dares take upon him to raise forces to impose taxes to levie contributions to punish offenders or the like but such only who are designed thereunto and have commission for it And yet in the matters of God in the dispensation of his holy mysteries every man will be a Priest and a Prophet as if it were pardonable only to be disorderly in Religion or as if God would accept a lawless liberty in those things wherein the frailty of man is most apt and too likely to miscarry and wherein also the miscarriage is most fatal and ruinous to the soul for ever In Religion it is true that all have a common interest and so they have in the Lawes also and by the same reason that the one by the same the other also may be dispensed by all men promiscuously without order without distinction which must necessarily end in confusion 'T is true that under the Gospel all true believers are Priests unto the Lord and have spiritual sacrifices to offer 1. Pet. 2.5 9. But it is one thing for a man to be a Priest to himself another thing to be so to the whole Church Revel 1.6 Rom. 12.1 It is one thing to offer up our selves a living sacrifice acceptable unto God another thing to represent the Congregation unto God All ordinary and private devotions may and are to be done by private persons but the solemn ritual and publick Worship of God must be left to the publick Minister There is no good man but wisheth with Moses I would all the Lords people were Prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them Numb 11.29 Numb 11.29 But it is one thing to be qualified as the Prophets of the Lord another thing sacrilegiously to invade their Office Being qualified they may do the Office of Prophets privately to themselves and their family both by prayers for and with them and also by teaching and instructing them But in Gods house and in the presence of the whole Congregation to dispense the sacred mysteries of Salvation is only peculiar to the Stewards of his house nor may others presume to intermeddle therewithall Ac primo quidam a statu ante legem a statu sub lege à statu sub gratia semperenim reperio certa hominum genera fuisse à deo ad hoc officium delecta non autem licuisse cuiquam se obtrudere Zanch in 4. Praec Card. Polus l. 1. ad H. 8. If we search into the state and condition of the Church from the beginning of the world to this very instant of time we shall finde That both before the Law under the Law and under the Gospel also there were ever a certain select chosen sort of men saith the learned Zanchy design'd for the office of the Priesthood and that it was not lawfull for every one that list to thrust himself into the execution of this sacred function The first priest we read of that is so called is Melchisedech of whom the holy Scriptures affirm that he was without father without mother c. Heb. 7.3 His original being unknown by reason of his antiquity And so saith a learned man of the Priesthood The antiquity of this great calling is so great that it cannot be found out nor can we finde its off-spring but with the first rising and being of a Church upon the face of the earth No man taketh this honour to himself but he that is called of God as was Aaron Heb. 5.4 who was called of God but consecrated by Moses agitatus à Deo consecrationis principe saith Dionysius Exod. 28.1 2. God was the principal Author and Moses the Minister of his Consecration Heb. 5.5 so likewise Christ did not glorifie himself to become High Priest but be was personally chosen and sent or in his own language sealed of the Father Joh. 6.27 and sent into the world that is ordained to be Priest and Prophet of the world The Apostles of Christ received their Commission from him Mat. 28.19 Go ye therefore and teach all Nations Mat. 28.19 baptizing c. And that we might understand that they had by virtue of this Commission power to Commissionate others to be their successors in all succeeding Generations of the Church it followes And lo I am with you untill the end of the world with you your selves until you have fulfilled your course and served your own Generation and with you in your successors untill the end of the world and more plainly in those other words of their Commission Joh. 20.21 Joh. 20.21 22 23. 22 23. As my Father hath sent me so send I you and when he had said this he breathed on them and saith unto them Receive ye the Holy Ghost whose soever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whose soever sins ye retain they are retained which spiritual power and spiritual gifts communicated to the Apostles was not sure to expire with them except ye will also say all Ecclesiasticall Discipline and Government ended with the Apostles and that all scandals and offences heresies and errors sins and vices are left remediless and without cure or at least without a Physitian to prescribe administer and apply to wounded Consciences and sin-sick souls their proper salve and medicine As my Father hath sent me so send I you and as I have sent you Act. 14.23 Titus 1.5 so you are to send others and this we read they did They ordained Elders in all Churches and gave Commission to whom they ordained to Ordain others The Ordination was theirs but the power was from above and so the Apostles themselves acknowledged in the very first instance of Ordination when they chose Matthias in the room of Judas They prayed saying Thou Lord shew whether of these two thou hast chosen Act 2.24 Act. 2.24 God chooses and man ordains God cals the person to the Office and man instals him therein The power is Originally from God as the Fountain but conveyed through the Ministry of man as the Conduit All power is given unto me Mat. 28.18 19. both in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore c. But because there is no man how sacrilegiously soever he invaded the Ministerial Office but will pretend a call and a power from God thereunto and he that is most bold and forward to publish his follies in this kinde is also apt to mistake his boldness for a call from God he may fancy a call from above when it is only a noise in his own head or a deceitful eccho of his own heart therefore we must know this call from God to so high and honourable an Office as to be ordained for men in things pertaining to God is either extraordinary o◠ordinary the first beginning of a lasting necessity is extraordinary and 't is made ordinary in succession and by the lasting continuation of a fixed and determinate Ministry as Adam at the first was extraordinarily formed
Spirit is clear from the prayer of our Lord Joh. 17.17 Joh. 17.17 Sanctifie them with thy truth thy Word is truth The Word of God is the Word of truth for our illumination and the Word of grace for our sanctification and this prayer of our Lord was granted saith Lyra in behalf of his Apostles when the holy Spirit descended on them at the feast of Pentecost Regeneration which is the same with sanctification and to be born of God and to be born of the Spirit is ascribed to the Word of God as the conveyance of the Spirit in this respect or as the means of our new birth Jam. 1.18 Of his own will begat he us Jam. 1.18 Joh. 1.17 by the Word of truth And Joh. 1.17 The Law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ Now what else are the gifts of the Spirit or at least whereunto do they tend but to the clear understanding of the truth of God revealed by Jesus Christ which revelations are the sum of his Gospel and what else are the graces of Gods Spirit but accumulative an obedience to this truth even an obedience to the Gospel of Christ 1 Cor â—â—4 Hence it is termed the power of God and the wisdome of God And his Gospel the law of the Spirit of life Rom. 8.2 2 Cor. 3.6 Rom. 8.2 2 Cor. 3.6 So that the preaching reading hearing or in a word the clearing of this Gospel unto the mindes of men is the conveyance of the Spirit thereinto An example whereof see Act 18.44 Whilest Peter yet spake these words Act. 10.14 the words of the Gospel the holy Ghost fell on them all that heard the Word 3. The Holy Sacraments both Baptism and the Supper of the Lord are effectual means also for the conveyance of the holy Spirit 'T is promised upon our Baptism with repentance Act. 2.38 Act. 2.38 Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and ye shall receive the gift of the holy Ghost And this is also verified from the example of Christ our head upon whose Baptism in Jordan the heavens were opened and the holy Ghost descended in shape of a dove and lighted on him Mat. 3.16 denoting unto us Mat. 3.16 Remig. that by the virtue and power of Baptism not only the heavens are opened but also the gift of the holy Ghost is received therefore are we said to be born again of water and of the holy Ghost and without that the heavens are shut against us There is no admission into the celestial Kingdome Joh. 3 5. Joh. 3.5 Except a man be born of water and the holy Ghost he cannot enter into the Kingdome of heaven The Apostle St. Paul couples both Sacraments together as the conveyances of the Spirit 1 Cor. 12.13 1 Cor. 12.13 By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body and are all made to drink of one Spirit where we have the Spirit joyned with Baptism and with the Lords Supper also for what else can be meant by drinking of one Spirit but an allusion to the eating and drinking of the holy body and bloud of our Lord whereof himself testifies Joh. 6.55 56. My flesh is meat indeed and my bloud is drink indeed Joh. 6.55 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my bloud dwelleth in me and I in him that is is make partaker of my Spirit or of my gifts and graces For in such a spiritual sense we must needs understand the words except we admit them in the grosse carnal and corporal sense of the Romanists Hence Christ is termed by the Apostle a spiritual meat and a spiritual drink 1 Cor. 10.3.4 1 Cor. 10. â— And they did all eat the same spiritual meat and did all drink the same spiritual drink for they drank of the same spiritual rock that followed them and that rock was Christ A spiritual meat and and spiritual drink Christ was to the Israelites of old in those Sacramental Symbols of his presence with them the Rock and the Manna and the like but in a more full measure and clear manner he is to us in those consecrated elements of his holy Supper which being rightly administred and rightly received are spiritual food indeed for we eat and drink the very Spirit of Christ therewithal that is are made partakers of his gifts and graces But how comes it to passe then that these blessed means of grace these conveyances of the Spirit are so often ineffectual Many men do daily pray often hear and read the Word of God have been engraffed into the body of Christ by Baptism and many times receive the blessed Eucharist and yet little or no newes do they hear of the Spirit very little stirrings of the heart few good motions do they feel within they are never the better nor a whit the more enricht either with spiritual gifts or graces for the use of these means The cause whereof is the hardnesse of mans heart which receives not the impressions of the Spirit the corruption of mans nature which quenches the sacred fires of Piety and Charity before they be well inkindled in the soul the exorbitant and unruly lusts of the flesh and of the world which resist the good motions lustings and strivings of the Spirit of God Intus existens prohibet alienum when the fruits of the flesh have overgrown the soul there 's no room for the fruits of the Spirit to take rooting there These two kindes of fruits cannot grow both in one heart but the one will choak overgrow and destroy the other To this outward means of grace then and of the Spirit the inward qualifications the infitting of the soul to receive the impressions of the Spirit must be added Actus aclivorum in patiente disposito as the patient is disposed and fitted to be wrought upon accordingly so is the power and efficacy of the Agent so that according as the hearts of men are more or lesse perspirable and plyable to the impressions of the Spirit accordingly so are his workings and inspirations upon the heart The holy Spirit is compared in Scripture to water Joh. 7.38 39. and as the water is of a diffusive nature and knows no bounds but as 't is limited by the channel or vessel that holds it so the Spirit is in himself of a spreading quality and is only straitned by the narrownesse of the hearts whereinto he flowes 2 Cor. 6.12 as 2 Cor. 6.12 Ye are not straitned in us that is in our Ministry we preach abundance of grace unto you but you are straitned in your own bowels through the hardnesse of your hearts being not capable of the graces of the Spirit And the heart is made soft and pliable for the impressions of the Spirit by repentance and mortification the good seed of Gods Spirit will not take root amongst the thornes of impiety Jer. 4.4 therefore
saith the Lord Jer. 4.4 Break up the fallow ground of your hearts and sow not amongst thornes be circumcised to the Lord and take away the foreskin of your hearts that is hardnesse of your hearts Deut. 10.16 cald also the circumcision of the Spirit Deut. 10.16 Col. 2.11 Act. 2.29 because it makes way for the Spirit and Col. 2.11 A circumcision made without hands even the putting off the sinful body of the flesh meaning the sinful crop of fleshly lusts which infest and infect the soul of these the soul must be disarayed and devested by repentance and mortification Rom. 8.13 14. Rom. 8.13 14. If ye live after the flesh c. The coherence of which verses imply before we can be led by the Spirit of God we must mortifie the deeds of the flesh the sordid rags of the old man must be put off before the soul can be clothed with the splendid garments of the Spirit of grace In vain is it to pray unto God for any spiritual grace or mercy while we continue in our sins for God heareth not sinners Joh. 9.31 In vain to hear or read the Gospel of grace Eph. 6.15 except our feet be shod with the preparation of repentance whereby we forsake our sins Therefore before the Gospel it self was published this was first proclaimed both by Christ and his forerunner Repent Mat. 3.2 4.17 1 Cor. 11.28 for the kingdome of God is at hand In vain to participate of those mysteries of our salvation the body and bloud of our Lord till first by self-examination we have cast out the venome of our sinful doings by repentance and stedfast purposes of amendment In a word Deus gratiam pollicius qui in extremitaâ—jbus temporum per spiritum suum universo orbi illuminaturus esset praeâ—re intinctionem poenitentiae jusslâ— ut quos per gratiam vocaret ad promissionem per poenitentiae subsignationem ante compoueret Tert. de poen c. 2. it is our sins unrepented that make void and ineffectual all the blessed means of Grace and of the Spirit by those it is we quench the Spirit we grieve the Spirit 1 Thess 5.19 Ephes 4.30 we resist the Spirit we provoke the Spirit and poyson the blessed waters of life so that all the conveyances of the Spirit are barren and unfruitful whilest they reflect upon hardened and impenitent hearts See therefore repentance enjoyned as to the receiving of the holy Ghost Act. 2.38 8.19 And I would to God that all who pretend to the holy Spirit of God or to any the fruits and graces of the Spirit would first learn before they make their boast of the Spirit truly to repent them of their sins and to root out of the ground of their hearts all the fruits of the flesh which are adultery fornication uncleannesse lasciviousnesse Gal. 5.19 20 21. idolatry witchcraft hatred variance emulation wrath strife seditions heresies envyings murthers drunkennesse revellings c. When these all of these sinful fruits are extirpated out of the ground of the heart there may be then some hopes that our prayers and other divine acts and offices performed in the sincerity of our souls may prevail with God for the direction and comfort of his Spirit of grace and truth God which hast taught the hearts of thy faithfull people by the sending to them the light of thy holy Spirit grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things and evermore to rejoyce in his holy comfort through the merits of Jesus Christ our Saviour who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the same Spirit one God world without end Amen The Introduction and general Heads GOD as he is in himself only knowes himself and consequently those waies of his worship Coeli mystarium me doceat Deus qui condidit non homo quisâ—ipsum ignoravit Amb. which are holy and acceptable to himself Man who knowes not himself aright cannot of himself know God nor those divine and celestial mysteries which are the waies of Gods service and mans salvation For what man is he that can know the counsel of God Or who can think what the will of the Lord is Wisd 9.13 Veritas Lactant. lib. 1. c. 1. i. e. arcanum summi Dei qui fecit omnia ingenio ac propriis sensibus non potest comprehendi Alioqui c. Truth which is the secret of the most high God who hath formed all things cannot by our own wit and proper senses be comprehended for otherwise there would be little distance betwixt God and man if mans cogitations could dive into the counsels and dispositions of Gods eâ—ernal Majesty Canst thou by searching finde out God canst thou finde out the Almighty unto perfection it is as high as heaven what canst thou do deeper then hell what canst thou know the measure thereof is longer then the earth and broader then the sea Job 11.7 c. 2. This therefore must be granted as the ground of all divine truth that nothing either of God or of his sacred service is to be believed and received by us but what from God is revealed or by revelation from heaven derived to us Secret things belong to the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever that we may do all the words of this Law Hilar. de Trin. lib. 5. Deut. 29.29 Non potest Deus nisi per Deum intelligi sicut nec honorem à nobis Deus nisi per Deum accipit A Deo discendum est quid de Deo intelligendum sit quia non nisi se authore cognoscitur Id. namque honorandus c. God cannot be known but by himself neither doth he receive honour from us but by himself For that he is to be honour'd we understand not but that himself hath taught and commanded himself to be honoured The honour of God we are taught by God nor may we entertain any such thoughts of God as our own frail humane judgements suggest unto us our nature is not so sublime and piercing as by its own innate force and vertue to be raised up and enrapt with celestial knowledge Wisd 9 15. For the corruptible body presseth down the soul and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the minde that museth upon many things and hardly do we ghesse aright at things that are upon earth and with labour do we finde the things that are before us but the things that are in heaven who hath searched out and thy counsel who hath known except thou give wisdome and send thy holy Spirit from above For so the waies of them that lived upon earth were reformed and men were taught the things that are pleasing unto thee and were saved through wisdome 3. The first and fundamental act of faith then which is to believe this or that Article of holy Religion to be a divine truth and the subject matter of
usual with Heretiques none more to profess purity of Religion and none lesse charitable to the fatherless and widowes whose number is increased by their cruelty not relieved by their mercy And as to the pollutions of the world none more subtil and active to undermine their neighbours and by covetousness injustice false accusations and all unlawful and indirect means to deprive them of their means estates and preferments in the world And hence it is that Heresies and Seditions or Schisms are reckoned amongst the fruits of the flesh because both they proceed from fleshly lusts pride covetise c. and are themselves also productive of many exorbitant and wicked works Nor is it possible but that all Heresies and heretical opinions must needs produce loose sinful and dissolute actions because the acts of the understanding and of the will are so nearly and mixedly enterwoven that the corruption of the one doth ever corrupt and vitiate the other And indeed there are few Heresies which either do not directly teach or secretly imply some kinde of loosness exorbitancy and sinfulness of action The Gnosticks and Ebionites openly declaimed against the honour of virgin chastity The Nicholaitans would have all wives in common The Manichees with their ancestors the disciples of Simon Magus were all of loose dissolute licentious lives of whom S. Peter particularly speaks 2 Pet. 2.10 Yet they i. e. Simon Magus and his disciples walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness and despise government presumptuous are they and self-willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The Circumcellions were taught to lay violent hands upon themselves and the Montanists also The Anabaptists and many other Separatists of the same stamp openly profess that themselves being the only people of God have only right therefore to the câ—â—ature all others beside themselves being usurpers of what they enjoy and so 't is no injustice in them to rob plunder and dispossess them of their goods and estates The Solifidians deny the necessity of good works and so they may live as theâ— list and generally all Heretiques rail revile censure judge and condemn all that are not of their own minde and waâ— which are sins of no small account in the sight of God And what else bath filled all Christendome with factions and seditions with tumults and troubles with massacres wars and bloudshed but first the broaching and belief of Heresies and lies and renting the seamless coat of Christ by uncharitable excommunications and schismatical separations both of general Churches and particular congregations each from other We read not that the Arrians or the Donatists taught or professed any thing that was for matter of action sinful factious and seditious and yet the tumults and troubles uncharitable censures cruel persecutions that followed both the Heresie of the one and the Schism of the other are too many to be expressed It is the duty of all good Christians to be meek gentle humble patient obedient to superiors c. and 't is the duty of all good Pastors to exhort their people to the practise of these and the rest of the fruits or graces of the Spirit but Heretiques on the contrary part blow the trumpet of war faction division crying Down down still with this and that and tother piece of religious worship which they brand with the loathed name of Superstition only because it sutes not with their deceived imaginations 3. Great is the danger of Heresie and Schism because the spirit of Heresie and faction shuts out the Spirit of Grace and robs the soul of all divine assistance in the waies of life It is no marvel therefore that Heretiques are generally cruel mischievous and evil persons since they are deprived of the grace of God without which we can do nothing that good is And Grace cannot live out of the company of her twin-sister Truth Grace and Truth flow from Christ the Sun of righteousness as light and heat from the Sun in the firmament both which are so co-essential to the Sun it self that the one cannot have a being without the other All errors therefore when through perversness and wilfulness they are grown up to be Heresies as they blinde the understanding so they harden the heart also and provoke the most just God to give up such persons to a reprobate sense Rom. 1.28 4. Heresie and Schism are the more dangerous in that the infection knowes no bounds or limits but spreads and eats like a canker 2. Tim. 2.17 saith the Apostle 2 Tim. 2.17 or as a gangren which beginning in a small unperceivable spot increases still if it be not destroyed till it overspread and consume the body So 't is in the way of Error that which begins many times but with a small scruple if it be not wisely stayed increases into such erroneous opinions as are destructive to the main body of Religion and being of a Church Thus Montanus first began with the conceit of immediate Revelation then to limit the inspiration of the holy Ghost to himself and his followers thence they fell into the sin of Schism and broke off communion with the whole Church of Christ which proceeded at length to this monstrous conceit among them that only the house of Montanus was the true Church and that Montanus himself was the holy Ghost even so amongst us first the ceremonies and then the substance both of the holy Sacraments and divine service were first scrupled and then cryed down and afterward pulled down also first Christian liberty is pretended and then brutish disorder and confusion followes The Church is free 't is most true and not to be clog'd and burthened with a number of needless fruitless insignificant ceremonies but yet not so free as to be freed of all order decency reverence unity and uniformity in the publique service of God but that scrupulous and new fangled souls when they once begin to doubt and then leave the way of truth like travellers that have lost their way wander up and down and are as far if not farther off their journeys end then when first they left the high and beaten road It would be endless to reckon up the several Sects and monstrous Heresies which have crept in amongst us at this one gap first of all viz. The schismatical desertion of that publique form of prayer administration of the Sacraments and other rites and ceremonies instituted and commanded by the Church to be observed by all the obedient sons and faithful members thereof One who hath computed the Heresies which seven years agoe sprung up from that time when the Common-prayer was abolished sayes they have doubled the number of what they were in S. Austins time and in his daies they were very neer fourscore and they are much multiplied since that time and daily do increase for evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse deceiving and being deceived 2. Tim. 3.13 Nor must we hope for other till the God of