fit for heaven as in Ephe. 4. 13. Till we all come to the unity of faith and to the perfect stature of the fulness of the age in Christ therefore there is such a pitch and Jesus Christ expects it you will never be fit for him till you come to your pitch there is a minimum quod sic as Philosophers speak about natural bodies so about every member of the mystical body you must come to such a degree of grace before you are fit for heaven now God hath designed you that that you may be meet to be partakers of the inheritance with the Saints in light Note it is not slipping out of a drunkards habit and to desire to be dissolved or to receive the communion or to give such and such legacies or to send for a Minister and say Lord have mercy on me No thou hast been a drunkard and an Atheist all thy days thou art not meet to go to heaven Paul blesseth God that hath made him meet Heaven is a holy place and God is a holy God and thou hast a very cursed sinful nature very unfit for heaven till thou be pollished fashioned and framed now Jesus Christ expects this The third particular follows I shall not dispatch all you 'll give me leave to consult for my own health As you have had the expectation it self and the grounds of it so you shall have The end Now the ends of it are two why Christ intended this and expects this First For your stability in Christ and Secondly For your improvement of Christ 1. Your stability in Christ 2. Stability in judgement O that is an admirable thing Health of body is a great matter but truly soundness of faith especially in these unstable times is much greater It is a good thing to have the heart established with grace that is with the doctrine of grace and not with meats not to be carried up and down with this wanton opinion and that wanton opinion in Heb. 13. 9. A good thing to have the heart established in grace To have a stability in affection that thy affections may centre upon Christ as thy love and thy desire and thy hope and thy joy thou mayest desire other things yet thou mayest be able to say I have none in heaven but thee and none in earth that I desire in comparison of thee you may love other things but you may be able to say I love Jesus Christ for himself and love my self and all other things in reference to him I value power and estate learning and all outward thing nothing but with reference and subservience to Jesus Christ O here is a sweet stability of affection and that Jesus Christ may not onely be thy joy but the exceeding gladness of thy joy a triumph of joy to joy more in knowledge of Christ and communion with Christ then you do in all outward comforts and advantages whatsoever here is a sweet stability of affection these people will not be carried up and down so much with either crosses or comforts as very many are But then There is a stability of conversation that is a blessed stability in James 1. 8. A double minded man is unconstant in all his ways as long as you have an end and an end a heart and a heart a minde and a minde you 'll never be constant you know not where to finde any men in the world but godly men because they have fixed principles Note they make conscience but come to a covetous man when you speak of his covetousness there you have him when you speak against his earthliness there you lose him he hath a double minde something for God and something for the world hath no more Religion then suits with his worldly designs he will hear a Sermon because it is cheap yet he will it may be deceive you in his shop because there is his interest and he will it may be be jolly and frollick and scoff over a cup of sack at the people of God soon after Sermon though he hath expressed it may be a great deal of zeal to the Minister why there lies his interest he is a jolly man a professor at large he must be bold O here is no stability It is a blessed thing and a sweet advantage and Jesus Christ intends this that you should be grounded in Christ being rooted and grounded and stablished in the faith in Colosians 2. 7. Now the next end is this Your improvement of Christ An improvement of him for what purpose Why for all necessary gifts as a Magistrate as a Minister in any place of trust he hath variety of gifts in 1 Cor. 12. For all graces he hath variety of graces he hath abundance of Spirit that you may be filled with all the fulness of God as I remember in Eph. 3. 19. In all conditions and relations that you may know how to be sick and how to be poor how to be Magistrates how to be Ministers I have learned to want and abound I can do all things through Christ enabling me saith Paul in Philippians 4. 13. And then In all duties you can do nothing without Christ but as he gives in as he communicates himself and vouchsafes to assist you when he withdraws you flag you wither Vse 1 I 'le be bold to say a word to my Brethren of the Ministery O that Ministers would chiefly study and minde this work this is proper Pulpit-work to put people upon such an entertainment of the Gospel that they might improve Jesus Christ and grow up to a stability in him Paul was sent had a Commission according to the faith of Gods elect in Tit. 1. 1. and Gal. 4. 19. I travel in birth with you saith Paul till Christ be formed in you O what pain it cost him every Sermon It was a great speech yet I have heard it as a certain truth concerning Reverend Mr. Bains That every Sermon cost him as much in his sence as he thought as it did ordinarily cost a woman to bring a childe into the world I travel in birth till I see Jesus Christ formed in you Note Pulpits are not for News onely and to lead people this way and that way upon politique designs and sometimes upon our own carnal interest Pulpits were never intended for passionate invectives to cry up this party or cry down that party in a vehement passionate maner let us rather use hard reasons and soft words If we conceive they be in an Error undermine their Error and avoid any exasperating provoking names which rather alienates them hardens them then recovers them This is not the method to preach men unto Christ but rather to preach away the most and best of our hearers Vse 2 Is it thus that Jesus Christ intendeth this entertainment of the Ministery that we may grow up into him in all things then I beseech you give me leave
to call upon you I do not know where I could speak more fitly in any place of the world then in this famous City and never more seasonably then when the Representative of the City is met namely that you would consider What means you enjoy what Gospel-light the Lord hath entrusted you with and what he expects from you will it not be much easier for Sodom and Gomorrah then for London another day you that have been lifted up with Capernaum to heaven if you improve not the means make account if one place in hell be hotter then another to be thrown down into it And all I have to say is this Let it be your care so to improve the Gospel that you may derive more from Christ and live more in Christ and express more of Christ that you may be inclined and enabled to do more for Christ Here accept these two short hints 1. Growth must be proportionable to the means you do enjoy Brethren let me confidently say it That measure of growth that might please God in some parts of England will not satisfie God from you that live in London why because as you have higher food and more spiritual and more glorious Gospel-discoveries the Lord expects proportionable improvements And let me say this 2. There must be a growth of all the members of the body that is a rule Philosophers give Augmentation is of all the parts and therefore to grow upwards and downwards to grow more humble more in faith more in love to the Saints more in activity for God this it is the Lord expects 2 Pet. 3. 18. Vse 3 This may rectifie our judgements concerning the Ministery of the Gospel and that in two great points First Behold it in its Original it is the Ordinance of Christ and it is the fruit of the ascension of Jesus Christ they are to be instructed and pitied I believe many of them may go according to their present apprehensions and therefore it were happy if they might be with a spirit of meakness reduc'd that will cry down all our Ministery as Antichristian why because there were or are some defects in Ordination by Bishops or whoever admit that to be true but I beseech you what is the Original from Christ and if any man will ask an able godly Minister in England where had you your Ministery you 'l say from the Prelates he will say from Jesus Christ though it is true the maner of conveying the power of exercising the Ministery be by men for Paul saith He was an Apostle neither of men nor by men not of men so he differ'd from false Apostles not by men so he differ'd from ordinary Ministers Now suppose I Note or any other Minister of the Gospel have had our Ministery conveyed to us from Christ by men and there hath been some defects in the maner will you say that that defect in the maner destroys the thing I think not any body would say the Marriage was null because they were not so rightly married in every particular as to the maner or to say that a Magistrate is no Magistrate because in every particular it may be he received not his Magistracy in the due form according to the Statutes c. there is a great deal of difference my brethren betwixt the grounds of nullifying and reforming a thing we are all sensible of it and desire God to pardon what hath been amiss and to heal what is still out of frame there hath been defects in the maner of conveying our Ministery or else why do we desire to reform it but we confidently affirm our Ministery is from Jesus Christ Christ gave gifts with the office and Authoritie but what not onely Prophets and Apostles but Pastors and Teachers then 2. Behold the Ministry in Christs intention in giving it Why did he give it it were a sweet thing to consider and I am perswaded it were a good method to cure some of London distempers no marvel if you that have such admirable gifts be still so lean and crazy in spirit what will cure that distemper look at the Ministry of the Gospel as the Ordinance of Christ and the fruit of the ascension of Christ therefore when you go to a Sermon say not I 'le not hear this man or that man because he is a fierce Independent I 'le not hear that man because he is a rigid Presbyterian nor such a man because he is a vehement Independent away with all such unseasonable words but say this I 'le go and attend upon the Ordinance of of Christ and I 'le go and attend upon that which is a fruit of the ascension of Christ and withal let me adde this and I desire it may be remembred I wish I had more strength to insist upon it because it is a most dangerous opinion and doth undermine the very foundation of the Gospel namely to hold as some do and vent it with much boldness That the Ordinances and the Ministery cease and because that Popery did once overspread the world now we have no Ordinances and now we have no Ministery and what place do they bring it is a most strange confidence and it is in Print and many of you know the Book it is cryed up sufficiently One interprets this place of Scripture I beseech you let us consider it in the fear of God and with the spirit of meekness Christ promises he will be with them he gives his Apostles commission to go abroad and saith He will be with them to the end of the world Mat. 28. 20. the Lord pardon and heal all wresting of Scripture if it be his will and prevent it for time to come To the end of the world saith he in print that is to the end of this age of Ministration they are his own words to the end of this dispensation Now he makes account that this Gospel-dispensation is ended and now we are come under a third Dispensation or Administration we were all under low Administrations the Gospel is in a maner at an end and God is all in all immediately in his Saints O that Scripture should be made to serve our purposes weigh the place meekly I desire not to meddle with mens persons but I must be faithful to Jesus Christ and the souls of his people and according to the light he hath given me I shall endeavor to make it appear that Interpretation is not consistent with the Text Jesus Christ in the 18. Verse of the 28. of Matthew saith All power is given to me in heaven and earth go therefore and teach all nations Teach all nations surely if this Dispensation be now ended if the Ministry be at an end all nations cannot be taught and so Jesus Christ will lose some of his elect for they cannot be call'd in for there must be no Teaching it seems no Ministery 2. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I
though with a Chain he made him tremble and here in the first Verse he comes as a Prisoner for their sakes to beseech them and a further and special Emphasis he comes to perswade them to that which is most pleasing namely To Vnity to which purpose he uses four several Arguments First There is a common engagement of all Saints to Vnity I beseech you walk worthy of your Vocation whereu to you are called with all lovliness and meekness forbearing one another in love there is one body one spirit even as you are all called in one hope of your calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in you all here is a whole bundle of Arguments in this first consider your Vocation those Priviledges to which you are advanced thereby and they leave a very great obligation upon you as Saints to study Vnity Secondly There is an Argument from the Equity of the thing in the 7. Verse Vnto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ unto every one of us every one hath some gift as it pleases Iesus Christ to proportion out such a measure to this Saint and such a measure to that Saint the little finger in the mystical body so much as is fit for him in the hand so much as is fit for him and this with a common respect that there might be a mutual use of all those with subserviency to the whole in reference to the mystical body of Christ there is an equity in it Thirdly There is a very great congruity and that argument you shall finde in the 8 9 and 11 Verses Jesus Christ when he did ascend he gave gifts to men all the gifts that are in the Churches and graces they are derived from the same efficient cause and therefore it is most incongruous that they should be distracted and divided so as to reflect dishonorably upon him that is the sole efficient cause of them and that with common intents and purposes for good of the mystical body But then fourthly and lastly You have here another Argument from the necessity of it till we all come to the Vnity of Faith and that we be no more tossed to and fro as children and carried up and down with every wind of Doctrine but that we speak the truth in love and so grow up into Jesus Christ in all things who is the head here is the necessity of it you 'l never grow up to intimate communion and fellowship with Jesus Christ you 'l never make a wise improvement of him as members of the mystical body unless you learn this heavenly skill namely How to advance Vnity and so I come to shew you what propositions this last Argument drawn from the necessity of the thing will afford us in the 15. Verse which by Gods assistance according as the weak measure of strength I have will bear I shall insist upon at this time But speaking or following the Truth in Love grow up into Christ in all things which is the head where first its clear Doctr. 1 Jesus Christ is the head of Saints the head of the Church Doctr. 2 2. The Lord Jesus Christ when he ascended and gave gifts to men did intend did expect that there should be such an entertainment of the gospel that we should grow up into Christ in all things who is the head Doctr. 3 3. Thinking speaking following the truth in love is the Gospel method to our Spiritual welfare I 'le begin with the first Doctr. 1 Christ is the head of particular Saints the head of the Church In the state of innocency Adam was the head of the great family of the world when he forfeited his headship and all that he did enjoy by eating the forbidden fruit that family was dissolved he was turn'd out of Paradice all was scattered abroad and we with him were then cast into a desperate condition unless God would be pleased to finde out a second Head and to that purpose out of the riches of his Grace and the infiniteness of his Wisdom that which Angels could not reach which men had not so much as any thoughts of or desires after God pitched upon namely Christ and designed him the Head of the Corporation of his Church of a certain number given unto him in his eternal Counsel for whom he should undertake and this learned Expositors conceive to be the meaning of that place where he speaks of {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} there in Ephesians 1. 10. That he might gather together all things that all things might be headed under one headed under Jesus Christ Now before the fall all were headed under the old Adam now when they were in a shatter'd condition they should be reconciled and collected headed under Jesus Christ for the better opening of this you may be pleased to take notice of three particulars First Here is the Headship it self Secondly Here is the Appropriation of this Headship to whom he is Head Thirdly Here is the Title to this Headship First For the Headship it self he is Head 1. In regard of his preheminence it is an expression in 1 Col. 17. 18. In all things having the preheminence he is the Head every member in the mystical body hath a Dignity and is advanced to an excellency to some degree of it but he that is {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} that hath the preheminency he is the Head that is Christ but this is not all if you look upon a Picture there the head of a man hath a preheminence therefore we must have more then this He is head 2. In regard of Direction and in regard of Power being a wise head able to advice and guide and govern the body as the Apostle Peter speaks of him in 1 Pet 3. 22. Who is gone into heaven and is on the right hand of God Angels Authorities and Powers being made subject to him he hath a universal and absolute regiment over all things in heaven and earth over men and Devils but then 3. In regard of that Influence that he doth convey to the bodies Sence and Motion is derived from Christ as the spring it is true that in the natural body there the heart is primum vivens but in the mystical body the head is primum vivens and he gives life to us and we derive our life from Jesus Christ the head he hath life and he hath it abundantly in himself and he lives that we may live as I remember there is such an expression in John 10. 10. 4. In regard of Vnion he doth tie altogether the nerves and sinews would not unite the members of the mystical body unless Jesus Christ were the Head As he is the Foundation stone and so supports the building so he is the Corner stone both the beauty and
must report it here is this year c. why here is a glorious proof of your love to men Love their bodies love their souls love them as Christians especially love them as Saints have a care to breed them up in Callings train them up in some degree of learning this is most honorable and I hope being done with an honest heart it will further your accompt at the great Day I yet dare take the boldness to adde the Rules I chiefly intended Some Rules now for your pursuance of Truth and some for the pursuance of Love that they may be happily married this day For Truth let the Word of God be Rule and Judge when you enquire after Truth study the revealed will of God and make use of revelations in concurrence with the Word of God but do not set up revelations against the Word of God It was a desperate expression from Valde in a Book of his in great request now adays it is true he had many things good in him considering the darkness of the times wherein he lived a Spaniard saith he We must use the Scriptures as we use Pictures he was a Papist use Pictures for a while till we get apprehension of the thing or person realized to us then throw them away because now we can pray without Pictures So use the Scriptures till we have got our mindes raised and elevated and then we need no Scriptures The Lord deliver us from this Opinion which tends to undermine the very Word of Christ Far be it from me to say any thing against New-Light properly so called though there is some so called which is I doubt Darkness nor against all Revelations for there is a Spirit of Revelation but I desire it may be wisely considered how the Spirit of Revelation discovers it self Thus chiefly not in bringing in a New Gospel and such New Dispensations to us as many talk of but in Discovering that Word which he hath revealed and we have by us in raising our mindes to understand that word more fully and those works of God that are in it more clearly I would heartily bless God for it in my self or in others if it were such a Spirit of Revelation as should help me to see any Word of God or any Work of God in me more clearly This is the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation the Apostle to the Ephesians speaks of but if you 'll talk of Revelations that you have Revelations beyond the Word and it may be sometimes in a maner contrary to the Word surely this is not the way of truth There is a poor old man Hero in Cassianus that thought he had a Revelation that when he was in the bottom of ae pit he should get out but for all his Revelation he was deceived I desire such things may be considered The next thing is this Minde Truth wisely I would say under this head 1. Be sure it be Truth that you contend for not for unwarranted Ceremonies not for trifles for those things that deserve not the name of Divine Truth And then 2. Proportion your zeal to the nature of Truth There are some Truths de fide circa fidem and in some sence praeter fidem I must not allow the like zeal for all I will have the Substantial part of my zeal for Substantial Truths and for other Truths so much zeal as the nature of them calls for This is to minde Truth wisely this is that that becomes you And then withal Minde Truths according to the directions of Truth 1. Meddle not with things too high be sober A Spirit of Sobriety in Divine things and Modesty in Secret things is most suitable to a Saint Rom. 12. 3. 2. Minde not Curiosities with neglect of those things that are necessary Affirm constantly saith Paul to Titus that those that are believers maintain good works but as for fables let them go Tit. 3. 8. 3. If you 'll do what becomes you concerning Truth Do not clap a Jus Divinum rashly upon every one of your Opinions O that brings us into a great deal of bondage divers things may be very good and yet better and more safely settled is Prudentials as Humane Constitutions then as Divine Constitutions unless we be sure we are upon Scripture-grounds then I say nothing against it What is the reason now that the Pope cannot alter I have heard it from some that have spoke with learned sober Papists asking them What think you of Transubstantiation or the like Opinions they profess Though we would yet we cannot alter them the Pope having asserted them who is infallible so that if we change one Point of our Religion we spoil all Note Truly if we clap a Jus Divinum we cannot alter it for we are engaged to hold it though we were mistaken I had rather settle too little then too much then we leave room for New Discoveries We may better adde then diminish I cannot take away a Jus Divinum without a great deal of disparagement Do not presently obtrude with confidence your own conceits upon others but rather mistrust them Learned men have had their Errors the wisest men have been deceived and do not rashly run from one Extremity to another Chrysostom he would and others they would run from the Manichees so far that they went too far towards Pelagius Many of us run so far from Popery and Prelacy Note that we run into other Extremities very dangerous and unhappy O take heed let me adde this further as you would be friends to truth Know that you have to deal with those men that will bring in Errors sensim sine sensu as the Devil dealt with Adam and Eve at first how did he beguile them he corrupted their mindes by degrees take heed of his methods from the simplicity that is in Christ You shall first have a little step and something like a Truth and that may be disputed at first then comes another and then comes another and so at last you are involved in inextricable Errors But the sixth and last thing I shall say under this head Take heed of being too far engaged in a party it is the way to sell a mans judgement for if I be one of a party I must strain hard to say as they say and subscribe as they subscribe else I shall be an Apostate this is dangerous then all must be proclaimed Heretical that differ Many a man hath broke his Conscience Note violated his peace by this Engagement because he must not break with his Party It is a notable rule Politicians have He that inclines to neither Party is master of both And I profess I know not any generation in England that sleep so quietly as those that are unengaged to this or that Party What there is good in Episcopacy they will not decline it because the Bishops had it What there is good amongst the Independents they will