choose any thing else because it is extreamly in love with this as the Saints and Angels in their state of Beatific vision cannot choose but love God and yet the liberty of their choice is not lessenâ—d because the object fils all the capacities of the will and the understanding Indifferency to an object is the lowest degree of liberty and supposes unworthinesse or defect in the object or the apprehension but the will is then the freest and most perfect in its operation when it intirely pursues a good with so certain determination and clear election that the contrary evil cannot come into dispute or pretence Such in our proportions is the liberty of the sons of God it is an holy and amiable captivity to the Spirit the will of man is in love with those chains which draws to God and loves the fetters that confine us to the pleasures and religion of the kingdom And as no man will complain that his temples are restraind and his head is prisoner when it is encircled with a crown So when the Son of God had made us free and hath onely subjected us to the service and dominion of the Spirit we are free as Princes within the circles of their Diadem and our chains are bracelets and the law is a law of liberty and his service is perfect freedom and the more we are subjects the more we shall reign as Kings and the faster we run the easier is our burden and Christs yoke is like feathers to a bird not loads but helps to motion without them the body fals and we do not pity birds when in summer we wish them unfeathered and callow or bald as egges that they might be cooler and lighter such is the load and captivity of the soul when we do the work of God and are his servants and under the Government of the spirit They that strive to be quit of this subjection love the liberty of out-laws and the licentiousness of anarchy and the freedom of sad widows and distressed Orphans For so Rebels and fools and children long to be rid of their Princes and their Guardians and their Tutors that they may be accursed without law and be undone without control and be ignorant and miserable without a teacher and without discipline He that is in the Spirit is under Tutours and Governours untill the time appointed of the Father just as all great Heirs are onely the first seizure the Spirit makes is upon the will He that loves the yoke of Christ and the discipline of the Gospel he is in the Spirit that is in the spirits power Upon this foundation the Apostle hath built these two propositions 1. Whosoever hath not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his he does not belong to Christ at all he is not partaker of his Spirit and therefore shall never be partaker of his glory 2. Whosoever is in Christ is dead to sin and lives to the Spirit of Christ that is lives a Spirituall a holy and a sanctifyed life These are to be considered distinctly 1. All that belong to Christ have the Spirit of Christ Immediately before the ascension our blessed Saviour bid his Disciples tarry in Jerusalem till they should receive the promise of the Father Whosoever stay at Jerusalem and are in the actuall Communion of the Church of God shall certainly receive this promise For it is made to you and to your children saith S. Peter and to as many as the Lord our God shall call All shall receive the Spirit of Christ the promise of the Father because this was the great instrument of distinction between the Law and the Gospel In the Law God gave his Spirit 1. to some to them 2. extraregularly 3. without solennity 4. in small proportions like the dew upon Gideons fleece a little portion was wet sometime with the dew of heaven when all the earth besides was dry And the Jewes calld it filiaâ— voois the daughter of a voice still and small and seldom and that by secret whispers and sometimes inarticulate by way of enthusiasme rather then of instruction and God spake by the Prophets transmitting the sound as thorough an Organ pipe things which themselves oftentimes understood not But in the Gospel the spirit is given without measure first powred forth upon our head Christ Jesus then descending upon the beard of Aaron the Fathers of the Church and thence falling like the tears of the balsam of Judea upon the foot of the plant upon the lowest of the people And this is given regularly to all that ask it to all that can receive it and by a solemn ceremony and conveyed by a Sacrament and is now not the Daughter of a voice but the Mother of many voices of divided tongues and united hearts of the tongues of Prophets and the duty of Saints of the Sermons of Apostles and the wisdom of Governours It is the Parent of boldness and fortitude to Martyrs the fountain of learning to Doctors an Ocean of all things excellent to all who are within the ship and bounds of the Catholike Church so that Old men and young men maidens and boyes the scribe and the unlearned the Judge and the Advocate the Priest and the people are full of the Spirit if they belong to God Moses's wish is fulfilled and all the Lords people are Prophets in some sense or other In the wisdom of the Ancient it was observed that there are four great cords which tye the heart of Man to inconvenience and a prison making it a servant of vanity and an heir of corruption 1. Pleasure and 2. Pain 3. Fear and 4. Desire 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are they that exercise all the wisdom and resolutions of man and all the powers that God hath given him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Agathon These are those evil Spirits that possess the heart of man mingle with al his actions so that either men are tempted to 1. lust by pleasure or 2. to baser arts by covetousness or 3. to impatience by sorrow or 4. to dishonourable actions by fear and this is the state of man by nature and under the law and for ever till the Spirit of God came and by four special operations curâ—d these four inconveniences and restrained or sweetned these unwholesome waters 1. God gave us his Spirit that we might be insensible of worldly pleasures having our souls wholly filâ—d with spiritual and heavenly relishes For when Gods Spirit hath entred into us and possessed us as his Temple or as his dwelling instantly we begin to taste Manna and to loath the diet of Egypt we begin to consider concerning heaven and to prefer eternity before moments and to love the pleasures of the soul above the sottish and beastly pleasures of the body Then we can consider that the pleasures of a drunken meeting cannot make recompence for the pains of a surfet and that
The foolish exchange fol. 224. 237. Matth. 16. ver 26. For what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul Sermon 20 21. 22. The Serpent and the Dove or a discourse of Christian Prudence fol. 251. 263. 274. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmlesse as doves Sermon 23. 24. Of Christian simplicity 289. 301. Matth. 10. latter part of ver 16. And harmlesse as doves Sermon 25. 26. 27. The miracles of the Divine Mercy fol. 313. 327. 340. Psal. 86. 5. For thou Lord art good and ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon thee A Funerall Sermon preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countesse of Carbery fol. 357. 2 Sam. 14. 14. For we must needs die and are as water spilt on the ground which cannot be gathered up again neither doth God respect any person yet doth he devise means that his banished be not expelled from him A Discourse of the Divine Institution necessity sacrednesse and separation of the Office Ministeriall Sermon I. VVHITSVNDAY OF THE SPIRIT OF GRACE 8. Romans v. 9. 10. But ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his * And if Christ be in you the body is dead because of sin but the Spirit is life because of righteousnesse THe day in which the Church commemorates the descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles was the first beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This was the first day that the Religion was professed now the Apostles first openâ—d their commission and read it to all the people The Lord gave his Spirit or the Lord gave his word and great was the company of the Preachers For so I make bold to render that prophesie of David Christ was the word of God verbum aeternum but the Spirit was the word of God verbum Patefactum Christ was the word manifested in the flesh the Spirit was the word manifested to flesh and set in dominion over and in hostility against the flesh The Gospel and the Spirit are the same thing not in substance but the manifestation of the Spirit is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because he was this day manifested the Gospel was this day first preached and it became a law to us called the law of the Spirit of life that is a law taught us by the Spirit leading us to life eternal But the Gospel is called the Spirit 1. Because it contains in it such glorious mysteries which were revealed by the immediate inspirations of the Spirit not onely in the matter it self but also in the manner and powers to apprehend them For what power of humane understanding could have found out the incarnation of a God that two natures a finite and an infinite could have been concentred into one hypostasis or person that a virgin should be a Mother that dead men should live again that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the ashes of dissolved bones should become bright as the Sun blessed as Angels swift in motion as thought clear as the purest Noone that God should so love us as to be willing to be reconcil'd to us and yet that himself must dye that he might pardon us that Gods most Holy Son should give us his body to eat and his bloud to crown our chalices and his Spirit to sanctifie our souls to turn our bodies into temperance our souls into mindes our mindes into Spirit our Spirit into glory that he who can give us all things who is Lord of Men and Angels and King of all the Creatures should pray to God for us without intermission that he who reigns over all the world should at the day of judgement give up the Kingdom to God the Father and yet after this resignation himself and we with him should for ever reign the more gloriously that we should be justified by Faith in Christ and that charity should be a part of faith and that both should work as acts of duty and as acts of relation that God should Crown the imperfect endeavours of his Saints with glory and that a humane act should be rewarded with an eternal inheritance that the wicked for the transient pleasure of a few minutes should be tormented with an absolute eternity of pains that the waters of baptisme when they are hallowed by the Spirit shall purge the soul from sin and that the Spirit of a man shall be nourished with the consecrated and mysterious elements and that any such nourishment should bring a man up to heaven and after all this that all Christian People all that will be saved must be partakers of the Divine nature of the Nature the infinite nature of God and must dwell in Christ and Christ must dwell in them and they must be in the Spirit and the Spirit must be for ever in them these are articles of so mysterious a Philosophy that we could have inferred them from no premises discours'd them upon the stock of no naturall or scientificall principles nothing but God and Gods spirit could have taught them to us and therefore the Gospel is Spiritus patefactus the manifestation of the Spirit ad aedificationem as the Apostle calls it for edification and building us up to be a Holy Temple to the Lord. 2. But when we had been taught all these mysterious articles we could not by any humane power have understood them unlesse the Spirit of God had given us a new light and created in us a new capacity and made us to be a new creature of another definition Animalis homo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is as S. Jude expounds the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the animal or the naturall man the man that hath not the Spirit cannot discern the things of God for they are spiritually discerned that is not to be understood but by the light proceeding from the Sun of righteousnesse and by that eye whose bird is the Holy Dove whose Candle is the Gospel Scio incapacem te sacramenti Impie Non posse coecis mentibus mysterium Haurire nostrum nil diurnum nox capit He that shall discourse Euclids elements to a swine or preach as Venerable Bede's story reports of him to a rock or talk Metaphysicks to a Bore will as much prevail upon his assembly as S. Peter and S. Paul could do upon uncircumcised hearts and ears upon the indisposed Greeks and prejudicate Jews An Ox will relish the tender flesh of Kids with as much gust and appetite as an unspirituall and unsanctified man will do the discourses of Angels or of an Apostle if he should come to preach the secrets of the Gospel And we finde it true by a sad experience How many times doth God
desires of God and this I say is the Great benefit of the Spirit which God hath given to us as an antidote against worldly pleasures And therefore S. Paul joynes them as consequent to each other For it is impossible for those who were once enlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come c. First we are enlightned in Baptisme and by the Spirit of manifestation the revelations of the Gospel then we relish and taste interiour excellencies and we receive the Holy Ghost the Spirit of confirmation and he gives us a taste of the powers of the world to come that is of the great efficacy that is in the Article of eternall life to perswade us to religion and holy living then we feel that as the belief of that Article dwels upon our understanding and is incorporated into our wils and choice so we grow powerfull to resist sin by the strengths of the Spirit to desie all carnall pleasure and to suppresse and mortifie it by the powers of this Article those are the powers of the world to come 2. The Spirit of God is given to all who truly belong to Christ as an anidote against sorrows against impatience against the evil accidents of the world and against the oppression and sinking of our spirits under the crosse There are in Scripture noted two births besides the naturall to which also by analogy we may adde a third The first is to be born of water and the Spirit It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one thing signified by a divided appellative by two substantives water and the Spirit that is Spiritus aqueus the Spirit moving upon the waters of Baptisme The second is to be born of Spirit and fire for so Christ was promised to baptize us with the Holy Ghost and with fire that is cum spiritu igneo with a fiery spirit the Spirit as it descended in Pentecost in the shape of fiery tongues And as the watry spirit washed away the sins of the Church so the spirit of fire enkindles charity and the love of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Plutarch the Spirit is the same under both the titles and it enables the Church with gifts and graces And from these there is another operation of the new birth but the same Spirit the spirit of rejoycing or spiritus exultans spiritus laetitiae Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in beleeving that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost There is a certain joy and spirituall rejoycing that accompanies them in whom the Holy Ghost doth dwell a joy in the midst of sorrow a joy given to allay the sorrows of saecular troubles and to alleviate the burden of persecution This S. Paul notes to this purpose And ye became followers of us and of the Lord having received the word in much afâ—liction with joy of the Holy Ghost Worldly afflictions and spirituall joyes may very well dwell together and if God did not supply us out of his storehouses the sorrows of this world would be mere and unmixt and the troubles of persecution would be too great for naturall considences For who shall make him recompence that lost his life in a Duel fought about a draught of wine or a cheaper woman What arguments shall invite a man to suffer torments in testimony of a proposition of naturall Philosophy And by what instruments shall we comfort a man who is sick and poor and disgracâ—d and vitious and lies cursing and despairs of any thing hereafter That mans condition proclaims what it is to want the Spirit of God the Spirit of comfort Now this Spirit of comfort is the hope and confidence the certain expectation of partaking in the inheritance of Jesus This is the faith and patience of the Saints this is the refreshment of all wearied travellers the cordiall of all languishing sinners the support of the scrupulous the guide of the doubtfull the anchor of timorous and fluctuating souls the confidence and the staff of the penitent He that is deprived of his whole estate for a good conscience by the Spirit he meets this comfort that he shall finde it again with advantage in the day of restitution and this comfort was so manifest in the first dayes of Christianity that it was no infrequent thing to see holy persons court a Martyrdom with a fondnesse as great as is our impatience and timorousnesse in every persecution Till the Spirit of God comes upon us we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inopis nos atque pusilli finxerunt animi we have little souls little faith and as little patience we fall at every stumbling block and sink under every temptation and our hearts fail us and we die for fear of death and lose our souls to preserve our estates or our persons till the Spirit of God fills us with joy in beleeving and a man that is in a great joy cares not for any trouble that is lesse then his joy and God hath taken so great care to secure this to us that he hath turn'd it into a precept Rejoyce evermore and Rejoyce in the Lord always and again I say rejoyce But this rejoycing must be onely in the hope that is laid up for us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so the Apostle Rejoycing in hope For although God sometimes maks a cup of sensible comfort to overflow the spirit of a man and thereby loves to refresh his sorrows yet that is from a secret principle not regularly given not to be waitd for not to be prayed for and it may fail us if we think upon it but the hope of life eternall can never fail us and the joy of that is great enough to make us suffer any thing or to do any thing ibimus ibimus utcunque praecedes supremum Carpere iter comites parati To death to bands to poverty to banishment to tribunals any whither in hope of life eternall as long as this anchor holds we may suffer a storm but cannot suffer shipwrack And I desire you by the way to observe how good a God we serve and how excellent a Religion Christ taught when one of his great precepts is that we should rejoyce and be exceeding glad and God hath given as the spirit of rejoycing not a sullen melancholy spirit not the spirit of bondage or of a slave but the Spirit of his Son consigning us by a holy conscience to joyes unspeakable and full of glory And from hence you may also infer that those who sink under a persecution or are impatient in a sad accident they put out their own fires which the Spirit of the Lord hath kindled and lose those glories which stand behinde the cloud Part II. 3. THe Spirit of God is given us as an antidote against evil concupiscences and sinfull desires and is
that Christ prayes in Heaven for us and if we do not pray on earth in the same manner according to our measures we had as good hold our peace our prayers are an abominable sacrifice and send up to God no better a perfume then if wee burned assa faetida or the raw flesh of a murdered man upon the altar of incense 6. The spirit of Christ and of prayer helps our infirmities by giving us confidence and importunity I put them together For as our faith is and our trust in God so is our hope and so is our prayer weary or lasting long or short not in words but in works and in desires For the words of prayer are no part of the spirit of prayer words may be the body of it but the spirit of prayer alwayes consists in holinesse that is in holy desires and holy actions words are not properly capable of being holy all words are in themselves seâ—vants of things and the holinesse of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression but in the spirit of it that is in the violence of its desires and the innocence of its ends and the continuence of its imployment this is the verification of that great Prophecie which Christ made that in all the world the true worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth that is with a pure minde with holy desires for spiritual things according to the minde of the spirit in imitation of Christs intercession with perseverance with charity or love That is the spirit of God and these are the spiritualities of the Gospel and the formalities of prayer as they are Christian and Evangelicall 7. Some men have thought of a seventh way and explicate our praying in the spirit by a mere volubilty of language which indeed is a direct undervaluing the spirit of God and of Christ the spirit of manifestation and intercession it is to return to the materiality and imperfection of the law it is to worship God in outward forms and to think that Gods service consists in shels and rinds in lips and voices in shadows and images of things it is to retire from Christ to Moses and at the best it is a going from real graces to imaginary gifts and when praying with the spirit hath in it so many excellencies and consists of so many parts of holinesse and sanctification and is an act of the inner man we shall be infinitely mistaken if we let go this substance and catch at a shadow and sit down and rest in the imagination of an improbable unnecessary uselesse gift of speaking to which the nature of many men and the art of all learned men and the very use and confidence of ignorant men is too abundantly sufficient Let us not so despise the spirit of Christ as to make it no other then the breath of our lungs * For though it might be possible that at the first and when formes of prayer were few and seldome the spirit of God might dictatethe very words to the Apostles and first Christians yet it follows not that therfore he does so still to all that pretend praying with the spirit For if he did not then at the first dictate words as we know not whether he did or no why shall he be supposâ—d to do so now If he did then it follows that he does not now because his doing it then was sufficient for all men since for so the formes taught by the spirit were paternes for others to imitate in all the descending ages of the Church There was once an occasion so great that the spirit of God did think it a work â—it for him to teach a man to weave silke or embroider gold or woke in brasse as it happened to Besaleel and Aholiab But then every weaver or worker in brasse may by the same reason pretend that he works by the spirit as that he prayes by the spirit if by prayer he means forming the words For although in the ease of working it was certain that the spirit did teach in the ease of inditing or forming the words it is not certain whether he did or no yet because in both it was extraordinary if it was at all and ever since in both it is infinitely needlesse to pretend the Spirit in forms of every mans making even though they be of contrary religions and pray one against the other it may serve an end of a phantastic and hypochondriacal religion or a secret ambition but not the ends of God or the honour of the Spirit The Jews in their declensions to folly and idolatry did worship the stone of imagination that is certain smooth images in which by art magic pictures and little faces were represented declaring hidden things and stoln goods and God severely forbad this basenesse but we also have taken up this folly and worship the stone of imagination we beget imperfect phantasmes and speculative images in our phansy and we fall down and worship them never considering that the spirit of God never appears through such spectres Prayer is one of the noblest exercises of Christian religion or rather is it that duty in which all graces are concentred Prayer is charity it is faith it is a conformity to Gods will a desiring according to the desires of Heaven an imitation of Christs intercession and prayer must suppose all holinesse or else it is nothing and therefore all that in which men need Gods Spirit all that is in order to prayer Baptisme is but a prayer and the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper is but a prayer a prayer of sacrifice representative and a prayer of oblation and a prayer of intercession and a prayer of thanksgiving and obedience is a prayer and begs and procures blessings and if the Holy Ghost hath sanctified the whole man then he hath sanctified the prayer of the man and not till then and if ever there was or could be any other praying with the spirit it was such a one as a wicked man might have and therefore it cannot be a note of distinction between the good and bad between the saints and men of the world But this onely which I have described from the fountains of Scripture is that which a good man can have and therefore this is it in which we ought to rejoyce that he that glories may glory in the Lord. Thus I have as I could described the effluxes of the Holy Spirit upon us in his great chanels But the great effect of them is this That as by the arts of the spirits of darknesse and our own malice our souls are turned into flesh not in the naturall sense but in the morall and Theologicall and animalis homo is the same with carnalis that is his soul is a servant of the passions and desires of the flesh and is flesh in its operations and ends in its principles and actions So on the other side by the Grace of God and the promise of the
Father and the influences of the Holy Ghost our souls are not onely recovered from the state of flesh and reduced back to the intirenesse of animall operations but they are heightned into spirit and transformâ—d into a new nature And this is a new Article and now to be considered S. Hierom tels of the Custome of the Empire When a Tyrant was overcome they usâ—d to break the head of his Statues and upon the same Trunk to set the head of the Conquerour and so it passed wholly for the new Prince So it is in the kingdom of Grace As soon as the Tyrant sin is overcome and a new heart is put into us or that we serve under a new head instantly we have a new Name given us and we are esteemed a new Creation and not onely changed in manners but we have a new nature within us even a third part of essentiall constitution This may seem strange and indeed it is so and it is one of the great mysteriousnesses of the Gospel Every man naturally consists of soul and body but every Christian man that belongs to Christ hath more For he hath body and soul and spirit My Text is plain for it If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his and by Spirit is not meant onely the graces of God and his gifts enabling us to do holy things there is more belongs to a good man then so But as when God made man he made him after his own image and breath'd into him the spirit of life and he was made in animam viventem into a living soul then he was made a man So in the new creation Christ by whom God made both the worlds intends to conform us to his image and he hath given us the spirit of adoption by which we are made sons of God and by the spirit of a new life we are made new creatures capable of a new state intitled to another manner of duration enabled to do new and greater actions in order to higher ends we have new affections new understandings new wils Vetera transierunt ecce omnia nova facta sunt All things are become new And this is called the seed of God when it relates to the principle and cause of this production but the thing that is produced is a spirit and that is as much in nature beyond a soul as a soul is beyond a body This great Mystery I should not utter but upon the greatest authority in the world and from an infallible Doctor I mean S. Paul who from Christ taught the Church more secrets then all the whole Colledge besides And the very God of peace sanctifie you wholly and I pray God that your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blamelesse unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We are not sanctified wholly nor preserved in safety unlesse besides our souls and bodies our spirit also be kept blamelesse This distinction nice and infinitely above humane reason but the word of God saith the same Apostle is sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder the soul and the spirit and that hath taught us to distinguish the principle of a new life from the principle of the old the celestiall from the naturall and thus it is This spirit as I now discourse of it is a principle infused into us by God when we become his children whereby we live the life of Grace and understand the secrets of the Kingdom and have passions and desires of things beyond and contrary to our naturall appetites enabling us not onely to sobriety which is the duty of the body not onely to justice which is the rectitude of the soul but to such a sanctity as makes us like to God * For so saith the Spirit of God Be ye holy as I am be pure be perfect as your heavenly Father is pure as he is perfect which because it cannot be a perfection of degrees it must be in similitudine naturae in the likenesse of that nature which God hath given us in the new birth that by it we might resemble his excellency and holinesse And this I conceive to be the meaning of S. Peter According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain to life and godlinesse that is to this new life of godlinesse through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and vertue whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises that by these you might be partakers of the Divine nature so we read it But it is something mistaken it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Divine nature for Gods nature is indivisible and incommunicable but it is spoken participativè or per analogiant partakers of a Divine nature that is of this new and God-like nature given to every person that serves God whereby he is sanctified and made the childe of God and framed into the likenesse of Christ. The Greeks generally call this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gracious gift an extraordinary superaddition to nature not a single gift in order to single purposes but an universall principle and it remains upon all good men during their lives and after their death and is that white stone spoken of in the Revelation and in it a new name written which no man knoweth but he that hath it And by this Gods sheep at the day of judgement shall be discerned from goats If their spirits be presented to God pure and unblameable this great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this talent which God hath given to all Christians to improve in the banks of grace and of Religion if they bring this to God increased and grown up to the fulnesse of the measure of Christ for it is Christs Spirit and as it is in us it is called the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ then we shall be acknowledged for sons and our adoption shall passe into an eternall inheritance in the portion of our elder Brother I need not to apply this Discourse The very mystery it self is in the whole world the greatest engagement of our duty that is imaginable by the way of instrument and by the way of thankfulnesse Quisquis magna dedit voluit sibi magna rependi He that gives great things to us ought to have great acknowledgements and Seneca said concerning wise men That he that doth benefit to others hides those benefits as a man layes up great treasures in the earth which he must never see with his eyes unlesse a great occasion forces him to dig the graves and produce that which he buried but all the while the man was hugely rich and he had the wealth of a great relation so it is with God and us For this huge benefit of the Spirit which God gives us is for our good deposited in our souls not made for forms and ostentation not to be looked upon or serve little ends but growing in the secret of our
yet it is onely our sin that makes death to be evil And I desire this to be observed because it is of great use in vindicating the Divine justice in the matter of this question The materiall part of the evil came from our father upon us but the formality of it the sting and the curse is onely by our selves 2. For the fault of others many may become miserable even all or any of those whose relation is such to the sinner that he in any sense may by such inflictions be punished execrable or oppressed Indeed it were strange if when a plague were in Ethiopia the Athenians should be infected or if the house of Pericles were visited and Thucydides should die for it For although there are some evils which as Plutarch saith are ansis propagationibus praedita incredibili celeritate in longinquum penetrantia such which can dart evil influences as Porcupines do their quils yet as at so great distances the knowledge of any confederate events must needs be uncertain so it is also uselesse because we neither can joyne their causes nor their circumstances nor their accidents into any neighbourhood of conjunction Relations are seldome noted at such distances and if they were it is certain so many accidents will intervene that will out-weigh the efficacy of such relations that by any so far distant events we cannot be instructed in any duty nor understand our selves reproved for any fault But when the relation is neerer and is joyned under such a head and common cause that the influence is perceived and the parts of it do usually communicate in benefit notices or infelicity especially if they relate to each other as superiour and inferiour then it is certain the sin is infectious I mean not onely in example but also in punishment And of this I shall shew 1. In what instances usually it is so 2. For what reasons it is so and justly so 3. In what degree and in what cases it is so 4. What remedies there are for this evil 1. It is so in kingdoms in Churches in families in politicall artificiall and even in accidentall societies When David numbred the people God was angry with him but he punished the people for the crime seventy thousand men died of the plague and when God gave to David the choice of three plagues he chose that of the pestilence in which the meanest of the people and such which have the least society with the acts and crimes of Kings are most commonly devoured whilest the powerfull and sinning persons by arts of physick and flight by provisions of nature and accidents are more commonly secured * But the story of the Kings of Israel hath furnished us with an example fitted with all the stranger circumstances in this question Joshuah had sworn to the Gibeonites who had craftily secured their lives by exchanging it for their liberties Almost 500. yeers after Saul in zeal to the men of Israel and Judah slew many of them After this Saul dies and no question was made of it But in the dayes of David there was a famine in the land three yeers together and God being inquired of said it was because of Saul his killing the Gibeonites What had the people to do with their Kings fault or at least the people of David with the fault of Saul That we shall see anon But see the way that was appointed to expiate the crime and the calamity David took seven of Sauls sons and hanged them up against the Sun and after that God was intreated for the land The story observes one circumstance more that for the kindnesse of Jonathan David spared Mephibosheth Now this story doth not onely instance in Kingdoms but in families too The fathers fault is punished upon the sons of the family and the Kings fault upon the people of his land even after the death of the King after the death of the father Thus God visited the sin of Ahab partly upon himself partly upon his sons I will not bring the evil in his dayes but in his sons dayes will I bring the evil upon his house Thus did God slay the childe of Bathsheba for the sin of his father David and the whole family of Eli all his kinred of the neerer lines were thrust from the priesthood and a curse made to descend upon his children for many ages that all the males should die young and in the flower of their youth The boldnesse and impiety of Cham made his posterity to be accursed and brought slavery into the world Because Amalek fought with the sons of Israel at Rephidim God took up a quarrell against the nation for ever And above all examples is that of the Jews who put to death the Lord of life and made their nation to be an anathema for ever untill the day of restitution His blood be upon us and upon our children If we shed innocent blood If we provoke God to wrath If we oppresse the poor If we crucifie the Lord of life again and put him to an open shame the wrath of God will be upon us and upon our children to make us a cursed family and who are the sinners to be the stock and original of the curse the pedigree of the misery shall derive from us This last instance went further then the other of families and kingdoms For not onely the single families of the Jews were made miserable for their Fathers murdering the Lord of life nor also was the Nation extinguished alone for the sins of their Rulers but the religion was removed it ceased to be God peoples the synagogue was rejected and her vail rent and her privacies dismantled and the Gentiles were made to be Gods people when the Jews inclosure was disparkâ—d I need not further to instance this proposition in the case of National Churches though it is a sad calamity that is fallen upon the al seven Churches of Asia to whom the spirit of God wrote seven Epistles by Saint John and almost all the Churches of Africa where Christ was worshipped and now Mahomet is thrust in substitution and the people are servants and the religion is extinguished or where it remains it shines like the Moon in an Eclipse or like the least spark of the pleiades seen but seldom And that rather shining like a gloworm then a taper enkindled with a beam of the Sun of righteousnesse I shall adde no more instances to verifie the truth of this save onely I shall observe to you that even there is danger in being in evil company in suspected places in the civil societies and fellowships of wicked men Vetabo qui Cereris sacrum vulgarit arcanae sub ijsdem sit trabibus fragilemque mecum solvat phaselum saepe Diespiter Neglectus in cesto addidit in tegrum And it hapned to the Mariners who carried Jonah to be in danger with a horrid storme because Jonah was there who had sinned against the Lord. Many times the
their father crimes and to speak of their shame in Piazza's and before Tribunals that indeed were a sure way to bring their fathers sins upon their own heads by their own faults No Like Sem and Japhet they must go backward and cast a vail upon their nakednesse and shame lest they bring the curse of their fathers angry dishonour upon their own impious and unrelenting heads Noahs drunkennesse fell upon Chams head because he did not hide the opennesse of his fathers follies he made his father ridiculous but did not endeavour either to amend the sin or to wrap the dishonour in a pious covering He that goes to disavow his fathers sin by publishing his shame hides an ill face with a more ugly vizor and endeavours by torches and phantastick lights to quench the burning of that house which his father set on fire These fires are to be smothered and so extinguished I deny not but it may become the piety of a childe to tell a sad story to mourn and represent a reall grief for so great a misery as is a wicked father or mother but this is to be done with a tendernesse as nice as we would dresse an eye withall it must be onely with designes of charity of counsell of ease and with much prudence and a sad spirit These things being secured that which in this case remains is that with all entercourses between God and our selves we disavow the crime Children are bound to pray to God to sanctifie to cure to forgive their parents and even concerning the sins of our forefathers the Church hath taught us in her Letanies to pray that God would be pleased to forgive them so that neither we nor they may sink under the wrath of God for them Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Ours in common and conjunction And David confessed to God and humbled himself for the sins of his Ancestors and Decessors Our fathers have done amisse and dealt wickedly neither kept they thy great goodnesse in remembrance but were disobedient at the sea even at the red sea So did good King Josiah Great is the wrath of the Lord which is kindled against us because our fathers have not hearkned unto the words of this book But this is to be done between God and our selves or if in publike then to be done by generall accusation that God onely may read our particular sorrows in the single shame of our families registred in our hearts and represented to him with humiliation shame and a hearty prayer 2. Those curses which descend from the Fathers to the children by imitation of the crimes of their progenitors are to be cut off by special and personal repentance and prayer as being a state directly opposite to that which procured the curse And if the sons be pious or return to an early and a severe course of Holy living they are to be remedied as other innocent and pious persons are who are sufferers under the burdens of their Relatives whom I shall consider by and by Onely observe this that no publick or imaginative disavowings no ceremonial and pompous rescission of our Fathers crimes can be sufficient to interrupt the succession of the curse if the children do secretly practise or approve what they in pretence or ceremony disavow and this is clearly proved and it will help to explicate that difficult saying of our B. Saviour Wo unto you for ye build the sepulchre of the Prophets and your Fathers killed them truely ye beare witnesse that ye allow the deeds of your fathers for they killed them and ye build their sepulchres that is the Pharisees were huge hypocrites and adorned the monuments of the Martyr Prophets and in words disclaimâ—d their Fathers sin but in deeds and designe they approved it 1. Because they secretly wish'd all such persons dead colebant mortuos quos nollent Superstites In charity to themselves some men wish their enemies in Heaven and would be at charges for a monument for them that their malice and their power and their bones might rest in the same grave and yet that wish and that expence is no testimony of their Charity but of their anger 2. These men were willing that the monuments of those Prophets should remain and be a visible affrightment to all such bold persons and severe reprehenders as they were and therefore they builded their Sepulchres to be as beacons and publications of danger to al Honest Preachers And this was the account Saint Chrysostome gave of the place 3. To which also the circumstances of the place concur For they onely said if they had lived in their Fathers dayes they would not have done as they did but it is certain they approved it because they pursued the same courses and therefore our blessed Saviour calls them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Not onely the children of them that did kill the Prophets but a Killing generation the sin also descends upon you for ye have the same killing minde and although you honour them that are dead and cannot shame you yet you designe the same usages against them that are alive even against the Lord of the Prophets against Christ himself whom ye will kil and as Dion said of Caracalla 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The man was troublesome to all good men when they were alive but did them honour when they were dead And when Herod had killed Aristobulus yet he made him a most magnificent funeral because the Pharisees were of the same humor therefore our blessed Saviour bids them to fil up the measure of their Fathers iniquity for they still continued the malice onely they painted it over with a pretence of piety and of disavowing their Fathers sin which if they had done really they being children of persecutors and much lesse could the adorning of the Prophets sepulchres have been just cause of a wo from Christ this being an act of piety and the other of nature inevitable and not chosen by them and therefore not chargable upon them He therefore that will to reall purposes disavow his Fathers crimes must do it heartily and humbly and charitably and throw off all affections to the like actions For he that findes fault with his Father for killing Isaiah or Jeremy and himself shall kiâ—l Aristobulus and John the Baptist he that is angry because the old Prophets were murdered and shall imprison and begger and destroy the new ones He that disavows the persecution in the primitive times and honours the memory of the dead Martyrs and yet every day makes new ones He that blames the oppression of the Country by any of his predecessors and yet shall continue to oppresse his Tenants and all that are within his gripe that man cannot hope to be eased from the curse of his Fathers sins He goes on to imitate them and therefore to fill up their measure and to reap a full treasure of wrath
sin A sin is either in its bosom or in its retinue But the ignorance that I now intend is a voluntary chosen delightful ignorance taken in upon designe even for no other end but that we may perish quietly and infallibly God hath opened all the windows of Heaven and sent the Sun of Righteousnesse with glorious apparition and hath discoverd the abysses of his own wisdom made the second person in the Trinity to be the doctor and preacher of his sentences and secrets and the third person to be his Amanuensis or scribe and our hearts to be the Book in which the doctrine is written and miracles and prophecies to be its arguments and all the world to be the verification of it and those leaves contain within their folds all that excellent morality which right reason pickt up after the shipwrack of nature and all those wise sayings which singly made so many men famous for preaching some one of them all them Christ gathered and added some more out of the immediate book of Revelation So that now the wisdom of God hath made every mans heart to be the true Veronica in which he hath imprinted his own lineaments so perfectly that we may dresse our selves like God and have the aire and features of Christ our Elder-Brother that we may be pure as God is perfect as our Father meek and humble as the Son and may have the holy Ghost within us in gifts and Graces in wisdom and holinesse This hath God done for us and see what we do for Him We stand in our own light and quench Gods we love darknesse more then light and entertain our sâ—lves accordingly For how many of us are there that understand nothing of the wayes of God that know no more of the law of Jesus Christ then is remaining upon them since they learned the childrens Catechisme But amongst a thousand how many can explicate and unfold for his own practise the ten Commandments And how many sorts of sins are there forbidden which therefore passe into action and never passe under the scrutinies of repentance because they know not that they are sinnes Are there not very many who know not the particular duties of meeknesse and never consider concerning Long suffering and if you talk to them of growth in Grace or the spirit of obsignation or the melancholy lectures of the Crosse and imitation of and conformitie to Christs sufferings or adherences to God or rejoycing in him or not quenching the spirit you are too deep learned for them And yet these are duties set down plainly for our practise necessary to be acted in order to our Salvation We brag of light and reformation and fulnesse of the spirit in the mean time we understand not many parts of our dutie We enquire into something that may make us talk or be talked of or that we may troâ—ble a Church or disturb the peace of mindes but in things that concern Holy living and that wisdom of God whereby we are wise unto Salvation never was any age of Christendom more ignorant then we For if we did not wink hard we must needs see that obedience to supreâ—â— Powers Denying of our selves Humility Peacefulnesse and Charity are written in such Capital text letters that it is impossible to be ignorant of them And if the heart of man had not rare arts to abuse the understanding it were not to be imagined that any man should bring the 13. Chapter to the Romans to prove the lawfulnesse of taking up Armes against our rulers but so we may abuse our selves at noon and go to bed if we please to call it midnight And there have been a sort of wittie men that maintained that snow was hot I wonder not at the probleme but that a man should beleeve his paradox and should let eternity go away with the fallacie and rather lose heaven then leave his foolish argument is a signe that wilfulnesse and the deceiving heart is the Sophister and the great ingredient into our Deception But that I may be more particular the heart of man uses devices that it may be ignorant 1. We are impatient of honest and severe reproofe and order the circumstances of our persons and address that we shall never come to the true knowledge of our condition Who will endure to heare his curate tell him that he is Covetous or that he is proud 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Calumny and Reviling if he speak it to his head and relates to his person and yet if he speak onely in general every man neglects what is not recommended to his particular But yet if our Physitian tell us you look well Sir but a Feaver lurks in your spirits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 drink Julips and abstain from flesh no than thinks it shame or calumny to be told so but when we are told that our liver is inflamed with lust or anger that our heart is vexed with envie that our eyes rowl with wantonnesse And though we think all is well yet we are sick sick unto death neer to a sad and fatal sentence we shall think that man that tells us so is impudent or uncharitable and yet he hath done him no more injury then a deformed man receives daily from his looking-glasse which if he shall dash against the wall because it showes him his face just as it is his face is not so ugly as his manners And yet our heart is so impatient of seeing its own staines that like the Elephant it tramples in the pure streames and first troubles them then stoops and drinks when he can least see his huge deformitie 2. In order to this we heap up teachers of our own and they guide us not whither but which way they please for we are curious to go our own way and carelesse of our Hospitall or Inne at night A faire way and a merry company and a pleasant easie guide will entice us into the Enemies quarters and such guides we cannot want Improbitati occasio nunquam defuit If we have a minde to be wicked we shall want no prompters and false teachers at first creeping in unawares have now so filled the pavement of the Church that you can scarce set your foot on the ground but you tread upon a snake Cicero l. 7. ad Atticum undertakes to bargain with them that kept the Sybils books that for a sum of money they shall expound to him what he please and to be sure ut quidvis potius quam Regem proferrent They shall declare against the government of kings say that the Gods will endure any thing rather then Monarchy in their beloved republick And the same mischief God complains of to be among the Jews the Prophets prophecie lies and my people love to have it so and what will the end of these things be even the same that Cicero complain'd of Ad opinionem imperitorum fictas esse Religiones Men shall have what Religion they please and God
shall be intitled to all the quarrels of covetous and Ambitious persons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Demosthenes wittily complained of the Oracle An answer shall be drawn out of Scripture to countenance the designe God made to Rebel against his own Ordinances And then we are zealous for the Lord God of Hosts and will live and die in that quarrel But is it not a strange cozenage that our hearts shall be the main wheel in the engine and shall set all the rest on working The heart shall first put his own candle out then put out the eye of reason then remove the Land-mark and dig down the causeywayes and then either hire a blinde guide or make him so and all these Arts to get ignorance that they may secure impiety At first man lost his innocence onely in hope to get a little knowledge and ever since then left knowledge should discover his errour and make him returne to innocence we are content to part with that now and to kow nothing that may discover or discountenance our sins or discompose our secular designe And as God made great revelations and furnished out a wise Religion and sent his spirit to give the gift of Faith to his Church that upon the foundation of Faith he might build a holy life now our hearts love to retire into Blindnesse sneak under the covert of False principles and run to a cheape religion and an unactive discipline and make a faith of our own that we may build upon it ease and ambition and a tall fortune and the pleasures of revenge and do what we have a minde to scarce once in seven years denying a strong and an unruly appetite upon the interest of a just conscience and holy religion This is such a desperate method of impiety so certain arts and apt instruments for the Divel that it does his work intirley and produces an infallible damnation 3. But the heart of man hath yet another stratagem to secure its iniquity by the means of ignorance and that is Incogitancy or Inconsideration For there is wrought upon the spirits of many men great impression by education by a modest and temperate nature by humane Laws and the customes severities of sober persons and the fears of religion and the awfulnesse of a reverend man and the several arguments and endearments of vertue And it is not in the nature of some men to do an act in despite of reason and Religion and arguments and Reverence and modesty and fear But men are forced from their sin by the violence of the grace of God when they heare it speak But so a Roman Gentleman kept off a whole band of souldiers who were sent to murther him and his eloquence was stronger then their anger and designe But suddenly a rude trooper rushed upon him who neither had nor would heare him speak and he thrust his spear into that throat whose musick had charmed all his fellows into peace and gentlenesse So do we The Grace of God is Armour and defence enough against the most violent incursion of the spirits and the works of darknesse but then we must hear its excellent charms and consider its reasons and remember its precepts and dwell with its discourses But this the heart of man loves not If I be tempted to uncleannesse or to an act of oppression instantly the grace of God represents to me that the pleasure of the sin is transient and vain unsatisfying and empty That I shall die and then I shall wish too late that I had never done it It tells me that I displease God who made me who feeds me who blesses me who fain would save me It represents to me all the joyes of Heaven and the horrours and amazements of a sad eternity And if I will stay and heare them ten thousand excellent things besides sit to be twisted about my understanding forever But here the heart of man shuffles all these discourses into disorder and will not be put to the trouble of answering the objections but by a meer wildenesse of purpose and rudnesse of resolution ventures super totam materiam at all and does the thing not because it thinks it fit to do so but because it will not consider whether it be or no it is enough that it pleases a present appetite and if such incogitancy comes to be habitual as it is in very many men first by resisting the motions of the holy spirit then by quenching him we shall find the consequents to be first an Indifferencie then a dulnesse then a Lethargie then a direct Hating the wayes of God and it commonly ends in a wretchlessenesse of spirit to be manifested on our death-bed when the man shall passe hence not like the shadow but like the dog that departeth without sence or interest or apprehension or real concernment in the considerations of eternity and t is but just when we will not heare our king speak and plead not to save himself but us to speak for our peace and innocency and Salvation to prevent our ruine and our intolerable calamity certainly we are much in love with the wages of death when we cannot endure to heare God cal us back and stop our ears against the voice of the charmer charme he never so wisely Nay further yet we suffer the Arguments of Religion to have so little impression upon our spirits that they operate but like the discourses of childhood or the Problems of uncertain Philosophy A man talks of Religion but as of a dream and from thence he awakens into the Businesses of the world and acts them deliberately with perfect Action and full Resolution and contrives and considers and lives in them But when he falls asleep again or is taken from the Scene of his own employment and choice then he dreams again and Religion makes such Impressions as is the conversation of a Dreamer and he acts accordingly Theocritus tells of a Fisherman that dreamed he had taken 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Fish of gold upon which being over-joyed he made a vow that he would never fish more But when he waked he soon declared his vow to be null because he found his golden Fish was scaped away through the holes of his eyes when he first opened them Just so we do in the purposes of Religion sometimes in a good mood we seem to see Heaven opened and all the streets of Heavenly Jerusalem paved with gold and precious stones and we are ravished with spirituall apprehensions and resolve never to return to the low affections of the world and the impute adherencies of sin but when this flash of lightning is gone and we converse again with the Inclinations and habituall desires of our false hearts those other desires and fine considerations disband and the Resolutions taken in that pious fit melt into Indifferency and old Customes He was prettily and fantastically troubled who having used to put his trust in Dreams one night dreamed that all
no purpose and to no necessities of his Church for the supplying of which he hath given Apostles and Evangelists Prophets and Pastors Bishops and Priests the spirit of Ordination and the spirit of instruction Catechists and Teachers Arts and Sciences Scriptures and a constant succession of Expositors the testimony of Churches and a constant line of tradition or delivery of Apostolical Doctrine in all things necessary to salvation And after all this to have a fungus arise from the belly of mud and darknesse and nourish a gloworm that shall challenge to out-shine the lantern of Gods word and all the candles which God set upon a hill and all that the Spirit hath set upon the candlesticks and all the starres in Christs right hand is to annull all the excellent established orderly and certain effects of the Spirit of God and to worship the false fires of the night He therefore that will follow a Guide that leads him by an extraordinary spirit shall go an extraordinary way and have a strange fortune and a singular religion and a portion by himself a great way off from the common inheritance of the Saints who are all led by the Spirit of God and have one heart and one minde one faith and one hope the same baptisme and the helps of the Ministery leading them to the common countrey which is the porâ—ion of all that are the sons of adoption consigned by the Spirit of God the earnest of their inheritance Concerning the pretence of a private spirit for interpretation of the confessed doctrine of God the holy Scriptures it will not so easily come into this Question of choosing our spirituall Guides Because every person that can be Candidate in this office that can be chosen to guide others must be a publike man that is of a holy calling sanctified or separate publikely to the office and then to interpret is part of his calling and imployment â—nd to do so is the work of a publike spirit he is ordained and designed he is commanded and inabled to do it and in this there is no other caution to be interposed but that the more publike the man is of the more authority his interpretation is and he comes neerest to a law of order and in the matter of government is to be observed but the more holy and the more learned the man is his interpretation in matter of Question is more likely to be true and though lesse to be pressed as to the publick confession yet it may be more effective to a private perswasion provided it be done without scandal or lessening the authority or disparagement to the more publick person 8. Those are to be suspected for evil guides who to get authority among the people pretend a great zeal and use a bold liberty in reproving Princes and Governours nobility and Prelates for such homilies cannot be the effects of a holy religion which lay a snare for authority and undermine power and discontent the people and make them bold against Kings and immodest in their own stations and trouble the government Such men may speak a truth or teach a true doctrine for every such designe does not unhallow the truth of God but they take some truthes and force them to minister to an evil end but therefore mingle not in the communities of such men for they will make it a part of your religion to prosecute that end openly which they by arts of the Tempter have insinuated privately But if ever you enter into the seats of those Doctors that speak reproachfully of their Superiours or detract from government or love to curse the King in their heart or slander him with their mouths or disgrace their persons blesse your self and retire quickly for there dwells the plague but the spirit of God is not president of the assembly and therefore you shall observe in all the characters which the B. Apostles of our Lord made for describing and avoiding societies of hereticks false guides and bringers in of strange doctrines still they reckon treason and rebellion so S. Paul In the last dayes perillous times shall come the men shall have the form of Godlinesse and denie the power of it they shall be Traitors heady high minded that 's their characteristic note So Saint Peter the Lord knoweth how to deliver the Godly out of temptations and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgement to be punished But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse and despise government presumptuous are they self willed they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities The same also is recorded and observed by Saint Jude likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh despise dominion and speak evil of dignities These three testimonies are but the declaration of one great contingency they are the same prophesy declared by three Apostolical men that had the gift of prophecy and by this character the Holy Ghost in all ages hath given us caution to avoid such assemblies where the speaking and ruling man shall be the canker of government and a preacher of sedition who shall either ungirt the Princes sword or unloose the button of their mantle 9. But the Apostles in all these prophecies have remarked lust to be the inseparable companion of these rebel prophets they are filthy dreamers they defile the flesh so Saint Jude they walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleannesse so Saint Peter they are lovers of pleasure more then lovers of God incontinent and sensual So Saint Paul and by this part of the character as the Apostles remarked the Nicolatians and Gnosticks the Carpocratians and all their impure branches which began in their dayes and multiplied after their deaths so they prophetically did foresignifie al such sects to be avoided who to catch silly women laden with sins preach doctrines of ease and licenciousnesse apt to countenance and encourage vile things and not apt to restrain a passion or mortifie a sin Such as those that God sees no sin in his children that no sin will take us from Gods favour that all of such a party are elect people that God requires of us nothing but faith and that faith which justifies is nothing but a meere believing that we are Gods chosen that we are not tied to the law of commandments that the law of grace is a law of liberty and that liberty is to do what we list that divorces are to be granted upon many and slight causes that simple fornication is no sin these are such doctrines that upon the belief of them men may doe any thing and will do that which shall satisfie their own desires and promote their interests and seduce their shee disciples and indeed it was not without great reason that these three Apostles joyned lust and treason together because the former is so shameful a crime and renders a mans spirit naturally averse to government that if it falls upon the person of a Ruler
it takes from him the spirit of government and render him diffident pusillanimous private and ashamed if it happen in the person of a subject it makes him hate the man that shall shame him and punish him it hates the light and the Sun because that opens him and therefore is much more against government because that publishes and punishes too One thing I desire to be observed that though the primitive heresies now named and all those others their successors practised and taught horrid impurities yet they did not invade government at all and therefore those sects that these Apostles did signifie by prophecy and in whom both these are concentred were to appear in some latter times and the dayes of the prophecy were not then to be fulfill'd what they are since every age must judge by its own experience for its own interest But Christian religion is so pure and holy that chastity is sometimes used for the whole religion and to do an action chastly signifies purity of intention abstraction from the world and separation from low and secular ends the virginity of the soul and its union with God and all deviations and estrangements from God and adhesion to forbidden objects is called fornication and adultery Those sects therefore that teach incourage or practise impious or unhallowed mixtures and shameful lusts are issues of the impure spirit and most contrary to God who can behold no unclean thing 10. Those prophets and Pastors that pretend severity and live loosely or are severe in small things and give liberty in greater or forbid some sins with extreme rigour and yet practise or teach those that serve their interest or constitute their sect are to be suspected and avoided accordingly Nihil est hominum ineptâ persuasione falsius nec fictâ severitate ineptius All ages of the Church were extremely curious to observe when any new teachers did arise what kinde of lives they lived and if they pretended severely and to a strict life then they knew their danger doubled for it is certain all that teach doctrines contrary to the established religion delivered by the Apostles all they are evil men God will not suffer a good man to be seduced damnably much lesse can he be a seducer of others and therefore you shall still observe the false Apostles to be furious and vehement in their reproofs and severe in their animadversions of others but then if you watch their private or stay till their numbers are full or observe their spiritual habits you shall finde them indulgent to themselves or to return from their disguises or so spiritually wicked that their pride or their revenge their envie or their detraction their scorn or their complacency in themselves their desire of preheminence and their impatience of arrival shall place them far enough in distance from a poor carnal sinner whom they shall load with censures and an upbraiding scorn but themselves are like Devils the spirits of darknesse the spiritual wickednesses in high places Some sects of men are very angry against servants for recreating and easing their labours with a lesse prudent and an unsevere refreshment but the patron of their sect shall oppresse a wicked man and an unbelieving person they shall chastise a drunkard and entertain murmurrers they shall not abide an oath and yet shal force men to break three or four This sect is to be avoided because although it is good to be severe against carnal or bodily sins yet it is not good to mingle with them who chastise a bodily sin to make way for a spiritual or reprove a servant that his Lord may sin alone or punish a stranger and a begger that will not approve their sins but will have sins of his own Concering such persons Saint Paul hath told us that they shall not proceed far but their folly shall be manifest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Lysias Cito ad naturam ficta reciderunt sua They that dissemble their sin and their manners or make severity to serve loosnesse and an imaginary vertue to minister to a real vice they that abhor Idols and would commit sacrilege chastise a drunkard and promote sedition declaime against the vanity of great persons and then spoil them of their goods reform manners and engrosse estates talk godly and do impiously these are teachers which the Holy spirit of God hath by three Apostles bid us to beware of and decline as we would run from the hollownesse of a grave or the despaires and sorrows of the damned 11. The substance of al is this that we must not chose our doctrine by our guide but our guide by the doctrine if we doubt concerning the doctrine we may judge of that by the lives and designes of the Teachers By their fruits you shall know them and by the plain words of the scripture by the Apostles Creed and by the commandments and by the certain known and established forms of government These are the great indices and so plain apt and easy that he that is deceived is so because he will be so he is betrayed into it by his own lust and a voluntary chosen folly 12 Besides these premises there are other little candles that can help to make the judgement clearer but they are such as do not signifie alone but in conjunction with some of the precedent characters which are drawn by the great lines of scripture Such as are 1. when the teachers of sects stir up unprofitable and uselesse Questions 2. when they causelesly retire from the universal customs of Christendom 3. And cancel all the memorials of the greatest mysteries of our redemption 4. When their confessions and Catechismes and their whole religion consist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in speculations and ineffective notions in discourses of Angels and spirits in abstractions and raptures in things they understand not and of which they have no revelation 5. Or else if their religion spends it self in ceremonies outward guises and material solemnities and imperfect formes drawing the heart of the vine forth into leaves and irregular fruitless suckers turning the substance into circumstances and the love of God into gestures and the effect of the spirit into the impertinent offices of a burdensom ceremonial For by these two particulars the Apostles reproved the Jews and the Gnostics or those that from the school of Pythagoras pretended conversation with Angels and great knowledge of the secrets of the spirit chosing tutelar Angels and assigning them offices and charges as in the Church of Rome to this day they do to Saints to these adde 6. that we observe whether the guides of souls avoid to suffer for their religion for then the matter is foul or the man not fit to lead that dares not die in cold blood for his religion will the man lay his life and his soul upon the proposition If so then you may consider him upon his proper grounds but if he refuses that refuse his conduct
many particulars and yet if her children separate from her they may be unreasonable and impious 5. The wayes of direction which we have from holy Scripture to distinguish false Apostles from true are taken from their doctrine or their lives That of the doctrine is the most sure way if we can hit upon it but that also is the thing signified and needs to have other signes Saint John and Saint Paul took this way for they were able to do it infallibly All that confesse Jesus incarnate are of God said Saint John those men that deny it are hereticks avoid them and Saint Paul bids to observe them that cause divisions and offences against the doctrine delivered Them also avoid that do so And we might do so as easily as they if the world would onely take their depositum that doctrine which they delivered to all men that is the Creed and superinduce nothing else but suffer Christian faith to rest in its own perfect simplicity unmingled with arts and opinions and interests This course is plain and easie and I will not intricate it with more words but leave it directly in its own truth and certainty with this onely direction That when we are to choose our doctrine or our side we take that which is in the plain unexpounded words of Scripture for in that onely our religion can consist Secondly choose that which is most advantageous to a holy life to the proper graces of a Christian to humility to charity to forgivenesse and alms to obedience and complying with governments to the honour of God and the exaltation of his attributes and to the conservation and advantages of the publike societies of men and this last Saint Paul directs Let our be carefull to maintain good works for necessary uses for he that heartily pursues these proportions cannot be an ill man though he were accidentally and in the particular applications deceived 6. But because this is an act of wisdom rather then prudence and supposes science or knowledge rather then experience therefore it concerns the prudence of a Christian to observe the practise and the rules of practise their lives and pretences the designes and colours the arts of conduct and gaining proselytes which their Doctors and Catechists do use in order to their purposes and in their ministery about souls For although many signes are uncertain yet some are infallible and some are highly probable 7. Therefore those teachers that pretend to be guided by a private spirit are certainly false Doctors I remember what Simmias in Plutarch tels concerning Socrates that if he heard any man say he saw a divine vision he presently esteemed him vain and proud but if he pretended onely to have heard a voice or the word of God he listened to that religiously and would enquire of him with curiosity There was some reason in his fancy for God does not communicate himself by the eye to men but by the ear ye saw no figure but ye heard a voice said Moses to the people concerning God and therefore if any man pretends to speak the word of God we will enquire concerning it the man may the better be heard because he may be certainly reproved if he speaks amisse but if he pretends to visions and revelations to a private spirit and a mission extraordinary the man is proud and unlerned vicious and impudent No Scripture is of private interpretation saith S. Peter that is of private emission or declaration Gods words were delivered indeed by single men but such as were publikely designed Prophets remarked with a known character approved of by the high Priest and Sanhedrim indued with a publike spirit and his doctrines were alwayes agreeable to the other Scriptures But if any man pretends now to the spirit either it must be a private or publike if it be private it can but be usefull to himself alone and it may cozen him too if it be not assisted by the spirit of a publike man But if it be a publike spirit it must enter in at the publike door of ministeries and divine ordinances of Gods grace and mans endeavour it must be subject to the Prophets it is discernable and judicable by them and therefore may be rejected and then it must pretend no longer For he that will pretend to an extraordinary spirit and refuses to be tried by the ordinary wayes must either prophecy or work miracles or must have a voice from heaven to give him testimony The Prophets in the old Testament and the Apostles in the New and Christ between both had no other way of extraordinary probation and they that pretend to any thing extraordinary cannot ought not to be beleeved unlesse they have something more then their own word If I bear witnesse of my self my witnesse is not true said Truth it self our Blessed Lord. But secondly they that intend to teach by an extraordinary spirit if they pretend to teach according to Scripture must be examined by the measures of Scripture and then their extraordinary must be judged by the ordinary spirit and stands or falls by the rules of every good mans religion and publike government and then we are well enough But if they speak any thing against Scripture it is the spirit of Antichrist and the spirit of the Devil For if an Angel from heaven he certainly is a spirit preach any other doctrine let him be accursed But this pretence of a single and extraordinary spirit is nothing else but the spirit of pride errour and delusion a snare to catch easie and credulous souls which are willing to die for a gay word and a distorted face it is the parent of folly and giddy doctrine impossible to be proved and therefore uselesse to all purposes of religion reason or sober counsels it is like an invisible colour or musick without a sound it is and indeed is so intended to be a direct overthrow of order and government and publike ministeries It is bold to say any thing and resolved to prove nothing it imposes upon willing people after the same manner that Oracles and the lying Daemons did of old time abusing men not by proper efficacy of its own but because the men love to be abused it is a great disparagement to the sufficiency of Scripture and asperses the Divine providence for giving to so many ages of the Church an imperfect religion expressely against the truth of their words who said they had declared the whole truth of God and told all the will of God and it is an affront to the Spirit of God the Spirit of wisdom and knowledge of order and publike ministeries But the will furnishes out malice and the understanding sends out levity and they marry and produce a phantastick dream and the daughter sucking winde instead of the milk of the word growes up to madnesse and the spirit of reprobation Besides all this an extraordinary spirit is extremely unnecessary and God does not give immissions and miracles from heaven to