Dired. 18. Take beed of making promises to feem instead of precepts; as if you were to do that your felves, which God bath premifed that be will do. If God promise to deliver h's Church, or to free any of his fervants from trouble or perfecution, you must have a precept to tell you what is your own duty, and what means you must ufe, before you must attempt your own deliverance. What God will do, is one thing; and what you must do, is another. This hath been the ftrange delufion of the people that call themfelves the Fifth Monarchy men in our times; who believing that Chrift will fet up righteousness, and pull down Tyrants in the earth, have thought that therefore they must do it by arms; and so have been drawn into many rebellions, to the fcandal of others, and their own ruine. Dirca. 19. Take heed of mistaking Prophecies for Promise-; pecially dark Prophecies not understood. Many things are foretold by God in Prophecies, which are mens fins: Herod, and Pontius Pilate, and the people of the Jews, fulfilled Prophecies in the crucifying of Chrift: and all the perfecutors and muderers of the Saints, fulfil Chrifts Prophecies; and fo do all that hate us, And fay all manner of evil falfly against us for his fake, Mat. 5. 11, 12. But the fin is never the lefs for that. It is prophefied that the ten Kings shall give up their Kingdoms to the beaft; that in the last dais fall come fcoffers walking after their own lufts; and in the last daies shall be perilom times, & Thefe are not Promifes, nor Precepis. It hath lamentably difturbed the Church of Chrift, when ignorant felf-conceited Chriftians, who feeinot the difficulty, grow confident that they underftand many Prophecies in Daniel, the Revelations, &c. and thereupon found their prefumption (mifcalled faith) upon their own mistakes, and then form their prayers, their communion, their practice into fuch fchifm, and fedition, and uncharitable waics, as the intereft of their opinions do require (as the Millenaries before mentioned have done in this generation..) Direct. 20. Think not that all Gods Promifes are made to meer fincerity; and that every true Chriftian must be freed from all penal burt, however they behave themselves. For there are further helps of the Spirit, which are promifed only only to our diligence in attending the Spirit, and to the degrees of industry, and fervour, and fidelity in watching, praying, ftriving, and other ufe of means. And there are beavy chaftifements which God threatneth to the godly, when they misbehave themselves: Especially the hiding of his face, and with-holding any measure of his Spirit. The Scripture is full of fuch threatnings and inftances, Direct. 21. Much less may you imagine that God bath made any Promise, that all the fins of true Believers fhall work together for their good. They mifexpound Rom. 8. 28. who fo expound it (as I have elsewhere fhewed.) For 1. The context confirmeth it to fufferings. 2. The qualification added [to them that love God doth thew that the abatement of love to God, is none of the things meant that fhall work our good. 3. And it fheweth, that it is Love as Love, and therefore not the leaft that is confiftent with negle& and fin, which is our full condition. 4.Experience telleth us, that too many true Chriftians may fall from fome degrees of grace, and the Love of God, and die in a lefs degree than they once had: and that lefs of holiness doth not work for their good. 5. And it is not a thing fuitable to all the reft of Gods method in the Scriptures, that he should affure all beforehand, that all their fins fhall work for their good. That he fhould command obedience lo ftrictly, and promife rewards fo liberally, and threaten punishment so terribly, and give fuch frightful examples as Solomons, Davids, and others are; and at the fame time fay, Whatever fin thou committeft inwardly or outwardly by neglecting my Love, and Grace, and Spirit, by loving the world, by pleafing the flesh, as David did, &c. it fhall all be turned to do thee more good than hurt. This is not a fuitable means to men in our cafe, to keep them from fin, nor to caute their perfeverance, Dirca. 22. Understand well what Promises are univerfal to all Believers, and what are but particular and proper to fome few There are many particular Promifes in Scripture, made by name, to Naah, to Abrabam, to Mofes, to Aaron, to David, to Solomon, to Hezekiah, to Chrift,to Peter, to Paul, &c. which we cannot fay are made to us. Therefore the Covenant of Grace, Ii 3. which.. 254 which is the Universal Promife, muft especially be made the Direct. 23. It is of very great importance, to understand what Promises are abfolute, and which are fufpended upon any condition to be performed by us, and what each of thofe conditions js. As the Promife to the Fathers that the Meab should come, was abfolute. God gave not a Saviour to the world, fo as to fufpend his coming on any thing to be done by man. The not drowning of the world, was an abfolute Promife made to Noah: fo was the calling of the Gentiles promifed. But the Covenant of Promifes fealed in Baptifm, is conditional: and therefore both parties, God and man, are the Covenanters therein. And in the Gospel the Promises of our firft Juftification and Adoption, and of our after pardon, and of our Juftification at Judgement, and of our additional degrees of grace, and of our freedom from chaftifements, have fome difference in the conditions, though true Chriftianity be the main fubftance of them all. Meer Christianity, or true consent to the Covenant, is the condition of our first Juftification. And the continuance of this, with actual fincere obedience, is the condition of nonomiffion, or of continuance of this ftate of Juftification: And the use of prayer and other means, is a condition of our further reception of more grace. And perseverance in true holiness with faith, is the condition of our final Juftification and Glorification (of which more anon,) Direct. 24. You can no further believe the fulfilling of any of thefe conditional Promises, than you know that you perform the condition. It is prefumption, and not faith, for an impenitent perfon to expect the benefit of thofe Promifes, which belong to the penitent only: And fo it is for him that forgiveth not others, to to expect to be forgiven his particular fins: And fo in all the reft of the Promises. Direct. 25. But be fure that you afcribe no more to your felves, for performing any condition of a Promife, than God dath. A condition as fuck is no caufe at all of the performance of the Promife; either natural or moral: only the non-performance of the condition is a cause of the non-performance of the Promife: For the true nature of a condition as fuch, is only to fufpend the benefit. Though naturally a condition may be meritorious among men; and for their own commodity (which God is not capable of) they ordinarily make only meritorious acts to be conditions: As God alfo doth only fuch acts as are pleafing to him, and fuited to their proper ends. But this is nothing to a condition formally, which is but to fufpend the benefit till it be done. Direct. 26. When you find a Promife to be common or univerfal, apply it as boldly as if your name were written in it ; and alfo when you find that any particular Promife to a Saint is but a branch of that univerfal Promife to all Saints; or to all that are in the fame cafe, and find that the cafe and reason of the Promife proveth the fenfe of it to belong to you as well as them, If it be faid, that whosoever believeth shall not perish, but have everlasting life, John 3. 16. You may apply it as boldly as if it were faid, If thou John, or Thomas be a Believer, thou shak not perish, but have everlafting life. As I may apply the abfolute Promife of the Refurrection to my self as boldly, as if my name were in it, because it is all that shall be raised (John 5. 22, 24, 25.) 1 Cor, 15. So may I all the conditional promises of pardon and glory conditionally [if I repent and believe.] And you may abfolutely thence conclude your certain intereft in the benefit, so far as you are certain that you repent and believe. And when you read that Chrift promifeth his twelve Apoftle to be with them, and to reward their labours, and to see that they shall be no lofers by him, if they lose their lives, &c. You may believe that he will do fo by you alfo. For though your work be not altogether the fame with theirs; yet this is but a branch of the common Promife to all the faithful,. who must all follow him on the fame terms of felf-denial, Luke 14. 26, 27, 33. Mat. 10. Rom. 8. 17, 18. And on this ground the promise to Joshua is applied, Heb. 13. I will never fail thee nor for fake the, because it is but a branch of the Covenant common to all the faithful. Direct. 27. Befure that you lay the ftreß of all your hopes on the Promifes of God, and venture all your happineß on them, and when God calleth to it, exprefs this by forfaking all else for these bopes, that it may appear you really truft Gods word, without any fecret bypocritical referves. This is the true life, and work, and tryal of faith: whether we build fo much on the Promife of God, that we can take the thing promised for all our treasure, and the Word of God for our whole fecurity. As Faith is called a Trufting in God; so it is a practical kind of True; and the principal tryal of it, lyeth in forfaking all other happiness and hopes, in confidence of Gods promife through Jefus Chrift, To open the matter by a fimilitude: Suppofe that Chrift came again on earth as he did at his Incarnation, and should confirm his truth by the fame miracles, and other means; and fuppofe he fhould then tell all the Country, I have a Kingdom at the Antipodes, where men never die, but live in perpetual profperity; and those of you fhall freely poffels it, who will part with your own eftates and Country, and go in a fhip of my providing, and truft me for your Pilot to bring you thither, and truft me to give it you when you come there. My power to do all this, I have proved by my miracles, and my love and will, my offer proveth.] How now will you know whether a man believe Chrift, and truft this promise or not? why, if he believe and trust him, he will go with him, and will leave all, and venture over the Seas whitherfoever he conduð him, and in that ip which he prepareth for him: But if he dare not venture, or will not leave his prefent Country and poffeffions, it is a fign that he doth not traadim. *If you were going to Sea, and had veral Ships and Pilots offered you, and you were afraid left one were unfafe, and the Pilot unskilful, and it were doubtful which were to be trufted, when after all deliberation you chufe ono, and refuse the rest, and refolve to venture your life and goods in it, this is properly called |