as it were the Midwife of the Old Testament to open its Womb and bring the Messias into the World Howsoever at the least it is plain that the Old Testament brought him to his birth though it had not strength to bring forth and the Prophets as Moses from Mount Nebo came to a view of this Land of Canaan For the very first words of the New Testament being as it it were to fill up what only was wanting in the Old are the Book and History of his generations and birth Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work and reach the pitch of this days rejoycing if you would learn how the very Heathen flutter'd about this light what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation before-hand how the Sibyls Heathen Women and Virgil and other Heathen Poets in their writings before Christ's time let fall many passages which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God It is fine sport to see in our Authors how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture that Christ was near his birth did droop upon it and hang the wing did sensibly decay in his courage began to breath thick and speak imperfectly and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Feaver distractedly wildly without any coherence and scarce sense and how at last about the birth of Christ he plainly gave up the ghost and left his Oracular Prophets as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in their last voice being that their gread god Pan i. e. The Devil was dead and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end as if Christ's coming had chased Lucifer out of the World and the powers of Hell were buried that minute when a Saviour was born And now by way of Use Can ye see the Devil put out of heart and ye not put forward to get the Field can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this can ye be so cruel to your selves as to shew any mercy on that now disarmed enemy will ye see God send his Son down into the Field to enter the Lists and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World and ye not follow at his Alarm will ye not accept of a conquest which Christ so lovingly offers you It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea Chap. xi 3. look on it where God objects to Ephraim her not taking notice of his mercies her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ's death as may appear by the first verse of the Chapter compared with the second of Mat. 14. Well saith God I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their arms but they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man an admirable phrase with all those means that use to oblige one man to another with bands of love c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthening of my people I put them in a course to be able to go and fight and overcome all the powers of darkness and put off the Devils yoke I sent my son amongst them for this purpose Vers 1. And all this I did by way of love as one friend is wont to do for another and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy And this is our case beloved If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us if we do not improve them to our Souls health if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence and stick close to him as both our Friend and Captain Finally if we do not endeavor and pray that this his incarnation may be seconded with an other that as once he was born in our flesh to justifie us so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctifie us For there is a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mystical incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour For this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us God with us i. e. With our spirits or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts Of which briefly And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate mans soul if it were denied might directly appear by these two places of Scripture Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Again Ephes iii. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith c. Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnation of Christ the better we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin that so we may keep close to the business of the day and at once observe both his birth to the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18. And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have engaged themselves in the courses of Actual heinous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1. and such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carcass or violence of the Body of sin The restared purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul
have no design upon Books but only to rid them of some hours which would otherwise lie on their hands The most studious of our Gentry ordinarily deal in them as inoffensive tame peaceable studies which will never check them for any the most inordinate affections But of Morality saith he and practical knowledge a young man or intemperate is uncapable You may make him con the precepts without Book or say them by roat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He cannot be said to believe a word of them his heart is so possest with green fresh boisterous lusts that he cannot admit any sober precepts any farther than his memory If you are in earnest with him to apply and practise what he reads you exact of him beyond his years he is not solemn enough for so sad severe employment and therefore it is concluded that he is fit for any intellectual vertue rather than prudence This consists in a peaceable temper of the mind an Artist he may prove and never live the better suppose him one of youthful luxuriant desires and never think he will be taught to live by rule All the learning and study in Books will never give him Aristotles Moral prudence much less our spiritual which is by interpretation Faith And this is the second ground of Infidelity amongst Christians the competibility of knowledg and incompatibility of true Faith with carnal desires The third is The easiness of giving assent to generalities and difficulty of particular Application A common truth delivered in general terms is received without any opposition Should it be proposed whether nothing be to be done but that which is just whether drunkenness were not a vice whether only an out-side of Religion would ever save a man No man would ever quarrel about it When thus Nathan and David discoursed they were both of one mind the one could talk no more against unconscionable dealing than the other would assent to If you propose no other Problems than these the debauchedst man under Heaven would not dispute against you But all quarrelling saith the Stoick is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 About the Application of general granted Rules to personal private cases The Jews and Assyrians and Egyptians and Romans are all agreed that holiness is to be preferred above all things but whether it be not impious to eat swines flesh and the like which of them observes the rules of holiness most exactly there the strife begins Common general declamations against sin are seldom ever offensive and therefore the Master of Rhetoricks finds fault with them as dull liveless unprofitable Eloquence that no man is affected with The cowardliest Bird in the Air is not afraid of the Faulcon as long as she sees him soaring and never stoop But when the Ax that was carried about the Wood threatning all indifferently shall be laid to the Root of the Tree When Nathan shall rejoynder with a Thou art the man and S. Paul come home to his Corinthians after his declamation against Fornicators and Idolaters with And such were some of you 1 Cor. vi 11. then their hearts come to the touchstone This is a tryal of their belief If they will forsake their sins which before their judgment condemned at a distance If they will practise the holiness and integrity which they were content to hear commended That famous War of the Trojans and Iliads of Misery following it in Homer were all from this ground The two great Captains at the Treaty agree very friendly that just dealing was very strictly to be observed by all men and yet neither would one of them restore the Pawn committed to his trust nor the other divide the spoils Each as resolute not to practise as both before unanimous to approve There is not a thing more difficult in the World than to perswade a carnal man that that which concerns all men should have any thing to do with him that those promises of Christ which are confest to be the most precious under Heaven should be fitter for his turn than this amiable lovely sin that now sollicites him That Scripture is inspired by God and therefore in all its dictates to be believed obeyed is a thing fully consented on amongst Christians We are so resolved on it that it is counted but a dull barren question in the Schools a man can invent nothing to say against by way of argument if a Preacher in a Sermon should make it his business to prove it to you you would think he either suspected you for Turks or had little else to say But when a particular truth of Scripture comes in ballance with a pleasing sin when the general prohibition strikes at my private lust all my former assent to Scripture is vanished I am hurried into the embraces of my beloved delight Thus when Paul reasoned of temperance righteousness and judgment to come Felix trembled Acts xxiv 25. His trembling shews that he assented to Paul's discourse and as in the Devils Jam. ii 29. it was an effect of a general belief But this subject of temperance and judgment to come agreed not with Felix his course of life His wife Drusida was held by usurpation he had tolled her away from her husband the King of the Emiseni saith Josephus and therefore he could hear no more of it He shifts and complements it off till another time and never means to come in such danger again to be converted for fear of a divorce from his two treasures his Heathenism and his Whore Thus was Agrippa converted from the shoulders upward which he calls Almost a Christian or as the phrase may be rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a little way Acts xxvi 28. convinced to the general truths in his brain but the lower half his heart and affections remained as Heathenish as ever And this is the third ground of practical unbelief that generalities can be cheaply believed without parting from any thing we prize The Doctrine of the Trinity can be received and thwart never a carnal affection as being an inoffensive truth Christs sufferings and satisfaction for sin by the natural man may be heard with joy but particular application is very difficult That our obedience to every command of that Trinity must be sincere that we must forgo all and hate our own flesh to adhere to so merciful a Saviour and express our love to the most contemptible Soul under Heaven as he hath loved us that we must at last expect him in majesty as a Judge whom we are content to hug and embrace in his humility as a Saviour This is a bloody word as Moses his wife counted the Circumcision too harsh and rough to be received into such pampered tender fleshy hearts The fourth ground is a general humour that is gotten in the World To take care of nothing but our reputations Nor God nor life nor soul nor any thing can weigh with it in the ballance Now it is a scandalous
we desire he should be glorified in our obedience And this is the excellency and perfection of a Christian infinitely above the reach of the proudest moralists this is the repentance of a Christian whereby he makes up those defects which were most eminently notorious in the Heathen this is the impression of that humbling spirit which proud heathen nature was never stamp't with for 't was not so much their ignorance in which they offended God though that was also full of guilt as hath been proved as their misusing of their knowledge to ungainly ends as either ambition superstition or for satisfying their curiosity as partly hath and for the present needs not farther to be demonstrated Only for us whom the command doth so nearly concern of repenting for and reforming their abuses how shall we be cast at the bar if we still continue in the same guilt The orderly composition of the world P. 5. saith Athenagoras the greatness complexion figure and harmony of it are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 engagements to us and pawns to oblige us to a pious worship of God For what Philoponus observes of the doctrine of the soul is in like manner true of all kind of learning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they extend and have an influence over all our conversation and if they be well studied and to purpose leave their characters and impressions in our lives as well as our understandings and from thence arose the Gentiles guilt who did only enrich their intellectual part with the knowledge and contemplation of them no whit better their lives or glorifie God which made them But for us whose knowledge is much elevated above their pitch who study and ordinarily attain to the understanding of those depths which they never fathom'd the reading of those riddles which they never heard of the expounding of those mysteries which they never dream't of for us I say who have seen a marvellous light thereby only to enlighten our brains and not our hearts to divert that precious knowledge to some poor low unworthy ends to gather nothing out of all our studies which may advance Gods Kingdom in us this is infinitely beyond the guilt of Heathenisin this will call their ignorance up to judgment against our knowledge and in fine make us curse that light which we have used to guide us only to the Chambers of death Briefly there was no one thing lay heavier upon the Gentiles then the not directing that measure of knowledge they had to Gods glory and a vertuous life and nothing more nearly concerns us Christians to amend and repent of For the most exquisite knowledge of nature and more specially the most accurate skill in Theological mysteries if it float only in the brain and sink not down into the heart if it end not in reformation of erroneous life as well as doctrine and glorifying God in our knowledge of him it is to be reputed but a glorious specious curse not an enriching but a burthening of the soul Aurum Tholosanum an unlucky merchandise that can never thrive with the owner but commonly betrays and destroys all other good affections and graces in us Aust de civ Dei lib 8. cap. 3. c. Proclus v. Patricii Plat. exoter p. 42. Socrates was the first that brought morality into the Schools ideoque ad hominum salutem natus est said an old Philosopher and that made the oracle so much admire him for the wisest man in the world At any piece of speculation the devil durst challenge the proudest Philosopher amongst them but for a vertuous life he despaired of ever reaching to it this set him at a gaze this posed and made a dunce of him and forced him to proclaim the Moralist the greatest Scholar under Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Hesychius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the making use of knowledge to ambition or puffing up is a dangerous desperate disease and pray God it be not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 also in its other sence a disease that attends our holyest speculations even our study of Divinity Arrian in Epict. l. 1. c. 26. For as Arrian saith of those who read many Books and digest none so is it most true of those who do not concoct their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and turn it into spiritual nourishment of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they vomit it up again and are never the better for it they are opprest with this very learning as a stomack with crudities and thereby fall many times 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into vertigoes and catarrhes the first of which disorders the brain and disables it for all manner of action or if the more classical notion of the word take place it disaffects the bowels entangles and distorts the entrals and as St. Paul complains on this occasion leaves without natural affection and then 2. by the defluxion of the humors on the breast clogs and stifles the vital parts and in fine brings the whole man to a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or corruption of all its spiritual graces Thus have you at once the doctrine and the use of my 2. part the nature of that repentance which is here meant in opposition to the Gentiles fault which we have shewed to be the directing of our knowledge to a sober pious end Gods glory and our own edification together with the danger and sinfulness attending the neglect of these ends both which are sufficient motives to stir you up to awake and conjure you to the practice of this doctrine To which you may add but this one more that even some of the Heathen were raised up by the study of the creatures to an admiration of Gods excellency which was a kind of glorifying his power and those Philoponus calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfect exact Naturalists who from physical causes ascend to divine Galen de Vsu part l. 3. c. 6. Witness Galen de Usu partium where from the miraculous structure of the foot he falls off into a meditation and Hymn of Gods providence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Psalm or holy Elogy of him that hath so wonderfully made us Pag. 4. So Hermes in his first Book of piety and Philosophy makes the only use of Philosophy to return thanks to the Creator as to a good Father and profitable Nurse which duty he professes himself resolved never to be wanting in and after in the latter end of his 5. Book he makes good his word breaking out into a kind of holy rythme 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The like might be shewed in some measure out of others more classick heathen writers which may briefly serve to upbraid our defects and aggravate our offence if we with all our natural and spiritual light go on yet in learning as travellers in peregrination only either as curious inquisitors of some novelties which they may brag of at their return or else having no other end of their travel but the journey
it self without any care to direct our studies to the advancement either of Gods glory in other or graces kingdom in our selves For this is the thing no doubt here aimed at and the performance of it as strictly required of us Christians and that not some only of us but as many as the commandment is here given to every man every where So I come to my last particular the extent and latitude of the persons with whom this covenant is made and from whom this condition is exacted All men every where Now the universality of the persons reflects either to the preceding words Commands or to the subsequent the matter of these commands Repentance From the first the point is that Gods Commands were made known by the preaching of the Gospel to all men every where From the 2. that the Repentance here meant is necessary to every man that will be saved For the first it hath been already proved out of Scripture that the vocal articulation of Gods commands the sound and preaching of the Gospel hath gone out into all the World and that not Universis but singulis directed and promulged at least to every creature Mar. XVI 15. Mar. xvi 15. the whole Gentile world has title to it Now for the spiritual efficacy of this voice 1 Cor. 11. 4. the demonstration of the spirit and of power hath not this also waited on the voice and in some kind or other evidenced it self in the like extensive latitude Yes no doubt for there being two effects of the preaching of the Word either converting or hardening either dissolving the wax or stiffening the clay you shall in every man be sure to meet with one of them For the conversion what a multitude came in at the first noise of it primo manè as soon as ever the Sun of righteousness began to dawn In the ancient Sea-fights they had their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 little light ships 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Zenophon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say Thucydides and Polybius which they sent out as spyes in the night or at day break to bring word how the Seas were cleared that so they might dare to make use of the first opportunity to go out with their whole Navy Thus was Job and some few other Gentiles before the Gospel and Cornelius at the dawning of it sent before in a manner ut lembi ante classem to spy and bring word whether the Gentiles might enter and be received and these returning to them like Noahs Dove in Gen. viii 11. Gen. VIII 11. with an olive leaf in her mouth as a token of peace and safety to all that would venture then did the whole Navy and Troop follow then did the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the many the root the common people of the world out of all Nations and conditions some hasten and run and croud for a part in this salvation and the Glory of the Lord was revealed and all flesh saw it together as it is in the phrase of the Prophecy Isa xl 5. or in the words of the Story Isa XL. 5. There were daily added to the Church such as should be saved Look but on the Doctor of the Gentiles as he sits in his chair in Tyrannus his School Acts XIX 10. Acts xix 10. and you shall find that at that one Lecture which indeed was two years long all the lesser Asia heard the Word of the Lord Jesus both Jews and Greeks The 3000 souls which were added to the Church at St. Peters Sermon Acts ii 4. was a sufficient hours work Acts 11. 4. and a thing so admired by the wise men of the Gentiles that they imputed it magicis Petriartibus veneficis carminibus De Civ l. 18. c. 53. saith Austin to some incantations and magical tricks which Peter used And they got the dying oracle to confirm it with some supposâ—â—itious verses to the purpose forged by them that the Christian Religion was raised by Peters witchcraft and by it should last 365 years and then be betrayed and vanish But had these same Gentiles in this humour of malice and prejudice seen a third part of the Roman world all the Proconsular Asia converted by one Pauls disputations they would certainly have resolved that all the sorcery of Hell or Chaldaea could never have yielded such miraculous enchantments And this the Sons of Sceva had experience of Acts xix 14. Acts XIX 14. who with all their exorcisms and the name of Jesus added to them could not yet imitate the Apostles in any one miracle but the devil was too hard for them wounded overcame prevail'd against them Briefly 't was more then the magick either of men or devils which so convinced the artificers of hell that they brought out their Books and burnt them openly Act. XIX 19. which beside the price of their most profitable skill were rated at 50000 pieces of silver which is computed to be about 6250 l. So mightily grew the word of God and prevailed and the first effect of it conversion was miraculously manifest though not on all yet on many of all people every where Now for the other effect of it the hardning of obdurate Atheists Act. XIX 9. look on xix Acts. 9. where it is plain that for all Pauls Logick and Rhetorick disputing and perswading for the space of three moneths many were hardned and believed not They had within them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Theodoret calls it a heart that would reverberate either precept or instruction and make it rebound against the hand that sent it Philip. l. 1. de Anima 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Philoponus phrases it in his 1. l. de animâ their spirits fatned and incrassated within them stal'd up and fed to such a brawniness that neither the understanding nor the affections were capable of any impression and so their condition proved like that of the Anvil which by many strokes is somewhat smoothed but no whit softned all they got by one days preaching was to enable them the better to resist the second Every Sermon of a Paul or Peter was but an alarum to set them on their guard of defence to warn them to cast up some more trenches and bulwarks to fortifie themselves stronger against any possible invasion of Gods spirit according to that of the Aegyptian Hermes P. 5. speaking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in a Christian phrase the power of the Scripture they have saith he this property in them that when they meet with evil men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they do more sharpen and egg them on to evil Thus was the preaching of the word to all men every where attended with some effects or other according to the materials it met with never returned unprofitably but either was the power of God to salvation unto all that believed or the witness of God to condemnation to those which were hardned Now if this
Thus in the latter part of this first Chapter doth he shew them the estate and rebellions and punishment of their heathen Ancestors that the unregenerate man may in that glass see his picture at the length the regenerate humble himself in a thankful horrour over-joyed and wondring to observe himself delivered from such destruction And that all may be secured from the danger of the like miscarriage he sets the whole story of them distinctly before their eyes 1. How the law and light of nature was sufficient to have instructed them into the sight and acknowledgement of God and therefore that they could not pretend want of means to direct them to his worship 2. That they contemn'd and rejected all the helps and guidances that God and nature had afforded them and that therefore 3. God had deserted and given them up unto the pride and luxury and madness of their own hearts all vile affections for this is the force of the illation They abused those instructions which God had printed in the creature to direct them and therefore he will bestow no more pains on them to so little purpose their own reason convinced them there was but one God and yet they could not hold from adoring many and therefore he 'l not be troubled to rein them in any longer for all his ordinary restraints they will needs run riot And for this cause God gave them up to vile affections So that in the Text you may observe the whole state and history of a heathen natural unregenerate life which is a progress or travel from one stage of sinning to another beginning in a contempt of the light of nature and ending in the brink of Hell all vile affections For the discovery of which we shall survey 1. The Law or light of nature what it can do 2. The sin of contemning this law or light both noted in the first words for this cause that is because they did reject that which would have stood them in good stead 3. The effect or punishment of this contempt sottishness leading them stupidly into all vile affections And lastly the inflicter of this punishment and manner of inflicting of it God gave them up and first of the first the law and light of nature what it can do To suppose a man born at large left to the infinite liberty of a creature without any terms or bounds or laws to circumscribe him were to bring a River into a plain and bid it stand on end and yet allow it nothing to sustain it were to set a babe of a day old into the world and bid him shift for a subsistence were to bestow a being on him only that he may lose it and perish before he can ever be said to live If an infant be not bound in and squeez'd and swathed he 'l never thrive in growth or feature but as Hippocrates saith of the Scythians for want of girdles run all out into breadth and ugliness And therefore it cannot agree either with the mercy or goodness of either God or nature to create men without laws or to bestow a being upon any one without a guardian to guide and manage it Thus lest any creature for want of this law any one moment should immediately sin against its creation and no sooner move then be annihilated the same wisdom hath ordered that his very soul should be his Law-giver and so the first minute of its essence should suppose it regular Whence is it that some Atheists in Theophilus ad Auto. which said that all things were made by chance and of their own accord yet affirm'd that when they were made they had a God within them to guide them their own conscience and in sum affirm'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was no other God in the world Aristotle observes that in the creatures which have no reason phantasie supplies its place and does the Bee as much service to perform the business of its kind as reason doth in the man Thus farther in them whose birth in an uncivilized Countrey hath deprived of any laws to govern them reason supplies their room 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Arius Didymus Reason is naturally a law and hath as soveraign dictates with it pronounceth sentence every minute from the tribunal within as authoritatively as ever the most powerful Solon did in the theatre There is not a thing in the world purely and absolutely good but God and nature within commends and prescribes to our practice and would we but obey their counsels and commands 't were a way to innocence and perfection that even the Pelagians never dreamt of To speak no farther then will be both profitable and beyond exception the perfectest law in the world is not so perfect a rule for our lives as this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Methodius calls it this law of nature born with us is for these things which are subject to its reach Shall I say Scripture it self is in some respect inferior to it I think I shall not prejudice that blessed Volume for though it be as far from the least spot or suspition of imperfection as falshood though it be true perfect and righteous altogether yet doth it not so evidence it self to my dull soul it speaks not so clearly and irrefragably so beyond all contradiction and demur to my Atheistical understanding as that law which God hath written in my heart For there is a double certainty one of Adherence another of Evidence one of faith the other of sense the former is that grounded on Gods Word more infallible because it rests on divine authority the latter more clear because I find it within me by experience The first is given to strengthen the weakness of the second and is therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. ◠19. A more firm sure word the second given within us to explain the difficulties and obscurities of the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 16. we saw it with our eyes so that Scriptures being conceived into words and sentences are subject either not to be understood or amiss and may either be doubted of by the ignorant or perverted by the malicious You have learnt so many words without book and say them minutely by heart and yet not either understand or observe what you are about but this unwritten law which no pen but that of nature hath engraven is in our understandings not in words but sence and therefore I cannot avoid the intimations 't is impossible either to deny or doubt of it it being written as legible in the tables of our hearts as the print of humanity in our foreheads The commands of either Scripture or Emperour may be either unknown or out of our heads when any casual opportunity shall bid us make use of them but this law of the mind is at home for ever and either by intimation or loud voice either whispers or proclaims its commands to us be it never
grace into holy spiritual acts of Faith and Obedience from which 't is ordinarily said that Infants baptized have habitual Faith as they may be also said to have habitual repentance and the habits of all other graces because they have the root and seed of those beauteous healthful flowers which will actually flourish then when they come to years And this I say is so frequent to be performed at Baptism that ordinarily 't is not wrought without that means and in those means we may expect it as our Church doth in our Liturgies where she presumes at every Baptism that it hath pleased God to regenerate the Infant by his holy Spirit And this may prove a solemn piece of comfort to some who suspect their state more then they need and think 't is impossible that they should be in a regenerate condition because they have not as yet found any such notable change in themselves as they see and observe in others These men may as well be jealous they are not men because they cannot remember when their soul came to them if they can find the effects of spiritual life in themselves let them call it what they will a religious education or a custom of well doing or an unacquaintedness with sin let them comfort themselves in their estate and be thankful to God who visited them thus betimes let it never trouble them that they were not once as bad as other men but rather acknowledge Gods mercy who hath prevented such a change and by uniting them to him in the cradle hath educated and nursed them up in familiarity with the Spirit Lastly the Spirit sometimes enters into our hearts upon occasional emergencies the sense of Gods judgments on our selves or others the reflexion on his mercies the reading good Books falling into vertuous acquaintance but most eminently at and with the preaching of the Word and this by degrees as it seems to us but indeed at some one especial season or other which yet perhaps we are not able to discern and here indeed are we ordinarily to expect this guest if we have not yet found him here doth it love to be cherished and refreshed and warm'd within us if we have it for even it is the power of God unto salvation Rom. i. 16. The 3. condition in which this Spirit comes into our hearts is as an inhabitant or house-keeper The Spirit saith Austin first is in us then dwels in us before it dwels it helps us to believe when it dwels it helps and perfects and improves our faith and accomplishes it with all other concomitant graces So I say here the Spirit is then said to inhabit and keep house in us not as soon as it is entertained and received but when it breaks forth into acts and declares it self before all men When men see our good works and glorifie our Father Matth. v. 16. Before we were said to live in the Spirit now to walk as you shall see the phrases used distinctly Gal v. 25 〈◊〉 walk that is to go about conspicuously in the sight of all men breaking forth into works as the Sun after the dispersions of a mist or cloud whereby all men see and acknowledge his faith and obedience and find their own evil wayes reprehended and made manifest by his good as is noted in the 13. verse All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light Semblable to which is that of the Atheists repining at the godly man 2 Wisd ii 14. He is made to reprove our thoughts Thus is the third Quere resolved also when this inward principle enters 1. It comes as an harbenger in every outward restraint by which God keeps us from sinning 2. It enters as a guest in some season or other once for all In the womb at Baptism at some Sermon sometimes at a notable tempest shaking and stirring us violently ordinarily and for the most part not to be discerned by us and lastly it comes and dwels with us and shews it self in its works yet that not at any set time after his entrance not constantly without ever covering his face but when and as often as it pleases and the flesh resisteth not To the last Quere What works it performs the answer shall be brief every thing that may be called spiritual Faith Repentance Charity Hope Self-denial and the rest but these not promiscuously or in an heap altogether but by a wise dispensation in time and by degrees The soul being enabled by this inward principle is equally disposed to the producing of all these and as occasions do occur doth actually perform and produce them so that in my conceit that question concerning the priority of Repentance or Faith is not either of such moment or difficulty as is by some disputers pretended The seeds of them both are at one time planted in the soul and then there is no Faith in any subject but there is Repentance also nor Repentance without Faith So that where it is said Without Faith 't is impossible to please God in any thing else 't is true but argues no necessary precedence of it before other graces for the habits of them all are of the same age in us and then also will it be as true that without Repentance or without Love Faith it self cannot please God for if it be truly acceptable Faith there is both Repentance and Love in the same womb to keep it company Thus are we wont to say that only Faith justifieth but not Faith alone and the reason these promises in Scripture are made sometimes to one grace precisely sometimes to another is because they are all at once rooted in the man and in their habits chain'd together inseparably Faith saves every man that hath it and yet the believing'st man under Heaven shall not be saved without Charity Charity hides a multitude of sins and yet the charitablest man in the world shall never have his score cross't without Repentance A catalogue of these fruits of the Spirit you may at your leisure make up to your selves for your tryal out of the fifth to the Gal. from the 22. verse and 1 Peter i 5. All these graces together though some belonging to one some to another faculty of the soul are yet all at once conceived in it at once begin their life in the heart though one be perhaps sooner ready to walk abroad and shew it self in the world then another As in the 2 of Kings iv 34. Elisha went up on the bed and lay on the child and put his mouth on his mouth and eyes upon his eyes and hands upon his hands and stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child waxed warm and verse 35. the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes Thus I say doth the Spirit apply it self unto the soul and measure it self out to every part of it and then the spiritual life comes at once into the soul