The Measures of Christian Obedience, Book 5 · Chapter 7
CHAP. VII. The Conclusion.
The CONTENTS.
Some other causless scruples. The point of growth in Grace more largely stated. A summary repetition of this whole Discourse. They may dye with courage whose Conscience doth not accuse them. This accusation must not be for idle words, distractions in Prayer, &c. but for a wilful transgression of some Law of Piety, Sobriety, &c. above mentioned. It must further be particular and express, not general and roving. If an honest mans heart condemn him not for some such unrepented sins, God never will.
BEsides these scruples already mentioned, some good minds may be put in fear, and doubt of the safety of their present state, because St John says, that whosoever is born of God sinneth not, being no longer a child of God if he do, 1 Joh. 3.6, 9.
But the sin here spoken of, as was observed aBook 4. Chap. 2.above, is defined by St John himself at the fourth verse of this Chapter, to be not every deviation or going beside the Law, but a wilful transgression and bforeign.rejecting of the Law it self. And this indeed is inconsistent with a regenerate state, and puts us out of Gods favour, making us liable to eternal destruction. But then the case for these sins is not desperate, seeing if once we forsake them, and repent of them, we are as safe again as ever we were before we committed them. For our repentance will set us straight; and if we transgress not wilfully again, we are without the reach of condemnation.
Others doubt whether when once they have wilfully sinned they ever can repent, or shall afterwards be pardoned, because they read of Esau, that after he had sold his birth-right with the blessing that attended it, when he would have inherited it afterwards he was rejected, and found no place of a cforeign.change of mind or repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears, Heb. 12.17.
In answer to this it will be sufficient to observe, that this change of mind or repentance which Esau sought, but could not find, was not in himself, but in his Father Isaac.
It was not in himself, I say, for there he did find a place for it, being he was really possessed of it. For he was heartily sorry for his former folly in parting with his birth-right; and for his present unhappiness in being cozen'd of his Father Isaacs blessing, and he sought to have them reverst with bitter crys, and importunate desires, and much unfeigned intreaties; which clearly show that Esaus own mind was changed abundantly.
But that repentance, or change of mind in reversing of the blessing, for which he laboured hard, but without effect, was in his Father Isaac. The good Old man had already pronounced the blessing upon Jacob, and when Esau most earnestly intreated him to reverse it, he told him flatly he would not: I have blessed him ▪ saith he, yea and he shall be blessed, Gen. 27.33. For the story, as it is there recited, is plainly this. When Isaac bid his Son Esau provide him some Venison, that he might eat thereof, and bless him before he died: Jacob, by the counsel and assistance of his Mother Rebecca, counterfeited both the person and the Venison of Esau, and going in therewith to his Father before Esau returned, craftily stole away the blessing from him. And when Esau came in afterwards to receive the blessing which Isaac his Father had promised him, he tells him that Jacob his Brother had come with subtilty before him, and under a crafty disguise had taken it away from him.Verse 37. For I have made him thy Lord, saith he, and all his brethren have I given to him for servants. And although Esau intreated his Father to reverse it,ver. 34, 38. and cryed, as it is there said, with a great and exceeding bitter cry; yet Isaac would not change his mind, or alter what he had pronounced: I have blessed him, 33.saith he, yea and he shall be blessed. This reversion of the blessing, and repentance or change of mind in his Father Isaac, was that which Esau endeavoured after, and which, as St. Paul here says, he sought carefully with tears. But as he observes out of this story all was in vain, for it would not be granted him. When he sought to inherit the blessing, his suit was not granted but rejected; for Isaacs Decree was past, and he found no place of repentance, or way to make him change his mind; although he sought that dforeign.change carefully with tears.
In this place then the Apostle says not at all that it was impossible for Esau to repent of his sins against God, or that God would not forgive him upon his repentance: but only that Isaac would not repent of his decree, or reverse that blessing which he had pronounced upon Jacob. Which inflexibleness of Isaac he doth indeed make use of in these verses to illustrate Gods inexorableness towards some sinners; but then those are not all wilful sinners indifferently, but only Apostates, who have wilfully renounced their Christianity, which, as we have seen before, is a sin that God will afford no more grace, or place of repentance to. And this, as I take it, appears plainly from the foregoing verses. Take care, says he, lest that which is lame, or the weak Christian, be turned out of the way of his Christian profession through fears of Persecution, v. 13; Look diligently lest any man fail, or fall from the Grace or Gospel of God, v. 15; which I exhort you the more earnestly to do, because if any man doth reject all those Gospel-blessings and priviledges, which in that Religion which you have received are now offered to him, and apostatize from them; God will never afford him the tender of them again, but will be as unalterable in his Decree against him, as Isaac was in his against Esau, who, as you know from the story, after once he had mist of the blessing, found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears, v. 17.
Others again are troubled in mind, and are afraid lest their Souls are yet in danger, because they do not perceive themselves to grow in grace, and to be increased in goodness. They complain that their spiritual life is at a stand, and that they are not more devout and piously affected, more vertuous and better Christians than they were for some considerable time before. And this makes them jealous lest they should pass for idle servants, who have not used and improved their Talents and who shall be dealt with at the last Day as if they had abused them.
To speak clearly to this business, and yet to be as brief as conveniently I can, it is first observable, that to grow in grace is the same thing as to grow in vertue and goodness, or to go on to higher measures of life and perfection in any, or in all the instances of duty and obedience. For an obedient life, as I have largely shewn, is that sole instance and proof of grace, which can render any of us acceptable in Gods sight, and whereupon the Gospel encourages us to hope for pardon and a happy Sentence at the last Judgment. So that if any mans life is more perfect than it was, if he grows in doing good, and keeping back from evil, and goes on higher still in performing all Gods Commandments; if he begins to have a greater honour for God, to be more careful to please, and more afraid to offend him; if he is more forward to depend upon his Providence, to trust in his Promises, to resign himself up to his Will, and to submit to his pleasure, to praise him for all his Excellencies and Disposals, and to perform all his Precepts: if he is more humble and heavenly-minded, chast and temperate, just and charitable; if he is more meek and gentle, courteous and affable, quiet and peaceable, more ready to repair wrongs, and to forgive injuries than formerly: if he thus advances to higher measures, to greater ease, or to more constancy and evenness of obedience in any, or in all instances of Duty towards God and men, and that in all relations; his vertue is in its spring, and is still going on; he grows in grace, and God will accordingly reward him.
One particular Vertue there is, which men are wont to look at more especially in this matter, and that is Prayer. They measure their growth in grace by their improvement in this, and think their spiritual life is then most perfect, when their Devotions are most inlarged. Which they conclude they are, not when they are put up with the greatest trust and dependance, submission and resignedness to God Almighty, or with any other of those obedient tempers implied in Prayer which are apt to influence our whole lives: but when they are accompanied with the most sensible joys, and ravishing transports, and unusual height of fervency and affection. So that if at any time they can pray more passionately, and put forth more intense desires, and work themselves up to more heavenly raptures than ordinarily they have been able to attain to; they fancy that they do indeed grow in grace, and are become higher in Gods favour and acceptance. But if ever this service happens to be more irksom to them, and they discharge it with much backwardness and weariness, dulness and indifference; they think God frowns upon them, and has deserted them, and that their grace is in a declining state, and sinking down to nothing.
But this is a very uncertain and dangerous mark for any man in this case to judge by, and will very often deceive him that builds upon it. For these fervent heats, and delightsom transports of Devotion, are not so much a duty as a priviledge, which all tempers cannot attain to, but only those that are naturally disposed for it: so that a growth in them, is not a growth in saving grace, but rather in sensible joy and happiness, and renders us not so truly gracious in Gods eyes, as happy in our own. Besides, as an improvement in these religious and pleasing raptures is not a growth in grace it self, so neither is it always joyned with it, and therefore no sure argument can be deduced from it. For 'tis easily observable, that several persons of devotional tempers, who are usually raised up to a high pitch, and ravished with most delightsom transports in their Prayers; are yet very dangerously defective in many instances of necessary Duty and a holy life. They fall oft-times, even whilst they enjoy their blissful heats and heavenly raptures of Devotion, into damning acts of fraud and injustice, anger and malice, strife and variance, fierceness and revenge: they live in them, and are habitually inslaved to them, and yet for all that they find no want of this delight in prayer, nor any abatement of their devout intenseness of mind, and earnest fervour of affection still. But now these men, being so maimed and partial in their service, and having no entire obedience to confide in; they have not grace enough, as manifestly appears from what has been Book 3.said upon that point, to bear them out, nor so much vertue as God has indispensably required to save them.
As for these qualifications of our Prayers then, those sensible joys and passionate transports which accompany them; they are no instance of obedience and saving grace themselves, nor any certain argument that those persons are endowed with it who are allowed to enjoy them. They are oft-times found in ill men, who, so long as they rest there and grow no better, cannot go to Heaven.
And then as for the other more acceptable and obedient tempers of our prayers, such as trust and dependance, submission and resignedness, &c. which the men of sober devotion most justly prefer before the former, as usually most others do when once their religious heats are over: though a growth in them is truly a growth in grace, yet a growth in them alone is not enough to save us. They indeed in themselves are so many particular instances of obedience, and besides that, they are also great means and proper instruments to produce others: so that our growth in them is a growth in some particular Graces, and a very likely way to grow in others also. But still we must remember that they are but one part of saving Grace, and by no means the whole; so that till we are grown in others too, we cannot hope to be saved by them. They are some instances of vertue, and a growth in them is in part a growth in grace: but a growth in them alone, or in any other particular vertues whatsoever, except we are grown up to a saving pitch in all the rest, and are come up to an entire obedience, is not enough to serve our turn. For this is the indispensable condition of the Christian Religion, and this the fEph. 4.13.perfect man and just stature in the Christian Faith; that we be grown up to an habitual obedience in all our voluntary and chosen actions, not only to some few, but to all the parts of Duty, and the Laws of God.
But if we would single out some one, or some few Vertues, from our growth and improvement wherein we may justly presume that we have attained to saving degrees in all the rest: St James directs us to the duties of the tongue, in abstaining from back-biting, censuring, and evil-speaking, &c. which under all the invitations of conversation, and the temptations of common life, is usually the last point which good men gain, and that wherein gEcclus 19.16. and 14.1.they, who scarce ever sin wilfully at all, or very rarely, are wont most frequently through indeliberation and inadvisedness to miscarry. If any man, saith he, offendeth not in word, but has attained to an innocent and obedient guidance of his tongue; that same man need not be defective in other duties, he is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body, Jam. 3.2.
Thus is mens growth in saving Grace, not a growth only in some one, or in some few vertues; but in an universal and entire obedience. And this every Christian is bound incessantly to endeavour after. The longer he lives, the higher improvement ought he to make, and to attain every vertue in a larger measure, and in greater firmness and perfection, than he had before. Grow in grace, says St Peter, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 2 Pet. 3.18. Forgetting those things which are behind me, and already attained, says St Paul, and reaching out after those things which are still before me, I press on forward towards the mark, that I may acquire a more compleat growth than yet I have. And let as many among you as be perfect, be thus minded, Phil. 3.13, 14.
Thus are all good Christians bound to advance still further in a virtuous course, and the longer they live, to be still more uniform and constant, firm and perfect in all instances of obedience and a holy life. But then this obligation is not always laid upon them under the forfeiture of Heaven, but when once they have attained so far as is indispensably necessary to their acceptance, only of some higher rewards and greater degrees of happiness which are to be enjoyed there. For there are different degrees in happiness, answerable to the different measures in mens obedience: they that perform most, shall be rewarded highest; but they who perform no more than is indispensably required, although they miss of that accession of reward which by the Grace of the Gospel is due to an eminent height of obedient endeavours, shall yet obtain the pardon of their sins, and a state of joy and blessedness in Heaven, as well as they who have endeavoured and performed more. An entire obedience in all chosen actions, and a particular repentance and amendment of all those sins wherein at any time we have wilfully disobeyed God, is sufficient, as has been shown, to secure the happiness of the next life. According as we have attained to greater or lesser perfection in it, so shall the degrees of our reward there be proportioned; but if we have arrived to it at all, we have as much to show as is just necessary. And therefore whilst we are yet in the more imperfect measures of it, and only thirst after a more perfect obedience, that we may still be more acceptable to God, and have right to a more noble and excellent reward; we are in a safe state, and have no need to disquiet our Souls with fears and jealousies, lest they should eternally miscarry.
If any person then has used Gods Grace, and improved his Talents to this measure, he has not been unprofitable and useless, but has profited so far as is necessary to his happiness. He is bound indeed still to advance higher, and in every instance of Vertue to improve further; but this he is, not under the loss of Heaven, but only under the danger of falling back into such a state of sin as would destroy the hopes of it again, and the forfeiture of greater glory and rewards there when an intire obedience in all chosen instances, and a particular reformation and repentance of all wilful sins is once secured, there is so much growth in grace as is absolotely necessary; an exalted pitch and compleat measures of this obedience with more ease and pleasure, constancy and evenness, with less mixture of voluntary sins which need particular repentance, and with a greater freedom from innocent and unwilled infirmities, is necessary to more absolute degrees and greater hights of glory: but till that can be had, this is sufficient to a mans salvation.
Several other scruples there are which are wont to disquiet and perplex the minds of good and honest people who are safe in Gods account, although their Case seems never so hazardous in their own. And of this sort are their fears that their obedience is unsincere, because they have an eye at their own good, and a respect to their own safety; since they serve God in hopes to be better by him, and out of a fear, should they disobey, of suffering evil from him. They are afraid also that it is defective in a main Point, for they cannot love and serve him in that comprehensive latitude which the Commandment requires, viz. With all their heart, and with all their soul, and with all their mind. They doubt they are past Grace and Pardon, because they have sinned after that they have been enlightned, and that wilfully; and the Apostles affirms that for such there remains no more Sacrifice for sins, Heb. 10.26. These doubts are still apt to disturb their peace, and make sad their hearts; and some others of like nature.
But of these and several others I have given sufficient Accounts above; such as, I hope, may satisfie any reasonable man, who is capable to read and to consider of them; and thither I refer the Reader, not thinking fit here to repeat them.
And thus at last we have seen when an honest and entire obedience is taken care for in the first place, how plainly groundless those fears are, which are wont to perplex the thoughts of good and safe, yet ignorant and misguided people about their state of happiness and salvation.
And now I have done with all those points which I thought necessary to be enquired into, to the end that I might shew every man now before-hand how he stands prepared for the next world; and which at the beginning of this whole Discourse I proposed to treat of. I have shown what that condition is of bliss or misery, which the Gospel indispensably exacts of us, and that, as I take it, so particularly, that no man, who will be at the pains to read and consider of it, can overlook or mistake it; what those defects are, which it bears and dispenseth with; what those remedies and means of reconciliation are, which it has provided for us; and, when all these are taken care for, how groundless all those other scruples are, which are wont to disquiet honest minds about the goodness of their present state, and their title to eternal salvation.
And upon the whole matter the sum of all amounts to this, that when Christ shall come to sit in judgment at the last day, and to pass sentence of life or death upon every man according to the direction of his Gospel, he will pronounce upon every man according to his works. If he has honestly and entirely obey'd the whole will of God in all the particular Laws before-mention'd, never willfully and deliberately offending in any one instance, nor indulging himself in the practice of any thing which he knows to be a sin; he is safe in the Accounts of the last Judgment, and shall never come into Condemnation. Nay if he has been a damnable offender, and has willfully transgressed either in one instance, or in many; in frequent repetitions of his sin, or in few; yet if he repent of it before death seize him, and amend it ere he is haled away to Judgment; he is safe still. For he shall be judged according as his works then are when God comes to enquire of them; so that if ever he be found in an honest obedience, observing everything which he sees to be his duty, and willfully venturing upon nothing which his Conscience tells him is sinful; he is found in the state of Grace and Pardon, and if he die in it, he shall be saved. All his unwill'd ignorances and innocent unadvisednesses upon his Prayers for pardon and his mercifulness and forgiveness of other men, shall be abated; all his other causes of fear and scruple shall be overlooked; they shall not be brought against him to his Condemnation, but in the honest and entire obedience which he hath performed, in that shall he live.
If then we have an honest heart, and walk so as our own Conscience has nothing whereof to accuse us; we may meet Death with a good Courage, and go out of the World with comfortable Expectations. For if we have an honest and a tender heart, whensoever we sin willfully and against our Consciences, our own Souls will be our Remembrancers. They will be a witness against us both whilst we are in this World, and after we are taken out of it, and brought to Judgment. Mens Consciences, says the Apostle, shall accuse or excuse them, in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men according to my Gospel, Rom. 2.15.
Indeed if men have harden'd their hearts in wickedness, and sin'd themselves out of the belief of their duty, having come to call evil, good; and good, evil: then their Consciences having no further sense of sin, will have no accusations upon it. But if they really believe the Gospel, and study to know their duty, and desire to observe it, and are afraid to offend in any thing which they see is sinful; whilst thus their heart is soft, and their Conscience tender, they cannot venture upon any sin with open Eyes, but that their own hearts will both check them before, and smite them afterwards. They will have a witness against them in their own bosoms, which will scourge and awake them, so that they cannot approach death without a sense of their sin, nor go out of the World without discerning themselves to be guilty.
If our own Conscience then cannot accuse us of the wilful and presumptuous breach of any of Gods Commandments, and we know of none but what we have repented of; we have just reason to take a good heart to our selves, and to wait for death in hopeful expectations. If our own … Pet. 3.21.hearts condemn us not, says Saint John, then have we confidence towards God, 1 John 3.21. There is no sin that will damn us but a wilful one, and when we sin wilfully, if our heart is soft and honest, we sin willingly and against our Conscience; our own heart sees and observes it before, and will keep us in mind of it after we have committed it. So that if any man has a vertuous and a tender heart, a heart that is truly d…sirous to obey obey God, and afraid in any thing to offend him; when his Conscience is silent he may justly conclude that his Condition is safe, for if it doth not condemn him, God never will.
An honest mans heart, I say, must condemn him before he have sufficient reason to condemn himself. And that too not for every idle word, or every fruitless lust, or every dulness of spirit, and distraction in prayer, and coldness in devotion, or such other mistaken marks whereby too many are wont to judge of their title to salvation. No, Heaven and Hell are not made to depend upon these things, but although a man be guilty of them, he may be eternally happy notwithstanding them. But that accusation of his Conscience which may give an honest man just reason to condemn himself, must be an accusation for a wilful breach or deliberate transgression of some particular Law of Sobriety, Piety, Justice, Charity, Peaceableness; it must accuse him of an unrepented breach of some of those Laws above mentioned, which God has plainly made the terms of life, and the condition of salvation.
And the accusation for the breach of these Laws must be particular and express; not general and roving. For some are of so suspicious and timorous a temper, that they are still suspecting and condemning of themselves when they know not for what reason. They will indict themselves as men that have sinned greatly, but they cannot shew wherein; they judge of themselves, not from any reason or experience, but at a venture, and by chance; they speak not so truly their opinions as their fears; not what their understandings see and discern, but what their melancholy suggests to them. For ask them as to any one Particular of the Laws of God, and run them all over, and their Consciences cannot charge them with any wilful, which is withal an unrepented transgression of it. But let them overlook all Particulars, and pass a judgment of themselves only in general, when they do not judge from particular instances, which are true evidence, but only from groundless and small presumptions; and then they pass a hard sentence upon themselves, and conclude that their sins are very great and their condition dangerous.
But no man shall be sentenced at the last Day for Notions and Generalities: but it is our particular sins which must then condemn us. For God's Laws bind us all in single actions; and if our own Consciences cannot condemn us for any one wilful, which is withal an unrepented action; God will not condemn us for them altogether.
If our own heart therefore doth not accuse us for the particular, wilful, and unrepented breaches of some or other of those Laws above mentioned, which God has made the indispensable condition of our acceptance; we are secure as to the next World, and may comfortably hope to be acquitted in the last Judgment. Being conscious of no wilful sin but what we have repented of, and by mercy and forgiveness of other men, and our prayers to God, begging pardon for our involuntary sins; we shall have nothing that will lye heavy upon us at the last Day, but may go out of the World with ease, and dye in comfort. Our departure hence may be in peace, because our appearance at Gods Tribunal shall surely be in safety. For we shall have no worse charged upon us there, than we are able here to charge upon our selves; but leaving this World in a good Conscience, we shall be sentenced in the next to a glorious reward; and bid to enter into our Masters joy, there to live with our Lord for ever and ever. Amen.
Soli Deo Gloria.
FINIS.
End of the text · John Kettlewell, The Measures of Christian Obedience (1681)