the Gospell begin to cast wanton eyes upon their glorious superstitions and contrary to the lawes of God and our Soveraign throng to their exoticall devotions What shall we say Increpa Domine Master rebuke them And ye to whom God hath given grace to see and bewail the lamentable exorbitances of their superstitions settle your souls in the noble resolution of faithfull Joshua I and my house will serve the Lord. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free Hath the Gospell of God freed us from the worship of stocks and stones from the mis-religious invocation of those who we know cannot hear us from the sacrilegious mutilation of the blessed sacrament From the tyrannical usurpations of a sinfull vice-god From the dangerous relyance upon the inerrable sentence of him that cannot say true from the idle fears of imaginary Purgatories from buying of pardons and selling of sins shortly from the whole body of damnable Antichristianisme and shall our unstable mouths now begin to water at the Onions and Garlick of our forsaken Egypt Oh Dear Christians if ye love your solus if ye fear hell stand fast in this liberty wherewith Christ hath made you free What mercy soever may abide well-meaning ignorance let the wilfull revolter make account of damnation I cannot without yearning of bowels think of the dear price that our holy fore-fathers stak't down for this liberty of the Gospel no lesse then their best and last blood And shall we their unthrifty progeny lavish it out carelessly in a willing neglect and either not care to exchange it for a plausible bondage or squander it out in unncecessary differences Do but cast your eyes back upon the fresh memory of those late flourishing times of this goodly kingdome when pure religion was not more cheerfully professed then inviolably maintained how did we then thrive at home and triumph abroad How were we then the terrour the envy of Nations Our name was enough to affright to amate an enemy But now since we have let fall our first love and suffered the weak languishments and qualmes of the truth under our hands I fear and grieve to tell the issue Oh then suffer your selves O ye noble and beloved Christians to be rouzed up from that dull and lethargick indâ—fferencie wherein ye have thus long slept and awake up your holy courages for God and his sacred truth And since we have so many comfortable and assured ingagements from our pious Soveraign Oh let not us be wanting to God to his Majesty to our selves in our utmost endeavours of advancing the good successe of the blessed Gospell of Christ Honour God with your faithfull and zealous prosecutions of his holy truth and he shall honour you and besides the restauration of that antient glory to our late-clouded Nation shall repay our good Offices done to his name with an eternal weight of glory in the highest heavens to the possession whereof he that hath ordained us in his good time mercifully bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the just To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen DIVINE LIGHT AND REFLEXIONS IN A SERMON Preacht to his MAJESTY at WHITE-HALL On Whitsunday 1640. By JOS. EXON 1 John 1.5 God is Light IF ye mark it your very Calender so as the wisdom of the Church hath contrived it is a notable Catechism And surely if the plain man would but ply his Almanack well that alone would teach him Gospell enough to show him the history of his Saviour If one day teach another all dayes would teach him There should he see his blessed Saviours conception Annuntiated by the Angel March 25. Fourty weekes after that he should see him born of the Virgin accordingly at the feast of the Nativity eight dayes after that circumcised on New years day then visited and adored by the Sages in the Epiphanie then presented into the Temple on the day of Purification then tempted and fasting fourty dayes in Lent He should see him usher'd in by his fore-runner the holy Baptist six Moneths before his Nativity attended by his twelve Apostles in their severall ranks and Thomas the last for his unbelief And at last after infinite and beneficiall miracles he should see him making his Maundy with his disciples on the Thursday and crucified on Good Friday he should see that on Easter Morning God the Father raises up his Son Jesus from the dead Act 5.30 On Ascention day God the Son mounts up to Heaven in glory Act. 1.9 On Whitsunday God the holy Ghost descends upon the Apostles Act. 2.3.4 And his belief in all these summed up in the celebration of the blessed Trinity the Sunday following I shall not over-labour to reduce the Text to the day Fire and light have so near affinity that they are scarce ever separated The same Spirit of God who appeared as this day in the shape of fierie tongues to the disciples may be now pleased by my tongue to manifest himself to your souls in light And as that fire was very lightsome else it could not have been seen in the day-time so may this exhibition of light be accompanied with a fire of holy zeal both in my tongue and your hearts In my last Sermon at the Court I gave you the Character of man I shall now indeavour to give you some touches of the Character of God There is nothing in this world so much concerns a man as to settle his heart in a right apprehension of his God which must be the ground of all his piety and devotion without which all his pretenses of Religion are so nothing worth as that in them God is made our Idoll and we the mis-worshippers of him without which shortly our whole life is mis-spent in error and ignorance and ends in a miserable discomfort Whence it is that this dear disciple makes it the summ of all the Apostolicall mission which he had from his Lord and Saviour to informe the World what to think of God This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare to you that God is light Would ye know the message which the Apostles received from Christ would ye know the message which they delivered from Christ to the World it is in these three syllables of my Text. God is light It is not possible that our finite conceit should comprehend God essentially as he is in himself No motion of our weak humanity can thus reach his infiniteness our ambition must be only to conceive of him according to those expressions which he hath made of himself wherein it hath pleased his wisdom to condescend to our shallow capacity by borrowing from those creatures which come nearest to his most pure simple spirituall nature Amongst which none is more proper or more frequent then this of Light Not only therefore hath it pleased God to expresse those Heavenly
we finde the face of God clouded from us let our souls refuse comfort till we have recovered his favour which is better then life do we find our selves upon our sound repentance received to grace and favour of the Almighty and that he is well pleased with our persons and with our poor obediences and that he smiles upon us in Heaven courage dear Brethren in spight of all the frowns and menaces of the World we are safe and shall be happy here is comfort for us in all tribulation 2 Cor. 1.4 with that chosen vessel we are troubled on every side yet not distressed â—e are perplexed but not in despair persecuted but not forsaken 2. Cor. 4.8 cast down but not destroyed for which cause we faint not but though our outward man perish 16. yet the inward man is renewed day by day for our light Affliction which is but for a moment worketh for us 18. a farr more exceeding and eternall weight of glory to the full possession whereof the God that hath ordained us graciously bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the righteous To whom with the Father and the holy Ghost three persons and one glorious God be given all praise honour glory and dominion now and for evermore A Second SERMON In prosecution of the same Text PREACHT AT St. GREGORIES CHURCH IN NORWICH July 21. 1644. By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption WE have done with the Dehortation it self and therein with the Act forbidden Grieve not and with the title of the Subject the Holy Spirit of God We descend to the inforcement of the Dehortation by the great merit of the Spirit of God whereby ye are sealed to the day of Redemption Those that are great and good we would not willingly offend though meer strangers to us but if they be besides our great friends and liberal Benefactors men that have deserved highly of us we justly hold it a foul shame and abominable ingratitude wilfully to do ought that might affront them It is therefore added for a strong disswasive from Grieving the Spirit of God that by him we are sealed to the day of redemption All the world shall in vain strive to do for us what our great Friend in Heaven hath done our loathness therefore to grieve him must be according to the depth of our obligation to him Cast your eyes then a little upon the wonderful Benefit here specified and see First what this day of Redemption is Secondly what is the sealing of us to this day and Thirdly why the sealing of us to this day should be a sufficient motive to withhold us from grieving the Holy Spirit of God These three must be the limits of my Speech and your Atrention Redemption signifies as much as a Ransome A Ransome implies a Captivity or Servitude There is a threefold Captivity from which we are freed Of Sin of Misery of Death For the first We are sold under sin saith our Apostle No Slave in Argier is more truly sold in the Market under a Turkish Pyrate then we are naturally sold under the Tyranny of sin by whom we are bound hand and foot and can stir neither of them towards God and dungeon'd up in the darkness of our ignorance without any Glimpse of the vision of God For the second the very name of Captivity implyes Misery enough what outward evil is incident into a man which bondage doth not bring with it Wo is me there was never so much captivity in this land since it was a Nation nor so woful a Captivity as this of brethren to brethren Complaints there are good store on both sides of restraint want ill-lodging hard and scant diet Irons insultations scornes and extremities of ill usage of all kindes and what other is to be found in the whole course of this wretched life of ours the best whereof is vanity and the worst infinite vexations But Thirdly if some men have been so externally happy as to avoid some of these miseries for all men smart not alike yet never man did or can avoid the third which is obnoxiousness to death By the offence of one saith the Apostle judgment came upon all men to condemnation Rom. 5.18 Sin hath raigned unto death Ps 21. It is more then an Ordinance a statute law in Heaven Statutum est c. It is enacted to all men once to dye Heb. 9.27 This then is our bondage or captivity now comes our redemption from all these at once when upon our happy dissolution we are freed from sin from misery from death and enter into the possession of glory thus our Saviour Lift up your heads for the day of your redemption draweth nigh thus saith St. Paul The creature it self also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption unto the glorious liberty of the Sons of God Rom. 8.21 It is the same condition of the members of Christ which was of the head that they overcome death by dying when therefore the bands of death are loosed and we are fully freed from the dominion of the first death and danger of the second and therein from all the capacity not only of the rule and power of sin but of the life and in-dwelling of it and from all the miseries both bodily and spirituall that attend it and when in the same instant our soul takes possession of that glory which shall once in the consociation of it's glorious partner the body be perfectly consummated Then and not till then is the day of our redemption Is there any of us therefore that complaines of his sad and hard condition here in the world paines of body grief of mind agonies of soul crosses in estate discontentments in his families suffering in his good name let him bethink himself where he is this is the time of his captivity and what other can be expected in this case Can we think there is no difference betwixt liberty bondage Can the slave think to be as free as his Patron Ease rest liberty must be lookt for elsewhere but whiles we are here we must make no account of other then these varieties of misery our redemption shall free us from them all But now perhaps some of you are ready to say of the Redemption as they did of the Resurrection that it is past already and so indeed it is one way in respect of the price laid out by the Son of God the invaluable price of his blood for the redemption of man but so that it must be taken out by and applied to every soul inparticular if we will have the benefit redound to us It is his Redemption before it is now only our Redemption when it is brought home to us Oh then the dear and happy day of this our finall redemption wherein we shall be absolutely freed from all the miserable sorrowes paines cares fears
of stripes but the ingenuous disposition of Gods dear ones is wrought upon by the tender respect to the goodness and mercy of that God who hath so infinitely blessed it It is an emphaticall expression that of St. Paul For the love of Christ constraineth us 2. Cor. 5.14 Lo here is a kind of force and violence offered to the soul but it is the force of love then which nothing can be more pleasing neither will God offer any other it can be no will that is forced God will not break in upon the soul but wins it with those sweet solicitations that are more powerfull then those of fear Men commonly run in a full carere towards Hell it were happy that any thing in the world could stay them but are there any of us that find a restraint upon our selves in the midst of our evill wayes so as we make a stop in this pernicious course of our sining whence is it Is it out of a meer fear of the pains of Hell of those eternall torments that abide for sinners This is little thank to them Nature even in brute Creatures will teach them to affect their own preservation and to avoid those things which will necessarily draw on their destruction Balaams asse seeing the Angels sword will strive to decline it every slave will tugg hard to escape the lash but is it in a sweet sense of the mercies of God who hath done so much for thy soul is it out of a conscience not to offend so holy and munificent a God who hath purchased thee so dear and sealed thee up to the day of Redemption now thou hast in thee a true generosity of spirit this argues thee to have the proper affections of a true child of God for every child of God is spiritually good natur'd It is not so with our natural children A stomackfull Esau knowes that his good Father cannot but be displeased with his Pagan matches yet he takes him wives of the Daughters of Heth Gen. 26.35 And an ambitious Absalom dares rise up in rebellion against his tenderly-loving Father but grace hath other effects the spirituall generation of Gods faithfull ones are dearly affectionate to their Father in Heaven and apply themselves to all obedience out of meer love and duty The Son and the slave are both injoyned one work God be thanked we can have no instance in this kind that vassalage is happily and justly extinguished as unfit to be of use amongst Christians but where it obtaineth still the Son and the slave do one work but out of different grounds the Son to please his Father the slave that he may avoid the stripes of an imperious Master therefore the one doth it cheerfully and willingly the other grudgingly and repiningly the one of Love and Gratitude the other out of fear This is a point worthy of our serious consideration as that which mainly imports our souls what are the grounds of our either actions or forbearances we indevour some good duties we refrain from some sins out of what principles Some there are that can bragg of their immunity from gross sins with the proud Pharisee I am no fornicator no drunkard no murtherer no lyer no slanderer no oppressour And I would to God every one of you that hear me this day could in sincerity of heart say so But what is the ground of this their pretended inoffensiveness If it be only a fear of Hell and of the wrathful indignation of that just Judge thou canst reap smal comfort to thy Soul in this condition for this is out of meer selfe-love and desire to escape pain and misery which is incident into the worst of creatures Even the evil Spirits themselves are afraid of tormenting and deprecate the sending them back to their chains But if it be out of a gracious and tender love to God out of a filial fear of the displeasure of a God that hath done so much for thee this argues the disposition of a true child of God and may justly administer comfort to thy Soul in the time of thy trial Oh that we could every one of us lay before our eyes the sweet mercies of our God especially his spiritual favours how freely he hath loved us how dearly he hath redeemed us even with the most precious blood of the Son of his love how graciously he hath sealed us up to the day of our redeemption and that we could make this use of it to be a strong retractive from any even of our dearest and gainfullest sins Carry this home with you dear brethren I beseech you and fail not to think of it upon all occasions when ever you shall finde your selves tempted to any sin whatsoever of lust of excesse of covetous desires have this Antidote ready in your bosomes which good Joseph had How shall I do this great evill and sin against God As good Polycarpus that holy Martyr when for the preservation of his life he was urged to renounce Christ said Fourscore and six years have I been his servant and he never did me hurt and shall I deny my Soverain King that hath so graciously preserved me If out of these grounds thou canst check thy sins and canst say Lord I have been carefull not to grieve thy good spirit because thou in thine eternal love hast sealed me thereby to the day of my redemption be confident that thy redemption is sealed in Heaven and shall in due time be manifested to thine investiture with the eternall glory and happiness which God hath prepared for all his To the participation whereof that God who hath ordained us in his good time mercifully bring us for the sake of the Son of his love Jesus Christ the just to whom with the Father and the blessed Spirit one infinite and incomprehensible God be given all prayse honour and glory now and for evermore Amen A SERMON Preacht on WHITSUNDAY IN THE PARISH-CHURCH OF HIGHAM In the Year 1652. ROM 8.14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God THis only day is wont to be consecrated to the Celebration of the descent of the holy Spirit and therefore deserves to be as it is named the true Dominica in albis Whit-sunday white is the colour of Innocence and joy in respect of the first this together with the feast of Easter was wont in the primitive times to be the solemn season of Baptism and sacramentall Regeneration in respect of the second it was the season of the just Triumph and exultation of the Church which was as this day graced confirmed and refreshed with the miraculous descent of the promised comforter in both regards every Christian challenges an interest in it as these who claim to be the Sons of God by Baptism the Sacrament of Regeneration and to be indued and furnished with the sanctifying gifts of that blessed Spirit whose wonderfull descent we this day celebrate which how can we do better then by inquiring
Angels present and the people shout out their Amen and shall our piety this way be lesse than theirs Surely the Angels of God are inseparably with us yea whole cohorts yea whole Legions of those heavenly soldiery are now viewing guarding us in these holy meetings and we acknowledg them not we yeild not to them such reverent and awful respects as even flesh and blood like our own will expect from us Did we think the Angels of God were with us here durst those of us which dare not be covered at home as if the freedom of this holy place gave them priviledge of a loose and wild licentiousness affect all saucy postures and strive to be more unmannerly then their Masters Did we consider that the Angels of God are witnesses of our demeanour in Gods house durst we stumble in here with no other reverence then we would do into our Barne or Stable and sit down with no other care then we would in an ale-house or Theater Did we finde our selves in an assembly of Angels durst we give our eyes leave to rove abroad in wanton glances our tongues to walk in idle and unseasonable chat our ears to be taken up with frivolous discourse Durst we set our selves to take those naps here whereof we failed on our pillow at home certainly my beloved all these do manifestly convince us of a palpable unrespect to the blessed Angels of God our invisible consorts in these holy services However then it hath been with us hitherto let us now begin to take up other resolutions and settle in our hearts an holy aw of that presence wherein we are Even at thy home address thy self for the Church prepare to come before a dreadful Majesty of God and his powerful Angels thou seest them not no more did Elishaes servant till his eyes were opened It is thine ignorant and grosse infidelity that hath filmed up thine eyes that thou canst discerne no spiritual object were they but anointed with the eye-salve of faith thou shouldest see Gods house full of heavenly glory and shouldest check thy self with holy Jacob when he awaked from his divine vision Surely the Lord is in this place and I knew it not how dreadfull is this place this is no other but the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven Gen. 28.16 17. Oh then when thou settest thy foot over the threshold of Gods Temple tremble to think who is there lift up thine awfull eyes and bow thine humble knees and raise up thy devout and faithful soul to a religious reverence and fear of those mighty and Majestical Spirits that are there and of that great God of Spirits whose both they and thou art and study in all thy carriage to be approved of so glorious witnesses and overseeres That so at the last those blessed Spirits with whom we have had an invisible conversation here may carry up our departing soules into the heaven of heavens into the presence of that infinite and incomprehensibly-glorious God both theirs and ours there to live and raign with them in the participation of their unconceivable blisse and glory To the fruition whereof he that hath ordained us graciously bring us by the mediation and for the sake of his blessed Son Jesus To whom with thee O Father of Heaven and thy co-eternall Spirit three persons in one God be given all praise honor immortality now and for ever HOLY DECENCY IN THE WORSHIP of GOD. By J. H. B. N. I Know that a clean heart and a right spirit is that which God mainly regards For as he is a Spirit so he will be served in Spirit but withall John 4.24 as he hath made the body and hath made it a partner with the Soul so he justly expects that it should be also wholly devoted to him so as the Apostle upon good reason prayes for his Thessalonians that their whole Spirit and Soul 1 Thes 5.23 and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and beseeches his Romans by the mercies of God that they present their bodies a living sacrifice holy acceptable to God Rom. 12.1 Now as the body is capable of a double uncleanness the one morall when it is made an instrument and agent in sin the other naturall when it is polluted with outward filthiness so both of these are fit to be avoided in our addresses to the pure and holy God the former out of Gods absolute command who hath charged us to cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the flesh and Spirit the latter out of the just grounds of Decency 2 Cor. 7.1 and expedience for though there be no sinfull turpitude in those bodily uncleanenesses wherein we offer our selves to appear before the Lord our God yet there is so deep an unbeseemingness in them as places them in the next door to sin Perhaps Gods ancient people the Jewes were too superstitiously scrupulous in these externall observations whos 's Talmud tells us of one of their great Rabbies that would rather suffer under extremity of hunger and thirst then tast of ought with unwashen hands as counting that neglect equall to lying with an harlot and who have raised a great question whether if any of their poultry have but dipped their beak in the bowle the water may be allowed to wash in forbidding to void the urine standing except it be upon a descent of ground lest any drop should recoyle upon the feet and in case of the other evacuation beside the paddle-staffe and other ceremonies in uncovering the feet injoyning to turn the face to the South not to the East or West because those coasts had their faces directed towards them in their devotions what should I speak of their extreme curiosity in their outward observances concerning the Law which no man might be allowed to read whiles he was but walking towards the unloading of nature or to the Bathe or near to any place of annoyance no Man might so much as spit in the Temple or before that sacred Volumn or stretch forth his feet towards it or turn his back upon it or receive it with the left hand no Man might presume to write it but upon the parchment made of the skin of a clean beast nor to write or give a bill of divorce but by the side of a running stream yea the very Turks as they have borrowed our circumcision so also religious niceties from these Jewes not allowing their Alcoran to be touched by a person that is unclean But surely I fear these men are not more faulty in the one extreme then many Christians are in the other who place a kinde of holinesse in a slovenly neglect and so order themselves as if they thought a nasty carelessenesse in Gods services were most acceptable to him Hence it is that they affect homely places for his worship abandoning all magnificence and cost in all the acts and apendances of their devotion clay and sticks please