be impossible to doe our duty we weep for our sins but we weep more for the death of our dearest friends or other temporall sadnesses we say we had rather die then lose our saith and yet we doe not live according to it we lose our estates and are impatient we lose our vertue and bear it well enough and what vertue is so great as more to be troubled for having sin'd then for being asham'd and begger'd and condemn'd to die Here we are forced to a distinction there is a valuation of price and a valuation of sense or the spirit hath one rate of things and the flesh hath another and what we beleeve the greatest evill does not alwayes cause to us the greatest trouble which shews plainly that we are imperfect carnall persons and the flesh will in some measure prevaile over the spirit because we will suffer it in too many instances and cannot help it in all 9. The spirit is abated and interrupted by the flesh because the flesh pretends it is not able to doe those ministeries which are appointed in order to Religion we are not able to fast or if we watch it breeds gouts and catarrhes or charity is a grace too expensive our necessities are too big to do it or we cannot suffer pain and sorrow breeds death and therefore our repentances must be more gentle and we must support our selves in all our calamities for we cannot beare our crosses without a freer refreshment and this freedome passes on to licence and many melancholy persons drowne their sorrows in sin and forgetfulnesse as if sin were more tolerable then sorrow and the anger of God an easier load then a temporall care here the flesh betrayes its weaknesse and its follies For the flesh complains too soon and the spirit of some men like Adam being too fond of his Eve attends to all its murmurs and temptations and yet the flesh is able to bear farre more then is required of it in usuall duties Custome of suffering will make us endure much and feare will make us suffer more and necessity makes us suffer any thing and lust and desire makes us to endure more then God is willing we should and yet we are nice and tender and indulgent to our weaknesses till our weaknesses grow too strong for us And what shall we doe to secure our duty and to be delivered of our selves that the body of death which we bear about us may not destroy the life of the spirit I have all this while complain'd and you see not without cause I shall afterwards tell you the remedies for all this evill In the mean time let us have but mean opinions of our selves let us watch every thing of our selves as of suspected persons and magnifie the grace of God and be humbled for our stock and spring of follies and let us look up to him who is the fountaine of grace and spirituall strengths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And pray that God would give us what we ask and what we ask not for we want more helps then we understand and we are neerer to evill then we perceive and we bear sin and death about us and are in love with it and nothing comes from us but false principles and silly propositions and weak discourses and startings from our holy purposes and care of our bodies and of our palates and the lust of the lower belly these are the imployment of our lives but if wee design to live happily and in a better place it must be otherwise with us we must become new creatures and have another definition and have new strengths which we can onely derive from God whose grace is sufficient for us and strong enough to prevail over all our follies and infirmities SERMON XI Part II. IF it be possible to cure an evill nature we must inquire after remedies for all this mischief In order to which I shall consider 1. That since it is our flesh and bloud that is the principle of mischief we must not think to have it cured by washings and light medicaments the Physitian that went to cure the Hectick with quick-silver and fasting spittle did his Patient no good but himself became a proverb and he that by easie prayers and a seldome fast by the scattering of a little almes and the issues of some more naturall vertue thinks to cure his evill nature does fortifie his indisposition as a stick is hardened by a little fire which by a great one is devoured Quanto satius est mentem potius eluere quae malis cupiditatibus sordidatur uno virtutis ac fidei lavacro universa vitia depellere Better it is by an intire body of vertue by a living and active faith to cleanse the minde from every vice and to take off all superinduced habits of sin Quod qui fecerit quamlibet inquinatum ac sordidum corpus gerat satis purus est If we take this course although our body is foul and our affections unquiet and our rest discomposed yet we shall be masters of our resolution and clean from habituall sins and so cure our evill nature For our nature was not made evill but by our selves but yet we are naturally evill that is by a superinduced nature just as drunkards and intemperate persons have made it necessary to drink extremely and their nature requires it and it is health to them they dye without it because they have made to themselves a new constitution and another nature but much worse then that which God made their sin made this new nature and this new nature makes sin necessary and unavoidable so it is in all other instances Our nature is evill because we have spoil'd it and therefore the removing the sin which we have brought in is the way to cure our nature for this evill nature is not a thing which we cannot avoid we made it and therefore we must help it but as in the superinducing this evill nature we were thrust forward by the world and the Devill by all objects from without and weaknesse from within so in the curing it we are to be helped by God and his most holy Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We must have a new nature put into us which must be the principle of new counsels and better purposes of holy actions and great devotion and this nature is deriv'd from God and is a grace and a favour of heaven The same Spirit that caused the holy Jesus to be born after a new and strange manner must also descend upon us and cause us to be born again and to begin a new life upon the stock of a new nature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Origen From him it first began that a divine and humane nature were weaved together that the humane nature by communication with the celestiall may also become divine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not only in Jesus but in all that first
and sorrow have an essence and proper being and are set there to be suffer'd intirely by every undone man that dies there for ever 2. The evils of this world are materiall and bodily the pressing of a shoulder or the straining of a joynt the dislocation of a bone or the extending of an artery a bruise in the flesh or the pinching of the skin a hot liver or a sickly stomach and then the minde is troubled because its instrument is ill at ease but all the proper troubles of this life are nothing but the effects of an uneasie body or an abused fancy and therefore can be no bigger then a blow or a cousenage then a wound or a dream only the trouble increases as the soul works it and if it makes reflex acts and begins the evill upon its own account then it multiplies and doubles because the proper scene of grief is open'd and sorrow peeps through the corners of the soul. But in those regions and daies of sorrow when the soul shall be no more depending upon the body but the perfect principle of all its actions the actions are quick and the perceptions brisk the passions are extreme and the motions are spirituall the pains are like the horrors of a Devill and the groans of an evill spirit not slow like the motions of a heavie foot or a loaden arme but quick as an Angels wing active as lightning and a grief then is nothing like a grief now and the words of mans tongue which are fitted to the uses of this world are as unfit to signifie the evils of the next as person and nature and hand and motion and passion are to represent the effects of the Divine attributes actions and subsistence 3. The evill portions of the next world is so great that God did not create or design it in the first intention of things and production of essences he made the Kingdome of Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from the foundation of the world for so it is observable that Christ shall say to the Sheep at his right hand Receive the Kingdome prepared for you from the beginning of the world but to the Goats and accursed spirits he speaks of no such primitive and originall design it was accidentall and a consequent to horrid crimes that God was forced to invent and to after create that place of torments 4. And when God did create and prepare that place he did not at all intend it for man it was prepared for the Divill and his Angels so saith the Judge himself Go ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devill and his Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which my Father prepared for the Devill so some copies read it God intended it not for man but man would imitate the Devils pride and listen to the whispers of an evill spirit and follow his temptations and rebell against his Maker and then God also against his first design resolved to throw such persons into that place that was prepared for the Devill for so great was the love of God to mankind that he prepared joyes infinite and never ceasing for man before he had created him but he did not predetermine him to any evill but when he was forced to it by mans malice he doing what God forbad him God cast him thither where he never intended him but it was not mans portion he designed it not at first and at last also he invited him to repentance and when nothing could do it he threw man into anothers portion because he would not accept of what was designed to be his own 5. The evill portion shall be continuall without intermission of evill no dayes of rest no nights of sleep no ease from labour no periods of the stroke nor taking off the hand no intervals between blow and blow but a continued stroke which neither shortens the life nor introduces a brawny patience or the toleration of an oxe but it is the same in every instant and great as the first stroke of lightning the smart is great for ever as at the first change from the rest of the grave to the flames of that horrible burning The Church of Rome amongst some other strange opinions hath inserted this one into her publick Offices that the perishing souls in hell may have sometimes remission and refreshment like the fits of an intermitting feaver for so it is in the Roman Missal printed at Paris 1626. in the Masse for the dead Ut quia de ejus vitae qualitate diffidimus si plenam veniam anima ipsius obtinere non potest saltem vel inter ipsa tormenta quae forsan patitur refrigerium de abundantia miserationum tuarum sentiat and something like this is that of Prudentius Sunt spiritibus saepè nocentibus Poenarum celebres sub Styge feriae c. The evill spirits have ease of their pain and he names their holiday then when the Resurrection of our Lord from the grave is celebrated Marcent suppliciis Tartara mitibus Exultátque sui carceris otio Umbrarum populus liber ab ignibus Nec fervent solito flumina sulphure They then thought that when the Paschall taper burn'd the flames of hell could not burn till the holy wax was spent but because this is a fancy without ground or revelation and is against the Analogie of all those expressions of our Lord Where the worm dyeth not and the fire is never quenched and divers others it is sufficient to have noted it without further consideration the pains of hell have no rest no drop of water is allowed to cool the tongue there is no advocate to plead for them no mercy belongs to their portion but fearfull wrath and continuall burnings 6. And yet this is not the worst of it for as it is continuall during its abode so its abode is for ever it is continuall and eternall Tertullian speaks something otherwise Pro magnitudine cruciatus non diuturni verùm sempiterni not continuall or the pains of every day but such which shall last for ever But Lactantius is more plain in this affair The same divine fire by the same power and force shall burn the wicked and shall repair instantly whatsoever of the body it does consume Ac sibi ipsi aeternum â—pabulum subministrabit and shall make for it self an eternall fuell Vermibus flammis discruciatibus aevum Immortale dedit senio ne poena periret Non pereunte animâ So Prudentius eternall wormes and unextinguished flames and immortall punishment is prepared for the ever-never dying souls of wicked men Origen is charged by the ancient Churches for saying that after a long time the Devils and the accursed souls shall be restored to the Kingdome of God and that after a long time again they shall be restored to their state and so it was from their fall and shall be forever and it may be that might be the meaning of Tertullians expression of cruciatus non
forbidden When God bade the Isaaelites rise and goe up against the Canaanites and possesse the Land they would not stirre the men were Anakims and the Cities were impregnable and there was a Lyon in the way but presently after when God forbad them to goe they would and did goe though they died for it I shall not need to instance in particulars when the whole life of man is a perpetuall contradiction and the state of Disobedience is called the contradiction of Sinners even the man in the Gospell that had two sons they both crossed him even he that obeyed him and he that obeyed him not for the one said he would and did not the other said he would not and did and so doe we we promise faire and doe nothing and they that doe best are such as come out of darknesse into light such as said they would not and at last have better bethought themselves And who can guesse at any other reason why men should refuse to be temperate for he that refuses the commandement first does violence to the commandement and puts on a praeternaturall appetite he spoils his health and he spoils his understanding he brings to himself a world of diseases and a healthlesse constitution smart and sickly nights a loathing stomach and a staring eye a giddy brain and a swell'd belly gouts and dropsies catarrhes and oppilations If God should enjoyne man to suffer all this heaven and earth should have heard our complaints against unjust laws and impossible commandements for we complain already even when God commands us to drink so long as it is good for us this is one of his impossible laws it is impossible for us to know when we are dry or when we need drink for if we doe know I am sure it is possible enough not to lift up the wine to our heads And when our blessed Saviour hath commanded us to love our enemies we think we have so much reason against it that God will easily excuse our disobedience in this case and yet there are some enemies whom God hath commanded us not to love and those we dote on we cherish and feast them and as S. Paul in another case upon our uncomely parts we bestow more abundant comelinesse For whereas our body it self is a servant to our soule we make it the heir of all things and treat it here already as if it were in Majority and make that which at the best was but a weak friend to become a strong enemy and hence proceed the vices of the worst and the follies and imperfections of the best the spirit is either in slavery or in weaknesse and when the flesh is not strong to mischief it is weak to goodnesse and even to the Apostles our blessed Lord said the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak The spirit that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the inward man or the reasonable part of man especially as helped by the Spirit of Grace that is willing for it is the principle of all good actions the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the power of working is from the spirit but the flesh is but a dull instrument and a broken arme in which there is a principle of life but it moves uneasily and the flesh is so weak that in Scripture to be in the flesh signifies a state of weaknesse and infirmity so the humiliation of Christ is expressed by being in the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God manifested in the flesh and what S. Peter calls put to death in the flesh St. Paul calls crucified through weaknesse and yee know that through the infirmity of the flesh I preached unto you said S. Paul but here flesh is not opposed to the spirit as a direct enemy but as a weak servant for if the flesh be powerfull and opposite the spirit stays not there veniunt ad candida tecta columbae The old man and the new cannot dwell together and therefore here where the spirit inclining to good well disposed and apt to holy counsels does inhabit in society with the flesh it means onely a weak and unapt nature or a state of infant-grace for in both these and in these onely the text is verified 1. Therefore we are to consider the infirmities of the flesh naturally 2. It s weaknesse in the first beginnings of the state of grace its daily pretensions and temptations its excuses and lessenings of duty 3. What remedies there are in the spirit to cure the evils of nature 4. How far the weaknesses of the flesh can consist with the Spirit of grace in well grown Christians This is the summe of what I intend upon these words 1. Our nature is too weak in order to our duty and finall interest that at first it cannot move one step towards God unlesse God by his preventing grace puts into it a new possibility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is nothing that creeps upon the earth nothing that ever God made weaker then Man for God fitted Horses and Mules with strength Bees and Pismires with sagacity Harts and Hares with swiftnesse Birds with feathers and a light a\l = e \ry body and they all know their times and are fitted for their work and regularly acquire the proper end of their creation but man that was designed to an immortall duration and the fruition of God for ever knows not how to obtain it he is made upright to look up to heaven but he knows no more how to purchase it then to climbe it Once man went to make an ambitious tower to outreach the clouds or the praeternaturall risings of the water but could not do it he cannot promise himself the daily bread of his necessity upon the stock of his own wit or industry and for going to heaven he was so far from doing that naturally that as soon as ever he was made he became the son of death and he knew not how to get a pardon for eating of an apple against the Divine commandement 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Apostle By nature we were the sons of wrath that is we were born heirs of death which death came upon us from Gods anger for the sin of our first Parents or by nature that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 really not by the help of fancy and fiction of law for so Oecumenius and Theophylact expound it but because it does not relate to the sin of Adam in its first intention but to the evill state of sin in which the Ephesians walked before their conversion it signifies that our nature of it self is a state of opposition to the spirit of grace it is privatively opposed that is that there is nothing in it that can bring us to felicity nothing but an obedientiall capacity our flesh can become sanctified as the stones can become children unto Abraham or as dead seed can become living corn and so it is with us that it is necessary God should make us a new
creation if he means to save us he must take our hearts of stone away and give us heart of flesh he must purge the old leaven and make us a new conspersion he must destroy the flesh and must breath into us Spiritum vita the celestiall breath of life without which we can neither live nor move nor have our being No man can come unto mee said Christ unlesse my Father draw him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine love must come upon us and snatch us from our imperfection enlighten our understanding move and stirre our affections open the gates of heaven turn our nature into grace entirely forgive our former prevarications take us by the hand and lead us all along and we onely contribute our assent unto it just as a childe when he is tempted to learne to goe and called upon and guided and upheld and constrain'd to put his feet to the ground lest he feel the danger by the smart of a fall just so is our nature and our state of flesh God teaches us and invites us he makes us willing and then makes us able he lends us helps and guides our hands and feet and all the way constrains us but yet so as a reasonable creature can be constrained that is made willing with arguments and new inducements by a state of circumstances and conditionall necessities and as this is a great glorification of the free grace of God and declares our manner of cooperation so it represents our nature to be weak as a childe ignorant as infancy helplesse as an orphan averse as an uninstructed person in so geat degrees that God is forced to bring us to a holy life by arts great and many as the power and principles of the Creation with this onely difference that the subject matter and object of this new creation is a free agent in the first it was purely obedientiall and passive and as the passion of the first was an effect of the same power that reduced it to act so the freedome of the second is given us in our nature by him that onely can reduce it to act for it is a freedome that cannot therefore choose because it does not understand nor taste nor perceive the things of God and therefore must by Gods grace be reduced to action as at first the whole matter of the world was by Gods Almightynesse for so God worketh in us to will and to doe of his owne good pleasure 2. But that I may instance in particulars our naturall weaknesse appears best in two things even in the two great instances of temptation pleasure and pain in both which the flesh is destroyed if it be not helped by a mighty grace as certainly as the Canes doe bow their heads before the breath of a mighty wind 1. In pleasure we see it by the publick miseries and follies of the world An old Greek said well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is amongst men nothing perfect because men carry themselves as persons that are lesse then money servants of gain and interest we are like the foolish Poet that Horace tells of Gestit enim nummum in loculos dimittere posthac Securus cadat an recto stet fabula talo Let him but have money for rehearsing his Comedy he cares not whether you like it or no and if a temptation of money comes strong and violent you may as well tye a wilde dog to quietnesse with the guts of a tender Kid as suppose that most men can doe vertuously when they may sin at a great price Men avoyd poverty not onely because it hath some inconveniences for they are few and little but because it is the nurse of vertue they run from it as Children from strict Parents and Tutors from those that would confine them to reason and sober counsels that would make them labour that they may become pale and lean that they may become wise but because Riches is attended by pride and lust tyranny and oppression and hath in its hand all that it hath in its heart and Sin waits upon Wealth ready dress'd and fit for action therefore in some temptations they confesse how little their souls are they cannot stand that assault but because this passion is the daughter of Voluptuousnesse and very often is but a servant sin ministring to sensuall pleasures the great weaknesse of the flesh is more seen in the matter of carnall crimes Lust and Drunkennesse Nemo enim se adsuefacit ad vitandum ex animo evellendum ea quae molesta ei non sunt Men are so in love with pleasure that they cannot think of mortifying or crucifying their lust we doe violence to what we hate not to what we love But the weaknesse of the flesh and the empire of lust is visible in nothing so much as in the captivity and folly of wise men For you shall see some men fit to governe a Province sober in their counsells wise in the conduct of their affaires men of discourse and reason fit to sit with Princes or to treat concerning peace and warre the fate of Empires and the changes of the world yet these men shall fall at the beauty of a woman as a man dies at the blow of an Angell or gives up his breath at the sentence and decree of God Was not Solomon glorious in all things but when he bowed to Pharaoh's daughter and then to Devils and is it not published by the sentence and observation of all the world that the bravest men have been softned into effeminacy by the lisping charms and childish noyses of Women and imperfect persons A faire slave bowed the neck of stout Polydamas which was stiffe and inflexible to the contentions of an enemy and suppose a man set like the brave boy of the King of Nicomedia in the midst of temptation by a witty beauty tyed upon a bed with silk and pretty violences courted with musick and perfumes with promises and easie postures invited by opportunity and importunity by rewards and impunity by privacy and a guard what would his nature doe in this throng of evils and vile circumstances The grace of God secur'd the young Gentleman and the Spirit rode in triumph but what can flesh do in such a day of danger Is it not necessary that we take in auxiliaries from Reason and Religion from heaven and earth from observation and experience from hope and fear and cease to be what we are left we become what we ought not It is certain that in the cases of temptations to voluptuousnesse a man is naturally as the Prophet said of Ephraim like a Pigeon that hath no heart no courage no conduct no resolution no discourse but falls as the water of Nilus when it comes to its cataracts it falls infinitely and without restraint And if we consider how many drunken meetings the Sunne sees every day how many Markets and Faires and Clubs that is so many solemnities of drunkennesse are at this instant
Give glory to the Lord your God before he cause darknesse and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains and while ye look for light or lest while ye look for light he shall turn it into the shadow of death and make it grosse darknesse Sermon 7. 8. The deceitfulnesse of the heart fol. 80. 92. Jerem. 17. 9. The heart is deceitfull above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Sermon 9. 10. 11. The faith and patience of the Saints Or the righteous cause oppressed fol. 104. 119. 133. 1 Pet. 4. 17. For the time is come that judgement must begin at the house of God and if it first begin at us what shall the end be of them that obey not the Gospel of God 18. And if the righteous scarcely be saved where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear Sermon 12. 13. The mercy of the Divine judgements or Gods method in curing sinners fol. 146. 159. Romans 2. 4. Despisest thou the riches of his goodnesse and forbearance and long-suffering not knowing that the goodnesse of God leadeth thee to repentance Sermon 14. 15. Of groweth in grace with its proper instruments and signes fol. 172. 183. 2 Pet. 3. 18. But grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to whom be glory both now and for ever Amen Sermon 16. 17. Of groweth in sin or the severall states and degrees of sinners with the manner how they are to be treated fol. 197. 210. Jude Epist ver 22 23. And of some have compassion making a difference * And others save with fear pulling them out of the fire Sermon 18. 19. The foolish exchange sol 224. 237. Matth. 16. ver 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Sermon 20 21. 22. The Serpent and the Dove or a discourse of Christian Prudence fol. 251. 263. 274. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves Sermon 23. 24. Of Christian simplicity 289. 301. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. And harmlesse as doves Sermon 25. 26. 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy fol. 313. 327. 340. Psal. 86. 5. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee A Funerall Sermon preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery fol. 357. 2 Sam. 14. 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacrednesse and separation of the Office Ministeriall Sermon I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE 8. Romans v. 9. 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse THe day in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles was the first beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the Religion was professed now the Apostles first open'd their commission and read it to all the people The Lord gave his Spirit or the Lord gave his word and great was the company of the Preachers For so I make bold to render that prophesie of David Christ was the word of God verbum aeternum but the Spirit was the word of God verbum Patefactum Christ was the word manifested in the flesh the Spirit was the word manifested to flesh and set in dominion over and in hostility against the flesh The Gospel and the Spirit are the same thing not in substance but the manifestation of the Spirit is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because he was this day manifested the Gospel was this day first preached and it became a law to us called the law of the Spirit of life that is a law taught us by the Spirit leading us to life eternal But the Gospel is called the Spirit 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit not onely in the matter it self but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them For what power of humane understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God that two natures a finite and an infinite could have been concentred into one hypostasis or person that a virgin should be a Mother that dead men should live again that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the Sun blessed as Angels swift in motion as thought clear as the purest Noone that God should so love us as to be willing to be reconcil'd to us and yet that himself must dye that he might pardon us that Gods most Holy Son should give us his body to eat and his bloud to crown our chalices and his Spirit to sanctifie our souls to turn our bodies into temperance our souls into mindes our mindes into Spirit our Spirit into glory that he who can give us all things who is Lord of Men and Angels and King of all the Creatures should pray to God for us without intermission that he who reigns over all the world should at the day of judgement give up the Kingdom to God the Father and yet after this resignation himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously that we should be justified by Faith in Christ and that charity should be a part of faith and that both should work as acts of duty and as acts of relation that God should Crown the imperfect endeavours of his Saints with glory and that a humane act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance that the wicked for the transient pleasure of a few minutes should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains that the waters of baptisme when they are hallowed by the Spirit shall purge the soul from sin and that the Spirit of a man shall be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven and after all this that all Christian People all that will be saved must be partakers of the Divine nature of the Nature the infinite nature of God and must dwell in Christ and Christ must dwell in them and they must be in the Spirit and the Spirit must be for ever in them these are articles of so mysterious a Philosophy that we could have inferred them from no premises discours'd them upon the stock of no naturall or scientificall principles nothing but God and Gods spirit could have taught them to us and therefore the Gospel is Spiritus
intercession and prayer must suppose all holinesse or else it is nothing and therefore all that in which men need Gods Spirit all that is in order to prayer Baptisme is but a prayer and the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supperl is but a prayer a prayer of sacrifice representative and a prayer of oblation and a prayer of intercession and a prayer of thanksgiving and obedience is a prayer and begs and procures blessings and if the Holy Ghost hath sanctified the whole man then he hath sanctified the prayer of the man and not till then and if ever there was or could be any other praying with the spirit it was such a one as a wicked man might have and therefore it cannot be a note of distinction between the good and bad between the saints and men of the world But this onely which I have described from the fountains of Scripture is that which a good man can have and therefore this is it in which we ought to rejoyce that he that glories may glory in the Lord. Thus I have as I could described the effluxes of the Holy Spirit upon us in his great chanels But the great effect of them is this That as by the arts of the spirits of darknesse and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh not in the naturall sense but in the morall and Theologicall and animalis homo is the same with carnalis that is his soul is a servant of the passions and desires of the flesh and is flesh in it s operations and ends in it s principles and actions So on the other side by the Grace of God and the promise of the Father and the influences of the Holy Ghost our souls are not onely recovered from the state of flesh and reduced back to the intirenesse of animall operations but they are heightned into spirit and transform d into a new nature And this is a new Article and now to be considered S. Hierom tels of the Custome of the Empire When a Tyrant was overcome they us d to break the head of his Statues and upon the same Trunk to set the head of the Conquerour and so it passed wholly for the new Prince So it is in the kingdom of Grace As soon as the Tyrant sin is overcome and a new heart is put into us or that we serve under a new head instantly we have a new Name given us and we are esteemed a new Creation and not onely changed in manners but we have a new nature within us even a third part of an essentiall constitution This may seem strange and indeed it is so and it is one of the great mysteriousnesses of the Gospel Every man naturally consists of soul and body but every Christian man that belongs to Christ hath more For he hath body and soul and spirit My Text is plain for it If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and by Spirit is not meant onely the graces of God and his gifts enabling us to do holy things there is more belongs to a good man then so But as when God made man he made him after his own image and breath'd into him the spirit of life and he was made in animam viventem into a living soul then he was made a man So in the new creation Christ by whom God made both the worlds intends to conform us to his image and he hath given us the spirit of adoption by which we are made sons of God and by the spirit of a new life we are made new creatures capable of a new state intitled to another manner of duration enabled to do new and greater actions in order to higher ends we have new affections new understandings new wils Veter a transierunt ecce omnia nova facta sunt All things are become new And this is called the seed of God when it relates to the principle and cause of this production but the thing that is produced is a spirit and that is as much in nature beyond a soul as a soul is beyond a body This great Mystery I should not utter but upon the greatest authority in the world and from an infallible Doctor I mean S. Paul who from Christ taught the Church more secrets then all the whole Colledge besides And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelesse unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified wholly nor preserved in safety unlesse besides our souls and bodies our spirit also be kept blamelesse This distinction is nice and infinitely above humane reason but the word of God saith the same Apostle is sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit and that hath taught us to distinguish the principle of a new life from the principle of the old the celestiall from the naturall and thus it is The spirit as I now discourse of it is a principle infused into us by God when we become his children whereby we live the life of Grace and understand the secrets of the Kingdom and have passions and desires of things beyond and contrary to our naturall appetites enabling us not onely to sobriety which is the duty of the body not onely to justice which is the rectitude of the soul but to such a sanctity as makes us like to God * For so saith the Spirit of God Be ye holy as I am be pure be perfect as your heavenly Father is pure as he is perfect which because it cannot be a perfection of degrees it must be in similitudine naturae in the likenesse of that nature which God hath given us in the new birth that by it we might resemble his excellency and holinesse And this I conceive to be the meaning of S. Peter According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse that is to this new life of godlinesse through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and vertue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature so we read it But it is something mistaken it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine nature for Gods nature is indivisible and incommunicable but it is spoken participative or per analogiam partakers of a Divine nature that is of this new and God-like nature given to every person that serves God whereby he is sanctified and made the childe of God and framed into the likenesse of Christ. The Greeks generally call this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gracious gift an extraordinary super addition to nature not a single gift in order to single purposes but an universall principle and it remains upon all good men during their lives and after their death and is that white stone spoken of in the Revelation and in it
a new name written which no man knoweth but he that hath it And by this Godssheep at the day of judgement shall be discerned from goats If their spirits be presented to God pure and unblameable this great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this talent which God hath given to all Christians to improve in the banks of grace and of Religion if they bring this to God increased and grown up to the fulnesse of the measure of Christ for it is Christs Spirit and as it is in us it is called the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ then we shall be acknowledged for sons and our adoption shall passe into an eternall inheritance in the portion of our elder Brother I need not to apply this Discourse The very mystery it self is in the whole world the greatest engagement of our duty that is imaginable by the way of instrument and by the way of thankfulnesse Quisquis magna dedit voluit sibi magna rependi He that gives great things to us ought to have great acknowledgements and Seneca said concerning wise men That he that doth benefit to others hides those benefits as a man layes up great treasures in the earth which he must never see with his eyes unlesse a great occasion forces him to dig the graves and produce that which he buried but all the while the man was hugely rich and he had the wealth of a great relation so it is with God and us For this huge benefit of the Spirit which God gives us is for our good deposited in our souls not made for forms and ostentation not to be looked upon or serve little ends but growing in the secret of our souls and swelling up to a treasure making us in this world rich by title and relation but it shall be produced in the great necessities of doomesday In the mean time if the fire be quenched the fire of Gods Spirit God will kindle another in his anger that shall never be quenched but if we entertain Gods Spirit with our own purities and imploy it diligently and serve it willingly for Gods Spirit is a loving Spirit then we shall really be turned into spirits Irenaeus had a proverbiall saying Perfecti sunt qui tria sine querelâ Deo exhibent They that present three things right to God they are perfect that is a chast body a righteous soul and a holy spirit and the event shall be this which Maimonides expressed not amisse though he did not at all understand the secret of this mystery The soul of a man in this life is in potentiâ ad esse spiritum it is designed to be a spirit but in the world to come it shall be actually as very a spirit as an Angel is and this state is expressed by the Apostle calling it the earnest of the spirit that is here it is begun and given us as an antepast of glory and a principle of Grace but then we shall have it in plenitudine regit idem spiritus artus Orbe alio Here and there it is the same but here we have the earnest there the riches and the inheritance But then if this be a new principle and be given us in order to the actions of a holy life we must take care that we receive not the Spirit of God in vain but remember it is a new life and as no man can pretend that a person is alive that doth not alwayes do the works of life so it is certain no man hath the Spirit of God but he that lives the life of grace and doth the works of the Spirit that is in all holinesse and justice and sobriety Spiritus qui accedit animo vel Dei est vel Daemonis said Tertullian Every man hath within him the Spirit of God or the spirit of the devil The spirit of fornication is an unclean devil and extremely contrary to the Spirit of God and so is the spirit of malice or uncharitablenesse for the Spirit of God is the Spirit of love for as by purities Gods Spirit sanctifies the body so by love he purifies the soul and makes the soul grow into a spirit into a Divine nature But God knows that even in Christian societies we see the devils walk up and down every day and every hour the devil of uncleannesse and the devil of drunkennesse the devil of malice and the devil of rage the spirit of filthy speaking and the spirit of detraction a proud spirit and the spirit of rebellion and yet all call Christian. It is generally supposed that unclean spirits walk in the night and so it used to be for they that are drunk are drunk in the night said the Apostle but Suidas tels of certain Empusae that used to appear at Noon at such time as the Greeks did celebrate the Funerals of the Dead and at this day some of the Russians fear the Noon-day Devil which appeareth like a mourning widow to reapers of hay and corn and uses to break their arms and legs unlesse they worship her The Prophet David speaketh of both kindes Thou shalt not be afraid for the terrour by night and a ruinâ daemonio meridiano from the Devil at noon thou shalt be free It were happy if we were so but besides the solemn followers of the works of darknesse in the times and proper seasons of darknesse there are very many who act their Scenes of darknesse in the face of the Sun in open defiance of God and all lawes and all modesty There is in such men the spirit of impudence as well as of impiety And yet I might have expressed it higher for every habituall sin doth not onely put us into the power of the devil but turns us into his very nature just as the Holy Ghost transforms us into the image of God Here therefore I have a greater Argument to perswade you to holy living then Moses had to the sons of Israel Behold I have set before you life and death blessing and cursing so said Moses but I adde that I have upon the stock of this Scripture set before you the good Spirit and the bad God and the devil choose unto whose nature you will be likened and into whose inheritance you will be adopted and into whose possession you will enter If you commit sin ye are of your father the Devil ye are begot of his principles and follow his pattern and shall passe into his portion when ye are led captive by him at his will and remember what a sad thing it is to go into the portion of evil and accursed spirits the sad and eternall portion of Devils But he that hath the Spirit of God doth acknowledge God for his Father and his Lord he despises the world and hath no violent appetites for secular pleasures and is dead to the desires of this life and his hopes are spirituall and God is his joy and Christ is his pattern and his support and Religion is his imployment and godlinesse
Ocean and to span the measures of eternity I must do it by the great lines of revelation and experience and tell concerning Gods mercy as we do concerning God himself that he is that great fountain of which we all drink and the great rock of which we all eat and on which we all dwell and under whose shadow we all are refreshed Gods mercy is all this and we can onely draw great lines of it and reckon the constellations of our hemisphere instead of telling the number of the stars we onely can reckon what we feel and what we live by And though there be in every one of these lines of life enough to ingage us for ever to do God service and to give him praises yet it is certain there are very many mercies of God upon us and toward us and concerning us which we neither feel nor see nor understand as yet but yet we are blessed by them and are preserved and secured and we shall then know them when we come to give God thanks in the festivities of an eternall sabbath But that I may confine my discourse into order since the subject of it cannot I consider 1. That mercy being an emanation of the Divine goodnesse upon us and supposes us and found us miserable In this account concerning the mercies of God I must not reckon the miracles and graces of the creation or any thing of the nature of man nor tell how great an endearment God passed upon us that he made us men capable of felicity apted with rare instruments of discourse and reason passions and desires notices of sense and reflections upon that sense that we have not the deformity of a Crocodile nor the motion of a Worm nor the hunger of a Wolf nor the wildenesse of a Tigre nor the birth of Vipers nor the life of flies nor the death of serpents Our excellent bodies and usefull faculties the upright motion and the tenacious hand the fair appetites and proportioned satisfactions our speech and our perceptions our acts of life the rare invention of letters and the use of writing and speaking at distance the intervals of rest and labour either of which if they were perpetual would be intolerable the needs of nature and the provisions of providence sleep and businesse refreshments of the body and entertainment of the soul these are to be reckoned as acts of bounty rather then mercy God gave us these when he made us and before we needed mercy these were portions of our nature or provided to supply our consequent necessities but when we forfeited all Gods favour by our sins then that they were continued or restored to us became a mercy and therefore ought to be reckoned upon this new account for it was a rare mercy that we were suffered to live at all or that the Anger of God did permit to us one blessing that he did punish us so gently But when the rack is changed into an ax and the ax into an imprisonment and the imprisonment changed into an enlargement and the enlargement into an entertainment in the family and this entertainment passes on to an adoption these are steps of a mighty favour and perfect redemption from our sin and the returning back our own goods is a gift and a perfect donative sweetned by the apprehensions of the calamity from whence every lesser punishment began to free us and thus it was that God punished us and visited the sin of Adam upon his posterity He threatned we should die and so we did but not so as we deserved we waited for death and stood sentenced and are daily summoned by sicknesses and uneasinesse and every day is a new reprieve and brings a new favour certain as the revolution of the Sun upon that day and at last when we must die by the irreversible decree that death is changed into a sleep and that sleep is in the bosom of Christ and there dwels all peace and security and it shall passe forth into glories and felicities We looked for a Judge and behold a Saviour we feared an accuser and behold an Advocate we sate down in sorrow and rise in joy we leaned upon Rhubarb and Aloes and our aprons were made of the sharp leaves of Indian fig-trees and so we fed and so were clothed But the Rhubarb proved medicinal and the rough leaf of the tree brought its fruit wrapped up in its foldings and round about our dwellings was planted a hedge of thornes and bundles of thistles the Aconite and the Briony the Night-shade and the Poppy and at the root of these grew the healing Plantain which rising up into a talnesse by the friendly invitation of a heavenly influence turn'd about the tree of the crosse and cured the wounds of the thorns and the curse of the thistles and the malediction of man and the wrath of God Si sic irascitur quomodo convivatur If God be thus kinde when he is Angry what is he when he feasts us with caresses of his more tender Kindnesse All that God restored to us after the foâ—feiture of Adam grew to be a double Kindnesse for it became the expression of a bounty which knew not how to repent a graciousnesse that was not to be altered though we were and that was it which we needed That 's the first generall all the bounties of the creation became mercies to us when God continued them to us and restored them after they were forfeit 2. But as a circle begins every where and ends no where so do the mercies of God after all this huge progresse now it began anew God is good and gracious and God is ready to forgive Now that he had once more made us capable of mercies God had what he desired and what he could rejoyce in something upon which he might pour forth his mercies and by the way this I shall observe for I cannot but speak without art when I speak of that which hath no measure God made us capable of one sort of his mercies and we made our selves capable of another God is good and gracious that is desirous to give great gifts and of this God made us receptive first by giving us naturall possibilities that is by giving those gifts he made us capable of more and next by restoring us to his favour that he might not by our provocations be hindered from raining down his mercies But God is also ready to forgive and of this kinde of mercy we made our selves capable even by not deserving it Our sin made way for his grace and our infirmities called upon his pity and because we sinned we became miserable and because we were miserable we became pitiable and this opened the other treasure of his mercy that because our sin abounds his grace may superabound In this method we must confine our thoughts 1. Giving Thou Lord art good and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 2. Forgiving Thou Lord art good
and ready to forgive plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee 3. Gods mercies or the mercies of his giving came first upon us by mending of our nature For the ignorance we fell into is instructed and better learned in spirituall notices then Adams morning knowledge in Paradise our appetites are made subordinate to the spirit and the liberty of our wills is improved having the liberty of the sons of God and Christ hath done us more grace and advantage then we lost in Adam and as man lost Paradise and got Heaven so he lost the integrity of the first and got the perfection of the second Adam his living soul is changed into a quickning spirit our discerning faculties are filled with the spirit of faith and our passions and desires are entertained with hope and our election is sanctified with charity and his first life of a temporall possession is passed into a better a life of spirituall expectations and though our first parent was forbidden it yet we live of the fruits of the tree of life But I instance in two great things in which humane nature is greatly advanced and passed on to greater perfections The first is that besides body and soul which was the summe totall of Adams constitution God hath superadded to us a third principle the beginner of a better life I mean the Spirit so that now man hath a spiritual and celestial nature breathed into him and the old man that is the old constitution is the least part and in its proper operations is dead or dying but the new man is that which gives denomination life motion and proper actions to a Christian and that is renewed in us day by day But secondly Humane nature is so highly exalted and mended by that mercy which God sent immediately upon the fall of Adam the promise of Christ that when he did come and actuate the purposes of this mission and ascended up into heaven he carried humane nature above the seats of Angels to the place whither Lucifer the son of the morning aspird to ascend but in his attempt fell into hell For so said the Prophet the son of the morning said I will ascend into heaven and sit in the sodes of the North that is the throne of Jesus seated in the East called the sides or obliquity of the North and as the seating of his humane nature in that glorious seat brought to him all adoration and the Majesty of God and the greatest of his exaltation So it was so great an advancement to us that all the Angels of heaven take notice of it and feel a change in the appendage of their condition not that they are lessened but that we who in nature are lesse then Angels have a relative dignity greater and an equall honour of being fellow-servants This mystery is plain in Scripture and the reall effect of it we read in both the Testaments When Manoah the father of Sampson saw an Angel he worshipped him and in the old Testament it was esteemed lawfull for they were the lieutenants of God sent with the impresses of his Majesty and took in his Name the homage from us who then were so much their inferiours But when the man Christ Jesus was exalted and made the Lord of all the Angels then they became our fellow servants and might not receive worship from any of the servants of Jesus especially from Prophets and Martyrs and those that are ministers of the testimony of Jesus And therefore when an Angel appeared to Saint John and he according to the Custom of the Jews fell down and worshipped him as not yet knowing or not considering any thing to the contrary the Angell reproved him saying see thou do it not I am thy fellow servant and of thy brethren the prophets and of them which keep the sayings of this book worship God or as Saint Cyprian reads it worship Jesus God and man are now onely capable of worship but no Angel God essentially Man in the person of Christ and in the exaltation of our great Redeemer but Angels not so high and therefore not capable of any religious worship and this dignity of man Saint Gregory explicates fully Quid est quod ante Redemptoris adventum adorantur ab hominibus Angeli tacent postmodum vero adorarirefugiunt why did the Angels of old receive worshippings and were silent but in the new testament decline it and fear to accept it Nisi quod naturam nostram quam prius despexerant postquam hanc super se assumptam aspiciunt prostratam sibi videre pertimescunt nec jam sub se velut insirmam contemnere ausi sunt quam super se viz. in caeli Rege venerantur the reason is because they seeing our nature which they did so lightly value raised up above them they fear to see humbled under them neither do they any more despise the weaknesse which themselves worship in the King of heaven The same also is the sense of the Glosse of Saint Ambrose Ansbertus Haymo Rupertus and others of old and Ribera Salmeron and Lewis of Granada of late which being so plainly consonant to the words of the Angel and consigned by the testimony of such men I the rather note that those who worship Angels and make religious addresses to them may see what priviledge themselves lose and how they part with the honour of Christ who in his nature relative to us is exalted far above all thrones and principalities and dominions I need not adde lustre to this It is like the Sun the biggest body of light and nothing can describe it so well as its own beams and there is not in nature or the advantages of honour any thing greater then that we have the issues of that mercy which makes us fellow servants with Angels too much honoured to pay them a religious worship whose Lord is a man and he that is their King is our Brother 4. To this for the likenesse of the matter I adde that the divine mercy hath so prosecuted us with the enlargement of his favours that we are not onely fellow ministers and servants with the Angels and in our nature in the person of Christ exalted above them but we also shall be their Judges and if this be not an honour above that of Joseph or Mordecai an honour beyond all the measures of a man then there is in honour no degrees no priority or distances or characters of fame and noblenesse Christ is the great Judge of all the world his humane nature shall then triumph over evil men and evil spirits then shall the Devils those Angels that fel from their first originals be brought in their chains from their dark prisons and once be allowed to see the light that light that shall confound them while all that follow the lamb and that are accounted worthy of that resurrection shall be assessors in the judgment Know ye not saith S. Paul that ye shall
judge Angels And Tertullian speaking concerning Devils and accursed spirits de cultu foeminarum saith Hi sunt Angeli quos judicaturi sumus Hi sunt Angeli quibus in lavacro renunciavimus Those Angels which we renounced in baptisme those we shall judge in the day of the Lords Glory in the great day of recompences And that the honour may be yet greater the same day of sentence that condemns the evil Angels shal also reward the good and increase their glory which because they derive from their Lord and ours from their King and our elder Brother the King of glories whose glorious hands shall put the crown upon all our heads we who shall be servants of that judgement and some way or other assist in it have a part of that honour to be judges of all Angels and of all the world The effect of these things ought to be this that we do not by base actions dishonour that nature that sits upon the throne of God that reigns over Angels that shall sit in judgement upon all the world It is a great undecency that the son of a King should bear water upon his head and dresse vineyards among the slaves or to see a wise man and the guide of his country drink-drunk among the meanest of his servants but when members of Christ shall be made members of an harlot and that which rides above a rain-bow stoopes to an imperious whorish woman when the soul that is sister to the Lord of Angels shall degenerate into the foolishnesse or rage of a beast being drowned with the blood of the grape or made mad with passion or ridiculous with weaker follies we shall but strip our selves of that robe of honour with which Christ hath invested and adorned our nature and carry that portion of humanity which is our own and which God had honoured in some capacities above Angels into a portion of an eternal shame and became lesse in all senses and equally disgraced with Devils The shame and sting of this change shall be that we turned the glories of the Divine mercy into the basenesse of ingratitude and the amazement of suffering the Divine vengeance But I passe on 5. The next order of Divine mercies that I shall remark is also an improvement of our nature or an appendage to it for whereas our constitution is weak our souls apt to diminution and impedite faculties our bodies to mutilation and imperfection to blindnesse and crookednesse to stammering and sorrows to baldnesse and deformity to evil conditions and accidents of body and to passions and sadnesse of spirit God hath in his infinite mercy provided for every condition rare suppletories of comfort and usefulnesse to make recompence and sometimes with an overrunning proportion for those natural defects which were apt to make our persons otherwise contemptible and our conditions intolerable God gives to blinde men better memories For upon this account it is that Rufinus makes mention of Didymus of Alexandria who being blinde was blessed with a rare attention and singular memory and by prayer and hearing and meditating and discoursing came to be one of the most excellent Divines of that whole age And it was more remarkable in Nicasius Machliniensis who being blockish at his book in his first childhood fell into accidental blindnesse and from thence continually grew to so quick an appretension and so tenacious a memory that he became the wonder of his contemporaries and was chosen Rector of the College at Mechlin and was made licentiate of Theology at Lovaine and Doctor of both the laws at Colein living and dying in great reputation for his rare parts and excellent learning At the same rate also God deals with men in other instances want of children he recompences with freedom from care and whatsoever evil happens to the body is therefore most commonly single and unaccompanied because God accepts that evil as the punishment of the sin of the man or the instrument of his vertue or his security and is reckoned as a sufficient cure or a sufficient Antidote God hath laid laid a severe law upon all women that in sorrow they shall bring forth children yet God hath so attempered that sorrow that they think themselves more accursed if they want that sorrow and they have reason to rejoyce in that state the trouble of whic is alleviared by a promise that they shall be saved in bearing children He that wants one eye hath the force and vigorousnesse of both united in that which is left him and when ever any man is afflicted with sorrow his reason and his religion himself and all his friends persons that are civil and persons that are obliged run in to comfort him and he may if he will observe wisely finde so many circumstances of ease and remission so many designes of providence and studied favours such contrivances of collateral advantage and certain reserves of substantial and proper comfort that in the whole sum of affaires it often happens that a single crosse is a double blessing that even in a temporal sense it is better to go to the house of mourning then of joyes and festival egressions Is not the affliction of poverty better then the prosperity of a great and tempting fortune does not wisdom dwell in a mean estate and a low spirit retired thoughts and under a sad roof and is it not generally true that sicknesse it self is appayed with religion and holy thoughts with pious resolutions and penitential prayers with returns to God and to sober councels and if this be true that God sends sorrow to cure sin and affliction be the hand-maid to grace it is also certain that every sad contingency in nature is doubly recompenced with the advantages of religion besides those intervening refreshments which support the spirit and refresh its instruments I shall need to instance but once more in this particular God hath sent no greater evil into the world then that in the sweat of our brows we shall eat our bread and in the difficulty and agony in the sorrows and contention of our souls we shall work out our salvation But see how in the first of these God hath out done his own anger and defeated the purposes of his wrath by the inundation of his mercy for this labour and sweat of our brows is so far from being a curse that without it our very bread would not be so great a blessing It is not labour that makes the Garlick and the pulse the Sycamore and the Cresses the cheese of the Goats and the butter of the sheep to be savoury and pleasant as the flesh of the Roe-buek or the milk of the Kine the marrow of Oxen or the thighs of birds If it were not for labour men neither could eat so much nor relish so pleasantly nor sleep so soundly nor be so healthful nor so useful so strong nor so patient so noble or so untempted and as God hath made us beholding to labour for the
purchase of many good things so the thing it self ows to labour many degrees of its worth and value and therefore I need not reckon that besides these advantages the mercies of God have found out proper and natural remedies for labour Nights to cure the sweat of the day sleep to ease our watchfulnesse rest to alleviate our burdens and dayes of religion to procure our rest and things are so ordered that labour is become a duty and an act of many vertues and is not so apt to turne into a sin as is its contrary and is therefore necessary not onely because we need it for making provisions of our life but even to ease the labour of our rest there being no greater tediousnesse of spirit in the world then want of imployment and an unactive life and the lasie man is not onely unprofitable but also accursed and he groans under the load of his time which yet passes over the active man light as a dreame or the feathers of a bird while the disimployed is a desease and like a long sleeplesse night to himself and a load unto his country And therefore although in this particular God hath been so merciful in this infliction that from the sharpnesse of the curse a very great part of mankinde are freed and there are myriads of people good and bad who do not eat their bread in the sweat of their brows yet this is but an overrunning and an excesse of the divine mercy God did more for us then we did absolutely need for he hath disposed of the circumstances of this curse that mans affections are so reconciled to it that they desire it and are delighted in it and so the Anger of God is ended in loving Kindnesse and the drop of water is lost in the full chalice of the wine and the curse is gone out into a multiplied blessing But then for the other part of the severe law and laborious imposition that we must work out our spiritual interest with the labours of our spirit seems to most men to be so intolerable that rather then passe under it they quit their hopes of heaven and passe into the portion of Devils and what can there be to alleviate this sorrow that a man shall be perpetually sollicited with an impure tempter and shall carry a flame within him and all the world is on fire round about him and every thing brings fuel to the flame and full tables are a snare and empty tables are collateral servants to a lust and help to blow the fire and kindle the heap of prepared temptations and yet a man must not at all tast of the forbidden fruit and he must not desire what he cannot choose but desire and he must not enjoy whatsoever he does violently covet and must never satisfy his appetite in the most violent importunities but must therefore deny himself because to do so is extremely troublesome this seems to be an art of torture and a devise to punish man with the spirit of agony and a restlesse vexation But this also hath in it a great ingredient of mercy or rather is nothing else but a heap of mercy in its intire constitution For if it were not for this we had nothing of our own to present to God nothing proportionable to the great rewards of heaven but either all men or no man must go thither for nothing can distinguish man from man in order to beatitude but choice and election and nothing can enoble the choice but love and nothing can exercise love but difficulty and nothing can make that difficulty but the contradiction of our appetite and the crossing of our natural affections and therefore when ever any of you is tempted violently or grow weary in your spirits with resisting the petulancy of temptation you may be cured if you will please but to remember and rejoyce that now you have something of your own to give to God something that he will be pleased to accept something that he hath given thee that thou mayest give it him for our mony and our time our dayes of feasting and our dayes of sorrow our discourse and our acts of praise our prayers and our songs our vows and our offerings our worshippings and prostrations and whatsoever else can be accounted in the sum of our religion are onely accepted according as they bear along with them portions of our wil and choice of love and appendant difficulty Laetius est quoties magno tibi constat honestum So that whoever can complain that he serves God with pains and mortifications he is troubled because there is a distinction of things such as we call vertue and vice reward and punishment and if he will not suffer God to distinguish the first he will certainly confound the latter and his portion shall be blacknesse without variety and punishment shall be his reward 6. As an appendage to this instance of divine mercy we are to account that not onely in nature but in contingency and emergent events of providence God makes compensation to us for all the evils of chance and hostilities of accident brings good out of evil which is that solemn triumph which mercy makes over justice when it rides upon a cloud and crowns its darknesse with a robe of glorious light God indeed suffered Joseph to be sold a bondslave into Egypt but then it was that God intended to crown and reward his chastity for by that means he brought him to a fair condition of dwelling and there gave him a noble trial he had a brave contention and he was a conqueror Then God sent him to prison but still that was mercy it was to make way to bring him to Pharaohs court and God brought famine upon Canaan and troubled all the souls of Jacobs family and there was a plot laid for another mercy this was to bring them to see and partake of Josephs glory and then God brought a great evil upon their posterity and they groaned under task-masters but this God changed into the miracles of his mercy and suffered them to be afflicted that he might do ten miracles for their sakes and proclaim to all the world how dear they were to God And was not the greatest good to mankinde brought forth from the greatest treason that ever was committed the redemption of the world from the fact of Judas God loving to defeat the malice of man and the arts of the Devil by rare emergencies and stratagems of mercy It is a sad calamity to see a kingdom spoiled and a church afflicted the Priests slain with the sword and the blood of Nobles mingled with cheaper sand religion made a cause of trouble and the best men most cruelly persecuted Government confounded and laws ashamed Judges decreeing causes in fear and covetousnesse and the ministers of holy things setting themselves against all that is sacred and setting fire upon the fields and turning in little foxes on purpose to destroy the vineyards and what shall
make recompence for this heap of sorrows when ever God shall send such swords of fire even the mercies of God which then will be made publick when we shall hear such afflicted people sing Inconvertendo captivitatem Sion with the voice of joy and festival eucharist among such as keep holy day and when peace shall become sweeter and dwell the longer and in the mean time it serves religion and the affliction shall try the children of God and God shall crown them and men shall grow wiser and more holy and leave their petty interstes and take sanctuary in holy living and be taught temperance by their want and patience by their suffering and charity by their persecution and shall better understand the duty of their relations and at last the secret worm that lay at the root of the plant shall be drawn forth and quite extinguished For so have I known a luxuriant Vine swell into irregular twigs and bold excrescencies and spend it self in leaves and little rings and affoord but trifling clusters to the wine-presse and a faint return to his heart which longed to be refreshed with a full vintage But when the Lord of the vine had caused the dressers to cut the wilder plant and made it bleed it grew temperate in its vain expense of uselesse leaves and knotted into fair and juicy bunches and made accounts of that losse of blood by the return of fruit So is an afflicted Province cured of its surfets and punished for its sins and bleeds for its long riot and is left ungoverned for its disobedience and chastised for its wantonnesse and when the sword hath let forth the corrupted blood and the fire hath purged the rest then it enters into the double joyes of restitution and gives God thanks for his rod and confesses the mercies of the Lord in making the smoke be changed into fire and the cloud into a perfume the sword into a staffe and his anger into mercy Had not David suffered more if he had suffered lesse and had he not been miserable unlesse he had been afflicted he understood it well when he said It is good for me that I have been afflicted He that was rival to Crassus when he stood candidate to command the Legions in the Parthians warre was much troubled that he missed the dignity but he saw himself blessed that he scaped the death and the dishonour of the overthrow by that time the sad news arrived at Rome The Gentleman at Marseilles cursed his starres that he was absent when the ship set sail to sea having long waited for a winde and missed it but he gave thanks to the providence that blest him with the crosse when he knew that the ship perished in the voyage and all the men were drowned And even those virgins and barren women in Jerusalem that longed to become glad mothers and for want of children would not be comforted yet when Titus sacked the City found the words of Jesus true Blessed is the womb that never bare and the paps that never gave suck And the world being governed with a rare variety and changes of accidents and providence that which is a misfortune in the particular in the whole order of things becomes a blessing bigger then we hoped for then when we were angry with God for hindring us to perish in pleasant waves or when he was contriving to pour upon thy head a mighty blessing Do not think the Judge condemns you when he chides you nor think to read thy own finall sentence by the first half of his words Stand still and see how it will be in the whole event of things let God speak his minde out for it may be this sad beginning is but an art to bring in or to make thee to esteem and entertain and understand the blessing They that love to talk of the mercies of the Lord and to recount his good things cannot but have observed that God delights to be called by such Appellatives which relate to miserable and afflicted persons He is the Father of the fatherlesse and an avenger of the widowes cause he standeth at the right hand of the poor to save his soul from unrighteous Judges and he is with us in tribulation And upon this ground let us account whether mercy be not the greater ingredient in that death and deprivation when I lose a man and get God to be my Father and when my weak arm of flesh is cut from my shoulder and God makes me to lean upon him and becomes my Patron and my Guide my Advocate and Defender and if in our greatest misery Gods mercy is so conspicuous what can we suppose him to be in the endearment of his loving Kindnesse If his vail be so transparent well may we know that upon his face dwels glory and from his eyes light and perpetuall comforts run in channels larger then the returns of the Sea when it is driven and forced faster into its naturall course by the violence of a tempest from the North. The summe is this God intends every accident should minister to vertue and every vertue is the mother and the nurse of joy and both of them daughters of the Divine goodnesse and therefore if our sorrows do not passe into comforts it is besides Gods intention it is because we will not comply with the act of that mercy which would save us by all means and all varieties by health and by sicknesse by the life and by the death of our dearest friends by what we choose and by what we fear that as Gods providence rules over all chances of things and all designes of men so his mercy may rule over all his providence Sermon XXVI The Miracles of the Divine Mercy Part II. 7. GOD having by these means secured us from the evils of nature and contingencies he represents himself to be our Father which is the great endearment and tye and expression of a naturall unalterable and essentiall kindnesse he next makes provisions for us to supply all those necessities which himself hath made For even to make necessities was a great circumstance of the mercy and all the relishes of wine and the savourinesse of meat the sweet and the fat the pleasure and the satisfaction the restitution of spirits and the strengthening of the heart are not owing to the liver of the vine or the kidneys of wheat to the blood of the grape or the strength of the corne but to the appetite or the necessity and therefore it is that he that sits at a full table and does not recreate his stomack with fasting and let his digestion rest and place himself in the advantages of natures intervals he loses the blessing of his daily bread and leans upon his table as a sick man upon his bed or the lion in the grasse which he cannot feed on but he that wants it and sits down when nature gives the signe rejoyces in the health of his hunger and the taste of his
meat and the strengthening of his spirit and gives God thanks while his bones and his flesh rejoyce in the provisions of nature and the blessing of God Are not the imperfections of infancy and the decayes of old age the evils of our nature because respectively they want desire and they want gust and relish and reflections upon their acts of sense and when desire failes presently the mourners go about the streets But then that these desires are so provided for by nature and art by ordinary and extraordinary by foresight and contingency according to necessity and up unto conveniency until we arrive at abundance is a chain of mercies larger then the Bowe in the clouds and richer then the trees of Eden which were permitted to feed our miserable father Is not all the earth our orchard and our granary our vineyard and our garden of pleasure and the face of the Sea is our traffique and the bowels of the Sea is our vivarium a place for fish to feed us and to serve some other collaterall appendant needs and all the face of heaven is a repository for influences and breath fruitfull showers and fair refreshments and when God made provisions for his other creatures he gave it of one kinde and with variety no greater then the changes of day and night one devouring the other or sitting down with his draught of blood or walking upon his portion of grasse But man hath all the food of beasts and all the beasts themselves that are fit for food and the food of Angels and the dew of heaven and the fatnesse of the earth and every part of his body hath a provision made for it and the smoothnesse of the olive and the juice of the vine refresh the heart and make the face cheerfull and serve the ends of joy and the festivity of man and are not onely to cure hunger or to allay thirst but to appease a passion and allay a sorrow It is an infinite variety of meat with which God furnishes out the table of mankinde and in the covering our sin and clothing our nakednesse God passed from sig-leaves to the skins of beasts from aprons to long-robes from leather to wool and from thence to the warmth of furres and the coolnesse of silks he hath dressed not onely our needs but hath fitted the severall portions of the year and made us to go dressed like our mother leaving off the winter sables when the florid spring appears and assoon as the Tulip fades we put on the robe of Summer and then shear our sheep for Winter and God uses us as Ioseph did his brother Benjamin we have many changes of raiment and our messe is five times bigger then the provision made for our brothers of the Creation But the providence and mercies of God are to be estimated also according as these provisions are dispensed to every single person For that I may not remark the bounties of God running over the tables of the rich God hath also made provisions for the poorest person so that if they can but rule their desires they shall have their tables furnished and this is secured and provided for by one promise and two duties by our Own labour and our Brothers charity and our faith in this affair is confirmed by all our own and by all the experience of other men Are not all the men and the women of the world provided for and fed and clothed till they die and was it not alwayes so from the first morning of the creatures and that a man is starved to death is a violence and a rare contingency happening almost as seldom as for a man to have but one eye and if our being provided for be as certain as for a man to have two eyes we have reason to adore the wisdom and admire the mercies of our Almighty Father But these things are evident Is it not a great thing that God hath made such strange provisions for our health such infinite differences of Plants and hath discovered the secrets of their nature by meer chance or by inspiration either of which is the miracle of providence secret to us but ordered by certain and regular decrees of heaven It was a huge diligence and care of the divine mercy that discovered to man the secrets of Spagyrick medicines of stones of spirits and the results of 7. or 8. decoctions and the strange effects of accidental mixtures which the art of man could not suspect being bound up in the secret sanctuary of hidden causes and secret natures and being laid open by the concourse of 20. or 30. little accidents all which were ordered by God as certainly as are the first principles of nature or the descent of sons from fathers in the most noble families But that which I shall observe in this whole affair is that there are both for the provision of our tables and the relief of our sicknesses so many miracles of providence that they give plain demonstration what relation we bear to heaven and the poor man need not be troubled that he is to expect his daily portion after the Sun is up for he hath found to this day he was not deceived and then he may rejoyce because he sees by an effective probation that in heaven a decree was made every day to send him provisions of meat and drink and that is a mighty mercy when the circles of heaven are bowed down to wrap us in a bosome of care and nourishment and the wisdom of God is daily busied to serve his mercy as his mercy serves our necessities Does not God plant remedies there where the diseases are most popular and every Countrey is best provided against its own evils Is not the Rhubarb found where the Sun most corrupts the liver and the Scabious by the shore of the Sea that God might cure as soon as he wounds and the inhabitants may see their remedy against the leprosie and the scurvy before they feel their sicknesse And then to this we may adde Natures commons and open fields the shores of rivers and the strand of the Sea the unconfined air the wildernesse that hath no hedge and that in these every man may hunt and fowl and fish respectively and that God sends some miracles and extraordinary blessings so for the publike good that he will not endure they should be inclosed and made severall Thus he is pleased to dispense the Manna of Calabria the medicinall waters of Germany the Musles at Sluce at this day and the Egyptian beans in the marishes of Albania and the salt at Troas of old which God to defeat the covetousnesse of man and to spread his mercy over the face of the indigent as the Sun scatters his beams over the bosome of the whole earth did so order that as long as every man was permitted to partake the bosome of heaven was open but when man gathered them into single handfulls and made them impropriate God gathered his hand
Lord I pray God this heap of sorrow may swell your piety till it breaks into the greatest joyes of God and of religion and remember when you pay a tear upon the grave or to the memory of your Lady that dear and most excellent soul that you pay two more one of repentance for those things that may have caused this breach and another of joy for the mercies of God to your Dear departed Saint that he hath taken her into a place where she can weep no more My Lord I think I shall so long as I live that is so long as I am Your Lordships most humble Servant TAYLOR 2 Samuel 14. 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him WHen our blessed Saviour and his Disciples viewed the Temple some one amongst them cryed out Magister aspice quales lapides Master behold what fair what great stones are here Christ made no other reply but foretold their dissolution and a world of sadnesse and sorrow which should bury that whole Nation when the teeming cloud of Gods displeasure should produce a storm which was the daughter of the biggest anger and the mother of the greatest calamitie which ever crushed any of the sons of Adam the time shall come that there shall not be left one stone upon another The whole Temple and the Religion the ceremonies ordained by God and the Nation beloved by God and the fabrick erected for the service of God shall run to their own period and lie down in their several graves Whatsoever had a beginning can also have an ending and it shall die unlesse it be daily watered with the purls flowing from the fountain of life and refreshed with the dew of Heaven and the wells of God And therefore God had provided a tree in Paradise to have supported Adam in his artificial immortality Immortality was not in his nature but in the hands and arts in the favour and superadditions of God Man was alwaies the same mixture of heat and cold of drynesse and moisture ever the same weak things apt to feel rebellion in the humors and to suffer the evils of a civil war in his body natural and therefore health and life was to descend upon him from Heaven and he was to suck life from a tree on earth himself being but ingraffed into a tree of life and adopted into the condition of an immortal nature But he that in the best of his dayes was but a Cien of this tree of life by his sin was cut off from thence quickly and planted upon thorns and his portion was for ever after among the flowers which to day spring and look like health and beauty and in the evening they are sick and at night are dead and the oven is their grave And as before even from our first spring from the dust of the earth we might have died if we had not been preserved by the continual flux of a rare providence so now that we are reduced to the laws of our own nature we must needs die It is natural and therefore necessary It is become a punishment to us and therefore it is unavoidable and God hath bound the evill upon us by bands of naturall and inseparable propriety and by a supervening unalterable decree of Heaven and we are fallen from our privilege and are returned to the condition of beast and buildings and common things And we see Temples defiled unto the ground and they die by Sacrilege and great Empires die by their own plenty and ease full humors and factious Subjects and huge buildings fall by their own weight and the violence of many winters eating and consuming the cement which is the marrow of their bones and Princes die like the meanest of their Servants and every thing findes a grave and a tomb and the very tomb it self dies by the bignesse of its pompousnesse and luxury Phario nutantia pondera saxo Quae cineri vanus dat ruitura labor and becomes as friable and uncombined dust as the ashes of the Sinner or the Saint that lay under it and is now forgotten in his bed of darknesse And to this Catalogue of mortality Man is inrolled with a Statutum est It is appointed for all men once to die and after death comes judgement and if a man can be stronger then nature or can wrestle with a degree of Heaven or can escape from a Divine punishment by his own arts so that neither the power nor the providence of God nor the laws of nature nor the bands of eternal predestination can hold him then he may live beyond the fate and period of flesh and last longer then a flower But if all these can hold us and tie us to conditions then we must lay our heads down upon a turfe and entertain creeping things in the cells and little chambers of our eyes and dwell with worms till time and death shall be no more We must needs die That 's our sentence But that 's not all We are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again Stay 1. We are as water weak and of no consistence alwaies descending abiding in no certain place unlesse where we are detained with violence and every little breath of winde makes us rough and tempestuous and troubles our faces every trifling accident discomposes us and as the face of the waters wafting in astrom so wrinkles it self that it makes upon its fore-head furrows deep and hollow like a grave so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age and then they dig a grave for us And there is in nature nothing so contemptible but it may meet with us in such circumstances that it may be too hard for us in our weaknesses and the sting of a Bee is a weapon sharp enough to pierce the finger of a childe or the lip of a man and those creatures which nature hath left without weapons yet they are armed sufficiently to vex those parts of men which are left defenselesse and obnoxious to a sun beam to the roughnesse of a sower grape to the unevennesse of a gravel-stone to the dust of a wheel or the unwholesome breath of a star looking awry upon a sinner 2. But besides the weaknesses and natural decayings of our bodies if chances and contingencies be innumerable then no man can reckon our dangers and the praeternatural causes of our deaths So that he is a vain person whose hopes of life are too confidently increased by reason of his health and he is too unreasonably timorous who thinks his hopes at an end when he dwels in sickness For men die without rule and with and without occasions and no man suspecting or foreseeing any of deaths addresses and no man in his whole condition is weaker then another A man in a long
despiser of base things hugely loving to oblige others and very unwilling to be in arrear to any upon the stock of courtesies and liberality so free in all acts of favour that she would not stay to hear her self thanked as being unwilling that what good went from her to a needful or an obliged person should ever return to her again she was an excellent friend and hugely dear to very many especially to the best and most discerning persons to all that conversed with her and could understand her great worth and sweetnesse she was of an Honourable a nice and tender reputation and of the pleasures of this world which were laid before her in heaps she took a very small and inconsiderable share as not loving to glut her self with vanity or to take her portion of good things here below If we look on her as a Wife she was chast and loving fruitful and discreet humble and pleasant witty and complyant rich and fair wanted nothing to the making her a principal and a precedent to the best Wives of the world but a long life and a full age If we remember her as a Mother she was kinde and severe careful and prudent very tender not at al fond a greater lover of her childrens souls then of their bodies and one that would value them more by the strict rules of honour and proper worth then by their relation to her self Her servants found her prudent and fit to Govern and yet open-handed and apt to reward a just Exactor of their duty and a great Rewarder of their diligence She was in her house a comfort to her dearest Lord a guide to her children a Rule to her Servants an example to all But as she related to God in the offices of Religion she was even and constant silent and devout prudent and material she loved what she now enjoyes and she feared what she never felt and God did for her what she never did expect Her fears went beyond all her evil and yet the good which she hath received was and is and ever shall be beyond all her hopes She lived as we al should live and she died as I fain would die Et cum supremos Lachesis perneverit annos Non aliter cineres mando jacere meos I pray God I may feel those mercies on my death-bed that she felt and that I may feel the same effect of my repentance which she feels of the many degrees of her innocence Such was her death that she did not die too soon and her life was so useful and so excellent that she could not have lived too long Nemo parum diu vixit qui virtutis perfectae perfecto functus est munere and as now in the grave it shall not be enquired concerning her how long she lived but how well so to us who live after her to suffer a longer calamity it may be some ease to our sorrows and some guide to our lives and some securitie to our conditions to consider that God hath brought the piety of a yong Lady to the early rewards of a never ceasing and never dying eternity of glory And we also if we live as she did shall partake of the same glories not onely having the honour of a good name and a dear and honoured memory but the glories of these glories the end of all excellent labours and all prudent counsels and all holy religion even the salvation of our souls in that day when all the Saints and amongst them this excellent Woman shall be shown to all the world to have done more and more excellent things then we know of or can describe Mors illos consecrat quorum exitum qui timent laudant Death consecrates and makes sacred that person whose excellency was such that they that are not displeased at the death cannot dispraise the life but they that mourn sadly think they can never commend sufficiently The end CLERVS DOMINI OR A DISCOURSE OF THE DIVINE INSTITUTION Necessity Sacrednesse and Separation OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL TOGETHER WITH THE NATURE AND MANNER OF its Power and Operation WRITTEN By the speciall command of our late KING BY JER TAYLOR D. D. ACADEMIA â—† OXONIENSIS â—† LONDON Printed by James Flesher for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-Lane 1651. THE Divine institution and necessity OF THE OFFICE MINISTERIAL c. SECT I. WHen severall Nations and differing Religions have without any famous mutuall intercourse agreed upon some common rites and formes of Religion because one common effect cannot descend from chance it is certain they come to them by reason or tradition from their common Parents or by imitation something that hath a common influence If reason be the principle then it is more regular and lasting and admits of no other variety then as some men grow unreasonable or that the reason ceases If tradition be the fountain then it is not onely universall and increases as the world is peopled but remains also so long as we retain reverence to our Parents or that we doe not think our selves wiser then our forefathers But these two have produced Customes and Laws of the highest obligation for whatsoever we commonly call the Law of Nature it is either a custome of all the world derived from Noah or Adam or else it is therefore done because naturall reason teaches us to doe it in the order to the preservation of our selves and the publique But imitation of the customes of a wise nation is something lesse and yet it hath produced great consent in externall rites and offices of Religion And since there is in ceremonies so great indifferency there being no antecedent law to determine their practise nothing in their nature to make them originally necessary they grow into a Custome or a Law according as they are capable For if a wise Prince or a Governour or a Nation or a famous family hath chosen rites of common Religion such as were consonant to the Analogy of his duty expressive of his sense decent in the expression grave in the forme or full of ornament in their representment such a thing is capable of no greater reason and needs no greater authority but hath been and may reasonably enough be imitated upon the reputation of their wisdome and disinterested choice who being known wise persons or nations took them first into their religious offices Thus the Jews and the Gentiles used white garments in their holy offices and the Christians thought it reasonable enough from so united example to doe so too Example was reason great enough for that The Gentile Priests were forbid to touch a dead body to eate leavened bread to mingle with secular imployments during their attendance in holy offices these they took up from the pattern of the Jews and professed it reasonable to imitate a wise people in the rituals of their religion The Gentile Priests used Ring and Staffe and Mitre saith Philostratus the Primitive
something which others have not or if he be onely imployed in praying and presenting sacrifices of beasts for the people yet that such a person should be admitted to a neerer addresse and in behalf of the people must depend upon Gods acceptation and therefore upon divine constitution for there can be no reason given in the nature of the thing why God will accept the intermediation of one man for many or why this man more then another who possibly hath no naturall or acquired excellency beyond many of the people except what God himself makes after the constitution of the person If a spirituall power be necessary to the ministration it is certain none can give it but the fountain and the principle of the Spirits emanation Or if the graciousnesse and aptnesse of the person be required that also being arbitrary preternaturall and chosen must derive from the divine election For God cannot be prescribed unto by us whom he shall hear and whom he shall entertain in a more immediate addresse and freer entercourse And this is divinely taught us by the example of the high Priest himself who because he derived all power from his Father and all his gratiousnesse and favour in the office of Priest and Mediator was also personally chosen and sent and took not the honour but as it descended on him from God that the honour and the power the ability and the ministery might derive from the same fountain Christ did not glorisie himself to become high Priest Honour may be deserved by our selves but always comes from others and because no greater honour then to be ordained for men in things pertaining to God every man must say as our blessed High Priest said of himself If I honour my self my honour is nothing it is God that honoureth me For Christ being the fountain of Evangelicall ministery is the measure of our dispensations and the rule of Ecclesiasticall oeconomy and therefore we must not arrogate any power from our selves or from a lesse authority then our Lord and Master did and this is true and necessary in the Gospell rather then in any ministery or Priesthood that ever was because of the collation of so many excellent and supernaturall abilities which derive from Christ upon his Ministers in order to the work of the Gospel And the Apostles understood their duty in this particular as in all things else for when they had received all this power from above they were carefull to consign the truth that although it be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a divine grace in a humane ministery and that although 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is He that is ordained by men yet receives his power from God not at all by himself and from no man as from the fountain of his power And this I say the Apostles were carefull to consign in the first instance of Ordination in the case of Mathias Thou Lord shew which of these two thou hast chosen God was the Elector and they the Ministers and this being at the first beginning of Christianity in the very first designation of an ecclesiasticall person was of sufficient influence into the religion for ever after and taught us to derive all clericall power from God and therefore by such means and Ministeries which himself hath appointed but in no hand to be invaded or surprized in the entrance or polluted in the execution This descended in the succession of the Churches doctrine for ever Receive the holy Ghost said Christ to his Apostles when he enabled them with Priestly power and S. Paul to the Bishops of Asia said The holy Ghost hath made you Bishops or Overseers because no mortall man no Angel or Archangell nor any other created power but the Holy Ghost alone hath constituted this order saith S. Chrysostome And this very thing besides the matter of fact and the plain donation of the power by our blessed Saviour is intimated by the words of Christ otherwhere Pray ye therefore the Lord of the vineyard that he will send labourers into his harvest Now his mission is not onely a designing of the persons but enabling them with power because he never commands a work but he gives abilities to its performance and therefore still in every designation of the person by what ever ministery it be done either that ministery is by God constituted to be the ordinary means of conveying the abilities or else God himself ministers the grace immediately It must of necessity come from him some way or other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 S. James hath adopted it into the family of Evangelicall truths 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every perfect gift and therefore every perfecting gift which in the stile of the Church is the gift of Ordination is from above the gifts of perfecting the persons of the Hierarchy and ministery Evangelicall which thing is further intimated by S. Paul Now he which stablisheth us with you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in order to Christ and Christian Religion is God and that his meaning be understood concerning the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of establishing him in the ministery he addes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and he which anointeth us is God and hath sealed us with an earnest of his Spirit unction and consignation and establishing by the holy Spirit the very stile of the Church for ordination 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was said of Christ Him hath the Father sealed that is ordained him the Priest and Prophet of the world and this he plainly spoke as their Apostle and President in religion Not as Lords over your faith but fellow-workers he spake of himself and Timothy concerning whose Ministery in order to them he now gives account 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God anoints the Priest and God consigns him with the holy Ghost that is the Principale quaesitum that is the main question And therefore the Author of the books of Ecclesiasticall hierarchy giving the rationale of the rites of Ordination says that the Priest is made so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of proclaiming and publication of the person signifying That the holy man that consecrates is but the proclaimer of the divine election but not by any humane power or proper grace does he give the perfect gift and consecrate the person And Nazianzen speaking of the rites of ordination hath this expression with which the divine grace is proclaimed And Billius renders it ill by superinvocatur He makes the power of consecration to be declarative which indeed is a lesser expression of a fuller power but it signifies as much as the whole comes to for it must mean God does transmit the grace at or by or in the exteriour ministery and the Minister is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a declarer not by the word of his mouth distinct from the work of