DIRECTION IX.
VV« must first receive the comforts of the Gospel, that we may be able to perform sincerely the duties of the Law. .-;
EXPLICATION.
Siw;e man fell from obedience to God, which he’ was enabled and engaged to perform by the comforts of his first happy state in paradise, God might have justly refused ever to give man again any comforts beforehand, to encourage him to his duty; that the way to holiness being hedged up against him with the thorns and briars of fear, grief and despair, he might never be able to escape the sentence of death which was denounced against the first transgression. This justice of God is manifest in the method of the legal covenant, wherein God promiseth us no life, comfort or happiness, until wc have thoroughly performed his law; and may be seen in the mount Sinai promulgation, explicated, Lev., xxxvi. throughout,- And we are by nature so strongly addicted to this legal method of salvation, that it is t to us in our corrupt sinful nature, but in and with the new holy nature; which immediately produceth a holy practice, though it must necessarily go before, as the cause before the effect; and they are no other than com-forts of those spiritual benefits by which our new state and nature, is produced, and of which it is constituted arid made up; as the comforts of redemption, justification, adoption, the gift of the Spirit, and the like. New • ther do I intend here any transport or ravishment of joy and delight; but only such manner of comfort, as rationally strengthens, in some measure, against the oppression of fear, grief and despair, which we are liable unto, by reason of our natural sinfujness and misery. .
This explanation of the sense of my assertion, is sufficient to answer some common objections against it. And I hope the truth of it will be fully evidenced by the -following arguments.
- This truth is a clearvonsectary from those principles ofholiness that have been already confirmed. X have shewed, that we must have a good persuasion of our reconciliation with God, and of our happiness in’ heaven, and of our sufficient strength, both to will and to do that which is acceptable, to Gpdj through Jesus Christ, that we may be rationally inclined and bent to the practice of holiness: and that these- endowments must be had, by receiving Christ himself, with his Spirit, and all his fulness, by trusting on him for all his salvation, as he is freely promised to us in the gospe ; and ‘that by this faith we do as really receive Christ, as our food by eating and drinking. Now, let right reason judge j can we be persuaded of the love of. God, of our everlasting happiness, and our strength to serve God, i and yet be without airy comfort? Can the glad tidings of the gospel of peacf; be believed, and Christ and his Spirit actually received into the heart, without any relief to the soul from, oppressing fear, grief and- despair I Can the salvation cf Christ be comfortless, or the’bread and water of life without any sweet relish, to those that.feed on him, with hungering and thirsting appetites J1
God will not give such benefits as these to those that do not desire and esteem them above the world. And certainly the very receiving of them will be comfortable to such, except they receive them blindfold, which they cannot do, when the very giving ahd bestowing them, , openeth the eyes of a sinner, and turns him from darkness to light, whereby he doth, at least in some measure, ■see and perceive spiritually the things that concern his present and future peace, and reap some encouraging and strengthening comfort thereby to the practice of holiness.
- Peace, joy, hope, are recommended to us in scripture, as the spring1 of other holy duties; and fear and oppressing grief forbidden, as hinderances to true religioni ” The peace of God keepeth our hearts and minds through Jesws Christ,” Phil. iv. 7. ■ Be not sorry j for the joy of the Lord is your strength,” Neh. viii, 10. “Every man that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself, even as he is pure,” 1 John iii. 3. “Fear not torment: he that feareth is not made perfect in love,” 1 John iv.’ 18. ■ This is the reason why the apostle doubleth the exhortation, to ” r.ejoice in the Lord airway,” as a duty of exceeding weight and necessity, Phil, iv. 4. What are such duties, but comfort itself.’ And can we think that these duties are necessary to our continuance in a holy practice, and yet not to the beginning of it> where the work is most difficult, and encouragement most needful. Therefore we must make haste, in the first place, to get a comfortable frame of spirit, if we would make haste, and not delay, to keep God’s holy commandments. , .
.3. The usual method of gospel doctrine, as it is delivered to us in the holy scriptures, is, first, to comfort our hearts, and thereby to ” establish us in every good word and work,” 2 Thess. ii- 17. And it appears how “clearly this method is adjusted in teveral epistles, written by the apostles, wherein tHey first acquaint the churches with the rich grace of God towards them in Christ, and the spiritual blessings which they are made Eartakers of, for their strong consolation : and they exort them to a holy conversation, answerable to such privileges ; and is not only the method of whole epistles, but of many particular exhortations to duty, wherein the comfortable benefits of the grace of God in Christ, are made use of as arguments and motives to stir up the saints to a holy practice : which comfortable benefits must first be believed, and the comfort of them, applied to our own souls, or else they will not be forcible to engage us to the practice for which they are intended. To give you a few instances, out of a multitude that might be alleged, we are exhorted to practise holy duties, because ” we are dead to sin, and alive to God, through Jesus Christ pur Lord,” Bom. vi. 11; and because ” sin shall not have dominion over us; for we are not under the law, but under grace,” Rom. yi. 14; because “we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit; and God will quicken our mortal bodies, by his Spirit dwelling in us,” Rom. viii. 9—12; because ” our bodies are the members of Christ, and the temples of the Holy Ghost,” 1 Cor. vi. 15, 16; because ” God hath made him to be sin for us^ who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him,” 2 Cor. v. 21; and hath promised, that he” will dwell in us, and walk in us, and be to vis a Father, and we shall be to him sons and daughters,” 2 Cor. vi. 8. with chao. vii. 1; because ” God hath forgiven us for Christ s sake; and accounteth us his dear children; and Christ hath loved us, and given himself for us; and we that were sometintes darkness, are now light in the Lord, Eph.*iv. 32. and v. 1, 2, 8; because ” we are risen with Christ; and when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory,” Col. I, 4; because God hath said, ” I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,” Heb. xiii. 5j because of ” the many promises made to us,” 2 Cor. vii. 1. Search the scriptures, and you may,> with delight, see that this is the vein that rr.ineth through the gospel exhortations, and you may f nd the like vein of tomfort running through the prop1 .etical exhortations in the Old Testament.
briefly in the comforts, without wHith, several great duties cannot be sincerely performed. Can we love God, and delight in him above all, while we look upon him as our everlasting enemy, and apprehend no love and mercy in him towards us, that may render him a suitable good torus, and lovely in our eyes? What doleful melody-will the heart make in the duty of praise, if we account, that all those perfections, for which we praise him, will rather aggravate our misery, than make us happy? What a heartless work will it be to pray to him, and to offer r,p ourselves to his service, if we have no comfortable -hope that he wiil accept of us ?• Is it possible for us to free ourselves from carking caresj by casting our care upon the Lord, if we do not apprehend he careth for us? Can we he patient in affliction, with cheerfulness, and under persecutions, except Ulwe have peace with God, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God ~!v Rom. v. 1, 2, 3. What reason can persuadeus to submit willingly, according to our duty, to the stroke of present death, if God be pleased to Jay it upon us, when we have no comforts to relieve us against the horrible fear of intolerable torments of hell for eveY?’
If we should be called to suffer martyrdom for the protestant religion, as our ancestors in England have done, we should find it necessary to abandon the late upstart notions that have been bred in a time of ease, and to embrace the comfortable doctrihe-of former protestants, which, through the grace of God, mtide” scJ • many courageous and joyful martyrs.
- The state of those that are to be brought-from sin’ t6 godliness, requires necessarily, that after-they be convinced of the vanity of their former false confidences, ■ ahd of their deadness in original sin, and subjection to trie wrath of God, they should have a supply of nexu gospel comforts afforded to encoiirage theirfainting souls to holy practices. • How little do many physicians of sbuls. ‘consider the condition of their unconverted patients** that ’ are altbgethtr without spiritual life^ 6t^ strSTTgtlij and arc or must be convinced thereof f He
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