's, in that he, in this his single testimony of his Son, is brought in but as the fore witness of the other two ; namely, to utter the matter itself which they all jointly witnessed to, which was that Christ was his Son; and so we find at his baptism (unto which this w^hole passage of our apostle doth point), the voice uttering it was the Father's only, in saying, ' This is my well beloved Son,' for he only could say it and own him as his Son; but the Holy Ghost shewed his consent unto it in descending as a dove, and the Son of God himself owned it by his receiving baptism upon it; and so there was the testimony of more persons than one, even the whole three, as John here had said afore, that they were witnesses as well as the Father, ' and that these three are one;' and so still the first passage or sentence in ver. 9, ' if we receive the witness of men,' of a plurality of men, ' the witness of these three,' who are one God, ' is greater,' holds still good, yea, is confirmed thereby. But,—

2, I answer by calling in the help and light of another scripture, which evidently speaks to this sense I have given of the words, ver. 9; and the comparing thereof with this hath greatly confirmed me both in this assertion in hand and in this interpretation given of this place. And it is a scripture in which Christ himself, in his arguings with the Jews, by way of conviction who and what manner of person he was, speaketh the same things that we have heard John doth here; and both having been recorded by one and the same pen, namely, of this our apostle, have the more evidence by comparing one with the other, and becomes more fully explicative one of the other; and what the one is obscure in the other clears.

Now these passages of Christ which I mean to hold this intelligence with these here, are in the 8th and 10th chapters of the Gospel of John.

- In the Sth chapter, verse 17-19, 'It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true. I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me. Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.'

The parallel between these two scriptures of Christ's and John's Epistle here runs thus along.

- 1. As in the Epistle of John, &c., the thing witnessed unto us is, that the person of Christ is the Son of God the Father, so in this of the Gospel of John, chap. viii. ver. 12, 'I am the light of the world;' 'though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true ; ' ' I know whence I came, and whither I go ;' and ver. 19, ' If j'e had known me, ye should have known my Father also ;' and ver. 24, ' If ye believe not that I am he (the great He, and only Messiah, Son of God), ' ye shall die in your sins.' They said. Who art thou ? Jesus saith, ' The same that I said unto you from the beginning,' even the very Son of God. For that was it he had all along said, and from the beginning averred in the substance of it; yea, to his now* very end also; and they understood him well enough so to mean, as appears by their quarrelling with him for it here, and by the question is asked him at his death by their high priest; so from the beginning to the end it was that which he held forth.

- 2. As in the Epistle the apostle puts a weight upon the plurality of these witnesses for this matter witnessed, so Christ in that part of that gospel, ver. 14, doth just the same: 'Though I bear record j)f myself, yet my record is true ;' ver. 16, ' For I am not alone, but I and the Father that sent me;' and ver. 18, 'I am one that bear witness of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me ;' yea, and expressly in the 5th chapter, speaking of his Father as a witness, he says, ver. 32, ' There is another that beareth witness of me ; and I know that the witness which he witnesseth of me is true.' Now these two, the Father and himself here, are two of, yea, the very same witnesses mentioned in the Epistle here, the Father and the Word ; therein then both places they agree.

3. These witnesses do witness as distinct persons in both places, and therein especially doth one place clear the other, as to this point you see I drive at. For in this latter (the Gospel) Christ plainly and purposely pleadeth the validity of this testimony of his Father and himself upon this very ground (which the Jews would all acknowledge), ' It is written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true,' ver. 17 ; and then subjoins, ver. 18, 'I am one that witness of myself, and the Father that sent me another.' So then these two do witness as persons, and so he expressly argueth the vahdity of their testimony ; he argues from this that they were two persons, and that in as great reality and truth as that two men (that come in for witnesses) are, I say, two persons ; for upon that ground it is that the testimony of two men isj received as valid. We use to say there are two persons that witness. Aiid doth not the apostle here in the Epistle as plainly enforce and intend the very same plea and allegation which Christ used, when here he says, ' If we receive the witness of men,' ver. 9, of men in the plural, and that when two men at least come in and affirm the same thing, we are to receive it as legal and of force ?

So the argument holds strong from the comparing of these two scriptures together either way : 1. That these being such witnesses as men are in law cases, that therefore they are distinct persons, and do witness as persons, * Qu. 'own'?—Eu.

and not as things use to be evidences of a matter so or so ; and 2. That the ground why they are (even according to man's own rule and law) to bo acknowledged authentic witnesses, is because they are two distinct persons, and as really such, and therefore are to be denominated and called persons, and esteemed by us as such, as really as two men are ; and thereupon their witness is admitted. Now when unto these two witnesses, the Father and the Son, the apostle adds a third, the Spirit, his meaning must be that he is also a witness of the same rank and sort, and hath the same station and rank in heaven that the other two have, the same order that they two were of; and therefore is another distinct third person together with them, in that he is a witness together with them, and his witness alleged to all intents and purposes as the same that the others, both Father and Son, are, so that here is an invincible warrant to style these three in John's Epistle by the name of three persons, after the sense and usage of man in speech ; for they could not have been alleged and cited as a plurality of three legal witnesses else, nor are they witnesses in reality and truth further than in reality they are persons.

4. We find in another altercation Christ had with the Jews, John x. 30, him to affirm, ' My Father and I are one.' Those then whom in this 8th chapter he had declared so manifestly to be two, as witnesses, and so also persons, the same two in the 10th chapter he as manifestly professeth to be but one. And doth not the apostle here in the Epistle speak just the same ? ' There are three witnesses in heaven, and these three are one;' only what is defective in John's speech, Christ's speech supplies, are one. The apostle had not that word are, though it is necessarily and ordinarily understood. John wrote both these passages, and uniformly pursued the same drift and intent in either; and look in what sense or purpose Christ uttered the one and the other of these two passages, in the same sense the apostle did also in his Epistle, And what was it the Jews themselves understand by his saying, ' My Father and I are one,' but that as, ver. 33, he that was but ' a man, made himself God' ? And so plain is that in Scripture language (and not in the reality of the thing itself only), and in terminis you have one God and three persons, and that in two several scriptures thus at once compared. Yea, and in this 8th chapter he doth in other large expressions affirm no less than in that 10th chapter he had done, for, ver. 19, 'If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father.' Take two men (unto whom in respect of testimony Christ had compared himself and his Father, as they are two witnesses and two persons), and they are such two persons as are not one and the same man, and yet they may and ordinarily do concur in testifying one and the same thing, and their testimony is received, and yet he that knows the one doth not necessarily (or perhaps not at all) know the other, for every man bears the nature of man apart to himself, and dividedly from the other. But here these, though distinct as persons (as being distinct witnesses), yet in nature they are altogether one, in that he that knows the one must necessarily know the other ; and in the Epistle the apostle shews plainly that they are not one only in respect of agreeing in one, in witnessing the same thing (as those three on earth are said to do); but as noting a nearer oneness, he speaks thus of these three in heaven, that ' these three are one, and so are one in nature.

1. The last parallel and conclusion of the whole is, that) both Christ and John do alike urge and infer and set out the high validity of the testimony of these heavenly witnesses in both, yea, all respects, as infinitely transcending that of two or three that are but men, when witnesses; which will

appear by the comparative of the one with, or rather taken from, the other. First, Christ urgcth, indeed, the plurahty of his own and his Father's witnesses, but with all the transcendency of them as such. My Father, says he, you all acknowledge to be God, therefore, if I should allege him only, it would infinitely excel any plurality even of all men, for ' let God be true, and all men liars,' and would weigh down the balance in which all men, put together, are found to be too light. If God were but one person only, this were superabundant, if he testified it; but Christ's intent is to urge his own testimony of himself to be valid as a witness with his Father ; ' I am one that bear witness of myself, and my Father that sent me.' Now, in the law, which he had alleged in the verse afore for the value of a testimony, a man's own witness of himself, if he were a mere man, was to be reckoned as no witness at all, as Christ speaks, John v. 31, and here verse 14 does imply. Yea, it is then rejected with scorn ; and had he been but a mere man, or so intended it, it must have been esteemed such, and no other. How came it to pass then, and why, then, doth he urge the law of two witnesses, when himself was one of them ? Yea, further, had he been but a mere man, it had been the greatest presumption, yea, impudence, that ever had been shewn, to have yoked himself thus as a witness with God himself, and to have offered to have come in and set himself down with God in this matter. His meaning, therefore, plainly was, and must be understood to be, that himself was a person as creditable as God himself, and that he was God as well as his Father, and not a mere man, and as such it was he stood forth, yea, stands out with the Father, as equal with him in witnessing, because in nature equal with him, and as truly God as he. And he stands upon it, verse 14, and outdares also all such allegations and exceptions against his testimony on his own behalf with these words, ' Though I bear record of myself,' of myself (which in no case useth to be admitted), ' yet my record is true, for I know whence I came, and whither I go.' As if he had said, I myself know what a person I am, and know my original out of God's essence and bosom, and that I am the Son of the living God, and so equal with my Father as such, and so my testimony is equal to that of my Father's. And verse 16, * I am not alone, but I and the Father' (which is as high as Er/o et Bex mens). And hence it is that Christ argues the transcendent weight of his testimony joined with his Father's; that here is a plurality, a Uw of persons, that are both of them God. And now let Christ go on as he doth: verse 17, 'It is written in the law that the testimony of two men,' though but mere men (so the opposition runs), ' is true:' his inference insinuated is from this comparative of that of men, as the lowest, to rise to this as the highest, ' how much more,' or infinitely much more, then, must the testimony of two such persons as I and my Father, j-ea, of two persons that are God, one God, be of validity with you. And therefore he boldly further goes on in verse 18, ' I am one who testify of myself, and the Father that sent me beareth witness of me;' and look, as he is God, so also am I myself, and therefore if you receive, according to your law, the testimony of two men that are but men (that are or may be liars), how much more of two persons that are God. Thus Christ argues here in the Gospel. Now go to the Epistle ; doth not the apostle speak the very same intendment and inference, and almost the same words ? For having first said, ' There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, Word, and Spirit; and these three are one,' ver. 7, he closeth upon it, and infers and presseth upon our faith: ver. 9, ' If we receive the witness of men' (of two or three men, that are

but men), ' the witness of God' (viz., in these three several persons, who are one God, as vcr. 7) ' must be greater.' And is not this ellectually the same you heard Christ himself even now to say ? And so those two scriptures fall in every way parallel, and give light to each the other, and both for the confirmation of my first assertion propounded, the trinity of the persons; than which, thus enforced, there is not found a greater. ,

CHAPTER III.

The common concurrence which the three j^ersons have in other workit hesidea our salvation; that, being one in essence, they join in the operation of all external works.

I come now to shew how these three persons have, for the discovery of themselves, undertaken several works for the effecting our salvation, which is the thing inferred out of the text, and may be the subject of the rest that follows.

For the foundation of it out of this text, I shewed before how man's salvation was one main thing set out by the apostle in this chapter, as that unto which these three were witnesses, as well as that Christ was the Son of God; and they are termed witnesses to it by a i-eal setting their several hands unto it; that is, to the effecting of it. The main object of our faith (which John here would confirm) lies in this persuasion, that God hath perfectly prepared, and really and cordially given eternal life to the sons of men. To verify the infinitely serious and real intent of God therein, he allegeth these three witnesses, who are not verbal witnesses only, in averring of it in words to our hearts and in the Scriptui'es, but real witnesses, that witness by w'hat they have done; that are and have been at infinite cost and pains to accomplish it; and not in common only, but all three singly and apart: Christ in shedding his blood, the Holy Ghost in applying it, and working in our heart all that is requisite to estate us in it, and to assure us of it. And such real testimonies, in working our salvation in us and for us, are the strongest and weightiest kind of testimony ; Christ says, John X. 37, ' If ye believe not me, believe the works;' and ver. 38, a testimony by works is the most valid testimony of all other; and it shews that God is most full and intense and hearty in it, when we shall hear how all that is in God, persons as well as attributes, have engaged and set themselves a-work about it.

My method in handling this great point shall be,

1. To clear the eminently distinct hand each person hath in this sole work of our salvation, by setting by it, and concurring with it, that common concurrence, and concealed (as to us) which they have in all other works, besides in other things.

2. To give proofs to their distinctly eminent hand in this work. 1. For the first I shall speak to two things.

(1.) In general how in all other works, besides this of our salvation, they have a joint concurrency, yet not any visible appearance in any one; not of one person more than another held forth to us, although therein they have really and invisibly a distinct hand, as in the works of creation and providence, &c.

(2.) How, besides this distinct co-operation in such works in common alike to them, that yet in the works of our salvation they have declaredly some one work attributed to one more than to another, and so have by

VOL VII. L 1

parts the whole distributively and by parts shared among them ; both which propositions put together do wonderfully set forth that peculiar glory which is designedly made to appear in the work of our salvation.

(1.) As for all other works, besides this of our salvation in common to them, every one hath a joint hand, and yet distinct in each, which that place confirms: John v., ' My Father works hitherto, and I work,' and yet concealed as to us.

The explanation of this I despatch briefly in these four assertions.

[1.] As things are in being, so in working; which axiom holds in God himself as well as in his creatures. Hence, that as all three persons have in common but one essence, so one equal hand in works. For all operations flowing from essence, therefore when the essence is but one, the operation must needs be one and the same, which here must be understood qxioad substantiam operis, for the substance of the work ; and hence as their essence is equal, so their concurrence is equal in this respect, even in the work of redemption, which yet is appropriated in a more especial manner unto Christ.

[2.j Yet though they be but one essence, yet they are three distinct subsistencies or personalities, and still that axiomj follows us, that the operation of each follows the distinction of their existences, and bears the resemblance of them ; and look what order or distinction they have in subsisting, they have in operation to accompany it; but the distinction of their personality (if abstractedly considered from the essence) being but modus essendi, therefore in like manner the distinction of their operation and concurrence is but modus operandi, a distinct manner of concurring.

[3.] Hence, look what order and dependence they have and hold in their subsistency, the same they have and hold in their working. Hence, as the Father is the fountain of the other two subsistencies, begetting the Son, and breathing the Holy Spirit, so he is in like manner the fountain of all action and operation : John v. 19, ' The Son can do nothing of himself, but what' the Father shews him, and 'he sees the Father do.' The Father begins, the Son carries on the motion, the Holy Ghost from both perfects, consummates, and executes the work : 1 Cor. viii. 6, ' The Father, of whom are all things;' ' the Son, by whom are all things ;' the Holy Ghost, ' through whom.' Thus in creation the idtiina manus, the last hand is attributed to him. By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens. Job xxvi. 13; garnishing is the ultimate work, the consummating of all; and is therefore made his : so the forming the creatures into their perfect forms out of that rude mass is attributed to the Spirit of God.

But [4.J although there be this order and distinction in their concurrent operation between themselves, yet in all those ordinary works ad extra, common to them all, this is not made to appear to us by any discernible character. Christ says indeed, in John v., * My Father hitherto works' (speaking of those of creation and providence), but there is nothing in the works themselves that manifest any appropriation of what the hand of the one is more peculiarly than of the other. When God goes to make man, he may say, as he did, ' Let us make man,' which imports an us, a plurality of persons to have concurred in it, yet the distinction of that us appears not in any distinct works that went to the perfecting of that workmanship. The making of the soul is not attributed especially unto one, and of the body unto another ; no, nor yet in the whole frame of heaven and earth. In the creation God indeed manifested his attributes, as his eternal power and Godhead, Rom. i. 20, and yet but in scattered beams, and not all, as

you heard, but there are not so much as vestirjia trinifnfh, footsteps of the Trinity, or of that distinction in the persons shines in them.

And though in Adam some schoolmen have endeavoured to demonstrate a shadowing forth the Trinity in the faculties of the soul, yet it is at the best and utmost of it (if so much) but such a shadowing this forth, as ■when we use to fetch similitude from things created, to express things divine by; and thus things earthly serve (as Christ says, John iii. 3 and the 12th verse compared), by way of parable or similitude to shew forth heavenly, as the first birth shadows forth the new birth, which he had been discoursing of then, yet they are remote enough from holding forth as proper effects, or being characteristical demonstrations of them. Thus when some would argue this same from the distinction of those three powers of the soul, the understanding, memory, and will, fancying the memory in man should peculiarly resemble one person, suppose the Holy Ghost, and the understanding the Son, and" the will the Father; others, that in man's soul, the understanding, the will, and the power to act, and put forth the acts of these, are lively characters of the persons; but these all are so obscure and uncertain in their evidence or character of these three persons and their distinction, as they all vanish as shadows, when wistly* pried into, and most narrowly searched into when applied.

I dare not be too definitive concerning his works of grace towards the elect angels, who besides that unto them the three persons may be supposed to be made known by revelation, yet not in them at or from their creation, but what may have further been from God's election of them, which is a super-creation grace, and which was the Father's work on them, even as the election of us men is the Father's also ; or what from their union with Christ, as their head, may have had, and doth appear of these persons to them thereby ; and what other work in them should answer to the Holy Ghost, and his order, and distinction, is not so fully revealed to us.

This for their conjunct operation in common works, as they may be compared with those of our salvation.

CHAPTER lY.

Of their distinct appearance in the u-ork of mans salvation. — And that tlieir several works bear the resemblance of tlieir several personalities.

But God resolving to manifest all that was in himself, or he would not manifest himself at all, for he will be glorified as God to the utmost, these three glories or persons therefore designed and contrived among themselves such works as should severally and apart serve to make known that there were three persons as well as several attributes, that so all of God, and the whole that is in him, might be manifested to his creature.

And this is disposed of so by them, that their several works bear the resemblance of their several subsistences, as far as possible this was repre-sentable unto us, in and by outward works and efi'ects, in that they should be such as should have the impress or print of the distinction of these persons, together with the order of their subsisting, in a more conspicuous way upon them.

And however it is in the works of the creation of the world, and of man, and of the angels in this respect, yet we may be sure that the clearest com-* That is ' earnestly.'— Ed.

plete revelation and manifestation of these three persons, their distinction, order of personaUt}', was by God himself reserved until the gospel should be preached, and that Christ his Son should appear, and be made manifest to the world, when it was that man's salvation came first upon the stage, to the end that man's salvation, and the works thereof, might have the most eminent and peculiar honour of this thing. And this first manifestation of those persons then, was accompanied with a prodigy of the most pregnant and high significancy that ever was or could be given. ' The heavens opened,' which was the gi'eatest visible wonder shewn in the heavens that had been from the creation; even as the earth's opening her womb was the greatest wonder that this terrestrial globe ever did afford; and the significancy of it was that the revelation of it was only from heaven, and that the witnesses then appearing, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, were in heaven; a mysteiy that would never have been understood and entertained but by such a means. And this manifestation of it did then refer to our salvation, as well as to testify to Christ's being God's Son ; for it closeth with this, ' Hear him, as in whom I am well pleased;' namely, with you of mankind. Where we have, 1. The names of the three, in their distinction recorded ; first, the Father, who says, ' This is my Son ;' secondly, the Son, to whom and upon whom heaven opened, and the Holy Ghost descended ; thirdly, the Holy Ghost; their distinct names are express. 2. Their distinction is manifested by three difl'erent outward symbols, the Father in a voice, to shew that God is invisible ; the Son manifested in flesh, praying upon the banks of Jordan; the Holy Ghost descending on him in the likeness of a dove. Three differing actions of each: the Father with an open public voice, to the hearsay of all, speaks and calls from heaven, ' This is my Son ;' the Son, he j^rays (it is here said); the Holy Ghost descends.

And these are the three witnesses in heaven, which the Epistle of John speaks of as witnesses to this truth, that Christ is the Son of God, so to us and our salvation, that we are the sons of God; and as this Osopaviu (as they call it), or appearance, was made in three outward different symbols at Christ's baptism, so [in] our baptism is sealed up to us (to be manifested in us), the three works of Father, Son, and Spirit, namely, of election, redemption, and the application of both, which is the special work of the Spirit. And therefore we are baptized in the names of all three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, so as although in other works these persons act really as three distinct persons among themselves, and are known unto themselves to do so, yet in this great business of our salvation they become three distinct witnesses or discoverers of themselves unto us ; and whereas afore, and in other works, their order in working in eveiy work was known but among themselves, now in these salvation-works they visibly appear ; and distributively in several works proper unto each, through the works bearing the proper character of their personality, and so evidencing their distinctionand order to us.

Look then, as great persons, when they are witnesses, or would confirm a matter, have their distinct seals, and their names set to in such a distinct character as the hand and seal of each may be differenced from the other, so it is here ; and as men's seals bear their coat of arms engraven on them often, bearing the memory of some eminent exploit they have done, whereby their houses and antiquity is known, so it is here ; as there are three witnesses, or persons witnessing, so three works in our salvation, which bear the impress, stamp, and similitude of their subsistence apart, and the order and rank of their distinct subsistings.

And though all concur to set on the stamp of each, even of these, yet the stamp itself impressed in each work, bears the character of one person more than of another. I shall manifest this in the particular instances of each of these works.

1. There is eternal election, or setting forth the persons that shall be saved, and the benefits, &c., which is the entrance, the groundwork, the foundation (as, 2 Tim. ii. 19, it is called 'the foundation of the Lord'). Hence this is peculiarly attributed to the Father, whose person is the original, the fountain of the other two, and who is the first both in subsisting and working.

*2. There is redemption, which is the next and second work in this, which supposcth election, depends on it, and flows from God's decree and speaking to his Son; and this is appropriated to the Son, which work bears the impress and Hkeuess of his subsistence, and the order of it, as also of his working with the Father; for as his person is from the Father, so this w^ork committed to him is from that other, the Father's work, and the Father is said to send him.

3. There is the application of both. And this is ascribed to the Spirit more eminently; for as his subsistence proceeds from both, so this work springeth both from election and redemption, and is the last, as his subsistence is. God the Father he sets out the benefits to be bestowed, made the will what he would have bestowed, and how much, and upon whom; God the Son he undertook to be the executor, sees it disposed of; and God the Holy Ghost he is as the agent or attorney whom both use to convey all to us. God the Father was as David; God the Father drew the platform of the temple, and left the materials; but God the Son, as Solomon, he builds it, rears it according to the pattern; and God the Holy Ghost, he is the overseer of the work, and gives graces and gifts to build it; which, when it is built, they dwell in it all of them in glory, when ' God will be all in all.' As the physician prescribes, the apothecary tempers, and his servant applies the physic, as a plaster or the like, so God the Father prescribes all, Christ made a plaster of his blood, and the Spirit he applies it, and sprinkleth that blood on our consciences. And, 2dly, for the similitude and allusion I used, of three seals, shewing the distinction or priority of these persons, the Scripture warrants it.

1. The Father's seal and impress you have: 2 Tim. ii. 19, 'The foundation of the Lord remains sure, having this seal, The Lord knows who are his' ('whom he foreknew he predestinated,' &c.); and in the seal of election you may read the similitude of his personality engraven.

2. Jesus Christ in redeeming is said to have his seal also, as in expressions tantamount and equivalent you have, Heb. ix. 15-17, for comparing the gospel to a covenant, a testament, which is in force upon the death of the testator, he withal insinuates his blood shed and sprinkled to be his seal to it, shewing, verses 17, 18, 20, that the Old Testament was confirmed by blood. He took the blood and sprinkled both the book and all the people, saying, ' This is the blood (for the seal) of the new testament which God hath made with you,' and enjoined unto you; even as Christ also said, ' This is the blood of the new testament.' But if you would have a place which in terminis gives it, look Daniel ix. 24. It is said Messiah should be cast off ' for the sealing up of iniquity' (as it is varied in your margins).

3. The Spirit he hath his seal: Eph. iv. 30, ' Grieve not the Holy Spirit, by whom you are sealed to the day of redemption.' Sealed in regeneration,

which conveys the image of God; sealed again in the work of assurance, as a comforter, both which make up apphcation.

And as their seals, so their several names and hands are set: Mat. xxviii. 29, ' Go teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'

Baptism, 4,hough it be peculiarly the seal of regeneration, yet withal of the whole of salvation, and of all that ever God did for us, or will do in us, from first unto the last: 'There is one faith, one baptism; one hope of your calling,' Eph. iv. Baptism is adequate to set forth the whole object of our faith and salvation, and so is the seal of all. And because the whole of our salvation is transacted as by parts, by the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, therefore says Christ of that ordinance, ' Baptize them,' distinctly and distributively, ' in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,' and not in their name in common only. And the distinctiveness is imported both in the article put to each, t&u ^ar^oc, of the Father, roD viov, of the Son, 7-ov ayiou 'Trvsv/xaros, of the Holy Ghost; but in the particle Tcal, as distinctly put to each: and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. And that this is further the import of baptism, as holding forth the total object of our faith and salvation in the parts thereof, by enumerating the name of these three authors thereof, that fore-mentioned Eph. iv. confirms. There is one Spirit, ver. 4; one Lord, ver. 5; one Father, ver. 6; as one baptism, ver. 5, that seals up all.

CHAPTER V.

The reasons of the three persons making such a distinct discovert/ of themselves in this work of our salvation, rather than in any other.

I come now to assign the reasons why the three persons chose this work of our salvation above all their other works, wherein to make such a distinct discovery of themselves.

1. Because as the mystery of the Trinity is that great mystery of all other, ' the mystery of God, and the Father, and of Christ,' Col. ii. 2, the highest of all things to be known of God, so this of man's salvation was the chiefest of all his ways and works, and the greatest and utmost stage to display his glory on.

2. In this channel the love of God did run most strongly, as being that wherein God would shew his love and grace, which is the intimacy of his heart most; it is therefore eminently called love to mankind.

3. God's love is herein shewed to his own, and therefore each person was desirous, yea, zealous, to appear, that the love of each might be discerned and acknowledged, and that we in a special and peculiar respect might be obliged unto each person, and bound to praise and glorify them accordingly; to honour the Son and the Holy Ghost as well as the Father. In giving proofs from Scriptures of this partition, I'shall not allege all such as scatteredly attribute election to the Father, redemption to the Son, sanc-tification to the Spirit, for such proofs would be inefficacious in this respect, that we find such works wherein they have a common hand scatteredly attributed unto each. When we are converted, we are said to ' hear the voice of the Son of God,' John v. 25, 2G; to be 'begotten of the Father,' James i. 17; and 'born of the Spirit,' John iii. 6. So creation is scatteredly attributed to them all, and therefore to allege any one place

singly for any such work, should but prove that that person is supposed to have had an hand therein, such as the rest have; but if we liud any scriptures at once and together distinctly mentioning all tliree persons, and withal mentioning these three works, and then withal attributing one work to the one, another to another person, in this case we may conclude, that comparatively among themselves, one work is more eminently and properly to be ascribed to that person it is given to rather than the other, and that they have sorted and distributed these three among them. Now for scriptures I shall name but two.

In the lirst chapter to the Ephesians, election is attributed to the Father of Jesus Christ, who hath chosen us in him before the world was, ver. 4; and who hath set forth all those spiritual blessings we are blessed withal, ver. 3.

2. In the 7th verse redemption is attributed to Christ as the author thereof, whereas in election he was made as the subject in whom we were chosen; but ver. 7, 'In whom we have redemption through his blood,' as shed by him, and so the principal author and efficient of it. Then the ap-pHcation and sealing up of all is attributed to the Spirit: ver. 13, 14, ' In whom, after ye believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the earnest of our inheritance,' &c.

The next scripture is 1 Pet. i. ver. 2, ' Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ.'

The apostle Peter, to endear the hearts of all saints he wrote to unto these three persons, singly shuts up their distinct agencies in our great and common salvation in as few words as possible to utter them in. Salvation was the subject he was to write them about, he in the front placeth and sets up the coat of arms of these three blessed ones as the joint founders of our salvation, emblazoning what each did contribute thereunto.

1. Here are the three persons by name mentioned. Father, Spirit, Christ.

2. Here are three works mentioned, election, sanctification, blood, both shed and sprinkled.

3. And here is election attributed to the Father, ' elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father;' sanctification to the Spirit, and the blood said to be of Jesus Christ, which is the foundation of redemption, which is his work, as you heard, ' Eph. i. 7, ' In whom we have redemption through his blood,' &c.

I observe that in mentioning election here, he doth not (as elsewhere) make mention of salvation as the end or designed scope of it, which yet is usual everywhere else. Salvation, which is the ultimate end or tennums of all (as verse 9 he terms ' the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls') is in common the result of the work of all three, and in the verses following he speaks of it as such again and again, ' begotten to an inheritance,' ver. 4, ' kept to salvation,' ver. 5, and so ver. 9, 10; this is the end of ends. But he mentions such intermediate works between election and salvation as are necessary and preparatory thereunto, as those which the persons undertook amongst them, as means through which salvation is to be obtained, as, 2 Thess. ii. 13, 14, the words evidently import, that whereas God's ordination was, that ' without holiness no man should see God,' Heb. xii., ' and without shedding blood there should be no remission,' Heb. ix. 22, these persons among them took upon them those works: the Father he electeth, and electing ordained hohness and

blood as the means through and by which we are to obtain salvation; ' elect in or through, or unto sanctification,' &c. The Spirit undertaketh sancti-fication, called therefore ' sanctification of the Spirit.' You shall sanctify,' said the Father to the Spirit; and to the Son concerning his blood. It shall be your blood that shall redeem them, said the Father, in electing of us. To clear and open these things a little as they are set down:

1. Election, which is there said to be according to foreknowledge, is not vocation in time, but that choice made from everlasting, as those two parallel places shew : ' Whom he foreknew, he predestinated,' Kom. viii. 29, which is all one as here, he elected according to foreknowledge, and together here with that other, 2 Thes. ii. 13, ' He hath chosen you from the beginning,' that is, from everlasting; ' according to foreknowledge' is added, to shew the moving cause of election, to exclude all other accordings of works, ' not according to works,' as elsewhere, 2 Tim. i. 9, nor of holiness, or faith foreseen ; for he hath chosen us that we might be holy, Eph. i. 3, 4, not because we were holy; in holiness, or through holiness, to obtain salvation, 2 Thes. ii. 13, 14, as a means requisite to it. And so here it is not according to foreknowledge of our sanctification, but according to foreknowledge in and through sanctification, it is then the foreknowledge simply of our persons, abstracted from all condition, joined*with and importing special love and dearest affection ; for words of knowledge import and declare afiections in Scripture phrase : ' Depart from me' (says Christ), ' ye workers of iniquity, I know you not;' that is, I regard you not. Answerably it is attributed to express God's knowledge of us with special love and regard : Kom. xi. 2, ' God hath cast away his people whom he foreknew;' that is, loved and out of love chose them.

2. For those other that follow, for the order of them as they are here ranged there is a seeming difficulty. Some understand them as set in order, as they succeed one another in the execution of the electing decree, namely, that sanctification, whereby is meant the working all the principles of habitual grace (which we call regeneration) by the Spirit, should be the first and immediate medium of election, according to that order or chain, Eom. viii., ' Whom he predestinated he called,' under which sanctification is intended as the first and next to predestination:' and so then, ' unto obedience and sprinkling of Christ's blood' comes in as the immediate consequents of that sanctification first wrought; and so sanctification is the first most immediate designed fruit of election, though as a medium, God hath elected or ordained us unto obedience and sprinkling of Christ's blood. Now, how obedience should follow upon sanctification habitual, so as it might be said we are elected through habitual sanctification unto obedience, understanding it of obedience in our whole course to the whole will of God, is easily understood, and granted by all to be the end of habitual grace, as operations are of their proper habits. But then how the sprinkling of the blood of Christ should be the consequent of sanctification, so as we should in like manner be said to be elected through sanctification unto this sprinkling of Christ's blood, this contradicts the received opinion, i. e., that justification should rather be the viediwn of sanctification, and in order to go afore it. And that by the sprinkling of Christ's blood here, the application of his blood to us for the forgiveness of sins should be meant, is evident, for as shedding of his blood was the work of redemption, as performed by him on the cross, so the sprinkling of his blood is a work done upon us when we actually come to believe, and is the actual application of it.

Now yet this might stand, if as learned Mr Pemble and others assert, sanctification doth, in order of nature, precede justification, and which to me seems not remote from truth, or prejudicial to the grace of justification at all, and withal consonant to right reason, for if (as all grant) justification be upon an act of faith on Christ for justification, and that not until then we are justified, as all do and must acknowledge that hold justification by faith, according to the Scriptures, and that an act of faith must proceed from a principle of faith habitually wrought, then necessarily sanctification, taking it for the principles of habitual sanctification, must be in order of nature afore justification ; for the seed and principle of faith is a part, and a principal part, of regeneration or sanctification, as taken in that sense, for the working the principles of all grace, and so is agreeable to that order and chain, Rom. viii. 29, where ' called' is put before being 'justified,' as predestination is put before being called, understanding call-iii/f, of the working the principles of regeneration.

But for the agreeing of this dispute as from this place, we may easily accord it, if (as Parasus) we say that all these three, sanctification, obedience, and sprinkling of Christ's blood, are not mentioned here in any subordination of the one to the other, as a precedent and medivm thereunto, but all of them alike directly and equally to relate to election as the immediate thing designed, and so these two particles ev ay/ac/xw and £/5 y'r^axoTiv, come both to one, as in Scripture they are used to do, and so they should be read, as also the vulgar reads them in sanctificaiionem et ohedientiam, ' elect unto sanctification unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Christ.' Thus much as to the order of the things here mentioned, supposing by obedience here to be meant the whole course of a Christian's life in holiness.

But, secondly; for the things themselves. I prefer another interpretation, above all other, which doth give this account of the apostle's scope to be to enumerate two more eminent effects of election, namely, sanctification and justification, whereof the first is attributed more specially to the Spirit, the other to faith and the blood of Christ; as, in like manner, Rom. viii. 29, calling and justification are only enumerated of the benefits in this life that follow predestination ; * whom he hath predestinated, them he hath called, them he hath justified.' But then, how should obedience be interpreted, so as to appertain unto justification, which if meant of actual hoH-ness of life, it is opposed rather thereunto, according to the protestants' doctrine. The papists, that close with this interpretation of justification to be intended in the yoking obedience and Christ's blood together, greedily catch hold of it,-:- that therefore our good works and actual obedience is an ingredient matter of our justification, as well as the blood of Christ. And you all know they make our obedience to halve it and bear a share of that glory with the blood of Christ, but they fall short of their aim in it, in this, that according) to their doctrine habitual sanctification is to come in also as an ingredient with it, as that which helps to constitute us righteous ; whereas in the apostle's speech, obedience and the sprinkling of Christ's blood, as they are linked one to another, so they are separated both from the sanctification of the Spirit.

Others of our protestant divines do therefore refer these things to

justification as the two parts thereof, the imputation of the active and

passive obedience of Christ; and so as that part of justification, 'the

sprinkhng of Christ's blood,' which is the imputation of it to us, is

* See ^stius in locum.

expressly mentioned, so that by obedience should be intended, by an ellipsis, the imputation of the obedience of Christ, namely, the active obedience coupled with his blood. This interpretation (as I remember) Bishop Downam glanceth at in his Treatise of Justification, where I first met with it; but I meet with it hinted also in commentators: In obedientiam Jesu Christi et aspcrsionem sanguinis ejnsdem Jesu, says ^stius,* ' unto the obedience of Jesus Christ, and sprinkling of the blood of Christ;' his meaning is, that the first branch is to be made out and supplied by the analogy of the latter, as is often in Scripture, that as therefore it is expressly srad ' to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus,' so it should be in like manner supplied to the imputation or benefit of the obedience of Jesus Christ imputed. This, if there be not harshness or violence in it, I should wish might stand, because it helps out the active obedience to be the matter of our justification. And truly the argument of some against it, that we are not said to be elected unto Christ's obedience so understood, but rather by it, or through it, moves me not, because Christ's merits were not the foundation or motive to election, nor are we anywhere said to be elected through Christ, or for Christ; so as notwithstanding that interposed scruple, this might well stand.

But there is another reason which is more plausible, and which gives as just an account why obedience is cast into and linked thus with Christ's blood, as appertaining unto justification, and as requisite to it as Christ's blood is, and that is that Peter understood obedience of justifying faith as it embraceth, receives, and submits unto Christ's blood, and the imputation of it for justification before God; and so this act of faith, as it is abstracted from sanctification and works, as viewing, and eyeing, and submitting unto Christ's blood and obedience only for justification, is therefore joined therewith in the work of justification here intended ; and truly the reasons on this hand rise up to a great evidence, if not certainty, that Peter should so mean.

1. For, first, it is not only called 'obedience to the faith,' UIgth, as Acts vi. 7, in the dative case, as noting out obedience to the doctrine of faith, but it is expressly termed v-Tray-on 'Trisnug, the obedience of faith, in the genitive case, as noting out the act of faith, its being termed by way of emineucy, obedience. So Rom. i. 5. and chap. xvi. 26. Yea, in chap. X. 10, obedience to the gospel is iuterpretatively and exegetically made all one as to believe, in these words, ' They have not all obeyed the gospel,' for Isaiah says, 'Lord, who hath believed our report?' where he interprets our report to be the gospel, or glad tidings, and believing to be all one with obedience to it. And indeed, for men to renounce their own righteousness past, present, and to come, and betake themselves wholly unto, or (as the apostle's word in the same chapter is) to ' submit themselves to the righteousness of God,' this is the greatest and highest obedience, and deserves the name xar' i'z,oyJi'r, and the apostle having deciphered it forth as so great a submission in the beginning of that chapter, under those terms, might well call it obedience in the following part; and he evidently speaks of justifying faith in opposition unto works, as is evident by the 5th and 6th verses; and so in like manner, when in chapter i. he calls it obedience, he means that faith by which the just do live, ver 17, of which he treats in the whole Epistle.

2. That which confirms this interpretation, that by obedience should be

* ^stius was a papist, and intended not our justification by either; yet if in this his reading the words he gives us light therein, we may receive it.

meant the act of justifying faith, is that in that parallel place, 2 Thes. ii. 13, we are said to bo elected through sanctilication, or in or unto sauctificatiou, * and behcf of the truth.' Faith is joined with sanctificatiou there when election to the vialiuin of salvation is spoken of.

3. And thirdly, as Paul, so Peter himself also in this chapter termeth faith obedience : ' You have purified your souls by obeying the truth ;|' and so look as Paul calls it belief of the truth, Peter terms it obeying the truth; and as Paul calls it obedience simply, so Peter here also. And that in this speech, ' Ye have purified your hearts by obeying the truth,' he means faith, as eyeing justification or Christ's blood in the gospel, for cleansing and purifying the conscience fi'om the guilt of sin, is evident by Peter's own speech elsewhere, in that great synod, Acts xv. 9, ' God hath purified their hearts by faith,' which he by the coherence evidently speaks of, viz., justification by faith; for whether we were justified by faith only, or by observing the law, was the point in question there, as in like manner in the Epistle to the Galatians, which also that of Heb. ix. 10,13,14,15, &c., coufii-ms.

4. Fourthly, Faith as justifying is eminently called obedience in the point of justification coupled with Christ's blood here, and the imputation of it, as the proper object of that act, and the true eff"cct or consequent of that act, according as you have it. Rum. iii. 25, God hath set forth Christ as ' a propitiation, through faith in his blood.'

And thus understanding these words, we may by ' sanctification of the Spirit' understand, "habitual sanctification in the heart, and take in actual sanctification in the life as included therein, as it is usually taken, and in that 2 Thes. ii. 13, forecited, and then faith justifying as the act, under the name of obedience and Christ's blood as the object thereof, and the sprinkling or application of it by the Spirit upon that act of obedience.

And thus all three persons come in, in their proper work for us (which is the thing I aim at): 1, the Father in election; 2, the Son, as shedding whose blood it is, * The blood of Jesus Christ,' and that first shed for our redemption or justification from sin, ' in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin,' as Eph. i. 7, and who ' by his own blood obtained eternal redemption for us,' Heb. ix. 12 ; and although the sprinkling of this blood to the purifying of our hearts by faith is a work of the Spirit, as well as sanctification is said to be, and this in Peter's intent-ment, for, ver. 22, he says, ' having purified your souls to the obedience of the truth by the Spirit,' yet the first shedding of that blood (which sprinkling thereof necessarily supposeth) was by Christ himself; and by his blood, as shed by him, it is we are justified when it comes to be sprinkled on us or applied unto us. The etiicacy and the virtue of it, lay in that it was his blood, and shed by him to that end; therefore, Heb. ix., where this matter is handled and opened out of the type, having, ver. 24, said he sprinkled the blood, in the 22d verse he adds, ' Without shedding blood there is no remission;' so as the emphasis here lies in the blood of Christ even as shed, but now applied and eyed by faith; and so the proper eminent work of the second person, the Son, is held forth, as well as of the Spirit, and thus all here falls in with what you have, 1 Cor. vi. 8, ' But now you are washed,' which is the general to the two parts of pm-ification that follow, ' But ye are sanctified, but ye are justified,' where justification follows after sanctification here. And here he attributeth these two works unto these two persons, the Son and the Spirit, 'justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,' and sanctified by the Spirit our God ; sanctification being by the Spirit,

as justification in the name of Jesus Christ; or by the Spirit as the author of both, but by Christ as the purchaser and meritorious cause of either; in the name or virtue of Christ. And of our God comes in as having an hand in both. And thus much for the confirmation of this great point, which withal hath took in the opening of this obscure and difficult place.

CHAPTEE VI.

The Uses. — See the rp-eat love of God, that all that is ivithin him, all his attributes, and all his persons, should concern themselves in our salvation. — Since salvation is so great a work, in ivhich the ivhole Deity is employed, let i(s not neglect it. — Let us think how welcome these three jyersons^ will make us at our arrival in heaven.

Use 1. Is it thus that all three persons jointly and severally have their hands thus in man's salvation, have shared it amongst them into so many works, and took them on them, as so many offices, and vouchsafed to bear a title of honour therefrom, as you have heard ? You that love God, see and acknowledge the infinite overflowing love of God therein; God hath loved us (you see) with all that is within him. Content nor satisfied was he to shew forth all his attributes therein, and those which had not been in the least discovered in the creation, as grace and mercy, &c., but he would have the persons also set a-work, and employed therein, and thereby manifested to us. Oh let us love God with all that is within us; ' Bless the Lord, 0 my soul,' says the Psalmist, ' and all that is within me bless his holy name,' Ps. ciii. 1. Let all thy faculties come forth, as the stars in their courses, to celebrate his name. If you pray, pray with the spirit, pray with understanding also; if you sing, sing with the spirit, and sing with the understanding also, as the apostle speaks upon another occasion, 1 Cor. xiv. 15, and let nothing be untuned or unstruck in this concert. God the Father became our God, and ordained to give himself to us from everlasting in election, and delighted to choose us, as the phrase is, Deut. X. 15. He gave his Son, and he gave himself both to us, and for us, and both gifts are invaluably infinite; and because he had no more left, he hath given his Spirit also, as, 2 Cor. v., ye have it; when man was first made, then only God said, ' Let us make man;' this was spoken, say some, with a farther eye and foresight than to the creation, this counsel expressed what special care they each should have unto the like piece of workmanship was then afore them, even unto the gospel state. I will choose him to life, saith the Father, but he will fall, and so fall short of what my love designed to him ; but I will redeem him, says the Son, out of that lost estate. But yet being fallen he will refuse that grace, and the offers of it, and despise it; therefore I will sanctify him, said the Holy Ghost, and overcome his unrighteousness, and cause him to accept it. And having this counsel and resolution about him, they still said, however, * Let us make him,' and thereupon fell to making him, and have since done all this for him.

Use 2. Salvation is a great work, and shall we neglect it ? The three persons have been employed about it, and that from everlasting; and will not you work out your own salvation ? It is your own. Do you think to do that in a trice they have been doing from eternity ? or do you think to do it when you will ? Salvation is locked up by a door of faith, as it is called. Acts xiv. 27, and to that door there are these three keys of these

three persons, and all must, and do concur in it, when it is cfiected. And thinkest thou to have these States of heaven to come together at thy beck and at thy call ? Thou mayest sooner think to order the great conjunction of the stars and planets : Job. xxxviii. 32, ' Canst thou bring forth Mazza-roth ? knowest thou the ordinances of heaven ? or canst thou set the dominion thereof upon the earth?' That is, canst thou order their motion, so as that their conjunctions or meetings should fall out when thou pleasest ? which, when they meet, have special influences upon this lower world. Canst thou set that clock ? And thinkest thou (that canst not move a man's heart on earth) to call the Trinity together when thou pleasest to despatch thy business for thee ? Be sure, therefore, that thou take their time, when thou feelest the Spirit moving thee; then all those wheels are a-moving, and then take thy season.

Use 3, Think how welcome we shall be when we come to heaven. It is said in the parable, that when men fail, there are friends made with unrighteous Mammon, which will then receive you. But here is a higher company and fellowship of friends to us. Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the three witnesses in heaven that are and have been, as you see, so great friends to us, and each love us for his work's sake on us, and cost and labour of love bestowed : artifcx amat opus; so do each of these love their own work in us. Saith the Father, This is the soul which I chose from everlasting, and set my heart upon so long ago. Saith Christ, This is that man that I represented upon the cross, and the welcome day now comes that I have return of the travail of my soul, the spirit* of my blood. And I, says the Spirit, have took infinite pains with him to keep him, and to bring him to this. And thus all rejoice and glory in it.

Use 4. That these three glorious persons thus equally share this work, of so much glory to God in the highest, amongst them, and one doth not take upon him all, but each bears his part, that each may be honoured as the other; yea, are jealous of the glory of each other herein as much as of their own. This may teach us, poor narrow creatures, humility and mutual condescension, that no man should do or have the honour of all the work, or strive for it. God hath shared his gifts, made diversities of operations, and worketh as, and in what measure, and by whom, he pleaseth. If there had been contending amongst these persons who should have the glory of all, or who should be the first or second, this work had stood still, and man had not been saved; but they willingly share it, according to their order and priority of subsisting, and involve our salvation with their glory. * Qu. ' fruit' ?— Ed.

ON REPENTANCE.

TWO SEEMONS.

SEEM ON I.

Gather yourselves torjcther, yea, gather together, 0 nation not desired; before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come upon you, before the day of the Lord's anger come upon you. Seek ye the Lord, all the meek of the earth, which have ivrought his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it maybe ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. — Zeph. II. 1-3.

The first chapter is throughout spent in a most fearfal denunciation and description of a speedy and universal consumption decreed against the land of Judah, with the causes of it, -which the prophet yet winds up in the words I have read unto you, with a gracious exhortation to repentance, to prevent the execution of that decree.

Wherein consider, first, the persons to whom this exhortation is made. First of all, he speaks collectively as to the whole nation: ' Gather together, &c., 0 nation,' calling them to a solemn and public repentance ; whieh, secondly, is also to be understood as spoken particularly and distributively to every person in the nation, especially the impenitent: * Search yourselves, 0 you not to be desired.' If, thirdly, he can prevail with none of them, he then more especially turns his speech to all the godly in the land, who had repented already, ' which have wrought his judgments ;' however, ' seek ye the Lord,' &c.

Secondly, Consider the duties he exhorts them all unto, whereof, though some are more particularly spoken to the bad, some to the good, yet all concern all alike, which as they are laid down in the text, express the parts and ingredients into repentance, and order of them.

1. All collectively are to.gather solemnly together; and, 2, being gathered, to search (for so as here anon the word is also to be understood) into the sins of the nation; so also collectively taken, which bring the judgment threatened.

And 2. Every particular person is particularly exhorted : 1, to search himself: ' Search yourselves into your own sins and estate before God;' 2, to judge of yourselves as men not to be desired, that is, out of the favour of God, and to whom his wrath was due, for so God judged of you, 0 nation not to be desired, and he speaks it to that end that they might judge so of themselves ; 3, out of the sense of this to seek the Lord, to

seek his favour, and to pacify his wrath ; and, 4, that they might be sure to find him, to ' seek righteousness' also, grace as well as mercy, else they seek him in hypocrisy; and, 5, more especially, to seek him in humility and meekness of spirit, seek meekness above all graces else; and, G, do all this speedily, * before the decree come forth.'

And in the third and last place, to stu- up all to this, both good and bad, he adds motives.

First, Such as might quicken the bad : as, 1, God's patience was big with a decree, and that decree of wrath ; 2, a set day was appointed for the birth, when it would bring forth ; 3, the child would prove ' the fierce auger of the Lord;' which, 4, would ' consume them as chaff,' and they not able to resist it.

Secondly, He adds a particular motive to the godly, that in case the day of the Lord's anger come upon the impenitent, yet if they would seek God now they should be hid in it.

In handling of which particulars I have rather chosen to give you the juice and strength of them as strained and concocted into application, and an use of exhortation, as here the prophet doth, than to spend this precious time afforded us in doctrinal discourses.

In which, if I shall be coarse and plain, and not prophesy smooth things to you, consider sackcloth becomes this day, as to pray in, so to prophesy in, as the two witnesses are said to do. Rev. xi. 3.

Speak first, you see here, the prophet doth of, and to the whole nation in the general; and so I have more especial commission to do this day, wherein every particular congregation assembled is to represent and personate the whole, and take upon them the sins of the whole nation, to confess them as their own, as the saints of old, Ezra and Daniel, did in all their fasts. But more especially we, who are a nation of ourselves {(jens tor/ataj, and as a colony select and culled out of all the corners of it; and so our sins are as the index of all the sins of the nation, and not only so, but as the original fountain of all the distempers through the whole.

The fii-st thing he exhorts this nation to, is to ' gather together ;' that is (as I have it expounded, Joel ii. 15, 16), ' Sanctify a fast, call a solemn assembly, gather the people,' &c. God will have pubhc penance ere he grants out a general pardon. And gathered together we are this day to this very purpose, so as that exhortation would be out of date, only let us bless the zeal and wisdom of authority, that hath thus gathered us together before the decree bring forth ; for that is the right season of this great ordinance. Preventing physic is best, and so this is here prescribed, and so hath been taken by the saints of old. In the 9th of Ezra, when the people had married the daughters of the nations, and the princes had been chief in this trespass, as soon as Ezra did but hear of this sin he rent his garment, sat down astonied, and fasted and prayed, as foreseeing a storm when such gross vapours ascended : ' For though yet,' says he, * we remain escaped, yet wouldst thou not be angi-y till thou hadst consumed us?' &c. ver. 14, 15.

But to gather together, and to call a general congregation, that is not all the prophet exhorts here the nation unto ; he calls them to a scrutiny also : ' Search yourselves.' The original word, say all interpreters, signifies searchiin^ as well as gatheriwj; and, say some, these two being conjugate duties, the Holy Ghost therefore concludes both in a word indiflerently signifying both ; so as the word being twice repeated, they translate the first gather, the second search. Searching, which is the beginning of wisdom

and repentance, being the end of fasting. And besides, that the plain and proper signification of the word bears both, so by way of metaphor it bears both also; for repentance, whereof searching ourselves is the beginning, is in Scripture phrase expressed by gathering a man's mind or wits together (that all our life perhaps before have been gadding a preferment-gathering, learning-gathering, credit-gathering, and the like things without us), but then to recollect and call in our thoughts, to ' come to ourselves,' as the prodigal's repentance is expressed, Luke xv. 17. ' To bethink ourselves,' or * bring back to our hearts,' as the margin varies it in 1 Kings viii. 47, speaking there, as here, of true repentance. So as you see every way they agree both re et nomine.

And besides, the motive the prophet useth before and after, makes for this interpretation, which is the only motive I will use to quicken you to this duty at this time, ver. 12 of this former, the first chapter, ' I will search Jerusalem with candles ;' and how is that ? I will punish, &c.; for judgments are God's bloodhounds, which in the end find sin and sinners out; as in Ps. ex. 15, 'Break thou the arm of the wicked : seek for his iniquity till thou find none;' that is, till there be none of sins left unpunished; and therefore, says the prophet, to prevent God's search, * Search yourselves ;' as 'judge yourselves,' &c.

First, Into national sins; for he speaks to them as a nation: ' 0 nation not to^be desired;' let us search, I say, for if we leave any of Rachel's idols hid in the straw, any of Achan's garments in the stufi", which we would conceal, God will come and search with candles but he will find them out. David inquired of God what national sin brought the famine, and it was found Saul's oppressing the Gibeonites, 2 Sam. xxi. 1 ; and desperate must the condition of that nation and people be, which, though they themselves ' declare their sins as Sodom,' and their plague-sores run and fester and stink in the nostrils of God and good men, yet, as those that have the plague, they cannot endure a scourge, no, not to have them touched with the tenderest and discreetest hand. And he that would make too diligent an inquisition may fear to be brought into one himself, much more must that nation be near destruction and drawing home when the fatal and deadly sins of it are skinned and healed slightly, as by the flattering prophets of old, till there be no healing, as the Spirit elsewhere speaks.

For this of ours, to search into whose sores and confess them it is that we are gathered together this day; though it be true of us as well in regard of sins as punishments, what Isaiah spake of his in the days of Hezekiah, ' From the sole of the foot to the crown of the head, it is full of wounds and bruises, and putrefying sores; the whole head is sick, and the heart is faint.'

Yet search I intend not into the distempers of the head and nerves, of the rulers and magistrates that give motion to the whole body; it is not for this assembly.

And, secondly, indeed search I need not into the outward sores of grosser sins which break out in the body of the people; they are all visible enough to every man's view and conscience.

But the inward corruptions of the blood and spirits ; that is, of religion and worship of God, which is the cause of all those other distempers; these I rather desire you to make inquiry of.

First, Because it more properly belongs to this auditory to search into it, who are as the liver and heart, the fountain and cistern of both (for ' the priest's lips are to preserve knowledge, and the people to take the law at

VOL. VTI. M m

their mouths, Mai. ii. 7); and from us especially have all those veins and arteries their original, which carry and disperse all the corrupt blood and spirits through the whole body of the nation.

And secondly, also because it is the corruption therein which our prophet doth first and principally and in a manner point out in this chapter the first, from the 4th verse to the 7th, and so warrants me to apply what is found like to it to this nation as the object of their search, as the cause why God did not desire them, and the cause of ruin threatened.

For indeed, thirdly, nothing makes Christ to loathe a church that once received pure religion and undefiled from him (as Jesus speaks) as pure blood and spirits, than corruption herein, as you may see by those seven epistles of his writ since he Avent to heaven, Eev. 2d and 3d chapters, for this is the corruption of the vitals ; for the life lies in the blood, and if it be restored and then kept pure, outward blains will soon shale off.

Let us then view the state of religion and God's worship which this our prophet found in Judah, and take we this discovery or direction for us to search ours.

First, Flat and plain idolaters, ex j^rofesso, we find unpurged out of that state; for which God will ' stretch his hand at the inhabitants, to cut off them who before were not cut short,' ver. 4.

Which idolatry is laid open in three things.

First, In having relics of Baal, idolatrous images, altars and rites for his worship.

Secondly, In having priests also the instruments of it, both cliewarim. (so called from their heat, as kaviar signifies), their zeal to seduce others, and their activeness to propagate idolatry, as expositors note. And, 2, priests, that is, ordinary chaplains in their houses.

Thirdly, Their idolatry practised in worshipping the host of heaven, and in the night, and so in secret (for the time of it) though on tops of houses.

I shall not need bid 3'ou go search for these corruptions; your consciences, I dare say, have had an eye upon popish altars, crucifixes, indulgences (called by some, as here, relics too, but of Baal); upon the Jesuits also more hot than ere the chemaruns; not seducers only, but incendiaries of the state, such spirits as inflame and make everywhere the blood so hot, as they cast nations into burning fevers, civil dissensions, and the secular priests with them; for the purging of both which, our state wisely hath prescribed bleeding. And their worshipping the host of heaven, the army of glorious martyrs, and saints, and angels, and a breaden host also, no man can be ignorant of; for it is practised not as in the night, as with them, but as in the day.

The second sort he instanceth in are not idolaters ex professo, but they pretended the same 'reformed religion,' established, they swore, by God; that is, worshipped him (for so you all know swearing by God is put to signify), and yet swore by Malchan also, retaining correspondency with both, and happily endeavouring to reconcile both. Search if you find not those that do so with us, that would jumble light and darkness, by little and little bring in a twilight in opinions first, which the midnight will certainly follow; who to that end revive things left out by our reformers as superstitious, and which ushered in popery at first, and who do it perhaps to symbolise and comply with popery, to make the transmutation the more easy.

The third sort are those that were turned back from the Lord, apostates either in opinion or practice, or truth professed once and acknowledged,

and if in opinion, then in practice; for no man is better than his jndf^'ment, many are worse ; and opinions that overthrow the practice of religion are worse than the grossest actual sins, by how much an act of treason is less than a law permitting it, or an opinion that it might be lawful. And when men are reduced to prove the first principles laid by glorious martyrs and apostles, it is a sign of great, and high, and irrecoverable fall in some, Heb. vi. 1, 2, ver. 4 compared.

However, if we retain the opinions, yet for the practice of godliness, and as to the approbation of it, ' Evil men wax worse and worse.' Compare but these times with the infant times of our first Reformation; Queen Mary's fires did heat England, and the examples of the blessed men then sealing the truth with their bloods, left behind it a general approbation of their ways, and those duties of godliness which they did profess and practise. Spiritual preaching was then prized ; men might go far to hear sermons, and repeat them to their families and be reverenced. Men might have professed the fear of God in the utmost strictness of it, and have made conscience of their ways and not have been nicknamed ; might have pleaded for the Sabbath, and sanctified it in the utmost strictness, spent it wholly in heavenly exercises (as our homilies' words are), and not have been accused of Judaism. But the memory of those godly men and their ways is now worn out, and a generation is come on that know not those Josephs; and now their brethren that worship God after the same way that they did are cried down.

If gross sins be to be spoken against, and sinners punished, men indeed seem to strike, but it is but with a dull and a faint blow with the back of the sword ; but if but a hair be to be pared oif a godly man's hand, men turn the edge and strike with all their might.

And whereas drunkenness and profaneness, contempt of God and goodness, may pass and travel through the world, having neither passport of law or conscience to secure or countenance it, godliness, under the suspicion of being a factious spy, is everywhere stopped, examined (though it have a passport of conformity to shew for itself), yea, and is sometimes whipped out of town for a renegade. '

Nay, is it not, like Samson, brought up upon stages, which are often the devil's pulpits, though under another visor, to make the Philistines sport; yea, set up as a mark to be shot at out of God's place, the pulpit, and Puritanism set up as the stalking-horse to stand behind, while they shoot through the loins of it ?

Men are not only ' turned from the Lord' (as in the prophet here), but turned against him.

The fourth and last sort that Zephaniah speaks of are those who were never of any religion, that have not sought God, nor inquired for him, but live in this world without God, as atheists and ignorant persons, that have no Imowledge, nor inquire they after any; and civil persons, that neglect calling upon God, and regard not the holy duties wherein he is to be sought; Gallios that ' care for none of these things;' and to search for such in the kingdom were to search out trees in the wood. The whole world is full of them. Nay, rather go and ' run through the streets,' as God bade Jeremiah, Jer. v. 1, 2, and see if you can ' find a man that seeks after God,' in comparison of multitudes do not, or a man who is inquisitive after him in his ordinances, as the church was in the Canticles, chap. v. ver. 6. Nay, run through the corners of the kingdom, you may see thousands of villages where people ' sit still in darkness and the shadow of

death,' and if, happilv, they should seek after God, it must be by ' groping,' as Paul says of the heathen, Acts xvii. 27 ; and indeed how should they! for, as Paul says, Rom. x, 14, ' How shall they call on him of whom they have not believed or known ? And how should they know and believe in him unless they have heard ? And how shall they hear without a preacher? But have they not all heard ? Yes, the sound,' as the apostle says. But to ask one question more, * How should they preach unless they be sent ?' I mean to their livings, and reside upon them over the souls of men, in which not men, but God, hath made them overseers. No wonder if Israel be said to be without God, if without ' a teaching priest,' 2 Chron. xv. 2, 3 ; not a readimj priest only, but a teachinri, who may explain the word of life; as a schoolmaster doth not teach a scholar that only reads his lesson to him, but that also opens it. "VMiy, then, is there a want of such ministers to instruct the people ? Is it that Christ, who, ' when he ascended, gave gifts unto men, for the work of the ministry,' and not only to convert, and to set in at fii-st, but to build up his saints, Eph. iv. 8-12, hath yet been strait-handed towards this church of ours in dealing out gifts to'men, or not to men enough, as labourers to be thrust forth into his vineyard ? Or is it that the chiefest fruit of Christ's ascension and main legacies left behind him was bare reading ? None of these things can be affirmed without undervaluing both his goodness and the power and efficacy of his ascension. VMiy, then, it hes on us, that the lights God hath set up, and are full of fuel, oil, and lightsome matter, as learning, gifts, &c., remain cfFca lumina, or not dispersed, as your lights in your streets are in a dark night fixed in their proper candlesticks. It was one of the first works good Jehoshaphat did, 2 Chron. xvii., first, as to plant forces in all the cities of Judah, and set garrisons in the land of Judah and Ephraim, which Asa his father had taken, ver. 2. So also in the third year he sent both ' Levites and princes to teach through all the cities, and they went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people,' ver. 9. Well, and what was the issue of this ? ' Fear fell upon all the kingdoms about, and they made no war,' ver. 10. His garrisons of priests teaching, and princes backing it with authority, were a greater strength and fence to his kingdom than all his subjects; and they will keep a kingdom secure from invasion, for they are the * chariots and horsemen of Israel,' which in those days were the chief munition, as horsemen and guns are now.

And had we had that care to have fortified every village (in this plenty of able men) which our forefathers took, and wean* from popery, the souls of millions had not been left exposed to the devouring lion the devil, and the Jesuits, who are his janisanes, as they have been ; nor should we have needed to fear invasions as now we do, but should have been a terror to all round about us, as they are now to us: and had there not been auxiliary and subsidiary preachers, who have borne the heat of the day, being graciously admitted by authority, who had been swallowed ere now, and yet inquire if some have not cried them down, as they use to do mercenary soldiers, as dangerous unto the church, and that will prove fatal unto the inhabitants.

Neither is this all the cause of our-'people's not seeking God; but if men preach, yet winnow their sermons, and see how much chaff you shall find among a few corns (it is Jeremiah's compaiison, Jer. xxiii. 28). And when men sow chaff, what seed can be expfecled ? or what blessing by dew from

* Qu. 'won'?— Ed.

heaven to come upon it ? Or if men preach more solidly, yet still passing by the great things of the gospel, the way and signs of faith towards Christ, and repentance towards God, which yet the great doctor of the Gentiles, Paul, makes the sum of all his sermons expressly. Acts xx. 21 ; and the reason is, because often indeed in these things (even such as was Nicode-mus, who was a teacher in Israel) are yet as Wind hearers as they were. 'Who so blind as my messenger?' says God by Isaiah, whose name is yet a seer, chap. xlii. ver. 19 ; so blind, as they judge not of colours; Color omnibus loni.'i, as he said, in the dark. And, say they, * all the people are holy,' Num. xvi. 2, which sends men quick and alive in their own conceits to hell, and with the flattery of universal grace betrays them hoodwinked to destruction ; whereas that prophet, that is, ' God's mouth,' is to ' separate between the precious and the vile,' as God spake to Jeremiah, chap. XV. ver. 19 ; which opinion, where engendered, must needs make men regardless of seeking God, seeing they are told they are good Christians already.

Or, lastly, if they do preach those things, yet not living answerably ; ' My covenant,' says God, Mai. ii. 6, ' was with Levi whilst both the law of truth was in his mouth, and he walked with me in equity,' and he then ' turned many to righteousness ;' but they being ' departed out of the way, and causing many to stumble,' by ill and slanderous lives, ' therefore I have made you contemptible and base before all the people.' The clergy of England complain much of contempt. See here the cause of it, and all the riches and honour you can clothe and load yourselves with cannot vindicate men from it; but that which makes our steps beautiful and persons honourable, is to preach the gospel, and to live accordingly.

And now, my brethren, to conclude this search, if the blood and spirits in which lies the life of this kingdom shall be found, upon search, thus corrupted and weak, and not having their due motion throughout the whole, we may either give it for dead, or at least fear that the death and destruction (which you see in the like case throughout the chapter he so peremptorily threatens, ver. 7, cutting oflf all disputes to the contrary, Hold thy peace, &c., says he, against Judah, though as then ' all his meek ones he had in the earth,' as the text shews, were found therein) is not far off our nation. For besides his general rule given, Jer. v. 9, ' Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation?' God hath, and can have when he will, a people that shall bring forth more fruit than we have done ; who are also, at the best, but ' branches of the wild olive grafted in,' Kom. xi. 17, in the stead of this nation, the example of which I lay afore you, who were the natural; * and if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not thee,' ver. 20. But yet God's 'judgments are unsearchable, and his ways past finding out,' ver. 33, past tracing; for he keeps not always in regard of time and manner the same track of punishment, to shew the depth of his wisdom, as he there speaks.

I have done with the nation, collectively taken.

Let me now tui'n my speech to every particular person that hears me this day, in the fear of a decreed destruction, as it follows in the seventh verse of the first chapter of our prophet Zephaniah : God having in all likelihood bidden his guests (as he there speaks), who are making themselves ready, and in hopes have devoured us already. Let us, I say, in the fear of this, every particular man come home to himself: ' Search yourselves, 0 nation ;' that is, every man apart.

For indeed this duty of searching is the foundation and corner-stone of

true repentance. Thus Lam. iii. 40, ' Let us search and try our \says, and turn unto the Lord.' He that is in the wrong way turns never out of it till by inquiry he finds he is in the wrong, and therefore travellers inquire often of the way, and so should we.

Only then, in the second place, it is and must be a searching of ourselves the prophet calls you to, not to search into the common faults of kingdoms and of the state, to the end to complain of them as many do, and overlook their own. Xo ; it is the prophet's complaint, Jer. viii. 6, ' Xo man repented, saying. What have I done ?' but the prodigal, when he repented, ' came home to himself.'

Yea, thirdly, and this is most seasonable and requisite in time of common danger, and when public fastings are enjoined, and when men are called thus to gather together, then to search ; therefore both are joined here and in 1 Kings viii. 38, ' If a famine be in the land, or enemy besiegeth, what prayer shall be made by any man' (that is, by any man singly and apart, for you are to pray privately as well as publicly on such an occasion), 'which shall know every man the plague of his own heart' (mark it): ' Then, Lord, hear, 0 God, and forgive, and do,' &c.

For, first, God hears not the prayers made till then, for the priest prayed and offered sacrifice for his own sins as for the people, Heb. v. 3.

Secondly, God forgives not till then, for God in pardoning he must have the glory of his justice which hath been provoked, and the expense of the riches of his mercy that he lays out in pardoning known and acknowledged sins. He must have a particular reckoning with every man, first, that they may know what their debt is, and what is forgiven; that although God lose the debt, he may not lose his kindness in forgiving it.

Thirdly, Because (as there) God ' gives and doth to every man according to his ways, whose heart he knows;' that is, God, he searcheth j'our hearts, and accordingly deals with particular men in time of common judgments according to their particular ways; for judgments which you call common yet light upon particular persons. And as in common for national sins, so on this and that particular person according to his particular ways ; for a ' consumption decreed overflows with righteousness,' Lsa. x. 22 ; and therefore as, to remove it in common, national sins are to be searched into, so because it lights with righteousness on particulars, every man is to search his own personal sins, and by sweeping every man his own door the street is cleansed, and so the judgment removed. The Ninevites (of whom Christ f^ays they repented at the preaching of Jonah), upon occasion of that pubHc fast proclaimed by their prince, did not only keep a general fast and cried mightily unto God, but that edict it is specially urged, ' Yea, let them turn every one from his evil way,' Jonah iii. 8 ; and the event was, ' God saw that they turned from their evil way, and God repented of the evil,' ver. 10.

If now you ask what you are to search in yourselves, I answer, into your sins and estates before God; ' Search, 0 nation not to be desired.' Now it is sin alone that takes God's heart ofl" from us, and that causeth him to have no pleasure in us.

Let every man therefore go home and commune with his own heart, unlock it, and search into all the written evidences and records of his own conscience, which happily have not been looked into since the first writing of them ; and to help you to order those confused reckonings, give out to every particular commandment its several bills.

Thou that hast been a swearer, think what a fearful bill the third com-

mandmont will bring in against thoe, of wliom God hath said that ho will not hold guiltless for taking his name in vain.

Thou that hast been a Sabbath-breaker, think what a reckoning tho fourth will bring in, concerning which God hath given thee a particular mcmoito, ' llemember thou keep holy the Sabbath day,' in thoughts, words, actions, wliich it may be thy conscience puts thee in remembrance also of, and yet thou * shuttest thine eyes,' as they are said to do, ' from tho Sabbath,' Ezek. xxii. 2G, Take heed lest God swear against thee, ' thou shalt never enter into his rest,' Heb. iv. 3, which, Heb. iv. 9, is called * the sabbath of the people of God,' oaZZariaiMov.

Think what innumerable sins of others, pupils or people entrusted to thee, souls murdered by thy ill example or negligence to instruct them, the sixth commandment will bring in with this foot of the account: ' Their blood' (their souls' blood) ' will I require at thy hands,' Ezek. iii. 18-20.

Think how many stand on the file of the seventh, how many millions of thoughts sacrificed to speculative adultery, if not the fact itself, or man's sin committed, which latter the apostle Paul calls, Eom, i. 24, ' defiling their bodies,' h kauroT;, ' in or by themselves;' and Oh think how often with this sentence at the end : * The Lord knows how to reserve the unjust to the day of judgment to be punished, especially them that walk after the lust of uncleanness,' 2 Peter ii. 10.

Turn over the vast heap of thy actions, sift them, see how few faithful prayers thou canst find amongst them, how few gracious speeches among as many sins as sands.

Yea, unravel all thy life and untwist each action, and see how many sins in regard of many aggravations are woven but in one.

Go down into the treasury of thy thoughts (as the Scripture calls them, Matt. xii. 35, for the abundance of them and worth in them) ; think with thyself if they should be melted and tried, as one day God will do every work by fire, 1 Cor. iii. 13; that when all the dross of covetous, proud, adulterous, envious, blasphemous, foolish, thoughts, as Christ musters them and calls them, Mark vii. 21, are abstracted and taken out, how little gold there remains or thoughts of any worth ; so Solomon says, ' a fool's heart is little worth,' Prov. x. 20. So feel the pulse of thy desires and aftections, of all thy desires, joys, &c,, see how quickly and strongly it beats to what is evil, how dully, faintly, yea, not at all to what is good.

Bolt and sift out the meaning and end in every affection, thought, and action, and see how self-love, pleasure, credit, ease, is the Jinis architec-tonicus that sets all a-work, takes all, and pays all.

Observe what the motives and bribes to gratify self within thee are, which thy heart takes ere it stirs to anything is good.

Trace and scent out all the windings, shifts, and turnings of thy thoughts and inward discoursing to colour over evil.

Lastly, Cast up what thy receipts have been, what wit, learning, good example of other men, light of conscience, motions of the Spirit, tastings of the heavenly gifts, blessed ordinances and opportunities thou hast been made partaker of; and reckon thy expenses for God, and thy trading by these, and what thou gainedst for him by them.

And after you have done this, let the next inquiry be, in what estate you are before God ? whether in an estate of favour, which is the thing the prophet puts to their consideration, and search whether to be desired or no ; that is, in such an estate wherein God's desire or acceptance is towards thee, and so he^speaks of the impenitent in the nation as opposed to the

meek, in three verses, ■who are in estate of desire and gracious acceptance ■with God : Cant. vii. 10, * I am my beloved's and he is mine, and his desire is towards me ;' and Eph. i. 6, ' He hath made us graciously accepted;' so as though they have sins that make them in themselves not to be desired, yet God's desire is to them; no-w that of all other is great controversy, ■n-hich yet is to ',be feared, ■whether thou art in this state of favour ■with God ; few scholars beat their heads about fearing to live in that estate they are afraid to die in.

Now for the decision of the controversy, rest not only in searching the church book, and there finding you are baptized ; in Mark xvi. 16, ' He that believes and is baptized,' says Christ, ' he shall be saved ; but he that believes not shall be damned.' Suppose he be baptized, whether think you will Christ's words prove true or no ? As in Simon Magus they did, God putting no more difference between a Turk and unregenerate man, though baptized, than of old he did between a Jew and a heathen, Jer. ix. 26; the one is uncircumcised in the flesh, the other, the Jew, in the heart; for as not circumcision, so nor by the same reason baptism, doth avail aught, ' but a new creature in Christ,' Gal. vi. 15.

But search you this sacred register of heaven, which is the great inquest of life and death, where all the evidences and indictments to acquit the godly, or condemn the wicked, lie.

And there you shall find that he that hath sufiered in the flesh hath ceased from sin, 1 Pet. iv. 1 ; therefore he that lies in any known sin cannot be saved.

There you shall find if you make credit, or preferment, or anything but God's gloiy, your end, you cannot believe : John v. 44, ' How can you believe whilst you seek honour one of another, and not the glory which comes of God only'?'

There you shall find that flatterers and time-servers are not the servants of Christ: Gal. i. 10, ' If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servan of Christ.'

There you shall find that he who loves not the Lord Jesus, ' he is accursed,' 1 Cor. xvi. 22. And, ' Peter, lovest thou me ? Feed my sheep ;' you know who said so, he that must judge you also.

There you shall find that he that hates his brother, especially when he makes conscience of sin and duty, that he hates God whom he hath not seen, who gave that law he makes conscience of, 1 John iv. 20.

There you shall find that he that slights and despiseth any of God's commandments and ways appointed him to walk, shall die, Prov. xix. 16,

That he who neglects calling upon God, is a worker of iniquity, Ps. liii. 4, for sinning will either make him leave praying, or praying leave sinning.

Yea, and to make conscience of this not publicly only, but privately, for when a spirit of supplication is poured out, it makes men and women pray apart, as Zech. xii. from 10th verse to end compared.

Yea, and if men continue not to do so constantly, and delight not in God, they are no better than hypocrites, Job xxvii. 8, with 10th verse compared. If a man should take the keys of your heart, and ransack your cupboards, and see what sweet bits you delight in, he should find them full of uncleanness, ease, pleasures, &c., rather than God, and communion with him in his ordinances.

And if upon this search thy estate be found by thee to be unsound indeed, and not to be desired or rested in, be not shy or afraid to judge so of

it, and to pass sentence upon thyself accordingly. For he tells them, God who is greater than your hearts doth so judge of them ; that is, think of yourselves as God doth, tune your judgments to his. Which is so far from putting you ofl" from God, as it is a necessary preparation to coming into favour with him ; for as he that is a fool must think himself one ere he can be wise, 1 Cor. iii. 18, so he that will be justified must first apprehend himself condemned : Kom. iv. 5, ' He that believes in him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is imputed to him for righteousness.' A man in law cannot have a sentence of pardon until he be first judged, and cast, and sentence passed upon him as guilty.

Aud therefore it is the greatest kindness can be done you by others, and the greatest wrong you can do yourselves, for others to tell you your estate is good and blessed when it is not, or you not to be apprehensive of the truth herein. For, Ps. vii. 11, it is said, ' God is angry with the wicked every day ; if we turn not, [hej hath prepared his instruments of death.'

The next thing in the text is, to ' seek the Lord,' for there is no continuing in that estate thou yet standest in. And thou hast no way to escape but by seeking of him and turning to him.

As that wise king in the parable, Luke xiv. 32, when by consultation he had found that^the king coming against him would be too strong, he sends out an embassage and desires conditions of peace ; and so must thou from God. Send up prayers day and night as messengers for peace to the court of heaven, and to obtain of Christ, that those great preparations made against thee be stopped; and know that God will be sought too of all those shall have peace at his hands, for he doth not cast pardons away, which cost him the blood of his Son to purchase them, he will have them prized to the utmost. Now that we esteem little worth which is not worth the seeking for, when it is to be had for seeking.

Yea, and so unalterably God stands upon it and looks for this, as that though he hath engaged himself by never so faithful a promise to shew mercy unto his church, yet as Ezek. xxxvi. 36, 87, he says, ' I will; nevertheless, I will be inquired for by the house of Israel for this,' &c.

And he looks not for this only from us, when yet his word is first passed to do it, but he looks for it from his Son Christ on our behalf, to be sought by him, who according to his Godhead is equal to his Father; yea, and of him, who for the performance of those things also purchased all God means to do for us ; yet he must ask, yea, in the 17th of John he asks for his own glory he had before the world was. In Ps. ii. 8, ' Ask of me the heathen,' &c., which yet were his own by purchase. Much more therefore he requires this of one that is at that distance from him, who is to him but as the chafi", and wax before the fire, and dust of the balance ; as we are creatures, and who besides are enemies to him, until he be reconciled to us, and we to him.

Yea, and he resolves to be sought in earnest unto, not with a faint and a lazy seeking. Luke xiii. 24, ' Strive to enter in, for many shall seek and not be able.' If you get peace of him, you must wrestle for it; ^nnTv, to seel-, is too low an expression; wrestle as Jacob did all night, and with all your might too, put to all your strength, yea, use violence, Mat. xi. 12, besiege heaven with volleys of prayers and tears. Jer, xxix. 13, * They shall seek and find me, when they seek with all their hearts.'

And faith on his graciousness and readiness to pardon, as a foundation of the seeking of him, is absolutely necessary ; and such a God thou, upon such seeking of him, shalt find him to be. Do not, therefore, now conceive

him to be of so harsli and furious a disposition, as that there is no dealing with him, no coming near him; for though he be thus great a God, yet he professeth, Isa. xxvii. 5, ' Fury is not in me' towards one who desires to be at ' peace with me.' And though he be thus strong, yet ' take hold of his strength,' as there, by faith ; and then out of faith pray to him, by prayer seek to him and wrestle with him, and thou shalt have power over him, as Jacob had. ' Then he is gracious ; and he shall pray to him, and God will be favourable, and he shall see his face with joy,' Job xxxiii. 24, 20.

If you ask, What disposition of heart, together with believing, will conduce most to overcome him ? I answer, in the third place, ' Seek to him in meekness,' that is, lowliness and submission. As, first, acknowledging thy deservedness to be destroyed, as they, Ezek. xxxvi. 31, and thy con-tentedness to be so, if it may more glorify him, which. Lev. xxvi. 41, is called ' accepting' of a man's due punishment, putting a man's self into his hands, and referring himself to him : as David, 2 Sam. xv. 26, ' If he says of me,' says he, ' I have no delight in thee : behold, here am I; let him do with me as seemeth good to him.' And to be content to wait and attend patiently, ' if at any time,' as saith the apostle, ' God will be gracious to thee ;' and put thy mouth in the dust. And thus God will be sought to humbly, and as a traitor guilty afore God, and obnoxious to him, Rom. iii. 19, that so his absolute free grace may appear and be acknowledged. Ezek. xxxvi. 31, they ' loathe themselves,' or as others read it, 'judge themselves worthy to be destroj^ed.' And why ? For ' be it known to you, that not for your sakes I do this,' that is, to pardon you ; ' but for his name's sake,' as ver. 22 of the same chapter.

And this is the greatest violence you can use ; it is a laying hold of his strength. Indeed, it overcomes an ingenuous man ; much more God, the ' God of all grace' and mercy. It overcame David, and it was Shimei's policy, as the only way to deal with him, 2 Sam. xis. 20, who, when he saw David would be too hard for him, he cunningly comes and puts himself into his hand. And so Benhadad's servants, knowing ' the kings of Israel to be merciful kings,' advised him their master, when they saw he and they must fall into his hand, to go with ropes about their necks, testifying thereby their acknowledgment that if he would hang them up he might, 1 Kings XX. 31; and they came by his chariot side beseeching, and observing his words that fell from him, and waited diligently to see if he would incline to mercy ; and this overcame hard-hearted Ahab.

And thus now go thou to God. Fall down upon thy knees afore him, and with a heart broken to water, acknowledge, as Shimei, thy treason and rebellions against him who never did thee hurt; and acknowledge, with a rope ready fitted to thy neck by thy own hands, as they Benhadad's servants wore ; that is, confessing that if he will hang thee up, he may. He shall need no other judge to condemn thee than thyself, no other indictment but thine own confession ; and to shew that he needed not to send for thee and hale thee to execution, thou presentest thyself to him. Tell him that he may shew his justice on thee, if he will; and present thy naked breast, thy hateful soul, as a butt and mark for him, if he please, to shoot his arrows into, and sheathe his sword in. Only desire him to remember that he sheathed his sword first in the bowels of his Son, Zech. xiii. 7, when he made his soul an offering for sin.

Take words unto thyself, as Hosea bids, chap. xiv. 2 (he loves to be entreated). That if his end be, that his justice should be satisfied on thee, say, that his Son hath done it, and that more fully than thou ever shalt, i£

thou go presently to hell. ITo iHcay cast thee into prison ; but say, thou art not able ever to pay the debt: so as he may, if he please, lose nothing by thee if he saves thee. Nay, he shall advance the glory_^of his grace in one that will be ever thankful, and is already sorry for offending him.

Plead for thyself, it is for thy life, that what shall ho do in damning of thee, but break a leaf that is broken already, as Job pleads: Job xiii. 25, 'Pursue dry stubble,' as there; 'chaff,' as here in the text. Say, thou art not a lit match for him to shew his power in.

Urge him, that there are few in the world that do seek him, and if he turn away those that do, he shall have fewer. Who would fear him, if there were not mercy with him. ' Soft words pacify wrath,' Prov. xv. 1, ' and soft tongues break the bones ;' and so a meekened spirit, a heart of rocks ; much more his who hath bowels of compassion in him.

Oh, for God to hear a poor broken soul thus truly bemoaning itself, how doth it stir him, make his bowels work within him ! See what himself says : Jer. xxxi. 18-20, ' When I heard Ephraim bemoaning himself, I remember him still, my bowels are troubled for him.' Every groan went to the heart of him ; if he should have damned him, it would have troubled him all his days.

But withal, you must be sure (which is the fourth) to seek righteousness : both of justification, ' God's righteousness,' as David often calls it; Christ's righteousness, ' the Lord our righteousness,' as the prophet. A righteousness out of thyself, and laid hold upon by faith, as Kom. 3d, 4th, and 5th chapters, you have urged as being witnessed unto both by the law and the prophets. And truly, that is ' God's strength,' whereby his heart is strengthened to forgive and receive sinners. So in Isa. liii. 1, ' To whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ?' that is, Christ, of whom he speaks throughout that chapter. This righteousness, when revealed by an interpreter, Job xxxiii. 23, to a poor soul, and sought by him, and pleaded by him, then God is gracious to him, and says, ' Deliver him, for I have found a ransom,' which this soul seeks me in; for he will ' render unto man his righteousness' which belongs to him, and was wrought for him to justify him.

Secondly, Of sanctification : For, I say, * the work of righteousness is peace.' For, so long as thy sins remain, how can there be peace ? And Isa. Iv. 6, ' Seek ye the Lord,' &c., but let the wicked man ' forsake his way'; that is, change his outward converse and course; ' and the unrighteous man forsake his thoughts,' that is, get his heart changed also to have new desires, purposes, ends, and affections, and ' he will have mercy upon him.' And get a righteousness contrary unto thy former ways and thoughts; which if you ask, what that true righteousness is ? I answer, 1, that true and new righteousness in thy heart thou must seek, is a new bent, bias, and temper of heart, rightly disposing, swaying all the faculties and powers of it, to hate whatsoever is known or suspected to be a sin; and, on the contrary, inclining them to love and delight in those contrary ways of holiness and righteousness God hath chalked out in his word, and all this for God's cause; hating the sin, because he hates it; loving the righteousness, because he loves it. This is that which in your hearts is required ; and therefore to seek it. Secondly, in life, is to endeavour to the utmost of a man's strength to yield a constant obedience to all God's commands, and avoid the contrary. To seek after and delight in nothing more than when thou canst avoid sin, and do what is acceptable and pleasing in God's sight; and to approve thy heart to him, and grieving for nothing more

than failing and falling short in what thou aimest at, and purposest, still having it in thy eye, resting in no pitch or measure of obedience.

And without this, with what face canst thou seek pardon at his hand ? For what honesty or equity is there that thou shouldst seek the pardon of thy sin, and yet live in it, or not part with it in thy full resolutions ? And then how canst thou open thy mouth to ask at God's hands; or, how to desire the benefit of that all-sufficient righteousness of Jesus Christ to cover thee, and not conform to thy utmost endeavour to be ' righteous, as he is righteous,' as John speaks, 1 John iii. 7, * purging th^'self, as he is pure,' ver. 7, that is, with all thy might and endeavours after it. In Luke viii. 15, the good ground is said to have and to bring forth fruit out of ' an honest heart;' and so must thou have.

Or, secondly, if thoii hadst the face to seek him, neglecting this, dost think that God would ever pardon thee ? Would a king pardon a traitor, though he sued never so humbly, if he saw he would be a traitor still ? Thou wouldst not pardon no man in like case thyself.

If you plead, God hath more mercy in him than is in a man, for ' his thoughts are not our thoughts,' &c., Isa. Iv. 8. I answer. Yet still where he expresseth himself most merciful, as in Exod. xxxiv. 6, 7, he adds at last, ' yet by no means clearing a guilty'-hearted person, that hath a false and disloyal heart towards him, and will not be subject to him in all things, and be content to have every thought brought to obedience.

And the reason is, because, first, ' there is mercy only with him that he may be feared,' Ps. cxxx. 4. Now if he should sufier pardon to go out of his hand, and no change in men's hearts to fear and obey him, there were mercy with him to be contemned.

And, secondly, you must know that God's mercy is joined with wisdom also ; for one attribute destroys not another; but to pity a rogue that continues so, it is foolish pity. God forbids it in us, and therefore will not practise it himself.

Now, till thou turnest from sin, and choosest the things that please him, he will not delight in thee : Isa. Ivi. 5, ' For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbath, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant: even unto them will I give in mine house and ■within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters,' &c. He instanceth in Sabbath, because that day, if sanctified as it ought, in thought, speeches, and actions, is the darling and delight of the Lord, Isa. Iviii. 14. Now if thou makest it thy darling day too, and such a day as this of fasting and prayer, or of those ordinances which in his word he manifests his heart is for, if thine be for them also, prayer, holy conference, &c., then he comes to delight in thee, as there, and otherwise not; for ' can two walk together as friends (says the prophet), and not agree ?' hating what he discovers he hates, &c.

Therefore, resolve either to leave every known sin, and submit to every known duty; or else never look to find favour and mercy from God.

Now the last clause and condition the prophet puts in, is to do ' before the decree come forth.' There is a space, as Solomon observes, Eccles. viii. 11, between sentence or decree, and the execution of it; and that time is space to repent: Rev, ii. 21, ' I gave her space to repent.' Now what and when God will decree against thee, and serve an- execution upon thee, thou knowest not; and thou dost not know what decree is bringing forth, as they know not what is in the womb till it be born : Prov. xxvii. 1, ' Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,' so as thou neither know-

est what nor when an execution may bo served upon thee; he may serve anexecutionof death ere to-morrow ; as upon him, ' thou fool, this night;' death's Serjeants may arrest thee, and bring thee before ,the judge; and therefore take our Saviour's counsel, given in the like case: Mat. v. 25, * Agree with thine adversary whilst thou are in the way, lest at any time he deliver thee to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and he cast thee into prison.' And how near this serjeant from God is thou knowest not. James tells thee, James v. 9, ' Behold the judge is at the door,' and then his officer death is not far off.

But if God should spare thee yet, and let thee live, yet in the mean time an execution of hardness of heart and blindness of mind may be served on thee, as on the Pharisees : John xii. 40, ' He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart, that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted.' If not so, yet, which is all one, a decree [may] pass against thee, that thou shalt never have a pardon granted, though thou shouldst sue for it; as against Esau, who, Heb. xii., ' neglecting his birthright,' though he sought to revoke it * with tears,' he could not; and against the Israelites in the wilderness, against whom * God swore they should never enter into his rest,' though they Uved many years after.

But the most fearful execution of all the rest, which all these tend to, is yet behind'; you have it in the text, * the anger and wrath of the almighty God ;' that is, the child which in his decree is conceiving, and is already quickened. Ps. vii. 11, ' God is angry with the wicked every day.' This child strives in his heart every moment, so as he is ready every day to fall in travail, only because this child must have a time fully to be come to its growth, therefore he forbears ; yet so as in the mean while he is ' a-pre-paring his instruments of death' (as there) for the execution of his anger, when his anger shall be brought forth.

And to that end there is a day appointed, ' the day of the Lord's anger,' in the text, which though thou knowest not, yet Ps. xxxvii. 13, God ' sees this day a-coming.' A birth when God's decrees bring forth anger, and thy ' sin brings forth death,' James i. 15, and that then when thou least dreamest of it, ' For when they shall say. Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman w^th child, and they shall not escape,' 1 Thes. v. 3. Yea, and it shall be the ' fierce anger of the Lord' also, the longer the child goes in the w'omb, the bigger. Fierce, because * without mercy,' James ii. ] 3. ' Judgment without mercy,' called also ' pure wrath' without mixture, because not a drop of mercy to moderate the fierceness of it.

And what art thou this fierce wrath shall cease on ? Thou art but * chaff,' Nahum i. 3. His anger is a whirlwind; a small ordinary blast scatters chaff away, much more a whirlwind. There is no resistance, and if thou couldst resist the w^hirlwind, yet there it is said to be ' poured out as fire,' which therefore must needs consume thee; and if it rend the rocks, melt the hills, burn the earth, ver. 5, 6, how much more chafi"? 'Who can can stand before his indignation, who can abide the fierceness of his wrath?'

I should now, in the last place, speak to those that are already truly turned to God, ' the meek of the earth.' And herein the prophet seems to act as one out of hope to prevail with the impenitent; yet seek you, says he, as when that great sin was committed, Ezra ix., though others were regardless of the danger would follow, yet every one that feared the Lord assembled to him, to pray and seek God, ver. 4.

Thus here doth the prophet speak to the godly amongst them, ' seek you;' as if he had said, Though others do (according to their kind) go on in hardness of heart, to treasure up wrath against the day of wrath (formerly spoken of hy him), yet you, who are, and profess yourselves, * the meek of the earth' (which is the general title given the saints in the Old Testament style, and imports all the whole of religion), upon whose hearts the word useth to take impression, do you according to your kind, take and receive this word of exhortation with meekness. Which is,

First, To seek your God, for so in dangerous times he expects you should, and wonders if you do not; so Isa. lix. 10, he 'wondered there was no intercessoi'' (it was in evil times, as appears by the former verses). God wonders not that wicked men should be so bad, but that his people should be so negligent. "What! (says he) have I no children on the earth, that upon such occasions, and such threatenings, use to intercede with me for the nation they live in ! Where are my Noahs and Daniels ? We wonder at things their not doing according to their kind, as when we see the sun stand still, or fire not to burn, &c.

And, secondly, you are to seek righteousness and meeknessj as thereby to condemn and be witnesses against the wicked for God, when judgments come and condemn the rest (as Noah did by fearing God aforehand, Heb. xi. 7), as also to save your own souls; for as nothing but an ark saved Noah, so nothing but righteousness can save you, Ezek. xiv. 14; if Noah, &c., be saved, it is by their own righteousness.

If you say you have done it already, that answer will not be taken, for God, though he acknowledgeth they had wrought his judgment, yet exhorts them the more unto it against such a time as this, when to be saved when the judgment should come would be so great a mercy, to have their lives for a prey in such dear years of life ; though God forgat not what they had done, 'ye that have,' &c., says he, forget what was past, and seek after righteousness afresh, as if you had never yet sought any.

And to quicken them to it, he tells them, ' ye shall be filled,'* that is, when God comes to burn up the chaff; yet then he will save his wheat, for he will preserve seed-corn to sow the world withal after harvest.

And if it should be asked how it is possible that they should be hid whilst the judgment is in general, consider he hath many chambers of his providence, as Isa. xxvi. 20, ' Come, my people, enter into thy chambers, and hide yourselves till my wrath overflows the earth;' then, when others shall have nowhere to hide their heads, but shall wish the rocks to cover them, ye shall be hid.

Yea, but you will say, this is but half a promise here, and * it may be.' But now, I had rather have God's it may he, than that aud it shall he, from all the kings of the earth. God loves to speak with the least, and do with the most, to be better than his word, who is abundant in kindness and truth. Now it is not put to shew any uncertainty (see Junius on this place), it is put in a case of a certain promise, and yet withal to shew some difficulty in the performance of it, as when Peter says, ' the righteous shall scarcely be saved.'

And last of all, lest any of his saints should through discouragement or otherwise be slack, as either to think that for their weakness their prayers would do no good, nor prevail with God to remember them in the evil day, or that many particular persons should deem that there are enough besides

* Qu.'hid'?— Ed.

them to seek God, and they need do the less, he therefore bids them all: ' Seek the Lord all ye meek.'

And God hath chambers enough to hide you all in, and it must be your own righteousness must prevail for you, Ezra xiv. 14; and besides, he hath need of all your voices ; as in elections or great canvasses a voice casts a matter this way or that, so in the great business of the church ; thercfcn-o, Isa. xxxvii,, when ' the children are come to the birth, and there was no strength to bring forth,' Hczckiah goes a visiting for another voice, scuds to Isaiah the prophet, as to a man-midwife, to come and help. But you will say he was a prophet, a great saint; know that God often stands u])ou a number, ten in Sodom, reckoning and counting small and great. The number would have cast it, if of persons righteous. How many ten thousand in England by proportion to this number for Sodom are there wc know not; now Europe is a-bringing forth, and so the parliament, and yet they have no strength, therefore come all to help; it was never known that Avhen all the lower house on earth did all petition to God, but they prevailed. * If two agree on earth,' says Christ, then much more when all. I will conclude all with that in the 3d chapter of this prophecy, ver. 9. God being determined to pour his anger on all the earth, as now it'may be he hath begun to do, yet he meaning to spare his own in those general calamities, he says, that he * will turn to them in peace, and they shall all call on him and serve him with one shoulder ;' so say I, lift up prayers with pure hands and lips, and do it all of you, and all with one consent, and God will visit you in mercies when lie is in the way of his judgments. And so let us do again this day.

SERMON IL

Gather yourselves together, ijea, gather together, 0 nation not desired; before the decree bring forth, before the day pass as the chaff, before the fierce anger of the Lord come %q)on you, before the day of the Lord's anger covie vpo7i you. Seek ye the Lord, all the meek of the earth, ichich have uronght his judgment; seek righteousness, seek meekness: it may be ye shall be hid in the day of the Lord's anger. — Zeph. II. 1-3.

The doctrine is, that in times when public and common calamities are threatened and feared, God's people should then especially practise these duties mentioned here: ' Seek the Lord,' &c.

This I will demonstrate, first, in the general, by Scripture and reason; then, secondly, enforce the particular duties, upon particular grounds also.

First, In the general, they are before public judgments to practise holy duties. Because the promise of hiding being made only to the practice of them, as here, and a godly man being only a wise man, for the fear of the Lord being the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy understanding, Prov. ix, 10, this is one main privilege and benefit which he doth and may get by this his wisdom, to ' foi-esee the evil, and to hide himself:' Prov. xxii. 3, 'The wise man foresees the evil, and hides himself; whenas the simple,' that is, unregenerate person, 'passeth on, and is punished.' For indeed wherein doth wisdom excel folly, and what privilege hath it above it ? But in forecasting things to come, by insight into their causes, and so accordingly using means to prevent them if evil,

to attain to them if good. Eccles. viii. 5, ' Whoso keepeth the commandment shall feel no evil.' And why? For a wise man's heart discerneth • time and judgment,' the hints, nicks, and opportunities, the want of ■which is the great misery of all other men, ver. 6. This want of wisdom in others God complains of, Jer. viii. 0, that they are as a horse that goes on fearing no colours as foreseeing no danger, and so ' rasheth,' as it is said there, ' into the battle;' whereas the stork, and crane, and swallow have an instinct of wisdom to know the times of their removing before ■winter and cold weather, take their times to build their habitations; but, says God, you ' know not the judgments of the Lord,' that is, foresee not judgments in the causes in like manner to hide yourselves.

Answerably in the 25th of Matthew, at the beginning, though they slept and were secure in the time when the bridegroom was far off, yet when the cry and noise came that he was come, they trimmed their lamps that were •wise virgins, and began to set tire to them again. In the 26th Isaiah, verse 9, ' When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.' Kow, who are the inhabitants of the world but the meek here in the text? for, Mat. v., they are the meek to whom the promise of inhabiting the earth is made (for wicked men their own place is hell, Acts i. 25); and if any learn righteousness it is they, and if at any time then especially when judgments are abroad in the earth. But to name no more places, to enforce this by reason.

First, Consider the chief end which God hath in threatening and sending pubhc calamities on the world is to purify and make his own better and fitter for heaven, to put them upon seeking him and seeking righteousness. As the winter and cold winds are sent for the good of the corn and herbs as w'ell as the sunshine days in summer and spring, so the winters of calamity which the world hath successively after days of peace and prosperity, are for the bettering of his own people; for ' the world is theirs, things present and to come,' 1 Cor. iii. 22. Winter chokes the weeds, mellows the heart of the earth, and so furthers the rooting and growth of the corn. The winds purify and fan the air, and cause the flowers to cast forth a pleasing smell. So in measure doth God deal with his, Isa. xxvii. 8, when first the seed begins to bud forth; and though he stays the roughness of the winds and storms that might blast, and kill, and destroy grace in them, in the same verse, yet debate with them he doth in measure. And his end is to purify them: 'By this shall the iniquity of Jacob be purged;' yen, and this is all his end, this is all the fruit, to take away the sin. And so in Dan. xi. 35 those heavy storms which there befalls the world are but to purify and make white the wise: God's laundresses, to wash away their filth, and whiten them as men hung out and wetted to be whited by it. And as he sends not the rain of bis word in vain, Isa. Iv., it returns not empty, but accomphsheth the ends for which he sent it, so nor shall these storms, but he will have his end in this blessed effect of learning his people righteousness ere he hath done; they bring forth the quiet fruit of righteousness in the end in and to them that are exercised thereby, Heb. xii. 11. Now, if this then be God's end, which he will bring about ere he hath done, our duty is to prevent him in it, and take out this lesson, and then therefore especially to seek him and his righteousness, and make it our especial aim and business. For otherwise we despise God in his judgments threatened, because they lead to this end, and are appointed to it; even as they do that despise his mercy, Bom. ii. 4, ' which leads to repentance.' And so instead of

treasuring up mercy against that evil day, whereby we might be spared, we shall treasure up wratli.

Secondly, Besides that it is God's direct end and most principal, when he brings them thus, to learn them righteousness. So to avenge their quarrel as well as his own, and the wicked's misusing of them, yea, and for their sakes he forbears a long while, and puts up many wrongs wherein he could have righted himself immediately. And this must needs be a further engagement to his own to learn and seek more righteousness in and against such times: ' Destroy it not for their sakes,' Isa. Ixv. B. lie forbears the principal long for them, loseth much glory he might presently recover, therefore they had need pay use in the mean time to keep off the suit; to bring in the more righteousness daily, and then seek and gather up more to pay him when the bond is like to be presently sued; a decree coming out with an execution. And as that he thus forbears is an engagement, so that his coming to judge at such a time is to avenge their cause, is much more. Now, that he doth so is evident, Deut. xxxii. 35, 36, compared, where to be revenged on his enemies is to judge his people, which as in the next words is interpreted is to judge for them, and for their sakes; ' he shall repent for his servants;' and so it is called also pleading their cause, and taking vengeance for them, Jer. li. 36. Have they not reason then to take part with him, when he comes purposely to take part with them; to walk in righteousness more especially then with him, when he comes to judge with righteousness for them; to fight his battles when he fights theirs; to remember him in their ways, when he cometh to make inquisition for their blood and wrongs, remembering them ? Ps. ix. 12.

Thirdly, If it were God's end only to avenge his own cause, yet then they are to be called forth as his witnesses, and so to join with him in condemning the world in time of public visitations; therefore, Rev. xi. 1, 2, they are called witnesses that, ver. 6, do join with God in smiting the earth with plagues; and as at the latter day, the day of the great visitation, they by their works are to glorify God, and witness that the wicked's condemnation is just, 1 Peter ii. 12, and so judge the world, so in days of lesser and more particular visitations also. And so Noah, by fearing and believing God, and preparing an ark beforehand, condemned the world, Heb. xi. 7. God must have some to justify his proceedings; now, he hath none but you: Isa. xliii. 12, 'Ye are my witnesses;' now, if ye should be as unjust and unrighteous as they, as guilty, and negligent, and secure as they, and had as httle sought God as they, and his righteousness, ye were disabled to be witnesses then. With what face could you do it ? They might except against you justly. And how could God take your testimony if so obnoxious as they? Testimonium qui dat, habeal, says the law.

Nay, fourthly, he must otherwise be forced to cut you ofi" else with the wicked, for he cannot spare you of all others, you having known his name, Amos iii. 2; for he, though a Father, yet judgeth ' without respect of persons,' 1 Peter i. 17; and if there were not a great, broad, and evident difierence between you and others, he would seem to be a partial and indulgent Father, which he forbidding and punishing in others, as old Eli, will not be guilty of himself; yea, and therefore judgment takes hold on his own house, nay, it begins there ; therefore he is fain to teach his own by chastising them beforehand, Ps. xciv. 12-14, that when he comes as the judge of all the world to execute vengeance (ver. 1, 2 of that psalm), he may then spare his own, and they rest in the day of trouble, ver. 13;

VOL. VII. N n

that, as the words are, ' God may give him rest in the day of trouble:' that is, with justice and equity may do it. And the reason given in the 14th verse is, because God hath a mind to spare them and not cast them off, therefore in wisdom and mercy he corrects them and teacheth them out of the law, until the pit be digged for the wicked; as also 1 Cor. xi. 32, therefore ' we are chastised, that we should not be condemned with the world,' but hid and preserved when others are destroyed.

Fifthly, If he should spare you; yet otherwise, you should not be fit men to intercede for them, which yet is your duty and honour, for you are his remembrancers and watchmen, Isa. Ixii. 6, intercessors, Isa. lix. 16, such as God seeks out and would fain find ere he destroys, Ezek. xxii. 30. Now it is righteousness extraordinarily sought that only can ingratiate you so far with him as to give you the lives of others, as he did theirs to Paul who were in the ship with him; not ordinary courtiers, but especial favourites they must be who prevail so far, men greatly beloved, as Daniel was ; if you deliver the island, it must be by the pureness of your hands. Job xxii. 30.

First, To seek the Lord; and seeking having reference and relation to finding, Isa. Iv. 6, thereby must be understood the practice of such acts of the soul as whereby God's favour is won and obtained against the evil day, and because that it is made a distinct thing from seeking righteousness, &c., whereby also God's favour is to be obtained; therefore seeking the Lord I interpret to be meant those inward immediate acts and dispositions which are more immediately terminated upon him, and whereby we do ingratiate ourselves with him; and then to seek righteousness is to practise the duties of repentance and new obedience, whereof meekness is a particular branch, more especially needful to times of judgment.

Now those acts of the mind which have God for their immediate object requisite at such times, are.

First, To take him for your portion and refuge; and so all saints have done upon such occasions in a more especial manner; so did David still when he was in any distress.

And so the church, when under the greatest pressures that ever; in the third of Lamentations, from the beginning to ver. 17, ' Yet still the Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore I will hope in him. The Lord is good to them that wait for him, to the soul that seeks him,' ver, 24, 25.

And so the church, when she was beset about with briers, and every man was as ' a thorn in her side,' Micah vii. 4, therefore, ver. 7, she resolves, ' I will look to the Lord;' seeing I can have comfort in none of my friends, I will look to him.

And so Jonah in the whale's belly, when the weeds were wrapped about his head, and the waters came about him, so that he thought he should have died no other death: 'When my soul fainted within me,' Jonah ii. 7, ' then I remembered the Lord ;' and * they that observe lying vanities,' ver. 8, and seek to other shifts, at such times they ' forsake their own mercy;' they leave, as those with Paul would have done, the ship in a storm, and commit themselves to a cock-boat, that every wave overturns.

God is worth something at such a time as this ; for be thou in what place thou wilt, or in what distress soever, he is a very present help in trouble : Ps. xlvi. 1, and ' if I be in the ends of the earth, I will cry to thee when my heart is overwhelmed,' Ps. Ixi. 1. And though 'my heart hath often failed me,' says David, yet ' God never failed me,' Ps. Ixxiii. 26, nor never will. And ' he is a Eock that is higher than I,' says Ps. Ixi. 1; and if I

could bnt get up on him, though tho waters would soon drown mo that am but weak and low, I am soon overborne, or at least soon overwhelmed; yet ho is a Rock, and an high Rock; so high as that when tho overflowing flood and waves of great waters come, ' they shall not come nigh thee,' Ps. xxxii. 0; when mountains and great men of the earth are covered with waves, carried into the sea, covered and overborne, Ps. xlvi. 2, ' thou shalt be safe.'

On the contrary, if thou beest in a parched land, where no water is, as David elsewhere speaks, Ps. Ixiii. 1, yet there, ' he that trusts in God, and whose hope is in the Lord,' as Jer. xvii. 7, * he shall be as a tree planted by water, and spreads out her roots by a river, and shall not see when heat comes; but its leaf shall be green, it shall not be careful in tho year of drought, nor cease to bring forth fruit.' All other trees, whose roots are shot into dry earth only, they must have rain from without to keep them green, else in a year of drought they wither and die; and so that man that makes flesh or a creature his arm, ver. 5, whose souls and the afi'ections of them are shot only into riches and honours, &c., as the soil they live in, if there be a drought without, a want of earthly comforts, they are like the heath in the wilderness, ver. 6, for they want moisture ; and so all the joy and frolicness, which is their leaves and fruits, withers and dies, and falls off". But now a tree that is rooted by a river that never dries up, and thence the root secretly doth draw sap and juice, regards not drought above ground. So now a godly man, whose soul and all the faculties of it are shot and rooted in Christ, the spring of all comforts, and God of all consolations, sees not or feels not when heat cometh, viz., persecution from without, that dries up all others' moisture. Such soul is not careful in years of drought, though there be a decay of outward comforts; for there is a secret river runs by its root continually, * a river which makes glad the city of God,' Ps. xlvi. 4; and though Euphrates may be dried up, as it was when Babylon was taken, Jer. li. 36, yet this river can never, because it springs up to eternal life, and no enemy can ever sever these streams from that spring; yea, and though the hogs of the earth may root up other trees, the Spaniards may root you out of your pleasures and riches and houses, yet what God hath planted in his Son shall never be rooted up, as the opposition shews, Mat. xv. 13. ,* But my vineyard and the trees therein, I the Lord do keep it; I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it, I will keep it day and night,' Isa. xxvii. 3.

Therefore choose God, and take him for thy portion aforehand, for when the evil day comes else, thou wilt be sent to the things you delighted in, as they: Jer. ii. 28, ver. 27, ' In time of their trouble they will come to me,' says God, ' but where are the gods that thou hast made thee ? let them arise, if they can save thee in the time of thy trouble,' ver. 28. ♦ Wherefore plead you with me ? whom you have transgressed against all your days,' ver. 29.

Secondly, Trust perfectly in him; that you shall find in all the places quoted the consequent of making him their portion. Wait for mercy from him, cast thyself on him for relief; live by faith, trust perfectly on the promises made, and the experiments of his former dealings with his people at such times as these ; it is the only way to quiet your minds. See the counsel given the church, and what the church did in such times as these: Isaiah xxvi. 4, ' Trust in the Lord for ever, for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength;' not strength only for the present, but which never decays. Other things may strengthen the heart a while, but he for ever.

He is a rock, and a rock of ages ; and, ver. 5, this motive is added, ' Thou wilt keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on thee :' so as a soul that rests itself in Jehovah, and hath cast anchor there, shall he at peace, and at perfect peace, when all the world is at war about thy ears. ' According to thy faith be it to thee.' If thou wouldst have perfect peace, then trust perfectly, as Peter says ; for if thou beest strongly settled upon him as thy basis, they must shake him ere they can shake thee. Ill tidings, that make the hearts of hypocrites appalled, as Isaiah xxxiii. 14, yet shall never move him ; ' he shall not be afraid of evil tidings,' Ps. cxii. 7 ; for why, ' his heart is fixed ' (it is pitched upon all good it looks for; hath got a standing), * trusting in the Lord.'

Now, in the same 26th of Isaiah, at the 8th verse, what doth the church answer to this ? Why, ' In the way of thy judgments have we waited for thee.' Though God be never so angry, and come out as a judge, yet one that tiTists in God dares stand in the way of judgments, looks for mercy from him then. In Isaiah Ixiv. 1, when God did terrible things, ver. 3, and was wroth, ver. 5, yet then he that rejoiceth in him, and works righteousness, meets him, and remembers him, and so trusts in him in his ways ; for ' all his ways are mercy to them that keep his covenant,' Ps. ixv. 10. He is never out of the road of mercy unto them. So as the church says, Isaiah viii. 17, I say, and his disciples, ver. 16, say, ' I will wait upon the Lord, that hides his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him;' that is, when he looks in wrath upon all else, yet then I will look he should be merciful unto me, as he promiseth, ver. 14, that he would be a sanctuary to them, when a snare to all else.

Therefore trust him, and trust him perfectly. Go, study all the promises, this in the text among the rest; distil the juice and comfort of them all, drink them down. AU that ever he promised to his people, or hath done for them, were written for our comfort. There is not a promise but it is a tried truth; and still in all ages, upon all occasions, God's people have found the faithfulness, and purity, and soundness of them, that there is no flaw or dross in them; which is David's meaning, when he says as often in the Psalms, ' The words of the Lord are pure,' and ' tried;' still he speaks so of the promises of deliverance from danger; as in Ps. xii. 6, which was penned in shewing the oppression of godly men in Saul's time, who persecuted the godly, killed the priests, and exalted the vilest men: ver. 8, ' Now I will arise, says the Lord, I will set him in safety,' ver. 5 ; and what is David's gloss on this promise ? Ver. 6, you may trust him, says he, for ' the words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth purified seven times;' that is, still in all straits and diificulties, even in the fire, God hath made good his word.

They have been tried again and again. Abraham tried them ; * in the mount the Lord will be seen.' Jacob, he tried them, when he was in a strait. Gen. xxxii. 9, and he found them true. So David fell often, seven times ; yea, seventy times seven times. There are so many jnohatum ests to them, that thou mayest build upon every one of them,

♦ A friend,' says Solomon, * loves at all times,' Prov. xvii. 17, ' and a brother is born for adversity.' Now God hath been a friend to thee from everlasting, and all those scecida have not worn it out; and is nearer than a brother, as tender as a mother, Isaiah ilix. 15, and thou ' art graven on the palms of his hands, and thy welfare is continually before him,' ver. 16, and ' remembered with everlasting kindness,' Isaiah liv. 8. He never had his mind off thee, and dost thou think he will forget thee for a little adver-

sity ? No ; ho should not be a friend then. Now is all tho trial of him ; ho will not fail thee in thy greatest need. Therefore, says David, * Trust him at all times,' Ps. Ixii. 8, for ' God is a refuge,' and that especially in the evil day: Jer. xvi. 19, ' 0 Lord, my strength, &c., and my refuge in the evil day.' The chiefest use of him lies then, and if it were not for that, we were in worse case than others, for all our hopes are in him, as Jer. xvii. 17, 'Bo not a terror to me,' says Jeremiah to God, ' for thou art my hope in the evil day;' all the hope he had. He were undone if he should find him look aloof off from him then. No; then is the blessedness of a godly man seen: Ps. ii., ' If he be angry, then blessed is ho that trusts in him ;' then especially.

And if he seem never so angry, yet trust him, for he means thee no hurt: Jer. xxix. 11, when they were carried into captivity, they thought he meant to destroy them; nay, says God, be not jealous of me, * 1 know the thoughts that I think towards you; thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end;' as good an end as you can look for, if you but let him alone, and do his do.

And this is the strongest motive to move him to be merciful to thee, for thereby thou becomest his guardian,* his pupil, and he is engaged to take the tuition of thee. It is against the law of nations to betray those that fly for succour to us. In the captivity of Babylon, says God to Ebed-melech, Jer. xxxix. 18, ' I will surely deliver thee, and thy life shall be given thee for a prey; because thou hast put thy trust in me, saith the Lord.' That is all the reason; and so Isaiah xxvi. 3, ' Because he trusts in thee.'

Only, in the third place, carry thyself fearful of offending him ; which ia another way to win his favour, as indeed the best of you have cause to do: in time of judgments. Rev. sv. 4, ' who shall not fear thee ?' For he is a Father, who without respect of persons judgeth every man ' according to his works,' 1 Pet. i. 17; therefore fear.

When Uzzah was stricken for that small and but rash act, as the Holy Ghost himself acknowledgeth it, 2 Sam. vi. 7, it is said of David, that he was afraid of the Lord that day, and thought with himself, how shall the ark of the Lord come to me, that am as sinful as Uzzah, and committed many a worse error, not rashly, but presumptuously. So when thou shalt see God come out of his place with fury, to punish the inhabitants of the earth, because there is wrath ; as they say to Job, ' Beware lest he take thee away with his stroke,' Job xxxvi. 18 ; that is, whilst thou lookest at thyself and thy obnoxiousness. It is good to fear; it is a sign of stubbornness if thou dost not. If children see their father beat but the servants, if they fear not, it is a sign they are stubborn children.

And to fear is a means to prevent thy being stricken in thy particular. If shaking the rod works awfulness, God loves not to strike; and therefore in Hab. iii. IG, when he saw pestilence and sword a-coming as God's harbingers; says he, ' I trembled, that I might rest in the day of trouble.'

Only this, * Fear not their fear,' as God says, Isa. viii. 11, that is, not punishment only, but fear to offend, fear sin. ' Sanctify God in your hearts, and let him be your dread; fear him in all your ways.' To fear punishment only is not to sanctify him. My brethren, take heed of walking rashly now in these times, that is, hand over head, as not caring what you do, as Levit. xxvi. 40, which is translated ' walking contrary,' and is read by others, * walking rashly,' not much minding what he doth. It be-* Qu. ' ward' ?— Ed.

hoves you to look about you, always walking circumspectly, lest for want of taking heed you grievously offend God ere you are aware ; take heed, for God will walk rashly to such, strike a rash stroke as it were, and cut off even one otherwise dear to him, as it were unawares ; because there is ■wrath, take heed lest he take thee away by his stroke.

Fourthly, Make him now the end of all thy actions, more than ever: Rev. XV. 4, ' Who will not glorify thee' when thy judgments are made manifest, ' for thou only art holy ;' and this holiness of his God manifests in his judgments, as much as in any other works ; and his end when he comes, is to glorify himself of those that would not do it aforehand, to recover his glory of men that regarded it not. Ezek. xxviii. 22, ' Behold, I am against thee, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee : when I shall have executed judgments.' And therefore you had as good give glory to him beforehand, as Jeremiah says, chap. xiii. 16, ' before he cause darkness ;' for God will be glorified either on you or by you, for he made all things for himself. All things are by him, therefore for him ; and if therefore he get nothing by you, nor you pay your rent, look to be turned out. Are you such vines that bring forth fruit to itself, as Hosea x. 1, so as God gets nothing done for him, eats not of the tree he planted, he stubs it up, why cumbers it the ground ? Especially look to yourselves when God's axe is lifted up and laid to the root of the tree; now down with all unprofitable ones, not only those that do not bring forth fruit, but that do not bring forth fruit to God, Rom. vii. 4, that bring not forth fruit ' meet for him that dresseth them, and rains on them ;' as Heb. vi. 7, he that doth not is ' nigh to cursing,' and so to burning.

But now, a soul that is a fruitful soul, and desires in all things to glorify him, and to bring forth much fruit, and that to him, it were not for his profit to do it; nay, God should be a loser if he should cut him off, as Deut. XX. 19. What, cut down a tree that is full of fruit, and that not ripe yet ? No, he will not. God will not ' sell his people for nought, and not increase his wealth by their price,' as they plead, Ps. xliv. 12. He may get more by them, and let them stand. Nay, see what God says, Ps. xci., when 'thousands fall besides thee,' &c., why, says God, ver. 14, 'because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him.'

Yet, fifthly, pray to him, and call upon him, and keep communion with him, which indeed is more especially and particularly put for to * seek him;' and is the next condition required in that Ps. xci. 15, ' He shall call upon me, and I will answer him,' which hath three parts, first, ' I will be with him in trouble,' secondly, 'deliver,' and thirdly, ' honour him.' He will answer thee, first, by being with thee in thy trouble, manifesting his presence ; and what if thou beest in the fiery furnace with the three children, if God and Christ walk with thee. Now thou hast his promise as well as they, I will be with thee in the fire, Isa. xliii. 2, and ia waters; be with thee as a friend, bemoaning thee, and bearing the burthen with thee, which is a great ease to a man. Isa. Ixiii. 9, be with thee, and tender thee, and visit thee, if sick, or in prison, &c., to bring thee cordials and refreshments, as Ps. xli. 3, to ' make thy bed in thy sickness, and strengthen thee when languishing.'

And as he will be with thee, so he will plot to deliver thee, and not rest till he hath done it; and not only so, but bring thee out, as Joseph, out of prison into gi-eater honour, or as Daniel, out of the lions' den.

And this he would do, if men would seek him, and preserve communion, and be much with him, as the church did, Isa. xxvi. 8, 9, * in the night

sought him, and sought him early, when his judgments are in the earth.' ' When I awake,' says David, ' I am still with thee,' Ps. cxxxix. 18, yea, and all the day long he kept communion with him : Ps. Ixxiii. 23, ' I am continually with thee,' and do walk as in thy presence, and dare not suffer my heart to go far from thee; for I am not able to subsist unless thou boldest me by thy right hand, especially not then when waves of trouble come; then, unless he hold thee, how wilt thou do ? as Peter, if Christ had not put forth his hand. Therefore keep nigh him, still have him by tho hand; for the Lord says, verse 27, 'Those that are far from thee shall perish,' else, when troulDles come, I am in a miserable case. Ps. xxii. 11, ' Oh be not far from me, for trouble is near,' for there is none to help, none else; and therefore if thou wouldst not have him far off thee, then walk not aloof of him now. Oh, ' it is good,' says David, verse 28 of the same 73d Psalm, ' to draw nigh to God,' that is my best and only way for safety, and therefore seek him and follow him hard, as David: Ps. Ixiii. 8, 'My eoul folio we th hard after thee,' as one not willing to lose sight of him ; follow him up and down, give him no rest night nor day. It is not enough to trust him and fear him, but pour out your hearts before him, Ps. Ixii. 8, ' for he is a refuge for us.' And to strengthen their faith and quicken their prayers, I have heard it spoken again and again, that power belongs to him, and mercy belongs to him ; that he is able, and merciful, and therefore willing to do abundantly above all we can ask or think; and therefore it is not in vain to seek him, and to trust him.

And this God expects ere he delivers you. In Jer. xxix., he had promised to keep them safe in the captivity, yet he bids them pray to the Lord for it, verse 7, and that after seventy years he would return them, verse 10 ; yet says he, * You shall go and call upon me, and pray to me, and I will hearken: yea, ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall seek for me with all your heart,' verses 12, 13.

And so much for seeking the Lord.

The second general head commended to the godly, is, ' seeking righteousness,' which is meant of righteousness of justification, which is called ' the righteousness of God,' that is, of Christ. It is most necessary to get assurance of that, and to get your conscience sprinkled with his blood, as the doors of the people of Israel were with the blood of the Lamb, and so God passed them by when he destroyed others ; for that pacifies the wrath of God only. Isa. xxxii. 1, ' Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, &c. And a man,' namely, Jesus Christ, ' shall be as an hiding-place from the wind, a covert from the tempest; as rivers of waters in a dry place ; as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,' to shelter thee, and cool thee, and cover thee from God's wTath, when he rains down snares. * Kiss the Son,' as well as the i'ather, ' lest ye perish,' Ps. ii.

Or, secondly, if meant of the righteousness of sanctification, it is also needful to practise the duties of repentance and new obedience more than ever ; for ' overflowing, it shall overflow with righteousness,' as he said, Isa. X. 22, Ezek. xiv. 14.

As, first, to turn from sin, put a stop to that, for this is that which makes God angry, Isa. xlii. 25. Why is Jacob given up to spoil, and God's fury burn as fire ? Is it not because they have sinned ? Sin is the fuel of this fire, and makes a man tinder to a judgment, that the least spark take presently.

And, secondly, the end why God afflicts us is, to take away the sm. Isa, xxvii. 7-9, ' By this it shall be purged ;' therefore, make use of lesser

afflictions aforehand, as purges to work it out, that God may not be provoked to give a stronger, both to take away the humours and purge also. You see that is all his end to take away sin ; this is all the fruit. Do it aforehand, and you prevent him.

And if you will not take your sins away, know God will take you away, for cleanse a land at one time or other he will, Ezek. xxiii. 48. At the 47th verse, they should be stoned, &c., and ' thus will I cause lewdness to cease out of the land.' If you will not cause it to cease by severing it and your persons, God will take the persons themselves away, so to purge the sin away. And so, Isa. xiv. 23, if they would not sweep their hearts themselves, but let heaps of filthy thoughts, speeches, desires lie, I will come with my besom, and cleanse all for you ; but it shall be ' the besom of destruction.'

Let every man, therefore, put a stop to sin ; as they reasoned, 2 Chron. xxviii. 13, have we not sin enough already ? Especially preserve thyself from the sin thou art most addicted to, whether by custom or inclination, be it a disposition of pride, worldly lusts, uncleanness, idleness. As David in the 18th Psalm, which he makes in the day that he was delivered from all his enemies, as appears by the title ; and vers. 17,19, ' He delivered me from my strong enemy,' &c.; and why ? because he kept close to God, did not wickedly depart from him ; if he did, it was weakness rather than wickedness ; ver. 21, I have put away none of his statutes, and ' I have kept myself from my iniquity.'

And so the king of Nineveh, Jonah iii. 8, bade the people turn every one from his evil way ; and because oppression was the chiefest sin, he mentions that: violence in their land. And God delivered them you know.

Worldliness and unjust dealing, and seeking riches, and honours, and great things, is, of all other, the most vain at such times as these; whenas thou knowest not how soon it may be all one with the buyer and the seller, as Isa. xxiv. 2, that is, both have a like bargain, for the enemy comes and takes away both. And 'dost thou seek great things for thyself?' says Jeremiah to Baruch, Jer. xlv. 5, projecting great matters, when I am a-rooting up all things in the land. ' Is this a time,' as he said to Gehazi, 2 Kings V, 26, ' to receive vineyards ?' &c.

Take heed, also, of being drowned in sensual lusts and pleasures, surfeiting and drunkenness, Luke xxi. 34, Mat. xxiv. 38 : ' They ate and they drank, and the flood swept them away;' for they make a man secure, presumptuous, more unfit and unwieldy to suffer.

Keep yourselves also free from the sins of the times ; if you mean to be free then, • partake not of their sins, lest of their plagues.' This was the lesson that God taught Isaiah : chap. viii. 11, ' God instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people.' It was when God threatened the Assyrian to come in'; and having care of his people, he bids them seal that, ver. 16, among them, not to be carried with the stream of times, and then ' I will be a sanctuary' unto them.

What corrupt practices in state, what corrupt opinions do men raise up, free yourselves of them. If they say a confederacy> an unlawful league or peace, say not thou so ; but go to God, and there give your voice at least against it. Indeed, in an evil time a prudent man is fain to be silent, as Amos V. 8, to man namely ; but go to God, and complain to God, and mourn for them, and so thou shalt wash thy hands of them, 2 Cor. vii. 11.

How did Lot wash his hands of the sins of Sodom ? He was vexed at them, 2 Pet. ii. 7, and God delivered him. How did the people of Israel

clear the land of murder, ■when it was not known who did it ? Deut. xxi. G, 7. The priests should slay a heifer, and wash their hands of it: Wo have not shed this blood, &c., and so put it away.

Not only mourn for, but intend your zeal against, the sins of the times and places you live in, so far as your callings do extend. For because that Jeremiah (and his remnant) was a man of contention against the sins of those times, &c., they 'cursed him,' Jer. xv. 10 ; therefore the Lord said, ver. 11, * Verily it shall be well with thy remnant; and I will cause the enemy to entreat thee well in the time of evil and affliction.' Even so it seemeth just and good to our good and wise God, that when he recom-penseth ' tribulation to them that trouble you,' then to give ' rest to you that are troubled,' 2 Thes. i. 6, 7, as the apostle there speaks in another case ; and because we contend for God with the enemies of his glory, therefore the enemies of our peace shall deal well with us.

And indeed, if ever godly men's zeal and valour for the truth was to be quickened and stirred up, it is most at such times as these. For now, God himself begins to be zealous, and his displeasure against sin to wax hot. In Isa. lix. 13-15, when God saw nothing but * oppression and departing from God,' and 'judgment turned'backward,' that 'truth was fallen in the streets,' and that ' equity could not enter,' ' the Lord saw it, and it displeased him,' vers. 15 and 17 ; he ' clad himself with zeal as with a cloak,' coming forth to repay them according to their deeds, ver. 18. When, therefore, we see like times, and that God begins to take up his cloak, to come abroad into the world amongst us in fury and displeasure, we should sympathise with him, and be affected as he is, as courtiers are with their kings.

So Moses, Num. xi. 1, 10, when the people murmured, and it displeased God, ver. 1, and his anger was kindled greatly, the text adds, ' and Moses also was displeased.' For this is a general rule given, 1 John iv. 17, that as God is in this world, so should we be, to behave ourselves in the exercise of the same moral virtues that he doth exercise, as to shew forth kindness and longsuffering to the persons of the evil and unthankful, as he doth, so to be zealous against their sins, according to our calling, as he shews himself to be ; and then most especially when he clothes himself with it.

See what God says of Phinehas, Num. xxv. 11, because he was ' zealous with my jealousy ;' so out of the original interpreters read it, though we translate it, ' for my sake,' that is, he was affected as God was at the unclean act; yea, and this is the speediest way to abate his zeal. When he shall see us take his part here below, and begin to be hot and valiant for his truth, he thinks then that he may be quiet, and so his wrath slacks, as it did there. Though men grow the more furious in such a case, when they see others back them and second them, yet God doth not. And if we in our places, and our rulers in theirs, would strike through the loins of sinners : we with reproofs nailing their souls to hell, and they with the execution of laws ; and do it with God's zeal, as Phinehas did, that is, with grief and indignation that God is so dishonoured, for of those two affections is zeal a compound, Mark iii. 5, as appears by Christ there. God, he should not need to be furious. ' Phinehas,' saith he, ' hath turned away my wrath, whilst he was zealous with my zeal amongst them,' Num. xxv. 11. However, if you be so, yet with you God will make a covenant, as with Phinehas there, that he and his posterity should continue, as they did in all the evils and troubles that befell the nation of the Jews till Christ's time, and rubbed through the Babylonish captivity and all. Ezra was of his race, Ezra vii. 1, 5, and fared and scaped as well then as any other.

And though we have not such public callings and spirits as he then, yet so far as our commission reacheth, let us exercise and shew the like to the full: thrust javelins through men's hearts by reproofs, reform our families, and those we have authority over, and contend with all the world by keeping the law, as Solomon speaks, Prov. xxviii. 4 ; putting iniquity far from our tabernacle, as they exhort. Job xxii. 23, with this promise, ver. 29, ' When others are cast down, thou shalt say there is lifting up.' God will remember thee, as good Nehemiah prays in his last chapter, for thy zeal for God.

But above all, my brethren, be now ' zealous of good works,' as the apostle speaks, Titus ii. 14. Greedy devourers of all the duties of new obedience, abounding more in all the fruits and works of righteousness, you that have ' wrought his judgments,' says the prophet here, ' seek righteousness ;' that is, still and more than ever. Whatever part of righteousness you before were conscionable in, set upon it afresh, as if you had done nothing yet. Mend your pace, they are not hours to stand still in. After John in the Revelation had declared what terrible things were to come on the world, the use he makes in the conclusion is, that the ' righteous be more righteous.'

To instance in some particulars, still enforcing them upon the same ground.

You that have searched your hearts heretofore, search and search again; it is the exhortation in the text, enforced with this motive, ver. 12 of the first chapter; for God comes to ' search Jerusalem with candles, when he comes to punish.' Prevent God's searching. If a man can dress and search a wound himself, it is less pain to him than to have the gentlest chirurgeon.

You that have watched over your corrupt hearts and dispositions afore, do it now more than ever. It is Christ's motive against such times as these: Luke xxi. 34, 36, * Take heed lest your hearts be overcharged' and overrun with any sorts of lusts; but * watch therefore and pray always, that you may be accounted worthy to escape all those things that shall come to pass,' ver. 36. In Rev. xvi., when the sixth vial is poured out, and that great and last battle is fought wherein antichrist is to be destroyed, before that great overthrow under the seventh, there is a caveat given which personally may and doth, for aught I know, concern men living in this age (and it is put in by way of parenthesis): ' Blessed is he that watcheth, and keeps his garments,' that watcheth over corruptions, suffers not them, as the tares, to grow whilst he sleeps ; that watcheth and suffers not graces and the flame of them to die, as the virgins did whilst they slept.

You that have been fruitful in good speeches and heavenly thoughts, out of the abundance of which the mouth speaks, be more fruitful, Mai. iii. 16-18 verses, and beginning of the 4th chapter compared. Who were they that were spared in the day when the wrath of God ' burnt as an oven,' others as stubble, as in the beginning of the 4th chapter, but they that epake of it one to another in evil times before, and that ' thought upon his name' ? ver. 16. ' Then,' &c. You may see what times they were in the verses before: ' Them' (says God) ' I will spare, as a man spares his son.' You that have thought much of him before, he will then think of you, and then you shall ' discern between the righteous and the wicked;' a great and a broad difference God will then put.

You that have sanctified the Sabbath strictly, and sought God upon your fast-days diligently, and made conscience of humbling yourselves thoroughly,

do 80 still; for see what comfortable promises you lay up for yourselves and your posterity against the evil day, Isa. Iviii., where he exhorts to a thorough observation of both : at ver. 11, * God shall guide thee continually,' and in evil times a man had need of God's guidance, to lead and dispose of him into ways and places, and conditions of safety and deliverance, which all the wit of the world cannot do ; and ' he shall satisfy thy soul in drought,' when all comforts without fiiil, as you know not how soon they will; ' and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and a spring of water whoso waters fail not.' And at ver. 12, ' Thy posterity shall build the old waste places,' that is, the desolations of the church; which suppose it be not done in thy days, yet thy children happily shall be great master builders of it for time to come, and thy prayers put up at such times shall lay a foundation for a settled condition of the church for many generations, as our martyrs did of ours by their prayers and sutferings.

And all this promise is made to strict sanctifying of fasts and of the Sabbath day, which are called Sabbaths, because to be kept holy as Sabbaths are ; so in the verses before and after, ver. 13. And if fasts are to be kept so strictly, then Sabbath as strictly, for that is the regula and primum in isto yenere, as appears by the fourth commandment, * Keep holy the seventh day,' that is, primum, and therefore rerjula reliquorum, and so is to be kept as strictly as fasts are. Though indeed thanksgiving is more to abound in the one, humiliation in the other, yet not to speak our own words, or take our own pleasure, &c., in both. For equal it was, that if they kept not the Sabbath, the land should not keep her inhabitants. Lev. xxvi. 34, 35, and they instead of resting should then find trouble; whereas, Jer. xvii. 24, 25, if they would not profane it, God says, the * city should stand for ever.'

Be exceeding conversant with the word of God, in reading, meditating, and applying it to your hearts ; get as much of the engi-afted word into your hearts, turned and digested into pure grace and strength, and likeness thereunto ; pray it as much into your hearts aforehand as ever you can, there may come a dear year of it all the world over, you know not how soon ; therefore as the angel said to Elijah, Eat again and again, for you may have a long while for to go in the strength of what you get now beforehand. ' Let the word dwell richly in you,' as Col. iii. 16 ; furnish yourselves with as much of that precious treasure as you can, for a little money will not carry you through a long journey, but will soon be spent. Only trust it not in the purses of your memories or brains, but lay it up in your hearts, and believe it, brethren, you cannot be robbed of it.

Acquaint yourselves much with it, and be familiarly conversant in it now, as God commands in Deut. vi. 7, ' And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy brethren, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house,' &c.; and answerably it will be a constant and familiar companion with thee, and be familiar to thee in all the evils that thou shalt meet withal. Prov. vi. 22, * When thou goest it shall lead thee,' and guide thee into the ways of peace and safety; ' when thou sleepest,' and art in any danger, ' it shall keep' and preserve thee; and * when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee, be familiar to thee, yea, and in all distresses comfort thee. Ps. cxix. 92, David vows he had perished long ere this, if God's law had not been his delight. And all outward evils will but make it the sweeter: 1 Thes. i. 6, ' They received the word in much affliction, with joy of the of the Holy Ghost.'

Yea, and this will be an argument and motive to God to spare thee,

when he cuts off others'; and so Jeremiah useth it, chap. xv. verses 15,16, among other motives why God should not take him away, but remember him, ver. 15, as in the 11th verse hepromiseth to do: ' Thy words,' saith he, ' M'ere found, and I did eat them, and thy word was unto me the joy andrejoicingof my heart.' And so in Job xxii.22and29 compared, 'Receive, I pray thee, the law from his mouth, and lay up his words in thine heart;' and among other promises in the 25th verse, &c., this is one at the 29th, ' When men are cast down thou shalt say, There is lifting up,' namely, for thee. Because Josiah had a melting heart at the reading the law, therefore God brought it not in his days, 2 Kings xxii. 11, 19.

Do as much as thou canst to others, and use all the abilities and opportunities God hath put into thy hand to the utmost advantage to do good to men's souls. Heb. x. 25, ' Exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the day approaching.' Those especially that are near to thee, by getting them into Christ before the evil day comes and cuts them off in their sins, warning them to ' save themselves from this froward generation,' in Acts ii., that is the common destruction and general desolation that will befall this generation if we turn not; especially your children, kindred, friends : Gen. xix. 12, 14, when Sodom was to be destroyed, said the angel to Lot, ' Hast thou here any besides, sons-in-law, &c. ? And Lot went up and spake to his sons in law,' &c., but he seemed as if he had mocked ; though it took no effect, yet therein he discharged his duty.

If thou canst but get thy friends or any of thy children into Christ, then thou needst be no more solicitous for them, for God is bound to take care for them, and will do^; come what times will come, they are well enough then.

Do good also with thy estate, to the bodies of men, especially the saints, and for the propagation of the gospel and good of the church. It is a thing I find enforced by Solomon upon this very ground also : Eccles. xi. 1, 2, ' Cast thy bread upon the waters, give a portion to seven and also to eight, for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth ;' he exhorts to this, you see, in evil times, and the motive is rational and strong, if we take in that also in the former verse, that in ' many days he shall find it;' and that he that doth good with his substance ' lends to the Lord,' Pro v. xix. 17.

For, first, then he disposeth it himself, whereas otherwise the enemy that comes and takes all away may be his executor, for aught he knows.

Secondly, He gives it to the Lord, that gave him it at first, and he had better, and shall have more comfort that he hath his goods than they.

But, thirdly, he doth not give it or cast it away, as yet in the first words Solomon speaks to shew what freeness should be in the donor, but he lends it to the Lord, who after many days will return it again ; and that when evil times come, when thou shalt have most need of it, and thou hast not men's bonds for it, but God's also, who is their surety.

To conclude, therefore, this part of the exhortation, to abound in all these and the like practices^'of righteousness of what kind soever. With these general considerations to quicken you thereto,—

Work as hard as you can whilst you may. For,

First, Believe it, there is nothing here in this world desirable but to have ability, opportunity, and a heart to do God service. Eccles. iii. 12, ' There is no good in them,' speaking of all things here below, ' but for a man to rejoice and to do good in his life.'

Secondly, Consider that every one of you have some work to do. You

are some way to be profitable to God and men, in the duties of your calling and talents committed to you, and duties of religion; and all this work is to be done whilst it is day: John ix. 4, 'I must work the work God sent me to do whilst it is day.' God appointed his own Son work, and this made him abundant in it, because he could work only whilst it was day. God had bespoke a gi-eat deal of work, and but a Httle time allotted for it; therefore our Saviour hastened the more to get it done before candle-light; he that made the first day, and was Lord of time, must yet take this opportunity. Now there was an ' hour of darkness a-coming, as he tells the Pharisees, Luke xxii. 53, when they attacked him first; ' this is your hour and the power of darkness,' when they were to do their works ; and so Christ must cease to do his. Now that which was Christ's case is ours also ; ' for when the night comes,' says he in the next words, ' no man can work:' as Ps. civ. 23, ' Man goeth forth unto his work, and to his labour, until the evening ;' for then the beasts go forth to raven, as there.

Now, thirdly, besides that, death seizeth upon all. Years of darkness, ' and those many,' as Solomon says, Eccles. xi. 8; there are hours of darkness to the church of God, when the enemies thereof, as the Pharisees of old, have the power in their hands ; so as then no man can work, or if he doth but a little, as in the days of popery, when no man might buy or sell that would not receive the mark of the beast, Piev. xiii. 17 ; and it is to be feared, that there is yet an hour of temptation, and the power of darkness a-coming over the world, as some interpret that place, Rev. iii. 10, when the witnesses shall be slain, Ptev. xi. Popery may have a reviving, as heathenism had after Constantino's reformation, in Julian's time, sixty years after, and then it will prove a time of suffering rather than doing; your shop-windows will then be shut, the night may come when none can work, or if they do, do only work within doors ; for your hearts may pray, let the enemies do what they will or can. Therefore let us now bestir ourselves, and do good whilst we have time (as the apostle's exhortation is. Gal. vi. 10), and indeed opportunity. The devil, the shorter time he thinks he hath, indeed rageth the more, Rev. xii. 12. Fas est et ab hoste doceri, learn this of your enemy: 1 Cor. vii. 29, speaking of times of persecution, as appears by the 26th verse, ' Brethren,' says he, ' the time is short, therefore use the world as if you used it not,' for you know not how long time you have to enjoy it. Like travellers, if they fear night draws on, they put spurs to their horse and ride away the faster, so do you.

But, fourthly, consider that you may be cut off among others; the best may. Now ' in the grave there is no work,' says Solomon, Eccles. ix. 10, and therefore do what thou dost with all thy might; and as speedily rid as much work as thou canst. It will grieve you to die and to have brought no more glory to God, to have sowed no more seed to the Spirit, which you may reap in heaven; to be hewn down with so many leaves and little fruit, and that not ripe, many buds of good purposes of being more zealous scarce brought into act.

Therefore fall to work and bestir yourselves ; if you die, how can you die better than so doing ? * Blessed is he whom his Master finds so doing.' This will make you ripe and loaden with ears against the sickle comes; and when you have done your work, you may say with Paul, ' I have finished my course;' no matter if you be cut off, you then will glorify God in your deaths, and be vessels prepared for glory, as saints are, Rom. ix. 23. As, therefore, good housewives scour and make bright their ves-

sels against some great day, so do you against the day of the Lord. That you may be * meet,' as the phrase is. Col. i, 12, ' to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light,' as therefore Peter exhorts, 2 Pet. i. from 5 to 12th, add grace to grace, and abound too, * so shall you make your election sure;' and when you come to die, ' abundant entrance will be made into'the kingdom of Jesus Christ;' you shall not scarcely be saved, creep through a narrow hole, have much ado, but a large way, an abundant entrance, shall be opened unto you.

The last thing is to seek meekness, which is a contentedness to be disposed of by God, either in doing or suffering his will, without murmuring or repining; such as was seen in old Eli, in 1 Sam. iii. 18, and in the church when under the greatest and sorest pressures. Lament, iii. 26-31, and expressed there by quiet waiting, bearing the yoke, sitting alone; a meek person is silent, hath his mouth stopped, nothing to complain of, because ' he hath laid it' (as others read it) ' upon him;' going alone to meditate of and mourn for his sins, put his mouth in the dust, and gives his cheek to him that reproacheth him, takes it patiently, and as it is Levit. xxvi. 41, * accept his punishment,' which is also joined with a constant cleaving to God, notwithstanding all he has laid on him, as the church: Ps. xliv. 17 to the 20th, ' All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death. If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange God.' They forsook him not, nor did deal falsely in his covenant, ' though thou hast sore broken us,* &c.

And this disposition ariseth out of two things.

First, A thorough conviction of a man's sins, and the offence to God in them, and obnoxiousness and deservedness to be destroyed for them. So the church, Micah vii. 9, * I will bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him;' and the church in Lam. iii. 39, * Wherefore,' gays she, * should a man complain or murmur for the punishment of his sins ?' as being a most absurd and uncomely thing, that a man that is so obnoxious should think much to be corrected ; as if a thief that deserved hanging should complain of being burned in the hand. Especially when one considers, as Ezra ix. 13, that' God punisheth less than a man deserves.'

Secondly, So far as this is joined also with hope of mercy, for otherwise a man's soul flies in God's face, as did Cain, and thinks out of self-love (if not subdued by the love of God in the heart) the punishment too great, and more than he can bear; therefore in the fore-named places, Lam. iii. 26, hope is still joined with quiet waiting; yea, and in the 29th, made a condition pre-requisite, he ' puts his mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope,' otherwise not. This makes him quiet, and for a while content, that (as it is ver. 31) ' God will not cast off for ever; but though he cause grief, yet he will have mercy according to the multitude of them.'

And this disposition of contentedness to suffer thus arising, is it which God requires especially of all graces to abound in us at times of judgment; and therefore, speaking to his people here, his compellation is, ' Ye meek of the earth,' and his exhortation, * Seek meekness,' this appellation, guiting so well with the matter he had in hand, threatening a day of anger. As therefore, when we speak to God, we usually call upon him as the God of that grace we sue for. If we ask wisdom of him, we look and call upon him by the name of ' Father of lights;' if consolation, * the God of all

comfort.' So when God speaks to us, he gives us that especial appellation, and denominates us by that grace (as here of meek ones) which best becomes us in receiving the message he is delivering.

And when God speaks of a ' day of anger,' and of his ' fierce anger' a-coming, it becomes us, who are obnoxious as well as others, to be meek, and silent, and still. Then, * seek meekness;' not to entertain a murmuring thought to the contrary; for it is the most absurd and unseemly thing to see one that deserves to be in hell, and have the lowest place there, to complain of lesser punishments ; and therefore. Lam. iii. 39, Jeremiah brings it in as a most unreasonable thing to be wondered at, ' Why doth an evil man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?' He ■wonders that a man obnoxious to God in so great a guilt; what! that he should complain of punishment, of punishment of his sins ? betwixt which there is no proportion. A rogue that deserves hanging, drawing, and quartering, complain if he be sentenced but to whipping or burning in the hand ! Down on thy knees, wretch, and thank the Judge for his mercy that thou art 'not consumed' (as they, ver. 22 of the same chapter), as infinite mercy by which thou escapest. Be content to welcome that punishment which is less than thou hast deserved. If any had cause to complain, Christ had, who was innocent; and innocency makes men speak when guilt would stop their mouths; but ' as a lamb led to the slaughter, he opened not his mouth;' prayed indeed the cup might pass, but yet ' if possible,' else not; ' Not my will, Father, but thine ;' and ' he was heard in what he feared.' So do thou. The promise of hiding is made to it; if there be any hiding-place to be found on earth, a meek man may challenge it: Ps. xxxvii. 8, * The meek shall inherit the earth ;' and therefore they are here called the ' meek of the earth, and the ' inhabitants of the earth,' Isa. xxvi. 9.

And the reason why God so especially regards this disposition, and makes a promise against ill times to it, and spares them, is,

First, Because God desires but to overcome when he comes to judge, Rom. iii. 4; to have the victory over men. Now, a spirit that confessing it hath sinned willingly submits to and accepts its punishment: over that spirit God is acknowledged a victor already. And it is not a fit match for him to shew^his power on; but a Pharaoh that will not stoop, he will shew his power on him to choose and break him in pieces. You whip your children but till they kiss the rod, and then you fling it away.

Secondly, A meek soul will still be thankful to him, and give him all the glory, let him deal with it how he will, and he doth desire no more, apprehending itself worthy to be destroyed. It magnifies the least mercies in the midst of judgments, and still thinks judgments small, confessing God just and merciful in them, if ii;s being be but preserved: ' It is of thy mercy we are not consumed,' Lam. iii. 22; and ' Great is thy faithfulness.' So Ezra ix. 13, he there aggravates his sin: 'All this is come upon us for our great trespass;' but extenuates and thinks nothing of the punishment: •Thou hast punished us less than our iniquities;' but he magnifies the least mercy: ' hast given us such a deliverance as this,' sets an emphasis on that.

Thirdly, A meek soul will not forsake God, but serve and obey him still, let God do what he will with it: Ps. xliv. 17, 18, 'All this is come upon us; yet we have not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps dechned from thy way; though thou hast sore broken us.' For a meek heart still

knows that obedience is due, that imprisonment satisfies not for the debt. Now, such a soul therefore God cannot find in his heart long to punish, and therefore the promise is made to them.

Now, to exhort to this, consider but this one motive, that besides that a man is obnoxious, God also hath an unlimited prerogative to bring on thee what he will. And if he will bring a judgment oa thee, all the world cannot hinder it nor take it off. So as there is no dealing with him, but submitting; for he keeps prosperity and adversity under lock and key, and shuts and none can open; men must lie close prisoners till he will let them out, Job xii. 14. It is Job's expression in this very case: 'Behold, he breaketh down, and none can build up; he shuts up a man, and there can be no opening,' and so on to the end of that chapter. And upon this ground see what counsel Elihu gives. Job xxxiv. 29-31, he having the prerogative to ' give quietness,' so as then 'none can give trouble;' and when he 'hides his face, who can behold him?' whether it be done against a man; and not only so, but a whole nation. They cannot all keep an afiiiction ofi", nor all the world cannot hurt them, if he will give quietness. If he will set an hypocrite over them to ensnare them, they cannot all get him down till he will, ver. 30. And what then ? ' Surely it is meet to be said, I have borne chastisement, and I will not ofi'end any more.' No way but to kiss the rod and say, ' I will do so no more.' And if a man sees not cause why God should thus chastise him, and so be apt to repine, yet let him think there is a cause; therefore in verse 32, ' That which I see not, teach thou me; if I have done iniquit}', I will do so no more.'

And to say as Jeremiah upon the like occasion, or the church in his person, Jer. x. 22-24, when there was the noise of the bruit of an invasion from the north, to make the cities desolate, what say they? Ver. 23, ' 0 Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself: it is not in man that walketh to dh-ect his steps,' whether he shall have fair way or foul to walk; neither do I know whither to run for safety; my life and all is in thy hands; therefore '0 Lord, conrect me, but with judgment.' The church is willing in such a case to be whipped, only desia-es God to deal gently with her; and so must we.

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