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Against our ignorance,Chrift is made our Wifedom.
Against our guiltineffe, he is made our righteousnesse.
Against the infection of finne, our Sanctification.
Against the punishment of fin, our redemption,

The remedy thus fufficient, Chrift,God and man, is a person able to fatisfie the law.

And being without finne, able to recover us the favour of God.

And being victor of all our enemies, able to open Paradise

to us.

Thus farre in the work of faith the spirit of God worketh upon our understanding; and there can be no faith in us except we be rightly informed in thefe three things;

Our excellent Creation, our miserable Fall, and the comfortable remedy.

2. To settle us in the faith, the spirit of God must also work upon our will: that is,

1. In refpect of the glorious Creation of man, to move us to three duties;

Sr. Of thanksgiving to God for it.

2. Of forrow for our fall from it.

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3. Of holy defire again to recover it.

2. In refpect of our mifery, it moveth us,

1. To know it by fearching and trying our ways.

2. To deplore it with godly forow; the effects of which
forrow are named by the Apoftle.

1. Carefulneffe, 2. Clearing our felves.

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3. Indignation, 4. Fear, 5.Defire.
6. Zeal, 7. Revenge.

3. In refpe&t of the Remedy, it moveth us,

1. To know it.

2. Hunger and thirst after it.

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3. To endeavour both all our time, and with all our
ftrength to attain it.

4. Toufe all the means to procure it. 911

And howfoever we find our felves moft miferable in our felves;yet muft we not fo farre undervalue as to think our felves

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2 Cor. 7. II.

anworthy of eternal life.

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The Jews are charged that they refifted the Holy Ghoft, and would not admit the gracious fuggeftions thereof, they would not hear the voice behind them whispering in their eare a return from their evil ways.

Paul and Barnabas tels them, It was necessary that the Word of God should first have been spoken to you: but feeing ye put it from you, and judge your felves unworthy of life everlasting, Lo we turne to the Gentiles.

But are we not all unworthy of eternal life?

True; but it is one thing by our evil deeds to give fentence against our felves that we are unworthy;

Another thing it is, out of the confcience of finne to confeffe our felves unworthy.

... Yet in this Confeffion and Contrition there is hope, that though in our felves we be both unworthy and uncapable of hea venly life, yet having an eye to the remedy of our mifery, we defpair not in him, because we hold upon sure and precious promifes, which are precious.

1.In regard of the promifer, whofe power and love doth make him able and willing to perform all good to us.

2. In regard of the motive that moved God to promife, expreft by the Apostle to be his own goodneffe, the good pleasure of his will fo free.

3. In regard of the fulneffe of his favour, For God who is rich Eph. 2. 4. in mercy, hath promised. Abundant in goodnesse.

Ex. 34. 6.

4. In regard of the extent: gaudium quod erit omni populo, joy Luke 2.jo. unto all People; for this brazen ferpent is lifted up, that whofoever looketh thereon may have help.

What then should keep thee from this remedy?

1. Confider that there is no man in better cafe then thou by nature: for all have finned and are deprived of the glory of God.

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2. Confider that this remedy is without thy felf; if it were of thy felf, thou hadft caufe to distaste it; but it is the free offer of Gods grace to thee. 2.

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g. Confider that the giver of the Remedy, is the giver of faith alfo, by which the remedy is apprehended and applyed; and if thou do not feel this faith in thy felf, do not judge thy felf void

of it; for there may be and is faith often, where is no feeling

thereof.

4. Tarry the Lords leafure, as before, wait; for the vifion will not lye. How long lay the poore man at the Poole of Bethejda? and though ftill hindered, yet was he not without hope.

We must not part the truth of God and his juftice and mercy: for the truth of God bindeth both the threatnings of his judgement, and the truth of his mercy.

Thus is the faith of the Elect given and nourished in us.

2. How our faith may be proved.

Because there may be a fhew and feeming of faith, where the true fubftance thereof is wanting, the best way to try our faith, is by the true touchstone: for as gold is tried by the touch, fo faith which is much more precious then gold that perisheth, hath a proper touchstone to try it;

J. That is the conscience of man within; for that doth declare to himself his faith.

2. That is good converfation and godly life; for that doth declare our faith to men.

1. A good Confcience.

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For being juftified by faith we have peace toward God. This Rom. 5. peace a wicked man cannot have; Non eft pax impio, faith God, No peace to the wicked.

Against this is a double objection.

1. Many wicked men have quiet hearts and aile nothing, they Object, are not humbled like other men, they are not poured from veffel to veflel therefore their fent remaineth in them.

The effect of true peace is joy in the Holy Ghoft. The wicked Sol. mans joy is not fuch; it is but a flafh; it is neither found, for when any tryal cometh it faileth; neither is it lafting, forit perifheth in time; neither is it growing and increasing, neither is it excufing.

2. Many of the best of Gods fervants have their minds troubled, and fuffer great diftreffes in their confcience for finne; yea fuch a winter there is upon their fouls, that they feel nor any life of grace at all in them.CH

True;but obferve from whence this arifeth,even from the warre of the fpirit against the flesh, the world, and the devil, in which

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conflict often times the spirit is daunted and dismayed for a feafon; but there is ever joy in tribulations, and joy arifing and growing out of forrowes, whereas the hearts of them that have not Faith, dye in them.

And this fire is from heaven; the covering of it with oppreffions doth make it burn fo much the hotter; and the ftrring of it up with temptations, doth make it shine the clearer; fo that peace of conscience is a fure figne of a good Faith.

2. Another touch-ftone for this gold, this Faith is an evidence of godly converfation, to approve our felves to God and man, both by doing all the duties of a godly life, and avoyding the contrary.

This is the only work of Faith in us.

i. The pit whence we draw this water of life, is deep; the bucket by which we fetch it up, is Faith; for whatsoever defire or ftrength we have, or endeavour to live godly, it is an extraction drawn by our Faith from Jefus Christ.

I live by Faith in the fame God.

2. Faith only doth affure to us the loving kindneffe of God; God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten (on, &c. Ecce quantam charitatem, what eye fhall behold this, but the eye of Faith?

3. Faith worketh love, that is, it breedeth a correspondence between Chrift and us; for the beleeving foul affured of Chrifts love to it, doth caft about within it felf,quid rependam? and finding nothing to recompence that love, it fecketh how God may be pleased, and walketh in that way so neer as he can.

So it is faid of the faithful, that they walk with God, and they anfwer every temptation to evill, as fofeph did; How shall I do this and fin against God?

Or if by infirmity they fall, they cry God mercy, and they groan and grieve within themselves that they cannot performe better service to God.

Thus we love God, because he loved us firft.

And Christ faid, Many fins are forgiven her, quia dilexit multum. This is a fruit of the Holy Ghoft shed abroad in our hearts by faith.

Obferve it, when faith doth lie concealed in us,that our felves

cannot

cannot difcern it, yet may we difcern in our felves our love of God, and of fuch as love God; and this proves Gods love to us; for we could not love him, except he loved us firft.

4. Faith maketh us fincere; for it is the notation of our faith, it is called faith unfained, and Chrift faith, Bleffed be the pure in heart; faith purifieth the heart, as the Apostle faith.

Thefe are not the generation of them that are pure in their own eyes, of which Solomon fpake, but the other of which David his father ipake, Hac eft generatio quærentium faciem tuam. Seeing there cannot be perfectio operis,the perfection of works,

God is pleased if there be puritas cordis, purity of heart, which z Cor. r. the Apostle calleth Simplicitie, and godly pureneffe.

And that is known by thefe fignes.

i. If a man be humbled in true contrition for fins which he knoweth himself guilty of, and hath no peace in his heart till he hath comfort in his confcience that God hath forgiven them.

2.If he confider his own weaknesse so farre as to acknowledge that he committeth many fins that he knoweth not, and prayeth earnestly, and often with David, à fecretis meis munda me,cleanse me from my fecret fins.

3.

If he finde in his heart a present ftrife of his fpirit against the flesh, wraftling with his own corruptions, and not fuffering fin to reign in his mortal body, leading him captive to the Law of finne.

4. If he finde him watchful to prayer and fafting, and watching, and all exercises of mortification, striving to bring his body in fubjection to the law of God.

5. If he be willing to hide the word of God in his heart,to arme him against Satans temptations, as Christ did with scriptum eft,it is written.

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6.If he finde a defire of perfeverance therein to the end, which is difcerned by his spiritual growth from grace to grace, bringing forth more fruit even in age, as Chrift teftifieth of the Church of Thyatira,more at the laft then at the first,For be that beleepeth Rev, 2.19. in me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of the water of life. John 7.38.

Thefe be ture proofs of fincere faith, which though it be weak, yet it will gather ftrength; and being able to fight, will in the end be made able to overcome all our enemies.

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