Salvation and I come to feel and know this of a certainty by Gods Power made perfect in my weakness which I discern in finding his Holy fear rooted in my heart and so fixt that no stout words of prophane nor incursions nor invasious nor seas of overwhelming Corruptions in the examples of godless men about me can prevail over me to abandon my Religion which is bottomed on my holy fear and reverend thinking on his blessed Name For as I have said the mercy of our indulgent Father appears not only in tying this amulet to our own bosom that every man is sav'd by his own faith and not another mans bnt also in the manner of this ancorage 'T is his special Grace that my being Gods own is made descernable in the Light imparted to my own soul from his Word and Spirit whereby I perceive the Covenant sealed betwixt God and me in Christ Jesus But this is more wonderfull mercy still that my assurance and modest infallibility of salvation is fastened by his Almighty Power and so surely fastened to so slender a cordage so weak and tender and bruised reeds as my Faith and fear are for these two are to our purpose terms convertible This fear in my Text hath Gold and Treasure in it and contains the precious nature of faith too and discovers the same Efficacy and Properties of lively faith so that he who possesses or is bereft of it is so of God himself See for this Jer. 2.19 This is an evil and bitter thing that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God and that my fear is not in thee saith the Lord God of Hosts So he puts Fear for our whole Religion So rare a Builder is that Lord of Heaven that as he made the Heavens themselves and the earth of nothing and hung saith Job the earth in the midst of the air upon just nothing So in this mighty work of Grace when I am afraid of not being fast enough his goodness makes that very fear the means of fastning and confirmation and anchors my assurance to my fear Behold the unsearchable and unspeakable riches of his mercy in this that he forsakes not man therefore because he finds not in flesh and blood the Pority of Angels but as it s said to Levi Mal. 2.5 My Covenant was with him of life and Peace and Life and Peace include all Blessings and I gave them to him For what Observe it well The free Grace of God in this exchange I gave them to him for the fear wherewith he feared me and was afraid before my name and just such is the Appliance here of all this consolation for God hears and hearkens at verse 16. and a book of Remembrance is written before him for whom now all this and sor what For them that feared the Lord and thought upon his name and they shall be mine for that I will love them for that inward testimony and qualification and that inward Testimony and Qualification shall assure them of my love Is not this enough to make every one of us say at parting hence Well! I shall think the better of the fear of God as long as I live for this Sermon Do so in the name of God and take this further resolution with us Never to listen to the harsh and cruel doctrine of the Romish which a man would think were enough to throw down all the rest of their building in unstable soules if those souls would but seriously stay to think upon it if they would not like unclean beasts still swallow and never chew the cud and yet since it is fallen from them they must their Priests must by the oath ex officio all desperately maintain it as if they were told openly by one of their own Doctors at the Council of Trent and that is this That God will never be so assured never so contracted and espoused to believers hearts in everlasting love but even after all their Merits and Satisfactions and Penances and Pilgrimages and Supererogations too Is it not strange considering how wide they open their Ark at first and assure all clean and unclean beasts that will come in of never perishing Nay after all Pardons under the swelling seal and all plenary Indulgences Is it not a miserable case The wretched fluctuating Penitent after ablution extream Unction Absolution and all must be content to die in discontent and fall with horror and perplexity of Conscience and all his comfort in a little faint hope that it is not wholly impossible for him to get through long and dreadfull purging flames at length to the joyes of heaven But let us in Gods name still continue to repose our souls on Christ and resting on this ground of comfort in this appropriation we shall find no reason to conceive hardly of him who is the Father of Mercies and God of all consolation or impute a rigidness and tetrical sowerness or rather a tyrannous enwrapping us in inevitable damnation To admit no such jealousies and fears and suspitions of our Lord here but wisely learn to compound and keep close in conjunction that which God hath mixt and and put together That is a rejoycing in the Lord with trembling a worship joined with godly fear and joy in the holy Ghost and so we may return from his service as the women returned from his Sepulchre with fear and great joy PART 2. WE are come to our second part the Prospect the day of our deliverance and making up amongst Gods Jewels which day is fore-fold 1. The day of punishing the ungodly such a day as some think is described here at cap. 4.1 In such burning days the trial shall be made and then God will resolve this scruple here at verse 17. twixt them that serve him and such as serve him not and his Jewels in that day he will save spare as a man spares his own son as men incline to favour their peculiar and their Jewels and Treasure above all their stuff of less value as men in danger of shipwrack reserve a Jewel though forced to unlade the ship of all her other burden or as they catch away in times of war or fire or thieves some precious thing above all other goods And this renews the former consolation that to these Saints which excel in vertue these precious Jewels whose saith is precious sastned on the most precious blood of Christ belong all those precious Promises of compassing hiding embracing covering relieving defending comforting setting his eye heart soul upon them of opening his ears and hearkning to their cries of drawing near helping respecting assisting establishing blessing delivering by Protection Exaltation Coronation and this no empty but a real comfort including all time He hath and doth and will deliver us saith St. Paul He hath done it to his servants in the evil day in all their evil days of sorrow Sickness War Plague Famine Prison Deluge of waters or of ungodliness So Noah was boxed up in his ark
and partakers of the divine Nature and all these Unions contracted in the blood red shining Summit of his cross by the power whereof that Throne and Robe and all those Crowns are become ours and we become one with him in an union most high and holy even as he and his Father are one and higher we need not we cannot go nor well so high for that it should be thus we scarce dare ask but how it should be thus is above all that we are able to ask or think Thus far the first priviledge of Gods servants in being his Peculiar The second now should follow of being his Jewels with the usefull application of them both together with the Assignation of those several Dayes wherein these Jewels are to be made up all which I believe will make up a second and a third Exercise For this time I proceed no further but to beg the Blessing of God upon what we now have heard P.R. S.D.G. THE SECOND SERMON September 1643. MALAC. 3.17 And they shall be mine said the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels THE Word of God saith St Paul is not bound nor we that preach it bound to Formalities and courtly Decencies or much to care whether our Hearers be in good humor or no t is true nor are we to be Time-servers as we have been charged nor Men-pleasers in any ill sense yet since we are at liberty throughout the Garden of the Scripture to cull a Posie such as seemes best to us affording us a pleasure why may we not be thought therein also to preserve our just Devotion to God together with an intention for the complacency of good men too For which cause I blush not to acknowledge my respective choice or rather my recollection of this Text whereon I have preacht in royal audience before because though it look back upon vicious times and most ungodly men yet it will allow us for the present a Prospect as I verily belive upon some choice spirits and Gods gracious servants yet by his Reserve and special Mercy left alive while they are yet alive and I alive to apply this Scripture to them in special which in general suits with the condition of this time As men the sons of Time so Times themselves have their Parallels As the days of Noah were saith our Saviour Mat. 24. so shall also the coming of the son of man be eating drinking marrying till the day that Noah entered into the Ark and knew not till the flood came and tooke them all away so it shall be in the last times and so it is And we have no livelier proof that these are the last times then such our usages and in them such our security The Scripture foretels a soul and dangerous Sea of corruption that should prove rough and swell run high and the waves thereof rage horribly toward the end of the world when men should be more then imbrutished void of natural affection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implacable traiterous heady high minded lovers of pleasures more then lovers of God pretending the Spirit but being sensual and bringing in damnable Heresies having a show of godliness but denying the power thereof pretending to Piety and Law and Order but reviling Dignities which God hath ordained with Balaam greedily loving the wages of unrighteousness and perishing in the contradiction of Core But alas We have undone both Prophesie and Description put down both History and Poetry Examples and Imagination too even those Gyants before the flood are now not monstrous for we have defiled and made the earth more corrupt filled it with a bloodier cruelty and violence provoking the holy one of heaven to hurle down hils of miseries on our heads and hearts and to let in Torrents of his fierce wrath mingled wiih Christian blood in every street and a surrounding universal Scourge and Deluge to overwhelm three whole flourishing Kingdoms at once from end to end and burie them in endless desolation while senseless sinners we seem to contemn the Power of Gods wrath by letting loose the reins to all licenciousness when he is pouring down the vials of his anger and tumbling delightfully in our own tear up the wounds of our Saviour betrampling the sacred Blood that redeemed us and counting the blood of his Covenant a Covenant of Mercy and Peace an unholy thing crucifying again to our selves the Lord of Life and Glory and making a mock of him by grieving quenching and doing despight to the Spirit of his Grace So that our condition is worse then of this people here in this Prophet though in very many things resembling us for in the first chapter we read of their Unkindness Irreligiousness Profaness snuffing at the Table of the Lord and holding it contemptible In the second we find their Idolatry Adultery Infidelity In this third Sorcery false Swearing Oppression Sacriledge and at last it breaks into open rebellion and defiance of God voting down all divine service and decreeing it vain and no profit to walk longer in his Ordinances and then this was a brave time it must needs be so for proud and wicked people which were lift up like a skum over the face of clear and wholsom waters only such saith our Prophet were built to Wealth and Honor. And yet for all this sorrow there is a comfort comes up close at the sixteenth verse of use and advantage now for us Gods people still remained though secret not altogether silent they spake one to another admonished exhorted comforted one another mutually and these their Colloquies and Consultations were frequent and succesfull God came into their Assembly sate President in this Council and a book of Remembrance was written before him for all them that â—eared before him and thought upon his name and after all comes out his gracious Proclamation of Peace and Love The Patent under seal Teste meiâ—so and they shall be mine saith the Lord of Hosts in that day when I make up my Jewels Which words afford a double priviledge of Gods servants be the times what they will in reference to their Owner described by his high and stately stile of Dominus Exercituum First His own they are his peculiar Secondly Esteemed of him at a high rate for they are his Jewels There is a third part The day or time set for the making up of these Jewels admitting a four-fold Interpretation 1. Either the day of punishing the ungodly or 2. The day of powerfull preaching the Word 3. The day of death and 4. The last day the day of final Judgement In all these days God will manifest his Mercy and his Power both enwrapt in Dominus exercituum here and then the Specification the Verification the real and actual spreading of both in this that God in his holiness hath spoken it It shall certainly be so for so saith the Lord of Hosts The first priviledge is laid down in this plain conclusion They that in a
prayer and supplication 5. Lastly This particular Prayer of David Recordare Domine a word including all Law of God all Duty of man all Sermons and all Prayers For as the Decalogue hath a tree of Life in the midst a branching RECORDARE stretching over both Tables So both again comprised in two Memento's of Vivere Mori and both these contracted to bene vivere two Memoraries The one for Praeterita the Pit whence hewen the Mass wherein corrupt that for Erubescere and then Novissims least the infernal Pit shut her mouthes upon us and this for Contremiscere and so the Spirit and Quintessence of all Sermons is here For we are but Gods Remembrancers so is the Holy Ghost too in preaching and in Prayer Though you know these things saith Saint Peter yet my Duty is to put you in mind in Remembrance If any man be fallen remember and do thy first works if gone back Remember Lots wife To a single person Recordare tui to an Husband to a Father to a Ruler Tui Tuorum Tuâ—rum then such have need of firm and large Memories And preaching to a King of a King from the Book wherein this holy King and sweet Singer of Israel lies embalmed and being dead yet speaks and stricking still his Harp a strain of Davids Recordare will not be disdained Recordare me Domine saith he to God and I to his anointed Remember David and all his troubles And how they stand here yet fresh and fair to be read to his renown in GODS Chronologie However State or Church Monuments may fail a gracious Soveraign but envies self cannot do so Post Fata quieseit and Querimur then turns to Quaerimus Davidi yet God preserves him ever in his book of Remembrance mentioned in Mal. 3. Are not these things noted in thy Book by that heavenly Recorder The righteous shall be had in everlasting Remembrance 16. And so the Sermon might go round to all the Subjects a whithering poor Minister to a dilatory Prelate or forgetfull Patron Recordare Domine and a good Patron to an idle Pastor pointing to the Pulpit Recordare Domine too To the Voluptuary at his fourth health least he hear it too late in hell when he cannot get a drop Fili recordare Finally it will fit us for Imprere a Motto to all our Coats or Coat-armours our Courts or Coaches over all our Houses upon all our Pictures and for Posies to all our Rings to the Bridegroom Domine to the Bride left she forget the Covenant of her God Recordare Domina Thus is it if we speak â—o men all Sermons so is it if to God all Prayers A form of Prayer for David and all Gods servants in all Cases but one Remember not Lord our sins and our offences and yet even therein Lord remember us in Mercy Remember thy old loving kindness and forget not thou to be gracious But in all our troubles if Kings oppress their people Clamabunt ad Dominum is allowed for the lawfull Remedy 1 Sam. 8.18 That is but right and as good reason then for David when from his soul he breaths that vote of God Deut. 32.29 O that this people were wise That they understood That they would consider And yet finds them to mistake and cannot undeceive them but still they beat him with Rebukes in his Bosom and slanders in all his paths then to return and appeal to his God with Recordare Domine Lord clear up the Mist and cause a Right Understanding and a fair Proceeding that I by just Rule and they by due obedience may glorifie thee our only Lord and Saviour Even so rejoycing in the Testimony of a good Conscience and the discharge of his Duty Nehemiah is bold with this form Remember me O my God and wipe not out my Kindnesses c. And to name no more It was the last prayer that took with the Lord of life before his death Lord remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom And yet even after death it may serve us for Epitaph to call upon God for the Consummation Nay after still in that Consummation it will be of use to mingle with Te Deum Magnificat in the quire of Saints and Angels No Independency even in that Church Triumphant but Recordare Domine as from the Lord our Beginning so on thee for ever depends the Perpetuity and perpetuating of our Endless Felicity 17. Blessed be the Lord We are come to our Anâ—heme After Prayers and Sermon to a Benedictus A close refused by some Interpreters as unsutable to the Context But Calvin saith not so Why not as well in the end as in the Beginning of this Psalm My Song ever shall be of the loving Kindness of the Lord that is his Prologue and doubtless to ease his grifes and raise his hopes He purposely makes choice of this Epilogue Vlysses way to pass the waves of this troublesome world and all Encounters was Resolution and Patience But Orpheus and David singing the Praises of the immortal God shall scape not only Syrens but Scilla too with all her dogs and all the Blasphemies and slander in the gulf of Opprobrium here Therefore the King shall rejoyce in thee O Lord Thy praise shall be ever in his mouth So may thy blessings ever be upon him and his seed after him and let all the people that fear God and honour the King say Amen and seal it again with Amen And so the Priest shall do his Duty even bless all Gods people in his name and to his name ascribe as is most due a Benedictus in Aeternum Blessing and Honour and Glory and Praise be unto our God Now Henceforth and for Evermore Amen Amen A SERMON CALLED THE Zodiack at Court 1 CHRON. 23. ver ult And that they should keep the charge of the Tabernacle of the Congregation and the charge of the holy Place and the charge of the Sons of Aaron their brethren in the service of the house of the Lord. IN the service of the house of the Lord The first Text that I find mentioning the service of the Lord in his house and serves as a Glass wherein we see first Domus abstracted then Domus Domini in conjunction Thirdly Cultus Worship or Service due to Dominus in this Domus and reasonable service 1. Quâ Dominus as he is our Lord and then quâ servus too as he vouchsafes to do us service in many other of his houses and all the service in this house For Domus single In a word It is a main blessing if God afford man an house else worse then Birds or Foxes and therefore as Cains curse unhoused a Vagabond and Abrahams tryal Get thee from thy Fathers house so enrowled among Gods works of Power and Mercy mingled he makes men dwell together in an house and makes them housholds like a flock of sheep An house and a meinie and him many houses Multiply the blessing and encrease the Joy The Summer house
wisdom is This Foundation of Fear The fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Wisdom And there God begins here and we must follow his method Look back into the former words and you shall find the qualification of his servants Those that he allows for his and will one day reserve as his jewels are they that in perilous and corrupt times do fear before him and think upon his name They there is an Emphasis to be placed on them They and none but they shall be mine Three things we may touch in this observation First God requires this qualification Secondly we are to enquire after it in our selves Thirdly to comfort our selves in Gods Grace and Mercy in this Appropriation that both this Amulet is tyed to a mans own bosome and also all consolation in God grounded upon his Fear First God will have such as are capable of this Description here no talk of comfort without this qualification when St. Peter sayes God is no accepter of persons Act. 10.34 that word is but a regarder of Faces and refers only to that distinction which he had newly learnt of God to be no longer an imbarment a wall of partition that is the difference of Jew and Gentile A Jew was now of no more advantage no better accepted then any other nation but in the next verse he assures himself and his hearers and us and all that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that fears God is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That 's the man by way of Excellency That man that fears him shall not need to fear his being accepted of him and so God is an accepter of persons a curious Decipherer an exact culler out of such as shall be his servants takes no mans word Veneris commendat epistola Marti that 's usual among men a great mans or a great womans letter and we esteem it of weight that poor addition of a proper of an handsom man But God sees not as man sees sayes Samuel at the sight of many proper men looks not on the outward appearance but what we ballance least is of most value with him Honesty Religion an heart indued with a holy fear of God And then though it is said his thoughts are not as mans thoughts yet he tells us here that man only that finds God in his own heart is a man after Gods own heart and he that so thinks upon Gods name God will so think upon him that he will hear him hearken to him and set him down in the Book of his Remembrance in the former verse and in this verse of my Text he will own him make him up one day for his jewel and spare him as a man spares his own son that serves him So that all this cry and trail of Blessings before and in and after the text depend upon they belong to and listen after that which is past of Fear and Devotion For it were not fit that any person unqualified should have so large so excellent a portion as this which embraces which contains all that the soul can receive here or hereafter For God changes not their tenure not his very term of mine at that last and dreadful and joyful day of Judgement But then it shall be made evident in the eys and a truth enforced upon the hearts of all such souffers at Religion as are mentioned in cap. 1. ver 13. The wisdom of all such prophane contemners of Devotion as say it is in vain to serve God and what profit c. at ver 14. shall be blasted and confounded and then you shall discern sayes the 18. ver then you shall find a difference betwixt the Righteous and the wicked between him that serves God and him that serves him not But in mean time those glorious and these gracious Speranda fruenda are all incorporate in these Agenda here God will have such a field for his seed such trees to graft upon such Materials to raise his Temple Otherwise as no earthly Prince how gracious soever will hear and hearken to and put such a servant down in his book of Remembrance as shall apparently forget his duty to him so God hath testified abundantly that on Israels defection he will neglect his own Property Propriety his own choice of his chosen Israel they even They shall be the generation of his wrath Ier 7.29 liable to that fierce wrath of that God who is a consuming fire a generation of his wrath fuel of his wrath till their end here and of his endless wrath hereafter As it is one way upon Repentance he blots out all their sins from his Remembrance so from his Remembrance he blots out all the Promises of this book upon their contempt Forgets then what he had said of his first-born and rebuâ—ing even kings for their sakes his dear Child for whom his bowels were troubled the Signet on his hand tender as the apple of his eye heires by Promise All all evacuated because all subconditione of applying their hearts to the Covenant and that Covenant is here establisht and renewed with us in these terms of fearing the Lord and thinking on his Name This is our first particular in this Foundation of comfort to look to our qualification because God admits none but of this temper The second by way of application to every single brest is to search and examine our selves whether we have this blessed Fear and holy thoughtfulness and so can thence fairly argue and prove our own being Gods own our peculiar priviledge of being Gods peculiar For first this may be known for the Spirit of God is not in his servants spiritual men as the foul spirit by possession or obsession in a Pythonisse or such as are his sensless utensils and perceive not the power that transports them feel not the operation of their Mover and thence it is that we have so frequent Monitories which were vain and useless if it could not be done of prove your selves try the spirits know you not that Christ is in you except ye be Reprobates And indeed though a man will find or fain to find a Dictamny a medicine made of wine and noise and company to throw off the Arrow and some men think it probatum that there is in this sense a sword-cure that is there is an easie way to heal up any wound that the sword of the Spirit the word of God in the Ministry of his servant can make it is but sleighting the Preacher or allowing him for a blunt or bold fellow and the Sermon a dull or a dry piece yet such a man knows he does but dissemble in all this and withold the truth of God in unrighteousness bemisting and darkening his own conscience or else that Cassandra that Prophet in his own bosom if she might be heard would make him wiser teach him better and clearer then the most illustrious Divines that is the best that is the plainest Teachers For that incorrupt and incorruptible
Judge is joyn'd in Commission with the Holy Ghost to lead us into all Truth and to bring all such that is all needful truth to our remembrance The Spirit of God bears witness but it is with our spirit and so enables us to pronounce sentence of self-clearing or self-condemnation When therefore I dare knock at that privy Chamber door at that closet and dare ask that question Am I a Divine Royalist a true Deilift a godly Christian One of Gods peculiar where then is my fear my thinking on his Name Do I serve the Lord with fear and rejoyce before him with reverence Do I indeed as one of his Royal Priesthood present my body and soul and all their children all their off-spring the actions of my hands and the Imaginations of my heart and projects of my brain as a lively sacrifice unto my God Does my justice and honesty my chastity and sobriety for even these may rise from corrupt springs flow from this only consideration Is the bottom of my conceited happiness any better then a sick mans dream or mad mans boiling fancy Do I indeed feel my confidence grounded on a modest a tender and reverential fear Doe the Larum the remembrance of this strike louder and faster in my brest then all Satans temptations with meminto Philippe Henrics Garole not that thou art but a man but that thou art no mans man nor no womans man nor no devils man taken captive to do his Will This I must thus enquire and this when I thus know then I must resolve with Joshua Let others do what they will I and my house at the least I and my heart and all that is within me will serve the Lord. Shall such a man as I that profess Christ and his Gospel shall I flie saith one Can I do this wickedness and sin against God Shall I take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot saith another of Gods fearfull and faithfull servants God forbid Do I profess to serve that Lord of Hosts who keeps a book of Remembrance whose eye is ever zenith and so pure that no iniquity can tarry in his sight and shall I not pass the time of my dwelling here in fear of his most blessed name And do we can we think then nay do they or can they say what they will can they indeed think in good earnest can they believe themselves to be Gods peculiar people and such a Priest-hood and chosen People as Christ shed his precious blood to purchase who though they dare not but fear men and tremble at the sound of some great name on earth yet have no true fear of God before their eyes such as dare curse swear pollute and blaspheme that very name in which both we and they profess to look for both Protection and Salvation Thirdly Our third and last particular in this observation about the Ground-work of all our comforts bottom'd on our fear of God is the joy and blessing the Grace and Mercy tender indulgence of God unto us in this Appropriation that God vouchsafes to tie this cordial joy fast to each single-hearted Christian so admits him under this signet to be of his cabinet Council in the inward Testimony of his Spirit assuring him his spirit that he is the â—ords own that so the Joy of his faithfull servants may as himself hath spoken it be full and that not by rejoycing in another but by finding and feeling the Ground and Principles of true Joy and Confidence in themselves For I am not therefore honest or valiant because some credulous brethren or some brethren of the Sword repute me so and would so give it under their hands No I pass not for yours or any mans Judgement saith St. Paul a silly fame is that into which a man is voted or for which he hath a Testimonial or Certificat I know saith he in whom I have believed and so every just and justified man lives by his own faith as well as he lives by that very bread which himself eats It is no trusting to Salvation implicite if I pin my soul to that great name of the Catholique Church and know no meaning of it but only him that calls himself the Head of it when he can be scarce or but at most a corrupt member or if I make a Pope of that poor private Priest that creeps in at my window If I freely resign my soul to him and say I must confide in you for so millions profess and boast themselves to do Can I tell whether this Romist will cary it to Heaven or Hell or neither in haste but make it stay in purgatory as some souls they tell me must do till the day of Judgement I cannot relish that dependance on any mans infallibility for if I could be certain of their high Priests election that all things therein had been rightly and canonically performed which is very difficult if not impossible yet for his low Priest whom he sends to me and who for his own food and maintenance brings me the Sacraments of Penance and the wafer-god to be assured of his intention on which they teach the very essence of all Popish devotion depends they must acquaint me how I shall be a Searcher of hearts which God hath reserved only to himself and therefore assuredly as some Papists have openly jeared the pretended infallibilâ—y of their Father so no doubt but his white sons the Jesuits like the Latine Augurs do laugh when they meet in secret at the open gullage of the world willing to mistake their infamous mother for the very Catholique Church in the Apostles Creed and yet our own Ladies in stead of Preserves from St. Austins boxes of Prascriptum Legis Pradicta Prophetarum which are soundly mingled with this holy sear in the Text are content to swallow their conserves of implicite faith and blind obedience and comfort their hearts with the cold consideration of an Indulgence when yet the blessed and the blasting the cordial and yet confounding Truth of God in this ponit hath wrung after a thousand wranglings that plain consession from a learned but a bitter and violent Papist that the Church by her Ministerie and Magisterie received of God doth cause us to believe yet for all that the very Reason wherefore we believe is not the Church but God speaking in us This is Stapleton in his third book of the Authority of the Scripture cap. 12. And indeed when all is said and done nothing but the Testimony of Gods own Holy Spirit is ever able to minister true consolation in believing The God of peace it is that fils us with all peace and joy in believing if we belive St. Paul ' to the Romans cap. 15. verse 13. But this is not meant of any private whisper or Enthusiasus which is deceitfull but of the spirits Testimony joyned to his Holy Word in the clear evidence thereof assuring our spirit that God is become our