powers Kings themselves are twice called by this very word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Ministers of God Rom. 13. The Angels are called Ministring Spirits yet are still Principalities and Powers Thrones and Dominions Nay our Lord himself whilst he was yet on Earth in the form of a Servant is called by this word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Minister of the Circumcision for the truth of God This must teach those in this high place humility and diligence but others it must teach obedience and thankfulness to esteem them highly for their works sake to obey them that have the rule over you and submit your selves because they watch for your Souls as they that must give an account He that desires the Office of a Bishop desires a good work saith St. Paul Good indeed and a work indeed To govern and guide so many flocks and their Pastors with zeal to God and Charity to Man with unwearied patience and humility without corruption or partiality through favour or fear of high or low small or great poor or rich to govern and teach wisely and diligently to look so carefully to ordination that all the truth and none but the truth be constantly preached and the service of God be constantly performed with all reverence free from prophaness with all purity free from superstition That the Sacraments and discipline of the Church be administred in their power and beauty all this is a work indeed as full of labour and care as of honour Even the lower Administrations those of Presbyters and Deacons have not they their work too They have sure in their several places enough to spend their time and Spirits wholly in if they do their duty The Presbyter hath a great share of all The Bishops work is in a great part committed to him and would the People make that use of Gods Ministers which their Eternal Rest and Salvation requires it would quickly be found that preaching were not half of the Ministers work and care And yet Preaching is no small work To instruct clearly in all the Mysteries of Faith to exhort earnestly and affectionately to all the duties of life and practice to convince so many numerous errors as daily arise to rebuke and reprove so many sins and sinful Persons without fear of the great or the many to comfort the feeble minded to humble the haughty to stir up the slothful and temper the furious to uphold the falling and relieve the wavering and reduce the wandering to stop the mouths of so many and subtil gainsayers from the Atheist to the Schismatick from the Prophane to the Superstitious to clear those Obscurities to answer those difficulties remove those scandals which so many Men in weakness or wilfulness are subject to and to second all this with a life unblameable this certainly is a work of great variety study and pains and yet a work so necessary it is that better for us we had no gifts nor Ministry at all than not to perform it and the more it behoves the rest of the World not to hinder not to discourage not sacrilegiously to rob not to perplex us in this our work but to strive to make it as comfortable to us and as fruitful to your selves as you can seeing the end of these Ministeries these services these works the end of all our labour is to bring you to endless Rest All our abilities all our gifts are from the same Spirit all our works are wrought by the same Lord who worketh all in all that is well wrought both in him that writes and him that reads both in him that speaks and him that hears in him that is governed and in him that governs if this be so let us banish all pride If our gifts and places and works be never so high never so many Envy if our gifts and places seem never so few and low for what are the highest amongst us but the instruments and servants of this supreme donor and mover receiving all from him accountable for all to him And how can the lowest and meanest murmur or object any thing against it since they that have the lowest and meanest have it a gift and could not challenge it as due but have it by the wise disposal of that Lord whose wisdom knoweth what is fittest for each and whose goodness bestows that which is most fit and the meaner or less gifts and places any one hath the more easily is both his work and his account Away then with haughty Pride or mutinous Envy Let not one say with repining regret I am slow in apprehension weak in memory shallow in judgment whilst others are quick tenacious and solid I have neither wealth to buy voluminous Authors nor arts nor parts as others have to dive into those difficulties and obscurities and gain a clear solution of them as others have Nor let others say in haughty contempt of their inferiors or meaner Brethren how mean are such and such compared with me in graces and places I can lead my amazed Auditors whither I will with my eloquent Tongue whilst others freez in their Pulpits and tire their Auditors into wearisomness and drowsiness But let the one and the other say These are gifts freely bestowed where it pleaseth the giver and who shall say unto him what doest thou with thy own He owes nothing to any who can demand any thing of him as his due He is the supreme Wisdom who shall direct him in his Counsel where and how to dispose and bestow his gifts The supreme Lord who shall command him where and how to dispose and order his Administrations He is the only Almighty God who shall accuse his work of weakness or defect Let the lowest and meanest remember to say Though God hath denied me this or that which others have yet hath he given me something which others want He hath not given me an high place but he hath given me that retirement and safety of which those that are in high places are bereaved He hath denied me promotion but given me that health which they that are preferred before me would willingly purchase On the other side let those that have highest gifts and places say to themselves Why should we boast of our Lords bounty and not rather tremble to think of ascribing that to our selves which is his free gift and dispensation least he take it away when he sees it abused or if he continue it condemn us the heavier for being unthankful Since it is thus ordered by the wise disposer of all things let one and the other remember that all are the Spirits Almsmen in their gifts The Lord's Ministers in their Offices Gods Workmen in their works and thus when every one shall be contented with his Talent each one shall find peace and quiet and Rest within him here and be qualified for eternal Rest hereafter The World hath many pretenders to this Rest and those so contrary one to another that their very pretences to
faith and the merits and intercession of Christ Jesus receives and imbraces with peace and joy by that Rest from the power disorder and tyranny of Sin which faith procuring Gods Spirit and looking upon the certainty and weight of his promises and threats the beauty and excellency of his precepts together with the great obligation of God's mercy in sending his Son to die for our sins and rise again for our justification effects and enjoys Thus believers if such believers as rely on the promises of God's Rest with faithful resolutions and endeavours to perform its conditions do enter into it initially and shall enter into it eternally But how proves the Apostle this the proof of it is in these words He said I have sworn in my wrath that they shall not enter my Rest who shew themselves obstinately unbelieving and disobedient The Argument is taken à contrario from the nature of contrary things If infidelity and disobedience be that alone which excludes from the promise of God's Rest then faith and obedience or such a faith as produceth obedience is that which entitles us to enter into it for God's promise cannot be satisfied nor wholly norutterly disappointed or made to become of none effect And therefore though they who would not believe it nor keep its conditions fell short of it yet they who believe and perform its conconditions must enter into it Yea his very wrath and oath against the one for their unbelief and disobedience implies and inferrs his complacency and love towards the other his undefeasible decree and oath that they persevering in faith and obedience shall enter and fully enjoy his Rest And this Rest was not the Rest of Canaan For if Joshua or Jesus the Son of Nun had given them Rest then would not David afterwards have spoken of another Rest from whence the Apostle inferrs what he began with there Remains therefore a Rest to the People of God another manner of Rest than that of Canaan eternal and perfect with God in Heaven to which the true Joshua or Jesus the Son of God must give us entrance by faith in him of whom Joshua the Son of Nun was but an imperfect transitory Type as that Rest of Canaan and of the Sabboth was of the perfect eternal Rest which still remains for Gods People the whole Church of true persevering obedient believers From what the Apostle hath said we may make this observation That Man hath no true and perfect Rest in ought but God His Rest is Mans Rest because he is the Rest and happiness of Man the ultimate compleate satisfactory object of reasonable creatures To Rest in any thing but in him as our happiness without dependance on him as the Author and reference to him as the end thereof is sinful vanity and vexation sure to end in eternal trouble without repentance Canaan it self was not to be the final Rest and happiness of the Israelites nor must any thing in this World any thing less than God be ours What God hath said to the Jews of old he much more clearly hath said and proved to us Christians Arise and depart for this is not your Resting place The Heavenly Rest and eternal life of seeing God as he is was but obscurely and imperfectly revealed to them who lived before or under the law till Christ came in whom the promise of it was made when man had lost all hope of it It was till then wrapt up as it were in the seed and bloome of Types and Prophesies implied and intimated in the Sabboth and Canaan and Temporal blessings attending Piety in this life rather than manifested and brought to light in its clearest evidences and strongest assurances as now our Lord Jesus hath done who hath brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel and therefore if they were obliged only in God through Christ Jesus to place their happiness in nothing below but to look on him through the vaile of Types and Temporal blessings how much more are we obliged as well as enabled to do so to whom Christ hath been exhibited with all the fulness of Truth and grace revealing the whole counsel of God our Rest in him and the way to attain it without obscurity and beyond dispute If David foresaw and foretold this Rest to be remaining when he not only enjoy'd Canaan and its blessings as the other Israelites did but the very height thereof as a prosperous King If he could say Deliver me O Lord from the Men of this World whose portion is in this life I am a stranger and sojourner here as all my Fathers were How much more are we obliged to think and say so who have not such Types and Temporal blessings to vaile the Object of our Rest and interrupt our sight of it to whom the Son and Lord of David hath been exhibited exemplifying and teaching us our only Rest to be in God the Father through him the Son by his holy Spirit dying to purchase an entrance to it rising and ascending and sitting down in a Glorious Rest at Gods Right Hand to assure us of it It is no less than the sin of Idolatry to place our Rest confidence or happiness in pleasures or honours possessions or riches or any thing else that this World can gratifie us with it is the bitter spring or Root of all sins It contradicts the design of God in giving us any Temporal blessings he gave them to help us unto him that reflecting upon him as their Author and end we might be perswaded to love him incomparably above all if we fall in love with them instead of raising our love to him we quite pervert the intent of his favours and turn them into hinderances to his dishonour and our own ruine He gave them to comfort us in our journy and shall we so mistake his meaning as to set up our dwelling in the Inn and Travaile no farther towards our Country but forget the giver because of that gift which was sent us on purpose to mind us of him This were to bring that curse on our selves which the Prophet foretold rather than prayed might fall on Gods enemies Let their Table be made a snare and that which should have been for their wealth be an occasion of falling to them This were indeed to provoke God either to withdraw those favours which thus he sees rested in instead of him or else to embitter and curse them from yeilding any content and if he should suffer us still to rest in them to his dishonour 't would prove the greatest surest curse of all others to live and die in this false deceitful transitory Rest which leads to and ends in eternal trouble and sorrow of body and soul That which is Mans true Rest must be able to give him full and perpetual satisfaction But all things below do neither satisfie us while we have them nor can continue with us longer to yield us that Rest or Pleasure which we fancy We
ornament of a quiet Spirit very pretious in Gods sight and therefore ought to be so in ours I appeal to the reason and experience of any Man whether it be not rest and ease to forgive an injury rather than be provoked to revenge and to lay aside the consideration of other Mens malice envy and peevishness rather than imitate it and suffer the vexing remembrance of it to boil and ferment in our watchful minds until it hath conquered and transform'd us into the same troublesom evil Is it not Peace and a blessed Rest to sit still and lift up no hands but those of Charity and Charitable prayer rather than labour in fighting and wounding one another To hold ones peace than to rail and revile Which hath more Rest in it to study to be quiet and do ones own business or to be prying and intermedling with other Mens office faults or secrets To speak evil of no Man or to be always finding fault and speaking the worst we can of any who differ from us in any respect Which is the greatest trouble and burthen meekly to obey our Lawfull Governours in Church and State where God hath not commanded the contrary or be allways disputing against a few harmless indifferent ceremonies untill we have quarre'ld our selves and others into a causeless scandalous pernitious separation Then for humble contented patience that precept of the Old Testament but wisdom and mystery of the New Thou shalt not covet but be content patiently with thy own portion what is it but a Rest rather than burthen a purchase or priviledge rather than duty when once learnt Let the Carnal or Worldly Man with his bored tub of insatiable desires cry as the Horseleach give give and seek after wealth as he should after God without bounds Yet the Heathen Philosopher could resolve it the only way to true Rest not to seek to raise our fortunes to our desires but to bring down our desires to our fortunes and present condition The one is not onely uncertain because not in any Mans power but impossible because his desires increase with his purchases as fire with fewel whereas the other is possible and certain Contentment and patience glorifies God by placing its wealth in his favours who having promised him necessaries here and a Kingdom hereafter hath taught and obliged him to be contented with any fare upon the way because he sees his being so confirms and increaseth his future happiness Nullo egere Dei est quà m paucissimis Deo proximum As for sobriety temperance chastity reason secondded by experience assures any Man that to drink to the quenching of ones thirst or at most to the moderate cheering one Spirits to eat to the satisfying ones hunger or at most to the gratifying of festival joy hospitality friendship and thankful delight in what God hath bountifully given is all the good that is to be had from Meat and Drink that 't is a trouble as well as a sin to swill as if one were in a Feaver or till one brings himself to a Feaver or Dropsy to Eat and Drink till reason is drowned smothered and buried under the load and till the Phantastick forced pleasure of two or three mispent hours end in the pain of head and stomach for whole days after if not in some villainous lust or passion and bloudy quarrel in sickness and death both of Soul and Body The conscience finds all trouble in it and the Body it self for gratifying of which God and Conscience was despised find no Rest within some hours And what comparison between the rest safety health and honour of either virginal or conjugal chastity which keeps the desires of the flesh under the power of reason and faith lives in the hope of seeing God preserves the bond of love in Families inviolated and the unclean shameful excesses of wandring lust which are conceived with fear and anxiety brought forth and finisht with shame and sorrow begin in disorder of Soul and Body end in loathing begin in trouble end in worse burn at first and consume at last the peace of the mind if not the health of the Body also besides the confusions tumults quarrels it breeds in Families and all for the sneaking brutish delight of a few minutes There is indeed one grace which seems to have little Rest in it The suffering persecutions to death rather than disown the Truth or violate duty But God hath made so many promises to mitigate and temper all temptations to the strength which we either now have or shall receive upon our prayers of his turning to good whatsoever seems most evil And of his rewarding our courage and patience with so much the greater weight of glory that these promises being believed we are enabled as well as obliged not only to be contented but joyful also in tribulations for truth and righteousness sake and therefore no wonder if suffering miseries for the honour of God and our Lord Jesus for the furtherance of our own salvation and other Mens hath more rest than trouble in it without this Rest a flow of all other good things which this world can give will leave a Man but a miserable wearied Traveller under a heavy load and burthen of discontents and sorrows and with this Rest all labour and sorrow is inconsistent and though we may not expect to have this promised eternal Rest endless felicity as our deserved wages yet we may and ought to hope for it as our promised reward Angels and Saints departed this life they have it allready the Devils and damned are past all Hope Great pains and labour do the Men of this World take but not in order to this Rest and therefore a Multitude of mistaken sinners lay out the chief of their days and time in pursuance of pleasures and honours and profits of this World as if Heaven and Salvation were easy atchievments as if they might with a wish only at the last come to die the death of the righteous who had so notoriously lived the life of the wicked 'T is not only the doing of evil but the not doing of good which shall be punished at the last day the judge shall then condemn for not feedings for not clothing Go ye cursed into everlasting fire for I was hungry and ye fed me not for I was naked and ye clothed me not Not doing of good is none of the least evils He that sits still and moves not one step towards this Rest by wearing Christs Yoak and bearing his burthen shall lose Heaven as infallibly as he that runs from it who so hides his Talent shall receive no other wages save that of the slothful Servant The way to Heaven is narrow the Gate straight it must be striving that gives us entrance not only the hopes of Heaven but the escaping of Hell makes it our duty to be doing of good and by so doing we express our fear lest a promise of Rest being left any of us should seem
to fall short of it So run that ye may obtain is the command and all precepts of Scripture are back'd with threats for ill or not doing as well as promises for doing well and are intended by God as so many arguments and strong motives to hold us to our duty do we our part and God will certainly do his and we cannot lose the reward of Well done good and faithful Servant enter into thy Master's joy The last judicial sentence of Christ of which we read Matt. 25. Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the World is an invitation of so much mercy and loveing kindness that none can give nor can any expect or require more What can the eloquence of Man add to it or what better assurance can be desired than the gratious promise of so powerful so faithful a Lord Or what greater reward can any hope to receive than that which the Author and dispenser of all good assures us by letting us know what ever we do to the poor and needy he will interpret it as done to himself and so reward our labour of love as to Crown it with eternal Rest an inheritance of that Kingdom and all its joys as well as honours which fade not away But we must not understand this award of eternal life this glorious inheritance to be the reward of the righteous for the merit of their good works as everlasting fire is to the wicked for their demerits what ever the Romish Church pretends to from those words of our Saviour in the forenamed 25th of St. Matt. The particle for say they is as truly causal by way of merit and efficiency in the one as in the other the form of Speech in both sentences the same Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire For I was hungry and ye gave me no meat Come ye blessed inherit the Kingdom for I was hungry and ye fed me In answer to this 't is clear enough that though the particle for be granted to signifie causality in both sentences yet need it not signifie the same kind or degree of causality in both and if it need not then it must not unless they resolve to contradict many other plain Scriptures rather than depart from their own vain and proud conceit of meriting Heaven in strict justice For first The word or particle for may signifie only the cause of our or others knowledge that the Kingdom of Heaven is their inheritance by true title of gracious promise or the Covenant of grace and mercy in Christ Jesus which accepts and rewards repentance and faith working by love whereof these works of Charity are the fruits and signs For every Authentick Declaration or Revelation of any truth before unknown is the true cause of our knowledge of it though not of the real truth which is so known Now among such as profess Christ and call him Lord 't is hidden to us who are the true heirs of the Heavenly Kingdom and who not untill at the day of final judgment when all Men shall be judged by their works The first infallible certain knowledge which shall be had of this difference is from the declarative sentence of that infallible righteous Judge who hath declared he will proceed with one and the other according to their several works when all must appear before the Judgment seat of Christ that every one may receive the things done in the Body according to that he hath done whether it be good or bad 2 Cor. 5.10 The ones performance of good works declared and testified by the Judge shall be the true cause by which Men and Angels shall know them to be the heirs of that Heavenly Kingdom which here they sought and longed after with faithful desires and endeavours such as prepared and fitted themselves for it The others omission of good works testified by the same Judge shall be the true cause by which we shall know them to be utterly unworthy of Gods everlasting favour and mercy most worthy of death eternal We shall then truly know that the one are Crowned as saith St. Cyprian according to Gods grace which graciously accepts of faithful sincerity in stead of strict legal perfection and that the other are condemned according to justice because they neither fulfilled the law nor embraced the Gospel upon its gracious terms and conditions That the ones omission of good works and commission of evil ones is the true meritorious cause of their condemnation And that the others performance of good works at least in faithful resolution and that hearty inward faith hope and love which would have produced them if time and space had been granted is the testimony or declaration that they are the Sons of God heirs of everlasting life though not the meritorious cause of their Salvation and life eternal We commonly come to know the cause by the effect and therefore this word for may and doth often point out not the cause of the thing it self but the effect and our knowledge of the cause by it That 's the Major 't is commonly said for the Mace is borne before him Let no Man think that the bearing of the Mace before him is the cause of his being Major his lawful Election was the cause of his Majoralty and his Majoralty the cause of the Mace being carried or borne before him but the bearing the Mace before him is the true cause of many Mens knowing him to be the Major And this answer to the question may serve with greater probability than ought our adversaries bring for themselves But with more clearness and evidence of reason agreeing with the Analogy of Faith and the current of Scripture I answer That the particle for implys a causality in both the sentences but in one that of the wicked the strict meritorious sole cause of their condemnation whereas in the Godly and Charitable Persons the heirs of Heaven the for implys such a causal influence as that which they call conditio or causa sine quâ non good works or that faith working by love of God and Man whence they spring and the necessary conditions without which no Man shall inherit the Kingdom yea the necessary qualifications without which he hath not only no worthiness but no capacity no fitness to prepare himself for that Kingdom whose happiness is to see God with mutual complacency And no Man can so see the holy merciful gracious God the God of Love and Father of Mercies the faithful righteous unchangeable fountain of all that is pure loving or lovely unless he be like him and bear the Image of those his perfections though imperfectly as to degrees yet impartially and sincerely as the transcript and resemblance of that Wisdom which comes from above first pure then peaceable Unless his religion be that undefiled one before God which visits the Fatherless and the Widow in affliction and keeps himself vnspotted from the World These and the like graces
with their fruits if time be granted to bring them forth are not only described and required clearly and frequently in holy Scripture as the necessary conditions without which no Man shall but as the necessary qualifications without which no Man can see the Lord with holy eternal love and joy And therefore no doubt the for hath a rational inference in it as to the acceptance and reward of the godly and righteous person Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you for I was hungry and ye fed me c. For ye have perform'd the conditions which I in my Gospel or gracious covenant required of you with promise to accept and reward them for ye are qualified with those graces and holy dispositions which are my own Image and likeness the impress of my holy Spirit which renders you capable of enjoying me and my Father with endless delight which makes you though not in strict justice worthy of my Heavenly Kingdom yet in my gracious mercy and bounty and through my merits not utterly unworthy that is not wholly unmeet to inherit it for these all have confest and forsaken their evil ways fled with penitent believing hearts to that propitiation which God had set forth in his only Son through faith in his blood By doing so they have received that holy Spirit by whose direction and assistance they have mortified the flesh with its lusts and affections conquered the World with its temptatations resisted the Devil and quenched the fiery darts of the wicked fought the good fight of faith till they finished their course and though the remainders of sin and the flesh abide lusting and strugling against the Spirit yet no sin hath reigned over them and the very remainders of sin they have bewailed watcht over and resisted betaking themselves to Christs intercession for their pardon therefore they are heirs of the Kingdom through the merits of Christ imparted to them whereby they are entituled to it as the meritorious cause on his part whereby they have an actual plea title and interest in Christs merit as the condition and qualification on their part And thus the Kingdom and eternal Rest is theirs though not by right of justice or merit but by right of gracious promise And may not all this be thought sufficient to justifie the truth of the for or causal particle unless it be granted that it signifie meritoriously in strict justice on their part as strictly and fully as in the other Depart ye cursed for ye did no good works but many ill ones without repentance and reformation without faith and love to me The goodness and justice of Gods Majesty will not suffer him to sentence any Man to any punishment much less to eternal intolerable sorrow and pain unless it hath been strictly and fully deserved or demerited But the goodness and bounty and mercy of God may without wrong to any perfection or attribute of his accept and reward any Man that is not utterly incapable of it but in some sincere degree qualified for it with such an abundant measure of happiness as he thinks fit although no ways merited by him The Lord Jesus hath satisfied his Fathers justice and honour in his Government and holy Laws and made it a righteous thing with him to save the penitent sinner upon condition of reformation and holy obedience They that are saved have performed these conditions and therefore they are admitted with a for Come ye blessed c. For I was hungry If a gracious Prince of his own free goodness proclaim a general merciful pardon to all Rebels Traytors and Theeves provided they will by such a day acknowledge their fault and profess and resolve to do so no more and make their peace with their Neighbours whom they have wronged Suppose all accept the pardon in outward shew but some of them secretly practice the same wickedness against their Sovereign and their Neighbours when as the others perform faithfully the conditions of their pardon If at the General Assizes the Judge upon notice of their demeanours should say to the one I restore you to your former condition state and dignity for or because since your pardon proclaimed ye have so demeaned your selves as penitent loyal faithful Subjects And to the other You I condemn to death and torments for or because ye have abused your Sovereigns clemency No Man of sober reason or common sence I think can deny that either the condemnation of the one were entirely to be ascribed to their own willful choise and vile misdemeanours as due in justice to their demerits or that the restoring or saving the other were to be attributed not to the merit of their demeanour but to the Kings gracious mercy and bountiful favour Their good demeanour could be at most but the necessary condition or qualification of their pardon or restoration without which it could not consist with the wisdom or honour of the Prince his Laws or Government so to use them with which it might well consist with his wisdom and honour so to do and that with advantage to the glory of his mercy without disparagement to his Justice especially in case his Justice and honour had been satisfied for their former misdemeanours by the merits and intercession of the Prince his Royal Son Now just so it is in this case of which we now speak They whom our Lord calls here to eternal life and that with a for For ye have fed clothed lodged me are so far from this proud conceit of Romish merit by their works that they are ready to disclaim them as nothing worthy of such acceptance ready to blame their sluggish backwardness Lord say they when saw we thee hungry thirsty naked or a stranger or prisoner and relieved thee Nor is it amiss what is observed and acknowledg'd by Jansenius though a Romanist and too far engaged in this error what Saint Chrisostom had long since observed before him that our Saviour saith to those on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father but to those on his left hand he saith only depart ye cursed but adds not Of my Father implying that God the Father is the Author and gracious donor of life everlasting but every Man that doth wickedly and dies in his wickedness without repentance is the only Author and cause of his own accursed estate The one are blessed freely and mercifully by God the Father for his Son Christs sake in whom alone he is well pleased with all that come by him with such a faith as works by love But the other are accursed most justly because they sought not or refused when it was offer'd them that grace and mercy which would have blessed them first with grace to do good works then with glory a superabundant weight of glory for doing them And this is consonant to that of St. Paul Rom. 6. v. the last For the wages of sin is death but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or gift
no true Rest to be expected But our pretenders to the Spirit who call the Scriptures a dead letter boast of new inspirations and endanger greatly the bringing in confusion amongst Men and disturbances into States and Kingdoms the Governours whereof having no other authority than what is either founded or agreeable to the word or will of God it will still be in the power of each pretender to deliver Oracles out of his own breast as the immediate dictates of Gods Spirit quite contrary to the safety and interest of that Government which any where is or may be established And so the peace of Kingdoms must be as uncertain and changeable as the phansies of Men and the Laws as alterable as Testaments are while the Testator lives every illuminate breast pretending to come like Moses from God in Sinai with new Tables of divine Commandements which must abolish and exclude the old but it is our great comfort blessed be God that the publick Doctrine established in the Church of England is at this day such that it is not chargeable with any one thing contrary to any part of that duty which a Christian owes either to God or Man Let these pretenders consider what the Apostle saith 1 Cor. 12.7 The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every Man to profit withal As if he should have said let no Man pretend to the Spirit for any other end or purpose save for what it was given and that was not to procure himself glory not to separate from his Brethren not to pride and puff up himself by despising and scorning others but to advance the glory of God and promote his own and others salvation If what thou hast or pretends to have be given the honour is the givers and the receiver must give an account how he hath used what he hath received Now in order to the procuring this eternal Rest there are indeed in the Church several gifts in several men different Offices and divers operations which look at first as if they proceeded from several principles and tended to division but as all this variety tends to unity so all indeed proceeds from unity Unity in Trinity one and the same God truly distinguisht into three Persons but always united into the same God-head But what Rest may those Men expect who dig at the foundation of our Religion and stick not to deny that blessed Trinity into whose worship and in whose name we are Baptized The name of the Father the Son and Holy Ghost To which three Sacred Persons we so often say Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost These are the Three which said to each other when they made Man Gen. 1. Let us make Man after our Image in our likeness These are they which manifested themselves at our Lords Baptisme joyning again to renue that Image in which we were made The Father in the voice the Son owned by that voice the Spirit in the Dove abiding on him These are that Holy Holy Holy to whom the Seraphims in Isaiah under the old Testament gave all glory These are they to whom the Angels and Saints in Heaven sing that Anthem of praise in the Revelations This is the sum of Christian Religion and that which brings Rest and peace eternal to all that well understand and receive it And therefore the Council of Nice ordained that the Literae formatae or Commendatory Letters which were the solemn warrants of entertainment and hospitality between Christians should be subscrib'd by these Letters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 denoting the Trinity and their faith who carried those Letters There are three saith St. John that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Spirit and these three are one and the same God blessed for ever One Essence according to what our Lord hath said I and the Father are one Thus to believe highly concerns us all because of all errors none so pernicious none so intolerable as those which concern the first fountain whence all things flow and the last end to which all things tend Derive all from the blessed Trinity ascribe and refer the glory of all to the blessed Trinity and then we shall come to enjoy him in blessed rest and happiness whom we thus believe adore and honour St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 12.8 That there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit differencies of administrations but the same Lord diversities of operations but it is the same God that worketh all in all This should stand as a great argument of Unity and Charity amongst our selves Humility and Thankfulness to God who hath made us partakers in several measures and degrees of these gifts these administrations these operations that though our gifts and places and works are very different and unequal yet they come all from the same Spirit Lord and God who wisely governs and orders all things by his Council here below The Apostle tells us v. 8. To one is given the word of wisdom a special ability of understanding To another the word of knowledge to interpret the mystical senses and veiled meanings of holy Scripture To another Faith or a firm belief to work all miracles To another the gift of healing a peculiar power to cure diseases without the help of Physick To another the working of Miracles such as was the delivering Hymineus and Philetus to be afflicted by Satan the striking Elymas blind and Ananias and Saphira dead To another diverse kinds of Tongues the gift of speaking several and strange Languages which he was never taught And all this worketh that one and the same Spirit who divides his several gifts to several Men according to his good pleasure Other Scriptures tell us the same as that of St. Matt. 25.15 The Master of the house gave to one Servant five Talents to another two to another one to every one according to his several ability He gives such and so much as he sees every Man is fit to make use of to Gods glory and the Common good Thus God will shew himself both a free donor and a wise disposer of all things For if one Man should have all abilities and others few or none of any worth the World might seem to be guided either by blind fortune or fatal necessity but now that Men have their several Offices and their several abilities by which they are each fitted for anothers service and all for the beauty and benefit of the whole frame the hand of divine providence appears in the disposing of them God would have Men take notice of their gifts and of their defects that by the one they may learn humility and by the other thankfulness For if any one had all parts he would be too proud of his perfections and begin to think he needed not the supply of Gods farther favours who had so much of his own already Again if any Man were destitute of all Gods gifts and mercies he would want
matter to bless God for But now that God hath given to Men a measure of good things and hath temper'd their gifts with many defects they may easily see they are both indebted to God for all they have and depending on God for all they want And so this dividing Gods gifts should teach us to think humbly of our Selves and thankfully of God and to set up our Rest in those gifts and graces which his bounty hath so freely conferred upon us Not inwardly to repine and envy nor outwardly to disturb and pervert that order which God hath made but to let God alone with his wise and gracious dealing with us and to rest satisfied with our own portion and to prize and esteem the gifts of others acknowledging their due worth and value where ever we find them for if the holy Spirit of God divide his gifts as he will and his will is always gracious and wise then either to deny or envy or debase them is no better than to thwart God in one especial work of his wisdom and goodness Some Men indeed would have greater gifts and most Men would have greater callings and places in the Church and State all secretly grudging against God and envying one another and if it were not the mercy of God to over rule such secret swellings they would burst out to the overthrow of peace and order and would prove no less destructive to our temporal quiet and Rest here than to our eternal Rest hereafter 'T was good Counsel which Joseph gave to his Brethren when they were returning with their Sacks of Corn to their Father in Canaan See ye fall not out by the way We are all Travellers returning to our Fathers house the Heavenly Canaan in which are many mansions enough certainly for all the Sons of Adam and God hath given to every Man such gifts and graces such guides and assistances for their conduct that were they not wanting to themselves they need not doubt their safe arrival But such are our fallings out by the way such our jarrings and dissentions our lingrings delays and backslidings that we may have cause to fear the greater part of these Travellers will fall short of these mansions and never take up their Rest in their Fathers house It is an ancient and true saying Unum quodque est propter operationem suam God hath made all that he made ordered all things that he ordained and there is nothing but what he made and set in order for that work and operation to which its nature place and faculties are fitted The work and operation therefore is the first in order of intention or design though the last in order of execution and accomplishment But nothing can operate or work aright except it be gifted or endued with some faculty or hability to that work And that this faculty or hability may produce its work in due order it must have its due place and office appointed by him who orders all things Now as this is true and certain in the universal body of the World and in the particular natural body of all Men so it is chiefly to be observed in the Spiritual body of Christ's Church First there are gifts to enable Men to perform the work for which God hath appointed them Then there are Offices 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or administrations to authorize them and give them Commission in their several places to exercise those gifts with which they are endued and perform those works for which they are gifted and authorized Then there are works which must be performed by Men endued with those gifts and those Commissions This is the wise method and order which he that hath made all things in number measure and weight hath prescribed and observed himself in all his works and prescribed us in his word to observe Gifts are first mentioned because they are first necessary for the qualifying of the Person both for his office and his work What ever we have what ever we are by nature or grace in our worldly condition or in our spiritual is a gift For what are or what have we in any respect if good it be that we have not received from that God who is the only self-subsisting all-sufficient fountain and fulness of all being and life For in him we live and move and have our being From him and through him and to him are all things He spake the word Let it be thus and thus by that eternal word his only Son and it was so His Spirit moved upon the Waters and all things that he pleased to have done through this word by this Spirit were produced for by the word of the Lord were the Heavens made and all the host of them by this Spirit or word of his mouth All then is his gift Ab unissimo Deo manant multiformia ab aeterno temporalia All diversity comes from Unity all times and temporal things from the eternity of this Trinity It is God alone that hath made and order'd the dull Earth and the active Sun distinguished the World into such diversity of Creatures in order to serve one another the Elements for the mixt bodies herbs and grass for the living unreasonable Creatures those for Man and Man for his own service and glory If God had made but one Creature that one had proved him an infinite God as to his power for nothing but an Almighty power can bring forth any thing though but an Atom or dust or sand out of nothing But now that he hath made and appointed so many Creatures in such a just and excellent order this makes the riches of his wisdom and bounty clearly appear to the Eye of reason and then he demands of Man who hath this reason in all humility and thankfulness that he adore and revere that God who hath made so many divers Creatures to serve him that he may learn thereby to serve and love his Creator and gracious benefactor and so at last come to enjoy him whom he hath thus served and loved in eternal joy and rest If any one should ask why was I made a liveless Element a senseless Plant an unreasonable though a living Creature but a reasonable Man above all these able to see and consider what I see and know to the honour of God There can no account or reason be given but the free bounty of his gift who thus distinguisht and ordered all things And so also amongst Men why one is noble another obscure one rich another poor one beautiful witty and strong another weak dull or less comely what account can any one give but that there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit Lord God who thus orders them And this must teach us contentedness without envying Superiors and Charity without despising or neglecting inferiors But besides these gifts these Offices and administrations which God hath placed in the World for its Temporal Government there are gifts supernatural and spiritual which God hath
in God and takes him for his Rest and exceeding great reward waiting on him as his all-sufficient shield with resignation for life or death Contented to live but willing to die and to be with Christ he is the only fixt Star in this lower firmament His feet stand fast be the pavement never so slippery In the term of Mans life there is a vicissitude of good and evil a mixture of labour and rest joy and sorrow there is a seed-time and an harvest a sowing in tears and reaping in joy He that now goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall doubless come again with joy and bring his sheaves with him But we may not expect Summer in the Winter season an harbour in the main Ocean our portion before we are of Age a reaping in joy 'till we have sown in tears The Traveller cannot think to find home in his Inn nor Heaven upon Earth The Children of Israel had the Wilderness and the Red-Sea to pass through before they could arrive at the Land of Canaan the place of their Rest They were all labourers that were sent into the Vineyard and could not expect their Peny 'till the day and their work was done let us therefore pray the Lord of the Harvest that our Labour and Travel may happily be turned at last into ease and Rest that when the six days of our life are at an end we may cease from our works as God did from his and enjoy with him an everlasting Sabboth of eternal Rest And the rather is this Rest hereafter to be laboured for now because whilst we are here upon Earth we have nothing pure and unmixt our very joys are mingled with sorrow and Solomon tells us even in laughter the heart is sad Expences here wait upon honour care of Education goes along with the blessing of Children and our most comfortable hopes are mixt with perplexing fears But when we come to Rest in the holy City that City which is above we shall have a perpetual day without night light without the Sun Our hunger shall be satisfied without food No need of Clothing there to cover our shame for shame and sin shall cease together then all sad doubtings what shall be our condition and state hereafter shall vanish away and we shall agree together with one heart and mind to sing Halelujahs and perpetual Prayers to God in the highest There will be no dissenters there no seperatists to break or interrupt that harmonious everlasting concord What wise Man then will set his heart upon the World when all things in it are but for so short an abode so unstable and so unsatisfactory and not rather on that abiding City above where the joys and pleasures are durable and eternal Christians of all others ought to remember what St. Paul saith Heb. 13.14 Here we have no abiding City but we seek one to come Our very profession exposeth us to all affliction and obliges us to live as strangers and pilgrims upon Earth What is Canaan or Jerusalem below to that above whereof the other was but a Type Things that are seen and perceptible by any bodily Eye are temporal transitory subject to changes every day and sure to be abolisht at length they will be taken from us or we from them when death comes which may come every day and therefore not worthy to be looked upon by such an immortal Soul or Spirit as constitutes Man which being made for eternity cannot be satisfied with ought that is temporal how long soever it may abide much less when 't is sure to continue no longer as to us than this uncertain short life and therefore in respect of our own and the Worlds end we may be truly said to have no abiding City here and are therefore the more carefully to seek and expect our eternal Rest and habitation from above While the World continues and we in it we have no continuing City here because neither habitation nor goods health nor wealth honours nor pleasures or any contentment is or can he assured us for our lives How many Villages Towns and Cities have Fires and Earthquakes and Wars destroyed How many Kingdoms and Common-wealths have civil disorders and foreign invasions overthrown Or rather what one in any Nation have they not The Histories or Records of all Ages all places besides the infallible Oracles of God which we have in our hands will give us a full induction and proof of this truth This Island wherein we live hath given us not only many Historical but experimental sensible proofs that from the King to the meanest Subject we have no continuing City here nor setled Rest and true happiness But besides these publick revolutions vicissitudes and changes every Family every private Person lies continually exposed to casualities to variety of sickness invading their health variety of molestations from those above them from those below them from those about them and also from their own follies lusts and passions from within them in so much that whatsoever Men fix their hearts upon in this World to take their greatest contentment in they cannot be sure on reasonable grounds that it shall continue with them one year longer The felicity and satisfactory happiness of this City above in which this eternal Rest is to be found ought to be valued so much the more because St. Paul tells us 1 Cor. 2.9 That Eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath entered into the heart of Man to conceive the fulness of those good things which God hath prepared for those that love him A grateful and pleasant taste of these good things God affords the Souls of the faithful here in this life how transcendently then unutterable and unconceivable will be the full fruition of all that which the Gospel reveals to us but as in a glass when enjoy'd to the height in the highest Heavens through all eternity when we shall see God as he is with everlasting overflowing satisfaction to all the faculties of the Soul The Eye of Mart hath seen here admirable things in Art and Nature the Ear hath heard and the Tongue hath tasted delicious things and Mans heart can conceive much more than Art or Nature could ever present our senses with The very pleasure of natural knowledge in the judgment of Persons exercised therein exceeds whatsoever sensuality vain glory or covetousness pursues or enjoys and yet the knowledge and love of God in Christ incomparably surpass St. Paul tells us whatsoever the heart of the natural Man advanced to the height can conceive as pleasant or delightful to it How much more doth this City to come and its endless unconceivable pleasures where this everlasting Rest is to be had exceed even our expressions and conceptions when they are at the highest If God hath provided such good things for Mankind here below in this World which was not made for the place of our happiness but only to give us a transitory glimpse of his