The Measures of Christian Obedience, Book 3 · Chapter 3
CHAP. III. Of Obedience with the fourth faculty, viz. our executive or bodily powers, and outward operations.
The CONTENTS.
God is to be obeyed with the fourth faculty, viz. our executive or bodily powers, and outward operations. The great difficulty of Obedience in this instance. Four false grounds whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with their works and actions. First, A hope to be saved for a true belief or orthodox opinions. Mens confidence in this represented. The folly of it. Orthodox faith and professions no further available, than they produce obedient works and actions. Secondly, A hope of salvation upon an obedience of idle desires and ineffective wishes. An opinion of some Casuists, That a desire of Grace is Grace, refuted. This stated, and a distinct explication of what is promised to the desire of Obedience, and what to Obedience it self. The pretence for this acceptance of idle desires from Gal. 5.17. considered. An account when the will and desire is taken for the deed and performance. That Text 2 Cor. 8.11, 12. plainly vindicated. Thirdly, A hope of being saved notwithstanding they do sin, because they are insnared into it through the strength of temptations. The folly of this. Our own lusts make temptations strong. The Grace of the Gospel is sufficient to overcome them. Fourthly, A hope of being excused because they transgress with an unwilling mind. These mens state represented. Vnwillingness in sin a duplicate page duplicate page mitigation, but no sufficient excuse. Some strugling in most actions both of good and bad men. The strife of the Flesh and Spirit. Two sorts of men feel nothing of it, viz. the Saints in Heaven after the Resurrection, and some prostigate sinners here now on Earth. All good men, and the generality of evil are subject to it in this life. Mens peremptory will and last choice determines their condition.
A Fourth faculty that is indispensably necessary to the integrity of our Obedience, and which is the chief end and perfection, and gets acceptance for all the rest, is our strength, or bodily and executive powers.
For the completion and crown of all, we must do as well as think and desire, and our obedient choice must end in an obedient practice. For all our inward motions are in order to outward operations, they must go on to good effects, before they are fit for the great reward; we must work as well as desire, and not only will, but do our duty, because upon nothing less than that we shall at the last day be accepted.
This indeed is the severe service, and the distastfull part of duty. It is a matter of much labour and pains, of much strife and contention. For the doing of our Duty is the top of all, every hinderance must be removed, and every difficulty overcome before we can attain to it. Our scruples and gainsaying reasonings must be silenced, our discouraging fears quieted, and all our repugnant desires cooled or conquered: Every doubt of our minds must be solved, and every hostile lust subdued e're we can act what we are required. A secret wish, or a sudden desire of Obedience may start up in our souls unawares, and there is not much opposition made to it, because our lusts receive no great hurt from it. For the pleasure of our lusts lies in acting and fulfilling them, they are secure of their own delights, so long as they are of our practice. And therefore they will allow us to think of good, to spend a faint wish, a sudden inclination, or a fruitless desire upon it. But if once we would go on to do our Duty, and to work Obedience, then begins the conflict. Our Lusts then bestir themselves with might and main, and set every faculty awork to resist and defeat it. For our thoughts begin to argue, and to pick quarrels with our Duty. They suggest all its difficulties and dammages. They represent all the pains of the undertaking to cool our love; the appendant dangers to raise our fears; and the great hazards to shake our hopes, and make us despair of success. For the sake of our sins we arm all discouraging passions, and quite stifle all the obedient suggestions of our consciences. For either we soften our sin by excuses, or justifie it by arguments, or overlook it by ignorance, heedless inconsideration and forgetfulness. Either we will act it rashly through the power of a strong lust, and not consider it at all, or else think of it only to lessen or defend it. And when by the opposition of our Lusts to the perfecting and performing of our Duty, our spiritual strengths are thus weakned, and our lusts advanced, when our passions rise, and our minds plead against it; then is the strife, and there's the toil and difficulty of obedience.
And because in this obedience of our works and actions there is so much difficulty, therefore are most people so desirous to shift it off, and so forward to take up with any thing which will save them the labour of it. They perswade themselves that God will admit of easier terms, and build their hopes upon cheaper services; in particular upon these Four:
First, A true belief, or orthodox opinions.
Secondly, An obedience of idle desires, and ineffective wishes.
And if for all these they continue still to do what God forbids, and to work disobedience; then their hope is to be saved notwithstanding it, because
Thirdly, Their falling is through the power of a great and overpowering temptation, which they see and resist, but cannot prevail over. So that
Fourthly, Their transgression is with reluctance and unwillingness, their service of Sin is an unwilling and a slavish service.
1. The first false ground whereby men elude all the necessity of serving God with their strength or executive powers in outward works and operations, is their confidence of being saved for a true belief, or a right knowledge in religious matters, and orthodox opinions. They turn all Religion into a matter of study and speculation, as if it required only a good head, and a discerning judgment. They make it a matter of skill, but not of practice; an exercise of wit and parts, but not a rule of action. For the faith which they expect should save them, with some men goes no further than the mind, and consists barely in right notions and apprehensions. They take it to be nothing more but an understanding what Christ has said, a being able to reason upon it, and to argue for it, and in their own minds approving and consenting to it. And that not to all that Christ has revealed neither. For the Precepts or Commands it overlooks, and doth not meddle with; the threatnings it either considers not at all, or if it do, it takes them not to be due to that whereunto God has fixed them, (viz.) disobedience of practice, but only to ignorance and unbelief. But all that which their faith eyes, and which their minds solely, or at least principally approve of, is the historical passages of Christs life and death, the doctrinal points which he has told us concerning God or himself, and the comfortable promises of the Gospel. They believe what Christ is, what he has done and suffered for us, and what he has promised to us: they think right in all the Religious Controversies that are on foot in the world, joyning themselves with the Orthodox men, and siding, as they presume, with the true Opinion; they profess Christs Religion, and are Members of his Church, and adhere to the right party of Christians, and to the purest Congregation, and that they conclude is enough to bring them to Heaven.
But if any think, as God be praised, many do, that God requires more than the bare service of our minds and right apprehensions; yet even a great part of them fancy, that all which he requires besides is only the obedience of their tongues and discourses. If they believe with the mind, and confess with the mouth, although they are rebellious and reprobate in their practice, they are satisfied of their Godly estate, and presume that God is so too. Their Religion is made up of lip-service, for they think to content God by heavenly talk, and pious conference, by larding all their discourses with the Name of God, and shreds of Scripture; all their conversation is holy phrase, and sanctified form of speaking; and this they hope will attone for all the lewdness and disobedience of their lives and actions.
And if they proceed yet further to a Faith that reacheth beyond the mind and the tongue, and think it necessary that it sink down from the head into the heart; yet there they will allow God to expect no great matters. They hope he will be well pleased, although it summon not up all our Affections for his service, if it produce in us these two easie passions, which are raised without much adoe, and may well be spared, (viz.) a strong confidence, and a warm zeal. If to make it saving it must imply a joynt concurrence of our Affections, it shall be only of these two. It shall add hope to knowledge, and be a belief that God will save sinners, with a special hope, and fancifull confidence that he will in particular save them. It shall add Zeal to Orthodoxy, a warm heart to a sound head, and be no more but a maintaining of and stickling for right opinions, and against erroneous and false ones, with heat and fierceness.
Thus do men delude themselves into great confidences, and vain expectations from a faith that is without fruit, from an orthodox, but empty knowledge, which is void of all obedient practice.
But a knowledge and belief which is not more comprehensive in its nature, nor has other effects than these; they will find to their cost in the event of things, is miserably delusive and vain. It will serve to no other end but the heightning of their crimes, and the encreasing of their condemnation. For do but consider:
If we will believe and understand Christs Doctrines and his Promises, but overlook or deny his Laws and Precepts; what is this, but instead of honour and service, to affront and renounce him? By picking and choosing at this rate▪ we cast off his power of molding for us a Religion, and fixing the terms of his own mercy, and make to our selves a condition of our own salvation. We follow him so far only as we please our selves, but no further. The compass of our belief it self is not bounded by his authority, or measured according to his mind, but our own. For we understand and assent, not to every thing that he has said, but only to what we our selves like. We refuse to take every thing upon his word, and credit him in what he speaks no longer than it agrees with us. If we believe him, it is only where we matter not whether what he sayes be true or no; but we either give no heed to him, or flatly disbelieve him where we have any temptation. His veracity and truth it self has no power over our very minds, beyond what our own lusts and beloved sins will suffer it: but the Devil and the World must be served in the first place by our Opinions, and God must be forced to take up with their leavings.
Nay what is yet more, by such a partial and squeamish belief as this, we do not only give or take at our own liking from that attribute of his, which in believing we would be thought to honour, viz. his Truth: but even where we seem to submit to it, we wrong and pervert it. For we wrest his sense, and spoil his meaning, and undermine all that he intends: So that even that which we do believe is not his mind, but our own. For the true meaning of his Promises, which run all upon condition of our Obedience, we pervert; the force of all his threatnings, which denounce woes to every sin and transgression, we cancel. We do as much as in us lies, to corrupt his Word, and to belie his very Gospel. We make his whole Religion signifie another thing than what he intended. For we make it allow what he forbids, and encourage such as he threatens; and save those whom at the day of Judgment he will condemn. And since this perverse faith and knowledge, which believes what it likes, and is infidel to all the rest; which sets up one part of his Word against another, by making his Promises to undermine his Precepts, and the Truth of his Doctrines to render all his threatnings false and useless: I say, since such an untowardly partial, and gainsaying knowledge and belief as this, is in very deed so plain a Libel to his Person, so hateful a violence to his Truth, and such a contradicting piece of Infidelity to his Gospel, it can never be thought to be that Obedience which he commands and encourages, but such a piece of contumelious flattery, and fawning disobedience, as he will most severely punish and condemn.
But if we believe his whole Gospel, and besides the faith of his Doctrines and Promises, take moreover all his Precepts to be such as he injoyns, and all his threatnings, in their true meaning, to be such as he will execute; and yet, for all that, in our works and practice despise, and sin against them; then is such our faith and knowledge so far from rendring our condition safe and comfortable, that in very deed it makes it quite desperate, and utterly bereft of all colour and excuse. For it takes from us all plea for disobedience, and leaves us not so much as the common refuge of all misdoing, the pretence that we did offend but did not know it. It makes every sin which we commit to be acted with a high hand, and all our offences to become contempt, our disobedience, rebellion, and our transgressions, presumptuous. For we sin then with open eyes, we know Gods Commands, but refuse to practise them; we discern our duty, but despise it. It makes us not only to renounce his Authority, but also to defie his Power. For we know his Almighty Strength, but we will not fear it; we see his dreadfull threatnings, but yet dare to commit the things which he has threatned in despite of them. We see and believe that our Death is entailed upon our disobedience, but for all that we choose and run upon it. We contemn all his Commands, and set light by all his Promises, and despise all his Threatnings: We see and believe them all, but prefer the pleasure of our sins before them, and transgress in open affront to them. And such a state as this, every man must needs see is so far from gaining his favour, and ascertaining his acceptance; that in reality it is a continued heightning of every provocation, an habitual hostility, and state of crying sin.
But if ever our Orthodox Faith and Professions avail us unto Life and Pardon, they must end in our Obedient Works and Actions. We must do that which we know God requires, and practise that Pure Religion which we profess; If ye know these things, sayes our Saviour, happy are ye if ye do them, Joh. 13.17. It is not every verbal Professor, every one that saith unto me, or calls me Lord, Lord, that shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he only that doth the will of my Father which is in Heaven, Mat. 7.21. We are condemn'd out of our own mouths if we commend Christs Religion, whilst we contemn and disobey it: Every word which we speak in its behalf, is a charge against our own selves, and every Plea which we make for it, is to us an accusation. For if it be a Religion so pure, so good ▪ so worthy of God, and so beneficial to men as we profess it is, the more unpardonable wretches we that transgress and act against it. All the praises which we heap upon our Duty, are a most bitter invective upon our own practice; and the more we commend Christs Religion and Laws, the more we condemn our own transgressions; so that now God in exacting the punishment, be it as severe as it well can, only executes our own sentence. We are made the worse for our knowledge if our Actions are not ruled by it; for it shews plainly, that our Lusts are most obstinate, and our wills most wicked; when for all we are clearly shewed the Laws, the Promises, and the threats of God, we can yet despise them all, and for the short pleasure of a silly sin transgress, and act against them. And since it doth thus enhanse our Sin, we may be sure that it will proportionably encrease our punishment. For he that knows his masters will, and doth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes, Luk. 12.47.
And thus we see, that this thinking to be saved by the labour of our minds, without any works of our lives and practice; and coming to Heaven barely by a True Belief, and Orthodox Opinions, and Right Professions, without ever obeying in our works and actions; is one of those false and delusive grounds, whereupon men shift off the necessity of this service with all their strength, the service of their Actions.
And another false ground of shifting off the same service is,
2. The delusive confidence which wicked men have of being saved at the last Day for an obedience of idle desires, and ineffective wishes.
It is a strange conceit which some people have been taught, viz. that the desire of Grace is Grace, and that God will at the last Day judge men to have obeyed, although they have not wrought, but only desired it. There is a complaisant sort of Casuistry, and a much easier than ever God made, that has been brought into the World, which bids men to hope well, though they do nothing, so long as they find in themselves a desire that they could do it. They wish they were what God expects, and that they performed what he commands; but they do no more but wish it. They sit still, and work no more now they have wished it, than they did before. Theirs is a weakly infant-desire, it just lives, but that is all, it can effect nothing. For the smallest lust is too strong for it, and the least temptation over-bears it; the desire of the Vertue is hush'd when the opportunity of the Sin returns, for notwithstanding all the contrary desire, this is acted at the next offer. Obedience is not desired so much as their ease; for they love it not so well, as to be at the necessary pains for it. It is a squeamish delicate desire; it would obey if that could be without trouble, but it will undergo nothing for obedience.
But this is a conceit as strange as it is destructive, and such wherewith the simplest of men suffer themselves to be imposed upon in no other matters, but only this which most of all requires their care and caution, viz. the eternal welfare of their souls, and the truth of their obedience. For who ever took his desire of gain to be gain, his desire of ease to be ease, his desire of meat to be food, his desire of cloaths to be rayment, or his desire of knowledg to be knowledg? And why then must that be true in Religion, which is always false in common life? and the desire of Grace be said to be Grace, and the desire of obedience, obedience? Our desires are one thing, but the thing desired is another. Our desires are within, but the object desired is without us. Our desires are our own, but the thing desired is wanting. For so far is our desire of any thing from being the very thing it self which is desired, that it is not always joined with it, but we possess one, whilst we are without the other. For alas! we find that those things which we need, and have a mind to, do not come at the beck of a desire, nor are procured by a wish; but we must do more than desire them, endeavour after them, and work or act for them, or else we shall sit without them. A man doth not presently possess meat because he is hungry, or is Owner of a great Estate because he is covetous; no, he must labour and seek, as well as desire, both for the one and the other, or else let him desire what he will, he shall get neither.
'Tis true a desire of money is a great preparative to get money, and a desire of knowledg a good disposition to attain knowledg; because our appetites and desires are, of all the passions, the great and most immediate Spring of our outward works and operations. For delight begets love, and love ends in desire, and desire carries us on to work and labour for the thing desired. We seek after a thing, because we long for it; and take pains about it, because we desire it. And thus our desires of Grace and Obedience are Grace and Obedience. That is, Our desire of Grace is not Grace it self; nor our desire of Obedience, Obedience; but a good step and degree towards them. It is so metonymically, it is the Principle and the Cause of it. For therefore we acquire Grace, and perform Obedience; because we desire them. We should take no pains about them, were it not for our desires of them; but because we have a mind to them, therefore we labour after them.
But till our desires come on to this effect, they have no title to the rewards of it. Because although they are a gift of Gods Grace, 'tis true, as well as Obedience it self is; yet are they not that Grace which in the Judgment shall entitle us to pardon and happiness. For the promise to the Desire of Obedience is one; but the promise to Obedience it self is another. If we sincerely desire to do Gods will, i. e. if we desire it so, as according to the best of our power to endeavour after it; the promise to that is, That we shall be inabled to do it. For one promise of the New Covenant is, That God will grant unto us to serve him in holiness and righteousness, Luke 1.74, 75; which he will then do, when we desire it of him, by giving his holy Spirit to them that ask him, Luke 11.13. But if we do indeed obey it, the promise to that is, That we shall be saved by it. For Christ is become the Authour of eternal salvation to them that obey him, Heb. 5.9. And it is said expresly of them that obey, That they shall have right to the tree of life, Rev. 22.14. So that to the honest desire of obedience, all that God promises is the power to perform and work obedience; but that whereunto mercy and life is promised, is nothing less than obedience it self. For to the working out our salvation it is required, as St Paul says, that we be wrought upon, not only to will what God commands, but also to do it, Phil. 2.12, 13.
The great pretence whereby men of idle, unworking desires would plead for their unfruitfulness, and support their hopes of a happy Sentence under a life of disobedience; is a mistaken sence of these words of St Paul in his Epistle to the Galatians: The Flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the Flesh; so that ye cannot do the things that ye would, Gal. 5.17. Which words they interpret thus: The Spirit in all good men lusteth against the Flesh, but not so far as to prevail over it: for although they may will and desire with the Spirit, yet they cannot do those things which they would. And if this be so, 'tis plain that we have warrant enough to hope for mercy notwithstanding we only desire, but are not able to perform.
But this is a plain perverting of the Apostles words from the Apostles own meaning. For although he says that the lusting is on both sides, both of the Flesh against the Spirit, and of the Spirit against the Flesh; yet as for the ineffectiveness, or not doing what is willed and desired, that he charges only upon one. He leaves it purely and solely to the Fleshes share, which can indeed lust and desire evil things even in regenerate men, but is not able to prevail so far as to work and effect them, because the over-ruling will of the Spirit checks and restrains it. Through the victorious lusting of the Spirit against the Flesh, saith he, it comes to pass that you cannot do or aforeign.do not those things which from the instigation of your Flesh you desire and would do. And to shew this to be his sense, I need do no more than set down his words in that order wherein they stand; which is as follows: This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not work and fulfil the lusts of the Flesh. Not work and fulfil them, I say, notwithstanding you will still feel an ineffective and unconquering stirring of them. For the Flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the Flesh, and these two are contrary one to the other. So that in walking or working, as I said, after the lustings and desires of the Spirit, you fulfil not the lusts of the Flesh which are contrary to it; ye cannot do, or you do not the things that your Flesh lusts after, which yet, through its lusting, ye would, ver. 16, 17. Whereas if this last Clause were expounded thus, Ye do not the things that your Spirit lusts after, which yet, through its lusting, ye would do; it would destroy that which the Apostle brings it to confirm, viz. their not willing and desiring only, but doing or walking also after the Spirit, so as not to fulfil the works of the Flesh, ver. 16. Which in plain English is to make the Apostle in the same breath to say and unsay, to tell them of walking in the Spirit, and not fulfilling the lusts of the Flesh; because they do not after the Spirit, but do fulfil the lusts of the Flesh. Which is flatly to make the Apostles proof to contradict the Apostles affirmation.
If therefore we would approve our selves regenerate, and have a just hope of life and pardon at the last Day; we must not only wish and desire, but live and walk after the Spirit, The service of the Flesh indeed must go no further than desire; and although we shall all of us more or less have lustings from it, yet must we not bRom. 13.14.fulfil them. But as for the service of God, it must have our hands as well as our hearts; for it is not enough to will and desire what he commands, but we must moreover practise and perform it.
As for the affirmative Commands of God; it is not required that we perform every one of them at every time; for so our whole life would be taken up in the keeping of one Command, and we could never observe all, since we cannot do any two things, and much less such a multitude at the same time. But all that obedience which God requires of us to them, is that we act them as his Providence, and ordering of times and occasions gives us opportunity. Now although for the main Body and greatest Number of them, every man has opportunities returning almost every day; yet for a perfect and compleat performance of some of them, some men have not opportunity at some times, nor others in all their lives. I instance in the affirmative Command of Alms-giving. A man that has but little, can give but little at any time; and a rich man, if he be in a strange place, and have no great stock about him, although he have a great Object of Charity, can yet make but small relief. So that in both these the work of Alms and outward performance, must needs be very strait; although both of them in their hearts and desires are never so liberal. They have not power and opportunity to act as they would; they would perform more if their circumstances would allow it. And now in this Case God doth not measure their obedience by the size of their outward performance; he looks not so much at what was done, as at what would have been done had they had ability. So that they shall be accepted according to the greatness of their will, and not according to the narrowness of their deed; and their reward shall be fitted to what was in their heart, and not that which appeared in their action.
And this very Case is expresly determined by St Paul in his second Epistle to the Corinthians. For exhorting them to contribute to the relief of the Saints in Judea, as the poor Christians in Macedonia had already done most liberally, he encourages them to give what they could out of their present livelihood, by telling them, that albeit it were not so much as they could wish, and were forward in their own hearts to give if they were able; yet in Gods acceptance it should be estimated as if it were. For if there be first a willing mind, saith he, it is accepted according to what a man hath, and not according to what he hath not, chap. 8. vers. 11, 12.
This is the very case for which the Apostle layes down this rule, as any man may see who will be at the pains to peruse that Chapter. He speaks it upon no other occasion, but where our wills are really ready to perform farther than our outward fortune enables us. He gives it as an Axiome only where our inward resolutions are larger than our possessions. For where our heart is indeed ready to do more, than in our necessitous circumstances we can do; there God looks upon the will, and not upon the work; and rewards us according to the compass of our desires, but not according to the scantiness of our performance.
But if any man shall conclude from hence, that when it is in his Power to do what is commanded, God will still accept of an idle desire without an active performance; he may use St Paul's words indeed, but he perverts them wholly to his own meaning. For the Apostle spake them in one case, and there they are true; but he applies them to another, and there they will deceive him. Because the will is never accepted for the deed, when it is in our power to do as well as to will; and wheresoever we have opportunity to do what we desire, it is not the willing, but the doing that must save us; as the Apostle himself intimates in this very place, when he presses them to compleat their readiness to will, by performing according as they were able, vers. 11.
So that this thinking to be saved by an idle desire, and an ineffective wish of obedience, without ever obeying in our works and actions, is very whit as false and delusive as the former deceitfull ground was, of being saved at the last day barely upon the account of an Orthodox Faith and Opinions.
Thirdly, Another false ground whereupon men hope to be saved, though they work disobedience, is because when they do so, it is through the violence of a great and overpowering temptation, which they see and resist, but cannot prevail over. They are drawn in by a great gain, or a great pleasure, the bait laid for them is very enticing, and there is no withstanding it.
This indeed is a great and an usual pretence. For men would gladly shift off their sin, and charge it upon any thing but their own selves. They would have the pleasures of their flesh, and the pride of their hearts both served at once, enjoy all the pleasures of sin, and yet have the praises of virtue. cforeign. Andron. Rhod. Paraph. in Eth. Arist. l. 3. c. 2.Whensoever they do well, as a great Philosopher has observed, they would arrogate that to themselves; but when they do amiss, they would impute that to the pleasure that mislead them, and to the strength of temptation.
But this is a very vain shift, and a thin pretence. For what is it that makes any temptation strong, but the wickedness of mens own hearts? They are slavishly in love with it, and therefore they cannot resist it, but are overcome by it. dforeign. Ibid. and Arist. Eth. ad Nicom. l. 3. c. 1.It is ridiculous to think, sayes the same excellent Philosopher, that the pleasure of the sin which is without us, is the cause of our sinfull action; and not rather that we our selves are, who are so wickedly inclined, as to be so easily taken by it. It is only the strength of our own sinfull lusts, that gives such an irresistible strength to the outward temptation. A great offer of gain indeed cannot be withstood by a covetous heart; and an inviting beauty, and a fair opportunity are irresistible to a slave of lust, and a lascivious reigning inclination. But if the man is above the world, and his heart is chaste, they are of no force, nor can they offer any violence at all.
It is the wickedness of our own hearts lusts therefore, which are so deeply in love with them, and so unbridledly bend after them, that gives all the prevailing force, and overpowering strength to the outward temptation. But now this is our Sin, and so can by no means plead our excuse; it is our damnable disease, and therefore it can never prove our saving remedy. For this is that reigning power of Sin which the Gospel has indispensably required us to mortifie, but not to submit to. It is only if you through the spirit do mortifie the deeds of the body, says St Paul, that you shall live, Rom. 8.13. Col. 3.5.
But if we are not under this damnable servitude to Sin, there are no temptations so strong, but that God has given us sufficient defensatives against them. For the present offer of a Gibbet would fright away the most endearing temptation; the near expectation of a great Estate, or of a Crown, would make us prevail over it. And what are these to hell fire, and an eternal Crown of Glory? Heaven therefore and Hell, when they can be considered of, are an answer to all temptations in the world; they will engage our hearts more than all the endearments of a lust, and infinitely out do all the baits and allurements of sin.
If we commit sin then, it is no sufficient excuse to us that the temptation was strong, because it was only the strength of our own unmortified lusts that made it so. For we loved the sinfull pleasure too well, and that was the reason why it overpower'd us. And since the strength of temptation is owing only to the strength of sin, it can never excuse us from undergoing punishment. So that this must needs be a false hope, to think of being excused for our sin, because we acted it through the violence of a great temptation.
Fourthly, Another ground of false confidence whereupon men hope to be saved although they do not obey in their works and actions, but are workers of sin and disobedience; is, because when they do transgress, it is with reluctance and unwillingness. Albeit in their actions they do serve sin, yet in their minds they do not approve of it, their service of it is an unwilling and a slavish service. They cannot sin freely, and at their own ease, but with fearfulness and regret. For the Conviction of their duty abides in their Consciences, the fear of hell torments sticks fast in their souls; they cannot shake off either their sense of duty, or their fears of punishment. So that even when they do sin against God, it is with remorse of mind and fearfulness of apprehension. They cannot embrace their sin with a full choice, because they know that it is not an unmixed pleasure. They believe and know it to be of a compound and mixt nature; to have some present pleasure which will delight, but withall much future punishment which will torment them. And since they know it to be a composition of good and ill, they do not perfectly either love or hate, choose or refuse it. Their will is distracted by different motives in the same choice; for the future pains would draw them to reject, but the present joyes invite them to embrace it. So that in a different degree they both will, and nill the same thing; they would have it, and yet they would avoid it. For they would enjoy what they desire, but withall they would keep off from what they fear: they have a mind to commit the sin, because it will please them for the present; and yet they are afraid of it, because of that wrath which it treasures up for them against the time to come.
But notwithstanding all this conflict in their own choice, yet at last their sin prevails, and they obey it. For they had rather hazard all its torments, than miss of its delights; they are unwilling to venture upon those dangers which it brings, but yet they had rather venture on them than go without it. They sin unwillingly just as a labourer works, or as a soldier fights unwillingly; that is, they do not will it for it self, they would not do it unless they were hired to it. For considering all things they will to act, and not to omit it; their will is against it indeed at the first sight, but upon better consideration it resolves upon it, and all things laid together they choose to commit the sin rather than to forbear it.
But now this is such a State as will never bring any man to Heaven: For whether he transgress willingly or with reluctancy, is not the question; but if he choose at last to disobey, when God comes to judgment he shall be sure to pronounce upon him that death which he has established for the punishment of disobedience. Because for all he fears and mistrusts, grumbles and repines; yet he serves and obeys his lusts all the while notwithstanding. He works at their will, and doth what they command him. He serves not with a full heart, or a fearless mind; but yet he is their servant still.
'Tis true indeed, it is some mitigation of his sin that he doth it with regret, and the transgression is something the less for being acted not without reluctance and aversion. It shews that his sense of duty is not quite lost; his Conscience, wholly fear'd, or his fear of God utterly extinguished. It is some extenuation that he startles at the offence; for it argues that his soul is not wholly depraved, or his heart harden'd in disobedience. But although his sins be not of the highest rate, yet he is a lost sinner still. For so long as his lusts prevail, and he chooses at last to act and commit them, he serves and obeys them. It is his works and actions that must determine his service and obedience; so that if he commit sin, he is the servant of sin. Willing or unwilling may extenuate or heighten his disobedience, but not utterly destroy or alter the nature of it.
For indeed something of struggling and regret is to be found in the obedience and disobedience of the greatest part of the world. There being few so good, as to obey without all reluctance; and few so wicked as to sin without all remorse. For as long as we are in this life, we are a mixt and compound substance of Soul and Body, Flesh and Spirit. Our carnal appetite draws us on to forbidden things, to transgress those restraints which Gods Law has set to it, and to sin. And our Conscience being enlightned with the knowledge of Gods Laws, and allured by his Promises, and affrighted with his threatnings; would perswade us to keep within his bounds, and to act obedience. Now these two contrary and gainsaying Principles distract our choice, and divide our wills; so that when we close with one of them, it is not without the grudging and reluctance of the other. We would, and we would not; one inclines us for a thing, and the other against it. The flesh, says St Paul, lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary one to the other, so that you cannot fulfill both their desires, and do each of the things that you would, Gal. 5.17. If we obey, it is through the repining of our appetites; and if we transgress, it is with the remorse and lashings of our Consciences: On both sides there is something that is evil, whereof we are afraid, and which we would not; our will is imperfect and with reluctance; and we will and choose in some measure unwillingly, whether it be to work obedience or sin.
As for the Saints in Heaven indeed after the Resurrection; 'tis true that they shall have no gainsaying appetites. For their flesh will be in perfect subjection to the spirit; their will shall have nothing to seduce it, but shall stand alwayes firm and entire for God; so that they shall obey without any thing of reluctance or regret.
And as for some of the profligate and prophane sinners here on earth; they have now already so quite benum'd their Consciences, that they neither allure nor threaten, admonish nor accuse them. And they sin without all contention; they transgress, and do not dispute; their lusts hurry them without any opposition; so that they disobey most willingly, and free from all remorse.
But as for all the good, and the generality of the wicked here on earth, they are of a middle rate. They both of them act through strife and conquest; their consent is courted on both sides, and when they comply with one, they must refuse the other. Both Flesh and Spirit struggle in them, although at last but one prevails. For in the Regenerate good man, the flesh stirs, but it cannot conquer; they have bodies, and bodily appetites, but they subdue them, and as St Paul says, keep them under, 1 Cor. 9.27. So that all the while the Spirit rules in them, when the flesh doth but in vain solicite; this may tempt, but it cannot govern; for the spirit gives them Laws, its pleasure they perform, and what it commands, that in their actions they obey: But in the wicked and disobedient the case is quite opposite. For in them, although their Conscience smite them, yet can it not prevail with them; it suggests, but they will not hearken; it shews the way, but they will not follow it; in all things their Lusts are the governours of their lives and actions; so that although the lashes of their consciences may sharpen and embitter, yet are they not able to disappoint the service of their sin.
In all the obedience therefore, and in the greatest part of the transgressions here on Earth; there is still something of strugling and reluctance. Men act not by a will that is void of all restraint, or by a desire and choice that is free from all unwillingness; but there is a mixture of love and hatred, an unwilling will that carries them on either to act obedience, or to disobey.
But notwithstanding their ineffective wishes and imperfect wouldings to the contrary; it is their peremptory will and last choice which shall determine their condition. For if they will and chuse to do what God commands, in spight of all the gainsaying wishes raised by their fleshly Appetites; they shall be pardoned and acquitted. When the good man overcomes the temptation, and prevails over his unwillingness, and triumphing over it goes on to practise and obey; he shall receive the reward of his obedience. But if they will and chuse to do what God forbids, in spight of all the contrary Admonitions and Threatnings of their Consciences; they shall dye in their disobedience. The Sinner who is carried on to do what he disallows, to work what he fears, and to commit what at first sight his will is averse to; he shall undergo the smart and punishment of his transgression.
And the reason is plain; for he serves his sin, and fulfils his lust; and his thraldome to it is so absolute that no aids of the Spirit, nor any suggestions of his Conscience can deliver him from it. He that committeth sin, saith our Saviour, is the servant of sin, John 8.34. So long as it conquers, it doth indeed inslave him; For of whom a man is overcome, of the same, says St Peter, he is brought in bondage, 2 Pet. 2.19. If we yield our selves up to serve it, we do indeed obey it; and must expect that death which is denounced upon such obedience. Know you not, saith another Apostle, that to whom you yield your selves servants to obey, his servants you are to whom you obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness, Rom. 6.16. If we are at the beck of our Lusts, and go where they send, and do what they command us, and acknowledge their pleasure in all things to be a Law to us; we are perfect Slaves to them, and liable to all that misery which is denounced upon them. We serve and obey them; and that shall surely bring us to suffer for them. For it is the fulfilling of our lusts, the doing or walking after them, and the obeying of our sin which Christs Gospel threatens so severely, whatever mind we do it with. If you live after the Flesh, saith the Apostle, you shall dye; and it is only if you through the Spirit do mortifie the deeds of the Body that you shall live, Rom. 8.13. When Christ comes to Judgment, the enquiry will not be, Whether we sinned with a full delight, or with fear and reluctance; but whether in very deed without repenting of it afterwards, we sinned wilfully, or transgressed at all. For we have what shall be his Sentence at that Day, from his own mouth already, Depart from me ye that work iniquity, Matth. 7.23.
So that it will be no sufficient Plea for any man at the last Day, who has disobeyed in deed and wrought wickedness, to say, That he did it with backwardness and remorse. For that which God indispensably requires, is, that h… should not do it at all; and he will only deceive himself if he ever expect to be accepted otherwise. For as the hopes of salvation upon mere orthodox opinions, or ineffective desires of obedience, or sinning through a strong temptation are utterly delusive, and sure to fail them that trust to them: so is this fourth ground likewise, viz. our hopes of being accepted notwithstanding our sins, because we transgressed with reluctance and unwillingness ▪