you all tell us in your Tenures in your Lands in your Corporations How comes it about they do not in the Church I am sure you plead them on all sides strong enough against it And has the Church none Or hath it none to plead Yes both It was St. Paul's Plea no meaner mans We have no such Custom nor the Churches of God 1 Cor. xi 16. Many indecencies were then crept into the Church of Corinth about Prayers about Preaching about Sacraments about Gestures and Ceremonies The Rule that he confutes them by is They had no such nor the Churches of God The contrary then they had and that he thought conviction enough for Christians yea for the contentious too If any man be contentious will hear no reason this the way to answer him 'T was so then 't is so still They the Apostles and the Churches of God Customs they had and made this use of them so may we Customs we have and we may plead them Some deriv'd from them so high others later yet of age enough to speak for themselves Such as only directing all into order and beauty stood still unquestioned till of late a subtle prophaneness creeping in under a pretence of Law though obeying none would fain accuse for illegal Tyrannies But let me argue it with this kind of man May not I as lawfully serve my God in a reverent posture as thou in a sawcy and irreverent garb Is it Superstition in me to stand because thou sittest or leanest on thy elbow Is it Idolatry in me to kneel because thou wilt not foul thy clothes or vex thy knees Strange must it needs be that sitting leaning lolling must be Law and Canon where no set behaviour is expressed and my reverence only be against it made Innovation which Law never forbad Custom has retain'd When you can bring me Law against my standing bowing kneeling which your selves know Custom hath observed where uniform order has been kept I shall either submit or answer Else I must ask by what Law I am bound to sit or lean and not to stand or kneel or bow though I urge thee only to Charity and Reverence This for some reverent Customs which hadst thou any equal to for age or reason in thy Civil Affairs thou wouldst plead against the Law I here only wish it where there is nought against them that they may stand still if not under the notion of obedience yet far enough from Innovation or Disobedience And I believe in cold bloud it would be found so Well now All for the matter though never so hard According to all for the manner though never so troublesom and inconvenient if commanded by good Law or Custom must be the compass of your Obedience If any man teach otherwise says St. Paul Otherwise Than what Than all honour that is obedience in all things What then He is proud knowing nothing how much soever he seems to know doting about questions and strife of words whence cometh envy strife railings evil surmises perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds destitute of the truth supposing that gain is godliness You see the times and you may see the place 1 Tim. vi 3 4 5. How these rules have been kept amongst you towards the command of your King and Church I leave to the scrutiny of your own bosoms If you find it otherwise as surely you will let it be mended or get St. Paul and St. Peter made Apocrypha and scrape out Dicit Dominus here Gods Approbation of the Rechabites for observing all for doing all I have been so long about our selves I had almost forgotten them But I return and now enquire upon their last Commendation Whom they obeyed Ionadab their Father Their Father by nature He from whose loyns they descended Their Civil Father and Prince He that had power over their estates so it appears by his ordering their temporal affairs their new kind of Common-wealth Their Spiritual Father by his Decrees disposing all for the freer exercise of their Piety and Religion By commanding abstinence from wine and the delights of sense to refine their understandings for heavenly thoughts by forbidding them houses putting them in mind of better dwellings by the oft removal of their Tents to keep them in continual thoughts they had here no abiding City by a voluntary resignment of all earthly accommodations to teach them the contempt of worldly things a total vacancy to their Religion and Order So you have them here lastly commended for three kinds of Obedience to three kinds of Fathers their Natural Civil Ecclesiastical Father which is the right directing their Obedience Yet I meet here Three other Commendations from the words Your Father 1. That they obeyed their right Father Your Father Sought them out no new ones neither in Church nor State Kept as you would say to their own King to their own Bishop their own Priest wandred not out of their Diocess gadded not out of their own Parish to find one of their own choosing 2. That they acknowledged him for a Father and so used him with all honour and respect not a word against him for all the difficulties of his Injunctions 3. That they obeyed him under that name because a Father upon no other ground though he was but one man This indeed is that which formally constitutes Obedience when we do any thing for no other reason but because commanded by our Father To do it for other ends for the justice equity or goodness of it may bring it under the title of some other virtue This only because commanded by our Father makes it Obedience You have seen the last part of the Rechabites Obedience Shall we see whether you have any better luck in this than in the rest Whether you can here say any thing for your selves that you have obeyed the command of your Father Yet we must see first what Fathers we acknowledge take heed we are right lest God answer us as he answered those by the Prophet Ye have set up Kings but not by me Ye have made Princes but I knew it not Hos. viii 4. To begin then righ◠Kings they are our Fathers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nursing Fathers God hath set them over us Prov. viii 15. Per me Reges Made them Supreme too 't is St. Peters 1 Pet. ii 13. To the King as Supreme Mark that No earthly Power above him nor Pope nor People Be not we fallen into strange times in the interim that God must be driven to recant and we learn a new Supermacy The Kings Preeminence is expresly a part of your Oath of Allegiance And for the Oath of God says Solomon Eccles. viii 2. so think of him so obey him Next to him those that are sent by him says St. Peter of no bodies sending else of whose soevers choosing not so properly Fathers as hands and fingers of that great Father Pater Patriae Those to govern under him not above him so we pray in our
fill'd that we should have an absolute or perfect plenitude a plenitude without a diminishing preposition before it Plenitudinem properly speaking it will not be de plenitudine that 's the proper speech somewhat taken from fulness a kind of ablative secondary proportional one We are not capable of other somewhat taken off the height somewhat bated of the perfection of it With this fulness it was that the blessed Virgin the Protomartyr St. Stephen St. Peter St. Paul St. Barnabas and other Saints are said in holy Scripture to be full or fill'd full of Grace or full of Faith or full of the Holy Ghost full as the Bucket not as the Spring full as the Streams not as the Ocean full as the measure not as the immeasurable full with a fulness of abundance not of redundance of sufficiency not of efficiency full enough for our selves but not for others Alas poor narrow shallow things that we are we cannot hold enough for our selves and others too Take from the Bucket or the Stream and the Bucket will not be full and the Stream will want of what it had Lest there be not enough for us and you was more then a just fear of the wise Virgins there is not will not cannot be enough No man is sanctified by anothers Grace no man justified by anothers Faith the Fathers goodness will not satisfie for the Sons ungraciousness nor the Mothers Piety for the Daughters Vanity their Righteousness be it as full as it can will but suffice only for themselves 't is only Christs Fulness his Grace his Righteousness that can communicate it self that we can take any thing from to fill up our own Sufficient I think this to read us a second lesson of humility not to think too much of our own Righteousness nor to pride our selves in our receipts for of another they are but from them no other they are received of his but none receive of ours Sufficient 2. this too to teach us not to trust to the Piety of our Forefathers as if their fulness of good works should excuse our emptiness They had but their share what would serve their turns we must afresh to the Spring-head to have enough to serve ours And the comfort is in the next point that it will cost us nothing we have it gratis for gratia it is of free grace and favour that we receive it 3. That we may not doubt it 't is doubled in the Text redoubled grace all meerly grace nothing but grace from it and for it and by it Nothing from desert nothing from works for if of works not of grace says St. Paul Rom. 11. 6. that's plain for if of desert not of grace but duty not bought or purchased neither freely without mony says the Prophet Isa. 55. 1. Come drink and eat and fill your selves The Ocean runs not freer than his grace Who hath first given unto him says the Apostle Rom. 11. 35. Who first why no body sure for before there was any body before the foundation of the world Ephes. 1. 4. he begun with us even then gratificavit nos he accepted us all grace from the beginning Hence too is a lesson of humility the Text and day is full of it from one end of the Text to the other one end of the day to the other grace grace to put down all opinion of merit or desert as if it meant to teach us to be fill'd with humility from the fulness of it this day shewed by Christ and to be read from all the Texts that concern it as if grace it self had this day appeared to teach it 4. So much perhaps to be prest the rather from the fulness of the grace that now follows to be considered in the next particular lest by the abundance of it we should be exalted above measure as St. Paul by the abundance of his Revelations 2 Cor. xii 7. For men may be proud of graces and here are store received in the Text. 1. Gratiam pro gratiâ the grace of the Gospel for the grace of the Law that 's the more abundant says St. Paul Rom. v. 17 20. though this was a grace too a favour when time was and that such he shewed no such grace to any people as to the Iew. To them the Adoption the Glory the Covenants the giving of the Law the Service of God the Promises the Fathers the coming of Christ also according to the flesh all these graces appertained Rom. ix 4 5. these all were great ones but the Law brought nothing to perfection Heb. vii 19. The very end of it was Christ Rom. x. 4. The Law as great a favour as it was was but the Law still full of shadows and imperfections full of rigours without ability to perform them That came by Christ the very grace and beauty and glory of the Law was Christ the grace of the Gospel that was it which was the perfection of the Law the fulness of the Adoption the performance of the Covenants the finishing bringing in a better service the fulfilling of the promises the expectation of the Fathers the fulness of Christ not according to the weakness of the flesh but according to the power of the Spirit and of an endless grace This is de plenitudine right over and above all graces and favours that were shewed before all that ever any received before us So much above them as spiritual and eternal blessings are above the temporal as the reward of glory is above all other rewards for grace for grace 2. is grace for glory grace given us by Christ to the end we may obtain eternal glory by it all the graces If I may so call the good works of the Law tended only to temporal promises read the whole Law over and shew me any other if you can the grace of the Gospel of Christ it is that first revealed the hopes of glory thence the Kingdom of Heaven is heard of first there first of grace for glory grace was single grace till Christ took a second nature to double it to grace all to us And 3. here 's glory again for grace according to other Interpreters the reward as sure as the work is Grace is not only given us to purchase Glory but Glory as surely given us for that Grace The glory of the Law or the works of the Law had no grace at all was but a kind of dark dusky thing The glory of the Gospel and the glory after it and from it is that only that exceeds in glory Thus Grace is doubled upon Grace we have Grace for Glory Grace to come to Glory and Glory again to reward our Grace two great ingredients of the fulness we receive gratiam pro gratiâ even each of these for the other Yet to make the Glory yet more glorious the Grace more gracious here is 4. Grace for Grace yet in another sense one Grace for another one to advance another Grace upon Grace that we may
enough have condescended to an Uniformity but they would not let us that were the inferiours set the Rule We yet agree in the Articles of the faith only for indifferencies we kept still off We are all saved too we confess by the Cross of Christ but the very sign of it we thought enough to keep us still asunder We were zealous for thy Worship but we would not be confined to it by any imposed rule of reverence and order We could indeed have yet submitted to it our selves but we some of us had taught the people otherwise and were ashamed to unteach them We might perhaps have easily come in at first but now we have so long stood out that 't is not for our honour to retreat they will call us Turn-coats and Apostates and we shall lose the people quite Gracious and kind notwithstanding we have been in our deportments but 't was only to our own Party Thankful besides to God though we kept not indeed any solemn days of thanksgivings or as perfunctorily as we could we would go no further In the sum we have done all we could to have peace upon our own terms but we could not obtain it unless we would submit to Decency and Order and so it stands And when our Governours and Superiours call'd to the same accompt shall be content to stand to our own confessions that they imposed nothing but things Indifferent for Unity and Order Think soberly I beseech you on which hand lies the true plea for the endeavour of Peace where lies the perverseness where the compliance And if this be the business as I fear it is too near it I shall leave the whole World to judge whether peace truly rule in the hearts of those who upon their own terms only seek it whether they answer their callings or are thankful I say no more I have said too much perhaps yet I wish I had said enough to make up the peace I shall only rally up the Apostles Arguments and dismiss you hence however in peace You have heard the Apostles and our motions and motives to peace And now if we have any respect to our Christianity any thoughts of our Vocation any love to Unity any consideration of Gods goodness any kind of gratitude for his mercies or would be gracious in his eyes let the meekness of Christians the remembrance of our Vocation the Obligations to Unity the endearments of Gods kindness the reasonableness of gratitude the hope of Gods favour and our endeavour for the common happiness of the World engage us to peace to Gods peace to the Churches To this we are call'd And God that calls us to it work us to it work it in our hearts and in our practices by the same power by which we are called into one body make us of one mind thorow him who c. A SERMON Preached at St. Pauls Cross. Sir Richard Gurney being then Lord Mayor JER XXXV 18 19. Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Because you have obeyed the commandment of Ionadab your Father and kept all his Precepts and done according unto all that he hath commanded you Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel Ionadab the Son of Rechab shall not want a man to stand before me for ever THe Text you hear is the Word of God Thus saith the Lord what ere the Sermon be like to be And if the Preacher stir no further from the Text than the Rechabites in it from the command of their Father the Sermon is like to be no less and to be heard accordingly I know whose work I am about Sic dicit Dominus I shall keep to that Thus saith the Lord begins the Text and it shall run through and end my Sermon And I could wish I could begin it as Christ did his at Nazareth St. Luke iv 21. This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears But then I fear I must leave out Dicit Dominus Nor God nor his Prophet can say so for that they call the greatest part of City or Country or for the success we expect upon it I cannot therefore say the Text is fit for the time but I am sure 't is needful A Text of Obedience never more A little of that well practised would make us understand one another set all together again 'T is needful for That and that 's as much as Peace Plenty and Religion is worth Yet as needful as it is 't is well we have a Dicit Dominus for it One above that dares commend it Non dicit homo No body beneath had best to do it Or if he do this too will be Popery and Innovation the Doctrine of the Popish Clergy Words as common in the peoples mouths for all they dislike as ever Dicit Dominus was in the Prophets Well be it what they will say man what he please Thus saith the Lord and so by Gods blessing will we Say it and say it as he says it by way of Commendation Eò quòd Make Obedience the cause of our speech of a set Commendation Yet we had best take heed what we do Sic dicit Dominus His for the Rechabites that shall guide us And what is 't he commends them for Because they Obeyed for their Obedience But to whom that Obeyed your Father Obedience to man What was he Your Father Ionadab saith the Text. What power had he All. Natural Civil Ecclâ—siastical Ionadab was the Father of their Family had 1. Ius Patrium the power of a Father over them He disposed of their kind of living their Estates and Civil affairs had 2. Ius Regium the Civil Power over them Contrived all to a religious course of life to the freer service of heaven had 3. Ius Ecclesiasticum the spiritual power over them He hath not more of Authority than They of Obedience Obedience Formal to his command Vniversal to all Punctual according to all that he commanded them This then is the Obedience that God here commends a Formal an universal a Punctual obedience to Natural Civil and Spiritual Parents Commends them for commends to us Rewards to them will reward to us Likes them so well upon it that he loves to look upon them for it will not therefore endure them out of his sight promises to keep them there for ever Will do as much for us upon the same performances passes his word upon it Thus saith the Lord Engages his honour as he is Lord his power as he is Lord of Hosts his mercy as the God of Israel to make it good You see the Text in its full dimensions It will now fall easily into Parts Evidently into two I. Gods approbation of the Rechabites Obedience II. And his Reward upon it I. In the Approbation you have 1. the Form and stile of it Thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel 2. The Grounds of it Because you have obeyed c. Obedience commended upon some grounds Commended 1.
encouraged and confirmed him in it 4. His profession at it Behold said he I see the heavens opened and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God In those words he professed his faith and proclaimed his vision of it By this manner of considering it we shall do St. Stephen right and Christmas no wrong remember St. Stephens Martyrdom and yet not forget Christs being at it celebrate St. Stephens memory and yet no way omit Christs He being here to be lookt on as encourager of St. Stephens Martyrdom as much as St. Stephen for his Professor and Martyr By all together we shall fully understand the requisites of a Martyr what is required to make one such to be full of the Holy Ghost to look up stedfastly into heaven to look upon Christ as there and as boldly to profess it to be full of Grace and Spirit full of Piety and Devotion full of Faith and Hope full of Courage and Resolution all proportionably requisite to the spiritual Martyrdom of dying to the world and leaving all for Christ requisite too all of them in some measure to dye well at any time the very sum of the Text to be learn'd hence and practis'd by us If I add all requisite to keep Christmas too as it should be kept with Grace and Devotion with Faith and courage also against all that shall oppose it that our Christmas business be to be filled with the Spirit and not with meats and drinks to look up to Heaven to look up to Iesus and never to be afraid or ashamed to profess it there is nothing then in the Text to make it the least unseasonable I go on therefore to handle it part by part The first is St. Stephens accommodation to his Martyrdom how he stands fitted for it And surely he could not be better Full of the Holy Ghost Ghost is Spirit and what more necessary to a Martyr then a spirit The dreaming sluggish temper is not fit to make a Martyr he must have Spirit that dares look Death soberly in the face Yet every Spirit neither will not make a Martyr there are mad spirits in the world they call them brave ones though I know not why that rush headily upon the points of Swords and Rapiers yet bring these gallant fellows to a Scaffold or a Gibbet the common reward of their foolish rashness which they mis-reckon'd valour and you shall see how sheepishly they die how distractedly they look how without spirit The spirit that will bear out a shameful or painful death without change of countenance or inward horrour must be holy Where the Spirit is holy the Conscience pure the Soul clean the man dies with life and spirit in his looks as if he were either going to his bed or to a better place 'T is a holy life that fits men to be Martyrs But spirit and a holy Spirit is not enough to make a Martyr neither though the Martyrs spirit must be a holy one yet to dispose for martyrdom the holy Spirit must come himself with a peculiar power send an impulse and motion into the soul and spirit that shall even drive it to the stake And every degree of power will not do it it must be a full gale of holy wind that can cool the fiery Furnace into a pleasing walk that can make death and torments seem soft and easie Full of the Holy Ghost it is that Stephen is said to be e're we hear him promoted to the glory of a Martyr The Spirit of holiness will make a man die holily and the holy Spirit make him die comfortably but the fulness of him is required to make him die couragiously without fear of death or torment cruelty or rage By this you may now guess at Martys who they are not they that die for their folly and their humour not they 2. that die without holiness not every one 3. that dies as we say with valour and spirit not they that die upon the motion of any spirit but the holy one that one holy Spirit not they that die in Schism and Faction against the unity of this Holy Spirit the peace of his Holy Church none of these die Martyrs die Souldiers or valiant Heathen or men of spirit they may but men of the holy Spirit Martyrs they die not They only die such that have lived holily die in holy Cause in a holy Faith and in the peace of holy Church as in the Faith of one Holy Spirit ruling and directing it into unity upon good ground and warrant and a strong impulsion so to do without seeking for or voluntarily and unnecessarily thrusting themselves into the mouth of death And yet there are strange impulses I must tell you of the spirit of Martyrdom which ordinary souls or common pieties cannot understand Only we must know that the spirit of Martyrdom is the spirit of Love the very height of love to God which how that can consist with the spirit of Schism whereby we break the unity of Brethren or how a man can so highly love God as to dye for him and hate his Spouse the Church or his Brethren is inimaginable Some other engines there may be as vain-glory an obstinate humour of seeming constant to a false principle an ignorant and self-willed zeal which may sometimes draw a man to die but if the fulness of peace and charity does not appear there is no fulness of the Holy Ghost and they make themselves and their deaths but Martyrs that is witnesses of their own folly He that pretends to be a Martyr must have more then a pretence to the Spirit of charity II. And not to charity only but to devotion too He must 2. prepare himself for it stedfastly look up to Heaven nay into Heaven too fill his Spirit with divine and heavenly provision for it with St. Stephen here Who 1. looks up to Heaven as to his Country whither he was a going He longs earnestly to be there His soul with holy David's has a desire and longing to enter thither He that looks but seriously up to Heaven and beholds that glorious Building those starry Spangles those azure Curtains those lustrous bodies of the Sun and Moon that vast and splendid circumference of these glistering dwellings cannot but thirst vehemently to be there soul and flesh thirst for it O how brave a place is Heaven how brave even but to look on But if he can look as here it seems St. Stephen did into heaven too and contemplate the happy Choirs of blessed Saints and Angels the ineffable beauty of those inward Courts the ravishing Melody and Musick they make the quiet peace and happiness that pleasure joy and fulness of satisfaction and contentment there the majestick presence and blessed sight of God himself with all the store-houses of blessedness and glory full about him his very soul will be even ready to start with violence out of his body to fly up thither He that looks thus stedfastly looks