THe Doctrine contain'd in this Verse is of great Moment, and requires our most earnest Attention and most nar­row search and enquiry into its Nature and all its Cir­cumstances; for it is, How shall we be Justified before God? how shall we behave our selves before such an awful Tribunal? When he riseth up, what shall I do? and when he Visiteth, what shall I answer? says Holy Job; Wherewith shall we come before the Lord, and bow our selves before the most High? will he be pleas'd with thou­sands of Rams, or ten thousands of Rivers of Oyl? shall I give my First-born for my Transgression, the Fruit of my Body for the Sin of my Soul? That God would plead with Is [...]ael, made her Moun­tains tremble, and the Foundations of her Earth to shake, Mic. 6. It's David's Deprecation, Enter not into Judgment with thy Servant, for in thy sight shall no Man living be justified, Psal. 143. How can Man be just (or Justified) with God? for if he will Contend with him, he cannot answer him one of a thousand, Job 9.3. But it is a most certain thing, That we must all appear before the Judgment-seat of Christ, 2 Cor. 5. Rom. 14.12. Psal. 139. and that every one of us must give an Account of him­self to God; We cannot decline it; Darkness cannot hide from his sight, nor Distance remove from his Presence: We cannot flye from his Spirit, tho' we had the Wings of the Morning: He is higher than the Heaven, what can we do? lower than Hell, whether can we go? from the Depth of the Sea, or the uttermost End of the Earth, his Hand can bring us back. He has appointed a Day, Act. 17. wherein he will judge the World in righteousness, Eccl. 12. and he will bring every Work into Judg­ment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or evil: 1 Cor. 4. He will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the Counsels of the Heart. Heb. All things are naked and open to the Eyes [Page 16] of him with whom we have to do. If there be a God there is a Governour, and if there be a Governour there must be a Judg­ment: Can we be his Creatures and his Subjects, and will he be so Careless as not to take an Account of us? Humane Go­vernment is but an Image of his: There can be no Shaddow without a Substance. Doth a Summons from Man fright us? Doth the very Name of an Arraignment, a Court, a Judge, an Appearance at a Humane Barr, shake off our Security, and rouse our Phlegmatick Constitution, and put us into a most serious thinking frame, and shall not the certain Warning of this rouse us out of our sleepy Condition, and entirely monopolize our Thoughts? Yet because of our Dullness to hear things concern­ing our Eternal State, I shall propose these Helps to render us serious about it.

1. The Majesty and Holiness of the Judge, the Voice of the Arch-Angel, the Trump of God, the Train of Saints, and glo­rious Appearance at the Great Day, will add nothing to it; he is as Holy, as Just, as Powerful now as then, as nigh to us now as then: When his Seat is upon the Conscience, is he not as nigh as when he makes a Cloud his Theatre? the Matter to be try'd the same now that then, all the Business of that Day depends upon this: A sight of this God by Faith, and the Be­lief of our being now in his Presence, would put us in the same frame we shall be in then, as we may see from Job 40.4, 5. & 42.5. Behold I am vile, what shall I answer? I will lay my hand up­on my Mouth, once have I spoken, but I will not answer: I have heard of thee by the hearing of the Ear, but now mine Eye seeth thee, wherefore I abhorr my self in dust and ashes. Job's Faith would make Job's Temper.

2. Exactness of the Law we are under as his Creatures; it's holy, just and good, it allows not, nor indulges any Sin, in Thought, Word or Deed, and is fenc'd with the most severe Sanction; In the Day thou eatest thou shalt dye: Cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the Book of the Law to do them, Gal. 3.10. This may fill Sinners with Terror, Isa. 33.14. The Sinners in Zion are afraid, fearfulness hath surpriz'd the Hy­pocrite; who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?

3. Our Condition; Sinners, Transgressors of this Law, Re­bels against this Sovereign God: There is none righteous, no not [Page 17] one; Jews and Gentiles, all are under Sin; there is no Pagan, but he approaches God with his Sacrifices and Prayers as an Offender; Propitiation, Pardon, Reconciliation, is that he looks after. Every one that has an Exercise of Conscience, whose Heart is not entirely hardened, has this for his principal Care, What shall I do to be saved? Acts 2.

4. This is the Summ of the Gospel, the principal End of all Divine Revelation, to teach how this [...], this guilty Per­son, this Enemy, this Ungodly Man may be Justified, Rom. 1.16, 17, 18. for these come all to one thing, How Saved? how Pardon'd? how Justified? how Reconcil'd? how Sanctifi'd? how in Covenant of Peace with God? how shall I escape Hell? how shall I enjoy Heaven? Christ is the one true and living way, Christ is the one Mediator, Christ is the Surety of the Covenant: We are Justified thorough the Redemption that is in Christ, that Jesus Christ is the Object of the Gospel, Gen. 3.15. Rom. 1.2, 3, 4. Heb. 7.25. This is the End of the Law, Gal. 3.24. Rom. 10.4. And this is the End of Ordinances, Sal­vation is by Faith, and Faith by Hearing.

A 5th. Help to render us studious about it, is Satans Pains, and alas! his Success too in either Corrupting it in our Thoughts, or keeping us from Thoughts of it: Satanae solamen (sicut solamen miserorum) est habere socios: A ring-leader of Rebels drew all to his Party he could or can, and all Mankind he has brought unto the same Condemnation with himself: But our God from his spe­cial Compassion to us poor miserable Men who are deceiv'd by Satan, has invented this way of our Salvation thorough Christ, which is a Delivery from Satan's Tyranny into the sweet Go­vernment of Christian Liberty; this he endeavours to hinder by Blinding Mens Eyes, that they may mistake it, 2 Cor. 4.3. If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, whose Minds the god of this World hath blinded: His Device among both Pagans and Jews in the old World, was to trust to their own Sacrifi­ces, that God in Mercy would accept the Blood of a Beast for the Life of a Man, or one Man for many. The Jews took the Ceremonial Law for a Remedying Law, Gal. 1.6, 7. The Apo­stle calls it another Gospel, that is none; and v. 4. tells what the Gospel is: But all Sacrifices being laid down among the Christians, after Christ's sacrificing himself, Satan attempts o­ther Methods. 1. The grossest: That Christ dy'd only for an [Page 18] Example, and that his Self-denyal to Natural Inclinations might move us to be deny'd to our sinfull; and that his Powerful In­terest in his Father, and Prayer to him, inclines him to Pardon on easie Terms, so that now half-work may be taken for the whole. 2. Others, That Christ's Sacrifice did obtain a Pardon, but not for all kind of sins; some for Original Sin only, some for sins in Ignorance also; some for all sins before Conversion, for others their own good Works, Merits, Penances, together with the Priestly Absolution, must pay or appease. A 3d. Opi­nion is, That Christ Merited that we might Merit, immedi­ately we are accepted for our own Works, but remotely for Christs, for on his Account our own are acceptable. Christ has purchas'd a Covenant of Grace for all, which Promises Remissi­on of Sin, Helps of the Spirit, and a right to Heaven, under the easie Conditions of Faith and Repentance: by these a Man is just in respect of this Covenant that requires no more, and by this Justice and Righteousness he is Justifi'd, but it is on the Account of Christ's Merits that this is reckon'd Righteousness, and this Covenant or Law of Grace is given, that accepts such imperfect Holiness for Righteousness. ‘This Righteousness is Meritori­ous, says Grotius, Luk. 17. because it consists in the Willing­ness of the Mind; the Obedience is due, but to do willingly Merits.’ As to the Order of the Covenant, it Merits an Inte­rest in Christ's Righteousness. By this Doctrine all are equally Justifiable by Christ's Righteousness, but all do not equally partake of Gifts to perform the Conditions: Nor is there any Promise of Ability to perform these Conditions, for then some of the Promises would be absolute. Our Justification is by our own Works, but our Justification on such Imperfect Works is of Christ, or we are oblig'd to Christ for this easie Law; but the Works of the Law are our own, and we must be try'd by them: And yet some Protestants say, this Evangelical Law re­quires greater Perfection than the Law of Nature, Bull. Examen. p. 173. and that no other Law threatens Eternal Death, or Promises Eternal Life but it, and all since Adam are born under this Gospel-Law a­lone as to Eternal Concern. I think this deserves the Title of Neonomianism, and justles both Christ and his Gospel out of doors; for then there is no Pardon of Sin by Christ, for none can transgress the Law they were or are not under, and accord­ing to themselves Christ did not suffer for Sins against the Go­spel, [Page 19] but they admit any Absurdity for this Idol: It's now in Vogue, and puts on many various shapes; I could reckon se­veral, but shall forbear the Schemes of them till afterwards: I mention them now only to show Satan's Diligence in Obscuring and Perplexing this Case, that is of greatest Concern to our Souls of any in this World or the World to come; and should not we be as diligent in Searching out and Contending for this Faith once deliver'd to the Saints, since it is a Title to so great an Estate, our Charter for Heaven? And yet for the weak Christian's Com­fort I must say, the Doctrine may be Fundamental that may have many Problematic Questions about it, that the Ignorance, Doubts or Errors in, will be but as the Stubble and Hay upon a good Foundation. Ill Management of our Plea at a Tribu­nal of Grace will not make us lose the Cause, when uttermost diligence is given. Once more under Correction, I believe that serious Christian that holds Faith as the Instrument of Justifi­cation in his Profession, and the other that earnestly Contends it bears the room of a Condition, often have not the least diffe­rence in their Idea's or Thoughts, when they plead their Cause in Prayer before God; yet when Ministers inculcate in People's Ears, they may, yea ought to plead their good Works at the Day of Judgment, as lately has been, it will soon breed this Dif­ference in Ignorant People's Minds, and they who are Teachers of others ought to be better instructed themselves.

A 6th. Help: Because the Purity of this Doctrine of Justifi­cation from any Mixture of Man's Works or Merits with it, is the greatest Blessing of the Reformation from Popery: In England the Discipline was very little altered, the Idolatry of Worshipping of Saints fell as a Consequent of this Doctrine, that ascribes all Merit to Jesus Christ. This Doctrine was the Everlasting Gospel Prophesy'd of Rev. 14.6, 7. and was fulfill'd in the Preaching of Zuinglius and Luther, and they who follow­ed them; they were the first of the Witnesses or Protestants God illuminated with this Doctrine, and encourag'd them to bear their Testimony for it thorough all manner of Persecuti­ons: For the Gospel is the Doctrine of Christ's Righteousness, his Righteousness is the Evangelical Righteousness, Rom. 1.17. c. 3.20, 21, 22. c. 9.31, 32. & c. 10.3. and the Righteousness of Faith, or by it; it is the Test of a Protestant and Shibboleth of an Heretick: It is, says Luther, Articulus stantis aut cadentis [Page 20] Ecclesiae; and Augustine before him, Ecclesia discernit justos ab in­justis non Lege Operum, sed Lege Fidei: And there is great Rea­son for it, it has such an Influence on all other Doctrinal and Practical Truths. The Deity of Christ, if not God, no Value in the Satisfaction: the Trinity, if no distinct Persons, no Media­tor; Original Sin, for if all not lyable to Death, guilty Sin­ners, no need of his Righteousness, &c. There is no fear of relapsing into Popery by any Person on whose Heart this Do­ctrine is impress'd; but there is ground to fear that Luther was a true Prophet, who said, Post mortem nostram hac Doctri­na rursus obscurabitur. As we would Value the faithfulness of our Ancestors, who suffered Martyrdom for propagating this Doctrine to us, it is the most precious Inheritance we enjoy; as we would Value our own Souls, for there is no escaping Wrath if we neglect so great a Salvation, Heb. 3. as we Va­lue the Sacred Revelations of God, for this is the Marrow of it, we would seriously set about this Study, How shall I be Ju­stified before God? What doth Christ's Righteousness contri­bute to a Sinner's Salvation? What Kindness has our Lord Je­sus Christ for poor Sinners?

But I shall come to the Words, which contains these two things:

(1.) The Explicatory Repitition of the former Proposition, that Abraham found nothing as to the Flesh; for if Abraham was justified by Works.

(2.) An Argument for the Proof of it, because he had nothing to Glory in before God. To begin with the first of these, though the Proposition is Explicatory, yet such is the Subtilty of Sa­tan, and his Diligence in filling the World with darkness of Error, and reflecting his black Clouds upon the Light of Scrip­ture, that the Explication it self needs a Comment, or rather a Defence: The (1.) Thing to be explain'd, is the Signification of the Word it self, Justifie: Never was there Word of greater Mo­ment or Concern; for Justification is the Soul of Religion, and Marrow of the Gospel, without it nothing in the whole Scrip­ture could Comfort a Sinner; never was Word matter of great­er Strife and Contention, and yet never less Reason for it; but the greatness of its influence for bringing Souls out of Sa­tans Kingdom, makes it Satans principal Butt and Aim; the most of all other Disputations of Religion end in Criticism, [Page 21] but this begins with it: The 1st. Question is, between us and Papists, with whom the Swinckfeldians take part, that is, Whe­ther this Word Justifie in St. Pauls Epistles, especially in this, when it treats of our Righteousness, the Ground of our Par­don before the Tribunal of God, is to be taken in a Physical or a Forensick Sense? Whether for sanctifying a Sinner and ma­king an unjust Person just, or for a judicial Absolving of a guil­ty accused Person from the charge brought against him? The latter is the common Sence and Tessera of a Protestant, and the former the Shiboleth of a Papist, excepting Grotius and his Followers; who in this, and worse, take part with Papists. Therefore this shall be the first Assertion, That it is a Justidi­ction, not a Justification, of a Moral or Politick, and Relative, not an absolute Nature.

(1.) Arg. Tho' the Word it self is barbarous in the Latin Tongue, and made by Divines, for the most genuine near and faithful Translation of the Original Text; yet the Latin will favour this Sence, for Justifica mens deorum. Catul: Signifies their juridical Distributions of Rewards and Punishments, and an A­dopted Son is call'd justus filius, from Jus Right, and in English we use the Word Magnifie and Glorifie, not for making but esteeming Great and Glorious. The Hebrew with all its Ori­ental Daughters do far more Confirm this Sence, for one of their Conjugations usually adds declaring to the Primitive Significati­on, as Barar pure, in Arabick, the Conjugation Taphahalah makes it signifie, he clear'd himself, or justified himself juridically; in the Heb. Tame polluted, Levit. 13.12. signifies to pronounce Unclean, which in this Word Zadak, to Justifie, holds almost always in all the six Oriental Languages, in Hiphi [...]; as to the Greek we find it about thirty six or thirty eight times in the New Testament always in this Sence, declaring, esteeming, or judging Just; the shortest Method of the Proof is by instances of these Texts, that the Papists plead for, and some Protestants are willing to yield; (that it often signifies Forensically the Papist themselves grant) the Principal place is Revel. 22.11. A Forensick Justification is not capable of encrease.

Resp. (1.) In the Sence and Manifestation of it, it is. (2.) Where Courts are subordinate, it is; he that is justified in one, may go on to be justified in another. (3.) This Text speaks only of the Continuation of it, and there is a considerable difference be­tween [Page 22] the first Sentence of Justification, and the Continuati­on in that State. (4.) Some Original Copies of considerable Authority, reads it [...] not [...], which removes all pretence. The next place to this in their Opinion is, Dan. 12.3. And they that turn many to Righteousness; the Original is, they that justifie many. Resp. (1.) Preachers do as much Justifie, as they Sanctifie, their Instruction and Authority hath equal Influence on both: A third place, 1 Cor. 6.11. The Objection may be thus obviated, Tho' sanctifying and justifying be named together; yet they may be distinct Blessings, and not Expli­catory one of another. (2.) Our Lord Jesus is the Author of the One, and the Spirit of God the Author of the Other. (3.) The Blessed Spirit of God is also a Cause of Justification, in his working Faith and Sealing a Pardon; but for Scriptures that prove its Forensick Sence, the Reader may look Deut. 25.1. 2 Sam. 15.4. 1 King. 8.31. Job 13.18. Mat. 11.19. and 12.37. Luk. 7.29. and 10.29. and 16.15. and on this very Subject, Rom. 2.13. and 8.33. which the Papists themselves grant. Thus much for the first Argument, from the Etymology, and usual Acceptation of the Word from Sacred Writ; to which may be added, the Testimony of Fathers and Prophane Authors; as Chrys. [...] is [...], Homil. 15. to justi­fie is to declare Just, the Greek Etymologist [...], justified, that is judged Just. Suidas, [...], to esteem just; and most frequently in prophane Authors, [...], to Punish. (2.) Argument is from its contrary, the contrary of making just, is Sinning, or Tempting to Sin; but the Scripture shews us, that the contrary of justifie is to con­demn, Deut. 25.1. Prov. 17.15. Luk. 18.14. Rom. 3.4, 5. and 8.33. The usual Signification, or Primitive Significations, to which all others are reducible, is the final result of a try'd Case, to acquit or condemn, treat as just or unjust, upon an Antecedent judicial Tryal: And Scripture uses the most fa­vourable Signification to acquit; the prophane Authors the o­ther, to Punish or Condemn: from which we see no Word of the World so fit; for our Justification is not properly so, but a Pardon; it is an Acquitment upon a Suffering or Satisfacti­on given; Christ was properly justified, we properly pardon'd; but the nearness of Relation between Him and Believers, the Reflection or Rebound his Justification has on our Pardon, gives [Page 23] it the Name. Christ was in some sence, tho' different, both condemn'd and justifi'd; and so are we; this makes the Word which signifies both so proper; for our Justification is on a foregoing Condemnation. (3.) The Explicatory and Synony­mous Expressions in Scripture, shews it to be taken in a Fo­rensick Sence, as Remission of Sin, Reconciliation with God, not coming into Condemnation: Enter not into Judgment with thy Servant, for in thy sight shall no Flesh be justified. (4) The De­scription of it in Scripture, as the result of a judiciary Pro­cess: we read of the Judgment, Psal. 143.2. (1.) Job 9.3. How shall Man be Just with God, if he will Contend with him (2.) A Judge, the Judge of all the Earth will do righteously. (3.) Of a Law. (4.) Of a Guilty Person, Rom. 3.19. (5.) Of this Law drawn up into a Charge against a Man, Colos. 2.14. (6.) And Satan as an Accuser. (7.) Conscience as a Witness. (8.) There is a Tribunal of exact Justice, and a Throne of Grace as a Superiour Chancery. (9.) There is Faiths Pleading at the Barr of the one, and appealing from the other. (10.) Christ as an Advocate, 1 John 2.2. (11.) His Righteousness the Plea, and the Absolving Sentence pass'd upon that account, Rom. 3.26. To declare his Righteousness, that he may be just, and the justifier of him which believes in Jesus. (5.) I shall only explain that one Rom. 5.18. Even so by the Righteousness of one, the free Gift came up­on all men unto Justification of Life: [...]. The Righteous­ness of that one Christ, as the Matter or Merit of our Justi­fication, is put in Opposition to the offence of that one Adam, as the Matter or Demerit of our Condemnation; so Justifica­tion as the absolving Sentence is put in Opposition to Con­demnation, for Holiness or Righteousness is not a proper op­posite to Condemnation. The laborious Gerard does not with­out cause say Sanctification is rather us'd for Justification, than Justification for it; for when the Priest did cleanse the Leper, it was as much and more by Absolving and pronouncing clean, than by any Physical Cure those Ceremonies could make on that Distemper, Lev. 13.14. to which the New Testament al­ludes, Heb. 10.10. By the which Will we are sanctified, through the Offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all. The immedi­ate Fruit of the Sacrifice was Atonement, Peace and Pardon, our Sanctification is the immediate Fruit of the Spirit. Thus much for the Signification of the Word, and general Nature of the thing.

I shall next propose several Heads and Helps, for the more distinct Apprehension, and particular Knowledge of this great Mistery. (1.) The Relation it stands in to the other Bene­fits and Fruits of Christs Death. (2.) What is to be reckoned for the Absolving Sentence. (3.) When it is, that the Sinner is Absolved and Justified. I shall leave other Questions to the 5 ^th ver.

1. There are four great Priviledges and Fruits of Christs Death, that are of a Relative Nature and as many of an ab­solute and Physical kind; for the first four, There is this Justi­fication, Redemption, Reconciliation, and Adoption. (1.) For Redemption, it is taken two ways in Scripture: Either for the paying of the Price, or the Applicaion of the purchased Pri­viledge to the Person.

In the first Sence it is the Foundation of all the other Pri­viledges, for it puts on the Nature of the Ransom, or what­ever other Name it may put on, by which these Priviledges are conveyed in Justice to us: Rom. 3.24. Being Justified through the Redemption. Colos. 1.20. Having made Peace through the Blood of his Cross. Gal. 4.5. To redeem, that we might receive the Adoption. Tit. 2.14. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all Iniquity. Eph. 1.14. Ʋntil the Redemption of the purchased Possession. There Redemption is put for the Foun­dation of all these Priviledges, being the common Term the Scripture uses to express the Sufferings and Death of Christ by, in its use and ends; by that he satisfied Divine Justice, by that we were freed from Death and Hell; and this Foundati­on being laid, he became the Avenger of Blood as to Satan who had slain us, and recovered the Captives from that Ty­rannical Conqueror. (2.) Redemption, is put for the Appli­cation of the Priviledge bought by this Price to the Person: As when a Slave in Algiers has not only attained Money to be paid to his Patron, but he himself is actually returned home; and therefore in Scripture it is seldom or ever used, for the Application of any one of the Priviledges apart, but for the compleat Consummation of all of them in Glory, Luke 21.28. The day of Judgment is called the day of our Redemption, and also, Ephes. 4.30. Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby you are seal­ed to the day of Redemption. Because all the Priviledge purcha­sed by that Price, doth not so much as commence till then; [Page 25] There is a beginning of Redemption from Guilt before in Ju­stification, and a Redemption from Enmity before in Reconci­liation, and from Sin before its Pollution and Dominion; but they are not compleated, nor a Glorification from Death and Mortality so much as begun. So much for the Relation between Justification and Redemption.

The third Relative Priviledg is Reconciliation, and that is of two kinds too; either (1.) As it puts on the Nature and form of an Inward Affection: For we cannot conceive of God positively, but under some humane resemblance; thus it is ra­ther a reconcileableness, and belongs to the Love of good Will, a Willingness that mutal Communion and Fellowship should be again renewed, and that distance, by which we are undone no more continue. Gods becoming our Councel from Eternity, some improperly calls this a Justification, but Council praecedes the Tryal, Justification follows; and his so early Intimations of his kind Purposes, and his giving his Son to be a Peace-Maker, tho' the pulling down of the Partition Wall cost his Blood: Re­conciliation taken thus, is the Foundation of Redemption, and all built upon it. These two, viz. Love of God, and Gift of his Son, differ, as a Natural and Artificial Foundation; the natural Rock, and the first laid Stone, this Love and Reconcileableness is the very Nature of God, or an immediate result from it on the Po­sition of such an Object; for God is Love, and Love made him communicate of the fulness of his Being to nothing, and he is a faithful Creator to protect and provide for what he brings forth, Love makes him so. (2.) Reconciliation is taken for the Agreement of Minds, Amos 3.3. Can two walk together, and not be agreed? Two Persons who once were of one Mind, and of one Heart, they had the same designs, and ends mutu­ally engaged in Amity; and now this Temper and Condition after a miserable misunderstanding is again renewed; as Davids bowels yearned after Absalom, he was reconcileable, but Com­munion was not renewed, until he had lived a considerable time in Jerusalem. So Pharaoh's Butler, when he is again resto­red to his wonted Place: Thus Reconciliation is the very same with Justification. The divorced Woman is again reconciled to her Husband, in the same State of Fellowship through the Cove­nant of Grace that she was before breach of the Covenant of Works; as Justification is a restoring a Man to his former [Page 26] State before the Charge or Suspition of guilt, so Reconcilia­tion is a restoring to that State we were in before Enmity; they have both the same blessed Author, God the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, they have both the same moving Cause, Good­ness and Love, breaking forth in Grace and Mercy from Eter­nity: God became Mans Council in this Trial, wherein he is justified, and that Council was a Council of Peace; they have the same meriting Foundation, Christs Redemption; they com­mence both at one and the same time, Guilt and Enmity falls at once: The one Simile only helps to illustrate, wherein the other may become defective; for all the Transactions between Men and Men, have their Exceptions and Dissimilitudes, when they are brought to represent the Case between God and us: The one represents the Case as friendly, made up without go­ing to Law, the other represents a fair Trial; the one repre­sents it as a private Case, the other represents it as a publick Crime pardoned, Authority being appeased by a Satisfaction: By the one Guilt is removed, by the other Enmity; the one teaches that the other is not to be wire-drawn, for finding of something in it answerable to all the parts of the Simile.

The fourth is Adoption, which is of the same Relative Na­ture with the former, and has the same Causes and Means of Conveyance, and commences at one and the same time; but yet seem to differ in these things.

(1.) Adoption comprehends a greater Blessing, Justification gives Life, but Adoption gives an Inheritance; Justification makes us free Subjects, but Adoption makes us Sons; Justifica­tion puts us in Adam's Condition, but Adoption gives a right to Adam's Expectation; for Adam's Marriage from its very Origi­nal seems to be a Type of our Communion and Fellowship with Christ, Gen. 2.24. They shall be one Flesh. Eph. 5.32. it is said to be a great Mystery: Vid. Dr. T. Goodwin.

(2.) Justification of a Sinner is a Sublapsarian Blessing, but Predestination to Adoption is an Antilapsarian Blessing, design'd for Man before he fell, Eph. 1.5.

(3.) Justification is a Mean, Adoption is an End, Tit. 3.7. That being Justified by his Grace we should be made Heirs according to the Hope of Eternal Life; and so in this Chapter it is treated of from the 13th. Verse, as posteriour to Justification.

(4.) Justification is a more immediate Effect of Christ's Death, [Page 27] Adoption more mediate; it is by Justification that the blessed Line of Divine designs that was broken by Sin, is again tyed. God designed a perpetual ascending Line of Blessings to his Creatures, but from Sin to Justification is a Parenthesis in this Line: John 12.24. Christ compares himself to a Corn of Wheat that dyes, that it may bring forth fruit, so Psal. 45. Christ dy­ed and was Anointed to the Office of a Mediator, that he might recover those who were design'd his Fellows and Com­panions, from their Forfeiture of it and Unfitness for it: Hence it is call'd a Purchas'd Possession, Eph. 1.14. by reason that is Purchas'd, without which we could not enjoy it. We can have no Priviledge without Life.

(5.) The one seems to require a more Noble and Heavenly Temper of Spirit correspondent to it: Regeneration answers the one, but the Spirit of Adoption, which is a higher degree, answers the other. The Regenerate Man may be under a Spi­rit of Bondage, but they who have received the Spirit of Adop­tion are more free from that slavish Temper, Rom. 8.14. Heb. 11.16. their Desires are fix'd upon and more proportion'd to their Estate.

(6.) The one is ascribed more to the Death of Christ, the other to his Life: We are Justified by his Blood, Saved by his Life, Rom. 5.9. By Authority he forgives sins, but by his In­tercession he prays for the Priviledges of Adoption. But what­ever dictinction there may be, there is no Separation, which is frequent among Men who have their Life often spar'd without restoring their Estates, and may forfeit the one sometimes with­out the other.

(7.) There is a Priority in Justification to Adoption, tho' not in Time, yet in Order of Nature, this follows consequen­tially from all the rest, John 1.12. The right to Sonship fol­lows Justifying Faith, Tit. 3.7. being Heirs follows being Justi­fied: Rom. 8.17. We are first Children, then Heirs, and a Spi­rit of Prayer and Divine Conduct for a Holy Life answers Adop­tion. First Life, then Estate, in Order of Nature.

The Arguments brought against it by the Learn'd Forbesius, are answerable.

First, To Adopt is the Act of a Father, and the Acts of the Father in the Trinity are before the Acts of the Son and Spi­rit. Resp. That Order holds more in their Concurrence to one [Page 28] Act than in distinct Acts, for Justification is the Act of the whole Trinity, so is Adoption. (2.) That Order holds more in Antelapsarian than Sublapsarian Actions; for in the latter, Redemption, which is Christ's Act, is first, for there Actions flow not from God immediately as God. The Second, What is first in Christ, is first in us, but Christ is a Son first, before Justi­fied as a Redeemer. Resp. This is true in the Order of Inten­tion, for we are first design'd Sons to be the Companions and Fellows of that only begotten, but 'tis not true in Order of Execution. (3.) We are Christs Brethren by Adoption. Resp. He is a Brother by Incarnation, and fitted for being our Re­deemer by it. It is not our Brotherhood by Adoption fitted Christ for Redemption, but his becoming our Brother by Incar­nation. The relation of the absolute Blessings, Regeneration, Sanctification, &c. may be understood by the following head.

A Second Help for more distinct Knowledge of this Blessing, is what supplies the room or place of the Justificatory Sentence. By Virtue of what Act of God upon the Arraign'd Person doth he become formally free from the Curse of the Law? By what doth he publickly manifest such a particular Person pardon'd? Resp. There are four apparent Competitors for this place: 1. The Voice of the Gospel, declaring all that believe are justi­fied, Act. 13.39. but the Voice of the Law and the Voice of the Judge are of distinct Natures. The Gospel is in room of the Law, it's the Constitution of Christ's Kingdom, and it is also in room of the Records of a Court, it shews in general what is Constitutive of Justification, Rom. 5.19. By the Obedi­ence of one shall many be made righteous; and is Decisive of them that are Justified, or to be Justified, and them that are not or shall not be, Joh. 3.36. He that believeth on the Son hath Life, and he that believeth not shall not see Life: But the Judg's part is to make an Authoritative Application of this Law or Consti­tution to an individual Person, this the Scripture doth not: All that Christ dy'd for are Justifiable by the Gospel Constitu­tion, but they often live a considerable time before they be actually Justified, 1 Cor. 6.11. Such were some of you, but you are sanctified, but you are justified. Mr. Baxt. Confes. p. 40. There is a treble Pardon constitutive by God as a Law-giver, decla­rative by God as a Judge, determining our Right, and Execu­tive in not inflicting the Poenalty: The Gospel doth the first, [Page 29] the second is that in question. There are others, such as the Testimony of the Spirit in a Person's own Conscience, and the solemn Sentence at the Day of Judgment, which I referr to the several Courts our Cause is try'd in.

That which I shall conclude on, as bearing nighest resem­blance to it, is God's Act of Regeneration, his first Gift of Saving Faith and Sanctifying Grace, that beside its absolute Nature in Conforming the Soul to Christ, and raising his Image in it, it has a relative signification of Divine Favour, that is better than Life. God by that Deed or speaking Action says, All thy sins are blotted out, thy Iniqui [...]ies forgiven, thou art a Freeman in the State. (1.) 2 Cor. 3.17. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty, Rom. 6.7. He that is dead is freed (Orig. justifi'd) from sin. (2.) As soon as ever man sinned, Gen. 3. he became guilty, and as soon as guilty the Punish­ment of spiritual Death followed; so if as soon as sinn'd con­demn'd, as soon as Christ's Righteousness applyed he is justifi'd; the receiving such a blessed Fruit of it as the Spirit, is a sure Application of it; there is as present and effectual Vertue in the Medicinal Potion for Life, as there was in the Poyson to Death. (3.) Eph. 1.14. The Spirit of the Lord is an Earnest of the Inheritance wherever he is; and since he en­sures Adoption, much more he ensures Justfication. (4.) Re­generation makes us Sons, and the Priviledge of a Son is more than that of a Subject. (5.) Rom. 5.10, 11. Whenever we are reconciled, we are justifi'd, for they are but different repre­sentations of the same Priviledge, and Sanctification takes away the Enmity. (6.) When the Spirit is given to us, we receive a great Trust, many Talents, and called to a great Office in Christs Kingdom, to praise and glorifie him, to propagate his Kingdom, created unto all good Works. Sir Walter Raleigh, and with him all Lawyers, judg'd his being put in a place of Office and Trust, did virtually contain a Pardon in it. It implies much weakness in Government or Governours, to em­ploy Traytors, Rebels and Criminals in places of Trust, who must strive for their Lives to hinder the just administration of the Government which would take away their own Life. (7.) Mat. 9.2. When Christ the Judge of the World verbally pronounces Forgiveness, he signifies all imports one thing; Arise and walk: Eyes be ye open: Be thou healed: Or, Thy sins [Page 30] be forgiven thee: His gifts are in a comprehensive Cluster; there is a strong Chain of connexion among them, and he may name what is most easie; hence are they so united and involved into one another by Scripture, Titus 3.5.7. 1 Cor. 6.11. Rom. 8.30. Act. 5.31. And (8.) There is not only the Ex­ample of Christs Justifying, but the Example of his being justify'd, Who was justified in the Spirit, 1 Tim. 3.16. All the Works of the Spirit on him and by him were God's justifying him: His Resurrection was his declared Justification, Rom. 4.25. It was the Pattern of ours, besides other great Influences on ours: By it was he taken from the Prison of the Grave, and acquitted from the Judgment, where try'd, therefore our spi­ritual Resurrection, Rom. 6.7. is call'd Justification. (9.) Anci­ent Custom shews that Authority did intimate their Sentence by symbolical Actions, and things as well as words. Ovid. Albis atrisque Lapillis. The White Stone was sent as a Sym­bol of Absolution to the Person whose Name they wrote upon it. Pierius in his Egyptian Hierogliphicks gives this Account of the Rights of a Slaves Manumission: That he was Cloath'd in White Raiment, and his Patron's Ring put upon his Finger, and did eat at his Master's Table. The Scripture makes use of all these as Symbols of our Freedom from the Bondage of Corruption and Servitude of Sin, Luk. 15. The Ring is made mention of Revel. 19.8. there's the White Raiment, Rev. 2.17. there's the Manna, the Food of our Lord's Table, and the White Stone with our Names upon it. This expressing of a Sentence by an Action, is becoming of the Divine Majesty, with whom to do and to say are the same; his great Work of Creation re­quir'd no more to its production but God's saying, Let there be a Light, a Firmament, &c. and it was so. This great Work of Regeneration, it's a begetting by his Word: Hos. 2.14. A speak­ing Comfortably to the Heart, and frequently a Calling, Whom he Call'd he Justified; his Vocation put them in a Justified State. (10.) Sanctification or Regeneration removes a Punishment as well as a Crime; the giving of a spiritual Life takes away a spiri­tual Death, which is the worst of Punishments: The Desertion by the Spirit is the greatest Curse, and that is removed by the Gift of the Spirit, and what takes away the Punishment does ne­cessarily remove the Guilt, or suppose it remov'd; for the greater Mercy does comprehend the lesser. Lastly, From the Nature [Page 31] of Faith, Isa. 53.11. By his Knowledge shall my righteous Servant justifie many; it may either be by the Gift of Knowledge, or by the Act of Knowledge upon him; for Heb. 11.1. Faith is the Evidence of things not seen; it is no sooner in being than it is in exercise. The Seed of Grace is not like Material Seed, to need a Time of Corruption and intermixture with the Earth before it grow, but like the Beams of the Sun that act as they are received. The Gift of Faith is the Idea of Heavenly things suggested into the Soul, and there manifesting themselves by their own Light; so that we are Receivers of the Objects of Faith when we act Faith, Isa. 65.24. Before they call I will an­swer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear: Hence Regene­ration's being the Sentence does not pecede the Exercise of Faith as a Mean: This might afford more Arguments for this Truth, because then the Union between us Debtors and Christ as Surety, is Compleated, which is not 'till we apprehend him by Faith. (2.) Then the Soul actually Pleads, and there [...]ore it's Term-time, the acceptable Day of our Salvation; the Court sits on our Case, and all the Causes of our Salvation are Cloath'd with a forensical Form from this Exercise of Faith, by which we look on God as our Judge, on Christ's Righte­ousness as our Plea, on Satan as our Accuser, on Christ as our Advocate, and his Spirit our Council; on the Law as an In­dictment drawn up against us, and on its Constitution and Di­vine Justice as a Tribunal, from which we Appeal to the Chan­cery of the Gospel, founded on Goodness and Equity.

Object. There are some Objections against this Doctrine: (1.) Sanctification is a gradual thing, Justification is one Act. (2.) That this would Confirm the Popish Error, that Justifica­tion is not a forensical or relative Act, but a Physical and Ab­solute one.

To both which I Answer: (1.) That the Sentence of Justifi­cation is not Justification, but the Declaration of it, and the Gift of the Spirit for Sanctification the Sign of that. Faith is an Absolute Act, by which we are justified, but Justification is the relative Result of all the Causes and Foundations. Fatherhood or Sonship are Relative things, but to be Born, or to be Begot­ten, is an absolute thing. (2.) In all Similitudes there is some­what of Unlikeness, and so in this: For, 1. He who is Judge, is both Law-giver and supream Governour too; in other Cases [Page 32] in this. 2. In others we have done with the Judge when the Sentence is past, but not in this. (2.) In others we need but one Act, because we can abstain from the like Crimes; but in this we need a Continual Justification or Remission: Hence we daily Pray, Forgive us our Sins; and we have daily Encouragement, that if any Man sin there is an Advocate with the Father: The Court constantly sits, we are always on our Knees before the Bar, our Faith perpetually Pleads, and Christ's always interce­ding, and he is always heard; hence a constant continued Stream of Justification, Dan. 9.9. call'd Forgivenesses; and Revel. 19.9. the Righteousnesses or Justifications, for it is the same word; [...], Rom. 5.19. is translated Justification, and thus may be expounded, Revel. 22.16. He that is Justified, let him be Justified still; and in this very Chapter, Rom. 4. Abra­ham is said to be Justified by Acts of Faith several Years after his first Conversion, Gen. 15.6. it was at least Ten Years after his first Faith. Our Case is a continued State of Justifying or Pardoning.

That which recommends this Opinion to me, is not only its Appearance of Truth, but its Medicinalness for Reconciling the different Opinions of Persons so lately on foot; for the Subscri­bers Apology grants, 1. That Faith and Repentance are absolutely given to the Ungodly, for what is Man else before that Gift? 2. That Faith and Repentance are only given to the Elect. Are they not then, 1. The Gifts, Blessings, Tokens of special Fa­vour, Symbols of divine distinguishing Love, though they may be long unintelligible to the Person under the Exercise of them, as the Inscription of Mene Tekel on the Wall was to the Chalde­ans; yet ex Natura rei & intentione Authoris, it imports a Per­son's being Reconcil'd to God, Fellowship with Heaven is be­gun, and two cannot walk together and not be agreed. Effects alway signifie their Cause, Rom. 5.15. 2. Can a Person be under special Favour, and not Pardon'd, or Reconcil'd and not Pardon'd? Call'd and not Justifi'd? not under Wrath and yet under Guilt, or else under Divine Love and Wrath at once? or that the Punishment, to wit, want of the Spirit, spi­ritual Death, is remov'd, and not the Guilt or lyableness to the Punishment, although so remov'd as eventually never to return again from the Vigour of Divine Love fix'd on that Person: Rom. 5. & 6. the Apostle describes a State of Grace and Justifi­cation [Page 33] as necessarily united: But I need not inferr this from them, since the Reverend Mr. Baxt. Conf. p. 40. saith, ‘To Sanctifie is to Pardon, that is, executively, because it takes away the greatest Punishment, Spiritual Death; and the Sen­tence of Pardon must go before the Execution. And (fur­ther) our Pardon is subservient to our Renovation, by Sancti­ty as imperfectly now begun; for being imperfect the Defect of every Act deserves Condemnation, and needs Pardon, and yet this Pardon is a particular Pardon following the general Pardon of our Persons, by which we escape Wrath, and are capable of Acceptable Obedience for the future.’ By this the Pardon of our Persons should precede every Act of Faith and Repentance, for a following particular Pardon accompanies every Act of them.

But the greatest difficulty is, how Faith and Repentance should bear both the Place of a Sentence and a Condition, which is needfull to reconcile these two Opinions.

R. 1. By Condition they mean not a Condition properly in a Law or a foederal Sence, as we use the Word in Bargains between Man and Man; for the Civilians inform me these three Properties make a Condition: 1. Potestative, that it be in the Parties Power to perform. 2. Casualty in it self, and to the other Party uncertain. 3. Causal, in that it bear a Valuable Consideration. The Law will not suffer a Man to injure him­self so far, or another to deceive him, as to get a Title to an Estate of two or three hundred Pounds per Ann. for an hundred Guineas: But the Apol. informs us, that ‘This Condion is nei­ther in our Power, 2. Nor Uncertain, 3. Nor Meritori­ous, therefore not a Condition properly. Nay, further, (tho' the Gospel be a Law, and this Law is the Condition of the Covenant) yet it is not a Legal Condition:’ Therefore it must be in a Physical or Logical Sence, if not in a Law Sence; and a Necessary Connection is enough for the one, viz. Logical, as if a Man be Reasonable, he is capable of Learning, and if capa­ble of Learning, he is reasonable; and Priority enough for the other, as that Wood must be laid to the Fire before it can be burnt. And this Opinion is very agreeable with Condition in this Sence, for there is not only a Necessary Connexion between Faith, Repentance and Justification, but there is a Priority, (the Covenant of Grace partakes more of Orderliness, it is Order'd [Page 34] in all things, than of Conditionalness) for the Foundation is before the Relation, the Sign before the Signification, the Gift of Faith and Repentance is before its Connotation of our Par­don, or being receiv'd into Favour. Nay, further, there is not only the Gift of Faith, but the exercise of this Grace as mix'd with our Faculties, and become a Duty in order of Nature an­tecedent to this Connotation or Signification of our being now brought under Divine Favour; because the way of Communi­cating this Gift is by Calling, speaking immediately to the Soul, and representing spiritual Ideas, making us behold as in a Glass the glorious Image of the Lord, discovering unseen and hoped for things, as before and after both is further explained; and the Gift cannot be without this exercise, by which God and the Soul unite and mutually apprehend one another. In short thus: That this Gift may not only be long unperceiv'd by the Receiver, but that it cannot Signifie untill in Exercise, tho' as a Gift it doth signifie.

There is but one thing more, that Justification and Glory are suspended upon these Duties of Faith and Repentance.

R. Either by Suspension he means no more but Necessary Consequential; so we Agree, and I do not find his Arguments will prove more: For a Testament is fully as proper a Title, that gives Name to the whole Bible, as Covenant or Bargain; and Civilians say, the If used in Testaments, which is so frequent in Scriptures, is a demonstrative If, that doth not Suspend but Design the thing Promised, and some certain Time or Manner of Conveyance. If he understand it a Legal Suspen­sion, it's the same with a Legal Condition, which he has de­ny'd before; for, Conditio est dispositionis suspensio ex eventu in­certo ei opposito, and has an Obliging Influence on the Promiser, and Conferrs a Title of Right to the Benefit promised.

I might Conclude this with some Testimonies out of the Fa­thers; but though I find Phrases to answer my Purpose, I find the Style sometimes Loose and Oratorical, and sometimes they Design another thing (which I wish a late Author had mind­ed, who Attempts to prove the New Law out of the Fathers, when Daille who was better acquainted with them, says, It's in vain to make them Judges in many of the Controversies between us and the Papists; and yet this Authour would bring them to Prove a more Nice Point, become a very late Question. In [Page 35] what sense the Law is New thoro the Gospel, or the Gospel may be call'd a Law, I shall only instance his first Citation out of Justin Martyr, p. 228. &c. and I am willing to be judged by any of the Subscribers that will take the Pains to read it, if Justin intends any thng more than the recommending the Christian Constitution, and proving it preferable to the Mo­saical: For he says, This New Law is Posterior to Moses his Law, but the Apologist's New Law has been ever since the Fall of Adam. He says this New Law is Christ and his Testa­ment. Any may see he took Law in no strict Sense, when he calls Christ and his Testament a Law; he calls it a Testament Eight times in that Page, and nigh Seventy times in that Dia­logue, and seldom, I think not above Four times, a Law, (with­out the Explicatory word Testament added;) yet I think this Opinion will help to wrest the Fathers out of the Papists Hands. The Fathers use the Words Justifie and Sanctifie often promiscuously, for making Just and Holy. The common An­swer by Protestants is, the Fathers use the Word according to its Grammatical Signification, not Forensical Use: To which the Papists answer, Then they were not acquainted with that sense. This affords another, for we may say, to Sanctifie is to Justifie, in the same Sense that Christ says, This Bread is my Body, that is, a Sign of it: And so we may understand the Fa­thers Est, or Is, Metonymically, for est Signum; and we may find enough among their Writings to shew that all the Parts and De­grees of Sanctification are Signs of Justification; which doth suf­ficiently shew, that tho' this Phrase is New, that the Gift of the Holy Spirit in order to our Sanctification, stands in the room and place of a Justificatory Sentence, yet the Sense is not; for it is the Sign, yea the spiritual Initiating Sign of our being in Covenant with God: This is the Covenant I will make with them, I will pour out my Spirit on them. Being in Covenant is a Re­lative Blessing as well as Justification, and they are insepara­ble: Now, says the Lord, my giving my Spirit imports this, I take thee to be one of my People, I avouch thee this Day to be mine. The Prince's Proclamation of Pardon to a Rebel, or the Judges Justificatory Sentence of a Person suspected, ac­cused, imprison'd, is the first Authoritative Signification of the Governments Favour: So what is the first Sign of Divine Fa­vour must stand in the place of a Justifying or Pardoning Sen­tence; [Page 36] but these absolute Blessings that are proper to the Elect, of Faith and Repentance, are the first Intimations of Divine Go­vernments receiving us into Favour, therefore the Gift of them is the Absolving Sentence.

A third Propos'd Head, was the Time of our Justification, which being meant of the first Act, necessarily follows from the former Proposition, to be neither later nor sooner than the first Moment of our Conversion. The Goodness of God would not suffer our Justification to be sooner, for he would not keep us out of Possession of what is our Right; if as a just Judge he Justified us, as a Merciful Governour he would Treat us as such, and let us have the Common Priviledge of Free Sub­jects, which is his Spirit: Not the later, for his Justice could not give to a condemned Criminal without the Imputation of Mediatorial Satisfaction, the greatest of the Favours and best of the Blessings of his Kingdom; but whatever Arguments proved the former Proposition, proves this: As for the Anti­nomian Notion of Justification from Eternity, it seems more absurd than the Eternity of the World.

There is a Threefold Use this Doctrine affords, of Tryal to the Doubtfull, of Support to the Dejected, and of Convicti­on to the Carnal secure Person. As to the First, Whatever doth prove the Sincerity of a mans Faith, the Reality of his Regeneration, may be to him a sure Index and Token of his Pardon, since Regeneration it self is the Justificatory Sentence. As to the Second, Whether the dejection or despair of Mind arise from the greatness of Sin, the Violence of Temptations, the strength of Lust, the multitude of Backslidings, or long continuance in that comfortless State, or from such specula­tive Doctrines as the Fewness of the Chosen, and fixedness of the Number of them for whom Christ died; yet this one thing may support the Soul, and fill it with the Joy of a pardon'd Criminal, that if there be the least dram of Grace, though small as a Mustard-seed, Mat. 17.20. thy State is se­cur'd, whatever come of others, or however uneasie our pre­sent Condition be. For the Third, It is a vain thing for that man to live in Hopes, and trust in Gods Mercy and Christs Satisfaction, without any inward Change in the Temper of his Mind; for the Sentence of Justification is never pass'd up­on him untill he be Regenerate: Thus the Apostle argues, [Page 37] Rom. 6. obviating that Objection, If Grace be glorified in the Pardon of Sin, let us continue in sin that Grace may abound. He answers, How shall we that are dead to sin, live any longer there­in? He that is dead, is justified from sin: These two are in­separable, a Justification from the Guilt of sin, and a Morti­cation from the Power and Pollution of sin.

I come now to the other Term of the Proposition, Works, which I shall first Explain by several distinguishing Characters, and then secondly, come to the Proposition, and shew in what sense the one is deny'd: Of the other, how far Works are exclu­ded from Justification. For the first, 1. They are Good Works; neither Jews nor Gentiles ever pretended that God would justifie us for bad Works, that the same should be matter of Condem­nation and Justification, that what needs a Pardon should de­serve a pardon. 2. Not meerly Good in Mens Opinions; the Pharisees thought their Works better than they were, Luke 16.15. they did highly esteem what God did abominate, and justified themselves for it: for Paul might then, and should have brought Arguments to prove they would be Condemn'd for their Works: And 2 ^ly, would have Corrected their Error as Christ did, Mat. 5. by shewing their Works were not good, they came not up to the Extent and Spirituality of the Law. 3. The Apostle argues against the Works of the Law, Rom. 3.20. and the Law it self, v. 27. and 4.13. not against a misinterpretati­on of the Law. Christ calls that Mat. 5. said of old, and said of them, the Opinion and Tradition of Rabbins, not the Law, and Works of the Law. It's a sandy Foundation which some lay for their Comments, Systems and Sermons, that only the works here meant are Mosaical in the Pharisaical sense of them, with­out one word of proof for it; for then the fault or defect would be in the Law, not in the Works by the Law, for this Law say some of them had only Temporal Rewards and Punish­ments. 3. All Humane Actions, works in general, not as Gro­tius only External Works; Aristotle and his Followers distinguish between [...] and [...], Works and Actions. But Divinity that has only the Morality of Actions for its formal Object, can­not exclude Internal, where all Morality lyes. The Exter­nal works of the Apostles are call'd [...], their Acts, as their famous and Sacred History is entituled, and 1 Thes. 1.3. Faith [Page 38] and Love are styl'd Works: Besides, we find Obedience, Righte­ousness and Works, of the same import through the Scrip­ture, and especially in this Epistle: Rom. 6.16. of Obedience unto Righteousness, and without Works, and without a Man's own Righte­ousness, are of the same import. (4.) Good Works are the Fruits of the Spirit, Eph [...]s. 5.9. The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, rigbteousness and truth, Galat. 5.22. (5.) Good Works are wrought by a Righteous Man. Mat. 7.18. A good Tree can­not bring forth evil Fruit, neither, &c. Ephes. 2.10. The Apostle proves that we are saved not of Works, because Good Works fol­low our being God's Workmanship. (6.) Good Works must be according to Divine Command, for that is the Rule and Standard between Good and Bad, as [...], 1 John 3.4. is the formal Nature of Sin, so [...] is the formal Nature of Good Works: Deut. 4.2. Good Works are call'd Righteousness, be­cause according to the Law, that is the measure of the Crea­tors right to his Creatures, and of the fellow Creatures to one another. Hence we are always sent to the Law, and to the Testi­monies, if not according to these, there is neither Truth nor Goodness in them. Johannes Agricola, the Ring-leader of Anti­nomians, is usually condemn'd amongst Divines, and its said, was Converted by Luther from this Error: That Repentance was taught by the Gospel, and not by the Law; for the Law is the Rule of all Obedience, the Gospel is a Doctrine of Joy: Luke 2.10. A word of Grace, Acts 20.29. because it brings the tydings of pardon to guilty Persons. The Law teaches Man's Righteousness, but the Gospel teaches God's Righteousness, Rom. 1.17.3.21. And hence our State being mixed of Law and Gospel, no Works are truly good and acceptable to God by the Law alone: Not from a defect in the Law, but a defect in us that cannot fulfill it. Hence (7.) No work is good without Faith, Heb. 11.6. Rom. 14. last. There is some deformity in every action by reason of some defect or want of its Conformi­ty to the Law. And (8▪) Its action needs a Pardon as well as every Person; and therefore are only acceptable in the Name of Christ, Coloss. 3.17. Whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The doing in Faith, and the doing in his Name, are all One: so 'tis a Justifying Faith that's needed to justifie every action, and this Composition makes the Actions truly good, and as acceptable to God as [Page 39] those that were no ways deficient either in Matter or Man­ner.

The Use I shall make of this, is of Refutation; for since none can pretend to be justified by any Works but such as are good and acceptable in the sight of God, and none are such that want the foremention'd Qualifications, all the distinctions of Adversaries about the Kinds of Works, are to no purpose. That this may be more evident, I shall rank them under these four Kinds.

(1.) The Socinians, who say that the Apostle means Works in their Perfection, that are excluded from a divine condescen­dency to our Impotency; he will not require what we cannot perform, but will justifie us for what we can. Resp. 1. If we did and always had perfectly fulfill'd the Law, we should have been justifi'd by its Works: Rom. 2.13. The doers of the Law shall be justified: 2 Tit. 3.7. Not by works of righteousness which we have done. 2. It would heinously reflect on the Holiness of God as a Law-giver or Judge, to make an Imperfect Law, or to Judge a Man just for Imperfect Performance of a Perfect Law, Gal. 3.10. Cursed is he that continues not in all things, &c.

The Second Opinion is of them who exclude the Mosaical Law; and these of two, and may be more sorts.

1. Some exclude only Ceremonies, and indeed the Contro­versie began about them, Act. 15. the Instances by Paul most mention'd are of that kind, Gal. 2.14, 16. and by their re­semblance of a Remedying Nature, the Jews mistook them for the thing it self: Thus Lombard and the Schoolmen, Alphons. a Cast. Dom. a Soto. But the Law the Apostle speaks of, as the Rule of the Works he excludes, cannot be Confin'd so narrow­ly; for Rom. 2.15. it's a Law that the Gentiles had; Rom. 3.20, 28. a Law that bound all Flesh, a Law by which the Know­ledge of sin, Rom. 4.14. a Law that worketh Wrath.

2. By others the whole Works of the Mosaical Law are ex­cluded in the Pharisaical Sense of them, that is, as separated from the Essential Duties of the Covenant as given to Adam, Noah and Abraham. Respon. (1.) I grant that the Pharisees did mistake the Law in its Extent and Intent too; the former Christ corrects, Mat. 5. but it's very reasonable to think that they who had now embraced Christ, to whom the Apostle [Page 40] writes, had forsaken that Error; for the Apostle's Dispute is of another kind; not what was their Duty or Work, but what place this Work or Duty had with respect to its Re­ward: Whether or not it was truly Meriting; and his Business is to prove, that let their Works be what they would, they could never serve for this Use; and the Apostle tells them, Rom. 10.4, 5. that they did not know Christ compleatly, viz. that he was the End of the Law, who would put such a Va­lue on their own Works. Sir Nor. Knat. Observes on Rom. 2.14. that the [...], the Work of the Law, signifies the Office of the Law; this was to Convince a Man of Sin, that he might fly to Christ, as Galat. 3. 'tis called a School-master to bring us to Christ: The Law is the Mean, He is the End. The Moral Law was a Mean to make them sensible of their Need of Christ, and the Ceremonial was a Mean to represent him as the End of the other, as One who was a Sacrifice, and gave satis­faction for their Breach of the Law. (2.) The Apostle gives no Countenance to this Opinion in his Phrase; for Galat. 3.21. If there had been a Law given, &c. There is an Impossibility in any Law, or its Works prescribed to Adam, Noah or Abraham, since Man was a Sinner, to Merit in any sense Justification at the Hand of God. (3.) Romans 3.20, 21, 22. The Apostle calls the Works he excludes, Works of the Law; not in any abstract­ed sense, but Works that the Law required; and the Mosaical Law comprehended all the former Laws under it, as Joh. 7.32. Ye received Circumcision of Moses, not that it was of him, but of the Fathers: And when the M [...]saical and the Christian Constitu­tion are opposed, Mos [...]ical comprehends the whole Old Testa­ment State. (4.) The Righteousnesses that are in this Epistle opposed, are God's and M [...]n's; not Adam's essential Duties in the first Edition of the Naked Covenant, and Moses his in the Political Administration of it, Rom. 3.22. The Syriac renders it thus, The Righteousness of God by the hand of Faith on that Jesus Christ: Not a Righteousness that is God's Gift, and is accepta­ble to God by Virtue of his prescribing it as the Condition he required; a Righteousness that lay in the Fruits of Faith, or in the Nature of Faith, from its Conformity to the Law of the Covenant, but a Righteousness that Faith as a Hand takes hold of. (5.) This Law the Apostle speaks of, comprehends all in­ward Obedience, all Righteousness: Vid. Ch. 3. and 7. of this [Page 41] Epistle; nay, the Pharisee, Mat. 22. did conclude Love to God to be the great Duty of the Law.

3. The third Opinion is of Grotius, who if the Writings that go under his Name, and have so much Corrupted the Age, be his own, he was both a Papist and Apostate; or if Mr. Bax­ter's Grotian Errors, and that other Book called Grotius Papizans, or Walleus in N. T. Preface, be to be Credited; indeed his Doctrine on this very Point of Justification is a very great Proof it, as his Comments on the Epistles doth testifie, espe­cially this: for tho' they are as Corrupt as he in their Disputes, yet rarely in their Expositions, are any Papists so Corrupt: His Doctrine is thus, 1. Works that are only External, Ci­vil, deserving Praise of Men, and by Humane Strength per­formable, are excluded from an Interest in Justification. 2. Faith of God, is an Esteem of his Attributes, and Faith of Christ is the Knowledge of him and his Doctrine. 3. To Justifie is to Purifie, to Cleanse from Vice; so the Works are hypocritical, the Faith historical, and that which Devils has, the Justificati­on papistical. Resp. 1. It's very improbable that the Apostle should Dispute so Nervously, that a Man cannot be Internally Sanctified by External Works; and as improbable that any should be so absurd to maintain it, that a Man may become Just by Hypocritical Performances, that external Civility is internal Holiness. 2. That Law, Rom. 7.7, 14. requir'd more than ex­ternal Works. 3. Abraham had better Works than External, and Paul when he knew nothing by himself, yet not thereby Justi­fied, did not mean only External. 4. They were what Works the Law requir'd, and the God that searcheth Hearts nev [...]r made a meer External Law to Judge Men by.

4. The fourth Opinion is that which is common among Pa­pists; 1. Works before Faith are excluded, but not after Faith: Sorrow for Sin without the Aids of Grace, doth not Merit: Pre­paratory Works to Grace doth not Merit; though some, and that generally, allow a Congruity and Fitness to them; others, as Becanus, deny it: This is no more true than the others, for v. 3. Abraham had Believ'd for Ten Years, and yet his Works not Imputed to him; and so Paul, Gal. 2.16. 1 Cor. 4.4. 2. If Works after Faith be most Meritorious, then there is most Matter of Boasting from them; but Abraham had none to boast of, therefore none that could Merit. 3. The Works [Page 42] of Believers, 1. Are Due. 2. Not our own. 3. Imperfect, therefore cannot Merit. But tho' there are different Opinions about what Works are excluded, there is an Agreement about what Works are included: Faith as a Work, as the Matrimo­nial Consent, pregnant of all the Duties of Marriage. Repen­tance is included, Sincere Obedience is included, which I shall endeavour to refute on the fourth Verse.

The Second thing proposed, was, In what Sense they are Excluded. I shall Treat this, 1. Positively. 2. Comparative­ly. 3. Give Account of the different Notions and Respects un­der which others think they may be Included.

For the First, the Text excludes them indefinitely, in all re­spects that may be brought under the Particles with, of or by; for not by Works, without works, are the Apostle's Terms: For tho' Works are the Effects, Evidences, Concomitants, Proper­ties of our Justification, yet Justification is not by them; for by denotes some Causal Influence, either by Efficacy or Digni­ty, and Works have no such Influence on our Justification.

2. Comparatively, they are more excluded from our Justi­fication here on Earth before God, than at the great Day of Judgment. Works have a less Influence on our being Called and Entered a Member of the Church Militant here below, than on our Entering the Triumphant State in Heaven; for the former is meerly a Matter of Right, and our Works have neither Being nor Dignity for that End; but the latter is Mat­ter of Possession, and many things are requisite to Possession that are not to Purchase. Our Justification at the Great Day requires Proof of our being Justified here; and many things are Necessary to the Proof of Justification, that are not Necessary to the first being of it: Yet I much doubt any formal Pro­cess, the bare appearance of the Persons in Sanctity and Glo­ry, is evidence enough. (1.) In Order to our going to Hea­ven, besides the Necessity of Precept, Gratitude. For, Right good Works are real Means of Order, Preparation of our selves, and helping of others thither. (2.) Good Works have a real Efficacy in them, as all Actions have to beget and streng­then a Habit. (3.) Good Works have a real Congruity in them, to make us meet and fit for that Holy Fellowship and Communion above. (4.) Good Works are the Necessary Effects of Justification and Sanctification; the Spirit of God cannot [Page 43] dwell in a Soul without transforming it more and more into a Likeness to Christ. (5.) Good Works have a real Utility in 'em, for heightning our Reward in Heaven: Not that they can from their own dignity Merit Degrees of Happiness, more than the Being of Happiness; but from the beautiful and har­monious Order of Divine Providence, in advancing us from one step to another, and not Conferring Degrees per saltum; there is no End of the Encrease of Christ's Kingdom, as to its Blessings; but its Encrease is by way of a Life, in a perpetu­al and gradual Growth. (6.) Heaven is truly a Reward to our Holiness here, by Virtue of Divine Order and Con­nexion from Divine Condescendency, as Basil says; Manet re­quies sempiterna non tanquam debitum operibus redditum, sed secun­dum munificentissimi Dei gratiam. Hysichius. The Kingdom of Hea­ven is not the Reward of Works, but is the prepared Grace of God: And as another says, It's proposed as a Reward more to attract us to Duty, than a due Debt of our Duty; and it is rather the Righteousness of Christ by which all our Actions are rendered acceptable, that is Rewarded, than our Actions themselves. Lastly, Our good Works are Necessary to Hea­ven, as the Beginning and Growth of a thing is Necessary to its Perfection; as Sowing in the Spring is Necessary to Reap­ing in Harvest, and our being Children in Order to our being Men. Perfect Holiness is as much the Condition of Heaven as Faith is of Justification, and Ordinances of Conversion, and rather more; for there are Exceptions in the last, but none in the first.

The Third thing proposed, was the several respects, that se­veral Persons plead Works to be necessary, in Order to our Justi­fication; and herein there is a greater Variety of Terms, viz. A Tenor or Hold, a Plea, the Form or Matter, Preparations, Dis­positions, Conditions, Moral Means, Merits of Dignity or Con­gruity, than there is in Thought and Opinion; and so a great­er variety of Persons, Professions, Names and Ages of the World, than there is in the thing it self: for all these ve­ry different Sentiments we may find amongst the Papists themselves. (1.) The grossest of them, as Vasquez and Caje­tan, fay, Our Works Merit from their own Dignity, that God in strict Justice could not but Reward such Pains, such Morti­fications, such Fastings and Prayers, with Heaven, or Eternal [Page 44] Happiness, this not true of Adams Covenant. But a second, and more Moderate sort, as Marsilius, Leonardus, &c. admit of a Tripple Allay to render them Meritorious: And the first is, That Christ hath merited, that our Works may Merit: Ours as subordinate Conditions to an Interest in his: The second is from Divine Ordination, because though our Actions are not worth a Pardon, yet he hath Promised both a Pardon, and a Heaven for them: A third that lays Foundation for the former, is a natural Congruity and Aptness, that the di­ligent Worker should have a Reward, and the sincere Endea­vourer should not be slighted, when the Bounty doth not Em­poverish but Honour the Donor; and that a Penitent Person should be pardoned: And ever since the Interim, at the first Birth of the Reformation, there has been a party amongst Protestants, in little or nothing differing from them, called sometimes Interimists, Cassandrians, Majorists, Conditionalists, Calixtians; and others that have run as far to a no less dan­gerous extream, as Amsdorfius, who said, Good Works were so far from being necessary to Justification, that they were pernicious and hurtful to it.

I do not comprehend under Conditionalists, all who have asserted the Covenant to be Conditional, for they have ex­plain'd themselves, that they mean no more by it, than the immediate and nearest means of these Blessings, viz. Justifica­tion and Glory: And add many Cautious and Negative Sen­ses, that destroy the proper Nature of a Condition; some five, some ten; but I see no Reason for their Zeal against them who say it's not Conditional; since they say it's three to one, five to one more not Conditional, than Conditional, viz. it's not Conditional Antecedently, it's not Conditional Naturally, it's not Conditinal Meritoriously, it's not Conditional Legally, it's not Conditional Uncertainly; and yet cry Error, Error, if another say it's not Conditional, and call it a Disposition of Grace thorough means to a certain end; if we take the Word Condition in its vulgar use, for the whole stipulated part of the Bargain or Bond to be perform'd wholly by the resti­pulating party, its more apt to deceive vulgar People (who have that Idaea of Condition) to say its Conditional with­out Limitation, than to say it's not Conditional; and do they think their Brethren have neither Power nor Skill to add Li­mitations [Page 45] to their not Conditional, as well as they to their Con­ditional? and fewer are Necessary, viz. tho' Faith and Repen­tance are Gifts of Grace, yet they are Duties; and tho' the Lord calls effectually where he will and when, yet our Con­sent is courted, and wooed, not forc'd; we freely yield to the Spirits Conduct, though our yielding is the Spirit's Effect, and Effects bear not the Name of Conditions.

The Sense then of the Apostle is this, That no Works Ce­remonial, Moral, with Faith or without it; by the Spirit of Grace, or Strength of Nature, external or internal, perfect or sincere; no Works of any Law perform'd by us, are either Merits, Matter, Form, Legal Condition or Plea, &c. for our Justification before God; they neither by Efficacy do Consti­tute it, nor by Dignity deserve it: What the Apostle has ex­cluded without Limits, we should. The Arguments for the Truth of this follows next in the Text.

So I come now to the second Part of the Verse, which is the first Argument that proves we are not Justified by Works; He hath whereof to glory, but not before God. The Argument is from the Topick of Impossibility or Absurdity; the Matter is impossible, and the Action is absurd, that such a Worm as Man, or any thing that is a Creature, should boast, or have ground of boasting before its Maker: Much more absurd is it for this Creature, becoming a Rebel and a Transgressor, to boast of its Meritting a Pardon, or rendring its Pardon a Justification: If a Slave should break a Vessel of great worth, and boast he could restore it, or fatisfie for the Dammage, when he is not his own, it would be unbecoming, but too mean a Type of this.

There are three things to be Treated in the Argument: 1. The Form of it. 2. The Truth of it. 3. The Strength of it.

1. The Form of the Argument is thus:

• Maj. If Abraham were Justified by Works, he has Matter of glorying.
• Min. But Abraham has no Matter of glorying, at least before God.
• Concl. Ergo, Abraham is not Justified by Works.

This is the general Interpretation of Protestants, and some [Page 46] others; Erasmus, Vatablus, Calvin, Zegerus, Beza, Piscator, Pa­raeus, Dickson, Hyperus, Melancton, Sclater, Tuckney.

But there are Interpreters of great Number and Note, that form the Argument in a contrary Method, thus:

• Maj. If Abraham were Justified by Works, he would have no Matter of Glorying before God.
• Min. But Abraham had Matter of Glorying before God, viz. His Faith.
• Concl. Therefore not Justified by Works.

Origen, the first Interpreter, says, if Faith had not been a real Glory before God, he would not have Imputed it to him in place of Works; but there is no Reason to Impute this Er­ror to Origen but his Popish Translator (for we have no other Origen on this Epistle that I know.) Rufinus, as we may read in his Preface to that Epistle, p. 634. Basil. ‘They say there is so much of this work thy own, that thou shouldst entitle it with thy own Name, not Origens: But tho' I have had an Herculean Labour in adding, diminishing and altering, yet I will not steal his Title that laid the Foundation, but let the Reader ascribe the Merit of the Work to whom he will, to him or to me, I shall put both our Names in the Title.’ They who form the Argument thus are of two kinds; either, 1. Those who differ both in Form of the Argument, and in the Truth, as the Papist, Aquin. Sasbout, Estius, &c. who say that Free-will affords a Man Matter of Glorying; by it he has made himself differ from others, Converted himself, Prepared himself, per­form'd the Conditions of the Covenant: May not a Work-man glory in his Work? 2. Those who only differ in Grammar and Form, as First, The Fathers: Chrys. Faith thinks highly of God, and so glorifies him: Therefore he gloried not that he loved God, but that God loved him. Secondly, Some Prote­stants, as Bucer, P. Mart. and also L. de Diu. His glorying be­fore God, was glorying in God. 1 Cor. 1.31. He that glories let him glory in the Lord. Faith sends a Man out of himself, to glory in God, and in Christ.

I reject this Form of the Argument, and embrace the former for these Arguments.

1. The Propositions of the latter Argument are not in the [Page 47] Text, but the contrary are; the Text says not, If Justified by Works, he has no Matter of glorying, but quite contrary, He has Matter of glorying if justified by Works; the Text says not, He has Matter of glorying before God, but, Not before God; so no­thing of their Syllogism in the Text, all the other is.

2. Both the Propositions of their Argument are false: The first is false, That Works afford no Matter of glorying; for Rom. 3.27. Glorying is not excluded by the Law of Works: Eph. 2.9. If we were Sav'd by Works, we would boast. An Inno­cent Man has more Matter of Glorying in his Works that de­serve a Justification, than a Pardoned one whose Works deserve Damnation. The Second is false, That Abraham had any Mat­ter of glorying, for 1 Cor. 4.7. Who maketh thee to differ? what hast thou that thou didst not receive? if thou didst receive, why dost thou glory?

3. We find the same Apostle forming the Argument accord­ing to the first, Eph. 2.9. We are not Sav'd by Works, that we may not glory, v. 10. 1. Because we are God's Work. 2. Thorough Christ, so a Relation there before. 3. Good Works the End, Ergo not the Mean: Christ the Mean to our Good Works, not Good Works the Mean of an Interest in him.

4. From the following Argument, v. 3. that Faith is imputed to Abraham for Righteousness, proves no matter of glorying in Faith: For, 1. It is a Gift, Eph. 2.8. Heb. 12.2. no glorying in a Gift, 1 Cor. 4.7. 2. Faith put for its Object, or containing its Object, makes glorying in God, not before God. 3. For the Exercise of Faith, which is receiving, trusting, depending, af­fords no more Matter of boasting before God, than the Beggar's glorying of his Receiving, before his Benefactor and his Bounty.

5. Those who do not Err as to the Matter, commit a dou­ble Fault in the Grammar of the Words: 1. To translate, [...], before God, or with God: in God or from God, as we may see from Parallel places, 2 Cor. 2.17. As of God, in the sight of God speak we: Rom. 5.1. Being justified by Faith we have peace with God: 1 John. 3.21. If our Hearts Condemn us not, then have we Confidence towards God: So that the Sense is, to have Matter of glorying, God being Judge and Witness, and conse­quently Matter of Justification; for they differ but in this, that Justification presupposes the Charge of a Crime, or Suspition [Page 48] of one: Praising or Glorying doth not: So that Praising and Justi­fying differ only as Comfort and Joy; and Grotius himself being Judge, on John 1.1. this is the Sense of the Phrase. 2. Glorying in God is expressed [...], Rom. 2.17. And makest thy boast of God: 1 Cor. 1.41. He that gloryeth, let him glory in the Lord: Psal. 34.2. My Soul shall make her boast in the Lord. These two are vastly different; to have Matter of Glorying in our selves, in our Actions towards God, God himself being our Judge and Witness, and to Glory in God, his Favour and Kindness, when we have deserved nothing but Wrath. A second Grammatical Error is to think that [...] and [...] differ in Scripture; for we find that [...], Glorying, is put for [...], Matter of Glory, 2 Cor. 1.12. Our rejoicing is this, the Testimony of our Conscience; Rom. 15.17. I have therefore whereof I may Glory, in things that pertain to God: And so [...] for the Act of Glorying, 1 Cor. 5.6. Your glorying is not good: 9.15. Make my glorying void: 2 Cor. 5.12. Occasion to glory on our behalf. But beside, if Man had Matter of Glorying, there might be justly glorying, where there is [...] there may be [...]. God doth never deny any man his due. The deepest Degrees of Humility God requires, are but suitable Apprehensions and Con­versations to what we are. And Lastly, a Man's Works affords Matter of Glorying as well as his Faith, Heb. 11.17. James 2.20. God praises Abraham's Works as well as his Faith.

6. The Criticks generally are against this Translation; and so the Ancient Versions, as the Ethiopick, which puts a Reward here in place of Glorying; and the Arabick, which says, If he was Justified by Works, he should have Glory in them.

Lastly, It is the making of a Neutral Verb active, without any Authentick Examples to Countenance it.

But I come to the second thing, which is the Truth of the Argument, That Abraham had no Matter of Glorying before God. I shall form it into this general Doctrine.

This I shall Confirm and Illustrate from these four general Topicks.

(1.) From Mans Existence and Being.

(2.) From his Constitution or Essence.

[Page 49](3.) From his Undoing of himself, his ruining and destroying his Soul by Sin, his guilt; which not only affords matter for Humility, but of mixing it with Sorrow, Shame and Confusi­on of Face.

(4.) From our Impotence to restore our selves from this Fall, tho' there is matter in it to remove our Sorrow, none to remove our Humility, or lay a Foundation of our Glory­ing.

I shall begin with the first of these Topicks.

First, Our Being or Existence; this has seven Properties that are inseparable from it, or from any Creature; whether Angels above us or Beasts below us: They are the seven Properties of a Creature as a Creature, and the just Conside­ration of them, is that which makes Angels never Mind them­selves, but be unwearied, and without Intermission taken up with the Praises and Contemplations of a God: These are the things which make Seraphims cover their Face and their Feet with their Wings.

The first is Creatures Contingency; that is, tho it now is, it might not have been, and may not be again; there is no repugnancy to not Being in its Constitution; which I shall thus Illustrate. Before our Birth we were not Men: Athe­ists that pretend our matter to have been from Eternity, and that when we dye, we only dissolve into that Common Mass; yet they grant, that we begin to be Men, and cease to be Men, and that every individual Man hath a begin­ning.

(1.) If there is no Necessity of our being Men, there is no Necessity of our being any thing, especially Infe­riour to Man, as Matter is owned to be; for Necessity of Existence, is a high Perfection: Contingency that borders next to nothing, is a great Imperfection; and therefore the greater Perfection is to be placed in the more perfect Being. Therefore if no Necessity of his Being man, there is no Necessity of being any thing Inferiour to him. Necessary Existence must be the Attribute of something, for since something now is, some­thing always has been, and that which hath been always, doth Exist by the Intrinsick Perfection of its own Essence; for what suffers nothing to be before it, admits of no Exter­nal [Page 50] Cause. But, (2.) That which hath the least Imperfecti­on of any kind, it wants this Perfection of necessary Existence; whatever has any Imperfection, is but a Contingent thing. For if there be not a reality of Perfection, to exclude a little Imperfection, there cannot be a sufficient reality to exclude a greater Imperfection. If the fulness of the Beings Perfecti­ons, do not include a lesser Perfection, they cannot include a greater; for instance, if Matter cannot include among its Per­fections these lesser ones of Thinking, Reasoning, Speaking, Feeling, it cannot include a more Noble Perfection of Neces­sary Existence; for not to be, is a greater Imperfection than not to be Reasonable, or not to be Sensitive: Necessary Exi­stence is at the greatest distance from not Being that is pos­sible; and therefore, since not Being is the greatest Imperfection, necessary Being is the greatest Perfection; and whatever has it must want no Perfection; and whatever wants it, is but a Contingent thing. (3.) All that own a God, own that ne­cessary Existence is his incommunicable Attribute; and does contain an incomparable, an incomprehensible Perfection; it is the highest Degree of removal from nothing, a grain of Dust is better than nothing; all Creatures are in a middle State between Nothing and a necessary Being; Nothing is not, Gods Name is Being, Exod. 3.14. I am what I am, his Name alone is Jehovah. But Creatures are indifferent to be, and not to be; there is no repugnancy in us against Being, nor no im­possibility in our Constitution to hinder us from not Being. Christ himself bears a Similitudinary Image of Independency, because having once a Life given, he is said to have Life in himself, in his own Power; but there is no Image of this Necessary Existence: Atheism is very unreasonable to place this Perfection in Matter, which as the Reverend Mr. Howe says, is next to Nothing, for it can do nothing; and shall we place the Attribute that is most distant from Nothing, in the Subject which is next to nothing. What great ground of Humility doth this afford, that I am more than a Fly! it is of God not of me, that I differ from the Dust, or the Dirt I tread on, I owe it to God; I am not so much as one Breath, yea the smallest particle of the most subtil Air of my self; that I am more than meer nothing, is wholly of ano­ther. I am oblig'd and indebted for it. But, (4.) All who [Page 51] own the Scriptures, own that Man is a made Creature; a Workmanship of Divine Art, and a Fruit of his meer good Pleasure. That he might have made us, or not made us, as he would, Rom. 9.20. That the Thing form'd, say to him that form'd it, Why hast thou made me thus? Isa. 45.9. Our Pos­sibility is from his Power, our Futurity is from his Will, our Existence from his Act, our Matter, our Dust was his by absolute Propriety, and our Form is the Effect of his Wis­dom.

2. We are Dependent, Experience proves this; we depend of our Parents, and yet not solely, for they dye and we sur­vive; we depend on Meat, Drink, Air, yet not only, for our Life is more Noble than they; nothing can give or communicate what it has not; there must be some more noble Independent Being, in whom we live, move, and have our Being [...]; Act. 17. c. as the Poet Aratus that liv'd about 290 Years before Christ, could say, We all use God, we all enjoy God, we are all his Off-spring — [...].

2. Since we are Contingent, we must also be Dependent, for Contingency is no more determin'd to Being, than not Be­ing, Perseverance than Perishing: for such as our Nature was in primo fieri, so it remains; a Contingent thing is a Tottering Being, of it self inclinable any way, and External Force forces it's Lot. 3. It's a Prerogative of God to be Independent, a Spirit Independent is the best Definition we can form of him, and it is his Glory to have all things Depending on him; the whole Mass of Beings, to be nurs'd by the Breasts of his Alsufficient Fulness; he is a Careful Parent of his Off-spring, it is no Toil to his Power, nor Difficulty to his Wisdom, nor Draining to his unsearchable Riches, where all is Infinite; but a wonderful discovery of that Plenty that is in him, which is his very End and Design: How should this stop the boast­ing Mouth, silence the glorying Tongue, and stifle the proud Thoughts of Man! If thy Dependance were a bare Permission, that thou cannot live an hour on Gods Earth without his leave, or use his Creatures for Profit or Pleasure; he can sweep thee off the Stage of Being with a Beesom of Destruction in a Minute: But Dependency is a Divine Manutenency, it's a keeping us up by force from falling into that Pit or Abyss of Nothing we were drawn out of, and still hang over, Job [Page 52] 26.7. He hangeth the Earth upon nothing: For since Creating was an Act of Violence upon Nothing, and such an Act as needed Omnipotent Strength to force it into the Condition of Being; Preservation is the Positive Influence of the same pow­erful Hand to keep this Tottering Being upward, that is by Natural Tendency declining into its Original Nothing; there is no need of Power to make any thing Nothing, for then nothing would be the Effect of Divine Power. There is no necessary Connexion between the Creation of any thing, and its Continuance; because we were Yesterday, it doth not fol­low that we shall be to Morrow; we daily change, we are not to Day what Yesterday, there is no such Inference where the Being is Contingent; how gladly would we live, but it is not in the Power of our Will, our Nature, or all our Friends and Physicians; no Cordial, no Food, no Physician can do; and if they cannot preserve Life, far less Being. The Glorious Arches of the Heaven would dwindle away, the Depth of the Ocean dry up, the steady Earth tremble into a Non-entity; the most Immortal Spirits faint, and Angels be annihilate by one Minutes Intermission of Omnipotency: A Proud Man is a Mad Man, a deceiv'd Soul; thou cannot move thy Tongue, nor ex­ercise thy Thought, but thou art under an Infinite Obligati­on to Infinite help for supporting thee in it, and wilt thou use it against him? the more perfect we are, the more we depend; the more imperfect we are, the more we need his Power to support us.

3. Unprofitable: Job 35.7. If thou be righteous what givest thou him? or what receiveth he of thine hand? Job 22.2. Can a man be profitable to God, as he that is wise may be profitable un­to himself. (1.) It is a Property of Divine Decrees to be disinterested, of pure Generosity and Bounty, the Issues of Love and Goodness, that is still giving and communicating. (2.) His End to make his likeness, and form his Praise with­out himself, from that Content and Satisfaction he had in beholding it in himself; he would have others taste of the sweetness of that Being he enjoved, therefore called Nothing into his Banqueting-house, and his Banner over it was Love, by which it was brought into Being. (3.) His Fulness: it is Gods Original Glory to want nothing, his Sufficiency and Fulness is such that admits of no Addition. (4.) Creatures [Page 53] Emptiness: we must pay our debt before we Profit, and eve­ry day we are obliged for an Infinite Flux of Goodness and Power, to keep our Souls in Life; and yet we have craving Appetites, like the Barren Womb, that cries, Give, give, but make no grateful return; this keeps all the Quires of An­gels in the perpetual Exercise of humbling themselves, and prai­sing of God. Not unto us, O Lord! not unto us, unto thee be all Glory and Honour.

4. Temporary Beings: Job 8.9. For we are but of Yesterday, and know nothing; because our Days upon Earth are a Shadow. 1. There is a difference between the time of Men in this World, and the Aeviternity of Angels, Rev. 14.6, 7. The one is to end, viz. Time with the seventh Trumpet, that is, Time measur'd by Sun and Moon; for there will be no Sun the true Standard of Time, Rev. 21.23. No more Night and Day, the Foundation of Chronology. But Aeviternity, or Time, as de­fin'd by Successive Motion still continues in Heaven; for the Mind of an Angel is not Infinite, therefore comprehends not all Objects at once, nor doth not comprehend the incompre­hensible God, for that is Inconsistent with Adoration or Ad­miration, which still supposes something unknown; therefore of Necessity their Minds change its Objects, sometimes think­ing of one thing, sometimes of another, and consequently one thing in Order before another, and Time is a Motion thorough former and latter: This affords another Argument, that this World is not from Eternity, because Successive; for where a former and latter, a second, third and fourth, there is a first and last; this may be rendred more easie by these Instan­ces. (1.) No Mans Death is from Eternity, for his Life, his Birth was before it, and if his Death not from Eternity, nei­ther his Birth, for that but a short time before his Death▪ no Man has liv'd a thousand Years, it were a very absurd thought of Eternity, to say, it was but a thousand years lon­ger than Time. (2.) Eternity is an Infinite Duration, but the Duration of Years not so; because exceeded by number of Days, Hours and Minutes. The second Difference is between the Eternal Duration of God, and that Duration of Creatures, Psal. 102.27. They shall be chang'd, but thou art the same, and thy Years shall have no End. The one is founded in an Immu­tability, the other in Change; the Infinite God possesses his [Page 54] whole Essence Independently and most perfectly at once; in Time there is Past, Present and Future; the Eflux of a [...]ing from Past to Future by the present Minute, this agrees not to Him whose Nature is I am, that is, In me, nothing [...]ast in me, nothing Future. This alone has great Matter of Humiliation in it: of what awe would the Presence of a S [...]ge Angel, that hath been since the Creation, to such a Mushroom as Man, a new start-up in the World; we suffer not Children to speak in the Presence of Men; how much more should mans Mouth be stopp'd before the Ancient of days; who has ten thousand Times ten thousand ministring before him, and charges the Angels with Folly.

5. Man is an Imaginary Being, rather the Picture of Being, than the Reality; and this is not a Dignity, that every Crea­ture attains to be called, the Image of God; they are his Workmanship, Rom. 1.20. And so are proofs of an Eternal Powerful and Wise Being, and they bear some Prints of his Being upon them, 2 Tim. 2.13. He cannot deny himself, neither in Word, nor in Deed; he cannot do any thing but what must represent him to be such as he is, though there are vastly dif­ferent Degrees of Representation. The Common Properties of Creatures seems to be their Reality, Durability, Goodness and Beauty; but Man alone of all Earthly Creatures bears the Name of an Image, because there is some Representation of all the Divine Attributes in him, either Subjectively, as Spiri­tuality, Knowledge, Reason, Will; or Objectively, as he posses­ses an Idea of the Divine Nature impressed upon him, 2 Cor. 3.18. We all with open face, behold as in a Glass, the Glory of the Lord, and are changed into the same Image: Or Qualitively, as Righteousness and Holiness: Or Reflexively; and thus the incommunicable Attributes of Soveraignty, Independency and Alsufficiency, are represented by our Submission, Emptiness and Dependency; as the Wax doth represent the Seal: Or De­putatively, as he is Governour of the World; but as this is Mans Dignity above other Creatures, to be Gods Image, so it is the most excellent thing in it self; and this is our great Misery, the loss of this Image; and our Happiness lies in its Restauration, so that Man at his best, who is the best of the Creatures, is but an Image.

[Page 55]6. A meer Passiveness: Matter is a very Passive Object to work upon, yet through the Disposition of its parts, hardness or softness, it is fitter for one thing than another, and more easily wrought into that frame; but nothing is equally Passive for all, equally fit to be an Angel, and an Atom of Dust; and whatever Activity the Creatures may now have on one ano­ther, yet with respect to God they are Passive Beings.

7. Creatures are more Nothing than Being, Isa. 40.17. We are Nothing, and less than Nothing: Nothing Naturally, and less than Nothing, by Debt and Obligation owing the Being we have received, but far more by our Guilt and Transgression, for what is worse than Nothing is less than Nothing. A Mar­ble Statue formed in the likeness of a Man is more a Stone than Man, because the one by Art, the other by Nature: So Man, by Nature he is nothing, by Divine Art he is God's Image: We are from Nothing, that is our Original, for we are brought into being by the Force and Violence of Omnipotent Power. If God's proper Name is Jehovah, Psal. 83.18. and of him only can it be said, Exod. 3.14. I am, or, He is, then properly is it said of the Creatures, They are not. Philosophers usually grant that Ens, or Being, is not a Genus Ʋnivocum, when applyed to God and Creatures, there is no Generical Oneness in it: When we say the Creature is Being, and God is Being, it is not one thing that is meant by that word Being; for the one really is, the other is the Image, as we call the Picture of a Man a Man. Since any one of these affords matter of Humiliation, how much more all being put together? and if they afford matter of Hu­miliation for Angels, how much more matter of Humiliation for Man? If an Angel be but a Contingent, Dependent, Un­profitable, Temporary, Passive, Imaginary Being, a Being more Nothing than Being in Comparison of God, how little a thing must Man be in Comparison of him, and how much less a sin­full Man?

I come to the second Topick of Arguments for the Proof of this Doctrine, That Man has nothing to Glory in before God; which is the Form he was made in, and by which he Excells other Earthly Creatures, and is called an [...], Lord of his own Actions, a Self-powered Creature, or as Cicero says, a Power of Living as he will. The Common Title for it is Free-will, Liberum Arbitrium, which Amyrald thinks to be better Transla­ted [Page 56] a Free Judgment. The Apostle Paul calls it the Prevailing Will, Rom. 7.17. If I do that I would not, it is not I, but Sin. I, as that which denominates the Man. I shall insist the more largely on this, because it is that which the most part of the World are proud of. The former Argument is more commonly granted, That Man cannot be Proud of his Being, but therein still he would be Equal to the Angels; and the Pride of Man can hardly aspire higher, but for this Argu­ment, that Man has no Matter of glorying from his Free Will, is not so easily Complyed with, whether we View Men's Professi­ons or their Practices. (1.) The Pagans, they commonly as­cribed all Virtue, all their Heroick Actions, and the Praise of 'em, to themselves: Upon this Account Cicero, De Natura Deo­rum, says, ‘We may thank God for Riches, or Fortune, but not for Virtue, that is our own; for that we are Praised, for the want of that we are blamed: We may glory of our Virtue, which we could not do if it were God's Gift.’ Se­neca, Ep. 53. ‘A wise Man in some things is preferable to God, for the one is Wise by the Benefit of Nature, the other by the Benefit of Virtue: Ep. 20. Be Content with thy self, and the Goods brought forth by and of thy self, so thy Happi­ness shall be next to Gods.’ (2.) The Jews, especially the Pharisees, on this account were as Proud as the others, for they reckoned the External Administration of the Law, which g [...]ve Occasion to their Merit by Free-Will, to be the principal diffe­rence between them and the Pagans. Maimonides says this is one of their Fundamentals, ‘That they had such a perfect Free Will, and sufficient Power for Virtue and Goodness, that they only needed the Law to exercise their Power about: Rab. Gaon. Saadia says, [...] "All things are in the Power of Hea­ven, except the Fear of Heaven, that is Religion.’ There is a difficulty of reconciling their Opinions about this Point, because they also owned a Fate; which they call [...], or [...]. Josephus, who was one of them, says, lib. 2. chap. 7. that they attributed all things to God and Fate, but it is no won­der, for wherever Error is, there is Contradiction; for every Man holds some Truth, and whatever Error he holds is repug­nant to the Truth he holds; but Camero thus explains their Sense from Josephus his own words, That by Faith is meant God's [Page 57] Providential Help, but most is to be placed in Man; and lib. 18. chap. 2. We are not to separate Man's Will from enclining Fate: so that the Sense of it is, Providence gives Occasion to Work, but the Work it self is wholly Man's own. (3.) The Pelagians are not inferiour in this Pride to any of the former, who confine all God's Grace to Man, in giving of this Noble and Natural Endowment of Free-Will, by which a Man is able to do all good Commanded. They say none can give a Man spi­ritual Riches but himself, for these he is justly Praised, and jure Preferred to others; for these can have no Being but in himself and from himself; hence he taught this Form of Pray­er, ‘Lord behold the Purity of my Lips, by which I Pray to thee, and the Innocency of my Hands which I stretch forth before thee.’ (4.) The Papists, especially Jesuites and Moli­nists, tho' others seem to diminish the Power of Free-Will when they write on that Head, yet when they come to the Point of Merit, they again extoll it, Bel de Just. lib. 5. chap. 3. because it is more honourable to obtain a thing by Merit than by Grace alone; therefore that God might Honour his Children, he has granted that they might prepare Eternal Life to themselves by their Merits, and more proudly; Ruard. in Top. Art. Lov. God forbid that the Righ­teous should expect Eternal Life as a Poor Man doth an Alms, since it is more glorious for them as Victors and Triumphants to possess it, as the Crown and Palm due to their S [...]eats and Labours; and their Common Doctrine is, that by the strength of Nature preparing our selves we Merit ex Congruo, special Grace, and afterwards being made just by it, we can so per­fectly fulfill the Law, that we Merit Heaven ex Condigno, and why may not a Workman glory in his Work? (5.) Socinians and Arminians, who hold the Freedom of the Will inconsistent with any Necessity, and that it is out of the Power of God effectually to Call a Sinner when he will, or according to the Terms in Dispute: Grace is always resistable, but the Will of Man unconquerable. (6.) We find many others, and more an­cient, too much extolling Man on this account, as Prudentius in his Poems on that Subject: ‘Insubjecte potens, rerum arbiter, arbiter idem & judex Mentis propriae.’ ‘Powerfull, being subject to none, Lord of all things, Lord also and Judge of thy own Mind: And elsewhere, "He that [Page 58] made thee Lord of all things, would he not make thy self free? He that made thee King of the World, would he not make thee King of thy self? would he so Curtail thine Honour and Matter of glorying?’ Besides, the common Definition of it sig­nifies no less, that supposing all things in act that are fit, or have Power to move or encline it, it may Act or not Act, or act the contrary as it will: Neither God nor Angels, Men or Devils, have Powe [...] certainly to determine it. (7.) They who have their Minds better instructed, yet have Practical Sentiments secretly latent in their Minds of this kind, which we may learn from our Observation of our selves: As, 1. When Men adventure on sin because they think they can make amends by Repentance. 2. When Pe [...]sons delay Repentance upon this ground, that they can do it afterwards. 3. When Persons stifle Convicti­ons, and quench the Spirit, because they think they can enjoy it again when they will. 4. When Persons do not Pray, from this latent Error, that they have a Power to Accomplish their Designs themselves. 5. When men Neglect the outward Or­dinances and Means of Salvation, which God has appointed not only as Means between Us and the End, but as Means between our Can and our Cannot, because we cannot do any thing of the Essentials of Salvation, Meriting Pardon, Enlightning the Understanding, or Sanctifying our Wills, God has prescribed these Means that we can do, and has Promised to Perform that which we cannot, Phil. 3. Work in and about your own Salvation with fear and trembling, for he worketh in you to will and to do: Now that which many Neglect the Means for, is because they think they can go about the thing it self. The Security that destroys the most of perishing Souls is founded on this corrupt Root, that we have a Power in a very short time to do all the Business of our Salvation. Were it not for this, Sinners Despairing wholly in themselves wou'd be rolling themselves in the Dust, and prostrating themselves before a Father of Mercies and God of Grace, and constantly Watching for the Angels troubling of the Waters; they would be daily waiting at Wisdoms Gates for the Spirit promised to Attendants upon appointed Means.

In opposition to all this, I shall lay down these Eight Propo­sitions, with their several Confirmations, to prove that this Noble Principle that God hath endowed Man with, though it hath exalted him above Brutes, it affords him no ground of Pride, [Page 59] or glorying before God; four are Positive, and four Negative.

1. Free-Will is a part of that Excellency by which Man is the Image of God: All in Man by which he excells meer Ani­mals, he therein is God's Image. This is a great Dignity, to be in the Image of God, but this should humble Man before God, because he is but an Image; tho' in respect of inferiour Crea­tures, they being only a Vestigium, or a Print of some one per­fection; as the Print of a Man's Foot represents but one part of him, an Image represents the whole or most principal Parts. Free-will is founded in Wisdom and Power, and in these Man is God's Image, but this Excellency affords no Matter of glo­rying. (1.) From the Scriptures own Expression, Psalm. 39.6. there is a Reason given, why Man in his best Estate, that is, in the Purity of his Nature, in the unfaded and unstained flower of all his Senses and spiritual Faculties, is but Vanity; because every Man walks in a Vain shew, so we Translate it, but the Ori­ginal is Bezalim, the same Word which in Gen. 1. is used for the Image of God. Man is Vanity, because at best but an Image. Our greatest Perfections by Nature did not free us from De­fectibility. (2.) Indifferency doth not represent the Will of God as terminate upon himself, but as terminate upon the Crea­tures; to him it was indifferent whether they should be or not be: They are Lusus Dei, the Fruit of his meer Pleasure, things of no moment; so when we experience in our selves that the Foot, the Tongue, the Hands, the Eyes, move in Obedience to the Will as Nimbly as we can think, it do [...] not represent God's Essence, but his Relative Sovereignty over his Creatures, so 'tis but an inferiour part of an Image. (3.) The Will of God is a Power, and causes these real goods that are its Ob­jects; but the Liberty of Man is only admissive or rejective of these Objects in the Understanding, and gives occasion to their Influence upon the Faculties of the Soul, and so affords no Mat­ter for Glory in the Work of our Conversion. Suppose the Sun-beams should enter a Room before dark, by some Casement or Cranny, and fill this room with Light, yea, render its Earth flourishing and verdant, should we ascribe this great Change to the Sun or to the Casement? Nay, suppose farther, that the Sun by its perpetual Heat and repeated Influence has made the Boards give way, and made its own entrance, should we as­cribe the Glory of the Action to that which so long hindered [Page 60] it, and is yet the Cause of the Works being so weak? And this is the very Case, as far as Matter can represent Spirit; for the Lord opened the Heart of Lydia, and he says Rev. 3. Behold I stand at the door and knock, and if any Man open I will come in. (4.) The Will of God never acts without the highest Wisdom, Ephes. 1. According to the Counsel of his Will: Therefore the set­ting up of a Liberty in Man, distinct from the Conduct of the Understanding, is a Chimera, no Image of God, who cannot deny himself in any of his Works, he never did any thing that might give us false Sentiments of his Nature. (5.) Our Liberty is much inferiour to God's, because of the Narrowness of its Sphere: The Beast has only Sense, Man has also spiritu­al things for his Object to Converse about, but the Divine Will converses about those things we never saw nor heard, nor has it entered into our Heart to conceive. (6.) Our Liberty is a Gift, God's is Self-originate; ours a Shadow, his the Substance; ours but an Emanation of his, as the Image of a Face in a Glass, but we have no such Help distinct from him, he is the Support and Spring of both. (7.) His is Infallible, always equal, vigorous, active; Ours faints and wearies, as in Sleep and Infancy, and fails, as in every Sin.

2 Prop. The Liberty of the Mind of Man consists (to be more particular about it) in a Freedom from Physical Necessity or Coaction, in a Freedom from Sense or Matter: It is a general Axiom, and therefore needs the less proof, That Free-will is only the Property of thinking and reasoning Creatures, that propose an End to their Actions, and deliberate about what is fittest for gaining that End. The Fire burns whatever comes nigh it, but the Will doth not choose every thing proposed. The Imagination of a Beast is confined to Material Ideas, but the Mind of Man is not determined nor limited to such Ob­jects: A Beast can only be allured by present things, but things of a hundred years distance can move a Mind; this is a great Priviledge, but affords no matter of Glory. For (1) It lays us under the greater Obligation to our Maker, who made us Men and not Beasts. (2) Our Abuse of it in making our selves worse than Beasts, being carnally minded and lead by Sense, who have more Noble Faculties to govern us. (3) The more Knowledge the more Liberty by this Rule, and there­fore our Blindness and Ignorance should make us bemoan our [Page 61] Confinement: The Natural man knoweth not the things of God [...] and there [...]ore can have no Liberty about them. But more of this under another Head.

3 Prop. Liberty consists in a Freedom from Restraint, an [...] as well as a [...], goes to the making up of this Perfection, a Willingness as well as a Judgment. Augustine de Spir. & Lib. Chap. 31. defines it to be, A Power of doing what we will, and thus it doth principally consist in the Imperate acts; call­ed free because they proceed from a free Principle: To will and to can are two different things; a Man may will what he cannot, and then the Will hath not this Freedom. The Scrip­ture seems to take it in this sence, 1 Cor. 7.37. Having no Necessity, but hath power over his own Will, and hath so decreed in his heart. By Freedom from Necessity there, is meant a Power to put his Purpose in Execution: And so Rom. 7. What I would, that do I not. The Spirit is willing, but the Flesh is weak: Taking Liberty thus for a freedom from Constraint, or a Power of doing what we will, it affords no matter of Glorying to Man, he is under so many Restraints, by his Na­ture, by his Sin, by Punishment, all his Faculties are restrain­ed; about Objects Natural, Moral, and much more Spiritual, he is restrained and limited. As we see among sensitive Crea­tures, some are confined to the Water, as Fish, some to the Earth; but others have a more ample Sphere of Activity, and a more vigorous Principle to carry them through Water, Earth or Air. So we find Man more confined than Angels; we can only under [...]tand Earthly things: John 3. Christ tells Ni­codemus, that there was a Necessity of representing Heavenly things under some Earthly Similitude, that we might be ca­pable of understanding them. (1) Peter and Paul were Saints of the first magnitude, and yet when they were brought to con­verse with Heavenly things, the one confessed he knew not what he heard; and the Spirit asserts of the other, that he knew not what he said. It is an old Jewish saying, That God descends in a humane Mantle, that we may have some suitable Apprehensions of him; and it is most amazing Humility in God, to reckon our high­est Thoughts of him an Honour or a Glory to him. (2) By Sin the Scripture calls Man Darkness, led captive at the will of Satan, a slave to Sin, and dea [...] in Sin, therefore he is won­derfully confined and restrained by it. A Habit in any one [Page 62] particular Vice, how doth it ensnare and confine one to its Courses. How can you believe that receive honour one of another? The Pharisees who were covetous, derided the Doctrine of Cha­rity. They that are accustomed to do evil, can no more do good than the Aethiopian can change his Skin, or the Leopard his Spots. (3) All Afflictions and Sufferings put Restraints on Mans Liberty. John 21.18. Thou girdest thy self and walkedst whither thou wouldst; here was Liberty: but another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not; here is a Re­straint or Compulsion. A man may have a will to move a gouty Finger, or stop a Convulsive or Paralitick Motion of his Nerves, but he has no Liberty to do it, as Dr. Lock says well. (4) In our Intellect and elicit acts of the Will we ex­perience this Compulsion; we would love God as the Angels doe, but we cannot: How many would throw off Terrors, Convictions impressed on their Minds, but they cannot? We cannot keep our Mind at ease when the Body is under pain. (5) How little do we know in things Natural, notwithstand­ing all the Pains that has been given by Students, and far less in things spiritual.

4 Prop. There is a Liberty of Indifferency in Man about many things that are in his Power to do, whether Natural, Moral, and after received Grace, Spiritual also. (1) Our common Experience witnesseth this; in matters of Contrariety, as telling the Truth or a Lye; matters of Disparity or Spe­cification, as going to the Church to Prayer, or about some other business of our Vocation or Calling, or what is sin­full; in matters of Contradiction, to do a thing or omit it. (2) There are many Examples in Scripture that witness this: 2 Sam. 24. There are three Judgments propos'd to David's Choice, about which he had not only a Moral but Physical power. 1 Kings 3.5. Solomon had four things put in his pow­er to ask of God, long Life, Riches, the Life of his Enemies, or Wisdom. It was propos'd to Adam's choice by what Name to call any Creature, and of what Tree to eat. 1 Cor. 9.4.17. Paul had a power to eat and drink, and there was a Ne­cessity upon him by Moral Obligation to preach the Gospel, which he might perform willingly or against his Will: Ezra 7.13, 15. Numbers 30. there are more Examples of this kind. (3.) Without owning this Indifferency in Man, we cannot de­fend [Page 63] the Holiness of God: There can be no greater Absurdi­ty than to think or say that God is the Author of Sin, or to assert any thing that does of Necessity inferr it, for it takes away all place for Repentance, and fills the Soul with most dreadful Apprehensions of a Deity, viz. To make a Man sin, which is worse than to tempt him, and then to Punish him, it darkens the Beauty and Glory of the Divine Essence. Ho­liness is that which the Saints and Angels trebble in his Praise, and they know him best. The whole System of the Scripture declares God's Innocency as to this thing, for it declares that God made Man upright, Eccles. 7.29. and the Angels also, Jude 6. He made them in his own Image. (2.) He gave him a Holy Law to keep him from sin, Rom. 7.12. and he fenc'd Obedience to that Law by most terrible Threatnings, Thou shalt dye; and with great speed he did execute the Punishment, for spiritually he dyed that very Moment he sinn'd, and the stroke reach'd the very Instruments of the Sin, and by no influence could God incline or determine him to what he did forbid, for with him is no Unfaithfulness or Unsincerity, nor want of Holiness. (3.) James 1.13. God tempts no Man, he cannot deny himself; but to Necessitate Man to sin, is to do the sin, and can God do what he hates? Hab. 1.13. Psal. 11.7. Besides, if Sin were not voluntary and free, it would not be a sin; would that be against God which was from God? could it be Guilt wherein Man was wholly a Sufferer? (4.) The very Nature of Permission, which is of purpose and designedly to let that be which he can hinder: Genesis 20.9. Abimelech did not sin, be­cause God did not suffer him; if he had suffer'd him he would have sinn'd; as in the instance of Hezekiah, God left him to try him, that it might be known what was in his Heart: So where God permits, man has a Physical Liberty to do or not to do. God did permit Adam to sin, for if he had design'd to impede him, he could not have done it. We must not Clip divine Power, more than Stain divine Purity: Omnipotency would be turn'd into Impotency, if Adam sinn'd whether God would or no: He could have Chain'd up Satan from laying the Bait, or Adam from swallowing of it; but on the other Hand, as he did not hinder him from it, he did not predeter­mine him to it: Whether the first act of sin be Pride, Unbe­lief, or Inconsideration; God could not incline the Will to an [Page 64] Averseness to his own Amiableness, or Distrust of his own Faith­fulness, or Disobedience to his own Commands. (5.) With­out allowing this Indifferency, there were no room for the Office of a Magistrate: Could Joshua say to Achan, Why hast thou troubled us? the Lord shall trouble thee this day, Josh. 7.25. There could be no room for Praise or Rebuke, and there would still be place for some Excuse in Man. He that wanted the Wedding Garment would not have been speechless altogether, if there had been an Impossibility of attaining it; he was brought a Beggar from the High ways and from the Hedges, and so had no Wedding-garments of himself, Mat. 22.9. but it was to be put on freely; and tho' Man is now a Slave to sin, yet multitude of particular sins he might have omitted.

This brings me to the second and principal thing, That this Liberty of Indifferency is no Matter of Glorying, but a great Matter of Humiliation before God: for, First, The Indifferen­cy of the Will often flows from Fluctuation of the Judgment: Ignorance in the Understanding occasions Uncertainty in our Choice, Eph. 4.18. We are alienate from the Life of God, thro' the Ignorance of its Excellency and Beauty. This Ignorance consists, (1.) In Uncertainty and Doubtfulness: We doubt if there be a God, a Devil, a Heaven or a Hell; that makes 'em have less Power in determining our Choice. (2.) In Short-sightedness, like a Pur-blindness in the Mind, that the future Punishment or Reward appears little, the present Pain or Plea­sure great. If the Sickness and Trouble that is consequential to Drunkenness, Prodigality, Vileness, were as nigh to our Sight and View, as the Sin or the Act is, we would never em­brace it; if the Pain of the aking Head were in the Pallat, when the Drunkard drinks up the Glass, he would never swal­low it down: And if Temporal Punishments, because at a di­stance, appear so little, how much less does Eternal. (3.) In Narrow-sightedness: Our Understandings are like small-mouth'd Vessels, that can only take in one thing at once. Hence we com­monly reckon the present Pain the worst, and the present Plea­sure the sweetest, because it so fills the Narrow Mind, that there is no room for other Idea's. (4.) In gross and carnal Corrupt­ness, that spiritual things are so subtil that they do not suit its Disposition; hence we scarce feel an Appetite after Spiritual things, but the Appetite of the Flesh is strong, its Urgency pre­cipitates [Page 65] the Deliberation, and does not allow a due time for ballancing the Account, and stating the Cost on both sides: this affords great Matter of Humility, that our Spirits are so weak, and Understandings so dark. Secondly, This Indifferen­cy flows from the Meanness of the Object, or different Dispo­sition of the Subject, when the things propos'd are Trifles, of no great Moment or Concern, or indifferently suiting our Dis­position or Temper, then we are indifferent about them; the more we are imploy'd about such things, to so much the less purpose do we spend our Lives, and therefore have the less Matter of Boasting in them; for there is a great difference between our Indifference and Adam's, that was to good or bad; ours to Bad, and has its Choice of Bads. Thirdly, This In­differency flows from Divine Permission, as is before proved; but a far greater Blessing it is to be inclin'd and determin'd by God, than to be left to our own Conduct; for God always inclines the Heart to good, and we never read of any left to themselves and their own Determinations, that did good; therefore David Prays, Incline my Heart to thy Testimonies. Adam was permitted to his own Will, and he fell; and so it is said of the Israelites, Psal. 81.12. I gave them up to their own Hearts-lust, and they walked in their own Counsels: Acts 14.16. He suffer'd all Nations to walk in their own ways; and these were Idolatry and Profanity: But he did not permit Abimelech, Gen. 20.9. and he did not permit Laban, and therefore they did not sin. Fourthly, From the Natural Mutability and Defectibility of the Creature, we being, as is before proved, Contingent, Dependent Creatures. The Indifferency of the Will is the tottering of the Creature, it's like the reeling and staggering of a Drun­ken Man, or like a Post set up before fixed, if the Upholders withdraw their Hands, and permit it to it self, it declines one way or other. Fifthly, This Indifferency gave Birth to the first sin of Angels and Man: He put them in a good State, Jude 6. but they left it; He made man upright, Eccles. 7. but he found out many Inventions. Sixthly, This is the great Impediment that hinders Mens Conversion, their Repentance and turning to God, Psal. 81.11. My People would not hearken to my Voice, and Israel would none of me: It's always laid at the Door of this Will, Mat. 23.37. I would have gather'd you as a Hen doth her Chickens, but you would not. Seventhly, All these great Crimes and actual [Page 66] Transgressions which would the Conscience, flow from this Spring, as now wrongly byass'd by Corruption. There is a considerable difference between the good things a Man can do, and what he does, and all that Guilt is chargeable upon his Will as indifferent; for if it be not within his Power, then he is not indifferent to it. This loads the Soul of Man with Guilt, if we consider our Powers, which comprehends so ma­ny Talents given of God to be Improved by us, and all the Mis-improvement lyes at this door of our Will. (1.) A Man's Tongue, together with all his Senses, especially those that are the Instruments of Discipline, Seeing and Hearing, these are entirely under the Dominion of our Will, ard therefore either the Omission of them where they ought to have been employ'd, or the Exercising of them where they ought to have been re­strain'd, renders us so far Guilty. (2.) Our Health, Strength, Estate, Honour, Acquaintance, how great a Sphere of Power do they afford, especially to some Men, and yet how little Good, or rather how much Mischief is done by it? (3.) Our Reason is a considerable Talent for bridling our Senses, for searching into the certainty of Religion, Natural or Reveal'd, for comparing of Spiritual with Carnal, Eternal with Tem­poral things. (4.) Our Memories are a Treasury for Divine Commands, Convictions, Comforts and Experiences. (5.) Our Consciences for empowering Practical Light; its Power is of a large extent in keeping in aw from sin, and in quickening to Duty. (6.) Providential Dispensations, that we have them through all our Life, to observe God's Method of dealing with Man, that we may see how Good and Patient he is, Rom. 2.4. We may learn that verily there is a God that Judgeth the Earth, and that verily there is a Reward for the Righteous. (7.) The Revelation of the Gospel, with that Spirit that usu­ally attends it, to Convince of Sin, Righteousness and Judg­ment, is yet a far greater Power, and when it grows up in­to a Conversion, and God's Gifts crown'd with Special Grace, how much more is the Power of Man heightened, Rom. 6.18. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righte­ousness: 1 Cor. 15.10. By the Grace of God I am what I am. What great Progress in Religion may a Man make, that is endowed with all these Powers, and how unexcusable are their blameable Lives and Conversations! Few can with Paul say, [Page 67] The Grace that was bestowed upon me was not in vain, but I labour­ed more abundantly than they all. Lastly, Should a Sinner Glory in that which has render'd him void of all Cloak and Excuse to his Sin? but this Will of Indifferency, considering the Pow­ers God has given Man, and is still ready to give more or more upon asking or admitting, it renders Men, especially that live under the Gospel, altogether without Excuse; for what Excuse can a Man make for the Neglect of such a Concern, if it or any thing tending to it lye within the Compass of Possibility? Difficulties can be no Excuses, to say with the Sluggard, he could not Plow nor Sow in the Winter, because it was Cold: If a Man has exercised his Power as much other ways, he cannot excuse his Neglect of it in things tending to Salvation. Mat. 16. Christ tells the Pharisees, that they might as easily Collect by the Exercise of their Reason about Scrip­ture Prophecies, that he was the Messias, as they did the fair and fowl Weather in the Morning from the Evening-skye. If Persons once could be more frequent and serious in the Duties of Religion, when Self-Interest went along with it, and the Profession of Godliness brought External Gain, or when a se­vere Rod was on their Back, than they do now; this Omissi­on can have no Excuse, for neither the one nor the other did or can contribute Strength to the Exercise of Religion. It is not in vain that the Scripture lays our Destruction at the door of our Wills, for if there be a Will, God accepts it for the Performance, 2 Cor. 8.12. If there be first a willing mind, it is accepted according to what a Man hath: 2 Sam. 17.20. A Humi­liation under the sense of Impotency is accepted for the Per­formance. Religion lyes within the Sphere of the Spirit, and the Spirit's comprehensive Faculties are Light and Love, Know­ledge and Inclination, or Understanding and Will. (2.) Per­sons are often glad they want Power or Opportunity of doing good, when Magistracy and Ministry are Prophane, they are glad of it: Jer. 5.31. The Prophets prophesie falsely, and the Priests bear rule by their means, and my People love to have it so: Hos. 5.11. Ephraim is oppressed and broken in Judgment, because he wil­lingly walked after the Commandment: Isa. 66.3. Their Soul de­lighted in their abominations. (3.) Because they Fancy they have a Power to do what is spiritually Good, and yet Neglect Out­ward Means, either Positive in External Ordinances, or Nega­tive [Page 68] in Omitting cf Vices and Outward Wickednesses. (4.) Be­cause they are not frequent and serious in asking the Strength they want, or readily complyant with Power offered, Isa. 65.24. How often are we prevented with Convictions and Suggesti­ons about good Resolutions that we don't kindly entertain, as if they came Messengers from Heaven, but throw them off with that Violence that we ought to do Temptations from Hell! Should we be proud of that which is a Defect of our Nature, and supposes a Defect in the Understanding? that which we never did Good by? that which all our Evil came by? that which removes all Excusableness from our Evil?

I Insist more on this for the Use it may have, than the need of it for an Argument; for the Will being limited to the Un­derstanding, as shall be afterwards prov'd, Ignoti nulla Cupido, it is only indifferent about trifles, or what the Understanding thinks so; the Concerns of Salvation and Happiness are none of its Objects as such; when God puts Life and Death, that is the Means of them, to our Choice, we count them foolish­ness, until God give an Understanding; when we discern them of such a Concern, indifferency is gone.

I come now to those Prerogatives falsely attributed to the Will of Man, that is the Sink of all the Spiritual Pride and shamefull Boasting in sinfull Man. I may reduce them to these four:

1. A Freedom from all Necessity, essential to the Will of Man.

2. A Freedom from the Empire of God as to Fact, though not Duty.

3. A Freedom from the Conduct of the Understanding.

4. Freedom to all kind of things whatsoever, sensitive, ratio­nal, spiritual, heavenly.

First, That a Freedom from all Necessity, or a Freedom of Indifferency, is not essential to the Will of Man.

1. That Liberty is only Essential to the Will of Man, that renders him worthy of Reward or Punishment, Praise or Blame, by reason of his Actions; but a Man is thus free and thus de­serving in his most necessary Actions, which admits of no indif­ferency; for Man pursues his ultimate and Supreme Happiness necessarily, nothing can desire to be miserable. Enjoyment of [Page 69] God in the most intimate Fellowship we are capable of, is our greatest Happiness, and yet it is worthy of greatest praise to pursue this end: when a Man's Self, either Self-will, Self-plea­sure, or Self-profit, seems to him the last End, he necessarily pur­sues it, and yet is worthy of Reproof and Punishment for it. Self-Denial is the highest Vertue, and Self-seeking the greatest Sin. Moreover, when any thing appears either as an only or a necessary Means to obtain this great End, being formally consi­dered as such, is as necessarily pursued as the End it self. If our Understandings were Illuminated, we would as necessarily and as fervently seek an Interest in Christ the Mediator, as in God the End: We are as much bent and determined to Food, as to preservation of our Life.

(2) When all Necessary Causes are presupposed in Act, the the Effect must necessarily follow: Therefore if Divine influ­ence, and the attractive Power of the Object be set forth by the most clear Light in the Understanding, the Will must be perswaded; or else it must not be a perswadable Appetite, if any reason can be given why it was not moved by these Argu­ments, then all Necessary Causes are not in Exercise; if none can be given, the Will is not a reasonable Appetite, but our Experience speaks the contrary, that when we refuse a thing one day, and embrace it another, it is by more seriously weigh­ing the Matter, and find it appears more suitable to us.

(3.) What is Essential to a thing, is inseparable from it, universally and perpetually agreeing to the whole Species; but this Indifferency is not so to a Will, for the Will of God is not indifferent to Good and Evil, nor the Will of Christ, whose Righteousness was Meritorious, nor the Will of Angels, who do most freely Praise their Maker.

(4.) What is Essential to the Will as in other things, is most visible when the Will is in its greatest perfections, as hardness in a Marble, not Lead; whiteness in Snow; therefore the Essential Perfections of the Will are most visible in God and Christ, Angels and Saints, that are most determinate in their Designs and Actions.

(5.) What is Essential to the Soul, is best known when it is most perfect, for Defects make not up the Nature of any thing. Christ was a Man, tho not sinful, therefore Sin is not a Necessary Property of Man. Man is a reasonable Creature, [Page 70] tho' there are many Fools or Mad-men; and it is as reasonable to draw the Essentials of a Spirit from the Common Observati­ons of a sinful Man Unregenerate, as from the Common Obser­vation of Fools or M [...]d-men. The Will is in its greatest Perfe­ction when in exercise, for Acts do perfect our Faculties, and when the Soul acts most sweetly and fervently, there is the least Indifferency; for the Efficacy of the Action removes its languid­ness, and the sweetness all its fluctuation; and whenever the Will acts, it is determined; for, Quicquid est, quando est, ne­cessario est; and much more determinate it is, when in a State of Giory, acting without Weariness and Intermission.

(6.) What is Essential to the Soul, is best known when in exercise about its proper and most principal Object; the Eye about Light, the Ear about Sounds, the Intellect about Truth, and the Will about Good. We search the Nature of Sight, ra­ther in the Eye of an Eagle than of an Owl, because it looks on the Sun the principal Object; the other through its weak­ness sees with greatest ease in a Twilight. So the Will is to be Considered rather as it Acts about its Ultimate End, than about Means; rather about a Chief Good than a Doubtfull Good; rather about God in most Clear Vision, than in this World, where so much Darkness.

(7.) That cannot be Essential to the Will that is Inconsistent with its other Properties in their Perfection, but this Indifferency is inconsistent with a previous Judgment, without all Fluctuation or Obscurity; for what Aversion and Appetite is in the Will, that Affirmation and Negation is in the Intellect, the one bears the same respect to Good that the other bears to Truth; Doubt­fulness in the one, and Indifferency in the other, are both De­fects.

Lastly, That is not Essential to the Soul which it desires to be remov'd, Eph. 5.19. No man ever yet hated his own flesh: In­differency is an Impediment and Hinderance to Action, like the waving of the Scales, which is no Principle to, but an Impediment of Action: We Love, quod facilitat facere, not what hinders us. Time is consum'd in Deliberation; Shall I? Shall I? does no Business: we strive and struggle to come to a Determinateness, therefore that must be the Perfection, the other a Defect, a Companion of Ignorance and Uncertainty.

[Page 71]2 Prop. The Will of Man is not free from the Empire and Government of God, neither as to Law or Fact; as to the for­mer there is no dispute, the latter these Arguments may Con­firm. (1.) Man would be then an ungovernable Creature, which is a great Absurdity: for God intended the Care and Go­vernment of the Creatures he made, he could not make him Happy or Miserable in Spirit, if not free his Will, and would he make one that might disorder his Harmony, and frustrate his Designs, whether God would or no? (2.) Such a Power in Man would limit an Infinite Being; it would limit his Will, he worketh all things according to the Counsel of his Will, Eph. 1.11. The distinction has Absurdity enough in it, of those who say 'tis true in Natural things, but not in things Moral. (3.) It limits God's Power as to all Civil Affairs in the World; for still his designs must depend on the Inclination of Man. (4.) The Knowledge of God: This Conclusion is so apparent, for what is uncertain in it self, cannot certainly be known; that Poieret denies God's foreknowledge of Sin, and that until it came to pass, there was not one Thought or Idea of it in God: And Pompo­natius denies his Knowledge of Future Contingencies. (5.) It would both rob God of much Praise and Glory, and rob poor Sin­ners of much Hope and Comfort: For

1. The Doctrine of Perseverance is undetermined by it: No Person could have any Assurance from his highest Attainments in Grace. Paul could not have had any Confidence of God's per­fecting the begun Work of Grace, Phil. 1.6. if that had been true: Nor Peter have concluded God's establishing, strengthning and settling the dispersed Jews, from their being called, 1 Pet. 5.10. Those Chains of Grace between Predestination, Calling, Justifi­cation and Glory, would be very easily solvible.

(2.) God's Providential Care, [ Mat. 6.31. If God so cloath the Grass of the field, shall he not much more cloath you, Oh ye of little Faith?] is overthrown by it.

(3.) The Work of Conversion, [ Luke 11.25. I thank thee, O Father, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed unto Babes:] is derogated from Go [...] by i.

(4.) The Scripture positively asserts the contrary, both in Morals and Spirituals: Exod. 34.24. Neither shall any Man de­sire thy Land, when thou shalt go up to appear before the Lord thy [Page 72] God, thrice in the year. There was then a brave opportunity for the Enemies to invade Israel, when all the Males were at Jerusalem, and not one Man in all the Land, not one Man in all the Countrey left to defend any Fort, Passage, City, or Ca­stle; the Lord promiseth not only that he would protect it, which he could have done by many miraculous ways, but he promiseth though they should fight against it all the Year over, yet at that time they should not desire it. John 6.44. No man can come to me except the Father draw him; every Man there­fore that hath heard and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. Phil. 2. He worketh to will and to do. Psal. 110. The people shall be willing in the day of thy power. Jer. 20.9. Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed; the manner how is expressed before; O Lord, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: But the Original is, Thou hast enticed or overperswaded me. Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his Name; but his word was in my heart as a burning fire; I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.

(5.) The Efficacy of Effectual Calling is ascribed to the Ef­ficacy of Divine Influence on the Heart of Man, and not to Man's Will, or the Rethorick of Ministers: 1 Cor. 2.4. that Efficacy is call'd a Powerful, Spiritual Demonstration, there is a tripple Demonstration; the one is to our Sense, when we see with our Eye, and hear with our Ear; the other is to Reason, when the Connection between Terms, or Properties of things are clear and evident; but this third Kind seems to be the Lords immediate proposing clear Apprehensions of the thing to the Soul of Man, which is called a speaking to the Heart, Hos. 2.14. I will allure her, and will sp [...]ak to her Heart: which is particularly described 2 Cor. 3.18. 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. There is first the Image or Idea, which is a Glorious and ravishing Apprehension of God. Secondly, There is the Glass wherein this Idea is represented, which is either the Scripture, as the Mean of Conveyance, or rather the Intellect of Man, because it is by an immediate Efficiency of the Spirit: and the Apostle is discoursing of the Jews, who had that Glass of the Scripture, but could not receive this Idea into their Minds from it, by reason of a Vail on their Minds; they were [Page 73] blinded: but this Vail is done away in Christ. So there is a double operation, the first is a disposing of the Mind, so as these Objects may be suited to it; for there is no Love but where there is a Likeness. Different Pallats reli [...]h different Dishes; the Eye cannot be made to see by outward light, with­out a due Disposition for receiving and reflecting this Light: the Pharisees could see no takingness in the Doctrine of Humi­lity, while they received Honour one of another; nor any good­ness in Charity, while they remained Covetous: The Gentiles thought the Gospel foolishness, while they judged their own imperfect Rigeteousness acceptable to God, or their Sins so small, that the loss of a Beast in a Sacrifice could make a suf­ficient recompense. And so it is said of every Natural Man, that the things of God are foolishness unto them, and that they cannot discern them, because they are spiritually discerned: But when he is Spiritual, he discerneth all things. So this subjective Influence is the making of a Man Spiritual, which is call'd a New Creation, a Regeneration, a Resurrection. The third thing is the Author of this Perswasion, or of this Image raised in the Mind, the Spirit of the Lord. The fourth thing is the infl [...]ence it hath upon the Soul; we are changed into the same Image: So that whe­ther the Objective Operation, or the Subjective, have the pre­cedency, is a Question among Divines. But this Text sets the amiable, and most perswading and charming Object of God, presented to the Soul, as that which moulds the Soul in a like­ness to its self; as we see in Bodily things passionately seen, marks a Child in the Womb of the Mot [...]er: This is call'd, A drawing with the Cords of a Man; that is, not by Violence, as with Cart-ropes, but with bands of Love, Hos. 11.4. and the constraining Power of Love, 2 Cor. 5.14. And when the Word is blest to be an Instrument of it, it is called an ingrafted Word, or a Divine Seed. Lastly, This Doctrine of Denying God an Absolute Empire and Government over the Will of Man, to turn it which way he will, and when he will, (though he doth not so always, which is called his Permission) it doth discou­rage the Duty of Prayer, and emasculate our Faith and H [...]pe; how faintly and hopelesly should we beg Counsel of God for success in our Affairs, our choice of Means for attaining our End, if this be true? For the answer that we expect, is God's inclining our Wills to choose methods that he will prosper, [Page 74] or inclining the Hearts of others to favour us; as Abraham's Ser­vant prayed, Gen. 24.14. that the Damsells Words and Actions, and his own Words too, and Thoughts towards her, might be determined of God. To how little purpose should the Church pray, Draw me, and we will run after thee; turn us, and we shall be turned; and David, Incline my Heart to thy Testimonies; if it were not in the Power of God to answer their Desires? In what a Despairing Condition should poor Souls be, who know the Deceitfulness of their own Hearts, the Brittleness of their Resolutions, and their own Impotency for removing of that Prejudice and Antipathy they have against that Necessary Work of a thorough Repentance, and Universal Mortification or Self-Denyal? It is therefore ill Divinity of the Molinists, who as they say, ‘God did not foreknow sin before it came to pass; so they also assert, "He could not have prevented it, if he had foreknown it, because Establishing Grace must follow an Habit.’

3 Prop. The Will of Man is not free from the Guidance and Conduct of the Understanding. Limborgh the now great Cory­pheus of the Arminians, asserts the Will of Man after all Deli­berations of the Mind, and fixed Purposes of the Judgment, re­mains free to follow those Dictates, or brutally and unreasona­bly to forsake their Conduct by suspension, or acting the quite contrary; but the contrary of this has been the Opinion of Ancient Philosophers, who say, [...]: All Men do all things because they seem good to them, pleasant or profitable: And as Dr. Lock says, ‘A Man can­not but choose what he likes best, and what likes him best that he calls the best Good, and what displeaseth him most that he calls the greatest Evil, and a thing only can appear pleasing or displeasing, Good or Evil, by the light of the Understanding.’ It's true, the Disposition of our Mind or Bodies have great Influence upon the Intellect, as a Glass of Spring-water to one in a Feavour appears the pleasantest thing in all the World. But, (2.) A greater Authority than Humane asserts this Point, 1 John 2.9. He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his Brother, is in darkness even 'till now: Ch. 4.8. He that loveth not, knoweth not God: There the Spirit of God asserts the Will, and consequent Practice necessarily to follow an en­lightned Understanding; and on the contrary, Eph. 4. Aliena­tion [Page 75] of our Minds from God necessarily does follow Darkness in the Understanding; and elsewhere, If they had known the Lord of glory, they would not have Crucified him: If Jerusalem had known what had belonged to her Peace, she would have pursued it; if the God of this World did not blind Mens Minds, they would obey the Gospel. (3.) Preaching, Exhortation, Counsel and Advice, would be improper Means for Reforming of Men; the Ministry would be an useless Ordinance, if Men were not guid­ed by their Understandings; for suppose that Fort was gain'd, nothing at all was gain'd, for the Will would remain in its freedom, whether to be guided by it or no; a Man might be thus spiritually a wise understanding Man, and yet a wicked unconverted Man, but the usual Phrase of a wicked Man in Scripture is a Fool. (4.) This would allow of another Varie­ty of Creatures the World has not known, to wit, a Creature with a Free-Will without an Understanding; for if they can act separately, they may be separate. (5.) The Unity between the Will and the Understanding, they being both the same in­divisible Soul, does not admit of the Inclinations of one part contradicting the Inclinations of the other; they are but two different Denominations from different Objects. The Soul con­versing about Truth is call'd Ʋnderstanding, about Good is call'd Will, they are so linked and interwoven, that there is a Will in the Understanding, and Understanding in the Will; for there is an Inclination to Truth, that is Will; and there is a Sense of Good, an impression of it self upon the Mind, this is In­tellect; the Will is a rational Appetite, and the Understand­ing is an Appetizing Reason: How can therefore one act inde­pendently from the other? We may see it in this Instance of Hope and Joy; Hope is the Opinion of a future Good in the Understanding, Rejoicing is the Disposition of the Will that this Idea or Appearance works: Now is it possible for us not to fear on the appearance of a future Evil, or to rejoice on the appearance of a future Good? and what are all these Affecti­ons and Passions that do variously arise upon the various ap­pearance of Good and Bad, but the various Motions of the Will? the Will is the Soul's Inclination, the Soul's Inclination is Love, the Passions are Love's different Postures, like the variegated Light in the Rain-bow, embracing Beauty fainting under De­spair of Fruition, taking Courage in its wrestling with the Im­pediments [Page 76] that lye in the way to its End, when it finds them Conquerable, and begins to surmount them: The strongest of Objections against this, seems (1.) to be Experience, Video me­liora proboque, deteriora sequor: ‘I see better things, and ap­prove them, but I cannot but follow my old ill Course.’ In such Instances the Inclinations of the Will seem to fight against the Dictates of the Understanding. Resp. Solomon observed the Nature of this Experience more narrowly than a Medea or a Vir­gil, and he expresseth it thus, Prov. 13.4. The Soul of the Sluggard desireth and hath nothing: Hath is added by the Translators; if we let the Text supply it self, it is thus, The Soul of the Sluggard desireth, and not; to wit, desireth: The Opposition is in the same faculties, a Desire and not a Desire, a Will and not a Will: There is the Vacillation of the Judgment, as well as the Velleity of the Will. The Contention is about the Object, not about the Faculty: So far as our Judgment is for the thing, so far our Will is for it: If there be a [...], there will be a [...], that is, a true Repentance; when the Judgment is so far alter'd to see the Evil of the former Actions; whereas, there may be great Deceit in Grief and Sorrow rais'd upon the consequent Circumstances of some evil Action. (2.) Object. Then we should seem to need no Grace, but that of Light to our Understanding. Resp. This Objection is founded on a false Supposition, that the Will and Understanding of the Soul are like different parts of the Body, Head, Hands and Feet; it is impossible for the Soul to receive any Grace but what has an in­fluence upon it all, and yet the Scripture tells us, this is the man­ner of Grace's influence, viz. To renew the Will by enlightning the Mind, 2 Cor. 3.18. (3.) Obj. Stat pro ratione voluntas; that we often have no other Reason of our acting but our meer Will, or as some say, I will, because I will. Resp. That saying either is the saying of a Polititian, who means he will Conceal his Reason, or of a Fool that knows not what he says. (4.) Obj. Ignorance much excuseth a Fault, but if our Wills did always follow our Intellects, then all our Sins would be Sins of Ig­norance, and so not so full of Aggravation as otherwise. Resp. The Scripture calls all our Sins Errors, Heb. 9.7. Which he offer­ed for hims [...]lf and the Errors of the People: And both the Hebrew word [...], and th [...] Greek [...], signifie to Mistake or Err; and the very first sin of Man is called, a being deceived. 2. There [Page 77] is an Ignorance that aggravates as well as an Ignorance that excuses; for he that has given Diligence and Pains to know the Will of God and State of his own Soul, he that has attend­ed upon Ordinances for encreasing the Knowledge thereof, is less guilty than he who remains Ignorant of what the other knows by his Negligence.

I sh [...]ll conclude this with these two Inferences: 1. That there then was an Error or Mistake in the first sin of Angels as well as Man; tho' they had no Outward Tempter, yet their own glistering Beauty and glorious Excellencies appearing in their own Mind, were too abstractly Considered, and too precipi­tantly doted upon. 2. That the great Object of our Prayers and Diligence should be to attain true Knowledge. Wisdom is the principal thing; we ought daily to Watch at her Gates, that the Eyes of our Ʋnderstanding may be enlightened, that we may know what is the Hope of his Calling, and what is the Riches of the Glory of his Inheritance; to know more of God's Love and Power to­ward them that believe, to know more of the Beauty of Holi­ness, Vileness of sin, and Vanity of the Creature.

The fourth Proposition is, That the Will of Man is not free to all things: Every thing is Confin'd to its own Sphere, the Carnal Man to Carnal things, the Spiritual Man discerneth all things, yet that is Confin'd to spirituals here below; for nei­ther Peter nor Paul could Converse rationally about Heavenly things. This necessarily follows from the former Proposition, viz. That the Will of Man is confin'd to the Understanding: Indeed the Appetite is in this sense larger, that it Craves a great­er Good than the Eye of the Mind can point out to it; but in particular Choice and Prosecution it can only seek after such as the Mind demonstrates to it: Ignoti nulla cupido; and it will be further prov'd under the last Topick, viz. Man's Impo­tency.

The third Topick, or General Argument for our Humili­ty, is our Guilt. This is the Argument the Apostle insists so largely upon, to prove by it, that we are not justifi'd by Works, or to render the Gospel which brings the Tydings of a Justification by Faith more acceptable. First, We are Na­turally guilty, Eph. 2.3. and we are by Nature the Children of wrath, even as others; a Child of Wrath is one liable to Wrath, [Page 78] or guilty of Wrath, as Judas is called a Son of Perdition, Joh. 17.12. And so we read of a Son of Hell, Mat. 23.15. and Chil­dren of the Curse. 2 Pet. 2.14. Deut. 25.2. a Child of beating, is translated worthy to be beaten. But the great Controversie is, What is meant by being thus liable to Wrath by Nature? There be two ways that they who deny Original Sin explain it: First, some say it signifies only truly Children of wrath, as in Gal. 4.8. By Nature were no Gods. Resp. 1. We grant they are truly so, but where doth ever the word Nature signifie no more? For these Gods wanted a Divine Nature, Spirituality, Independen­cy, &c. and the Rule of interpreting Scripture, is to let eve­ry word signifie as much as it can. 2. The obviated contrary would be such as none ever pretended, viz. and were in Opini­on the Children of Wrath even as, &c. the Jews were not in their own Opinion thus, Gal. 2.5. A second way is: By Cu­stom Children of Wrath; they found their Interpretations on these two things: The Context speaks of their Conversa­tion. 2. The word Nature signifies sometimes Custom, 1 Cor. 11.14. Nature teaches that if a Man have long hair, it is a shame unto him. Resp. 1. He mentions two kinds of Sins beside Con­versation, viz. Flesh and its Lusts, Wills or Desires, by way of Genealogy succeeding one another. 1. Flesh. 2. Lusts. 3. Con­versation or Fulfillment of them. There are two things here to be proved, That we are Flesh Antecedent to any Custom. 2. To be Flesh is to be sinful. For the former, see John 3.3. every thing born of flesh is so, 1 Cor. 3.3. it's common to Man as Man in this State: — are ye not carnal, and walk as men? For the latter, see Rom. 8.6, 7, 8, 9. The Apostles design is to prove, that the Jews were not only as guilty as the Gentiles in Conversation, but in Lusts and fleshly Dispositions; and so naturally Acts are before Custom, but a natural Principle before Acts. It's Na­ture before Custom teaches that Lesson, which brings forth long­er and more Ornamental Hair in Women than Men; Rev. Its a Natural Character of distinction of Sexes. 2 Custom is called second Nature; Like Nature, or acquired Nature; not Nature simply, and teaches nothing of this Matter: for in some Countreys Men nourish and dress it, in others not; but Nature constantly distinguishes; and these distinguishing Characters are called Nature, Rom. 1.26, 27.

Two Ways Nature is most usually taken: (1.) For the Inter­nal Causes, the Principium, motus, the Disposition or Constituti- of a thing. Rom. 2.14. The Gentiles do by Nature the things of the Law. Or (2.) for Birth, as Rom. 2.27. The Gentiles are the uncircumcision by Nature, in opposition to the Jews, who by Birth had the priviledge of Circumcision belonging to them, Gal. 2.15. Both these are here comprehended, the Arguments for it are these: (1.) Flesh and Nature here seem to be one thing; for the reason of our being Children of Wrath, is, because we had our Conversation in the lusts of the Flesh By Flesh in Scripture is understood, that Natural byass and tendency to Carnal things that is in every Man from his Birth: Hence it's call'd a fleshly Mind, a Carnal Mind; and, in my flesh dwells no good thing; and this fleshly Disposition is Nature to us, for whatsoever is born of the flesh is flesh. There is substantial Flesh, of which we are born, and then there is this fleshly disposition, that is, the property: As it is said, That what is born of the Spirit is Spirit: The one is the Holy Ghost, the other a Holy Habit in the Mind. So as the Seed of Grace in a Regenerate Man is called the Divine Nature: So this Flesh or Carnal Disposition, it is our Corrupt Nature, and it is called Flesh from its opposition to the Spirit: for as Substances, Flesh and Spirit are opposite in the Scripture, so also Spiritual and Carnal Disposition; untill a Man hath a higher principle, he only can converse about Carnal things: Carnal and Earth­ly things are equivalent, they did partake of your Carnal things: So Galat. 6.12. 2 Cor. 5.16. Phil. 3.3. The strength of the Ar­gument lies thus: That since by our Birth, and by our Natu­ral Disposition, we are Carnal, therefore by our Birth and Na­tural Disposition we are liable to Wrath. By our Birth we are Flesh, John 3.3. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and the Text says this Flesh renders us liable to Wrath.

(2.) We are liable to Wrath from all the successful Temp­tations of the Prince of the Air: for all the results, saith the Context, are Disobedience. Now Satan both can and doth act us before any acquired Custom or Habit; and according to the Common Notions of the Soul, there is no apparent repugnancy why his suggestions may not be thrown into the Soul, and suc­ceed too before we are born.

[Page 80](3.) Nature and Grace here are opposed, as Comprehending the two entire States of Man by Nature; you are the Chil­dren of Wrath, but by Grace you are saved. So Nature compre­hends the whole of a Mans Life before Grace, else he may be sav'd without Grace; except Nature were taken in this sense, his Argument would be in two considerable Points defectible: 1. In shewing, as to Eternal Concerns, that by Birth and Na­ture the Jews and Gentiles condition were alike, as well as by Conversation. 2. In depressing the Jews false grounded Pride, who reckon'd all the Seed of Abraham in a sinless Condition untill adult, Gal. 2.15. Is it supposable, that when the for­mer is so true, and the latter so dangerously false, and both the Apostles design in the very place, that there should be no­thing in his Argument to signifie them, or that when no word more proper than this word Nature could be thought on, that that word should be us'd in a most improper sense?

I might add four more to enforce this: 1. Authority. Austin and Prosper did interpret this Text of Original Sin. 2. Etymo­logy; the word Children is changed, it is not the same that in the second is called Children of Disobedience, but [...], which signifies our Birth. 3. The other Texts of Scripture, Psal. 5. and Job, I was conceived in Sin, and born in Iniquity: Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? 4. Matter of Fact: Infants dye, suffer Miseries, Pains, that are the Effects of Wrath in Scripture Language, if they were not lyable to them, how should they generally and frequently suffer them?

2ly. We are personally guilty: To prove that all Men are guilty, is, because the Scripture describing the Heraldry of our Sinfulness, doth not derive it from our Actions, but derives the Evil of our Actions from our Persons. We are Corrupt trees, and therefore bring forth Corrupt fruit. That which cometh out of a man defiles a man; and Satan like, when he speaks a lye, speaks his Own, John 8 44. If God from a Man's Birth do de­termine his Will, and so sanctifie him, it may stop this Course, but being left to himself, he cannot but sin, for Nature will follow its own Course. For the Wicked drink in Iniquity as the fish do the water; they go astray from the Womb, speaking lyes; and being left to himself, as soon brings shame, as Wise Solomon observes: Mat. 12.3, 4. being evil, ye cannot speak good: — An evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. Tit. 1.15. [Page 81] Ʋnto them that are defil'd every thing is impure: Prov. 21.4.27. the plowing and praying of the Wicked are Sins; Hag. 2.12. they defile whatever they touch; the dead Carkass, and other defiling things under the Law did typifie them. The Nature of God is the Rule of ours, antecedently to his Will, being the Rule of our Actions, and the want of Conformity to the Rule is a Sin, and where the want of his Image is, there is the want of a Likeness or Conformity to him; this may be called a Perso­nal Guilt, antecedent to our Guilt by Actions, and is a Con­firmation of the former, and much of the same Nature with it.

3dly. We are universally Guilty: This is the Apostles great and demonstrative Argument, to prove that we are not justified by Works. (1.) He supposes Salvation possible, attainable. (2.) That a Righteousness was necessary to it; for the Judge could not be just in justifying the Unjust. (3.) This Righteousness must be inherent or imputed; a Righteousness to be believ'd, or a Righteousness to be done by us; a Righteousness by Works or Faith; by our own Righteousness, or anothers; by a pro­per Righteousness, or Vicarious, what Soveraign Authority in Justice might accept in its room; the former is by the Law, the latter is by the Gospel: the former is that the Apostle rejects with most industrious pains, and strenuous proof. For it's a disjunction that admits of no Medium; if guilty by the Law, only sav'd by the Gospel. (4.) He proves, that we are universally guilty as to the Law.

(1.) The Gentiles are, from Chap. 1.18. to Chap. 2.17. Because they knew God, but did not glorifie him; they detain'd the truth in unrighteousness; they condemn'd in others what they did them­selves, their Conscience accus'd them for transgressing the Law wrote on their minds.

(2.) He proves the Jews guilty, and that in measure above the Gentiles, from Ch. 2.17. to Ch. 3. From their ha­ving more Knowledge and worse Lives, by which they made the Gentiles blaspheme their Religion, and the Author of it. 2. By doing the same things, or things of like Nature, they taught from the Law of God was not to be done. After the obviating of an Objection against that Argument, from Ch. 3. to v. 9. he there begins a New Argument, to prove all guilty to v. 20. by the Authority of the Old Testament, the Jews [Page 82] and Christians, only owns the strength of the Argument; but it's Conclusive Universality, doth not only prove the Jews are guilty, but all, v. 9. both Jews and Gentiles, v. 10. None righ­teous, no not one; v. 19. All the World guilty before God: The Citations are so interwoven as to guard against all Excepti­ons: Negatively, None righteous; Positively, All gone out of the way; Subjectively, understanding, none understandeth: Will; none seeketh after God; Words, v. 13.14. Their throat is an open Sepul­chre, &c. Works, v. 15. Their feet are swift to shed blood: Obje­ctively, against Men, v. 16. Destruction and misery are in their ways: Against God, viz. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Which may sufficiently discover the unreasonableness of their Opinions, who to limit this Guilt, and make some room for Works in Justification, say, The Guilt and Works here spoken of are only against the Ceremonial Law, others against the Judicial and Civil Constitution of the Jews; others the Moral only, as abstractly consider'd from Evangelical, in Strength or Duty: But more of this on Verse 4.

4thly, Not only Ʋniversally guilty, but Numerously guilty: Every Man is not only guilty of Sin, but the account of his Sins are Innumerable: For first, the Actions of our Life are innumerable, together with the words of our Tongues, and Thoughts of our Mind; and there is a sinfulness accompanying each of these. We must give an account of every idle word, Mat. 12.36. and all our Actions are to be set before us, and how will then the Sinner be humbled, when his aggravated Talents, or Sins, amount to ten thousands, and no coming out till all be paid? Mat. 18.24, 34. how much more numerous must Farthing-Debts be? And yet Mat. 5.26. there is no coming out till the ut­termost farthing be paid. (2.) God as a Punisher, or as a Par­doner, he reckons the multitude of every Transgressors Sins great, Gen. 6.5. The Deluge was sent on the Old World be­cause every thought of the imagination of their Heart was only evil con­tinually. The Captivity was sent on the Jews, Ezek. 16.25.51. because their Whoredoms were encreased, and she had multiplyed her Abominations more than Samaria: Nay Samaria had not commit­ted half the Sins. When God forgives Sins, he forgives many Sins: All manner of Sin and Iniquity shall be forgiven: Luke 7.47. I say unto thee, her Sins which are many, shall be forgiven, Rom. 5.16. The free gift is of many offences unto Justification: James 5. [Page 83] and last, He that Converts a Sinner, hides a multitude of Sins.

3. The Saints own account of their Sins, or rather Vain At­tempts to account of them, Job 9.2, 3. We cannot answer for one of ten thousand; ten thousand was one of the least parcells he could put by their selves. David, Psal. 19.12. Who can under­stand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Psal. 40.12. Innumerable evils have compassed me about, mine Iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up: Solomon, Eccles. 7.27. One would expect the best account of him of any body, if he should lay out his Talent of Wisdom that Way, which after he became a Penitent, or one gathered into the Church, as the Hebrew Phrase is, he did; for Verse 25. he says, I applied my Heart to know the wickedness of folly, even of Wickedness and Mad­ness; Ver. 27. he says, This he had found, counting one by one, to find out the account, which yet my Soul, saith he, seeketh, but I find not. That is, he found the account of Sin was not to be found out; but this he found, Verse 29. that they were many, they had sought out many inventions, and that God was Author to none of them.

4. The Similitudes they are compared with, the Hains of our head, Psal. 40.12. the drops of a living Spring, the Sand on the Sea-shore, as the words of Manassehs Prayer hath it. The very Tongue it self, saith St. James, is a World of Iniquity; the Di­mensions of Sin are high as Heaven, Ezra 9.6. Deep as Hell, Hos. 9.9. Psal. 130.1. Its Breadth and length are such as nothing but the Incomprehensible heighth, depth, length and breadth of the Love of Christ can cover.

5. We may know the Number of our Sins by the Books of Accounts, that the great Auditor of Accounts Christ Jesus will make use of at the great day: There is the Book of Scripture, that contains the Law, and so teaches us Skill in this Holy Arithmetiek; the second is the Book of Conscience, which is like our Diary, Rom. 2.14. and has all Matter of Fact wrote in it: By comparing these together, every Man may get sight of a huge and terrible Number of Sins. First for the Law, it is ex­ceeding broad; but yet there is an opposite Law in our Members, that is as broad as it; for there is no Law but we have some way or other broken, and that by a nigher Transgression than by that Rule the Apostle gives; he that transgresses one is guilty of all: This Law has a famous Division in Ten Commandments; but the Jews subdivide them into 613 Ceremonial and Judicial Precepts, [Page 84] and so may we in as many particular Moral ones: As for Instance, Thou shalt have no other Gods before me, Comprehends our Faith in God and all his Promises; and who can reckon the number of Promises, Blessings? Secondly, Knowledge and Study of God; and who can reckon the various parts of Divinity? Thirdly, Love of God, and this should be as much repeated as his Mercies are to us, that admit of no Intermission. Fourthly, Adoration, and this admits as many parts as there are things unknown of the Incomprehensible God, or as there are New Discoveries made of them. Fifthly, Obedience, and this is as large as all particular Precepts: Sixthly, Farther, if we shall take one of these particu­lar Commands, they admit of Variety of Kinds of Transgres­sions against them; for Instance, Adoration, Atheism, Idolatry, Magick, Superstition, Blasphemy, Hypocrisie, are all Trans­gressions of that Duty; and yet there is none of these Species of Sins, but may be subdivided into multitude of Inferior Branches. For Instance; Idolatry; Men have been as many ways guilty of it as there are Creatures, the very Mouse has been Worshipped, and Art has been put on the Rack for Invention of Kinds of Molten, Carved, Painted Idols, or Images: There has been va­riety of Idols, for all the Ends or Uses Man wanted any good: There has been Gods of Sneezing, there has been as many Idols as there are things that Men set their Hearts too much upon Profits, Pleasures, Honours. If we will next take the other Book of Conscience, and search how often we commit Idolatry with what is our Idol, which by our practice we perpetually pursue; We talk on it, we think on it, we dream on it; who can then reckon the multitude of his Transgressions? If our Consciences be secure, and we reckon our selves pretty Inno­cent from gross abominable Sins, yet this Number might startle us; there are multitudes, Multitudes in the Valley of Decision. We cannot but say, Beelzebubs Sin was the greatest Sin in the World, yet we dare not say 'twas greater than the Sins of all the rest that Complied with him; for they lost God, a vast number of Creatures, and threw Dirt on multitudes of his Glo­rious Images: So thy many Sins have robbed God of many Du­ties. Beside, in the number of our Sins there is not only a bare encrease of Quantity, but there is encrease of Intention with their Extension: As Poyson, or Physick, five Grains at one time will work more than four Grains at two times: So we find, [Page 85] Mat. 18.22. Peter thought eight times was unpardonable; and the Lord says, Numbers 14.22. Because they had ten times re­belled, they should none of them enter into the Land.

Lastly, Constant Multiplication of Sin has a Continuedness of Sin in it, and this is highly provoking to God: As Continued­ness in Prayer prevails with him for Blessings, Continuedness in sinning provokes him to Anger.

5. We are hainously guilty. This accompanies every Sin, its a property of its Nature, thô few see it. When the Apostle had his eyes open to see it, the sight struck him dead: Rom. 7.9. When Sin revived, I dy'd: The Effects of it discovers this, it debases the Soul to slave on Earth, and live on Husks; it de­files the Soul so, that no Nitre can wash it clean; it made the Angels who sparkled like Morning-stars, fall to the ground like a shot, spent Meteor: It disorder'd Divine Government, eclips'd his Glory, destroy'd his Imnge; it ruin'd this World, and laid the Foundation of Hell. It's the Root and Abstract of all other Evils; they live and move by it, they all serve to give it Names, it's Poyson, Vomit, Mire, Darkness, Blind­ness, Folly, Madness, Death, Poverty, Shame and Nakedness. God glories to be the Author of all things, but abhorrs this as a Bastard, Jam. 1.13. never had any hand in its production. Our Lord Jesus Christ glories that he has born all Evil, that he was able and willing to drink the Cursed dregs out of the Cup of our Afflictions, but he would never taste of this. The Saints who but see it's Evil as with one Eye, through a Cranny, prefer the bitterest of Sufferings to the pleasures of Sin, Heb. 11.24. 1 Tim. 5.6. She that liveth in pleasure, is dead while she liveth. The Devil is not worse than Sin has made him; there is no Evil in him but Sin and it's Fruits. The Divine Attributes have Variety of Objects, but Wrath, Hatred is all engross'd on this one Object Sin, and there it acts with such Vigour, as that where it is only imputed, and the Person his only begotten Son, he will not spare him, Rom. 8.32. And its Evil is seen more in its being as contrary to God, as God is to it, Rom. 8.7. It's against his Existence, Rom. 1.30. it hates him, wishes he were not; it's against all his Attributes, all his Laws, all his Favourites. We cannot say it's as bad as God is good, because he can forgive it, ruin it, sanctifie from it; but as he is only good, it is only evil; he is to be Loved for himself, it is to be Hated for it self; [Page 86] and by being against him directly and only: Psal. 5.1. Against thee, thee only have I sinned; it puts on an Infiniteness of Evil, Acts being denominate from their Objects: So we have a twofold In­finiteness in Sin: The Number of Sin, and the Nature of Sin. No wonder there needed an Infiniteness in the Ransom.

6. There are great Aggravations accompany the guilt of eve­ry Sinner, beside the Essential Hainousness of every Sin, and be­sides the particular aggravations that distinguishes one Sinner from another; there are three Circumstances that much swell the guilt of sin, as a tripple addition of Venom to a Toad, that no adult Persons want in some degree. (1.) Sin against Knowledge, Luke 12.47. of this Pagans were guilty: Rom. 1.18, 21. (2.) Against Mercies; of this the Pagans were guilty too, Rom. 1.21. and 2.4, 5. Acts 14.17. Formation in the Womb, Integrity of Mind, Senses and Members, safe Delive­rance, a furnish'd World to come into, a time of Reprieve, and space of Repentance to stay in it. (3.) Voluntariness, bent of Mind: Some would have an Indifferency necessary to the Volun­tariness that makes Man guilty, and what wants this, is no guilt: A Drunken Mans Murder is no sin in their sense, nor an Infants Inclinations, Passions no sins, nor an Adults thoughts, except the prevalency and consent of the Will be to it; but this is very contrary to Scripture: For (1.) It makes Lust a Sin, which is an Inclination before an Act. (2.) The Apostle owns sin where the I or prevalent Will is not: Rom. 7.7, 17, 18. Not I, but Sin in me. (3.) It makes willingly an Aggravation: Heb. 10.26. Rom. 1.28, 32. (4.) If there are Sins of Ignorance, there are Sins without Free-will, for no Freewill without Knowledge. (5.) We are Originally Guilty, but the Apostle leaving this indu­striously out of his Argument, in the first, second, and third Chapter, and treating of it in the Fifth Chapter, by it self, I shall omit, and pass to the last Topick.

I come to the fourth and last Argument, to prove that Man has no Matter of Glorying before God, and that is from his Impotency of doing any good; as he is guilty by sinning for the time past, so it is not in his Power to abstain from sin­ning still: And this Impotency is two-fold, Natural and Mo­ral. Moral Impotency is an Aversion and Antipathy in the Will from a thing, but a Natural Impotency is a Defect in [Page 87] some other Faculty that hinders the Action; Mat. 8.2. the Leper says, Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean: He doubts not the Natural but the Moral Power. Joseph's Bre­thren they hated Joseph, and could not speak peaceably un­to him, the Defect of Power was in the Will, not in the Tongue. That there is this Moral Impotency in Man to any Spiritual Good, is generally granted amongst Protestants, and is founded upon these reasonable grounds: (1.) Because the Scripture lays our Disobedience at the Door of our Wills, Joh. 5.40. You will not come unto me that you might have Life: How often would I have gathered you, but you would not. (2.) Because the Scripture calls this Impotency an Enmity, Romans 8.7. The Carnal Mind is enmity against God, therefore it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be: So Luk. 11.7. The Para­ble says of the Friend, that the Children were in Bed, and he could not rise: And another Parable, Luk. 14. says of the several Rejecters of Christ, That they could not receive him; I have Mar­ried a Wife, and therefore cannot come. (3.) Christ tells the Pha­risees, that they had a Natural Power to know that he was the Messias, because they imployed it about other things that Need­ed more Skill to know them: Mat. 16.3. Ye can discern the Face of the Skye, can ye not discern the Signs of the Times? (4) This Impotency towards Holiness is like the Impotency in God to­wards sinning, but that is only a Moral Impotency; for Om­nipotency is Uncapable of a Natural Weakness, Habak. 1.13. Thou art of purer Eyes than to behold Evil, and canst not look on Iniquity: Titus 1.2. God that cannot lye: This Impotency is a high Perfection, and when the Saints are Regenerate in a likeness to God, they partake of this Aversion to Sin also: Who­soever is born of God doth not Commit Sin, for his Seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin. A Potency to sin is an Imperfection, but an Impotency by which one cannot forbear sinning is the great­est Perfection that can be, Rom. 8.7. Ephes. 4.24. (5.) Our Natural Indisposition or Natural impotency is a farther Proof of this, for things are gratefull or ungratefull to our Taste, ac­cording to the Disposition of our Palat. Our Will is our Spi­ritual Appetite, and according to its Natural Disposition its Sympathy or Antipathy arises. We are a Generation of Vipers, there is Poyson in our Constitution, and being evil we cannot speak good; Mat. 7.18. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [Page 88] can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. This Indisposition is granted both by Arminians and their Antagonists, but the Dis­pute between them, is, Whether 'tis a Sin or no. The Divine Nature in Holiness, Righteousness and Knowledge, is as much the Measure and the Rule of the Disposition of the Mind of Man, as the Divine Law, which is the Copy of that Holy Nature, is the Rule and Measure of Mans Actions; and therefore since Sin is an [...], a Want of Conformity to the Law, there is a sinfulness in our very Natures, though undoubtedly it wants much of the Sinfulness and Guilt that our actual Transgressions have; the one is our Misery and our Grief, the other is Matter of our Repentance and Amendment: It seems to receive a Di­minution in that 5th. of Romans, that they have not sinned after the similitude of Adam. The Scripture elsewhere aggra­vating the Sins of Adult Persons, says, They have Transgressed like Men, but the Original hath it, like Adam. This Moral Im­potency is as unconquerable as Natural Antipathies, Mark 10.25. It is easier for a Camel to go through the Eye of a Needle, than for a rich Man to enter into the Kingdom of God: The Text re­presents a Penetration of Dimensions, which is beyond a Mi­racle, to be easier than for an Unregenerate Man to mortifie his Earthly Inclinations. Transubstantiation is easier to be Be­lieved, than that a Man can Convert himself when he will, tho' receiving all External Helps; for in this young Man here was a good Natural Disposition, Jesus loved him; here was a good Education, All these have I observed from my Youth; here was an excellent Preacher, Jesus Christ himself; here was a Carefull Attention, for he went away grieved at the Proposal of the Choice; Christ offered him Treasure in Heaven for parting with Treasure on Earth, but that he could not do. Lastly, Because the Scripture asserts, that we are made Willing by Divine Power, John 6.44. No Man can come to me except the Father draw him: Psal. 110. Thy People shall be willing in the Day of thy Power: 1 Thes. 1.5. Our Gospel came not to you in Word only, but also in power.

Secondly, There is a Natural Impotency as well as a Mo­ral. (1.) Because this Impotency is in our Natural Consti­tutions, Psal. 51.5. I was shapen in Iniquity, and in sin did my Mother conceive me. Neither the Grammar, nor Sense gather­ed from the Context, will allow David to be bemoaning here his Parents Transgression, for that could not make up a [Page 89] part of his Repentance; and here David doth oppose it unto that Truth that God desired in the hidden and inward Parts of Man: Job 14.4. Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? If the First fruit be Holy, so is the Lump, if the Root be Ho­ly, so are the Branches. We are by Nature the Children of Wrath; read Mat. 7.18. and 12.34. Since this Averseness is born with us, Universal to all, I think it may be call'd Natural, tho' in the Will, so the Moral Impotency is Natural. (2.) The more Moral Impotency that a Man is under, the more Guilty he is: But there is an Impotency in Man to good, that in some part, tho' not wholly, doth excuse Guilt, as the Infants in Nineve. It is said, All dye, because all have sinned, but none can be so Un­charitable towards Poor Infants, whose Impotency is greater than the Adult's, to think that therefore they are more guilty, Rom. 5. (3.) The Invincibleness and Unconquerableness of this Impotency being represented under such an utter Impossi­bility, doth manifest a Defect in all the other Powers as well as the Will, as impossible as for a great Camel to go thorough the Eye of a Needle; it requires as great a Power as Creati­on and the Resurrection of one from the Dead doth, Eph. 1.19. it requires the exceeding greatness of his Power, the Energy of his mighty Power. If all the other Faculties were fitted for their Office, especially the Understanding, it might and would sway the Will, since the Will follows its Conduct, as is prov'd before; for the Gospel proposes such Objects with such a Cer­tainty that would surely Captivate and Conquer the Will, if there were no Defect in discerning it; and Paul the Apostle complains of the Defect of other Powers; To will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. Christ blames the Disciples for the Weakness of the Flesh, when the Spirit was willing: Suppose our Wills intire, our Animal Spirits would not serve us to Obey the Law of Innocency, and this Incapacity is from our sin; so a Man is as Guilty by this Im­potence, as in Omissions of Duty thorough Drunkenness, and I cannot think but a Man is Guilty of Blood that Kills his Neigh­bour in Drink, or doth not deliver him sinking in the Water, because his Drunkenness has made him uncapable, the Impo­tence is voluntarily Contracted: Gal. 5.17. The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would: Was there no Sin in the Impotence, since they were willing? [Page 90] (4.) The Understanding is a distinct Power from the Will, and antecedent in Manner of working, and there is an Impo­tency ascrib'd to it; 1 Cor. 2.14. The Natural Man cannot know spiritual things. The Contrivance of our Salvation, which is the Effect and Glory of Divine Wisdom, appear'd to the Grecian Philosophers seriously Studying the Case, a ridiculous Dream of a weak Brain. Act. 17.19. The Epicureans and Sto­ick Philosophers, tho' they heard him again and again, and tho' his Speech was Divine, yet the Conclusion was Laughter and Mockery: Resurrection of the Dead was a strange and in­credible Doctrine to Pagans; Heaven and Hell, a Day of Judg­ment, and Destruction of this World, were Chimera's and Fancies: Caecil the Philosopher thus: ‘O wonderful Foolish­ness and incredible Boldness! they Contemn present Tor­ments, and yet fear future Pains; they fear not Death, but fear to dye after Death; their Fear is foolish, and their Hope fallacious of Comfort at the revival from Death, for they are not Contented with the furious Opinion of the Dissolution of the World, threatning the very Stars with Fire, but they tell old Fables of a Birth after Death from the Cinders and Ashes.’ Epictetus said, the Galileans were Me­lancholly Persons, who willingly chose Death from Hopes of good things afterward. Christianity appears as foolish to Po­liticians, the spiritual Kingdom of Christ is to them a Castle in the Air: When Pilat, John 18. heard that Christ's Kingdom was not in this World, he thought it was not worth his At­tention, some imaginary Business: Nor had the Vulgar any bet­ter thoughts of it, Joh. 6. they would follow him for Earth­ly Bread, and Crown him for it, but they could not relish his Discourse of Heavenly Bread. The Pagans us'd to call them Atheists, because they had no Temples, Altars, Sacrifices, nor Holy Dayes; an inward Religion in Thoughts was no Religion to them, their gross Minds could not feel it; and they us'd to throw their Ashes in the Rivers, thinking thereby to prevent their Resurrection. An Universal Monarch from among the Jews was no credible Doctrine to a Roman, whose Subjects or Slaves they were, far less to believe him a God and a Savi­our, one rejected by the Jews, Mock'd, Scourg'd and Cru­cifi'd.

The Jews, who enjoy'd Divine Oracles, especially the Pro­phetical [Page 91] ones of such a Prince and Saviour, yet how contemp­tible was the Obscurity of his Life! And what offence was the Cross of his Death to them? and how foolish did his Doctrine appear, John 7. 49! His holy Laws about Loving our Enemies seem'd impossible to practice, and contrary to Heroick Ver­tues, in the Opinion of both Jew and Gentile: Regeneration was a Miracle to a serious Nicodemus. On these Examples, espe­cially that Act. 17. the Apostle seems to reflect in that Assertion, 1 Cor. 2.14. But secondly, the Scripture is most frequent and emphatical in this Assertion, that the Understanding, Eph. 4.17. is,

1. Dark: We are in darkness; but more is said, Eph. 5.8. We are darkness. Some Creatures can see in the dark, that carry a light about with them; but we are dark, yea darkness, Acts 13.41. therefore cannot believe this Work, thô a man should de­clare it unto us: And there is not only Darkness, or some Vail over the Eye, or defect in it, but it is express'd by the want of Eyes, Ears, and Understanding too as to this, Deut. 29.4. An heart to perceive, eyes to see: 1 Joh. 5.20. And hath given us an understanding.

2. Flesh, Mat. 16.18. Flesh and Blood hath not reveal'd it; Fleshly Wisdom, carnally minded, because it can only discern Earthly things.

3. Sick, 1 Tim. 6.4. Corrupt minds; the word signifies sickly, but how? by being destitute of the Truth.

4. Weak, Impotent; We are not sufficient of our selves to think a right thought. The evil of our Thoughts proceed from the weakness of the Mind; there was weakness before Sin: Eve was deceiv'd, beguil'd, much more since Sin. I might form an Argument thus: The Understanding is a distinct Power or Fa­culty from the Will, but there is an Impotence in the Under­standing; therefore there is a Natural Impotency, for a Natu­ral Impotence is an Impotence in another Faculty than the Will: Prov. 24.5. The Wisdom of a Man is his strength. If a Ge­neral had the strength of an Ox, and Courage of a Lyon, what serves it for without Wisdom? therefore Ignorance is weakness; to be Carnally minded is to be weak: The weapons of our War­fare are not carnal, but mighty. There is great Reason we should believe the Scripture in this Point, because the Eye cannot see it self, and the most Ignorant Man thinks he is knowing. The blind Pharisees said, Are we blind also? And Rom. 2.19. they [Page 92] were confident they were sufficient Guides to the Blind. A Fool, a Madman thinks himself Wise; God has given us this Glass to see our Minds in, and undeceive our selves. Further,

5. The Scripture asserts, That the Common Profession of Christianity on an Historical Faith, is a Gift of the Spirit: No Man can call Jesus Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. All those Philo­sophers and Politicians before mention'd, could not see grounds of embracing him until this Gift was given: The spreading of Deism at this time is a great and sad sign of the withdrawing of these gifts. The Protestant Profession sprung out of Popery by such a Light: Nay,

6. Natural Religion is a Divine Gift, Rom. 1.21. and 2.25. God manifests himself, he writes his Laws on our hearts. Since we see some born Fools and Ideots, all might be; Neither for this mans sin nor his Parents sin was he born blind; therefore if for any, it was for Sin common to the whole of Mankind. Now the Scripture shews what makes the difference, John 1. He is the Light that enlightens every one that comes into the World; he has Gifts for the Rebellious, Psal. 68.18. No Man is so bad as he de­serves.

7. The skill of Plowing, Sowing, Trading, are from God: Isai. 28.24. it is both fully and clearly asserted. If then Man by Nature is weak as to these, how much more as to Saving Knowledge, the least Grain whereof, if like a Mustard-seed, initiates in the Kingdom of God, Mat. 13.31. the very Smoke of it is preferable to the Light of most sparkling Gifts, for it will never be quenched. It is specifically distinct from other Knowledge of Scripture by Gift or Acquirement; the one is, to use the Schoolmen's Language, Specie Propriâ, the other is, Specie Aliena; by the one we only know the signs of Divine things, by the other, the things themselves, (or rather in my weak Thought) a more like or nigher Idea of them fram'd by God himself; the one is like the sight of a Picture, the other is like the Person; the one like an Anatomy by Book, the other by immediate Dissection; one like Learning by an Herbal Book, the other by Simpling, tasting of Meat, and tel­ling another of it: The two Persons Thoughts much differ. Job says, I have heard, now I see, Ch. 42. v. 5. and 1 Cor. 2.9. Mat. 11.25. Joh. 14.17, 21. 1 Joh. 5.20.

I can imagine nothing that can be Objected against this but [Page 93] one of these three. 1 Obj. If a Man's Will were right, he could do good enough, and be happy enough without this Knowledge. Resp. One may as well think a Watch can go without the Spring, for the Understanding is the Guide; 2 Cor. 1.12. Not by fleshly Wisdom, but by the Grace of God. According to the kind of Knowledge, Gracious or Fleshly, so the Conversation, Jer. 4.22. Eph. 2.3. Lusts of the mind might be English'd Wills of reasoning: The Will follows that, but that being Corrupt, the Will is a Lust. 2 Obj. If we had a true Will for this Knowledge, we should have it. Resp. Not by pains, for it's the Work of the Spirit, nor by Promise, for we have generally a desire for Knowledge, we would be as wise as Angels; we have an earnest desire for more skill in our Employs and Callings, and as to saving Knowledge God gives to whom, and when he will. 3 Obj. If we have a Will for it, God accepts the Will for the Deed. Resp. This Axi­om admits of Limitation, for it could not be admitted by the Law of Innocence, it's only under the Gospel Constitution, it's on Christ's Account the Will is accepted for the Deed; that is, thrô him the Defect and Imperfection is pardoned: The want of the Deed is then a Sin, it needs a Pardon: So there is a Sin, the Will being suppos'd right; To will is present with me, but how to perform, &c. Rom. 7. Ye cannot do the things that ye would, Gal. 5.17. A second Limitation is, that the Will is accept­ed according to what a Man hath; he must do what he can, else the Will will not be accepted for the rest. From these Texts the fault is not laid on the weak degree of the Will, but on other Powers.

A Fifth Argument for Natural Impotence, is from the One­ness and Unitedness of Soul. The Soul is a Natural principle in the Man, and there is Impotence in every part therefore if in one: If Impotence in the Will is call'd Moral from the Sub­ject, the Will being so, why not Natural by being in the Un­derstanding, or whole Soul? If that be Natural which is born with us, this Impotence is so: If the Texture and Frame of Essential Properties be Nature, as we say Nature will do the Cure, Nature is strong or weak, this is Natural; if that be Natural which is Universal, this is so, Universal in every Man, and part of Man; if all be polluted, all is weak, Sin is a Rust and Dust in the Wheels, Gal. 3.22. All under Sin, [...], [Page 94] 1 Thes. 5.23. Soul, Body and Spirit need Sanctification: Spirit is Judgment, Conscience: and Soul, Affections or Passions, Heb. 4.12. Soul and Spirit are compar'd to Joynts and Marrow, the Animal Spirits are seated in the Marrow; but gross Joynts and Bones of the Body are without: from this Oneness of the Soul, the Argument for Moral Impotence alone appears strong; if a Mans Will were right all were right: This is true, because it cannot be sanctifi­ed or cured alone: It is as true, if a Mans Understanding were Cur'd, all were Cur'd, therefore its Cure is reckon'd the great­est Mercy: Col. 1.12, 13. 2 Tim. 2.25. It's the summ of Conver­sion, Eph. 5.8, 14. Jam. 1.18. to open their Eyes, and turn them from Darkness to Light, is the summ of the Gospel. It's the summ of the Covenant, Jer. 31.34. They shall all know me.

A sixth Argument for Natural Impotency, is from the De­vils Potency over our Souls; he uses a Natural or Physical Ef­ficiency to hinder our Conversion, Eph. 2.2. he works effectu­ally, with an Energy, and there is need of such an Energy to remove him and his influence: Moral Swasion will not Chain Satan; he would become very good, if perswasion would make him leave off tempting: Gal. 2.8. He that wrought effectually in Peter —the same was mighty in me. Before Man's Fall Satan stood without, and used only Moral Swasion, which Man could have resisted and dissented from; but now his Operation is of a superior Kind than by Humane Converse: Eph. 6.12. its call­ed Heavenly, We wrestle against wicked Spirits in heavenly's; so the Marginal reading is: the Text shows its the manner of Opera­tion that is call'd heavenly, as well as the subject, about which he sits on the Imagination, as a Spider on his Web, he can bridle our ruling Faculties as a Man a Horse, and spur him in the most tender and unguarded part, as a Mans way of Con­duct is superiour to that of a Horse, another Horse cannot do so; so Satan is in a superior Order and Rank of Creatures to us, he knows where our Helm stands, and can lay his hand upon it, and turn us at pleasure; we may see it in Lunaticks, whom the Scripture calls possess d, and yet Possession is a more Ex­ternal way, affecting more the Body: for I believe possess'd Persons may be in a State of Grace; it's more an Affliction and Punishment than a Sin, Heb. 2.14. Satan has the Power of death, Heb. 2.14. for any thing I know that Scripture intimates, that [Page 95] he has an active Influence on the Death of every Man: We call it a Natural Death, but it is the Devil, with as active Cau­sality, as if the Executioner cut our Throat: And if Man could resist him either in punishing Soul or Body, he were not a fit Executioner of Divine Wrath: Tho' his influence is inferior to the Operation of the Holy Spirit; for Eph. 6.12, 13. in the power of his might we can resist him, tho' in that only; and tho' Temptation is by way of presenting Objects, yet since he is a powerful Spirit, abides and works within us, we cannot limit it to Objective Influence, nor deny all Physical Influence to Ob­jects, since Satan can even paint them upon the Imagination, and from thence throw his Bombs into the very Soul, and pre­vent our attending any thing that may divert our Thoughts. If one more strong than I set an Object before my Eye or Ear, and keep my Eye-lids open, or not suffer me to stop my Ear, I cannot prevent the Influence of the Object, it's got within the guards; but when Satan is in our imagination, he is much nigher and intimate.

7. The Naturalness of this Impotency may be drawn from the Object, or necessary Way of Divine Operation in Curing this Distemper; which is by presenting the true Image of God and Divine things to the Understanding, before ever the Will can be affected with them: If the Free-will of Man were advan­ced as high as the Pelagians would have it, that is, without re­ceiving the least crack or flaw from Man's Fall, it's Power is on­ly to admit or reject, choose or refuse what's brought within it's ken, or what Objects are proposed in the Understanding: Now no Man can have any Knowledge of heavenly things, ex­cept a Heavenly Being proposeth the Idea of them to the Mind: No Man can learn any thing by meer words, and those Meta­phorical too, and such are the Scriptural Expressions of heaven­ly things. Our Mind must be some way acquainted with the thing it self before it can know it: A Book cannot make a Man an Astronomer without his Globe, nor the Globe either without an immediate contemplating the Stars: If a Traveller had learnt his Geographical Map with the greatest Accuracy and Exactness, he finds his Idea of the Countrey a meer mistake, as soon as he views it with his Eye: God has made our Souls a Mirror, wherein his own Image may be represented as a Looking-glass; Water, or polished Brass represents the Image of Bodies, but [Page 96] they can never do it except the Person immediately approach before them: So God must draw nigh to the Soul before it can discern him: He by his presence produces his own likeness on the Soul; Psalm 17.15. When I shall awake, I shall be satisfied with thy likeness: David knew this by some earnest of it; this made his Soul pant and thirst so for it under the want of it, Psalm 42.2. My Soul thirsteth for God, for the living God, when shall I come and appear before him This Likeness, or Spiritual Image is what the Apostle Paul so much travelled for, Galat. 4.19. Of whom I travel in birth again, until Christ be formed in you: For it seems to be the Knowledge of Christ, from Verse 9. After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God. Our Knowledge saith that Text is more passive than active, to wit, an Impres­sion of the Idea, and this Idea is Christ form'd objectively with­in, or his Glorious Image, 2 Cor. 3.18. not excluding, but ha­ving consequentially to it, a likeness of the Soul to Christ in Holy Qualities: As that Text has it, Beholding his glory we are transformed into the same Image. Without this the Soul is as a Carkass forsaken of the Soul as to Spirituals: To be carnally minded is death; as the dark and dolesome Air forsaken of the Sun, or as the stinking Lanthorn, when the flame is extinct; both these last Arguments are mentioned, John 8.43. Why do ye not understand my Speech? because ye cannot hear my Word, ye are of your Father the Devil. 1. A Denyal of the Act, Ye do not understand my Sermons or Discourses: 2. A denyal of the Pow­er; Ye cannot. 3. The Power of Learning is deny'd, that is the power of Understanding: For Hearers are Learners: Rev. 2. and 3. He that hath an Ear, let him hear: they wanted the Facul­ty represented by the Organ; Therefore speak I to them in Para­bles, because seeing, they see not, and hearing they hear not, nor un­derstand. 4. A Reason of this Impotency is from the Object; My Word, Verse 38. That which I have seen with my Father, and have receiv'd Commission to preach, v. 45. the Truth; John 3.3. things concerning his Kingdom. Rom. 14.17. Righteous­ness, Peace, and Joy in the Holy Ghost. 5. A further Reason why the Truths of the Gospel are an unintelligible Object to an other­wise intelligent Creature, is, Ye are of your Father the Devil; the powers of Darkness have begotten this Darkness and Enmi­ty, that makes up the Constitution of thy Soul: 2 Cor. 4.4. The God of this World hath blinded the minds of them that believe not, [Page 97] least the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ should shine unto them. Psal. 89.15. Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound, they walk in the light of thy Countenance, O Lord. For there is this freedom from Satan, who like a Father propagates an heredi­tary Distemper of Darkness and Hatred about heavenly things in the Soul of his Children; and this Distemper is our Natural Temper, thrô it we are by Nature Children of Wrath.

3dly, As the Averseness of our Will is a Moral Impotency, and the darkness of our understandings a Natural Impotency, so I may add an Habitual Impotency, that in Adult Persons hardens and strengthens both; and this habit has a threefold Spring that feeds it, or a threefold Cord that Chains and Fet­ters the Soul; Education, Custom, and Company.

1. Education; the Soul of Man is a Chamber of Imagery, and as soon as it comes into being, God, or the Devil, or our Senses by their Objects constantly fill it: and he that takes the start, has the greatest advantage, and easiest work, Prov. 22.6. Train up a Child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it. The sooner Parents begin, the more acceptable to God, and the Impressions stick the deeper: There is the more room for them, it becomes a Vessel of Ho­nour or Dishonour, according as Instructers fill it: If we are so impotent to good, that we cannot Conquer any one of those acquired Impediments of Custom, Company, and Education, which might properly be call'd Moral Impotence, and both the other Natural; how much less when we are Chained to Evil by all of 'em, and when they have the Power of Hell to back them, and when they are but as Twigs, or small Grafts from that bulky Stock of our Natural Corruption? and if so impo­tent to good, how little reason of Glorying over what good we find in us, or ascribing any part of it to our selves. If you will seem to set a value on a Rattle, a Child will preferr it to Gold: If you will act fear at the sight of a Friend, the Child will cry. Cartesius complains of the great Impediments in our Progress in Philosophy by Childish prejudices from Education; they do much more injury to Religion; few Parents can instruct their Children, and far fewer doe it. How few can give any reason for their being Dissenters, or Conformists, Protestants or Pa­pists, Christians, Mahometans or Pagans, but their Education, [Page 98] their Parents or their Masters first taught them so: This is a very ill Foundation for Religion.

2. Custom: Jer. 13.23. Can the Aethiopian change his skin, or the Leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustom­ed to do evil: There is a kind of Moral Impossibility in chang­ing of Custom; the Doctrines of Popery in this Nation and o­thers were more easily reformed than Customs; it's Carnivals, May-poles, Holy-days, Altars, Rails, Crossings and Kneelings with Sacred Vestures, and other Rights, are all kept by the power of Custom; the Learning of Synods, nor the Wisdom or Powers of Parliaments have not been sufficient to conquer Custom in such trivial and indifferent things: A Custom in do­ing good, impowers a Man mightily in Religion, John 7.17. If any Man will do his Will, he shall know of the Doctrine: If he will but attempt to practise, and make experiment, he shall soon become a thriving Christian, Psalm 119.100. I understand more than the Ancients, because I keep thy Precepts. By the start of pra­ctice he soon outstript his Teachers in Knowledge: Heb. 5.12, 14. they were dull in hearing, because they did not use their Spiri­tual Senses; but Custom of doing Evil grows faster than the other, because it is engrafted upon our Inclination, and our Inclination is the Stump from the Root of our Nature. Our Conversation is from our Lusts, and our Lusts from our Flesh. Men proud and ambitious, can never learn the Doctrine of Hu­mility, Self-denyal, or the Cross: Charity and Liberality are Paradoxes to the Covetous, and all reveal'd Religion a Myste­ry to the Prophane. Heaven is a Dream to the Earthly Worm, and he will as soon forsake the one for the other, as his Life. The

3. And last, is Company; Evil Company corrupts good manners. A Man can never maintain Converse, but with Persons suita­ble to his Inclination, or to whose Humours he forms and suits his own. The Penal Laws of Cities or Nations, the Disci­pline of Masters or Parents, are not of so great Influence as what is valuable and fashionable in the Society we live in. In a School or Colledge where Learning is valued among the Students, it is of greater force for Learning, than the severe stripes of the most rigid Master. So mean a thing as a Top-knot by the alone strength of this, has stood out against the powerful Arguments of Reason, and serious Prayers of tender Consciences, the Ad­monitions [Page 99] of Relations and Friends, the Satyrs of Wits, the Ridicule of the Bullies, the pointing of the Boys, all these joyned together, have not been able to pull down this Ensign from the Tower it stood on. The strength of the hold lay in the Custom and Fashion of the place we live in: How awful might this be, if we consider how many things of far greater Moment, and worse Influence, this is a foundation to in each of us, since in Ephes. 2.2. to follow the fashion of the World, is a certain sign of a Child of Disobedience.

I come now to the Last thing in the Verse, the strength of the Argument, or necessary Connexion between Justification by Works and Glorying, what is just ground for the one, is just ground for the other also, they have a reciprocal Relation, Ch. 3.27, 28. if no matter of Glorying, not justifieed by Works in this Verse; not justified by Works, because no Matter of Glorying. The Reasons of the Connexion are, 1. The Same­ness and Identity of the Matter; the difference between Prai­sing and Justifying lyes only in Circumstances; the one is be­fore a Populacy, the other is in a Court of Authority; the one is a Panegyrick, the other a Juridical Transaction; the one supposes an Accusation or Suspicion, the other not; they differ as Comfort and Joy, Repentance and Obedience, they are of the same Intrinsical Nature: Comfort and Joy are the same motion of Blood and Spirits, the same Temper of Mind; the Acts of Obedience and Repentance are Works of the same Law, only the one supposes the Course of Obedience interrupt­ed; it's a repeated or renew'd Obedience after Transgression, as Comfort renew'd Joy after Sorrow. Justification is a Vindi­cation of Honour and Credit by Authority; after some Cloud on it, it is renew'd Praise or Glory. Among Men there is usu­ally another difference in degree, Men are prais'd for Heroick Acts, Acts of great advantage to Learning, Religion or Coun­trey, but justify'd for obeying Orders, doing no Evil or Injury to them: But this has no place with God, for we are unprofita­ble Servants at best.

2. Humility is the Test of all true Doctrine, and therefore a proper Test for this Doctrine of Justification: Whatever Doctrine tends to the debasing of a Sinner, and humbling of a Creature, is sound Doctrine. To walk humbly with our God, is [Page 100] the summ of our Religion; and Rom. 10.3. their going about to establish their own Righteousness, is called the want of Submission to God. The humble Publican went home justified, while the proud Pharisee, standing upon his Personal Differences, was re­jected of God, Luke 18.14. The Papists, thô in Dispute with Protestants, do seem to deny a Glorying to their Works, yet Necessary Connexion makes the contrary Conclusion appear in their own Writings against their Will. Bell. lib. 5. Ch. 3. De Just. says, Because it is more honourable to have somewhat of Merit than of Grace alone, therefore God, that he might the more Honour his Children, has done this for them, that they might prepare Eternal Life to themselves by their own Merits: and yet more proudly, Ruard. Tap. in Art. Lev. God forbid that the Righteous should expect Life Eternal as a poor Man doth Alms, for its much more Glorious for them to possess Heaven as Victors and Triumphers do a Palm of Glory due to their own Sweats. But the Scripture teaches us, Psalm 115.1. to say, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give Glory, for thy Mercy and for thy Truths sake: Rom. 3.19. Every mouth must be stopt before God; for we have not one word to say in our own defence.

3. God doth never deny Man his due. Humility is the true Sentiment or Value of a Man's own self in his own Mind, [...], we are only required not to think of our selves above what's meet, or not to think of our selves more highly than we ought, Rom. 12.3. yea, 'tis added positively, that we may think of our selves soberly, according to the measure of Faith God has given us: And because Scripture is a true Rule to our Judgment, we are bid to think not above what's written. If therefore we had any Works to be justified by, or any Ground to plead from as of our selves, our Glorying so far would not be a Sin. God ascrib'd to Abraham Glorying before Men, because his due.

4. Glorying is a Species of Pride, but Self-justifying is a Glo­rying. We can never be justify'd thrô the Exercise of what is most abominable to God, Luke 16.15. and 18.12. God resists the proud; they are Sins of the same kind, and suppose a Dia­bolical Temper of Mind, 1 Tim. 3.6. and a Mind very ignorant of it's own Condition; Job 42. he owns he had utter'd what he understood not, since more acquainted with God his Judgment [Page 101] is alter'd. Paul says, thô he were so sinless as to know no­thing by himself, he durst not adventure a Tryal upon that score, yet I am not thereby justify'd.

5. To be Justify'd by Sincerity, would afford us as much Glorying, as Adam by Perfection; because his strength propor­tion'd: It's as much Glory for a Child to do a little thing, as a Man a greater; that we have receiv'd the Grace thrô a Medi­ator, doth not abate any Glorying. Adam's was Free Gift, this our Sureties and Brothers Purchase; nor that ours subordi­nate to Christ's, for it's reckon'd the sole Condition of the Co­venant of Grace, that gives right to Christ's Merits. Christ's Merits are no Conditions of that Covenant: Works, Faith and Repentance are not Lex Negotio addita, but Negotium it self in it.

This is the sense of them who would bring in Evangelical Works, as giving a right to Remission of Sin, or Glory. It's true, the Angels are justifi'd by their Works, yet Rev. 5. they ascribe all Glory to God, and our Lord Jesus Christ: But that is the Glory of those Works they could not perform, the Work of Redemption and saving of sinful Man; but we do not find them denying themselves to the Glory of not Confederating with the false fallen Ones, tho' they deriv'd the Grace by which they stood from God. If our Sincerity were the proper Condition or Matter of our Justification, Man might Glory of God's yielding to him, and coming to lower Terms. All own the Works of the Innocent deserves praise; but if a Nocent and Guilty Person should bring forth Works worthy of a Ju­stificacion, he should deserve more praise than the Innocent, because Works of an higher value necessary to it, nay more praise than the Works of our Lord Jesus Christ; far easier to be Mediator for another than themselves; easier for an Innocent to Merit than a guilty Person to Merit. Sinlesness was a neces­sary Qualification in the Mediator; but if one sinful could Me­rit, the more Worth must be in the Work: Therefore sup­pose it be granted a Working, Meriting, Glorying under Christ, it may be equal to Adam's, for if he had stood as An­gels, it must have been by freely given Grace; but this cannot be allow'd, because a more low Humility is required of us than Adam, by Repentance, Sorrow, Grief, &c. Therefore I add

6. There is no Kind of Works but affords some Matter of [Page 102] Glory in them: Rom. 3.27. Where is boasting then? it is excuded. By what Law? of Works? Nay, but by the Law of Faith: So where­ever there is place for Works, as the Condition of our Ju­stification, there is place for some boasting; but the Scripture every where stops Man's mouth, Rom. 3.19. That every mouth may be stopped, and all the World may become guilty before God: And it ascribes all the Glory to him, Psal. 115.1. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy Name give Glory, for thy Mercy and for thy Truths sake; Eph. 1.6. To the praise of the Glory of his Grace.

7. All kind of Works affords some Plea, and pleading is a Glorying, for it is a standing upon our own defence; and this is another way of addressing God than either the Example of the Saints, or the Rules of Holy Writ teach us; Petition and Confession, Deprecation and Lamentation, with Praise and Thanksgiving on the Receipt of Mercies, are the only ways we are taught to approach God. The lowest kind of pleading is one of these four: First, By way of Comparison, as when a Man can say, I must have either done that or worse; ei­ther to have neglected a Parent or a Wife, either to have fled, or suffered the Army to be cut off, there was no room for this Excuse in Adam's Sin. Secondly, Relation, when we throw the fault upon them that accuse us; this did but aggravate Adam's Crime, and add to the Sin, when he said, The Woman whom thou gavest me. Thirdly, When we remove the Evil of the Fact upon some other Person, as Eve did the eating of the Ap­ple upon the Serpent, and Adam upon Eve. Lastly, A Purga­tion, when we acknowledge the Fact, but diminish it thrô some necessary Circumstances, or Ignorance. We do not find any of these ways usual, or acceptable at the Throne of Grace, but rather an aggravating of our own Guilt, like Poreus when he was Converted from the Pelagian Error, to the Catholick Truth. ‘What I shall first condemn in my self I know not, wherein to excuse my self I know not.’ Petition or Deprecation, says the Learned Vossius out of Cicero, is no pleading, except for a Person whose former Actions have highly merited — and therefore it becomes not a Court of Justice, as Cicero for Ligarius before Caesar, ‘O Caesar, I have brought many Pleas, and that before thee when in Court, where thy Ho­nour and Authority was concerned, but never as now [Page 103] when privately and before a Parent, then I pleaded, the Crime is a Fiction, the Witnesses are false, he never did it, he never thought it: But now, O Father, he has erred, he has fallen, he will never do the like:’ But a Justifying Defence must be made before Authority Juridical.

I shall conclude this with Answering some Objections briefly, that are brought as Arguments to prove, that since no Works are excluded, but what affords occasion of Glorying, then some Works may have room for an Interest in our Justification. For instance, 1. God may freely first give Grace to work, give Faith and Repentance, and then justifie us for the Exercise of them, whereof we cannot Glory, because the Grace is receiv'd, and they are the Fruits of Grace. 2. God gives a Gracious Law, a New Law, the Law of Faith, Rom. 3.27. that ex­cludes Glorying, and therefore we may be justified by the Works thereof. 3. These Works come not in as the Meriting Cause of Justification, but as the Condition of it. Resp. In general this Contrivance of the Method of Justification is such a Fruit of Divine Wisdom, that it is the special Glory thereof, and there­fore there is no wonder that the feeble Beam of our Light, cannot show us the depth of it, or pierce into all the Harmo­nies and Connexions of it's parts, or their mutual Relations and Influence, and consequently no wonder Divines do not agree about such things, and the Disagreement ought to be born with Meekness, Patience, and mutual Endeavour to instruct one another. I profess my self a Seeker and a Learner in ma­ny of these mysterious Points, and I am never satisfied with a Sermon, except I receive some Edification to my Understand­ing by it: And if Divisions and bitter Language, unbecoming Christians, Scholars or Men, were not the sad Fruits of these Disputants, not the Disputes, they ought to be encourag'd; I bless God for the Sparks I have already receiv'd from them, and I hope to receive more; and that my Heart is as much united in Love to both Parties as ever, and I am as much at a Loss as the poor Children when ask'd whether they Love Fa­ther or Mother best: But in particular I shall begin with the first Objection.

Resp. 1. It is inconsistent with what I have before prov'd, viz. that the Gift of absolute and distinguishing Grace, the Spirit, a New Heart, &c. that beside its absolute and sanctifying Ver­tue, [Page 104] it is of a Relative Nature, both to signifie and entitle, as the Ring in Marriage, or other Earnests and entitling Symbols. Phil. Melanct. in his Annotat. on this Epistle, [in Comparison of which, ( Luther says) that Jerom and Origens Commentaries are but Merae nugae & Ineptiae] says, Deus solus Justificat transfundens in nos Spiritum suum, p. 17. We must either reckon him a Papist, who was the first Protestant, (this Book I have is Printed 1522.) or else say that Gift was the Sentence, or its declarative Sign. Mr. Baxter says, ‘When a Person is Converted, the Angels rejoyce, and therefore have some Notification of it; and they who know our Conversion, cannot be ignorant of our Justification, which they cannot know without some Divine Manifestation: A second part of the express'd or declar'd Sentence of our Justification (he says) is the illustration of our Minds with the Holy Spirit, althò often obscure.’ I think there is great Reason to unite these two in one, thus: The Angels who are so well acquainted with our Minds, and the Language of Divine Operations, know our Justification from the ruling of the Spirit in us, after such a special manner: Eph. 1.17. Who is the earnest of our Inheritance, and so the Earnest of total and Compleat Pardon. Now if Absolute Grace bear the Nature of a Title or Sentence, the Exercise cannot be the Cause, tho' it may be the Condition, that is orderly Connexion: for tho' it procure it's own Confent, it is not receiv'd, except com­plyed with, and yielded to. Our Confession of Faith says, We are not justifyjd, until the Holy Spirit apply Christ to us, and confirms it from Tit. 3.6, 7. which Text seems to shew a great­er Connexion between them than that of Time; By the renewing of the Holy Ghost, that being justified, &c.

Resp. 2. All Glorying of boasting is not excluded: by this half-workers should receive half-wages, and half Credit. Now when Grace is exercised, the Work is ours, Believing, Re­penting, &c. Tho' this is not Pelagian, it is Popish. Suppose a Man have a broken Arm or Leg, and do some great or Hero­ick Act, after it's Cur'd, he will not ascribe the Glory of the Action to the Physician, or the Medicine, tho' he own them Author and Cause of the Cure. Mr. Sclater is large on this Sub­ject against Bellarm.

Resp. 3. Such a Special Gift as the Spirit is, the Grace of Faith and Repentance is, supposes the Imputation of Christ's [Page 105] Righteousness; tho' such Gifts as Men in Common receive, viz. A Reprieve from Hell, and outward Benefits, may not, yet such as Spiritual Life cannot be given without it. A Priso­ner for Treason may have Conveniencies allow'd him, and some Favours, but Places of Trust cannot be bestow'd on him; there is a necessary Connexion among all Spiritual Blessings, in due order to be possess'd, whereof Faith is the first, and therefore the Argument is good from the first to the last, if Faith, Justi­fication, Adoption, Eternal Life; It is of Faith, that it might be of Grace. Thus Poieret argues, It is not Consistent with our Soveraign Lord and Governour to forgive Impenitent Persons, for that were to let them have all the Glory; for by yielding, he should lose his own Authority; and it is as inconsistent to give the best of his Blessings to them, to deal equally with Friends and Foes, Rebels and Obedient Subjects; but to give his Spirit, is to give the richest Fruit of his Love: How shall then Man be saved? He Answers, By providing a Mediator, and granting to them an Interest in his Satisfaction, therefore this Interest is first in order to be enjoyed: Faith and Repen­tance are Fruits of his Death, and inseparably united with the others: The first Fountain is Mercy and Favour on the Media­tors Account, Pardon of our Sin follows Imputation of his Righteousness; immediately therefore as soon as such Gifts are, Pardon is.

Resp. 4. That Exercise of Faith needs a Pardon, being imper­fect, and must first be accepted, before it can render us accep­table; It is common Doctrine, That the Person must be justifi'd before the Actions, The Tree must be good, then the Fruits: A Cause must be before the Effect; so these two things prevents this Order, the Posteriority and Pollutedness of our Actions: Tho' Grace is pure as from the Spirit, sinful Infirmity accom­panies every Action of ours; and so there must be an Interest in Christ antecedently for the Pardon of these Actions.

Resp. 5. This would make the Covenant of Grace a Covenant of Works; for our Ability to obey was from God then, as is mention'd Argument 5. before.

Obj. 2. That we may be justilled by Obedience to the Law of Faith without boasting, Rom. 3.27.

Resp. (1.) It is the Common sence of Interpreters, that the word Law here, is put in figuratively, for Faith, or the Do­ctrine [Page 106] of Faith, because it comes in the room of the Law, as Christ's Satisfaction is call'd a Righteousness, because it comes in place of ours: for suffering is a bearing of the Threatning of the Law, and not properly Righteousness. (2.) Beside, the Name of a Law being honourable in the Jews esteem, and fre­quently in their Mouths, as the Foundation of all their distin­guishing Priviledges, the Apostle in imitation of them calls Faith a Law. (3.) From the Likeness of Faith to a Law, it being a powerful productive principle of Good Works: On the same account we read of the Law of the Mind, the Law of the Spirit of Life, may be Faith is meant by both; so we read of the Law of our Members, which is Flesh, or our fleshly Disposition: Th [...]s Chrys. and Theophil. Ambros. and Austin among the Fathers, Expound it. Among Modern Divines, Philip. Melanct. Calvin, Pet. Mart. Gr. Gom. Pisc. Beza, Willet, Zaegerus, Pareus, who say Glorying is excluded by the Law of Faith, because that is to be justified by anothers Righteousness, to wit, Christ's, which Faith apprehends. Wilson adds, Faith is the hand by which we receive Christ's Righteousness; it is the Gift received en­riches, not the stretching out of the hand; the poor Leper may remain poor all his days, tho' he stretch out his hand as long as he is able, he may starve for want if nothing be given him: The Gift and the Giver is to be Gloried in, and not the extended Palm. Sclater thus: The Law of Faith is the Gospel Law, and Christ's Righteousness is the Gospel Righteousness, his fulfilling of the Law for us is our Gospel Righteousness: So much for Authority. But to come more particularly to the Text, it being the Foundation of one of our Late Contro­versies, I am willing to shew my self not unconcerned in Sions Afflictions, and throw all the Water upon that Fire I can, to extinguish the Heat, not the Light, that may be received from it. The Text is thus: