Part 3

Of the third Article. Touching the form and nature and manner of drawing: 1. It's a question, whether this drawing be Justification, or Sanctification? Antinomians say it's both: But moreover, both is one, (say they.)

Answer.

Position 1. Drawing is relative to running and walking (Song of Solomon 1:4). Now this is rather in acts of Sanctification, and in running in the ways of God's commandments (Psalm 119:32), than in Justification, though coming goes for an act of believing and approaching to Christ (John 6:44), and so excludes not faith.

Position 2. It is most unsound to affirm, that Justification and Regeneration are all one; for this must confound all acts flowing from Justification, with those that flow from Regeneration, or the infused habit of Sanctification. 1. Justification is an indivisible act; the person is but once for all justified, by grace. But Sanctification is a continued daily act. 2. Justification does not grow; the sinner is either freed from the guilt of sin, and justified, or not freed; there is not a third. But in Sanctification, we are said to grow in grace (2 Peter 3:14), and advance in sanctification: nor is it ever consummate and perfect, so long as we bear about a body of sin.

Position 3. To repent, to mortify sin, is not to condemn all our works, (as Mr. Town says) righteousness, and judgment, and our best things in us, and then by faith to flee to grace; nor is it to distrust our own righteousness, and embrace Christ's in the promise. 1. Because this is faith; and the Scripture says, we are justified by faith. 2. We receive Christ by faith (John 1:12). (3.) We receive and embrace the promise by faith (Hebrews 11:11), and were persuaded of them. 4. We are to believe without staggering (Romans 4:19). (5.) We have peace of conscience through faith (Romans 5:1). (6.) By faith we have access into this grace, wherein we stand (Romans 5:2), and boldness to enter into the holy of holiest, and draw near to our High Priest, with full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22). Now we are not justified by repentance and mortification; we neither receive Christ, nor embrace the promises by repentance. The Apostle requires in repentance, sorrow, carefulness to eschew sin, clearing, indignation, fear, zeal, desire, revenge (2 Corinthians 7:10-11), but nowhere does the Scripture require this as an ingredient of repentance, that we have boldness and access, and full assurance: nor do Antinomians admit, that by repentance we have peace, or pardon, but this they ascribe to faith.

A second question is, how far the law can draw a sinner to Christ? Antinomians tell us of a legal drawing and conversion, and of an Evangelical drawing; the legal drawing, they say, is ours; the latter theirs.

Assertion 1. The difference between the letter of the law, and the Gospel, is not in the manner of working; for the letter of either law or Gospel, is alike ineffectual and fruitless to draw any to Christ. Christ preached the Gospel to hard-hearted Pharisees, it moved them not. Moses preached the law and the curses thereof to the stiff-necked Jews, and they were as little humbled. Sounds and syllables of ten hells, of twenty heavens and Gospels, without the Spirit's working, are alike fruitless. And we grant the law is a sleepy keeper of a captive sinner; he may either steal away from his keeper, or if he be awed with his keeper, he is not kept from any spiritual, internal breach of the law, nor moved thereby to sincere and spiritual walking. But the difference between law and Gospel, is not in the internal manner of working, but in two other things. 1. In the matter contained in law and Gospel: because nature is refractory to violence, and the law can do nothing but curse sinners, therefore it can draw no man to Christ. The Gospel again contains sweet and glorious promises of giving a new heart, to the elect; of admitting to the Prince of peace, laden and broken-hearted mourners in Zion; and in conferring on them a free imputed righteousness; and this is in itself a taking-way; but without the Gospel-spirit utterly ineffectual. 2. To the Gospel there is a Spirit added, which works as God does, with an omnipotent pull; and this Spirit does also use the law to prepare and humble; though this be by a higher power than goes along with the law, as the law.

Assertion 2. The Gospel-love of Christ frees a captive from under the law, as a curser, and delivers him over to the law, as to a pedagogue to lead him to Christ, and as to an instructor to rule and lead him when he is come to Christ. Love is the immediate and nearest lord; law the mediate and remote lord. Love bids the man do all for Christ; the law now of itself, because of our sinfulness, is a bitter and sour thing; but now the law is dipped in Christ's Gospel-love, and is sugared and honeyed, and evangelized with free grace, and receives a new form from Christ, and is become sweeter than the honey and the honeycomb, to draw and persuade: and all the law is made a new commandment of love, and a Gospel-yoke, sweet and easy; but still the law obliges justified men to obedience, not only for the matter of it, but for the supreme authority of the lawgiver; now Christ, who came to fulfill, not to dissolve the law, does not remove this authority, but adds a new bond of obligation, from the tie of Redemption in Jesus Christ, and we are freed from the curse of the law. 2. The rigid exaction of obedience, every way perfect. 3. The seeking of life and justification by the law.

Assertion 3. There are two things in the Law: 1. The authority and power to command, direct, and regulate the creature to an end, in acts of righteousness and holiness. 2. A secondary authority, to punish eternally the breakers of the Law, and to reward those that obey. These are two different things; suppose Adam had never sinned, the Law had been the Law; and suppose Adam had never obeyed, the Law also should have been the Law, and in the former case, there should have been no punishment, in the latter no reward. Antinomians confound these two. Mr. Towne says, It cannot be said, that my spirit does that voluntarily, which the command of the Law binds and forces. It is one thing for a man at his own free liberty to keep the King's highway of the Law; and another to keep it by pales and ditches, that he cannot without danger go out of it. It cannot be denied, but that the Gospel both charges or awes us to believe in Christ, and to bring forth good fruits, worthy of Christ, except we would be hewn down, and cast into the fire; and also that Grace works Faith, and to will, and to do; and so voluntary obedience and obligation of a command, may as well consist, as bearing Christ's yoke, and soul-rest; indeed, and delight, and joy unspeakable, and glorious, may be and are in one regenerate person. Crisp and his followers are far wide, for Christ died freely, out of extreme love, and yet he died out of a command laid on him, to lay down his life for his sheep, though no penal power was above Christ's head, to punish him if he should not die (John 10:18). Nor was there need of any power to force him sub pena, or to awe him, if he should not obey; so do Angels, with wings of most exact willingness, obey God, yet are they under the authority of a Law, and command, but yet under no compelling punishment (Psalm 103:20-21; Psalm 104:4). So in the Saints love has changed the chains, not the subjection. Love has made the Law silken cords; and whereas corrupt will was a wicked landlord, and lust a lawless tyrant, and the Law had a dominion over the sinner, in regard of the curse. Now the Spirit leads the will under the same commanding power of the Law-giver, frees the sinner from the curse, and turns forcing and cursing power in fetters of love; so that the Spirit draws the will sweetly to obey the same Lord, the same law, only Christ has taken the rod out of the Law's hand, and the rod was broken and spent on his own back. The feud between the Law and the sinner is not so irreconcilable, as the Antinomians conceive, so as it cannot be removed, except the Law be destroyed, and the sinner's free will loosed from law. It stands in blessing, and cursing; salvation, and damnation: that are effects of the Law as observed, or violated. Now, Christ was made a curse, and condemned to die for the sinner; all the rest of the Law remains. It is most false that Mr. Towne says, To justify and condemn are as proper and essential to the Law, as to command. 2. It is false that we are freed from active obedience to the Moral Law, because Christ came under active obedience to the Moral Law; for the Law required obedience out of love. Antinomians cannot say, that we are freed from obedience out of love; for it is clear, Antinomians will have us obliged by no law to love our brother; to abstain from worldly lusts, that war against the soul; but in so doing, we must seek to be justified by the works of the Law. This consequence we deny. To keep one Ceremony of Moses draws a bill on us of debt to keep all the Ceremonial Law; because now it is unlawful in any sort. But to do the duties of the Moral Law, as by Christ we are enabled, lays no such debt on us, but testifies our thankfulness to Christ, as to our Husband and Redeemer.

The other considerable thing here, is the way and manner of Christ's drawing.

Assertion 1. The particular exact knowledge of the Lord's manner of drawing of sinners, may be unknown to many that are drawn. 1. In the very works of nature, the growing of bones in the womb, is a mystery; far more the way of the Spirit (Ecclesiastes 11:5). Do you know the balancing of the clouds? Job could not answer this. And who knows how the Lord patched together a piece of red clay, and made it a fit shape to receive a heavenly and immortal spirit? And at what window the soul came in? 2. How God with one key of omnipotency has opened so many millions of doors [reconstructed: since] the Creation, and has drawn so many to him, must be a mystery. There be many sundry locks, and many various turnings and throwings of the same key, and but one key. 1. Some Christ draws by the heart, as Lydia, Matthew: love sweetly and softly blows up the door, and the King is within doors in the floor of the house before they be aware. Others Christ trails and drags by violence, rather by the hair of the head, than by the heart, as the jailer (Acts 16) and Saul (Acts 9), who are plunged over ears in hell, and pulled above water by the hair of the head: sure thousands do wear a crown of glory before the throne, who were never at making of themselves away by killing themselves, as the jailer was. A third sort know they are drawn, but how, or when, or the mathematical point of time, they know not: some are full of the Holy Ghost from the womb, as John Baptist. You must not cast off all, nor must saints say they are none of Christ's, because they cannot tell you histories and wonders of themselves, and of their own conversion: some are drawn by miracles, some without miracles; the word of God is the roadway. Arminians have no ground to deny that we are irresistibly converted, because we know not the particular way how omnipotency conspires strongly, but sweetly, to win consent, without internal violence of our will, which so wills, as it may refuse. In John 9, diverse times the Jews ask the blind man, What did he to you, how opened he your eyes? He gives them one sure and true answer, One thing I know, once I was blind, now I see. All can give this testimony, early or late, I know I am drawn. It is good the soul can say, Christ is here, I find him and feel him; but whether he came in at the door, or the window, or dug a hole in the wall, I know not. All may know they were blind as well as others, and by nature the children of wrath; as you know Adam has had a building in you, (though now you be renewed in the spirit of the mind) by the old stones and rubbish in the house, and by the stirrings of the old man. When you see the bones of a half dead man, and his grave, and find some warmness of life and heat, you know there has been life and strength in the man; so though you cannot tell when Christ was first formed in you, yet you find the bones and some warm blood, and some life-stirring of concupiscence in the old man, though Christ has made his grave, and he be well near completely buried, and his one foot in the grave. God has appointed a time for the coming of the swallow; a season when flowers shall be on the earth, and when not; an hour when the sea shall be full tide; but there is no set day, not a determinate and set summer known to us, when the wind shall blow up doors and locks of the soul, and Christ shall come in. But yet they are not Christ's who neither know how they are drawn, nor can give any proofs that they are drawn. The Apostle says (1 Corinthians 2:12), Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. The converted can say, I was such a man (1 Timothy 1:13). [illegible], but I obtained mercy; or, I was all be-mercied, filled with mercy. As in Ezekiel 16. [illegible]: Your time was a time of loves. As a constellation is not one single star, but many; so the converted soul observes a confluence, a bundle, an army of free loves, all in one cluster, meeting and growing upon one stalk: as to be born where the voice of the turtle-dove is heard in the land, it is free love; to hear such a sermon, free love; that the man spoke such an excellent word, free love; that I was not sleeping when it was spoken, free love; that the Holy Ghost drove that word into the soul, as a nail fastened by the master of the assembly, it was free mercy: so that there's a meeting of shining favors of God, in obtaining mercy; and this would be observed.

Assertion 2. There be two ordinary ways of God, in drawing sinners: one moral, by words; another physical and real, by strong hand. Which may be cleared thus: fancy, led with some gilding of apparent or seeming good, as hope of food, does allure and draw the bird to the snare; and sometimes pleasure, as a glass, and the singing of the fowler: so is fish drawn to nibble at the hook and lines cast out, hoping to get food. Now this is like moral drawing in men; and all this is but objective, working on the fancy. But when the foot and wing of the bird is entangled with the net, and the fish has swallowed down the bait, and an instrument of death under it, now the fowler draws the bird, and the fisher the fish, a far other way, even by real violence. The physician makes the sick child thirsty, then allures him to drink medicine, under the notion of drink to quench his thirst: this is moral drawing of the child by wiles. But when the child has drunk, the drink works not by wiles, or morally, but naturally, without freedom, and whether the child will or no, it purges head and stomach.

That there is a moral working by the word, in the drawing of sinners to Christ, though most evident, yet must be proved against Antinomians and enthusiasts, who write, that the whole letter of the Scripture holds forth a covenant of works. And, the due search and knowledge of the holy Scripture, is not a safe and sure way of searching and finding Christ. And, there is a testimony of the Spirit, and voice to the soul, merely immediate, without any respect to, or concurrence with the word. And, such a faith as is wrought by a practical syllogism, or the word of God, is but a human faith; because the conclusion follows but from the strength of reasonings, or reason, not from the power of God, by which alone divine things are wrought (Ephesians 1:19-20; Colossians 2:20). And that because such a faith wrought by the word, the works (of sanctification in the regenerate) and light of a renewed conscience, are all done by things that are created blessings and gifts; and these cannot produce that which is only produced by an almighty power. For the word of itself without the Spirit, (yet the word is more than works of sanctification) is but a dead letter; but that God works faith by the word, his own Spirit concurring, is clear.

1. The Prophets allege this for their warrant, Thus says the Lord. Ergo, you must believe it. And one more and greater than all the Prophets, But I say, so Christ God equal with the Father speaks.

2. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17). How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? (Romans 10:14). It is true, the word, the works of God, are not the principal object of faith, nor objectum quod; faith rests only on God, and the Lord Jesus (John 14:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:8). Your faith toward God (1 Peter 1:21; Deuteronomy 1:32; John 3:12; Genesis 15:6; Daniel 6:23; Romans 4:3; Galatians 2:16; 2 Timothy 1:12). The word, promises, and Prophets and Apostles, are all creatures, and but media fidei, the means of saving faith: they are objectum quo (John 5:46; Psalm 106:12; Exodus 4:8; Psalm 78:7). Of themselves they are dead letters, and dead things, and cannot without the Spirit produce faith. Indeed, all habits of grace, of faith, of love, in us, are like the streams of a fountain that would dry up of themselves, if the spring did not, with a sort of eternity, furnish them new supply; so would habits of grace, being but created things, wither in us, if they were not supplied from the fountain Christ. And all beings created, in comparison of the first Being, are nothing; and all nations to him are less than nothing, and vanity (Isaiah 40:17); and so are the infused habits of grace nothing. If this were the meaning of Familists and Antinomians, who say that there is in us no inherent grace, but that grace is only in Christ, we should not contend with them. We teach no such thing, as that reasonings, syllogisms, or the Scriptures, without the Spirit can produce faith, yet it is vain arguing, to say rain, and dew, the summer sun, good soil cannot bring forth roses, flowers, vines, grains; because sure, it is a work of omnipotence, that produces all these. And so it is vain to say, that because faith is the work of the omnipotence of grace, therefore faith comes not by hearing, and reasoning from Scripture: the contrary of which is evident in Christ's proving of the resurrection, by consequence from Scripture (Matthew 22:31-32; Luke 20:37-38). Nor can any say, Christ may make discourses from Scripture, and his reasonings, because he is the King of the church, are valid, and may produce faith, but we cannot do the like, nor are our reasonings, Scriptures. For Christ rebukes the Sadducees, You err not knowing the Scriptures, etc., because they believed not the consequences of Scripture as Scripture, and made not the like discourse, for the building of themselves in the faith.

3. The searching of the Scriptures is life eternal, the only way to find Christ (John 5:39; Acts 10:43; Romans 3:21; Isaiah 8:20).

4. God shall persuade Japheth (by the Scriptures preached) and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem (Genesis 9:27). God's opening of the heart, and Lydia's hearing and attending to the word that Paul spoke, go together (Acts 16:14).

5. The way of Enthusiasts, in rejecting both Law and Gospel, and all the written word of God, is because there is no light in them. Some immediate sense of God, and working of the Holy Spirit, on the soul of the child of God, witnessing to me in particular, that I am the child of God, I deny not, and that my name expressly is not in Scripture, is as true; but this testimony excludes not the Scripture, as if the searching thereof were no safe way of finding Christ, as they blasphemously say. 1. Because this Enthusiasm excludes the only revealed rule, by which we try the Spirits, and we are forbidden to presume above that which is written (1 Corinthians 4:16), and Enthusiasts have acted murders, and much wickedness under this notion of inspirations of the Spirit. 2. Because if the matter of that which is revealed, be not according to the written Word; now after the Scripture is signed by Christ's own hand (Revelation 22:18), I see not what we are to believe of these inspirations. What extraordinary impulses, and prophetical instincts have been in holy men, and such as God has raised to reform his Churches, can be no rule to us. 3. If there be any mark of Scriptural sanctification, that does not agree to Scripture, the rule of righteousness, though found in a person not mentioned in Scripture, it is a delusion. 4. It is all the reason in the world, that a sinner be drawn to Christ. For Christ is the most rational object that is, he being the wisdom of God. And man is led and taken with reason. Christ is a convincing thing, and invincibly binds reason: so the forlorn Son, before he returns to his Father, argues (Luke 15:17), My Father has bread, he gives it to servants, and I am a starving son; therefore I'll return to my Father; and the wise Merchant must discourse (Matthew 13:45-46), Christ is a precious pearl, all that I have in the world are but common stones and clay to him; therefore I cast my account thus, to sell all, and to buy him. So (Matthew 9:21) the diseased woman has heart-Logic within herself, if a touch of the border of his garment may heal me, then I'll go to Christ; and the unjust Steward cast Syllogisms, thus; I cannot work, and a lodging in heaven I must have, and there is but one way to come by it, to make me a friend in heaven. Indeed, a fool's paradise, a wedge of gold, is a strong reason (Proverbs 7:21). The whore forced the young man with gilded words and the out-side of reason. Faith is the deepest and soundest understanding, the gold, the flower of reason. Christ can make me a King, therefore I'll be drawn to him. Poor Adam out-witted himself, turned distracted, he studied an apple, so while he studied all his posterity out of their wits, and now we are born [illegible], mad fools (Titus 3:3). What is the Gospel? but a mass, a sea, a world of fair and precious truths, that says, come born-idiots to wisdom, and be made eternal Kings: this is good reason. For the other way of drawing, we shall speak of it hereafter.

Assertion 3. In words and oratory there is no power, to make the blind see, and the dead live. Will you preach heaven, and Christ seven times, and let Angels preach above a dead man's grave, you do just nothing. But Christ's word is more than a word. (John 4:10) Jesus said, if you knew that gift of God, and who it is that says to you, give me drink, you would have asked of him, and he would have given you living water. (Psalm 119:33) Teach me, O Lord, the way of your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end. (Psalm 9:10) Those that know your name, will put their trust in you. Christ said, but, Follow me, to Matthew. And I said to you when you were in your blood, live (Ezekiel 16:6). One word, live, is with child of omnipotence; Majesty, and heaven, and glory lie in the womb of one word, when Christ speaks as Christ, he speaks pounds and talent-weights (Luke 24:32). The disciples going to Emmaus, say one to another; did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? There be [reconstructed: coals] of fire, and fire-brands in Christ's words. Christ is quick of understanding, to know what word is the fittest key, to shoot the iron bar that keeps the heart closed; he opens seals on the heart with authority, violence may break up sealed letters, but it may be unjustly done; but authority can open Kings' seals justly. Christ not only teaches how to love, or modum rei, but he teaches Love itself, he draws a lump of love out of his own heart, and casts it in the sinner's heart; the Spirit persuades God (Galatians 1:10), then he must persuade Christ, and persuade heaven, this is more than to speak persuasive words of God and Christ, it is to cast Christ in at the ear, and in the bottom of the heart, with words. Men open things that they may be plain to the understanding, Christ opens the faculty itself to understand. The Sun gives light, but cannot create eyes to see, Christ can heal the broken optic nerves. He creates both the Sun, and ties a knot upon the broken eye-strings, that the blind man sees bravely.

Assertion 4. One general is inseparable from Christ's drawing, that for the manner of drawing, he does it out of mere free love. The principle of drawing on Christ's part, is great love. (Ephesians 2:4) God rich in mercy, for his great love, [illegible], with which he loved us, even when we were dead in sin, quickened us in Christ. (Titus 3:4) But when the bounty, and man-love, or rather, the man-kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us. Thanks to the birth of love, and of felt love (Colossians 1:12-13): giving thanks to the Father, [illegible], who has delivered, who has snatched us with haste and violence, from the power of darkness, and has translated us to the kingdom of the Son of his love. This love has in regard of his fervor, much haste, and loses no time, but comes and draws, and pulls the sinner out of hell, before he be past recovery, and cold dead; as a father seeing his child fall in the water, and wrestling with the proud floods, he runs, before he be dead, out of hand to pull him out. (Luke 15:10) The father ran and fell on his neck, and kissed him. The father's running says, that the love of Christ has need of haste to prevent a sinner, and that he is eager and hot in his love; when Christ runs to save, he would gladly save; he draws with good will, when he runs and sweats to come in the nick of due time to save. So (Song of Solomon 2:8), when he comes to save his church, or comfort her in her faintings, love's pace is swift, like the running of a roe or a young hart. Behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, skipping on the hills. And it is an expression of the extreme desire that Christ has of a union with us, and how glad he would have the company of sinners. So we difference between inviting or calling; indeed, or leading and drawing in calling and leading; Christ leaves more to our will, whether we will come or refuse, but in drawing there is more of violence, less of will.

3. In drawing there is love-sickness, and lovely pain in Christ's ravishings. 1. When Christ cannot obtain and win the consent and good-liking of the sinner to his love, he ravishes, and with strong hand draws the sinner to himself, when invitations do not the business, and he knocks, and we will not open, then a more powerful work must follow. (Song of Solomon 5:4) My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him. Christ drives such as will not be led. 2. And those who will not be invited, he must draw them, rather than want them: he draws with compassion, as being overcome with love; for his bowels are moved for Ephraim (Jeremiah 31), he draws while his arms bleed. 3. And does not only knock, but he stands and knocks (Revelation 3:20). His standing notes his importunity of mercy, how gladly he would be in, and he uses this as an argument to move his spouse, out of humanity, to pity him, and give him one night's lodging in the soul. (Song of Solomon 5:2) Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled. Why, I stand long, I wait on in patience, forcing my love on you. For my head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night. Every word is love: open, open my sister, I am a brother, not a stranger; open my love, for I have interest in you, every word is a talent weight of free grace.

4. Not only is drawing an expression of his love of union with sinners; for he bears the sinner, he translates the sinner [illegible], he gives the sinner a lift to set him out of one country into another, into a far choicer land, out of a land of death, into the kingdom of his dear Son (Colossians 1:13). And the little lambs that have no legs of their own, Christ shall be legs to them. (Isaiah 40:11) He shall gather the little lambs (and so the Hebrew) with his arm, and carry them in his bosom. I should wish no higher happiness out of heaven, than to be carried in the circle of Christ's arms, and to lie with the lambs, in his bosom, and be warmed with the heart-love, that comes out of his breast. [illegible] is to carry on the shoulders; and Aaron is said in the same word (Exodus 28), to carry the names of the children of Israel on his breast, as a man is said to carry his child in his arms (Deuteronomy 1:31). And Christ (Luke 15:5), finding the lost sheep, lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. Legs I have none (says the sinner) and so cannot go to the new kingdom. What then (says Christ) I have legs and arms both for you, to serve you. I'll bear you if you can neither lead nor drive. A sinner is as heavy as a mountain of iron, and cannot be drawn or borne, but they be heavy lumps of hell that Christ cannot bear to heaven. Christ's love has mighty arms, and great and strong bones. Christ now above five thousand years has been carrying tired lambs up to heaven, in ones and twos, and is not yet wearied, of bringing up his many children to glory, and will not rest till there be not one lamb of all the flock out of that great and capacious fold; and drawn they must be, whom Christ's love draws. Christ's love is not so loose in gripping as to miss any he intends to put in his bosom.

5. The particular way of love's drawing is lovely and sweetly, and with strong allurements.

1. Redemption is a sweet word to a captive, but redemption by law is not so sweet, as redemption by love. For redemption is nothing comparable to redemption dipped and watered with free love, I ought no more to be redeemed, than the damned devils, Christ is not my debtor, he owes me nothing, but eternal vengeance; nevertheless, he out of only strong love, redeemed me. O this is two redemptions.

2. Drawing by free and strong love is an easy work, and so is it easy to be drawn; because all works of love are easy, as the act of marrying is no great pain, the solemnities and ceremonies of marriage are more toilsome than marriage itself. All the right marriages in the world are made by love; and there is no more, but I consent, I say Amen, to have Christ for my husband, and he says (Hosea 3:3), Captive woman bought for fifteen pieces of silver, and for a homer of barley, and a half, you shall be for me, and not for another, and I will also be for you, and there's an end. Christ's chariot runs on wheels of love, and the pace is soft and sweet.

3. The way of love's working through delight is sweet, to the drawn soul, when Christ tends the heart, and the love of Christ's soft fingers grasps about the soul, how alluring and captivating is Christ; when he comes in to the heart, his fingers drop pure myrrh. What honey, or what heaven drops are these? Christ's honeycomb was gathered, and made out of that flower — that incomparable rose, never planted with hands — out of Christ himself, from the bottom of eternity, from the head and root of infinite ages, which have neither head nor bottom, and out of Christ freely loving, freely choosing the creature to himself. (Song of Solomon 1:3) Because of the savor of your good ointments, your name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love you. (Song of Solomon 5:11) Christ's head is of most fine gold. What do you think of the golden and choice eminencies that are in Christ? Of a clothing of uncreated glory that goes about Christ? (Song of Solomon 2:3) I sat down under his shadow, with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste. Christ's love casts so sweet a smell, that his love leads not, but draws, yet love's cords are softer than oil. The honey of Christ's love was gathered out of the flowers that grow in that highest mountain of roses, a larger field of flowers than ten millions of earths, and out of the fair blossoms, and sweet heavenly sap of the tree of life; the glory of Lebanon, and excellence of Sharon, is nothing to this. Bring all your senses, see, hear, feel, taste, and smell, what transcendent sweetness of heaven is in this love; a sea of love is nothing, it has a bottom; a heaven of love is nothing, it has a brim; but infinite love has no bounds.

4. Love draws strongly and irresistibly: Christ never wooed a soul with his free love, but he wins the love and heart. Death and the grave and hell are conquering things for strength, and have subdued huge multitudes, since the creation; but the love of Christ is stronger and more constraining (Song of Solomon 8:6-7). The coals of love burn more strongly than any other fire. The flames and coals of God are mighty hot; they burnt up hell and death to ashes: how much more will they take a sinner? Christ cast out coals of love with that word, Matthew, follow me: and there is no resisting, he arose and followed him. Christ's love draws till he bleeds, and he loves till he dies of love. His love must prevail, for omnipotency was in it. Had there been ten thousand worlds more of sinners, Christ has love for them all. And had the elect world had ten thousand millions more of rebellions than they have, all these sins should have been infinitely below the conquering power of Christ's love. Never sinner went to hell victor, to say, Love could not pardon me; I was in sin above Christ's omnipotency of love. Never sinner went to heaven, but Christ's love had the better of him. Great heaven is but a house full of millions of vanquished captives, that Christ's love followed, and overtook, and subdued. O love's prisoners, praise, praise the Prince of love. Sense of this love so swells and so ascends, that the Spouse (Song of Solomon 5:10) is not master of words: every word is like a mountain, if you come to his person, nature, offices; none speak like Christ, none breathe like him; myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon, all the perfumes, all the trees of frankincense, all the powders of the merchants, that Assyria, or Egypt, or what countries else ever had, are but short and poor shadows to him: these are but hungry generals. 2. For beauty he has no match among men; because he is fairer than all the sons of men. Christ has a most goodly face. But of this hereafter. 3. For the sweetness and excellence of nature, he's God equal with the Father: when you say God; you say all things. God is a taking and a drawing excellence: the image of the invisible God; he that is, he that was, and he which is to come, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last, of time, of creation, of what possible excellence we can conceive; for our conception can reach no higher than time, and created things. 4. For greatness of majesty. 5. For lowliness of tender love. 6. For freeness of grace. 7. For glory diffused through all his attributes. 8. For sovereignty and absoluteness of power, etc., who is like to our Lord Jesus? 9. For sweetness and loveliness of relations; the only begotten Son of God, no relation like this: the Creator of the ends of the earth, the Savior, the good Shepherd, the Redeemer, the great Bishop of our souls, the Angel of the Covenant, the head of the body the Church, and of principalities and powers, the King of Ages, the Prince of peace, of the kings of the earth; the living Ark of heaven, the Song of Angels and glorified saints, but they cannot outsing him; the Joy and Glory of that land, the Flower and Crown of the Father's delights, the sweet Rose of that Garden of solace and joy. Compare other things with Christ, and they bear no weight: cast into the balance with him angels, and he is wisdom, they but wise men; they are liars, and lighter than vanity, and Christ is the Amen, the faithful Witness, the express image of the Father's substantial glory: cast into the scales kings, all kings, and all their glory, he is the King of all these kings. Cast in millions of talents weight of glory, and gain, they are but bits of paper, and chaff, weight they have none to him. Cast in two worlds, that is nothing; add to the weight millions of heavens of heavens, the balance cannot go down, the scales are unequal; Christ is a huge over-weight.

To all these drawing powers in Christ, in the general, because Christ is the Master and King of the land, where his own created kings dwell, we may add a strong drawing argument, from the condition of the glorified in heaven; because Christ uses this as a strong argument to those that come to him (John 6:37; Isaiah 55:3; John 5:40; Matthew 11:26; Revelation 21:6; Revelation 22:17), we may use it after him. The earth is but a potter's house, that is full of earthen pots and Venice glasses, and withal taken by a conqueror, who can make no other use of these vessels, but break them all to shards; it cannot be a drawing and alluring thing. Death has conquered the earth, and these many hundred ages has been breaking the clay pots, both men and other corruptible things, into broken chips and pieces of dust. But Christ draws, by offering a more enduring city: that Christ can give, and promises heaven to his followers, is a strong argument, and draws powerfully. 1. Heaven is not one single palace, but it is a city; a metropolis, a mother-city, the first city of God's creation, for dignity and glory (Revelation 21; Revelation 22). But a city is too little; therefore it is more — it is a kingdom (Luke 12:32; Luke 22:23). Indeed, but a kingdom may be too little; therefore it is a world (Luke 20:35). It is a world, and for eminence, a world to come (Hebrews 6:5) — the world of ages. 2. The lowest stones of it are not earth, as our cities here, but twelve manner of precious stones are the foundation of it. 3. In what city in the earth do men walk upon gold? or dwell within walls of gold? But under the feet of the inhabitants there is gold; all the streets and fields of that kingdom and world are (Revelation 21:21) pure gold, as it were transparent glass. 4. Then all the inhabitants are kings (Revelation 22:5), and they shall reign forever and ever. Whole heaven entirely and fully enjoyed by one glorified saint, as if there were not one but this one person alone; all and every one has the whole kingdom at his will, and is filled with God, as if there were no fellows there to share with him. 5. O so broad and large as that land is, being the heaven of heavens! As the greater circle must contain the less, so all the dwellings here are but caves under the earth, and holes of poor clay, in the bosom of this. But there are many dwelling places (John 14), and there lodge so many thousand kings. O what fair fields, mountains of roses and spices, gardens of length and breadth above millions of miles are nothing; and among these, trees of paradise; every bird in every bush sings, 'Worthy is the Lamb'; every bottle is filled with the new wine of heaven: O the wines, the lilies, the roses, the precious trees that grow in Immanuel's land! And they sweat out balm of praises in those mountains. 6. If men knew what a drawing and alluring thing is the tree of life, that is in the midst of the street of the new land, the tree that bears at once twelve manner of fruits, and yields her fruit every month; a hundred harvests in one year are nothing here; and all are but shadows, there is nothing so low as gold, as twelve manner of precious stones, nothing so base in this high and glorious kingdom as gardens, trees, and the like: comparisons are created shadows, that come not up to express the glory of the thing. And for Christ himself, signified under this expression, he is the most, indeed the only drawing glory in heaven and earth. 1. He is the high king of all the made and crowned kings in the land. 2. The only heaven and sum, indeed the all of all the shadowed expressions of the kingdom, whatever is spoken of that glory comes home to this, to magnify Christ, to make him as God equal with the Father and Spirit, all one; and all the only heaven of all heaven, and all in all, to the saints. Then created delights there, as divided from him, must be nothing in nothing, as he is all in all. 3. Nothing can take the eyes and hearts of the glorified, being now made such capacious and wide vessels to contain glory, as he can do. What can terminate, bound, and fill a glorified soul, but Christ enjoyed? Abraham, Moses, Elias, the prophets, the apostles, all the glorified martyrs and witnesses of Jesus Christ, especially now being clothed with majesty and glory with Christ, must be more lovely objects than when they were on earth, and if Christ were not there, would appear more than they do; but the saints have neither leisure nor heart to feed themselves with beholding of creatures, but surely all the eyes in heaven, which are a fair and numerous company, are upon, only, only Jesus Christ: the father has no leisure to look over his shoulder to the son, nor the husband to the wife, in that city; Christ takes all eyes off created things, there; it is enough for angels and men to study Christ for all eternity: it shall be their only labor to read Christ, to smell Christ, to hear and see and taste Christ: all the eyes of that numerous host of angels and men shall be on him; and he is worthy and above the admiration, the thoughts and apprehensions of all that heavenly army. 4. Then Christ shall appear a far other Christ in heaven than we do apprehend him now on earth; not that he is not the same, but because neither we have eyes to see him in the kingdom of grace as he is, (narrow vessels cannot receive Christ diffused in glory, as he now is) nor does Christ make out himself in that latitude and greatness to us now, as he is to be seen and enjoyed in the heavens. (1 John 3:2) We shall then see him as he is. What, do we not now see him as he is? No; we see him as he is in report, and shadowed out to us in the Gospel, the Gospel is the portrait of the King, which he sent to another land to be seen by his bride, but the bride never sees him as he is, in his best Sabbath royal robe of immediate glory, till she is married to him: so kings and queens on earth woo one another. And, 5. In heaven Christ is (to speak so) in the element, prime fountain, and seat of God as God, where he shows himself to be immediately seen and enjoyed; and it is as it were by the second hand, by messengers, words, mediation, that we enjoy Christ here; he sends to us, rather than comes in person. An immediate touch of the apples of the tree of life while they yet grow on the tree of life, is more than derived and borrowed communion. To see Christ himself, the red and white in his own face, to hear himself speak, to see him as he is, and in his robes of majesty now at the right hand of God, is, in a thousand thousand degrees, more than all the pictured (if I may so speak) and shadowed fruition we have here. The Gospel is but the Bridegroom's mirror and looking glass, and our created prospect; but O his own immediate perfume, his myrrh, the ointments and the smell that glory casts in heaven, who can express? 6. We never see all the inside of Christ, and the mysteries of that glorious Ark opened, till the light of glory discovers him: thousands of excellencies of Christ shall then be revealed, that we see not now. 7. O what delights he casts forth from himself! The river of life is more than a sea of milk, wine and honey. To suck the breasts of the consolations of Christ, and eat of the clusters that grow on that noble vine Jesus Christ, and take them off the tree with your own hand, is a desirable and excellent thing. The more excellent the soil is, the wines, the apples, the pomegranates, the roses, the lilies must be the more delicious; and the nearer the sun, the better; the more of summer, the more of day, the more excellent the fruits of the land are: Believe it, the wines of that paradise grow in a brave land. O but Christ is a blessed soil; roses and lilies, apples of love that are eternally summer-green are sweet, that grow out of him: the honey of that land, the honey of heaven, is more than honey; the honey of love, pure and unmixed, must be incomparable. 8. The Mediator's hand wipes the foul face, and the tears off all the weeping strangers that come there; he lays the head of a friend under his chin, between his breasts (John 14:3; Revelation 21:4). Death is cried down, pain, sickness, crying, sadness, sorrow, are all acted and voted out of the house, and out from all the inhabitants of the land, forever and ever. 9. It must be a delightsome city that has ever summer, without winter; ever day, without night; ever daylight, without sun or moon or candlelight; because the Lord God gives them light (Revelation 22:5). No danger of sunburning or summer-scorching, or winter-blasting: all morning without twilight, all noon-day without one cloud for eternity, is joyful: light, and day, and summer, flowing immediately from the Lamb, is admirable. 10. (1) Joy, (2) full joy, (3) fullness of joy, (4) pleasures, (5) pleasures that last forevermore, (6) and that at God's right hand, indeed (7) in his face, is above our thoughts (Psalms 16:10-11). 11. O the music of the sanctuary, the sinless and well-tuned psalms, the songs of the high temple, without a temple or ordinances as we have here, and these exalting him that sits on the throne forevermore. All which, with many other considerations, are strong drawing invitations to come to Christ.

Assertion 5. Christ draws with three sorts of General Arguments, in this moral way: the first is taken from pleasure; this is the beauty that is in God, 1. that is in a communion with God. 2. The delight we have in God as love-worthy to the understanding. For the drawing beauty of God, a word: 1. Of God's beauty. 2. Of God's beauty in Christ. 3. Of the relative beauty of God in Christ to men and angels. 1. Beauty, as we take it, is the loveliness of face and person arising from 1. the natural well-tempered color, 2. the due proportion of stature and members of body, 3. the integrity of parts; as that there is nothing wanting for bodily perfection. So beauty formally is not in God, who has not a body: nor do we speak of Christ's bodily beauty, as man. Then beauty, by analogy, and eminently, must be in God: so as there be four things in the creature to make up beauty to the bodily eyes, and there be, by proportion, those same four things in God; for if beauty be good, and a desirable perfection in the creature, it must be in an infinite and eminent way in God; as the perfection of the effect, is in the cause. If the roses, lilies, meadows be fair, he must be fairer who created them; but in another kind. If the heavens, stars, and sun be beautiful, the lovely Lord who made them must have their beauty in a high measure (Zechariah 9:17). How great is the Lord's goodness, how great is his beauty? What then is the beauty of God? I conceive it to be, the amenity and loveliness of his nature and all infinite perfections, as this pleasantness offers itself to his own understanding, and the understanding of men and angels, and as bodily beauty satisfies the eyes, and so acts on the heart to win love to beauty; so the truth of the Lord's nature, and all his attributes offered to the understanding and mind, and drawing from them admiration or wondering, and love is the beauty of God. David makes this his one thing (Psalm 27:4). That, says he, I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and inquire in his Temple. See then as white and red excellently tempered makes pleasure and delight to the eyes, and through these windows to the mind and heart, so there arises from the nature of God and his attributes a sweet intelligibility, as David desires no other life but to stand beside God, and behold with his mind and faith's eyes, God in his nature and attributes, as he reveals himself to the creature. The Queen of Sheba came a far journey to see Solomon, because of his perfection; some common people desire to see the King; the Lord is a fair and pleasant object to the understanding.

2. There is in beauty a due proportion of members. 1. quantity. 2. situation. 3. stature. Let a person have a most pleasant color, yet if the ears and nose be as little as an ant, or as big as an ordinary man's leg, he is not beautiful. 2. If members be not right seated, if the one eye be two inches lower in the face than the other, it mars the beauty; or if the head be in the breast, it is a monster. Or 3. if the stature be not due, as if the person be the stature of ten men, and too big; or the stature of an infant, or a dove; had he all other things for color and proportion, his beauty is no beauty, but an error of nature, he is not as he should be. Now the Lord is beautiful because infiniteness, and sweetness of order is so spread over his nature and attributes, nothing can be added to him, nothing taken from him, and he is not all mercy only, but infinitely just; were God infinitely true yet not meek and gracious, he should not be beautiful; had he all perfections, but weak, mortal, not omnipotent, not eternal, his beauty should be marred; then one attribute does not over-top, out-border or limit another; were he infinite in power, but finite in mercy, the luster and amenity of God were defaced.

3. There is integrity of parts in beauty. Were a person fairer than Absalom, and lacked a nose or an arm, the beauty should be lame. The Lord is complete and absolutely perfect in his blessed nature, and attributes.

4. All these required in beauty, must be natural, and truly and really there. Borrowed colors, and painting, and [reconstructed: adorning] of the face, as Jezebel did, are not beauty: the Lord in all his perfections is truly that which he seems to be. Now as there is in roses, gardens, creatures that are fair, something [reconstructed: pleasant], that ravishes eye and heart; so there are in God so many fair and pleasant truths to take the mind, and God is so capacious, and so comprehensive a truth, and so lovely, such a bottomless sea of wonders, and to the understanding that beholds God's beauty, there is an amenity, goodliness, a splendor, an irradiation of brightness, a loveliness, and drawing sweetness of excellency, diffused through the Lord's nature. Hence heaven is a seeing of God face to face (Revelation 22:4; Matthew 18:10). Now God has not a face; but the face of a man is the most heavenly visible part in man, there is majesty and gravity in it, much of the art and goodliness of the creature is in his face. To see God's face, is to behold God's blessed essence, so far as the creature can see God. Now as we may be said to see the sun's face, when we see the sun, as we are able to behold it; but there is beauty, and such vehemency of visibility in it, as it exceeds our faculty of seeing; so do we see God's face, when we nearly behold him, not by hearsay, but immediately. Let us imagine that millions of suns in the firmament, were all massed and framed in one sun, and that the sense of seeing that is in all men, that ever has been, or may be, yet this sun should far excel this faculty of seeing: so suppose that the Lord should create an understanding faculty of man or angels, millions of degrees more vigorous and apprehensive, than if all the men and angels that are, or possibly may be created, were combined in one, yet could not this understanding so see God's transcendent and superexcellent beauty, but there should remain unseen treasures of loveliness never seen, yea, it involves an eternal contradiction, that the creature can see to the bottom of the Creator.

All this bounty of God is held forth to us in Christ. Psalm 45:10. He is fairer than the sons of men. [in non-Latin alphabet] the word is of a double form, to note a double excellence. Song of Solomon 1:16. Behold you are fair my beloved, indeed pleasant. [in non-Latin alphabet] signifies lovely, amiable, acceptable. The Seventy render it [in non-Latin alphabet]. Psalm 146. It is pleasant, and sweet. 2 Samuel 1:26. You were very pleasant to me. Song of Solomon 5:10. He is white and ruddy. Verse 15. His countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. Revelation 1:16. His countenance as when the Sun shines in his strength. All the beauty of God is put forth in Christ. Isaiah 33:17. Your eyes shall see the King in his beauty. Hebrews 1:3. Christ is the brightness of his Father's glory. The light of the Sun in the air is the accidental reflection of the Sun's beams; Christ is the substantial reflection of the Father's light and glory; for he is God equal with the Father, and the same God.

3. This beauty to men and angels is a high beauty. Angels have eyes within and without (Revelation 4:6), to behold the beauty of the Lord, and it takes up their eyes always to behold his face; and there is no beauty of truth they desire more to behold — [in non-Latin alphabet] (1 Peter 1:12) — as to stoop down, and to look into a dark and veiled thing, with the bowing of the head, and bending of the neck. The Seventy use for [in non-Latin alphabet] (Song of Solomon 2:9), where Christ is said to stand behind the wall, and look out at the casements, with great attention of mind; it is to look down over a window, bending the head (Exodus 25:18-20). John 20:5. They stooped down and saw the linen clothes. Luke 24:12. Angels are not curious, but they must see exceeding great beauty, and wonder much at the excellency of Christ, when they cannot get their eyes pulled off Jesus Christ.

2. There is a beauty of Christ in a communion with God, which is a ravishing thing. When the soul comes to Christ, he sees a beauty of holiness, and Christ is taken with this beauty. Psalm 110:3. So shall the King greatly desire your beauty. Psalm 45:11. You have ravished my heart, (says Christ to his Spouse) Song of Solomon 4:9, my sister, my Spouse. Verse 10. How fair is your love, my sister, my Spouse; how much better is your love than wine, and the smell of your ointments than all spices. Verse 11. Your lips, O my Spouse, drop as the honeycomb; honey and milk are under your tongue, and the smell of your garments is as the smell of Lebanon. Zion is the perfection of beauty (Psalm 50:2). All this beauty and sweetness comes from Christ; there is no such thing in the people of God, as they are sinful men, considered in their natural condition; and therefore it must be fountain-beauty in him, as in the cause, and original of beauty.

2. There is a [reconstructed: delectation] in a communion with God. This is one general point — Proverbs 3:17. All wisdom's ways are ways of pleasure; to the spiritual soul, every step to heaven is a paradise.

1. What sweetness is in the sense of the love of Christ to delight all the spiritual senses? 1. The smell of Christ's Spikenard, his Myrrh, Aloes, and Cassia, his ivory chambers smell of heaven; the ointment of his garments brings God to the sense. Psalm 45:8. All your garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia: out of the ivory palaces, there have they made you glad. Song of Solomon 1:13. A bundle of myrrh is my beloved to me, he shall lie all night between my breasts.

2. To the sight Christ is a delightful thing; to behold God, in Christ, is a changing sight. 2 Corinthians 3:18. But 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 (Ephesians 1:17; Matthew 16:17; 1 John 2:37). To see the King in his beauty, is a thing full of ravishing delight. 3. It takes the third spiritual sense of hearing; the Spouse (Song of Solomon 2:8) is so taken with the sweetness of Christ's tongue, that for joy she can but speak broken and imperfect words. The voice of my beloved — it is not a perfect speech, but for joy she can speak no more. It is the voice of joy and gladness, that with the very sound can heal broken bones (Psalm 51:8), and which David desired to hear. O if you heard Christ speak — Song of Solomon 5:13. His lips are like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh; heaven's music, the honey of the new land is in his tongue — the Church cheers her soul with this. Song of Solomon 2:10. My beloved spoke, and said to me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. Christ's piping in the joyful gospel tidings (Verse 5) should make us dance. Matthew 11:17. Christ harping and singing sinners, with joyful promises out of hell to heaven, must have a drawing sweetness to move stones, if the sinner has ears to hear; and what heat and warmness of love must it bring, when Christ is heard say — Isaiah 54:11. O you afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold I will lay your stones with fair colors, and lay your foundations with sapphires? He doubles his words; he desires Jerusalem's ears may own this cry — Isaiah 40:1. Comfort you, comfort you my people, says the Lord, speak to the heart of Jerusalem.

4. Christ is sweet to the spiritual taste. Song of Solomon 2:3. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet in my mouth. Psalm 34:8. O taste and see that the Lord is good. Christ is a curious banquet; the wine, the milk, the honey, and the fatted calf killed, are all but shadows to Christ's excellent gospel dainties.

5. The sense of touching, which is the most spiritual, is the heavenly feelings, sense, and experience of God's consolations, and this sense is fed with the kisses of Christ's mouth (Song of Solomon 1:3), with the hidden manna, the white stone, the new name.

3. Joy is a drawing delight. Psalm 16:11. In his face there is fullness of joy. Look how far God's face casts down from heaven, sparkles of joy on us — as far goes our joy; and we are said in believing (1 Peter 1:8), to rejoice with joy unspeakable, and glorious.

4. There is particularly delectation (Psalm 36:8): They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house, and you shall make them drink of the rivers of your pleasures. Should not this draw men to Christ? And there must be abundance of pleasures where there is a river of pleasures; as (Psalm 46:4): There is a river, the streams of which make glad the City of God. What a sea of seas must God himself be? His full and bright face, his white throne, his harpers and heavenly troops that surround the throne, the Lamb the heaven of heavens itself, the tree of life eternally green, eternally adorned both at once with soul-delighting blossoms, and laden with twelve manner of fruit every month. Peace of conscience from the sense of reconciliation, the first fruits of Emmanuel's land, that lies beyond time and death; must all be above expression.

There is a second drawing motive in Christ, and this is from gain; which is eminently in Christ.

1. The drawn soul has bread by the covenant of grace, his yearly rent is written in the New Testament, Christ is his rental book and heritage. (Isaiah 33:16): He shall dwell on high, his place of defense shall be the munition of rocks; for his lodging, he shall not lie in the fields. Bread shall be given him, his waters shall be sure; or faithful: bread and drink are unfaithful, uncertain, and winged to natural men. (1 Timothy 6:17): Riches has a [illegible], an uncertainty, like ghosts or spirits that you see, but they vanish out of your sight, and disappear; or like clouds, or fire-lightnings in the air, that come and go suddenly; but bread is faithful and sure to the soul drawn to Christ. When the covenanted people are so drawn, that they receive a new heart; then God, says (Ezekiel 36:29): I will also save you from all your uncleanness. What then? And I will call for the corn and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. Verse 34: And the land shall be tilled. Does the New Testament provide for the plowing of your land? Indeed, it does. Indeed, know Wisdom's attendants and [reconstructed: lackeys] (Proverbs 3:16): On her right hand, is length of days, and on her left hand, riches and honor. Eternity has the honor, and the right hand. Riches is the left hand blessing of wisdom.

2. It should draw us in the own kind to Christ, in regard, Christ is more than gain. (Proverbs 3:14): Wisdom's merchandise is better than silver, and her gain than fine gold. Verse 15: She is more precious than rubies. (2) (Job 28:1): Wisdom cannot be gotten for gold. (3) Is there not some worth in gold? Verse 16: Wisdom cannot be valued with the gold of Ophir, with the precious onyx, with the sapphire. Verse 17: The gold and the crystal cannot equal it. (4) May there not be bidding and buying, and words of a market here? No, the disproportion between Christ and gold is so great, that a rational merchant can never speak of such a bargain. Verse 18: No mention shall be made, of coral, or of pearls, for the price of wisdom is above rubies. Say that heaven and earth, and all within the bosom and circumference of heaven, and millions of more worlds were turned into gold, pearl, sapphires, rubies, and what else you can imagine; you undervalue Christ, if you speak of buying of him.

3. Being drawn to Christ makes all yours; when you are hungry, all the bread of the earth is your Father's: when you are in a ship, you are in Christ's Father's waters; when you travel in summer, you see your Redeemer's fields, your Savior's woods, trees, flowers, grains, cattle, birds. Indeed, all things are yours (1 Corinthians 3:21). Not in possession, but in a choicer free-holding, in free heritage (Psalm 37:11). You have the broad rent, the fair income of all things. Your land is named, All things (Revelation 21:7): He that overcomes shall inherit all things.

4. All you have, a morsel of green herbs, a bed of straw, want, hunger, wealth, are gilded and watered with Christ.

The third drawing thing in Christ, is honor. The Church is a princess's daughter (Song of Solomon 7:1). A king's daughter (Psalm 45:13). A queen in gold of Ophir (Psalm 45:9). Kings and priests to God (Revelation 1:5). Not young kings only, but crowned kings. And they had on their heads crowns of gold (Revelation 4:4). Every saint rules the nations with a rod of iron. Every believer is a Catholic king, and sways the scepter over all the kingdoms of the world. (1.) In regard that his head Christ guides all kings, courts, and kingdoms; all the world, and the weight of states, empires, not indirectly, and only in ordine ad Spiritualia; but directly, and the weight of the Church triumphing, and the Church fighting, are upon the shoulders of our brother and Savior. (2.) In that by faith he breaks and overcomes the world. (3.) And by prayer, which is more than the key of Europe, Africa, and Asia, he can bring in the nations to Christ, and shut and open heaven.

2. Consider what God makes them. To him that lays hold on my covenant says the Lord (Isaiah 56:5): I will give within my house, and my walls, a name. But what is a name? A name is but a name? A name better than the name of sons and daughters, even an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off. An everlasting name (I confess) is more than a name. (Isaiah 43:4): Since you were precious in my sight, [illegible] you have been glorious, or honorable. (1 Chronicles 4:9): And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren; the same word, and way, Verse 10: And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast. It was said of Reuben (Genesis 49:4): Reuben you shall not excel; [illegible] nor be an overplus in praise, its to remain or abound either in quantity or quality; for his incest deprived him of his excellence. (Proverbs 12:26): The righteous is more abundant (the same word) more honorable, glorious, or excellent than his neighbor.

3. The Lord who knows the weight of things, angels and men, esteems highly of them. In Song of Solomon 5:2: My Sister, my Love, my Dove. The spouse must in Christ's heart have a high respect, when he says (Song of Solomon 4:1): Behold you are fair, my love; and that cannot content him, he adds: Behold, you are fair. In Song of Solomon 6:9: My dove, my undefiled is but one, she is the only one of her mother, she is the choice one of her that bore her. The saints in Christ's books are jewels (Malachi 3:17) — his only choice, the flower of the earth. All the world is Christ's refuse, and kings are but mortar to him; the saints are Christ's assessors, and the kings' peers to judge the world with him, lords of the higher house — Christ divides the throne with them (Luke 22:30; 1 Corinthians 6:2; Revelation 21). The Lord so far honors them as to put them in on all his secrets (Psalm 25:4): The secrets of the Lord are with them that fear him. In John 14:21: I will manifest myself to him — they are of his cabinet counsel. In Song of Solomon 2:4: The King brought me into his house of wine; his secrets of love and free grace are there.

4. Christ so honors them that he professes he desires a communion with them. In Song of Solomon 4:8: Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse. In John 14:23: The Father and I will come to him, and make our abode with him. In Song of Solomon 2:16: He feeds among the lilies, till the day break; the Lord familiarly converses with them.

Use 1. All those who are taken with fair things, and are so soft that they must have pleasures and will not be drawn to Christ, the most pleasant and fairest one that ever heaven had, are much prejudiced; you warm yourselves, O children of men, at the outside of a painted fire. Your pleasures (and we may believe Solomon) are flowers worm-eaten, and as garments torn and threadbare. Solomon's honey, and Samson's Delilah, are sweet drinks that swell them; when these work on their stomach, they are glad to vomit them out, and are pained with sickness at the remembrance of them; there is no drawing beauty to Christ, behold him in all his excellencies. (Song of Solomon 5:10) My beloved is white and ruddy, the foremost among ten thousand. Verse 11. His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven. Verse 12. His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of water, washed with milk, and fitly set. Verse 13. His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips like lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh. Verse 14. His hands are as gold rings set with beryl; his belly is as bright ivory, overlaid with sapphires. Verse 15. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold, his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars. Verse 16. His mouth is most sweet; or in the abstract [in non-Latin alphabet] sweetnesses, and he is all desires, all loves, and all of him, or every piece of him is love; and when John sees him, (Revelation 1) — O what a sight. Verse 13. He was clothed with a garment down to the feet, and girt about the chest with a golden girdle. Verse 14. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire. Verse 15. And his feet like fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. Verse 16. And he had in his right hand seven stars. He has the churches, and all the elect in his right hand, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the Sun shining in his strength. When John saw him thus, he was so over-gloried with the beauty and brightness of his majesty, that whereas he was accustomed to lean on his bosom in the days of his flesh, now he is not able to stand and endure one glance of his highest glory; but (says he) Verse 17. And when I saw him, I fell down at his feet as dead. And there was much lovely and tender affection lapped up in this glory, when poor John fell swooning at his feet; Christ for all his glory, holds his head in his swoon. And he laid his right hand on my head, saying to me, fear not, I am the first, and the last. I am good for swooning and dying sinners. Why, I am he that lives, and was dead: And behold, I live forevermore. Would sinners but draw near, and come and see this King Solomon in his chariot of love, behold his beauty, the uncreated white and red in his countenance, he would draw souls to him; there is omnipotence of love in his countenance, all that is said of him here are but created shadows; [reconstructed: and] words are short to express his nature, person, office, loveliness, desirableness. What a broad and beautiful face must he have, who with one smile, and one turning of his countenance, looks upon all in heaven, and all in the earth, and casts a heaven of burning love, East, and West, South, and North, through heaven and earth, and fills them all? Suppose omnipotence would enlarge the globe of the world, and the heaven of heavens, and cause it to swell to the quantity, and number of millions of millions of worlds, and make it so huge and capacious a vessel and fill it with so many millions of elect men and angels, and then fill them, and all this wide circle with love; it would no more come near to taking in Christ's lovely beauty, than a spoon can contain all the seas; or than a child can hide in his hand the globe of the world. Indeed, suppose all the grains of sand in all the earth and shores, all the flowers, all the herbs, and all the leaves, all the twigs of trees in woods and forests since the creation, all the drops of dew and rain that ever the clouds sent down, all the stars in heaven, all the limbs, joints, drops of blood, hairs, of all the elect on earth, that are, have been, or shall be, were all rational creatures, and had the wisdom and tongues of angels, to speak of the loveliness, beauty, virtues of Jesus Christ, they would in all their expressions stay millions of miles on this side of Christ, and his loveliness, and beauty. It is the wicked fleshly disposition of libertines, who turn all the beauty, excellency, freeness of grace in Christ, to a cloak of licentiousness, and a liberty of all religions; they highly under-value free grace, as any heretics that ever the Church of Christ [reconstructed: saw], who turn all sanctification, all the grace of Christ that should be expressed in strict, precise, accurate walking with God, (but as far from merit, as grace and debt, as Christ's free grace, and the condemning law) into a notional speculative apprehension, or rather a presumptuous imagination, or Antinomian faith; that Christ has obeyed, mortified the lusts of the flesh for the sinner; that no law, no commandment of God, no letter of the Word, obliges us to walk with God; only an immediate, enthusiastic, unwarrantable inspiration of a Spirit, without the Word, or blasts of love when they come, and not but when they come, engages believers to keep any commandment of God. Never Pelagian, Jesuit, Arminian, were such disgraceful enemies to Jesus Christ, to free justification, and the grace of the Gospel, as Antinomians, for they make the law of God and the love of God in commanding holy walking opposite; all the doctrine of the New Testament that teaches and commands to deny ungodliness; all the Old Testament, and particularly Psalm 119, reconciles the law commanding to keep the Lord's ways, and testimonies, and the love of Christ, sweetening with delight and joy, holy walking, as one and the same way of God.

Use 2. Again nothing more lessens Christ than the heightening of the world in the hearts of men; Haman had the scum of the pleasures of 127 kingdoms, yet there was a bone wrong in his foot, anger and malice to see Mordecai is a hell to him; it's a sweeter burden to bear the fire and coals of the love of Christ in the heart, than the hell of envy in the soul: in fact, say that all the damned in hell were brought up with their burning and fiery chains of eternal wrath to the outermost door of heaven, and strike up a window, and let them look in and behold the Throne, and the Lamb, and the troops of glorified ones clothed in white, with crowns of gold on their head, and palms in their hands showing their kingly and victorious condition, and let them through a window in heaven, hear the music of the new Song, the eternal praises of the conquering King and Redeemer, they should not only be sweetened in their pain, but convinced of their foolish choice that they hunted with much sweating after carnal delights, and lost the fullness of joy and pleasures that lasts for evermore in the Lord's face.

Would we believe the spies that have been visiting the new land that Immanuel God with us is Lord of; hear, for Moses he was in that land, and he says, (Deuteronomy 33:29) Happy are you, O Israel: who is like you, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and who is the sword of your excellence. David was there a landed man, and what does he say of that new land that Christ has found out, (Psalm 16) Canaan at its best is but a wilderness to it. Verse 6. The lines are fallen to me in pleasant things, or places. Then there must be multitudes of pleasures, not one only in God; My heritage is pleasant above me, above my thoughts, or I have a goodly heritage. Solomon was a messenger who saw both lands, and he says, (Ecclesiastes 2:13) Then I saw that wisdom excelled folly, as far as light exceeds darkness. And the Spouse says, (Song of Solomon 1:12) When the King sits at his table, my Spikenard sends forth the smell thereof. 13. A bundle of Myrrh is my beloved, he shall lie all night between my breasts. (Song of Solomon 2:4) He brought me to the banqueting house and his banner over me was love. All the Song reports great things of the kingdom of grace. Ask of Isaiah, What saw you there, he answers, (Isaiah 25:6) It is a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees of fat things full of marrow. And Ezekiel says, That there shall be a brave summer in that land. (Ezekiel 47:12) By the river upon the bank thereof on this side, and on that side, shall grow all trees for meat, whose leaf shall not fade, neither shall the fruit thereof be consumed: it shall bring forth new fruit according to his month, because their waters issued out from the Sanctuary, and the fruit thereof shall be for meat, and the leaf thereof for medicine; This has real truth even in the kingdom of grace. And Jeremiah saw the fruits of the land, and a golden age there. (Jeremiah 31:12) Therefore they shall come and sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together to the goodness of the Lord, for wheat, and for wine, and for oil, and for the young of the flock, and of the herd, and their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall not sorrow any more at all; and Christ brings good news out of that country, (Matthew 22) That the life of all there is the life of banqueters, called to the Marriage-feast of a King's Son, of which every one has a wedding garment: And if you ask tidings of John, What saw you, and heard you there? He says, I saw a Princess daughter with a Crown on her head, (Revelation 21:10) He showed me the great City, the holy Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God: Even an enemy who saw the land a far off, and was not near the borders of it, says, (Numbers 24:5) How goodly are your tents, O Jacob, and your tabernacles O Israel! Surely (Proverbs 2:10) Knowledge is pleasant to the soul. O all you pleasures of the flesh, blush and be ashamed, all world-worshippers be confounded that you toil yourselves in the fire for such short follies; Were there no other pleasure in godliness; but to behold the Lord Jesus, what a pleasant sight must he be? The Temple, that stately and kingly house, of fair carved stones, cedar wood, almug trees, brass, silver, gold, scarlet, purple, silks, in the art of the curious fabric and structure, was a wonder to the beholders. What beauty must be in the Sampler! O what happiness to stand beside that dainty precious Ark, weighted now with so huge a lump of Majesty, as infinite glory — to see that King on his Throne, the Lamb, the fair tree of life, the branches which cannot for the narrowness of the place have room to grow within the huge and capacious borders of the heaven of heavens — For the heaven of heavens cannot contain him. What pen though dipped in the river of life that flows from under the Sanctuary can write? What tongue though shaped out of all the Angels of that high kingdom, and watered with the milk and wine of that good land, can sufficiently praise this heart-ravishing flower of Angels, this heaven's wonder, the spotless and infinitely beautiful Prince, the crown, the garland, the joy of heaven, the wonder of wonders for eternity to men and Angels? What a life must it be to stand under the shadow of this precious Tree of Life, and to cast up your eyes and see a multitude without quantity of the Apples of Glory, and to put up your hand, and not only feel, but touch, smell, see love itself, and be warmed with the heat of immediate love that comes out from the precious heart and bowels of this princely and Royal Standard-bearer, and Leader of the white and glorious troops and companies that are before the Throne: If one said but finding the far off dew-drops that falls at so many millions of miles distance from that higher mountain of God, down to this low region, (Psalm 63:5) My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness. What must the glory itself be that is in this dainty delightful one? We have but the droppings of the house here.

Use 3. Natural men say this Kingdom is a sour, sad and weeping land; here is repentance, sorrow for sin, mortification. True; but tears that wash those lovely feet that were pierced for sinners, are tears of honey and wine, and the joy of Christ's banqueting-house: and mortification, flowing from a loathing and a soul-surfeit of the creature, and a tasting of the new wine of Christ's Father's higher palace, is rather a piece of the margin and border of heaven, than a sour and sad life.

Object. 2. But discipline, and the rod, and censures of Christ's house, makes the Church terrible as an army with banners. Christ's yoke is easy, he has not cords and bands to cut the necks of those that follow him.

Answer. 1. Indeed but this rod is a rod of love, only used that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:5), for the gaining of the soul (Matthew 18:15), for building of souls (2 Corinthians 10:8). And Christ's cords are silken and soft, and bands of love, every thread twisted out of the love of Christ. (Hosea 11:4) I drew them with the cords of men, with the bands of love. But consider, (Psalm 48) the Lord's mountain of holiness is glorious. Verse 2. Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is mount Zion, the City of the great King. But is it so to all? Verse 5. No: But lo, the kings were assembled, they passed by together; they saw it, and so they marveled: they were troubled, and hastened away. Verse 6. Terror took hold on them, and pain, as a woman in travail. What cause is there here that the kings should be afraid? They see a beautiful princess, the daughter of a glorious King, the joy of the whole earth; yet the Lord's people works on them 1. a wondering; 2. more, trouble of mind; 3. flying; they haste away, and cannot behold the beauty of God in a king's daughter: 4. terror takes hold on them, and quaking of conscience: 5. when the powers of the world, princes, states, parliaments, see the convincing glory of another world in the Church, they part with child for pain. It is known, some have such antipathy with a rose, which is a pleasant creature of God, that the smell of it has made them fall a swooning. Jerusalem is the rebellious city (Ezra 4:12), therefore men are unwilling it should be built. Lusts in men's minds, either heresies, or any other fleshly affection, is against the building of the house of God.

Use 4. A believer is a rich man, and an honorable, say he were a beggar on the dung-hill: Christ cannot be poor, and he is a fellow-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). We must think the father of a rich heir has bowels of iron, and sucked a tiger when he was young, who suffers the heir, remaining an heir, to starve. As the natural man is but a fragment of clay, so he has a life like a house let for money; and the rent and income that the house pays to the Lord of the land, is but hungering clay, a dead rent, and some newborn vanities of homage and service; but the promise, the Magna Carta, and the charter of food and clothing that is an article of the Covenant of grace, is a full assurance that the saints are the noblemen pensioners of the Prince of the kings of the earth: and Christ has so broad a board, that he does pay all his pensioners. And the saints are truly honorable, being come of the blood-royal, of the princely seed (John 1:13; 1 John 3:1, 9). And the Church is a spiritual monarchy: the plant of renown, their Head, said of her (Isaiah 62:3), You shall be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

Assertion. 6. The other particular manner of drawing sinners to Christ, is real: in which we are to consider these two.

- 1. God's fit application of his drawing of the will. - 2. His irresistible pull of omnipotency.

In the former way of working, I desire that notice be taken (for doctrine's sake, rather than for art of logical method) of these four ways: 1. God works by measure and proportion. 2. By condescension. 3. By fit internal application. 4. By external, providential accommodation of outward means.

1. In works of omnipotency without God, we see he keeps proportion with that which he works upon: when God waters the earth, he opens not all the windows of heaven, as he did in the Deluge, to pour on mountains and valleys all his waters in one heap; for he should then not refresh, but drown the earth: therefore he makes the clouds like a sieve, and divides the rain in hosts and millions of drops of dew, that every single flower, and inch of earth may receive moistening, according to its proportion. If the sun were as low down as the clouds, it should, with heat, burn up every green herb, tree, rose, flower, and our bodies; and if it were the highest of planets, all vegetables on earth should perish through extreme cold. It may be a question, though the omnipotent power of God move the will invincibly and irresistibly, whether omnipotency puts forth all its strength on the will; or, whether the will be able to bear the swing of omnipotency in its full strength? If the fowler should apply all his force and strength to catch the bird alive, he should strangle and kill it. Divines say, that Christ's dominion in turning the will, is, Dominium forte, sed suave; strong, but sweet and alluring: no wonder, if he carry the lambs in his bosom (Isaiah 40:11), the warmness and heat of his bosom must sweetly allure the will. Drive a chariot as swiftly as an eagle flies, and you fire and break the wheels: knock crystal glasses with hammers, as if you were cleaving wood, and you can make no vessels of them. This is not to deny that God's omnipotent power must turn the will, but to show how sweetly he leads the inclinations.

2. The Lord by wiles and art works upon the will: (Hosea 2:14) I will allure her, and bring her to the wilderness, and speak to her heart. The word of alluring is [in non-Latin alphabet] seductus, deceptus fuit; to be beguiled; and the Hebrew is, I will beguile, or deceive her; as (Deuteronomy 11:26) Take heed to yourselves that your heart be not deceived. So Pethi is the simple man, that is facile and easily persuaded. (Psalm 116:6) The Lord preserves the simple. Then he says he will speak to her heart, [in non-Latin alphabet] super, secundum, he will speak friendly to her; not according to the renewed heart, for it was not yet renewed; not according to the corrupt and unrenewed heart, for nothing that the Lord speaks according to sinners, is suitable, but contrary to the renewed heart, and to internal persuading; but he speaks all reason, according to the temper and natural frame of the heart, to convince and persuade that there is more reason in turning to God, than that the wit or engine of man can speak against it. Grace is pia fraus, a holy deceit, that before the soul be aware, it is caught: and though that be spoken of Christ, (Song of Solomon 6:12) Before ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadab; yet it has truth in this, that 1. No unconverted man intends to be converted, till God convert him; because spiritual intention is a vital act of the soul living to God: No living man can put forth a vital act of life, till the Lord be pleased to give him a new life. 2. That spiritual love alluring the soul, works by such art as cannot be resisted: Hence, conversion and being drawn to Christ, is termed by the name of charming; even as turning off Christ is a bewitching, or killing with an evil eye, as we say; (Galatians 3:1) And so being drawn to God, is called a charming. And the wicked are rebuked for this, (Psalm 58:4-5) that being strangers to God, they are like the deaf adder that stops her ear, and will not listen to the voice of charmers, (or singers, who sing as witches and enchanters do) charming wisely. There be two words that signify enchanting; the former is to mutter with a low voice, as they do to serpents, to take and kill them: the other is to conjoin and associate in one, as witches do, things most contrary. Conversion to God, is to be allured, bewitched, overcome with the art of heaven, that changes the heart. And the Lord made Peter and the Apostles fishers of men. Christ lays out hooks and lines in the Gospel, (Luke 5:10) to catch men with hope, as fishes are taken. Christ so condescends to work upon the will, as with art, and unawares the will is taken, and made sick of love for Christ, and the man intended no such thing; as sickness comes on men besides their knowledge or intention: So Christ makes himself and heaven so lovely, and such a proportion and similitude between the soul and his beauty, as he appears most desirable, taking and alluring. (Galatians 4:20) I desire to be present among you (says Paul) and to change my voice: I desire not to speak roughly, and with asperity, as I have written; but as a mother speaks to her children, to allure you. The word of God is an arrow that kills afar off, and before you see it. There is a great difficulty to persuade a man who is in another element, and without the sphere of the Gospel's activity; as Christ and the natural man are in two contrary elements: There is required art for a man on the earth, to take a bird flying in the air; or for a man in a ship, or on the bank of the river, to catch a fish swimming in the element of the water. Christ lays out the wit, the art, and the wiles of free grace to charm the sinner; but the sinner stops his ear: there is need of the witchcraft of heaven to do this. The love of Christ, and his tongue is a great enchantress; (Ezekiel 16:8) I said to you, when you were dying in your blood, Live.

3. Christ knows how to apply himself internally to the will. Suppose one were to persuade a stiff and inexorable man, and knew what argument would win his heart, he would use that. The will is like a great curious engine of a waterwork, consisting of a hundred wheels, of which one being moved, it moves all the ninety-nine besides; because this is the master wheel, that stirs all the rest. Now the Lord knows how to reach down his hand to the bottom of the elective faculty, and that wheel being moved, without more ado, it draws all the affections, as subordinate wheels. If the key be not so fitted in the work, wards and turnings of it, as to remove the cross-bar, it cannot open the door. Omnipotency of grace is so framed and accommodated by infinite wisdom, as that it can shoot aside the dissenting power, without any violence, and get open the door. If free will be the workmanship of God, as we must confess, it is a needless arguing of Arminians and Jesuits to say, that free will is essentially a power absolutely freed from predeterminating Providence; so as whatever God does on the contrary, it may do, or not do; it may nill, will, choose, refuse or suspend its action; for such a creature, so absolute, so sovereign and independent, as he that made it cannot without violence to nature, turn, move, bow, determine and master it in all its elective power for his own ends, and as seems good to the Potter, for the manifestation of mercy and justice, is to say, He that made the free will, cannot have mercy on it; he that framed the clay vessel, cannot use it for honor or dishonor, as he pleases; he that molded and created the timepiece, and all the pins, pieces and parts, has not power to turn the wheels as he pleases.

4. Christ in external means accommodates himself so, in the revealing of himself, as he thinks good.

- 1. In accommodating his influence with his word. - 2. With externals of providence.

The breathings of the Holy Ghost go so along with the word, as the word and the Spirit are united, as if they were one Agent; as sweet smells are carried through the air to the nose. The word is the chariot, the vehicle, the horse; the Spirit the Rider. The word the arrow, the Spirit steels and sharpens the arrow. The word the sword, the Spirit the steel-mouth and edge that cuts and divides asunder the soul and the spirit, the marrow and the joints (Hebrews 4:12). It is the same Christ in all his loveliness and sweetness that is preached in the word, and conveyed to the soul; not God or Christ as abstracted from the word, as Enthusiasts dream. And though the Preacher adds a ministerial spirit to the word, to cause Felix tremble; yet he is not master of the saving and converting Spirit. Golden words, though all Gospel, and honeyed with heaven and glory, planting and watering, without the Spirit are nothing.

In externals of providence, God chooses: 1. Means. 2. Time. 3. Disposition. 4. Anticipation of the sinner's intention. 5. Fit words.

1. In means. God appears to Moses, acquainted with mountains and woods, in a bush which burned with fire; to the Wisemen, skilled in the motions of the heaven, in a new star; to Peter a fisher, in a draught of fishes.

2. He sets a time, and takes the sinner in his month (Jeremiah 2:24). In his time of love (Ezekiel 16:8). When he is ripe, like the first ripe in the fig-tree (Hosea 9:10).

3. Often he chooses in the furnace (Hosea 5, last verse): I will return to my place. Hebrew, till they make defection, or be guilty; for the most part, man is not guilty in his own eyes, while he be as Manasseh was in the briars; the fire melting the silver portrait of a horse causes it to lose the figure of head, feet, legs, and turns all into liquid white water, and then the metal is ready to receive a far other shape, of a man, or any other thing. The man is ductile, and pliable, and [reconstructed: impartial], when God seals and stamps the rod; he is not so wedded to himself as before; it may be also, that mercies, and great deliverances, and favors, melt the man, and bring him to some gracious capacity to be worked on by Christ.

4. Christ anticipates the current of the heart and intention. When Saul is on a banquet of blood, Christ outruns him, and turns him; all men are converted, contrary to their intentions, thousands are in a channel and current of high provocations, and they are in the fury of swelling over the banks, and Christ gets before them, to turn the current to another channel. Christ is swift, and they are all chased men that are converted. Surely, Matthew that morning he came to the receipt of custom, minded nothing but money, and his account book, and had not a preset purpose of Christ; and because intentions, purposes, counsels, are as it were essential to rational men, as men, and the most refined acts of reason, and their noblest, and most angel-like works; and Christ catches sinners contrary to their intentions; and in this sense, saves the sinner, blesses him, and gives him Christ, and heaven, against his will, whether he will or not, that is, whether he spiritually will or no, or whether he savingly intend his own conversion, or not.

5. There is one golden word, (and God is in the word) one good word that is fit, and dexterous, here and now (Proverbs 25:11). A word fitly spoken, Hebrew, a word spoken on his wheels, is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. Surely Christ's words to a sinner ripe for conversion move on wheels, that is, in such order, as two wheels in one cart, they answer most friendly one to another in their motion, because Christ observes due circumstances, of time, place, person, congruency with the will and disposition; as (Hosea 2:14) and Solomon's (Ecclesiastes 12:10). The Preacher sought to find out acceptable words, Hebrew, words of will, or of good will; Christ was greater than Solomon, and is a higher Preacher than he, and seeks out words to the heart, that burn the heart (Luke 24:32). Surely, there is more of heaven, more life, and fire, in these words to Matthew, Follow me; and to dying Jerusalem, Live; than in ordinary words, the Hebrews call vain words (Isaiah 36:5): A word of lips (Proverbs 14:23). These be words of wind, that are empty, and have no fruit; the words of the Lord fitted for converting, are words of the heart, and words of power which do not lack the effect, they are words fit for the heart (Isaiah 40:2; Hosea 2:14). Such words as teach the heart (Isaiah 54:13; John 6:45). There is an uncreated word suitable for the heart, that goes along with the word spoken, and that meets with all the biases, turnings, and contradictions of the heart, and takes the man; and no word, but that only can do the business. There is a word that is with child of love; a word comes from God, and it is a coal from the Altar, that is before the Lord's throne, and it fires up all iron locks in the soul, that the will must yield. The woman of Samaria hears but these words, I am he that talks with you, and her will is burned with a strong necessity of love; she must leave her water-pot, and for joy, go and tell tidings in the city, Come and see, I have found the Messiah. Christ makes a short preaching to Magdalen, and in his own way says, but, Mary; and Christ himself is in that word, her will is fettered with love. Peter makes a sermon (Acts 2) and there are such coals of Paradise in his words, that three thousand hearts must be captives to Christ, and cry, what shall we do to be saved? Every key is not proportioned to every lock, nor every word fit to open the heart.

But though Christ speaks to men in the grammar of their own heart and calling, I am far from defending the congruous vocation of Jesuits, once maintained by Arminius, and his disciples, at the conference at Hague; but now, for shame, forsaken by Arminians. For the Jesuits take this way; asking the question: How comes it to pass, that of two men equally called, and drawn to Christ, and as they dream (but it is but a dream) affected and instructed with habitual and prevenient grace of four degrees; the one man believes, and is converted; the other believes not, but resists the calling of God. They answer, Christ calls, and draws the one man, when he foresees he is better disposed, and shall obey; as his free will being in good blood, after sleep, and a good banquet, and fitter to weigh reasons, and compare the way of godliness with the other way: and he calls the other, though both in regard of grace and nature, equal to him that is converted, when he foresees he is in that order of providence, and accidental indisposition, of sadness, sleepiness, hunger, and extrinsical dispositions of mind, that he shall certainly resist, and both these callings, are ordered and regulated by the two absolute decrees of Election and Reprobation, from eternity.

The Arminians answer right down, the one is converted, because he wills, and consents; whereas he might, if it pleased him, dissent and refuse the calling of God; and the other is not converted, because he will not be converted but refuses, whereas he has as much grace as the other, and may, if he will, draw the actual co-operation of grace (the habitual he has equally, in as large a measure as the other) and be converted, and believe; nor is there any cause of this disparity in the man converted, and the man not converted in God, in his decree, in his free grace, but in the will of the one, and the not-willing of the other.

Our divines say, 1. There never were two men equal in all degrees, as touching the measure and ounces of habitual saving internal grace; indeed, that the never converted man had never any such grace.

2. That the culpable and moral cause, why the one is not converted rather than the other, is his actual resistance, and corruption of nature, never cured by saving grace, but the adequate, physical, and only separating cause, is 1. The decree of free election drawing the one effectually, not the other. 2. Habitual saving grace, seconded with the Lord's efficacious actual working in the one, and the Lord's denying of habitual and actual grace to the other; not because the will of the creature casts the balance, but because the Lord has mercy on the one, because he will, and leaves the other to his own hardness, because he will, and that the separating cause is not from the running, willing, and sweating of the one, and the not-running, and not-willing of the other; but from the free unhired, independent absolute grace of Christ.

But the Jesuits' congruous calling we utterly reject. 1. Because this is the Pelagian way, sacrilegiously robbing the grace of God, for the Lord foresees this man placed in such circumstances and course of providence will believe, the other will not, because he will do so, and the other will not do so; and both the placing of the one in such an opportunity, and his willing believing, and the other man's nilling not believing is in order before the foreknowledge and far more before the decree of God and his actual grace, and therefore free will is the cause why the one is converted, not the other, for both had equal habitual grace, and the one is not to give thanks for his conversion comparatively, more than the non-converted, but to thank his own free will. 2. The object of their fancy of their new middle science, is a foreseen providence, of the conversion of all that are willing to be converted, and voluntary perseverance in grace, and the non-conversion and final impenitency of all the wicked that are willing to refuse Christ, and these two go before the prescience, before the decrees of election and reprobation, so as God is necessitated to choose these and no other; and to pass by these, and no other — whatever has a future being before any decree of God cannot by any decree be altered or otherwise disposed of than it is to be: So the Lord in all things decreed, and that come to pass contingently, must have nothing but an after-consent, and an after-will to approve them, when they were now all future before his decree; this is to spoil God of all free will, free decrees, liberty and sovereignty in his decrees, and that men's free will may be free and independent, to lay God's freedom of Election and Reprobation under the creature's feet. 3. Jesuits dream that Christ cannot conquer the will to a free consent, except he lie in wait to catch the man when he has been at a fat banquet after cups, has slept well, is merry, and when he sees the man is in a good blood, then he draws and invites and so catches the man; and when he sees the reprobate in a contrary ill blood, though he seriously will and intend their salvation, and gave his son to die for them, yet then he draws, when he foresees they by the dominion of free will shall refuse, and he draws neither after, nor before, but at the time when he knows free will is under such an ill hour, as it freely came under, without any act of God's providence and free decree, and in which the called and drawn man shall certainly spit on Christ, and resist the calling of God. But this resolves heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, into such good or ill humors, and orders of providence, as a banquet, no banquet, a crabbed disposition, or a merry; whereas grace, which by an omnipotent and insuperable power removes the stony heart, can more easily remove these humors and win the consent, when the man is decreed for glory, and besides that all men unconverted and in their own element of corrupt nature are ill to speak to, and in a sinful blood of resisting, except Christ tread upon their iron neck and subdue it, and he spreads the skirts of his love over Jerusalem at the worst (Ezekiel 16:6, 8). Scripture is silent of such a manner of drawing, and the grace of Christ and his decree lies under no such hazard or lottery, as such imaginary dispositions [reconstructed: of good humors], thousands being brought in to Christ in chains, in saddest afflictions: Nor is grace being a plant of heaven, a flower that grows out of such clay ground.

Assertion 7. Christ draws by such a power (and this is the last point in the drawing) that it is not in the power of man to resist him.

He draws by the pull of that same arm and power by which he commanded light to shine out of darkness (2 Corinthians 4:6), by which he raised the dead out of the graves (Ephesians 1:18-19), by the exceeding greatness of his power, and the mighty power by which he raised Christ from the dead. Arminians answer, this was omnipotency of working miracles, but what was it to the salvation of the Ephesians, and to the hope of their glory to know with opened eyes such a power as Judas knew? And can the dead choose but be quickened and come out of the grave, when God raises them (John 5:25)? That Vaga necessitas, the strong moral necessity talked of by Jesuits, when strong moral motives work, is a dream there, for it may come short; a man quickened in the grave and put to his feet as Lazarus was, of necessity must come out, he will not lie down in the grave again and kill himself. A man starving for hunger when meat is set before him on any terms he desires, if he be in his right wits will necessarily eat, and not kill himself, but the necessity of saving souls in the tender and loving mind of God in Christ is much stronger, and if we consider the corruption of will, this fancied wandering necessity cannot so bow the will, but it is necessary that corrupt will dissent, rather than consent to Christ.

God takes away all resisting, and the vicious and wicked power of resisting; he removes the stony heart, opens blind eyes, removes the veil that is over the heart in hearing or reading the Scriptures (Ezekiel 36:26; 2 Corinthians 3:16-17; Deuteronomy 30:6; Colossians 2:11), takes the man's sword, and armor from him, cuts off his arms, so as he cannot fight or resist you. It is true, Christ takes not from David, Abraham, prophet, apostle, or from any men or angels that are to be saved the natural created power of nilling and willing, purum [illegible] posse nolle, Christo trahente, but he takes away the moral wicked, and godless power hic & nunc, and vicious and corrupt disposition of resisting.

3. God lays bonds on himself by 1. Promise, 2. Covenant. 3, Oath, to circumcise the heart of his chosen ones (Deuteronomy 30:6), to put his Law in their inward parts (Jeremiah 31:32-33), to give them one heart to fear God forever, not to depart from God (Jeremiah 32:39-40; Hebrews 8:6-7, etc.), to bless them (Hebrews 6:16-17-18; Genesis 22:16-17; Psalms 89:33-34-35-36-37; Hebrews 1:5-6). We cannot imagine that God will keep Covenant, promise, and oath, upon a condition, and with a reserve that we give him leave so to do; that is as much as the Creator will be faithful, if the creature will be faithful: and there is nothing glorious in the Gospel and second Covenant above the Law and first Covenant, if God does not promise to remove the power of resisting, for if God does not promise to work our obedience absolutely, without any condition depending on our free will, then must free will be so absolutely indifferent as it can suspend God from fulfilling his oath. Now the Law had a promise of life, if you do this, you live eternally, but God neither did work, nor was tied by the tenor of that Covenant, to work in us to do, to will, to continue, to abide in all written in the Law of God to the end, and therefore it was a broken Covenant. Nor can Arminians make the Covenant, Gospel-promise, and oath of God so conditional, as the Law of works, or as the promise of giving the holy Land to the seed of Abraham upon condition of faith, because many could not enter in, because of unbelief, except Arminians and Jesuits prove, 1. That all that entered in to the holy Land, young and old, did believe and were elected to salvation, redeemed and saved, as Caleb and Joshua were, as all that enter in to the true promised Land are believers; otherwise they die, are condemned, and can never see God (John 3:18, 36, 16; John 11:26; John 5:24; Mark 16:16; Acts 15:11; Acts 11:17-18); but the former is most evidently false in the History of Joshua and Judges, multitudes entered in who never believed; as multitudes entered not in who believed, as Moses and many others. And therefore from this, that many entered not in, because of unbelief; the Arminians shall never prove, that as God makes a promise of life eternal, that believers infallibly and only shall be saved, and unbelievers excluded; so God made a covenant and promise that all these of Abraham's seed infallibly, and all these only should enter into the holy Land, who should believe as did Caleb and Joshua. I put all Arminians and Papists and Patrons of universal atonement to prove any such covenant or promise. 2. Let Arminians prove that faith and a new heart was promised to all Abraham's seed who were to enter in to the holy Land, as it is promised to all the Elect who are saved, and to enter in the Kingdom of Heaven (Ezekiel 36:26; Jeremiah 31:32-33; Jeremiah 32:39-40). 3. That the promise of eternal rest in heaven was typified by conversion to Christ, and conversion upon condition of faith, as they say, but without ground; the holy Land was promised to all Abraham's seed upon condition of Faith, the like we say to all other conditional promises of God made in Scripture, that are as the legs of the lame unequally paralleled with the Covenant of Grace. Because this is the only answer adversaries can give, though it be as a parable in a fool's mouth. Let it be considered, 1. The difference between the first Covenant which was broken (Jeremiah 31:32-33-34) and the better Covenant which is everlasting and cannot be broken (Jeremiah 31:35-36-37; Jeremiah 32:39-40; Isaiah 54:10-11; Isaiah 59:19-20; Hebrews 8:6-7, etc.) is expressly held forth to make the new Covenant better than the old; but its close removed, for both are broken Covenants by this reasoning. 2. When God promises the removing of an old and stony heart, and to give a new heart; he promises to take away resisting in us, for nothing can resist Christ's drawing, but the stony and old heart. 3. The Apostle's reason (Hebrews 6:13-14-15-16) of the Lord's two immutable things, his oath and promise is, that we might have strong consolation and hope: now this makes undeniably the consolation though never so strong, the hope never so sure, to depend on our free will, if the sinner brews well, he drinks well, if he resists not grace, as he may, or accepts it as God's free will thinks good, he is tutor and lord of his own hope and consolation. Christ cannot help him to determine his will, if so be he be a bad husband of his own nilling and willing, let him see to it. 4. It must be in him that wills, and runs, and deserves well, as on the separating cause that saves or damns, not in God that shows mercy; by this vain arguing of fast and loose free will, doing and undoing all at its pleasure, let Christ do his best.

Argument 4. Whom God predestinates, them he also calls and glorifies, as all the predestinated are indeclinably called and glorified (Romans 8:30; Acts 13:48; 1 Peter 1:2). Now by this, multitudes should be predestinate, who are never called and glorified, if they have it in their free and independent choice to resist the drawing of Christ.

Argument 5. God (as Augustine says) has a greater dominion over our wills, than we have over them ourselves; as he is more master of the beings, so of the operations, (that are created beings) than the creature is, and so he must use the creature's operations at his own pleasure, otherwise he has made a creature free will, which is without the sphere of his own power; whereas the freest will of a King the most sovereign and independent on earth, must run in his channel (Proverbs 21:1).

Argument 6. Christ's Lordship and Princedome through his resurrection, is in turning of hearts (Acts 5:31; Romans 11:23). Grace is stronger than devils, sin, hell and death (Romans 14:4; Ephesians 3:20; Jude 24; 1 John 2:14; 1 John 4:4).

Arg. 7. If it must lie at our door more than Christ's to apply the purchased redemption, and actually to be saved, then we share more, if not largely, equally with Christ, in the work of our salvation; nor can the Church pray, Draw me, we shall run; why should we pray for that which is in our own power, says Augustine, for we are drawn, and may not run. 2. Why should Peter give thanks, rather than Judas or another Peter, both were equally drawn, free will lost the day to the one, and wins it to the other. 3. Christ must but play an after-game, and can do nothing, though with his soul he would save, but as free will has first done, so must it be. 4. Nor am I to trust to omnipotency of grace for conversion, for if I husband well nature's ability, the crop is my own. 5. I may engage the influence of free grace to follow me, and grace leads not, draws not my will, I draw free grace.

Arg. 8. If free will be lord carver of the sinner's being drawn to Christ, then the making good of the articles of the bargain and covenant between the Father and the Son must depend on man's free will. Now 1. know, the covenant between the Father and the Son is expressed first, by simple prophecy or promise. The Father passes the word of a King, Christ shall be his firstborn, the flower of the family, an Ensign of the people, nothing can stand good, if the free will of Gentiles refuse to come under this Prince's Royal Standard. The Father prophesies and promises (Psalm 72:8), Christ shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. (Psalm 89:25) The Lord shall set his hand in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers, he shall call God his Father, his God, the Rock of his salvation. Now there must be a condition in this Royal charter, in Christ's Magna Charta, nothing can be done, even when Christ goes up to a mountain, and lifts up his Royal Ensign, and Standard of love, and cries, all mine, come here; and when the people flock in about him, except free will, as independent as God say Amen, and yet it far rather may say, No, and refuse the bargain.

2. The Father bargains by asking and giving (Psalm 2:8), Ask of me, and I will give you. Christ must be an heir, by man's will, not by his Father's goodness; if Christ's suits, and demands, Father, give me the ends of the earth, and Britain for my inheritance, depend upon such an absolute yes, and no of man's free will as may cast the bargain, whereas our consent was not sought, nor were we called to the counsel, when the Father bargained to make us over to his Son.

3. The Father bargains by way of work, and hire or wages to give a seed to his Son (Isaiah 53:10), When he shall make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed; this is not a bare sight of his seed, but it is an enjoying of them, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. We cannot say, it depends on men, that Christ speed well in having a numerous seed, and that wages be paid to Christ for his sore work of laying down his life to save his people, except we be more play-maker than God in this covenant.

Arg. 9. The Scripture right down determines this controversy. Romans 9: No man has resisted his will; and It is not in him that wills. Augustine uses three adverbs in the Lord's manner of turning the heart; Omnipotenter, Indeclinabiliter, Insuperabiliter; Omnipotently, Indeclinably, and without shortcoming.

Use 1. O how sweet and strong is the grace of Christ; It is a conquering thing (Colossians 1:11), Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power. (2 Corinthians 10:4) The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God. Were they mighty through Angels and Men, that were but one creature storming another. But when Christ besieges a soul, who can raise the siege? Verse 5. We bring down every height, 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, They go not to a counsel of war, to advise upon quarters. 2. They cannot flee; For every thought is brought captive to the obedience of Christ. Christ riding on his horse of the Gospel, and strength of free grace, is swift and speedy, and has excellent success. (Revelation 6) He went out 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, both conquering, and that he might conquer. Christ shoots not at the rovers, to come short, or beside the mark; his arrows of love are sharp and conquering. The Spouse is out of her own element, and sick, and pained with love, when she lacks his presence, and cannot dissemble, nor hide it, nor command herself (Song of Solomon 3), no more than a sick person can master death, or a swooning. (Song of Solomon 5:6) My soul departed out of me; drink once of this strong wine of his love. O death, the Lions' teeth, burning alive, all these torments are nothing to the love of Christ. O, Christ we cannot forsake. David's key is strong to open all hearts, to open hell, and bring in a new heaven of love to the soul. Natural habits and powers are strong, fire cannot but cast out heat, lions cannot but prey upon lambs, wicked habits are strong devils, and cannot choose but be destroying devils. The coals of the fire of Christ's love burn not by election. (2 Corinthians 5:14) The love of Christ constrains us; there is a piece of eternity of heaven in the breasts of the martyrs of Jesus Christ. Abraham must go, when he is called. Lydia cannot keep the door, when love removes the handles of the bar, and must be in. The Lord casts in fireworks of love, in at the windows of the Apostles' souls; O! their nets, and callings, and their All become nothing, they must leave all, and follow Christ.

We must be loggish and crabbed timber, that take so much of Omnipotence, or else we cannot be drawn to the Son. Men think it but a step to Christ, and Heaven; ah! we have but a poor and timorous suspicion of heaven, by nature, it is no less than a creation to be drawn to Christ. 2. We are needy sinners, and need as much mercy, as would save the Devils, as may be gathered from (Hebrews 2:16). 3. We are, by nature, as good clay and metal to be vessels of revenging justice, and firewood that could burn, as kindly in hell, as Devils, or any damned whatever. 4. Not only at our first conversion must we be drawn; but the Spouse prays, (Song of Solomon 1) to be drawn; there's need that Christ use violence to save us, while we be in heaven; for Christ has said, (Matthew 7:14) 'Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way that leads to life.' I grant Antinomians who free us from all duties, and say Christ has done all to our hand, make little necessity of drawing at all. For Crispe says, the strictness of the way, (Matthew 7:14) is not the strictness of the conversation, but all a man's own righteousness must be cut out of the way, otherwise it is a broader way than Christ allows of. I confess, if in this one point all the strictness of the way to heaven were; then the way, 1. should be strait and narrow only to those that trust in their own righteousness; but I hope, there is much more strictness than in that one point; as in mortifying idol-lusts, loving our enemy, feeding him when he is hungry, suffering for Christ, bearing his Cross, denying ourselves, becoming humble as children, being lowly and meek, and following Christ's way in that.

2. Christ speaks of two ways, a wide, and a broad way, and a narrow way; Now if the narrow way be all in a quitting our own righteousness only; as Crispe says, perverting the text, then all the latitude and easiness of the broad way, must be that all the world that run to hell, they follow no sins sweet and pleasant to the flesh; no delightful lusts, contrary to the duties of the first and second Table, their only sin is to trust in their own righteousness, which is against both Law and Gospel.

3. Christ commands his hearers to enter in this strait way: which is clearly a way of holy walking, no less than of renouncing our own righteousness. For Christ both in the foregoing, and in the following words, urges duties; as not to judge rashly, (verse 1) to eye our own faults, rather than our brother's, (verses 3-5) not to profane holy Ordinances, (verse 6) to pray assiduously, (verses 7-10) to do to others, as we would they should do to us, (verse 12) to be good trees, and bring forth good fruit, not to content ourselves with an empty dead Faith; as Doctor Crispe, and Libertines do, but to do the will of our heavenly Father, to the end of the Chapter.

But let the reader observe, as we do detest all confidence in our inherent holiness, and all merit, and deny that our strictest walking can in any sort justify us before God; so Libertines in all their writings and conference cast shame upon strict walking, as Popish, Pharisaical, and Legal; and will have this our Christian liberty, that holy walking is not so much as no part of our justification, which thing we grant; but (says Crispe) all our sanctification of life is not a jot of the way of a justified person to heaven; the flat contrary of which Paul says, (Ephesians 2:10) 'For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus into good works, which God has before ordained, that we should walk in them.' That which we should walk in, must be a jot and more of our way to heaven; and [reconstructed: the same Crispe says:] Believers are kept in holiness, sincerity, simplicity of heart, but all this has nothing to do with the peace of their soul, and the salvation and justification thereof. See, he confounds salvation and justification. As if sincere walking were no way to salvation, because it is no way to justification, and because it's not the meritorious cause of our peace and salvation; for Christ alone is so the cause: But therefore must it be no condition of salvation? It is a profane and loose consequence. But do not Libertines teach that no man is saved, but these that walk holily, and that sanctification is the inseparable fruit and effect of justification?

Answer. They say it in words, but fraudulently. 1. Because all sanctification to them, all repentance, all mortification, all new obedience is but an apprehension, that Christ has done all these for them, and that is their righteousness, and so Christ repented for them, and mortified sin for them, and performed all active obedience for them. Now this sanctification is Faith, not the personal walking in newness of life that Christ requires.

2. This sanctification by their way is not commanded by God, nor are believers obliged to it, under danger of sinning against God; for through the imputation of Christ's righteousness (says Crispe) all our sins are so done away from us, that we stand as Christ's own person did, and does stand in the sight of God, nor is there a body of sin in Christ. I assume, but Christ is not obliged to our personal holiness, that were an impossible imagination.

2. All acts of sanctification to the justified person are free, he may do them; yes, he may not do them, and can be charged with no sin for the omitting of them; for he is not under any moral law, and where there is no law, there is no sin, (say Libertines.)

3. Men are kept in holiness, sincerity, simplicity of heart, says Crispe. What is that, kept? They are mere patients in all holy walking, and free will does nothing, but the Spirit immediately works all these in us; if therefore we omit them, it must be the fault of the Spirit, as Crispe speaks, not our fault, nor ought we to pray, but when the Spirit moves us, as before you heard; so that this sanctification is not any holiness opposite to the flesh, and to sin forbidden in the law of God, but a sort of free and arbitrary and immediate acting of the Spirit, in the omission of which acts, the justified person no more sins against God, than a tree, or a stone, which are creatures under no moral law of God, when these creatures do not pray, nor love Christ, nor out of sanctified principles abstain from these acts of adultery, murder, oppression, which being committed, would make rational men under guiltiness, and sin before God.

4. Towne Assertion of Grace, Page 56, 57, and page 58, page 156. A believer is as well saved already, as justified by Christ, and in him. Page 159. Divines say, our life and salvation is inchoate; but they speak of life, as it is here subjectively. Page 160. Quantum ad nos spectat, or in respect of our sense and apprehension, here in grace, our faith, knowledge, sanctification is imperfect; but in regard of imputation and donation (page 162), our righteousness is perfect; and (page 160) he that believes (in [illegible]) has life, not he shall have it, or has it in hope.

Answer. If we have glory really, actually, perfectly, but we want it only in sense; we have the resurrection from the dead also, actually, and perfectly, and we are risen out of the grave already, and we want the resurrection only in the sense: for sure by merit, and Christ's death, we have as really the resurrection from the dead, as we have glory, and life; and the one we have as really as the other; so we want nothing of the reality of heaven, but sense; but we are not yet before the throne, nor risen from the dead, nor locally above the visible heavens; except they say as Familists do, and as Hymenaeus and Philetus did, that the Resurrection is a spiritual thing in the mind; and heaven is but a spiritual sense of Christ, and that Christ is heaven, and the life to come is within the precincts of this life; this were to deny a life to come, a heaven, a hell, a resurrection, which Antinomians will be found to do.

This one special ground is much pressed by Master Towne, and the generality of Libertines, to wit, that holy walking before God, is neither way to heaven nor condition, nor means of salvation, in regard, we are not only in hope, but actually saved, when we are first justified, and as really saved and passed from death to life, when we believe, as we are said (Ephesians 2:6) to be raised up with Christ, to sit together with him in heavenly places. And therefore holy walking can be no means, no way, no entrance, no condition of our possession of the heavenly kingdom, and therefore no wonder they reject all sanctification, as not necessary, and teach men to loosen the reins to all fleshly walking.

But 1. (Romans 8:24) We are saved by hope, then we are not actually saved, but the jus, the right through Christ's merits to life eternal is ours, and purchased to us. The born heir of a Prince, is in hope a Prince, but he comes not out of the womb with the crown on his head. Christ coming out of the grave, which is the womb and loins of death, as the first begotten of the dead is born a king (Acts 5:31), and all that are born of this father of ages (Isaiah 9:6), his seed are heirs annexed with Christ the first heir (Romans 8:17), but heirs under non-age, and minors, and waiting for the living and the crown, they have it not in hand. (Romans 8:24) Hope that is seen, is not hope: for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for it. Verse 25. But if we hope for what we see not, then we do with patience wait for it. Hence I argue, what we wait for and see not, that we do not actually enjoy. But we hope for salvation (Romans 5:2; 1 John 3:1, 2, 3). The proposition is Scripture; no man can hope for that which he enjoys already. 2. We can be no otherwise said to be saved, than the believer is said to be passed from death to life, and to be risen again with Christ, and to sit with Christ in heavenly places. For as we are saved and glorified in hope only, not actually, so are we passed from death to life, and sit with Christ in heavenly places, and are partakers of the resurrection in hope only, or in our flesh, in regard our flesh is in heaven in Christ, who has investiture of heaven for us, as a man gets a stone or a twig in his hand, and that is to get the land, but yet he may want real possession. Christ's presence in heaven is real in law, we are there with him. But it cannot infer our personal and bodily presence, and real resurrection, which we hope for and want, not only in sense, but really. For we are not in this life immortal, beyond death, and sickness, and burying and corruption actually, nor yet are we in glory, that which we shall be, when Christ our life and head shall appear. For, 1. we yet groan as sick creatures in tabernacles of clay (2 Corinthians 5:1, 2), and carry about with us sick and dying clay, and Christ promises that of all that the Father gives him, he will lose nothing, but raise them from the dead; but that is, not in this life, but at the last day (John 6:39).

3. Such as are really and actually saved, can neither marry, nor be given in marriage, neither can they die any more (marrying and dying are blood-friends together) but are as the angels in heaven (Luke 20:36, 37, 38), their vile bodies are changed, and are fashioned and made like the glorious body of our Savior the Lord Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:20, 21), and shall be heavenly bodies, spiritual, and as the stars of the heaven in glory (1 Corinthians 15:40, 41, 42, 43). But we are not in that condition in this life, this corruptible has not put on incorruption, nor this mortal immortality. Then as we are saved in hope, and have jus ad rem, a full right to life eternal, and the resurrection of our bodies, in regard, that the price is paid for us, a complete and perfect ransom, even the blood of the Son of God is given for us, and so we are saved in hope, 2. in law and jure. But sure we have not actual possession of the kingdom, in the full income, rent, and complete harvest of glory, but only grapes, and the first fruits of Canaan.

4. It is too evident to half an eye, that when Antinomians say we are actually saved, and perfectly freed from sin in this life and as perfectly sinless as Christ himself; that their meaning is, that which the old Libertines in Calvin's time said. 1. That our deliverance from sin in Christ is, in a devilish and hellish spirituality (as Calvin speaks); as that wicked Priest Anto Pocquius said, was in judging neither murders, adulteries, perjury, lying, oppression, to be sins, when once the pardoned and justified person committed such villanies, because the Spirit of God was in him, and took sense from him. 2. Because the justified person is made one with Christ, one person, or as Antinomians speak, we are Christed, and made one with Christ, and he one with us, or incarnate and made flesh in us, and the new creature or the new man mentioned in the Gospel, is not meant of grace, but of Christ, and by love (1 Corinthians 13:13) and by the armor mentioned (Ephesians 6) are meant Christ. So said that vile man Pocquius, that we and Christ are made one, as Eve was formed out of a rib of Adam's side, he means one person. 3. Man following his lusts and committing all sin with greediness, is made spiritual and mortified by Christ's death, so also Pocquius who said to sin without sense is the spiritual life we are restored to in Christ. So Antinomians aim at this, that whatever the regenerate do, they are as free of sin before God, as Christ or the elect angels, and this is the begun spiritual life. 4. Libertines in Calvin's time said that life eternal was in this life, and that the resurrection was past; as Hymenaeus and Philetus who made shipwreck of the faith, because a man knows his soul is an immortal spirit living in the heavens, and because Christ has taken away the opinion and sense of death, by his death, and so has restored us to life. Mistress Hutchinson and her disciples, the Familists of New England denying the immortality of the soul, and the resurrection of these our mortal bodies affirmed all the resurrection they knew, was the union of the soul with Christ in this life. I never could observe any considerable difference between the foul heresies of the Familists of New England, and of Old England either by the writings of, or conference with them, nor of either, from the damnable doctrine of Hymenaeus and Philetus, and the old Libertines who said, The Resurrection was past.

Use 3. The drawing of sinners to Christ, if he draw so sweetly and with such a loving condescension, cannot be a violence offered to free will, by which the natural and created liberty of the creature is destroyed, for there remains a natural indifference, by which reason and judgment proposes to the elective faculty diverse objects, that have no natural connection with will; so as the will should be bowed to any of them, as the fire casts out heat, and the sun light, and the stone falls downward. It is true in drawing of a sinner, Christ is carried into the heart with a greater weight of love, and a stronger sway of grace, than any other object whatever, and with so prevailing a sway, as masters the elective power, that it cannot will to refuse, yet it destroys not the elective power; because this inability or unwillingness to reject Christ (to speak so) is a most free, vital, kindly, voluntary, and delighting impotency, and comes from the bowels and innate power of will, and this is the virgin-liberty and power of will. But again, because Christ's drawing is efficacious and strong and carries the business with a heavenly and loving prevalency, the Arminian and Jesuitical indifference that New Pelagians ascribe to free will, as an essential property of it, by which when God and the pull and nerves of the right arm of Jesus Christ in his free grace, have done what they can to draw a free agent, nevertheless the man may refuse to be drawn, if so it please free will, though it displease God, and cross his decree and most hearty and natural desire, is a wicked fancy.

1. Because by this dream God has not a dominion and sovereign power over the created will of man to determine it for his own ends, and to make use of it for the glory of his grace, though the Lord with his soul desire so to do, but the creature has an absolute, free and independent power, to cross the desire of the Lord's soul, for its own destruction and a far other end, which God intends but at the second hand, and contrary to his natural and essential desire (as they teach) to save his creature, to wit, that revenging justice may be declared in the eternal destruction of the most part of mankind; whereas it was his desire that not only the most part, but that all and every single man and angel (the fallen devils not excepted) should be eternally saved.

We believe that God the first cause, as he decrees to all things that were from eternity in a state of poor possibility; so as of themselves they might be, or might not be; a futurition or a shall be, or a non-futurition, or a shall never be: so he is midwife to his own blessed decrees, and determines all created causes to bring forth these effects that were in the womb of his holy decrees, for all things that were to be, and do fall out in time, were births from eternity that lay in the womb of the decree of God; evils of punishment, or sins as permitted (Acts 17:30), are not excepted. So Zephaniah wills the people to flee to God, before the decree that is with child brings forth the birth: then God must in time open and unlock free will for all its actions. Isaiah 44:7: And who, as I shall call and set it in order for me, since I appointed or decreed the ancient people? And the things that are coming or shall come, let them show to them. So God takes this to him as proper to appoint things to come, and no supposed God, nor power whatever can share with him in it, and let any man answer and give a reason why of ten thousand possible worlds of infinite things, actions of men and angels that from eternity of themselves were only possible, and might be, or not be; so many of them, not more, not fewer received a futurition, that they shall come to pass, and so fall out in time, and others remained only possible, and came never further to being, and never fall out, but from the only free decree and will of God, who conceived in that infinite womb of his eternal counsel and wisdom, such things shall be, such things shall only remain possible, and shall never be, nor never come to pass? As it was decreed that wicked men should break the legs of the two thieves crucified with Christ, and that they should not break Christ's legs, yet the breaking of Christ's legs was in itself, and from eternity no less possible, than the breaking of the legs of the fellow-sufferers with him; but God's only decree gave a futurition and an actual being to the one, not to the other: so are all the actions, the choosings, refusings, [reconstructed: nillings], willings of free will determined to be, or not be; and come to pass, or not come to pass, according as they were births conceived in the mother-decree of God from eternity (Psalm 139:16). In your book were all my members written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.

He that works all things according to the counsel of his will, as (Ephesians 1:11), he of whom, and through whom, and for whom are all things, as (Romans 11:36), he that made all things for himself, (Proverbs 16:4), even the wicked for the ill day, and for whose pleasure all things are, (Revelation 4:11), must be such an Efficient and Author, such a final cause of all, as shapes a particular being to things, actions, and every creature, as their determinate being must be from him. If the being of the actions of free will, rather than their not-being, be from free will, not from God, but in a general, universal, or disjunctive influence; that is, in such a way as whatever God decreed from eternity, touching Peter's acts of willing or nilling, embracing or repudiating Christ, or whatever way the Lord shapes and molds his influence and concurrence in time, either the one or the other may fall out, and Peter may embrace Christ or not embrace him, and so may Judas, and all men and angels; then shall I say, The King's heart, and his nilling and willing, is in the hand of his own heart; so the King turns his own heart, wherever he determines his own will, and not as Solomon says, (Proverbs 21:1), in the hands of the Lord: and the creature is master of work; angels, men, free and contingent, necessary and natural causes are Mint-masters to coin what actions they will, this or this; election and reprobation, vessels of mercy and of wrath, believing or not-believing, are in the hands of angels and men, the creature shall be both Potter and clay: the great Lord and former of all things, and the vessel for God's conditional decree, his collateral and universal, his disjunctive and dependent influence has no force to cast the scale of free will to willing, and so to salvation, election, inscription in the book of life, more than to nilling, damnation, and blotting out, or not-enrolling in the book of life; but is indifferent to either, is determined and bowed by the free will of man to which of the two shall seem good to lord will, and the Lord cannot turn the heart wherever he will. Which close sets up fortune, independent and absolute contingency, and a supremacy and principality of working every effect and event on both sides of the sun, and above the sun, in order of nature, by the creature, before and without the efficiency of the cause of causes, and the intention or counsel of God: indeed, it involves the Lord in a fatal chain, he must either concur, or the creature disposes of the militia, laws, and affairs of heaven and earth without the King of ages. 1. I cannot make prayers to the Lord, to determine my will to his obedience, not to lead me into temptation. 2. I cannot thank his free grace for either. 3. I cannot intrust God with working in me to will and to do: Nor, 4. comfort myself in the Lord: 5. Nor be patiently submissive to God under all my calamities that befall me, by the hand of men, devils, or creatures. Why? The Lord can do no more than he can; he had no more will nor counsel before time, nor hand and disposing of the business in time, for all these, than for the just contradicent of these; say the lord-patrons of indifferent and so absolute a free will. 6. How does Jacob pray that the Lord would give his sons favor with the Governor of Egypt, whom he believed to be a heathen; and pray that God would change his brother Esau's heart; and Esther and her maids pray, that God would grant her favor in the eyes of Ahashuerus, if God has not in his hand power to turn their hearts from hatred to favor, as pleases him? 7. The Lord takes on him to turn men's free will in mercy or judgment, as pleases him: (Proverbs 3) My son, forget not my law, so shall you find favor (verse 4) with God and man. The Lord gave Joseph favor in the eyes of Potiphar, (Genesis 39:21). God brought Daniel in favor and tender love with the Prince of the Eunuchs, (Daniel 1:9). The Lord made his people to be pitied of all those that carried them captives, (Psalm 106:46). The Lord turned the hearts of the Egyptians, to hate his people, (Psalm 105:25). War and peace are from the free wills of men, as second causes, yet the Lord says, according to his absolute dominion, (Isaiah 45:7), I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create evil. And (Isaiah 7:8), the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the river of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria, and they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys. (Isaiah 10:6), I will send the Assyrian against a hypocritical nation. So (Jeremiah 1:15-16), (Isaiah 13:1-3), (Isaiah 15:1-2, [illegible]), (Isaiah 17:1-3), (Isaiah 19:1-4). Now God could not be the Author of war and peace, as God and Sovereign all-Disposer, if it were in the indifferent choice and free election of men, that war should freely issue from man's free will; so as God could neither decree, command, ordain it in his providence, threaten it in his justice, foresee it in his wisdom, and foretell it by his Prophets, determine it by his free grace, except the free will of nations and men first pass an act in this poor low Court of clay, in the heads and breasts of little lords, free-will-men, and make sure work on earth of its coming to pass; and so the Almighty Sovereign of all things should have the second conditional vote of an after-game in heaven, of all actions contingent and managed by free will of angels and men, such as peace, war, honor, infamy, riches, poverty, health, sickness, life, or violent death, by sword, gibbet, poison, etc. hatred, favor, learning, ignorance, faith, unbelief, obedience to God, disobedience, salvation, damnation, long, or short life, sailing, selling, buying, eating, speaking, joying, weeping, building, planting, praying, praising, cursing, Christ's coming of the seed of David, the use of Prophets, prophesying, etc.

Object. Is it not contrary to the nature of freedom, to be determined by a foreign and external agent, and that by a power stronger than the free will can resist or master? If you with a stronger power tie a sword to my arm, and strongly and irresistibly throw my arm and sword both, to kill a man, can I be the murderer of this man?

Answ. All the question here is, Whether the Lord's freedom and dominion in these actions of clay-vessels or men's must stand? We had rather contend for the Lord and grace, than for the creature and free will.

2. It is contrary to the nature of freedom to be determined with one sort of determination, not with another: 1. With such a determination natural, as is in the stone to fall down, the sun to give light, its true; but now the assumption is false. 2. Should we suppose that he who ties the sword to your arm, so as he carries along with him in that motion your reason, judgment, elective power, so as you join in your arbitrary and free election, yes and with delight and joy, (which is somewhat more than free will) to strike with the sword, and he that lifts both arm and sword did not thwart, or cross your internal, vital, and elective power, as the Lord moves the will in natural acts, as acts in all sinful deviations from a Law, he should not free you from the guilt of murder: and so yet the assumption is false; for Christ so moves and determines the will to believe, as all the in-works and vital wheels of will, reason, judgment, freedom, are so moved with such an accommodation and fit and congruous attemperation to free will, as it goes along sweetly, gladly, freely with the grace of Christ in conversion; and too gladly and willingly in acts to which wickedness and murder are annexed; as there can be no other straining or compulsion here dreamed of, but such as when a virgin is said to be ravished, who freely and deliberately appoints time, place, persons, opportunities, and gladly comes to the place in which she is carried away; which neither law nor reason can make a rape. Now, I grant, neither man nor angel can so work upon the will; it is proper to the Lord, and communicable to no creature to know what congruous ways can efficaciously draw the will. And, 2. It's God only who can attemper irresistible strength, and sweetness and delectation of consent together.

Use 4. It's not a good, nor a comfortable way, nor would I love a heaven that is referred to a may be, or a may not be; it's not a good heaven that is referred to a venture. 2. Weakness left of God turns to wickedness: It is kindly to our corruption to be uncouth, strange, perverse to Christ, and indiscreet to strong love. 3. Free will is now like a bankrupt merchant, or a young and loose heir, who has lost all credit; Christ dare not venture a stock in our hand. 4. Christ is a shepherd who in feeding his flock stands on his feet (Isaiah 40:11), and sits not down, to lie and sleep: the first Adam sat down; all his sons lie down: never man on his own bottom can come to heaven. Let us choose this sure way, that broken men may be tutored by Jesus Christ.

Use 5. If he be a drawing Christ, it's a terrible thing to be at holding and drawing with Christ. 1. God's soul loathes withdrawers; (Hebrews 10:38) If any man draw back, my soul shall not be pleased with him. The word [illegible], is a word from soldiers that leave their standing out of fear; the fearful soldier sends himself away out of the Army. But Habakkuk 2:4, from where this is cited, seems a far contrary word. The soul that is lifted up, [illegible] towered up, or lifted up as a high tower, is not upright in him. Fear makes men low and base, and pride makes them high and lofty; how then is withdrawing from God, so base and low a word in the Apostle's style, expressed by the Prophet Habakkuk in so high a word, as the towering up the soul? There is a reciprocation of things in the word signified; for unbelief, resisting of Christ, and the sinner's withdrawing, is an act of the highest pride: he that will not be converted, and refuses Christ, thinks he can fend without Christ, he has a stronger castle to run to than Christ, and imagines that his sins and lusts shall shelter him in the ill day: And unbelief is a base, timorous, and cowardly thing, when men, for fear of a lesser evil and a poorer loss, steal away from Christ: And both is base or poor pride, and high or lofty beggarliness, in stealing away from Christ's colors; which the Lord abhors. 2. Withdrawing looks hell-like: He that is not saved in the nick of conversion, is eternally lost. (Hebrews 10:38) But we are not of those who withdraw to perdition. Withdrawing has no home but hell. 3. It's a sign of an obdurate heart. (Zechariah 7:11) But they have refused to hearken, and pulled away the shoulder, and stopped their ear, lest they should hear. And so judgment-like is withdrawing, and smells so of vengeance, that God plagues withdrawing with withdrawing: (Hosea 5:4) They will not frame their doings to turn to their God. And what is the issue of that? They shall go with their flocks and herds to seek the Lord, but they shall not find him; for he has withdrawn himself from them. (Proverbs 1:24) I called, and you refused; verse 26. then this must follow, verse 28. (as also John 8:21, the like is) they shall call upon me, but I will not answer.

Use 6. It's a terrible plague of God, which we would eschew as hell, to wit, provoking of God by such sins as may procure that God should in his judgment mar the lock of the heart, the will, that the door should neither shut nor open; and cast poison into the soul, so as angels and men, heaven and earth cannot help or cure it: Christ is good at opening hearts, and drawing sinners; and he is as good at judicial closing of hearts: If he but put his finger in the eye, and snap in pieces the optic nerves, all the world cannot restore sight, or open the heart. He that is nearest to be drawn to Christ, and yet never drawn, is deepest in hell: An Evangelical fire of God's fury is worse than a Sinai-fire, though it burn up to mid-heaven. 1. Sinning against the light of nature and the known will of God, as idolatry and the principles of your own religion, true and known to be so, brings delivering up to judicial blindness (Romans 1:21). (2.) If you put your finger in nature's eye, and blow out that candle, God will give you up to vile affections (Romans 1:24), and a reprobate mind (verses 26, 27, 28). Some blow out the candle of nature, and God blows out the sun of the Gospel, that it is to them like sackcloth of hair, and a moon like blood. 3. Resisting of the call of God, brings on the plague of hardness of heart; (Proverbs 1:24, 25, 26, 27; Acts 28:23, 24, 25, 26, 27; John 8:21).

Use 7. We are hence taught, to put our heart in Christ's hand; he, and he only who makes all things new, has a singular faculty in making old hearts new hearts. Now there is no such way as to lie at the tide, and wait on a full sea and a fair wind, and ship in with Christ; attend the ordinances, watch at the posts of the door of Wisdom.

Object. I have been a hearer thirty, forty years, I am as far from being drawn this day, as the first day.

Answer. 1. Such a soul would not be oiled at the first with the persuaded assurance of an everlasting love of election, as libertines cure poor souls; but would be brought to see sin, and be humbled and plowed, that Christ may sow.

2. They would be taken off their own bottom, and discharged to confide and rest on humiliation, or anything in themselves.

3. The manner, motives, and grounds of their complaining would be examined. Seldom or never is it seen that a reprobate man can be in sad earnest, heavy in heart, touching his deadness of heart, and fruitless hearing of the word of God thirty or forty years: and also, if there be a dram of sincerity, the least grain of Christ, as if the soul does but look afar off, with half an eye, yet greedily after the Lord Jesus, it is a sweet beginning. It is true, a talent weight of iron or sand is as weighty as a talent weight of gold, but in a saint an ounce weight of grace has more weight than a pound of corruption. It is no Gospel-truth that Antinomians teach, that God loves no man less for sin, or no man more for inherent holiness. It is true of the love of election and reconciliation, in the work of justification; but most false of the love of divine manifestation, in the work of sanctification; as is clear (John 14:21, 23). Nor are men by this taught to seek righteousness in themselves; because they are commanded to try and examine themselves, as (1 Corinthians 11:28; 2 Corinthians 13:5).

4. Such souls would upon any terms be brought to reason and debate the question with Christ, that as the law may stop their mouth before God, so mercy may stop the mouth of the law and sin, and it may convincingly be cleared, that though scarlet or crimson can by no art be made white, yet Christ, who is above art, can make them white (Isaiah 1:18), as wool and snow. And therefore such would be brought in a high esteem and deep judgment of Christ's fairness, beauty, excellency, incomparable and transcendent worth: and though a soul have a too high esteem of his sins, yet say that he dies with a high esteem of Jesus Christ, he is in no danger; for faith is but a swelled, a high and broad opinion and thought of the incomparable excellency and sweetness of Jesus Christ.

Use 8. This powerful drawing teaches humble thankfulness. (1.) The most harmless and innocent sinner must be in Christ's book for the debt of ten thousand talents. (2.) The sense of drawing grace is mighty engaging, every act of thankful obedience should come out of this womb, as the birth and child of the felt love of God. Christ did bid such a man battle. 2. He was Christ's enemy when he took him. (3.) It cost Christ blood — he died to conquer an enemy (Romans 5:10). (4.) He kept the taken enemy alive, he might have killed him, he gave him more than quarters, he made a captive a king (Revelation 1:6). Suppose we, Christ should in his own person come locally down to hell, and look upon so many thousands scorching and flaming in that insufferable lake of fire and brimstone, if he should cull out by the head and name; so many thousands of them, even while they were spitting on Christ, blaspheming his name, and scratching his face, and should loosen the fetters of everlasting vengeance, and draw them from among millions of damned spirits, lay them in his bosom, carry them to heaven, set them on thrones of glory, crown them as kings to reign with him for evermore. Would they not be shamed, and overcome with this love, kiss and adore so free a Redeemer? And thus really has Christ dealt with sinners, look on your debts written in Christ's grace-book, would not such a redeemed one praise his Ransomer, and say, O if every finger, every inch of a bone, every lith, every drop of blood of my body, every hair of my head, were in an angel's perfection to praise Jesus Christ; O the weight of the debt of love; O the gold mines and the depths of Christ's free love.

3. Consider what expressions vessels of grace have used of free grace? How far below grace Paul sets himself, look here (Ephesians 3:8): To me who am, 1. Less than a Saint. 2. Not that only, but less than the least. 3. Less than the least of Saints. But 4. yet a little lower, less than the least of all Saints is this grace given, that I should preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. Gospel riches is grace and mercy but there is a great abundance of it; it is a speech from quick-scented hounds, who have neither footstep, nor trace, nor scent left them of the game they pursue. Christ defies men and Angels to trace him in the ways of grace. So Paul (1 Timothy 1:13): I was a blasphemer and a persecutor, and an injurious person, but I was be-mercied, as if dipped in a river, in a Sea of mercy. Verse 14: And the grace of the Lord Jesus to me was abundant. No, that is too low a word — his grace was more, or over-abundant; one Paul obtained as much grace, even so whole and complete a ransom without diminishing, as would have saved a world. (Romans 5:15): If through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man Jesus Christ, has abounded to many. The word is exceedingly to abound, and borrowed from fountains and rivers which have flowed with waters since the creation; but there is a higher word, Verse 12: Where sin abounded, grace far more, or exceedingly over-abounded, or more than over-abounded. And Verse 21: Sin reigned to death, that grace might reign to life — that Christ's grace might play the King. The saving knowledge of God under the Kingdom of the Messiah (Isaiah 11:9) fills the earth, as the Sea is covered with waters. A Sea of Faith, and an Earthful of the grace of saving light, and a Sun sevenfold, as the light of seven days (Isaiah 30:26) hold forth to us a large measure of grace, and righteousness and peace like a river, and the waves of the sea (Isaiah 48:18). All these say Christ is no niggard of grace.

And 4. can they not wear and out-spend their harps, who fall down before the Lamb (Revelation 14) and (Revelation 5:8) who with a loud voice, praise the grace of God. Verse 12: For ever and ever? Consider if it must not be a loud voice, when ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousand thousands, all join in one song to extol grace; if we be not in word and deed obliged to express the virtues and praises of him, who has called us from darkness to his marvelous light.

Verse 32: And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to me.

Article 2.

The next thing we consider is the person that draws. I (says Christ) I will draw all men to me.

There is a peculiar aptitude in Jesus Christ to draw sinners to himself.

1. As concerning his person he is fit, for neither is the Father, nor the Holy Ghost, in person, Lord Redeemer, but Christ; as in the deep of God's wisdom, the Son was thought fittest to make Sons (Galatians 4:4) — the heir to communicate the right of heirship to the nearest of the blood, to his brethren to make them joint-heirs with him; so is Christ a fit person, as Lord Saviour, to rescue captives, and to draw them to the state of Sonship, which I speak not to exclude the other two persons; for (John 6:44): The Father draws to the Son; and the Spirit of grace in the work of conversion, must be a special agent, but Christ is made in a personal consideration, a drawer of sinners; God works and carries on all his state-designs of heaven by Christ (Hebrews 2:10). He brings or drives many Sons to glory.

2. Christ by office is a congregating and uniting Mediator (Colossians 1:20). He makes heaven and earth one; he is our peace, and made of two one (Ephesians 2:14). The Shepherd that gathers the Sons of God in one (John 11:52). And he by the merit of his blood makes sinners legally one with God; he is Emmanuel, God with us: fit to draw us in a law-union to God. We were banished out of Paradise; the Son by office was sent out to bring in the outlaw sons.

3. God has laid down, (in a manner) his compassion, mercy, gentleness, to sinners in Christ, and Christ has taken off infinite wrath, and satisfied justice in his nature and office. God is nowhere (to speak so) so much mercy, graciousness, kindness, tender compassion to sinners, such a sea of love as in the Lord Jesus. O but he is a most lovely, desirable, compassionate God in Christ. The sinner finds all that God can have in him, or do for saving, in the Mediator Christ; there can nothing come out of God to the sinner, but through Christ. There is no golden pipe, no channel but this; all God, and whole God is in Christ, and all God as communicable to the creature; and were God seen in his loveliness, his beauty would be strong cords and chains to draw hell up to heaven. Love, grace, mercy, are soldering and uniting attributes in God; now though these same essential attributes that are in one, be in all the three persons; yet the mediatory manifestation of love, grace, and free mercy is only in the Son; so as Christ is the treasury, storehouse, and magazine of the free goodness and mercy of the Godhead. As the sea is a congregation of waters, so is Christ a confluence of these lovely and drawing attributes that are in the Godhead. Christ is the face of God (2 Corinthians 4:6). The beauty and loveliness of the person, much of the majesty and glory of the man is in the face; now the beauty, and majesty and glory of God is manifested in Christ; so (Hebrews 1:3) he is the brightness of his glory; the Father is as it were all Sun, and all pearl, the Son Christ is the substantial rays, light-shining, the eternal, and essential irradiation of this Sun of glory; the Sun's glory is manifested to the world, in the light and beams that it sends out to the world; and if the Sun should keep its beams and light within its body, we should see nothing of the Sun's beauty and glory. No man, no angel, could see anything of God, if God had not had a consubstantial Son begotten of himself, by an eternal generation; but Christ is the beams, and splendor, and the shining, but the consubstantial shining of the infinite pearl, and [reconstructed: outshines God, as the seal does the stamp]; and as God incarnate, he reveals the excellency, glory, and beauty of God. A pearl is a drawing and an alluring creature from its shining beauty; so Christ is the drawing loveliness of God, you cannot see the creature's beauty, or the man's face, but you see the creature and the man; so says Christ to Philip (John 14:9), he that has seen me, has seen the Father. I am as like the Father, as God is like himself; there is a perfect, indivisible, essential unity between the Father and me. I and the Father are one; one very God; he the begetter, I the begotten. So God has laid down and pledged all his beauty, his loveliness, and his drawing virtue in Christ the lodestone of heaven; he is the substantial rose, that grew out of the Father from eternity. A man's wisdom makes his face to shine. Wisdom is a fair, lovely, and an alluring beauty. Now Christ is the essential wisdom of God; were your eyes once fastened upon that dainty lovely thing Christ, that uncreated golden Ark, the eternal, that infinite flower and lily, that sprang out of the essence, and beautiful nature of God, with eternal infinite greenness, fairness, smell, vigor, life, never to fade, that essential wisdom, and substantial word, the intellectual birth of the Lord's infinite understanding, if your eyes were once on him in a vision of glory, it should be impossible to get your eyes off him again, there would come such drawing rays, and visual lines of lovely beauty, and glory, from his face to your eyes, and should dart in through these created windows, to the understanding, heart, and affection, such arrows and darts of love, as you shall be a captive of glory for ever and ever. (Psalm 16:11) In your presence is fullness of joy. (Revelation 22:4) They shall see his face — it's a King's face, and a kingly glory to see it. — Verse 5: And they shall reign for ever and ever.

4. Then there is so much warmness of heart, and such a fire of love, such a stock of free grace, so wide, so tender, so large bowels of mercy and compassion toward sinners, as he would put himself into a posture of mercy, and in such a station of clay, as he might conveniently get a strong pull of sinners to draw them, a large and wide handful, or his arms full of sinners, as he would be a man for us, to get all the organs of lovely drawing of sinners to him: a man's heart to love man, a man's bowels to compassionate man, a man's hands to touch the foul leper's skin, a man's mouth and tongue to pray for man, to preach to men, and in our nature to publish the everlasting Gospel; a man's legs to be the good Shepherd to go over mountain and wilderness, to seek or to save lost sheep; a man's soul to sigh and groan for man; a man's eyes to weep for sinners; his nature to lay down his life for his poor friends, he would be a created clay-tent of free grace, a shop, and an office-house of compassion toward us, he would borrow the womb of a sinner to be born, suck the breasts of a woman that needed a Savior, eat and drink with sinners and publicans, came to seek and to save lost sinners, was numbered with sinners, died between two sinners; made his grave with sinners, (says Isaiah, Isaiah 53:9) borrowed a sinner's tomb to be buried in. And now he keeps the old relation with sinners, when he is in heaven, honor has not changed him, as he has forgotten his old friends, (Hebrews 4:15) for we have not a high Priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. Christ cannot now sigh, but he can feel sighing, he cannot weep, he has a man's heart to compassionate our weeping, in such a way as is suitable to his glorified condition; the head is in heaven, but he has left his heart in earth with sinners: there can be nothing dearer to Christ, than the holy Spirit; he has sent us down that comforter, the Spirit, to abide with us.

Use 1. O that men would come and look into this Ark, and that Christ would draw the curtain! Do but hear himself crying to the cities of Judah (Isaiah 40:9): Behold your God. (Isaiah 65:1): I said to a nation that was not called by any name, Behold me, Behold me: the doubling of the word says Christ desires to [reconstructed: display] his beauty. Shall your farm, and your yoke of oxen keep you from him? Men will not be drawn to him to satisfy their love.

Use 2. Christ is a drawing and a uniting Spirit; then all that are in Christ should be united; certainly the divisions now in Britain cannot be of God. The wolf and the good shepherd are contrary in this: the good shepherd loves to have the flock gathered in one, and to save them, that they may find pasture and the flock may be saved. The wolf scatters the flock, or if the wolf would have the flock gathered together, it is that they may be destroyed. Then it would be considered, if a bloody intention of war between two Protestant kingdoms for carnal ends, and upon forced and groundless jealousies, be from a uniting Spirit, and not rather from him who was a murderer from the beginning.

Use 3. Jews and Turks and civil men, that are but moral pagans, are not in Christ, nor can they have any communion with God, nor be drawn to Christ, because no man can be in love with God, except he see God as opened and made lovely to the soul in Christ. Moral civility and Pharisaical holiness is one of the most heaven-like, and whitest ways to hell that Satan can devise. Many moral men go, by theft, to hell; Satan by open violence pulls the profane and openly wicked men to perdition; but he steals millions of civil saints, honest married men that have whereon to live in the world plentifully, to hell in their whites, as if they were saints — because civil and clean in the morals of the second table, yet not being born again, they cannot see the kingdom of God. And most men deceive themselves with country religion and moralities, but such are but civil honest Antichrists, and deny there is any need that Christ should come in the flesh to die for sinners, for they can live honestly for sinners, and save themselves and not be beholden to Christ for heaven, or mortification, or faith.

Verse 32. And I if I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men.

This drawing of sinners to Christ is bottomed on Christ's dying on the cross, and his dying on the cross is an act of extreme and highest love (John 3:16; John 15:13; 1 John 4:9-10). Hence let us consider a little further what drawing and alluring power is in the love of God, and what way we may come to the sweet fruit of the strongest pull of Christ, which may be considered in: 1. The revelation of the drawing loveliness of Christ's dying. 2. The fullness of this loveliness.

For the former, Christ opens himself to us; we cannot discover him first; and there be two acts of this. 1. Christ opens the understanding (Luke 24:45) and the heart (Acts 16:14). He takes away the thick veil that is over the heart (2 Corinthians 3:15-16), and renders the medium, the air (as it were) thin, clear, visible, as when the sun expels night-shadows and thick clouds. So David's key, that opens and no man shuts (Revelation 3:7), removes the door and the seal that the first Adam's sin puts on the heart (John 14:21): He that loves me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. And Christ can show the Father. The Lord Jesus comes out of his depth and ocean of glory, and ivory chamber, as it were, and the Son of God reveals the Son of God, as (Galatians 1:12) compared with (Galatians 1:15-16) shows. He would not say, Behold me, behold me (Isaiah 65:1), and then get into a thick cloud and hide himself, if he had not had a mind to reveal his glory, and to show himself — the King in his beauty (Isaiah 33:17) — all his loveliness, the mysteries of his love, the rosiness, whiteness, redness, comeliness of his face (Song of Solomon 5:10). Nor would the spouse pray for a noon-day sight of Christ (Song of Solomon 1:7) if he could not offer himself to be seen in his loveliness of beauty. Thus Christ does make manifest the savour of his knowledge in the ministry of the gospel (2 Corinthians 2:14), when he lets out to the soul the smell of myrrh, aloes, of all the sweet ointments of his death and wounds; that the soul sees, smells, tastes the apples of love, in the believed mercy, free grace, satisfied justice, peace reconciled with righteousness, purchased redemption in his blood. And he stands behind the wall of our flesh, and so is called our wall (Song of Solomon 2:9): Behold he stands behind our wall, or, Behold that is he standing behind our wall; he looks forth at the window, showing himself, [illegible] revealing himself through the lattice. Yet this is not a perfect vision of God attainable in this life, as the Author of the Bright Star dreams. I see a man more distinctly in the field and before the sun, than when he looks out at the grates or lattice of a window, and a window behind a wall, for so we but see Christ in this life.

The completeness of the loveliness is: 1. In that there is no spot in Christ crucified when he is seen spiritually, no blemish, no lameness, no defect, for an eternal and infinite redemption, and an absolute righteousness — more cannot be required, no, not by God. 2. Nothing that the desiring faculty and appetite can stumble at; Paul's determination, the last resolved judgment of his mind, and his ripest resolution and purpose was to know nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Corinthians 2:2). Christ's beauty can fill all the corners and emptiness of the wide desires of the soul. 3. There is an actual fullness of God spoken of (Ephesians 3), Paul praying that the Ephesians may comprehend the great love of God. Verse 19 says: That you may know the love of God that passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. This is a satisfying fullness, and is an admirable expression. To be filled with God must be a soul-delighting fill. But 2. To be filled with the fullness of God is more, for there is unspeakable fullness in God. 3. The expression is yet higher: That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Of this fullness, 1. A word of the measure of it. 2. Of the means of it. 3. Of the sufficiency of it in the kind and nature. Randall in his Epistle before the Treatise called, The Bright Star, I have therefore observed the ever to be bewailed non-proficiency of many ingenious spirits, who through the policy of others, and the too too much modesty and temerity of themselves, have precluded the way of progress to the top and pitch of rest and perfection against themselves, as being altogether unattainable, and have shortened the cut with a Non datur ultra, and are become such who are ever learning and never come to the knowledge of the truth. But for the measure, sure it is not as Antinomians and Familists dream, complete and full in this life.

1. Because according to the manner and measure of the manifestation of Christ, and knowledge; so is love and the perfection of believers. This is a truth in itself undeniable, and granted by the Author of the Bright Star, chapter 5, p. 52. For Christ's excellency and drawing beauty in love goes into the soul by the port and eye of knowledge. But (1 Corinthians 13:9) We know in part, and we prophesy in part.

2. Paul disclaims perfection as being but in the way and journeying toward it (Philippians 3:12): Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Jesus Christ. Now this perfection which Paul professes he wants, is opposed in verses 13-14 to his pressing toward the garland, For the prize of the high calling of God in Jesus Christ (Hebrews 11:40).

3. Perfection, such as we expect in heaven, is in no capacity to receive any further addition, or accession of grace or glory; nor is there a growing in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, enjoined us there, as is expressly here in the way to our country (2 Peter 3:14), and to run our race to the end (Hebrews 12:1), and be carried on to perfection (Hebrews 6:1). It is true, our good works are washed in the Fountain opened for David's house, in which our persons are washed; but that washing removes the sinful guilt, and law-obligation from them, but not the inherent blot and sinful imperfection of our works, to make them perfect; for then might we be justified by our good works, if Christ's blood makes them to leave off to be sins; but that blood hinders them to be imputed to us only, but removes not their sinful imperfections, as Antinomians say, that so they may make us perfect in this life: nor does that blood (as Papists say) add a meriting dignity and virtue to them, by which we are justified by works made white and meritorious in Christ's blood and merits. God has so portrayed and chalked the way to heaven, that all the most supernatural acts, even those that have immediate bordering with the vision of glory, should need a pass of pardoning grace; and to believe that Christ's grace shall work in us acts void of sin, is not faith. Therefore we are to believe the pardon of such before they have being, and not sanctifying grace to avoid them. It seems to me unbelieving murmuring to be cast down at these sins, in such a way as to imagine we can avoid them, or that grace sanctifying is wanting to us in these; for grace is not due to sinless acts. Nor does the growing in grace which lies on us, by an obligation of a command, stop the way to the journeying toward perfection and heaven, nor shorten the cut to heaven, because heaven is not attainable in this life; but on the contrary, if perfection were attainable in this life, the man that attains it might sit down, rest there, and go not one step further; for except he should go beyond the crown, and to the other side of heaven, and over-journey Christ at the right hand of God, where should he go? And those that are ever learning, and never come to the knowledge of the truth, are (2 Timothy 3:5) lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; such as we are to turn away from; as have a form of godliness, and have denied the power thereof; and are led away with diverse lusts; and are never entered into one only degree or step of the way of the saving knowledge of the truth, of which Paul speaks, and not the truly regenerate, who believe, with Paul and the Scriptures, that our greatest perfection is to sweat and contend for the highest pitch of perfection, even that which is beyond time.

4. Those that are perfected, as we hope we shall be in heaven, feed not with the Beloved among the lilies till the day break, and the shadows fly away; but the most perfect, the Spouse of Christ, so feeds on Church-ordinances (Song of Solomon 2:17). The perfect ones have the fullest pitch of the noonday Sun of glory; it shall never be afternoon, nor the evening or twilight sky with them; nor shall any night-shadow, nor cloud go over their Sun.

5. In the kingdom of perfection there shall be no in-dwelling of a body of sin, no sin, no uncleanness of heart, no turning of the love and liking of the soul off God; but the most perfect in this life sin, and carry an in-dwelling body of sin with them (Proverbs 20:9; Ecclesiastes 7:20). Job says, in chapter 14:4, that the most perfect who beget children are unclean (Romans 7:17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23; 1 John 1:8, 9, 10; 1 John 2:1). All that have need of a High Priest at the right hand of God to intercede for them have sin, and in so far are imperfect, as all the saints are (Hebrews 7:25; 4:15; 1:17, 18; 8:1, 2; 9:23, 24, 25, 26; and 1 Corinthians 13:8). Love never fails: [illegible] abundantly, and is filled to satisfaction, so that the [illegible] can contain no more of God; and is transformed in [illegible] of transcendent light, and highest love, as it were lost in the deep fountain of universal and immeasurable love, and light; and the creature's soul and love lives and breathes, rests in the bosom, in the heart, in the bowels of him who is an infinite mass of love; is wrapped in the sugared floods, in the honey-brooks, and overflowing waves and rivers of pure and unmixed joy, sleeps and solaces itself in the innocent embracings of the glory that shines, rays, and darts, world without end, out of Christ, exalted far above all heavens, all principalities, and powers. The souls there are sweetened, more than sweetened, over-solaced with the noon-day-light of the Bridegroom's glory, having in it the sweetest perfections of the morning sun; they flee with dove's wings of beauty after the Lamb, they never lack the actual breathings of the Spirit of glory, they can never have enough of the chaste fruition of the glorious Prince Immanuel, and they never lack his inmost presence to the full; they suck the honey, the floods of milk of eternal consolations, and fill all empty desires; and as if the soul were without bottom, afresh they suck again, in acts for eternity continued. There is no such thing here in this life. Yet has Christ crucified in his bosom, the promise and full purchase of this life on the cross, and holds it out to sinners to draw them.

5. We have not yet attained to the resurrection of our bodies, but carry about such clods of death as the worms must sweetly feed on, and have a seed and subject of distempers in our clay tabernacles; all which we are incapable of in the state of perfection, when the body shall be more naturally clothed with immortality than the greenest and most delicious rose, or flower, which we could suppose were growing fresh, green, and beautiful forever, in such a happy soil, as the fields that lie on the banks, and within the drawings of sap from the river of life.

6. We are not masters of the invasion, at least, of temptations of devils, of men, here.

7. Perfection makes the general assembly of all the sons of Zion; the heavenly family is never convened, but in place, country, condition separated — some born, some not born, some waking, some sleeping in the dust, some in their country, some in the way to their country.

8. There is no temple, no ordinances in our country of perfection (Revelation 21:2; 1 Corinthians 13:8).

9. There is no angel's life here without marriage, eating, drinking, begetting of children (Luke 22:29, 30; Mark 12:25). Clay cannot live [illegible] earthly, up above the clouds, and visible heavens, till this corruptible shall put on incorruption (1 Corinthians 15).

Now for the means of attaining this fullness, we have no other known and revealed to us in this life, but the Scriptures, and Faith; the one without, and external, and the other within. Under these, I comprehend all the ordinances of God. Familists rejecting Scripture, terming it a human devise of Ink and Letters, as Antichrist did before them, they call their perfect ones, from all acting, praying, hearing the word; indeed, from knowing, apprehending, willing; to a resting on God as mere patients; God as their form and Spirit immediately acting on them. The active annihilation (says the Bright-star, Chapter 11, page 106) is a ceasing from all acts, vanishing of images, a doing of nothing, and a resting of all motion, or from doing the exterior will of God, expressed in the Law and Gospel in their letter. Page 107: Passive annihilation is when the man himself, and all other things (Meditation, knowing, desiring of God, praying, and the practice of a holy life) are cast asleep, and are made nothing. The active annihilation is when the man himself, and all other things are annihilated, not only sufferingly, as in the passive; but doingly, I mean by light in the understanding, as well natural, as supernatural: wherein he sees, and most infallibly knows, that all those things are nothing, and rests upon this knowledge in despite of feeling. Page 140: It is not best to forsake the passive annihilation, and the fruitive love, (the loving of God as our last enjoyed end) depending thereupon, to take in hand by acts to practice the active annihilation; provided that by simple remembrance she stand to her part. For there it is, (page 141,) that the soul is so transported, enlarged, enlightened, and united to God. There she tastes the chaste embraces, sweet intercourses, and divine kisses; there she sees herself sublimed, ennobled, and glorified with Angels, at the celestial table. There she relishes the fruits of her mortification, the treasures of her repentance, and the comforts of all her self-denials. Pages 144-145: To forsake such an experimental union with God, and that men should leap back to themselves, and re-betake themselves to their own acts, refuse to endure this emptiness, poverty of Spirit, this will of God, and all spiritual intercourse, super-celestial, or essential illumination, though indeed the true and divine wisdom and naked seeing of God. So that by their flying back and returning to themselves, (that is leaving the contemplative life of Monks, and returning to a practical walking with God) they do no other but far estrange themselves from all poor and [illegible] knowledge, and from all union and transformation into God, and so remain always confined within themselves, and their own bowels, and in the fetters of the old man. Now if you ask what it is to put off the old man; the Theologia Germanica says, Chapter 5, pages 9-10: It is to ascribe neither being, action, knowledge, nor goodness to yourself, but to God the eternal wisdom — and thus Man, and the Creature vanishes — thus ought man to become void of all things; that is, not to arrogate them to himself; and the less knowledge the creature does arrogate to itself, it becomes the more perfect: the like we must conceive of Love, Will, Desire, and all such things, for the less that man does arrogate these things to himself, the nobler, more excellent, and more divine he becomes, and the more he does assume these things to himself, so much is he made the more blockish, base and imperfect. Theologia Germanica, Chapter 14, page 32: that a man die to himself, it is as much as if you would say as himself, or egoity should die. Saint Paul says, put off the old man with his works. Page [illegible]: If it could come to pass that any man might wholly and absolutely cast off himself; so as that he lived without all things in true obedience, as the humanity of Christ was, then he should be void of himself and one with Christ, and should be the same by grace, that Christ was by nature. Page 35: This also is written, the more self-ends and egoity, the more there is of sin and unrighteousness; and the lesser there is of the one, the greater want there is of the other. This also is written, the more that my self does decrease (that is egoity or selfness) the more does God in me increase. Hence God is a Spirit acting, and all in all men, and for men to ascribe the good to God, and the ill to themselves is obedience, and to arrogate being, or good to themselves, is sin. So Theologia Germanica takes away the incarnation of Christ thus, Chapter 22, pages 52-53: Yet are there ways to the life of Christ, as we have already said; when, and wherein God and man are joined together, so that it may be truly said, and truth itself may acknowledge it; that the true and perfect God, and true and perfect man are one; and man does so yield, and give place to God, that where God himself is, there is man, and that God also be there present, and work alone, and do, and leave any thing undone, without any I, to [illegible], mine, or the like; where these things are, and exist, there is true Christ, and nowhere else. It is the property of God to consist, and to be without [illegible] or that, without selfness, egoity, or the like; but it is the [illegible] of the creature to seek and will, (in all things [illegible] does, or leaves undone) itself; and those things which [illegible] its own, and this or that, here or there. Theologia [illegible], Chapter [illegible], pages 109-110: He who is illuminated with [illegible] and divine love, [illegible] divine and deified man. Theologia [illegible], Chapter [illegible], page 7[illegible]: Those who are led by the Spirit of God, [illegible] the sons of God, and not subject to the Law, the sense of which words is, they are not to be taught what they should [illegible], or leave undone, seeing the Spirit of God which is their instructor, will teach them sufficiently, neither is any thing to be commanded, or enjoined them — for he that teaches them, commands them — they need no law, by means thereof to get profit to themselves, for they have obtained all already; and thus page 70, Christ needed no Law, but was above Law, and removes Ordinances, etc. Theologia Germanica, Chapter 11, page 23: The soul of Christ was to descend to Hell, before it could ascend to heaven, and the same must befall the soul of man, and this comes to pass, when he knows, and beholds, and finds himself so evil, that he supposes it to be just, he should suffer all, even be damned forever; and when he neither will, nor can desire deliverance and comfort, but does bear damnation neither waywardly, nor unwillingly, but loves damnation and pain, because it is just and agreeable to God's will. And (page 25,) when man desires in this hell, nothing but the eternal good, and understands the eternal good, to be above measure good, and this is his peace, joy, rest, satisfaction to him — this good becomes man's, and so man is in the kingdom of heaven — this hell has an end, this heaven shall never end — Man in this hell cannot think that ever he shall be comforted again, or delivered; and when he is in this heaven, nothing can hurt him — neither can he believe, that he can be hurt or discomforted, and yet after this hell, he is comforted, and delivered; and after this heaven, he is troubled and deprived of comfort. Man can do or omit nothing, by his own means, whereby this heaven should come to him, or this hell depart from him — For the wind blows where it wishes, etc., and when man is in either of these, he is in good case, and he may be as safe in hell as in heaven; and so long as man is in this life, he may often pass from the one to the other.

In opposition to these wicked fooleries, and for further clearing of the truths formerly proposed, let these Positions for the unfolding of the drawing loveliness of Christ be considered.

Position 1. The Scriptures are given by divine inspiration, able to make the man of God perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works (2 Timothy 3:16-17), the only means to find Christ, for they bear witness of him (John 5:39), and are written that we might believe, and in believing have life eternal (John 20:31). And all that Christ Jesus heard of his Father, he made known to his Apostles (John 15:15). And of these one Apostle Paul, who also received the Gospel not from flesh and blood, but by revelation from Jesus Christ (Galatians 1:12; 2 Peter 3:15-16; Acts 9:1-2, etc.) did declare to the Ephesians the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27), and yet believed and preached no other things than [reconstructed: those] that are written in the Law, or in Moses and the Prophets (Acts 24:14; Acts 26:22). And the Majesty, divinity, power, harmony, doctrine, above the reach of flesh and blood, the [reconstructed: end] which is not in this side of time and death but beyond both (as the places in the Margin witness) do demonstrate that the one Book of the Old and New Testament can be fathered upon none, but on God only.

Position 2. The Scripture and all the ordinances are but created things, and not the ultimate object of our faith, and highest and completest love, that is reserved to God in Jesus Christ. Indeed, the most perfect we read of, Paul a chosen vessel stood in need of comfort from Titus (2 Corinthians 7:5-6), and the saints at Rome (Romans 1:11-12), and Peter of a rebuke (Galatians 2), and the beloved disciple John of the joy and comfort of the walking of the children of Gaius in the truth (3 John 4-5), and of a commandment of the Law which forbids idolatry and angel-worship (Revelation 19:10; Revelation 22:8-9), and of an evangelical precept to believe, and not to fear (Revelation 1:17), and the most excellent and perfect member of the body has need of counsel and exhortations from the lowest member (Romans 12:3-8; Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 12:14, etc.), and all the saints to whom Paul, Peter, James, John wrote, among whom there were those who had the anointing, that teaches them all things, must hear and obey many exhortations, precepts and commandments out of the Law, as evangelized — then the most perfect are not above the Law, the Gospel and ordinances, as Familists say, else all the New Testament and canonical epistles were written to the saints for no purpose. But that we may understand this the better, we are to remember that 1. there is a twofold happiness of the saints, one formal, and another objective. 2. That there is a mediate seeing of God, one by ordinances and means, another immediate. 3. That there is a twofold will of God: one that is revealed in Scripture, or the Law of Nature, and that is the moral good that God approves and enjoins to us, rather than the will of God; this the Familists call the exterior or accidental will of God, because God's will, as his essence, should have been entire and self-sufficient, though God had never revealed any such will to men or angels, indeed though he had never made the world, or men, or angel. There is another will essential in God, which is not the thing willed, but the essential faculty of desiring, or willing in God. Now to come nearer the point, the formal blessedness of the saints is in the act of seeing, knowing, loving, enjoying God, which on our part are created things, and so empty nothings, and are not essentially the happiness of man, but means by which we enjoy God our happiness, so the using of all the means and ordinances are not our happiness. It is true, our Savior says, it is life eternal to know God, and his Son Christ (John 17), but he means it is the way and necessary means to happiness, and life eternal. God in Christ, and in the incomings, and out-flowings of the Spirit of glory, or the blessed one God, in three persons, is the object and happiness of the saints, and therefore we are to prefer Christ himself, to all the kisses, visions, out-flowings of glory, and all our acts of seeing, loving, and enjoying of God; we may love ordinances, and prize highly, the vision of God, but God himself, and Jesus Christ, we must not only prize, but be ravished, overcharged with himself; as the Bridegroom is far more excellent than his bracelets, chains, rings. In this sense I would in my heart, and esteem, make away all ordinances, indeed, all the honey-combs, all the apples, all the created roses that grow on Christ, all the sweet results, and out-flowings of glory, indeed, whole created heaven for Christ; Christ God himself; the bulk, the body, the stalk of the tree of life, is infinitely to be valued above an apple; indeed all the created apples and sweet blossoms, and soul-delighting flowers that grow on the tree. Now here on earth we are happy as heirs, not as lords and possessors, and in a union with the exterior, and revealed will of God, in believing, fearing, serving God, in Christ, in a practical union with God, but all this is but the way to the well, not the well itself, and the union with, or vision of God is mediate, far off, in a mirror, in the image, form, characters, elements, or looking-glass, of Word, Sacraments, Ministry, Ordinances, of hearing, praying, praising, but in heaven we see God face to face, that is without means, or the intervention of messengers, or ordinances. I cannot determine whether, when we shall know, and see the Lord, in an immediate vision of glory, our understanding shall receive created forms, intellectual species, images, characters of the lovely essence, the white, ruddy, pleasant, lovely countenance, of that desirable Prince, the Lord Jesus; it is a nicety not for our edification. Surely Christ shall infuse and pour into every vessel of glory, so much of himself, his presence, loveliness, image, beauty, as from bottom to brim, the soul shall be full, and who knows what the eternal milkings, the everlasting intellectual suckings of the glorified ones are, by which they draw in, and drink from the honey-comb of uncreated glory, and the deep, deep fountain and river of endless life, the streams of joy, consolation, love, fruition of Jehovah, the soul being the channel, whose banks are eternally green with glory? What are the emanations, the out-flowings of blessedness, from the pure essence, and bright face of him that sits on the throne? And what can these incomings, and the eternal flowings of the tide of that sea of matchless felicity be? Who knows? Come up and see, can best resolve; come up and drink, be drunk and giddy, and satiated with glory, and move no curious question of that fruition of God. Christ will solve all these doubts, to the quieting of your mind, when you come up there; nor is it needful to say, that there is a vision of God in this life, which is heaven, and all the heaven we shall ever have, and this vision is without receiving any images, forms, characters of God, because it is purely spiritual, and abstracted from all acts of imagination, and in it we are mere patients, not agents, God pouring the immediate brightness of his own essence in us: truly, this is to be wise above what is written, and I crave leave to doubt, if Familists have the images and species of this opinion from the Spirit of God. For that Spirit is a Spirit of sobriety, and the most spiritual and ecstatical visions that the Prophets, the men of God were taken up with; in them all, to me, there seems to be visions of forms, images, characters, a Throne, Angels with six wings, smoke, a woman clothed with the Sun, etc. A pot toward the North, a cloud and a fire enfolding itself — a color of amber out of the midst of the fire; but a vision of God immediate in this life, and that ordinary, without forms, images, without Word, Sacraments, Ordinances, I know not, I understand it not.

Pos. 3. The monkish conceit of the excellency of a contemplative life separated from all obligation to duties of the second Table, above the practical life, has been the first seed of wicked Familism; the authors of both these books called Theologia Germanica, and The Bright Star being professed Papists, though Mr. Randall extols both as pieces of rare price, and doctrines suiting only for the perfect (as if the Scripture were not such a piece) yet professed gross idolatry and the adoring of the wood of the Cross, is in The Bright Star, cap. 19, and various other Popish principles are in both.

Pos. 4. There is a twofold fullness of loveliness in Christ; one attainable in this life, the other reserved for the life to come. The full and highest pitch of the drawing loveliness of Christ, I think excludes all ordinances, Scripture, Sacraments, and means we now use. Because old monks and late Familists make no heaven, but in this life only (as if a monk's cowl were the very crown of eternal glory) and say the Resurrection is past; as their fathers Hymenaeus and Philetus said, and doubt of the immortality of the soul; therefore they, that they may be true to their own principles, must say that there be a number of perfect men, that are above and higher than law, duties, ordinances, teaching of men, ministry, because these are for the imperfect and unregenerate, (and the monks and Familists are not such, but do already enjoy God, in a fruition of glory). But the Scripture says, that means, ordinances, are ever in use in this life, and only excluded from the life to come. 1 Corinthians 13:8: Charity never fails: But whether there be prophecies, they shall fail, whether there be tongues, they shall cease, whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away. Verse 9: For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. Verse 10: But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. Verse 12: For now (in this life) we see through a glass darkly. But then (in the life to come) face to face: Now I know in part, but then I shall know, even as also I am known. And that this is a parallel between this life and the life to come, is clear from (1 John 3:2): Behold now we are the sons of God, and it does not yet appear what we shall be; but we know when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him, as he is. 2. The life to come is held forth (Revelation 21:22) to want all ordinances. And I saw no temple therein, (says John when he saw the New Jerusalem) for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb are the temple of it. Nor is there any ignorance there (Revelation 22:5): And there shall be no night there, and they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the Lord God gives them light, and they shall reign for ever and ever. Whatever any say of a personal reign of Christ on earth, the words prove that while that life comes, all the regenerate here have need of a temple, and ordinances, so long as there is night and darkness, and use for sun and moon; so the date of church ordinances is held forth (Song of Solomon 2:16): My well-beloved is mine, and I am his, he feeds among the lilies. Verse 17: Until the day break, and the shadows flee away. Then there is a night on the church, and need of the moonlight of ordinances, so long as Christ by his ministry remains in the shepherds' tents, feeding his flock in the strength of the Lord, and holding forth his presence to his justified ones, spotless and fair through the imputed righteousness of Christ; as lilies, while the fairest and most desirable day of that illustrious and glorious appearance of Christ dawns, and Paul clearly expounds these words (Ephesians 4), showing the term day of Christ's reign, in his saints, by the ministry of the Gospel, and that the saints and body of Christ, are but in the way to be perfected and edified, by pastors and teachers. Verse 13: Till we all come to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Hence saints are not perfected till that day. 2. The body of Christ is low of stature, capable of growing, the bride's hair grows, she is not of a perfect tall stature, but like a young girl not yet fit for marriage to the Lamb, till we meet all in the unity of faith: So I know no active annihilation, no vanishing of, and ceasing from, all acts of the will of God revealed in the law and Gospel; that is, from praying, hearing, meditating, loving, desiring, longing after Christ, till the day that the shadows flee away. Then I confess I shall have no leisure to read in the book of the Old and New Testament, or to attend preaching, sacraments, or other ordinances, because I need no mirror, no portrait of Christ, no message of ministers, when I see and enjoy himself. 3. All who have God for their Father, and need daily bread, and are clothed with a body of clay, are to pray for remission of sins, not to be led into temptation, or sinful omitting of duties; all for whom the blood of Jesus is shed, are to declare the Lord's death till he come again. What ceasing then from duties of law, love, the Spirit, and Christ is this? Where is this fancied annihilation to be dreamed of? Scripture knows it not.

Pos. 5. There is a fullness of loveliness in Christ, that is begun in us, by possession and title in this life, but never perfect till the life to come, in which there be these: 1. Union. 2. Fruition. 3. Rest. 4. Satisfaction. 5. Sense. 6. Living and acting in Christ. 7. Loving and solacing of the soul, of which to hold forth more of the drawing of Christ, we say.

Pos. 6. Christ's inviting us to come to him, and that before we can invite him, speaks of union. 1. Such a union as faith can make, which does not rise to the pitch of sight, and immediate fruition, for it is the union of those that are absent one from another, in regard of fullness of presence (2 Corinthians 5:6): Knowing that while we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord (John 16:7): Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient that I go away. (Luke 19:12) He said therefore a certain Nobleman went into a far country, to receive for himself a Kingdom, and to return. Yet it is the union of those that are so near as the house and the guest, or as two friends that dine together (Ephesians 3:17; John 14:23; Revelation 3:21). 2. It is a union of fruition, for Christ in some measure is enjoyed in this life, yet so, as the fruition is in part, not complete and full in degrees as it shall be in the life to come; it is therefore both a fruition of rest and of motion; of rest, in regard of the present fruition; of motion, in regard of advancing in the way to a complete fruition; so as is in a journey, in regard of practical love, and at its home in regard of love and union of fruition; so the soul is both satisfied with bread, and hungers no more (Isaiah 55:2), but delights itself in fatness and thirsts no more, having a present sense of complacency and contentment in the water of life (John 4:14); and also the soul is so far not satisfied, and its thirst not quenched, but that it hungers and thirsts for a fuller union and an immediate fruition, in which regard the soul is both abroad in its way and motion to have more of Christ, and at home, and at rest, in regard it is fully satisfied exclusively, not inclusively; because this satisfaction excludes and annihilates all choice of another lover than Christ, and denies all deliberate comparing of Christ with any other lover, as holding and prizing him the chief of ten thousand, and resolving never to fix the desire on another Husband or Lover but Christ, as (Song of Solomon 3:4): It was but a little, that I passed from the watchmen, but I found him whom my soul loves; I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and the chamber of her that conceived me. Finding and holding of Christ, is as much as there is satisfaction and rest in the fruition of him; and yet the Spouse's aim to go hand in hand on a journey to the house of the high Jerusalem the mother of us all — which with submission I conceive the Spouse calls her mother's house — does clearly prove that she is not perfect, but in a motion; not yet at her journey's end, till she come with Christ to the Palace of the Prince's daughter, the Bride the Lamb's wife (Revelation 21:10-12). Hence we see how true it is, that the desires are swallowed up into the bosom of infinite Jesus Christ, as a little brook is swallowed up when it comes into the Ocean, and yet the desires remain: They are swallowed up in Christ in that the soul is at home, being quieted and perfected in Christ, and are no more restless and pained in the journey toward Christ; but as heaven is begun on earth, so has David quietness of mind, and breaks forth in praises, that the Lord gave him counsel to choose God himself for his portion (Psalm 16:5-7). So goodly and pleasant is the heritage; and now there is no more desire for Christ as a thing absent, and the thirst is swallowed up in Christ, the soul thirsts no more (John 4:14). And yet the desire remains both in the sweet complacency and liking of the Saints, delighting in present fruition, and also in an act of longing for the highest pitch of degrees of union, just as in the act of drinking, thirst is half swallowed up in begun satisfaction, and thirst remains in a liking, and a further desire of a perfect cooling, and refreshing overcoming of a full quenching of the appetite.

Pos. 7. Yet it cannot be said but here is a begun satisfaction, for (John 4:14) Christ enjoyed is a draught of the water of life freely given (Revelation 22:17): That whoever will, may drink of the water of life freely (John 7:37): In the last, and great day of the feast, Jesus stood, and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. 2. Not a drink only is offered, but a well, a fountain (Psalm 36:9): For with you is the fountain of life; a fountain is more than a drink, because the whole is more than the part. But 3. every thirsty man cannot have a fountain within him, but yet it is so here (John 4:14): But the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water, springing up to life eternal. And 4. the Scripture rises higher, even to a river, and abundance of fatness (Psalm 36:8): They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house, [illegible] they shall be drunk with the fatness of your house. It is a river of sweet oil and fatness, that overjoys the soul; you will give them to drink of the river of your pleasures: A river of which every drop is joy, and a whole well of pleasures must be a Sea of delights. But grace must make the soul a capacious vessel, when not a fountain, but a whole river; yea rivers of life are within the soul: So Christ (John 7:38): He that believes on me, as the Scripture has said, Out of his belly shall flow rivers of living waters. Yea, 5. that no expression might be wanting, the peace and righteousness of believers, is as the waves of the Sea; the Sea is more than a River, it is the lodging that receives all fountains and rivers in it (Isaiah 48:18).

Pos. 8. There must be much sense of God, in the fruition of Christ; because believing, though we see him not (as we hope to see him), causes joy unspeakable and full of glory (1 Peter 1:8). Thus a high tide, a flood of joy and glory, a rich portion of an antedated heaven, comes down on the heirs of heaven beforehand. (Psalm 63:5) My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; a rich feast of only marrow and fatness, and a satisfying table holds forth a great banquet, abundant and glorious; such as is made at the marriage of a great King's Son.

Position 9. And this is not a ceasing from all actings of the soul, because there is an acting and living in Christ. (2 Corinthians 3:18) But 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, as it were by the Spirit of the Lord. 1. The veil, that by the law's ministry, which can darken but not enlighten, in the gospel is removed; and we with uncovered face see God revealed in Christ, in the brightness of the gospel-day. 2. We see, behold, and enjoy glory: heaven darts in the rays and beams of God in Christ, at our soul. 3. This is a changing glory: precious stones in the night-darkness cast out light, but bring them before the Sun, and the beams and light of the Sun change them into a greater measure of resplendency, and shining irradiation: we seeing the unspeakable resplendency, and heavenly glancing of divine majesty, in the mediator Christ, are transformed and changed, into the Lord Jesus, his beauty of holiness; the gospel-light makes us holy, as he is holy: as there is beauty in the feathers of a dove; but when the Sun illuminates, and shines on them, they carry the glancing of silver and golden feathers, yet it is but a show: and so red and white roses of themselves have excellent beauty; but set them between you and the Sun, and they are far more beautiful: and the eastern sky of itself, is but a dark thin formless air, that you can scarcely behold and see; but when the Sun rises, and shines upon that sky, it does create and beget the fairest and most beautiful color of red, and azure, that is possible; for no bodily creature casts a fairer and a sweeter resplendency and color than the morning-red and purple-sky: so when the glorious Son of righteousness Christ, shines on saints, in the morning day-light of the gospel, he creates the image of the glory of God in the soul, and changes them into a luster and beauty fairer to Christ's eye than the Sun, or the red morning sky; now the Sun, by beholding any creature cannot change that creature into another Sun; but Christ beholding his bride, and the bride beholding with the eye of knowledge, and faith, in the rays and beams of the gospel-light, is changed into the glorious image of Christ. (Song of Solomon 6:10) Who is she that looks forth as the morning, as Aurora, the first birth of the young day, when the Sun casts golden beams, fair as the Moon, clear as the Sun. 4. We live and act in Christ, and are changed from glory to glory; it is but a growing change by degrees. Then the kingdom of heaven and glory is not in this life, nor hell in this life, as these dreamers say; the conditions of happiness, and misery, that follow Lazarus, and the rich glutton, after they die, and are buried (Luke 16:22-25), say the contrary. 2. There is such a gulf between heaven and hell, that there is no passage, no sailing, nor posting between the one and the other (Luke 16:26), as Familists imagine. 3. That saints should believe they can never be delivered, nor comforted; in the hell they are pained with all in this life, when yet God has promised to them in their saddest nights, deliverance and comfort; is against the faith and lively hope of the saints, and a sinful unbelief; and the man in sin cannot be as safe in a hell of sin, as if he were in heaven. 4. Hell is a condition of sinning and blaspheming of God, but to desire nothing but the eternal good, and to understand the eternal good to be above measure good, is not a condition of sinning, but of happiness, and holiness, and so cannot be hell. 5. These two conditions sort not with the everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his angels; and life eternal prepared for the blessed of the Father (Matthew 25). But to return, if life be the greatest perfection of being, the believer in Christ must enjoy an intellectual life, in Christ, and live, see, know, enjoy God; and though the enjoying of Christ be the highest degree of self-denial, and the man loses himself in Christ; that is, his sinful and fleshly I, egoity, and selfishness in Christ, yet he loses not, but finds in Christ, his sinless created self, his self perfected, with that high and supernatural ornament of Christ living in him. It is also most true, self, as all created beings are but mere dependencies on God: as the beams of the Sun are but fluxes, results, and issues, that have no being; but in the Sun, sure creatures depend more in their being, and working on God; than accidents depend on their subject: but it is nothing less than blasphemy, against all reason and common sense, and subverts all the Scriptures of God, to say that God is formally all things, that God is man, that God is the Spirit and form that acts in all, that a holy man is God incarnate, and Christ God man, and that Christ the Mediator is nothing; but God humanized, and man made godly and deified, and that Christ dwelling in a believer by faith, and the inhabitation of the Holy Spirit, is but God manifested in the flesh of every man. This destroys many articles of faith (as Familists care not boldly to subvert all Scriptures) for Christ then is not true man, born of the seed of David, and he is not God blessed forever, in one person. 2. All creatures and created beings compared with God, the first being of himself subsisting, and the infinite God may be denied, to be beings comparatively: and so our created self is nothing, to wit, nothing in dignity, or excellency beside God, or nothing in the kind of a being that essentially is of itself: as God is in genere entis per essentiam, yet man is a being in the kind of being by participation, in genere entis per participationem; man compared with God, is a poor, worthless, sorry, little-nothing, a weeping, melting, vanishing cipher. Indeed, sweetest ordinances, because it is but created sweetness that is in them, are near of blood to nothing, and in comparison of God mere shadows; that cannot fathom the immortal soul; and nothing, and partake of vanity common to all creatures. So the Scripture says, Man at his best state is altogether vanity (Psalm 39:5). Behold, you have made my days as a handbreadth, and my age is nothing before you: truly every man at his best state is altogether vanity (Isaiah 40:17). All nations before him are nothing, and less than nothing, and vanity. Yet a heathen may say and think, and demonstrate by reason, that self, and man, and all the world are less in comparison of the infinite God, than nothing to all things, a drop of water to the sea, the shadow to the body, a penny-torch to the light of ten thousand millions of suns in one; and yet be as far from self-denial, from putting off the old man, and mortifying the lusts of the flesh, as light is from darkness. It is most vain to say, as it is the property of the creature to seek and will itself, and its own, and this or that, here or there: as it is the property of God to be without this or that, without selfishness, egoity, or the like. Because every thing created, even worms, frogs, trees, elements, such creatures as beget creatures like themselves; they have such a sweet and natural interest in being, that without sin or deviation from law, or rule, or any leading, or directing principle of nature, they desire themselves, their own being: and when they cannot keep being in themselves, they desire to keep it in the kind, by propagation, and will fight it out against all contraries, and enemies, to preserve their own being, though but borrowed from God, and I know no sin they are guilty of, in so doing; nor was Christ's conditional desire of life, and deprecating death, any way contrary to innocent self-denial. 2. The Lord seeks himself and his own glory, and made all things for himself, even the wicked for the evil day (Proverbs 16:4). And that is a most holy and pure act, which God ascribes to himself (Isaiah 43:21). This people have I formed for myself, they shall show forth my praise.

Now in all dwelling in Christ, there is a continual acting of life, by believing, joying, resting in God. As Philip says (John 14:8), Lord, show us the Father and it suffices us. Here life seeks a soul-satisfying union with life, for life is only a satisfactory object to life. Living things seek no dead things as such, to be their happiness, if reason does rightly act them, and God as revealed in Jesus Christ, is that in which the saints find a soul sufficiency for themselves; and the act of seeing God in Christ whether in this life, or in the life to come, is an act of life, for the soul lives in the ocean, sea, and bosom of a fair eternal truth. But does it act there? Indeed, it does, and the Scripture expresses its acting; by seeing God, drinking the fountain of life. Then [reconstructed: the] soul thus in Christ drinks in love, and milks and sucks in the soul-rejoicing irradiations of Christ, and Christ letting out the breathings of the sweetness of his excellency on the face of the soul draws and sucks in reciprocally acts of admiration and wondering (Song of Solomon 2:8). "The voice of my beloved, behold he comes leaping upon the mountains, and skipping on the hills" — behold is a word of wonder (1 John 3:1). "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us." Not love only, but the manner and the kind of the Father's love in Christ, is a world's wonder, and (2 Thessalonians 1:10) Christ when he comes shall be wondered at in them that believe. 2. Then again when we see, and enjoy the drawing loveliness of Christ; he as the fountain and well of life, pours in, in our intellectual love, and in the glancings, and rays of our understanding, acts of divine light, lumps of fresh love from the spring of heaven's love, and the soul opens its mouth wide, and takes in the streams of Christ's nectar, honey, and milk, his consolations, and love breathings; and in his light we seeing light, and in his love, feeling love, he makes out light and love (as it were) coeternal with borrowed eternity; and we go along with the outshinings of Christ's bright countenance, to shine in borrowed light, to flame in borrowed coals of love; and as Christ is said, to feed his flock among the lilies, the garden of Christ, his church being the common pasture for the lambs of the flock; so he feeds the souls of the saints that enjoys him, with the marrow, fatness, and dainties of his light, and love that shine in his face, even as the oil feeds the lamp; but with this difference, Christ's dainties are not lessened, because we feed upon them, as the oil is consumed with burning.

Proposition 10. There is a living and solacing of the soul in Christ, even to satiety in this enjoying of Christ.

Hence, 1. Love gives strong legs, and swift wings to the soul, to pursue a union with Christ. Love puts the hand to the bottom of the desire, and draws with strong cords, the lover to it; we have heard of Christ's invitation, Come to me. But suppose Christ had never expressed his love, in such a love-expression, Come to me. Christ himself is such a drawing object, that beauty, the smell of his garments, his mountain of myrrh, and hill of frankincense, the sea and rivers of salvation, that capacious and wide heaven of redemption are intrinsically, and of themselves crying, drawing, and ravishing objects: as gold is dumb and cannot speak, yet the beauty and gain of it, cries, Come here poor, and be made rich.

2. Love's wings move sweetly, Open my sister, etc. My head is full of dew, and my locks with the drops of the night; there is no dumb and silent violence so strong, so piercing as Christ's love.

3. When the soul in any measure comprehends this love, the soul is filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:19). Hence must follow a stretching out of the soul to its widest capacity and circumference, being filled with God, and the fullness of Christ, that all created objects, because of their littleness and lowness, and the soul's stretched out and wide capacity, loses proportion with the soul; as if a man were in the top of a castle higher than the third region of the air, or near the sphere of the moon, should he look down to the fairest and sweetest meadows, and to a garden rich with roses and flowers, of all sweet colors, delicious smells, he should not see any sweetness in them all; indeed, the pleasantness, color, and smell of all these, could never reach his senses, because he is so far above them. So the soul filled with the love of Christ is high above all created lovers, and they so far below the soul's eye, that their loveliness cannot reach or ascend to the high and large capacity of a spiritualized soul; as the light of a penny-candle put in a house of some miles in length, in breadth, and height, in a dark night, should not be able to illuminate all the house, and render the air of a mile in quantity, lightsome and transparent, as the daylight sun would do.

4. Because the glory of Christ's beauty seen and loved, changes the soul into a globe or mass of divine love and glory, as it were by the Spirit of the Lord (2 Corinthians 3:18). Therefore the soul sees Christ so near in his love-embracements, and close enchaining of Christ's left arm under the soul's head, and the right hand embracing it, that it cannot see itself, it cannot see another lover, it can see nothing but Christ's fairness, hear nothing but the beloved's voice, taste nothing but his apples of love, his flagons of wine, can smell nothing but his spikenard, and precious ointments; so that the soul is clothed with Christ, and his love, and can but breathe out love to him again; and Christ infuses himself in his sweetness and excellency, so as the believer is apprehended by Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:12), violently, but sweetly and strongly drawn in and held in the king's house of wine (Song of Solomon 2:4). Sickened and overcome with love (Song of Solomon 2:5; Song of Solomon 5:8), chained and compelled (2 Corinthians 5:14), wounded with the arrows of love; so as death, the grave, hell, angels, things present, or to come, cannot lick these wounds, nor embalm, or bind them up, or cure them (Psalm 45:5; Revelation 6:1-2; Song of Solomon 8:6-7; Romans 8:38-39). Indeed, the soul must yield over itself; as a spouse under the power of her husband, and lose herself, and her father's house, in such a deep ocean of delights of love's stronger than wine (Psalm 45:10; Song of Solomon 5:1; Song of Solomon 1:2). As melted, dissolved, and fallen in a swoon in Christ (Song of Solomon 5:6), and therefore needs in that swoon, to be recovered with the flagons of the wine and apples of his consolations (Song of Solomon 2:4).

Nor can Jesus Christ but tenderly, lovingly, and compassionately deal with his beloved; for Christ must draw them (John 6:44), sweetly allure them (Hosea 2:14; Isaiah 40:1), take them by the two arms, and teach them to walk, as the mother does the young child, who has not yet legs to walk alone (Hosea 11:3), bears them in his arms, and dandles them on his knee (Isaiah 46:3-4; Exodus 19:4). They are carried on Christ's warm wings, as the young eagles by the mother (Deuteronomy 32:11); they are laid in Christ's bosom, and nourished with the warmness and the heat of life that comes from Christ's heart (Isaiah 40:11); carried on the shoulders of Christ, the good Shepherd (Luke 15:5), and yet nearer Christ, as a bracelet about Christ's arms; so he wears his Church as a favor, and a love-token (Jeremiah 22:24; Song of Solomon 8:6), and engraved in letters of blood upon Christ's flesh, stamped and printed on the palms of his hands (Isaiah 49:16), and yet nearer him, set as a seal upon the heart of Christ, so precious to him, as to lodge in his bowels and heart (Song of Solomon 8:6), and they dwell in Christ (1 John 4:13), and dwell in God, and God is love, and so they dwell in the love of Christ (1 John 4:16), are kissed with the kisses of Christ's mouth (Song of Solomon 1:2), and lie between the right and left arm of Christ (Song of Solomon 2:6). Yet all these takes not the soul off, but inflames it to duties, for Christ's sake who is so highly loved; nor are these raptures inconsistent with sinful infirmities.

As love moves swiftly to the soul, as a roe, or a young hart — for that is Christ's pace to his Church (Song of Solomon 2) — so it acts upon the soul co-naturally, as being a price to itself, apprehending the dignity and excellency of Christ the beloved. Love is not irrational as a fury, and a fit of madness, that has no reason, but its own fire. Therefore the secrets of Christ, the deep and hidden things of his treasures of love and wisdom, must be opened up to the soul. The soul sees new gold mines, new found-out jewels, never known to be in the world before, opened and unfolded in Christ. Here is the incomings of the beams of light inaccessible, the veins of the unsearchable riches of Christ, as if you saw every moment a new heaven, a new treasure of love, the deep bottomless bottoms of an ocean of delights, and rivers of pleasures; the bosom of Christ is opened, new breathings and spirations of love that passes knowledge (Ephesians 3:19) are manifested; nor has the eye seen, nor the ear heard, nor has it entered in the heart of man to conceive the things that God has prepared for them that love him (1 Corinthians 2:9), yet are they revealed, in some measure, in this life.

And it is most considerable, how the soul in loving Christ is not her own; and in regard of loving, Christ is not his own, but every one makes over itself to another, and propriety or interest to itself in both sides (as it were) ceases (Hosea 3:3). And I said to her, you shall abide for me many days, you shall not play the harlot, and you shall not be for another man, so will I also be for you; so the Marriage covenant of grace says: I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And the Spouse (Song of Solomon 2:16): My well-beloved is mine, and I am his. It is true, Christ leaves not off to be his own, or to be a free God when he becomes ours; but he demeans himself, as if he were not his own, and puts on relations, and assumes offices of engagement: a Savior, an Anointed, a Redeemer, a King, a Priest, a Prophet, a Shepherd, a Husband, a Ransomer, a Friend, a Head, a guide, and leader of the people, all which are for us. And the soul enjoying Christ, possesses Christ, and not itself; loves Christ, not itself; lives in Christ, not in itself; enjoys Christ, not itself; solaces itself in Christ, not in itself; beholds Christ and his beauty, not itself, nor his own beauty; so that mind, will, love, desire, hope, joy, sight, wondering, delighting, are all over in Christ, not in itself. And all this further confirms the point in hand, that Christ crucified, and laid hold on by faith, is a desirable and a drawing lover.