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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	apostle_n	prophet_n	write_v	2,138	5	5.7555	4	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A43141	Tvvo sermons preached in the parish church of St. Giles in the fields, by way of preparative upon the Articles of the Creed by VVilliam Haywood ...	Haywood, William, 1599 or 1600-1663.	1642 (1642)	Wing H1241; ESTC R5536	37,177	43

therefore Charity take place of all the rest yet let it not be set above these Let Faith and Hope goe hand in hand with Charity at least Nay faith the Apostle The greatest of these is charity That is Faith and Hope must give place to Charity though all vertues else give place to them It is true they be all necessary and perpetuall in this life all three of them No Christian can be without every one of them it is granted All our labour tends to these three and these are the samme of whatsoever perfection can be named 〈…〉 now therefore they abide abid as it were at the foot of the 〈◊〉 having cast up all other miraculous gifts and graces here is the 〈◊〉 take all in a little it is but Faith Hope and Charity which all among to But even in this totall consisting as it were of three Figures mistake not the quantity Charity is the greatest of the three As all other things tend to the building up of these so two of these that is Faith and Hope it selfe tend to the building up of Charity and Charity is the top of the building Charity is the Crowne of all the ●est not only surmounting other Graces but these too Surmounting them and outlasting them for though Faith and Hope last and abide throughout all the course of this life as needfull as Charity yet in the next life onely Charity shall abide Faith and Hope shall then have no more place And therefore let not faith and hope how fundamentall soever dildaine to yeeld to Charity Charity is greater then Faith and Hope Charity is the highest of the three and if it bee so follow after charity what ever perfection else yee attaine let all serve to this and let love be the end and scope and measure of all This is the summe of the Apostles Doctrin and it is sure no impertinent one of ours for these times Wherein as if Charity were not the greatest vertue but the least of all every mans gifts and endowments tend to Charity in the last place each striving to reare up his owne glory or advance his owne profit every one looking on his owne things and not the things that are Jesus Christs Wherein above all other heavenly fires Charity is nearest to cinders zeale it may be burning and desire and courage and confidence all of a flame but the love of too many waxing cold Never more needfull sure for Charity to bee preached of the World being so full of rents and divisions the Church so distracted with factions and Schisme while few regard the publike so their private may be safe Faith and Hope much boasted of but little good Workes seene Knowledge and Revelation of the Spirit mightily talked of but little peace and amity one towards another If ever therefore it were seasonable to have Charity commended and pressed upon us I thinke never more then in these last and worst daies Heare therefore the judgement of St. Paul St. Paul as ful of miraculous gifts as ever any as zealous for the honour of faith as none more as paineful in his labours for the Gospell and as patient in hope as all the Apostles beside and yet preferring Charity above all Now abide these three faith hope and charity but the greatest of these is charity Two parts we find in the words one declarative touching the eminence of these three vertues Now abide faith hope and charity these three Another Comparative touching the preheminence of Charity or rather if you will both of them Comparative First these three preferred there all other vertues Now abide these three faith hope and charity And Secondly Charity preferred highest amongst them the grea●●st of these is charity In the former of these yee may observe 〈◊〉 the vertues themselves and then what is aff●d of them The vertues themselves are these Faith Hope and Charity Then it is affirmed of them that they are three and that they abide so Now abide these three c. We shall first God willing survey the vertues themselves what they are Secondly how they are three eminent above others and connected between themselves And Thirdly how Charity is preferred above the other two the greatest of these ●charity Web gin with the vertues themselves what they are Faith Hope and Charity For the first of them viz. Faith what that is Saint Paul himselfe saves us the labour and seemes to define that to our hands Heb. 11.1 Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seene To understand which yee are to note the proper act of Faith and that is to beleeve Beleeving is as the Schoole-men define it an assent of the mind unto somewhat the truth of which is not clearely perceived but taken upon credit As that such and such Cities are in the World Rome Venice which perhaps we have had never seene such and such men have lived before our times Tully and Cato which wee have never knowne A great difference there is betwixt this and perfect science as betweene this and weake conjecture For perfect science is of things we either perceive by the sence as that Snow is white and Fire is hot and the like or else see clearely by the light of the understanding as that every part is lesse then the whole every whole double to its halfe Such things as these are more then beleeved they are perfectly knowne those onely are beleeved which are fully assented to and yet not perfectly known So in Christs healing the sick of the Palsic the Apostles and others that saw it done they had perfect knowledge Wee that have the story in the Gospell have onely the beleefe of it Infidels not so much as the beleefe I have insisted on this the rather to shew the meaning of the Apostle how faith is of things not seene For if wee have porfect knowledge that is full sight of what we beleeve our beleefe is at an end That is not faith but vision Faith then is a beleefe relying upon the credit of others concerning things we doe not perfectly know But all this comes not home to Divinity The faith the Apostle speaks of is concerning some speciall things and some speciall kind of credit and that is a religious beleefe of what God hath revealed and particularly of such things as concerne our salvation So that Divine faith is properly an assent to divine Revelation When we beleeve such and such things because God hath declared them and thus before any Scripture Abraham beleeved the promise of God concerning his Posterity and it was impated unto him for righteousnesse And Noah beleeved God fore-telling the Floud and prepared the Arke for safety of himselfe and his Houshold Thus faith is more antient then Scripture But since the Scriptures were written and the Canon finished and Revelation ceased in the mouthes of the Prophets and Apostles Now all Divine Revelation is confined within the Scriptures and the written Booke of the

delight which abide for ever in his presence hereafter Amen The end of the first Sermon THE SECOND SERMON Hebrews the 11. Chapter the 6. verse For he that commeth to God must beleeve that he is and and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seeke him BEing indebted by my promise to handle particularly the Articles of the Creed which is the summe of our Christian faith I have chosen this Scripture to begin with which is the summe of the whole Creed of all the Articles in it As Faith may bee called the Ground-worke of Religion whereupon Hope and Charity and all other Vertues are built So this Scripture containes the ground-worke of faith it self the very foundation of that on which all Christianity is founded For as no Christian can be saved without faith so no faith possible except wee bee perswaded of thus much before hand namely That God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seeke him Which sentence I deemed so much the more necessary to handle by way of preparative before the Articles of the Creed because it appeares of more antiquity and more universality then the Creed and all the Articles of it yea more ancient then Scripture it selfe out of which the Creed is taken For thus much before any Scripture was written was necessary for all men to beleeve as appeares by the Apostles instance in this place Saint Paul is discoursing here of the faith of the Patriarkes and particularly of Abel and Enochs faith Enoch saith he was translated that he should not see death And he was translated by faith By saith he was translated because he pleased God And without faith it is impossible to please God upon which conclusion if any shall demand what saith had Enoch or what faith Abel that lived so long before any Scripture was written why this faith they had faith Saint Paul this at least without which no saith is imaginable nor any comming to God possible namely that God is and that hee is a rewarder of them that seeke him This faith they had and this as it should seeme was enough to please God and to save them as the world went then but this is not enough for us now We have more Revelations from Heaven even aboundant ones in many ages and many successions in many writings of the Prophets and Apostles and all these are necessary for us to beleeve now Even all the written bookes of the Bible and every thing contained in them for we are to acknowledge them to be Gods Word and if Gods Word then to imbrace and beleeve them and to doubt of nothing in them So that the whole Scriptures are now become necessary for every Christian man of ripe reason on perill of salvation to beleeve To beleeve I say but not particularly to know or remember that is not necessary to salvation for that is businesse enough for a learned Divine that hath nothing else to doe to understand particulars of Scripture and remember them But all must bee beleeved though beleeve I by the most ignorant and all received upon the credit of Gods Spirit as Gods Word whether knowne particularly or no. And yet though all particulars neede not by men of meane capacity bee knowne some must some particulars of Scripture knowne explicitly and beleeved expresly or no salvation for men of ripe judgement possible And those are the heads of Christianity summed up in the Creed which is a short confession of our Faith comprised by the primitive Fathers of the Church to that end that every 〈◊〉 might have it ready as an abstract of all that was necessary And this they did not to make Lay-men carelesse or lazy that they should not care to know more but to direct yong beginners and to leave all of all sorts without excuse that would not know this Because saith Aquinas Faith is the substance of things hoped for And those things only belong essentially to saving faith which concern our Hope the means of salvation And because many things contained in Scripture pertaine not so directly to these as that Isaac had two sonnes that Iacob was in Aegypt and the like therefore are those points that directly concerne mens salvation and the meanes of it summod up in the Creed so that all men are now necessarily bound to know and beleeve thus much at least how much soever they know more Thus then the Scripture is now the rule of Faith and the Creed is the summe of Faith so much as is essentially necessary to every ones salvation But of old before the Scripture was written this ground-work sufficed This may be called Abels and Enochs Creed which is the preparative also to ours and all mens else namely that God is and that he is a Rewarder of them that seeke him The words being a conclusion by way of Analysis seeme to imply not onely the summe of our Faith but of our Hope and our Charity too that is the substance of all Religion For our Charity that yee have touched in the first words Hee that comes to God Comes to God that is desires to come ne●re him to be joyned and united to him saith Estius and such a comming is the very act of love Then for our Hope that yee have in the last words namely that God is a Rewarder of them that seeke him that grounds our Hope For our Faith it is the very heart of the Text that which the Apostle would infer He that comes must beleeve beleeve that God is and that he is a Rewarder c. So that upon presupposall of the necessity of our love St. Paul here grounds our faith and our hope too or rather shewes that our love is to be grounded in faith and hope or else it can never be a right love Love is the top of the building as yee heard last Sunday Love the goodly Tarias the beauty the Crowne and superstructure of all Well but Cogitans ●dificium charitatis necesse est pona● fundamentum fidei saith a Father He that would build up this goodly Tower of Charity must lay the foundation low and strong in a sure faith Oportet accedentem credere Hee that comes that is he that would draw nigh to God by his love must first approach by his faith He that commeth to God must beleeve that he is That the Apostles way of arguing is thus analyticall appeares by what goes before There St. Paul tels us of Enochs translation at the first verse translation to heaven that is glorification glorification presupposes sanctification Before hee was translated Enoch had this testimony that hee pleased God Please God how could he except hee came to him that is except hee loved him For as glorification is the end of our way and implyes an arrivall to and an union with God So Sanctification which is by Charity is the course of our way by which wee still get ground and come neerer and neerer Now impossible we