mention of the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth But this is included in the first Inference Wherefore I will let it pass Fourthly If communicating of good be a Sacrifice then it is a Duty of the First Table and respects the Worship of God From whence we may learn to set a true estimate upon this Duty We applaud our selves in the frequent Hearing of the Word of God and praying to God and the like We highly esteem I say our performances in this kind because they be of the First Table and respect God so nearly But that we may with as great zeal and diligence exercise the acts of Charity as well as of that kind of Devotion The Apostle tells us that when we distribute our Goods to others relieving them either in Body or in Soul we then worship God we then sacrifice to God which is an act of service and worship proper and peculiar to him which consideration is worthy our thinking of and more worthy our practising of Cursed is he that doth the work of God negligently The Fifth and last Inference shall be this That which Philo the Iew speaks of in his Tractate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of them that sacrifice of their washing and sprinkling that kind of sprinkling of water mingled with the ashes of a red heiser Numb 19. Which is saith he to put us in mind whereof we be made that we are but dust and ashes water and earth mingled together This is our composure such our frailty this our poor condition capable of so many miseries by reason of this tempered dirt we carry about with us And therefore being all of one mould we may the more heartily commiserate one another and help one another This sprinkling is a fit Consecration of every Christian Sacrificer that in all humility and compassion he may relieve his fellow-member The Summ is this That with all sincerity discretion diligence humility and tender sympathy we may offer unto God this Christian Oblation even the Charitable communication of such good things as God hath imparted to us AND thus I have dispatched the Second branch of my Text viz. That doing of good is a Sacrifice III. The Third and last is That doing of good is a sacrifice in which God is well pleased It is not improbable that the Apostle hath here an eye to those many testimonies in the Prophets of Gods displeasure against the Iewish Sacrifices Esa. 1 11 13. What have I to do with the multitude of your sacrifices saith the Lord I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams and of the fat of fed beasts and I desire not the blood of bullocks nor of lambs nor of goats Bring no more oblations in vain Incense is an abomination unto me My soul hateth your new-moons and appointed feasts So Chap. 66. 3. He that kills a bullock is as if he slew a man He that sacrificeth a sheep as if he cut off a dogs neck What is it therefore that God would have Wherein is his delight I desired mercy and not sacrifice saith he Hosea 6. 6. And in the first of Esay he nameth the relieving of the oppressed And Chap. 66. Ver. 2. He speaks of a poor and contrite Spirit and such a Spirit is also merciful For it's pride and high-mindedness that makes us forget the evil plight of our Neighbour I will add a Reason or two to confirm this Truth and so conclude God is Truth and Essence it self therefore his delight is in the truth of every thing and not in their empty shadows He loves the truth in the inward parts as the Psalmist saith Therefore doing good out of pure Charity cannot but please him it being the substance of the Iewish Ceremony of Sacrificing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Pious Iew True Sacrificing what can it be but the Piety of the Soul that loves God And he that loves him must needs love his Neighbour also And he that loves his Neighbour will do good to him so far as he is able Therefore the same Author saith very truly in another place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Humanity or forwardness to do all good offices to our Neighbour and Piety are twins He thinks not the term of Cousin or Sister fit enough but calls them Twins to shew that they be born both at a time So soon as true Piety is born in us Humanity strait springs up with it Now this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or love of our Neighbour being so like the Nature of God whom the Apostle calls Love This principle and the effects of it doing good to our Neighbour must needs be acceptable to God The Heathens had so much Reason in them to offer that to their Deities which was most consonant to their Nature So the Persians Sacrificed on Horse to the Sun Ne detur celeri victima tarda Deo But I will not insist upon the proof of a thing so plain I doubt not but that you are thoroughly perswaded of the truth of these tvvo latter parts of my Text That doing good is a Sacrifice and that it is a Sacrifice wherein God is well pleased The Inference and Conclusion of all is that vvhich I begun vvith viz. To do good and communicate forget not And that vve forget not He that hath set his eyes upon the hearts of men and mindeth all their wayes He strengthen us and stir us up by the powerful working of his all-quickening Spirit that we constantly endeavour to fulfil the dictates thereof through Iesus Christ our Lord to whom with the Father and the Blessed Spirit be all Honour Glory Power Praise henceforth and for ever Amen DISCOURSE XII GAL. vi 14 15 16. But God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Iesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world For in Christ Iesus neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature And as many as walk according to this rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God THE drift of this Epistle to the Galatians is to reduce them again to the Truth of Christianity that were almost apostatizing to Iudaism and the Ceremonial Lavv of Moses Ye observe days and months and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed labour on you in vain Chap. 4. Ver. 10 11. But the main scope of the Apostle is against Circumcision as is plain upon the very first perusal of the Epistle Which he beating dovvn together vvith all the Lavv of Moses and extolling the Faith in Christ seems sometime to excuse a man from walking in the Lavv under the pretence of Faith in Christ. But as S. Peter hath well observed there be many things in S. Pauls Epistles hard to be understood which foolish men pervert to their own destruction And that we be not led into the same error and mischief I hold it not from my purpose to trace the footsteps of S.
out the meaning of the latter words of my Text They ate the Offerings of the dead that is Offerings offered to dead men departed this life Est honor tumulis animas placare paternas Ovid. Fast. This piece of Superstition exhibited by Ninus to his Father Belus descended to his Posterity and over-spread that Country he being not a private Person but Lord of a Kingdom This worshipping of the Dead by Prayers and Sacrifices is as commonly known as ordinary School-books There 's a large description of these Rites in Homers Odyssees Where after three Libations or Drink-offerings of Wine and Honey of Wine of Water and Meal which were poured into a ditch of a cubit wide with promise of a further Sacrifice a barren Cow and a black Wether with a present immolation of Beast then prepared for Sacrifice upon the running down of the black Blood 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 straight there were gathered together by whole flocks from out of Erebus the Souls of dead deceased Cardan also writes of Adrian that he erected a Temple and Oracle instituted Priests and Rites for his execrable Catamite Antinous when he was dead This is the Superstition of Necromancy Which tho' the Israelites aimed not at in their Sacrificing to the Ghost of Belus yet is their Idolatry as little if not less excusable For the end of the Necromancer is knowledge of future things or things past that lie hid The drift of the Israelites was the accomplishment of their wicked Lust their committing of Whoredom with the Daughters of Moab But more light than from any profane Writer may we gather out of the Book of Wisdom Chap. 14. A father afflicted with untimely mourning when he hath made an image of his child soon taken away now honoureth him as a God which was then a dead man and delivered to those that were under him ceremonies and sacrifices Thus in process of time an ungodly custom grown strong was kept as a law and graven images were worshipped by commandment of Kings Here we see a Father making an Image for his Child and Deifying him with Ceremonies and Sacrifices Which makes Venerable Bedes opinion of the Childs Deifying the Father Ninus his erecting an Image in honour of his Father Belus sufficiently probable So an ungodly Custom got the strength of a Religious Law among the Children of Moab As also that among the Latins from the first Example of AEneas Ille Patris genio solennia dona ferebat Hinc populi ritus edidicere pios Ovid. Fast. Lib. 2. Where patris Genius may be very well for Anima patris the Soul of his Father or his Fathers Ghost as Hesiod also terms the Souls of them that dyed in the Golden Age 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is Genii in Latin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These be Genii Plutarch restricts it not to the Golden Age but speaks at large 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Souls freed from their Bodies become Genii according to Hesiod So Plutarch and he venters to shew how they be affected with things here below They love to be abettors though not actors as old men who have left off the more youthful sports love to set the younger sort to their games and exercises and to look on and encourage them as he expresseth it in his de Genio Socratis Maximus Tyrius doth endeavour at large to prove that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Genii be nought but the Souls of men who are occupied much what in such employments as they were in the flesh And Xenocrates in Aristotles Topicks makes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all one even when it is in the Body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As Xenocrates saith He 's happy that hath a good Soul for the Soul is the Genius of every one But I have not bestowed all this pains for a Distich in Ovid. If we be perswaded of the Identity of the Souls of the departed and Genii or Spirits way is made to that in S. Basil where he describes the nature of Sacrificing to these Genii Daemones or Souls of the deceased they being all one or little difference being betwixt them Which will be further confirmed if we consider that even all the Deities of the Heathen as Iupiter Mars Sol Luna and the rest have been Men upon earth as the Egyptians witness in Diodorus Sicalus from whence the Graecians had their Numina as the Egyptians contend and is not improbable Insomuch that we shall scarce find any Daemones or Daemonia among the Heathen but the Souls of them that have departed this life to whom Sacrifice hath been offered Statues Temples and Stars have been bestowed upon them as in that Story of Adrian and Antinous whom he placed also among the Stars the Constellation next the Eagle bears his name as all the Planets the names of men once here upon earth as I intimated out of Diodorus But to come at length to S. Basil out of whom we shall understand more fully this eating of the Sacrifices of the dead or of the Daemones or Daemonia The Statue consecrated to any Daemonium or Genius hath the assistence saith he of the Genii or Daemonia 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. For as hungry dogs haunt the shambles where blood and gore use to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So the lickersome Daemonia seeking the enjoyment of the blood and nidour of the Sacrifices frequent the Altars and Statues consecrated to them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hence it is that the Apostle saith That they that eat things consecrated to Idols partake of the table of the Daemonia or Genii Or as was probably inferr'd before the Souls of the dead according to their apprehension For it is more incident to Natural Reason to think that the Souls of the departed men being rather forced out of their Bodies by fatal necessity than willingly following the call of Nature that they should delight rather in such provision as men can make them than those that we conceive never to have stooped so low as the descent into the flesh And so whatsoever S. Basil speaks of the Daemonia Natural Reason to be more prone to conceive of the Souls of the departed and accordingly to have provided for them in that worship they did to them So that they that have been joined to Baal-Peor that is that have been initiated into that Religion have worshipped the Soul of Belus and have been partakers of his Table eaten of the same Flesh with him accordingly as S. Basil explains the Daemonia And nor Reason nor Scripture nor the Mysteries of Nature do any thing clash against this II. BUT now that Israel was initiated into those Rites of Peor is manifest out of Numb 25. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Initiatusque est Israel Beelphegor Or as the Hebrew hath it Et adjunxit se Israel Baal-Peor But that we may see the abomination of this act more fully
the unspeakable agonies of dying to sin this is a harder way To give Alms and relieve the needy to furnish those living Temples of God the poor Christians Souls with necessaries this way is more chargeable Now which of those wayes be more pleasing to Flesh and Blood let any man judge Beloved be not deceived God is not mocked He that sowes nothing but words shall reap nothing but wind If we will serve God as we will he will recompense us as we would not I will have mercy saith he and not sacrifice as the Prophet speaketh Or in the Apostles Language If you will be sacrificing This is the true Christian Sacrifice and Holy Worship of God even to do good as we have opportunity As if the Apostle should thus speak I know that such is the quality of the natural man and the highness of his mind that he will easily be perswaded to be exercised in the immediate service of the great King of Heaven and Earth But he is not so easily induced to regard the state of his poor necessitous Neighbour Such his crafty and covetous disposition is that he will easily bestow some sugared words upon his Maker in publick or private Devotion so that hereby he may be excused from real good deeds to his fellow-creature He will easily sacrifice the calves of his Lips so it may exempt him from a chearful relieving or feeding the hungry and needy He will be very earnest and anxious in the intricate subtilties of Opinions so he may be cold or frozen in common Charity the only acceptable Religion Wherefore I knowing these slights and subtilties of the Devil and false and dangerous imaginations of the Flesh and abominable hypocrisie of the Natural man who takes all the hints and occasions he can to decline the true service of God and seeks false pacifications of Conscience for to retain his so dearly loved disobedience and following his own desires That you rest not our selves in a false pretended service to God and so neglect those Charitable Duties to your Neighbour I tell you that these good offices to your Neighbour are services to God the highest kind of service of his Sacred Majesty such service as is most acceptable to the God of Charity 5. Which is the Fifth and last Motive and brings to the second and third Propositions in my Text 2. That the doing of good and communicating is a sacrifice 3. That this doing of good is a sacrifice well pleasing unto God THESE I will now handle in an absolute way considering them in themselves And first of the former viz. II. That doing good is a Sacrifice I will first prove the truth of it out of other places of Scripture Then compare the doing of good with the nature of a Sacrifice and its kinds Lastly I will draw some practical Inferences from it 1. That doing of good is a Sacrifice may easily be gathered out of that in S. Iames 1. 27. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction and to keep our selves unspotted of the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is The Worship of God which in the Old Law consisted of Sacrifices and Purifications external is this even offering or giving our Benevolence to the Poor and comforting every one in his distress as his misery requires and our ability will afford this is our Sacrificing And our Washing and Purification is not that of the Body but the Spirit the keeping our selves from the pollution of the wicked World the lust of the flesh the lust of the eye and the pride of life as S. Iohn glosses upon that word Purity from these is undefiled Religion in the sight of the Father To do good is that acceptable Sacrifice or Oblation to God Ecclesiasticus 35. Whoso keepeth the law bringeth offerings enough He that keeps the commandments offers an offering of salvation and he that gives alms sacrificeth praise S. Paul Phil. 4. 18. But I have all things and abound I am full having received of Epaphroditus the things that were sent from you an odour of a sweet smell a sacrifice acceptable well pleasing to God So this point is strong enough out of Divine Testimony that communicating good is a Sacrifice I but some will say it is not truly a Sacrifice but Metaphorically and improperly so called But the Answer is easie and yet beyond their expectation that it is more really and truly a Sacrifice than those in the Old Law As the living man is more truly and really a man than the picture of a man or his shadow in a glass It is well known and acknowledged of all true Christians that the service of the Old Law and its Ceremonies are but Types and Shadows of the Righteousness that is required of us Christians under the Gospel So then as the truth of the putting away the old leaven is the purging of our Souls of all malicious wickedness and hypocrisie 1 Cor. 5. 8. So our sacrificing or offering unto God is giving to our Brethren that be in need and not to God who hath no need of any thing I will not reprove thee saith God because of thy sacrifice and burnt-offerings I will take no bullock out of thy stall nor he-goat out of thy fold for all the beasts of the forest are mine and so are the cattle upon a thousand hills I know all the fowls upon the mountains and the wild beasts of the field are in my sight If I be hungry I will not tell thee for the whole world is mine and all that therein is Thinkest thou that I will eat bulls flesh or drink the blood of goats 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Sacrifice unto God praise Psal. 50. But what shall we think then that he that professeth his own self-sufficiency so largely in this Psalm that he needs not the Flesh of Bulls or the Blood of Goats that he stands in need of the empty breath of mans mouth a thing so fading and transient that weak puff or perishing blast of man whose very substance is but a vapour a wind that passeth away and cometh not again Is this the change of Worship that God requires Is our vain breath the very Life and Soul of that Body of Moses the Ceremonies of the Old Law Has Aarons melodious Bells given place to sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal If good deeds as giving our Goods to the Poor and Body to the Fire if need be without Charity be such a disconsonant and harsh thing before God how will the praise of a wicked Worldling that hath neither inward Charity nor outward Munificency grate the ears of the Almighty But that you may know that this Sacrifice of praise is not a mere Lip-labour let us compare it with that of Ecclesiasticus in the fore-cited place He that gives almes sacrificeth praise And with that of our Saviour Let your light so shine before men that they seeing your good