David Gideon Barak others who through faith subdued Kingdomes Hebr. 11. 32 33. That is basenesse of spirit and want of valour that makes a man a slave to sin and the Devill so a slave as he hath no heart to any worthy service to free himselfe from it but lies down under it and carries the fetters and yoake of his bondage about with him withersoever he goes That is cowardly basenesse that brings conscience into a servile subjection that cowardly basenesse that will suffer the cause of God to be betrayed rather than venture any thing for it what greater argument that men want true spirit than this Godlinesse puts a spirit of fortitude into men that will not suffer them to bee thus debased and where appeares the like courage in any as in these when they are called to stand for the truth Though all the Tiles of the houses in the City of Wormes were Devils yet thither would I goe to testifie to the truth saith Luther Againe it is not a turbulent spirit for turbulency of spirit makes men cruell and malicious this spirit causes men to love their enemies to do all the good they can to them turbulent spirits seeke onely their own ends they care not what becomes of others so it bee that they may but warme themselves they care not what house bee on fire They are boysterous in things that concerne themselves But the Saints of God in whom this other spirit rules they are meeke and gentle and yeeldable in their owne cause ready to put up wrong in all quietnesse take them in things that onely concerne themselves and you shall find none so readily so freely so chearfully denying themselves as they And againe turbulent spirits doe not love to examine things by rule to call things to account but follow their owne fiery humour and set upon their own will with violence but godlinesse takes off men from this ruggednesse and turbulency of spirit makes them gentle and peaceable let them bee never so active never so forward never so zealous in any thing yet if you wil call them to examine things by rule they will meekly and patiently heare you yea a childe shall leade them Esay 11. 6. And yet further turbulēt they are not for none more obedient to authoritie than they none see that Majestie of God in Autority as they doe none obey Authority out of conscience so as they doe If the will of men in authority rather than authority shall require any thing that the authority of Heaven forbids that they do not because they cannot obey for conscience sake And so sacred do they account Authority that they would have no obedience performed to it but obedience for conscience sake Blind obediēce the Church of God hath long agoe exploded as too servile for Christian spirits this were more servile than selling mens bodies in the Market for slaves which Christianity abhors It were too uncharitable a conceit of Christian Magistrates to thinke that they should require of or expect from any other obedience than in and for the Lord and in this obedience those who are godly are so forward as they are judged turbulent for being over-forward to maintaine the honor of Authority as some think when according to their places they promote the execution of laws made by authority and that of those lawes which are of the highest consequence for the furtherance of Piety and Peace Againe factious spirits they are not because they seeke above all things to keep to the maintenance of obedience to the Primitive truth that is faction that sides against that Tertullian hath a notable expression in his Apology for the Christians against the Gentiles to cleare Gods people from being men of factious spirits it seemes that aspersion was cast upon them then which was about 1400 yeares agoe his expression was this When good men when honest men meet together when godly men are gathered together it is not to bee called a faction but a Court and on the contrary the name of faction sayes hee is to bee applyed to them who conspire to the hatred of good and honest men And thus much of the first branch of the Vse which was the reprehension of the vile cōceits that men had of this other spirit Now the second followes which is the rebuking of the men of the world for the ill use they give to men who are of such excellent spirits The excellencies of the spirits of the godly do challenge all the good use that can bee but it is little they meet withall they are for the most part abused by the men of this vile world as if they were the vilest scurfe and filth of the earth yea so indeed they account them so saith S. Paul 1. Cor. 4. 13. We are made as the filth of the world and are the off-scouring of all things unto this day Why what was S. Paul and what were those that were with him who was so accounted of were they not men of most excellent and admirable spirits S. Paul was one of the most excellent spirited men that ever lived upon the earth and did as much service for God as ever any meere man did since the beginning of the world and yet how vilie was he thought of how contemptibly was hee used put into stocks and whipped wanted cloathes and victuals And for the others that were with S. Paul they were men of whom the Holy Ghost gives this witnesse that they were the very glory of Jesus Christ 2 Cor. 8. 23. Oh unworthy world that ever they should have such men live amongst them Those who are the delight of Angels yea of God himselfe how are they abused in this wicked world as if they were dogges or the basest scumme and filth of the earth What scorne and contempt is cast upon them the most abject of men think themselves good enough to reproach and abuse them Were it not a grievous sight to see some base drudge to have power over the body of some noble Prince to abuse it by stripes or any other contumelious sordid manner but a more grievous thing it is to see the vile and base spirits of the world who are nothing but sinks of filth themselves to abuse men of such noble and excellent spirits as if they were more vile than dirt It was the bitter complaint of Ieremy Lament 4. 2. that the pretious sonnes of Sion comparable to fine gold were esteemed as earthen pitchers Such as blessed spirits would honour if they had them with them yet here they are cast out as filth What griefe sufficent to lament the seeing of such filthy swine to trample under their feet such pretious pearles in all ages thus it hath beene Those who were indeed the true honourable upon the earth such pretious and excellent spirited men as of whom the world was not worthy and yet they have beene most vilely abused and are so still by this wretched world
frame is compared to the setting of a member in joynt As Gal. 6. 1. If a man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spirituall restore such a one in the spirit of meeknesse the word signifies Put him into joynt againe And here you have had the discovery as of what this other spirit is so wherein the excellencie of this other spirit lies now then let us make Applicaon of all CAP. III. A discovery to the men of the world whereby they may see that their spirits are not like the spirits of godly men HEnce let the men of the world see there is a great difference between their spirits the spirits of the godly There are men indeed of excellent spirits God hath such in the world in whom he delights with whom he converses whom he employes in high and excellent services but you are of base sordid uncleane spirits the spirit of whoredome of lying stubbornnesse vanity folly is in you your spirits drossie sensuall froward malicious profane sleight empty unsavory unfaithfull perverse What delight can the Lord who is an infinite holy glorious Spirit take in such How farre are these from any communion with God No marvell though nothing of God or any spirituall thing bee savory to them Oh the corrupt principles that mens spirits are possessed with the corrupt rules they goe by and corrupt ends they have in what they doe the base imployments they put their spirits to the noisome distempers of them and base comforts they feed upon The heart of the wicked is little worth sayes the Scripture Pro. 10. 20. Perhaps your Lands your houses may be something worth but what are your hearts worth they are worth nothing full of chaffe and drosse like childrens pockets full of stones and dirt while the spirits of the godly are Store-houses of most choice and pretious treasures When Grace is gone from the soule the excellency is departed from it as it was said of Ruben his excellency was departed in respect of that sinne of his How many a man or woman who have faire comely bodies good complexion beautifully dressed up but within spirits most ugly and horrid spirits full of filth full of venome loathsome distempers spirits full of wounds and putrified sores breeding filthinesse continually nothing else but filth and corruption issuing out from them Men of corrupt mindes as the Apostle speakes How unsavory to any who have the least of God in them If the Lord should give men but a view of the horrid deformednesse and filthinesse of their spirits it would amaze them and sinke their hearts in wofull horrour they could not but abhorre themselves as loathsome creatures fit to be cast out from the Lord as an everlasting curse especially if together with the filth of their owne spirits they had a sight of the infinite brightnesse and glory of the holines of God who is an infinite pure glorious Spirit God abhorrs not any other filthinesse but the filth of spirits The Devills are abhorred of God because they are uncleane spirits There is no other object of Gods hatred but the corruption of spirits God made mans soule at first a most excellent creature the very glasse of his owne infinite wisedome and holinesse but now what an ugly base loathsome creature is it where it is not renewed If mens bodies were deformed and ranne with loathsome issues and putrified sores how dejected would they be in their owne thoughts But certainly this spirit-defilement is incomparably worse If mens bodies were so putrisied that they bred vermine continually as it is reported of Maximinus how grievous would it be to them Their spirits have these loathsome diseases upon them by which they are infinitely more miserable If they had such a distemper of body as their excrements came from them when they knew not of it this would be accounted a grievous evill but their spirits so corrupt that much filth comes from them and they know not of it Many are so deeply putrified in their spirits that they usually sweare and speak filthily and know not of it and think this a sufficient excuse that they did not thinke of it It is a rule in nature that the corruption of the best thing is alwayes the worst as a stain in fine Cambrick worse than in a courser cloth So by how much the spirit of a man is more excellent naturally than the body which is the brutish part by so much the corruption of the spirit is a greater evill than any the body is capable of The reason why the Devils are so vile and miserable now is because sinne seized upon natures which by Creation were most excellent When diseases seize on the naturall spirits in the body they are the most dangerous deadly Soul-diseases of al diseases are the greatest evils and usually prove deadly yea the least spirit-corruption would most certainly prove deadly were it not for the application of that blood that is more pretious than ten thousand worlds Spirit-defilement is such a defilement as defiles every thing you meddle with as Tit. 1. 15. To the impure all things are impure Of what use are men whose spirits are so vile many make no other use of their spirits but to be as the Philosopher said of the sensitive soul of the Swine it served for no other use but to be as salt to keepe the flesh from stinking How are many mens spirits employed about nothing else but to make provision for the flesh and the filthy lusts of it O that an immortall spirit capable of eternall communion with the blessed God and to be employed in such high and heavenly exercises as for which it was made should now come to be so farre degenerated and debased Especially how vile is this that men who in regard of estates and place are raised above others and be trusted with large and blessed opportunities of worthy services for God and the Church but they minde nothing but satisfying their lusts to have their sports let the cause of God Church or Common-wealth lie bleeding they regard not What a lamentable thing is it to have the weight of great businesses of consequence to depend upon such weak-spirited men who minde nothing but vanity and basenesse they have no worthy enterprize in their thoughts their spirits so effeminated that they will do or suffer any thing for the satisfying of their lusts Others there are who have remaining in them many excellent parts pretious naturall endowments but of what use are they but to enlarge their spirits to be capable of more wickednesse than the spirits of other men are wise to doe evill the fittest instruments for Sathans depths Who such enemies to Christ as the Scribes and Pharises men of the strongest parts Who such enemies to S. Paul when hee came to Athens as the Philosophers there and no Church was founded at Athens which was the place of the greatest learning in the world And thus it hath beene in
dignities yea grace is the only thing that blesseth them and advanceth them And you whose spirits God hath raised above others in the excellencies of your parts and many excellent endowments of learning you have who are men of larger understandings of higher apprehensions than others and can looke upon ordinary men as low and meane in respect of the difference between your parts and theirs Do you labour yet to raise your spirits higher by grace and godlinesse that as you differ from them in naturall excellencies so you may differ from them much more in spirituall and divine How eminent would you be in grace if those parts and abilities of learning you have were sanctified for God What blessed instruments might you be of glory to God of comfort and encouragement to his people but otherwise your parts and gifts are poisoned a sinfull wicked heart will poison all It may be said of many as it was of Pope Eugenius the second he was a man of great Learning and great Eloquence with a mixture of great hypocrisie If it may bee thus said of any He is a man indeed of excellent parts very learned of strong abilities but he hath a corrupt spirit he is a man of a corrupt minde surely these parts are all poisoned no marvell then though such men swell so much by reason of them Parts unsanctified doe exceedingly enlarge mens spirits to be so much the more capable of spirituall wickednesse more than others of meaner and lower parts can be your parts will aggravate all your sinnes and increase your damnation It is a lamentable thing that such excellent parts and abilities as many have which might be of so great use for God and his Church yet that they should vanish into froth It was the great complaint of one Robertus Gallus a famous man an opposer of the corruptions of those times in which he lived which was in the 13. Century He compared the Schoole-Doctors to one having bread and good wine hanging on both his sides yet notwithstanding he was gnawing hungerly on a flint-stone Thus they leaving the wholesome food in the Scriptures busied themselves with subtile questions wherein there was no edification or comfort to the soule thus their excellent parts did all vanish into nothing Now if it be so grievous a thing for parts and learning to be imployed about meane and unworthy things how much more grievous is it when they are employed against God Oh what great cause have we then to pray for these men whose spirits are raised by naturall parts and how great cause have they themselves to seeke God and to use all meanes that their spirits might bee likewise raised by grace that that great blessing of parts and learning might be blessed to them by Gods bestowing upon them this other spirit Oh consider what an opprobrious thing it is to you that God should have more feare honour service from men of lower farre meaner weaker abilities That their hearts should close more with the wayes of godlinesse That their hearts should be more enlarged towards God than yours That they should enjoy more heavenly spirituall communion with God than you yea such communion with God as you are altogether unacquainted withall And that at length their soules should be saved and for ever blessed when yours shall be cast out as filth and an everlasting abhorring from the presence of the Lord What a grievous thing will it be to you when it shall appeare that your parts shall serve for no other and than to enlarge your soules to be more capable of the wrath of God than other men for be you assured that none are so filled with Gods wrath as knowing men It was the grievous complaint of S. Austin in his time The unlearned sayes he rise up and take heaven by force and we with all our learning are thrust down into hell It is a speech well knowne to Scholers of how great use might it be if God did settle it upon their hearts And S. Bernard hath a speech somewhat to the like purpose Let the wise of the world sayes he who minde high things and yet feeding upon the earth let them with their wisdome goe downe into hell And Luther hath a notable story which may be very usefull for this purpose It is in his writings upon the fourth Commandement which he makes the third It is to shew how the holinesse of the spirits of meane and unlearned men shall confound great understanding learned men where there is not the like godlinesse In the time of the Councel of Constance he tells us There were two Cardinalls riding to the Councell and in their journey they saw a shepherd in the field weeping one of them pitying him sayes that he could not passe by but he must needs go to yonder man and comfort him and comming neare to him hee asked him why he wept he was loath to tell him at first but being urged he told him saying I looking upon this Toad considered that I had never praised God as I ought for making mee such an excellent creature as a man comely and reasonable I have not blessed him that hee made not me such a deformed Toad as this When the Cardinall heard this hee was struck with it considering that hee had received greater mercies than this poore man and he was so struck as hee fell downe presently dead from his Mule his servants lifting him up and bringing him to the Citie hee came to life againe and then cried out Oh Saint Austine how truely didst thou say The unlearned rise and they take heaven and we with all our learning wallow in flesh and bloud You therefore whom God hath honoured with excellent parts that you may not be thus confounded another day before the Lord and his blessed Angels and Saints bee you restlesse in your spirits till you finde God hath added a further beautie to them even the beautie of holinesse the sanctifying graces of his Holy Spirit that may make you lovely in his eyes truely honourable before him and for ever blessed of him Take heed you rest not either in gifts of learning or in gifts of moralitie the gifts of moralitie are yet a further ornament to mens spirits but yet they come short of those divine excellencies of spirit that will make it blessed for ever Wee reade of many who were very eminent in morall excellencies and yet altogether strangers from the life of grace As for example Iosephus lib. 15. c. 8. reports of Herod the King that which would make one thinke hee was raised to very high morall excellencies once making a speech to his Army amongst other passages he hath this Perhaps some men will say that right and equitie is on our side but that the greater number of men and meanes are with the other but this their speech is unworthy of my followers for with those with whom justice is with those also God is and where God is
God saith David maketh my way perfect the word is He frees my way Solvit so it is translated by some Hee frees it from snares and this is a great mercy Hence Psalme 18. 32. Where this thanksgiving of David is againe repeated there the word is translated Dedit Hee hath given my way to be perfect this is a good gift indeed for God to make a mans wayes free and cleare before him to take off the temptations that did ingage and insnare his spirit and then as Verse 34. of that place in Samuel He maketh my feet as Hindes feet O how swiftly and powerfully then may the soule runne in Gods wayes when it is thus freed Psalm 119. 44 45. I shall keep thy Law continually for ever and ever and I will walke at liberty When the heart is at liberty then it goes on continually for ever and ever in following after the Lord but if there be any secret ingagement in it it will be weary and one time or other will leave off a man that is fettered can neither go apace nor continue long A fourth thing that hinders men in following God fully it is going out in the strength of their owne resolutions not in any strength that they receive out of the fulnesse of Jesus Christ they trust more to their owne promises than to Gods Luther reports of Staupicius a Germane Divine that hee acknowledged of himselfe that before he came to understand aright the free and powerful grace of Jesus Christ that he vowed resolved an hundred times against some particular sin and never could get power over it at last he saw the reason to be the trusting to his own resolutions A fift cause is the meeting with more difficulties in Gods ways than wee made account of when Christians thinke onely of the good and sweet that they shall meet with in Gods wayes but they doe not cast in their thoughts what the troubles are like to bee that they shall finde in them like Ioseph who dreamed of his preferment and honour that hee should have above his brethren but dreamt not of his selling into Egypt nor of his imprisonment there Christians should at the first entrance into Gods wayes expect the utmost difficulties they should enter upon those termes to incounter with great troubles if they meane to sollow God fully in them It is a shame for any Christian to account any trouble that he meets withall in Gods wayes to be as a strange thing unto him Because the Lord had takē S. Paul as a chosen vessell unto himselfe and purposed to draw his heart fully after him observe how God deales with him in his first entrance into his way Acts 19. 16. I will shew him how great things hee must suffer for my Names sake But what then would take off the heart and carry it fully after the Lord These three things will doe it First the reall sight and thorow sense of sinne as the greatest evill Whē God leads his people weeping and with supplications then hee brings them into a straight way wherein they shall not stumble Ier. 31. 9. and againe Ier. 50. 4 5. the Lord saith that his people shall goe weeping and seeke the Lord their God they shal aske the way to Zion with their faces thither-ward saying Come let us joyne our selves to the Lord in a perpetuall Covenant that shall not be forgotten When they are led weeping in the thorow sense of their sinne then their faces are set toward Zion and then they are willing to joyne themselves to God in a perpetuall Covenant The second thing that will take off the heart fully is the cleare sight of God in these two considerations 1. In relation to our selves to see how there is all good in him for us to enjoy fully though wee have nothing but him alone what ever wee would have in any creature in any way so farre as is good for us it is to bee had in him when the soule is thorowly convinced of this it comes off sweetly and flowes fully after the Lord. 2. Consider God in relation to all other good thus that nothing else hath any true goodnesse in it but in reference and subordination to him The third thing that will take off the heart fully is the feare of God and the feare of eternity powerfully falling upon the soule and deeply taking impression in it For the feare of God take that place 2 Cor. 2. 1. Perfect your holinesse in the feare of God The feare of God is a great means to bring your holinesse to perfection and for the second that place in Phil. 2. 12. Worke out your salvation with feare and trembling The feare of the eternall salvation of the soule of the infinite consequence of it will cause us to labour to work it out CAP. VI. That it is the choicenesse of a mans spirit that causes him to follow GOD fully FRom the reference that this following of God fully hath to the excellency of Calebs spirit The Doctrine that ariseth is this That it is the choicenesse and excellency of a mans spirit that causeth him to follow God fully As Comets that are called blazing stars do soone vanish because of the basenes of the matter out of which they are but Starres in the Firmament continue because they are of an heavenly substance so there are many blazing Professors of Religion who rise high for a while but at last they come to nothing because their spirits are base and vile but those who have heavenly and choice spirits they god on in their way finish their course to the honour of God and his truth Pro. 11. 5. The righteousnesse of the perfect shall direct his way but the wicked shall fall Ezec. 36. 26 27. A new heart will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you c. And after it followes And cause you to walke in my Statutes and yee shall keepe my Iudgements and doe them This new spirit will cause a man to walk in Gods Statutes a man of such a spirit shall certainly keepe his judgements and do them even to the end It is not strength of parts that will carry a man thorow nor strength of Argument nor strength of conviction nor strength of naturall conscience nor strength of resolution nor strength of common grace it is onely this choice excellent spirit that other spirit of which wee have spoke so much before In this point I shall follow these three things 1 Wee shall shew what there is in this spirit that doth carry on a man fully 2 Why onely this can doe it 3 Apply it For the first it is the choicenesse of a mans spirit that causeth a man to goe fully after God for 1 By this a man comes to have a more full presence of God with him than any other man can have such a man is nearer unto God than others hee hath more of the nature of