to others in the plurall to many others But now it is Visum est mihi Spiritui Sancto It seemes good unto me to one man alone and when it does so it shall seeme good to the Holy Ghost too And of these two Hereticall violences to the Holy Ghost we complaine against that Church first that they put the Holy Ghost in a Rebellion against the Son of God from whom he proceeds And then as for the most part the end of them who pretend right to a Kingdome and cannot prove it is to lie in Prison That they have imprisoned the Holy Ghost in one mans breast and not suffered that winde to breathe where it will as Christ promised the Holy Ghost should doe For neither did the Holy Ghost bring any such thing to their remembrance as though Christ had taught any such Doctrine neither can they that teach it come nearer the sin The unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost then thus to make him a supplanter of Christ or supplanted by Antichrist But we hold you no longer in this ill Aire Charismata Spiritus blasphemous and irksome contumelies against the Holy Ghost we promised at first to dismisse you at last in a perfume with the breath of the Holy Ghost upon you and that is to excite you to a rectified sense and knowledge August that he offers himselfe unto you and is received by you Facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit That is alwaies the face of God to us by which God vouchsafes to manifest himselfe to us So his Ordinance in the Church is his face And Lux Dei qua nobis illucescit The light of God to us is that light by which he shines upon us Lex Dei Lux Dei his word in his Church And then the Evidence the Seale the Witnesse of all that this face which I see by this light is directed upon me for my comfort is The Testimony of the Holy Ghost when that Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit that he is in us And therefore in his blessed Name and in the participation of his power I say to you all Accipite Spiritum sanctum Receive ye the holy Ghost Not that I can give it you 2 Cor. 3.5 but I can tell you that he offers to give himselfe to you all Our sufficiency is of God sayes the Apostle Acknowledge you a sufficiency in us a sufficient power to be in the Ministery for as the Apostle addes He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament Not able onely in faculties and gifts requisite for that function those faculties and gifts whether of nature or of acquisition be in as great measure in some that have not that function but able by his powerfull Ordinance as it is also added there to minister not the letter not the letter onely but The Spirit the Spirit of the New Testament that is the holy Ghost to you Therefore as God said to Moses I will come downe Numb 11.17 and talk with thee and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and put it upon them God in his Spirit does come downe to us in his Ministery and talke with us his Ministers at home that is assist us in our Meditations and lucubrations and preparations for this service here and then here in this place he takes of that Spirit from us and sheds upon you imparts the gifts of the holy Ghost to you also and makes the holy Ghost as much yours by your hearing as he made him ours by our study Be not deceived by the letter by the phrase of that place God does not say there that he will take of the Spirit from us and give it you that is fill you with it and leave us without it but he will take of that Spirit that is impart that Spirit so to you as that by us and our present Ministery he will give you that that shall be sufficient for you to day and yet call you to us againe in his Ordinance another day Learne as much as you can every day and never thinke that you have learnt so much as that you have no more need of a Teacher for though you need no more of that man you may be perchance as learned as he yet you need more of that Ordinance We give you the holy Ghost then when we open your eyes to see his offers Those words of the Apostle Our selves have the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 S. Ambrose interprets so Our selves we the Ministers of God have the first fruits of the Spirit the pre-possession the pre-inhabitation but not the sole possession nor sole inhabitation of the Holy Ghost but we have grace for grace the Spirit therefore to shed the Spirit upon you that that precious Oyntment Psal 133.2 the Holy Ghost is this Unction which was poured upon the Head upon Christ may run downe upon Aarons beard and from those gray and grave and reverend haires of his Ministers may also go downe to the skirts of his garments to every one of you who doe not onely make up the garment that is the visible but the mysticall body it selfe of Christ Jesus Ver. 3. The dew of Hermon descends upon the mountaines of Sion But the waters that fall upon the mountaines fall into the valleyes too from thence The Holy Ghost fals through us upon you also so as that you may so as that you must finde it in your selves The Holy Ghost was the first Person that was declared in the Creation The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 that was the first motion This is eternall life to know God and him whom he sent Christ Iesus But this you cannot doe but by him whom they both sent the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Iohn Baptist who was to baptize Christ was filled with the holy Ghost from the wombe You who were baptized in Christ were filled in your measure with the holy Ghost from that wombe from the time that the Church conceived you in Baptisme And therefore as the Twelve said to the multitude Acts 6.3 Looke yee among ye seven men full of the holy Ghost So we say to the whole Congregation Looke every man to himselfe that he be one of the seven one of that infinite number which the holy Ghost offers to fall upon That as ye were baptized in the holy Ghost and as your bodies are Temples of the holy Ghost so your soules may be Priests of the holy Ghost and you altogether a lively and reasonable sacrifice to God in the holy Ghost Eph. 1.13 That as you have beene sealed with the holy Spirit of promise you may finde in your selves the performance of that promise finde the seale of that promise in your love to the Scriptures for as S. Chrysostome argues usefully Christ gave the Apostles no Scriptures but
swore by himselfe because he could propose no greater thing in himself no clearer notion of himself then life for his life is his eternity and his eternity is himselfe does therefore through all the Law and the Prophets still sweare in that form Vivo ego vivit Dominus As I live saith the Lord and as the Lord liveth still he sweares by his own life As that solemne Oath which is mentioned in Daniel is conceived in that form too He lift up his right hand and his left hand to heaven Dan. 12.7 and swore by him that liveth for ever that is by God and God in that notion as he is life All that the Queen and the Councell could wish and apprecate to the King was but that Life In sempiternum vive vive in aeternum O King live for ever God is life Dan. 5. and would not the death of any We are not sure that stones have not life stones may have life neither to speak humanely is it unreasonably thought by them that thought the whole world to be inanimated by one soule and to be one intire living creature and in that respect does S. Augustine prefer a fly before the Sun 1 Tim. 5.6 because a fly hath life and the Sun hath not This is the worst that the Apostle sayes of the young wanton widow That if she live in pleasure she is dead whilst she lives So is that Magistrate that studies nothing but his own honour and dignity in his place dead in his place And that Priest that studies nothing but his owne ease and profit dead in his living And that Judge that dares not condemne a guilty person And which is the bolder transgression dares condemne the innocent deader upon the Bench then the Prisoner at the Barre God hath included all that is good Dcut. 30.15 in the name of Life and all that is ill in the name of Death when he sayes See I have set before thee Vitam Bonum Life and Good Mortem Malum Death and Evill This is the reward proposed to our faith Hab. 2.4 Iustus fide sua vivit To live by our faith And this is the reward proposed to our works Fac hoc vives to live by our works All is life And this fulnesse this consummation of happinesse Life and the life of life spirituall life and the exaltation of spirituall life eternall life is the end of Christs comming I came that they might have life And first Vt daret ut daret that he might give life bring life into the world that there might be life to be had that the world might be redeemed from that losse which S. Augustine sayes it was falne into Perdidimus possibilitatem boni That we had all lost all possibility of life For the heaven and the earth and all that the Poet would call Chaos was not a deader lump before the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters then Mankind was before the influence of Christs comming wrought upon it But now that God so loved the world as that he gave his Son now that the Son so loved the world as that he gave himselfe Psal 19.6 as David sayes of the Sun of the firmament the father of nature Nihit absconditum there is nothing hid from the heat thereof so we say of this Son of God the Father of the faithfull in a far higher sense then Abraham was called so Nihilabsconditum there is nothing hid from him no place no person excluded from the benefit of his comming The Son hath paid the Father hath received enough for all not in fingle money for the discharge of thy lesser debts thy idle words thy wanton thoughts thy unchast looks but in massie talents to discharge thy crying debts the clamors of those poore whom thou hast oppressed and thy thundring debts those blasphemies by which thou hast torne that Father that made thee that Sonne that redeemed thee that boly Ghost that would comfort thee 1 Reg. 5. There is enough given but then as Hiram sent materials sufficient for the building of the Temple but there was something else to be done for the fitting and placing thereof so there is life enough brought into the world for all the world by the death of Christ but then there is something else to be done for the application of this life to particular persons intended in this word in our Text ut haberent I came that they might have life There is Ayre enough in the world Vt haberent to give breath to every thing though every thing doe not breath If a tree or a stone doe not breathe it is not because it wants ayre but because it wants meanes to receive it or to returne it All egges are not hatched that the hen sits upon Matt. 23.37 neither could Christ himselfe get all the chickens that were hatched to come and to stay under his wings That man that is blinde or that will winke shall see no more sunne upon S. Barnabies day then upon S. Lucies no more in the summer then in the winter solstice Psal 130.7 And therefore as there is copiosa redemptio a plentifull redemption brought into the world by the death of Christ so as S. Paul found it in his particular conversion there is copiosa lux Acts 22.6 a great a powerfull light exhibited to us that we might see and lay hold of this life in the Ordinances of the Church in the Confessions and Absolutions and Services and Sermons and Sacraments of the Church Christ came ut daret that he might bring life into the world by his death and then he instituted his Church ut haberent that by the meanes thereof this life might be infused into us and infused so as the last word of our Text delivers it Abundantiùs I came that they might have life more abundantly Dignaris Domine Abūdantiùs August ut eis quibus debita dimittis te promissionibus tuis debitorem facias This O Lord is thine abundant proceeding First thou forgivest me my debt to thee and then thou makest thy selfe a debter to me by thy large promises and after all performest those promises more largely then thou madest them Indeed God can doe nothing scantly penuriously singly Even his maledictions to which God is ever loth to come his first commination was plurall it was death and death upon death Morte morieris Death may be plurall but this benediction of life cannot admit a singular Chajim which is the word for life hath no singular number This is the difference betweene Gods Mercy and his Judgements that sometimes his Judgements may be plurall complicated enwrapped in one another but his Mercies are alwayes so and cannot be otherwise he gives them abundantiùs more abundantly More abundantly then to whom Illis gentibus The naturall man hath the Image of God imprinted in his soule eternity is God himselfe man hath not
very hearts for only such shall see God Omnis meridies diluculum habuit as the same Father continues this Meditation The brightest non had a faint twi-light and break of day The sight of God which we shall have in heaven must have a Diluculum a break of day here If we will see his face there we must see it in some beames here And to that purpose Visus per omnes sensus recurrit as S. Augustine hath collected out of severall places of Scripture Every sense is called sight for there is Odora vide and Gusta vide Taste and See how sweet and Smell and See what a savour of life the Lord is Apoc. 1.12 Luke 24.39 So S. Iohn turned about To see a voice There Hearing was Sight And so our Saviour Christ sayes Palpate videte and there Feeling is Seeing All things concur to this Seeing and therefore in all the works of your senses and in all your other faculties See ye the Lord Heare him in his word and so see him Speak to him in your prayers and so see him Touch him in his Sacrament and so see him Present holy and religious actions unto him and so see him Davids heart was towards Absalon 2 Sam. 14. sayes that Story Ioab saw that and as every man will be forward to further persons growing in favour for so it should be done to him whom the King will honour Ioah plotted and effected Absalons return but yet Absalon saw not the Kings face in two yeares Beloved in Christ Jesus the heart of your gracious God is set upon you and we his servants have told you so and brought you thus neare him into his Court into his house into the Church but yet we cannot get you to see his face to come to that tendernesse of conscience as to remember and consider that all your most secret actions are done in his sight and his presence Caesars face and Caesars inscription you can see The face of the Prince in his coyne you can rise before the Sun to see and sit up till mid-night to see but if you do not see the face of God upon every piece of that mony too all that mony is counterfeit If Christ have not brought that fish to the hook Mat. 17.25 that brings the mony in the mouth as he did to Peter that mony is ill fished for If nourishing of suits and love of contention amongst others for your own gain have brought it 〈◊〉 12.14 〈◊〉 24.3 it is out of the way of that counsell Follow peace with all men and holinesse without which no man shall see God This is the generation of them that seeke him that seek thy face O Iacob Innocens manibus mundus corde either such an innocence as never fouled the hands or such an innocency as hath washed them cleane againe such an innocency as hath kept you from corrupt getting or such an innocency as hath restored us by restoring that which was corruptly got It is testified of Solomon 1 King 10.24 That he exceeded all the Kings of the Earth for Wisedome and for Riches and all the Earth sought the face of Solomon A greater then Solomon is here for Wisedome and Riches your wisedome is foolishnesse and your riches beggery if you see not the face of this Solomon If either you have studied or practised or judged when his back is towards you that is if you have not done all as in his presence You are in his presence now goe not out of it when you goe from hence Amor rerum terrenarum viscus pennarum spiritualium August God hath given you the wings of Doves and the eyes of Eagles to see him now in this place If in returning from this place you returne to your former wayes of pleasure or profit this is a breaking of those Doves wings and a cieling of those Eagles eyes Coge cor tuum cogitare divina compelle urge sayes that Father Here in the Church thou canst not chuse but see God and raise thy heart towards him But when thou art returned to thy severall distractions that vanities shall pull thine eyes and obtrectation and libellous defamation of others shall pull thine eares and profit shall pull thy hands then Coge compelle urge force and compell thy heart and presse even in that thrust of tentations to see God What God is in his Essence or what our sight of the Essence of God shall be in the next world dispute not too curiously determine nor too peremptorily Cogitans de Deo si finivisti Deus non est is excellently said by S. Augustine If thou begin to think what the Essence of God is and canst bring that thought to an end thou hast mistaken it whensoever thou canst say Deus est this is God or God is this non est Deus that is not God God is not that for he is more infinitely more then that But non potes dicere Deus est thou art not able to say This is God God is this Saltem dicas hoc Deus non est Be able to say This is not God God is not this The belly is not God Mammon is not God Mauzzim the God of Forces Oppression is not God Belphegor Licentiousnesse is not God Howsoever God sees me to my confusion yet I doe not see God when I am sacrificing to these which are not Gods Let us begin at that which is nearest us within us purenesse of heart and from thence receive the testimony of Gods Privy Seale the impression of his Spirit that we are Blessed and that leads us to the Great Seale the full fruition of all we shall see God there where he shall make us drink of the Rivers of his pleasures There is fulnesse plenty Psal 36.8 but lest it should be a Feast of one day or of a few as it is said they are rivers so it is added with thee is the Fountaine of life An abundant river to convay and a perpetuall spring to feed and continue that river And then wherein appeares all this In this for in thy light we shall see light In seeing God we shall see all that concernes us and see it alwayes No night to determine that day no cloud to overcast it We end all with S. Augustines devout exclamation Deus bone qui erunt illi oculi Glorious God what kinde of eyes shall they be Quam decori quam sereni How bright eyes and how well set Quam valentes quam constantes How strong eyes and how durable Quid arbitremur quid aestimemus quid loquemur What quality what value what name shall we give to those eyes Occurrunt verba quotidiana sordidata vilissimis rebus I would say something of the beauty and glory of these eyes and can finde no words but such as I my selfe have mis-used in lower things Our best expressing of it is to expresse a desire to come to it for there onely we
to the Church by one Sermon still our Christnings were equall to our burials at least Therefore when Christ saies to the Church Luke 12.32 Feare not little flock it was not Quia de magnominuitur sed quia de pusillo crescit saies Chrysologus Not because it should fall from great to little but rise from little to great Such care had Christ of the growth thereof and then such care of the establishment and power thereof as that the first time that ever he names the Church Mat. 16.18 he invests it with an assurance of perpetuity Vpon this Rock will I build my Church and the gates of Hell shall not prevaile against it Therein is denoted the strength and stability of the Church in it selfe and then the power and authority of the Church upon others in those often directions Dic Ecclesiae complaine to the Church and consult with the Church and then Audi Ecclesiam Harken to the Church be judged by the Church heare not them that heare not the Church And then Ejice de Ecclesia let them that disobey the Church be cast out of the Church In all which we are forbidden private Conventicles private Spirits private Opinions For as S. Augustine saies well Psal 49. and he cites it from another whom he names not Quidam dixit If a wall stand single not joyned to any other wall he that makes a doore through the wall and passes through that doore Adhuc foris est for all this is without still Nam domus nonest One wall makes not a house One opinion makes not Catholique Doctrine one man makes not a Church for this knowledge of God the Church is our Academy there we must be bred and there we may be bred all our lives and yet learne nothing Therefore as we must be there so there we must use the meanes And the meanes in the Church are the Ordinances and Institutions of the Church The most powerfull meanes is the Scripture Medium Institutie But the Scripture in the Church Not that we are discouraged from reading the Scripture at home God forbid we should think any Christian family to be out of the Church At home the holy Ghost is with thee in the reading of the Scriptures But there he is with thee as a Remembrancer The Holy Ghost shall bring to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you saies our Saviour Here Iohn 14.26 in the Church he is with thee as a Doctor to teach thee First learne at Church and then meditate at home Receive the seed by hearing the Scriptures interpreted here and water it by returning to those places at home When Christ bids you Search the Scriptures he meanes you should go to them who have a warrant to search A warrant in their Calling To know which are Scriptures To know what the holy Ghost saies in the Scriptures apply thy selfe to the Church Not that the Church is a Judge above the Scriptures for the power and the Commission which the Church hath it hath from the Scriptures but the Church is a Judge above thee which are the Scriptures and what is the sense of the Holy Ghost in them So then thy meanes are the Scriptures That is thy evidence but then this evidence must be sealed to thee in the Sacraments and delivered to thee in Preaching and so sealed and delivered to thee in the presence of competent witnesses the Congregation When S. Paul was carried up In raptu 2 Cor. 12.4 in an extasie into Paradise that which he gained by this powerfull way of teaching is not expressed in a Vidit but an Audivit It is not said that he saw but that he heard unspeakeable things The eye is the devils doore before the eare for though he doe enter at the eare by wanton discourse yet he was at the eye be fore we see before we talke dangerously But the eare is the Holy Ghosts first doore He assists us with Rituall and Ceremoniall things which we see in the Church but Ceremonies have their right use when their right use hath first beene taught by preaching Therefore to hearing does the Apostle apply faith And as the Church is our Academy and our Medium the Ordinances of the Church so the light by which we see this that is know God so as to make him our God is faith and that is our other Consideration in this part Those Heretiques against whom S. Chrysostome and others of the Fathers writ Lumen fides The Anomaei were inexcusable in this that they said They were able to know God in this life as well as God knew himselfe But in this more especially lay their impiety that they said They were able to doe all this by the light of Nature without Faith By the light of Nature in the Theatre of the World by the Medium of Creatures we see God but to know God by beleeving not only Him but in Him is only in the Academy of the Church only through the Medium of the Ordinances there and only by the light of Faith The Schooledoes ordinarily designe foure wayes of knowing God and they make the first of these foure waies to be by faith but then by faith they meane no more but an assent that there is a God which is but that which in our former Considerations we called The seeing of God and which indeed needs not faith for the light of Nature will serve for that to see God so They make their second way Contemplation that is An union of God in this life which is truly the same thing that we meane by Faith for we do not call an assent to the Gospell faith but faith is the application of the Gospell to our selves not an assent that Christ dyed but an assurance that Christ dyed for all Their third way of knowing God is by Apparition as when God appeared to the Patriarchs and others in fire in Angels or otherwise And their fourth way is per apertam visionem by his cleare manifestation of himself in heaven Their first way by assenting only and their third way of apparition are weak and uncertain wayes The other two present Faith and future Vision are safe wayes but admit this difference That that of future Vision is gratiae consummantis such a knowledge of God as when it is once had can never be lost nor diminished But knowledge by faith in this world is Gratiae communis it is an effect and fruit of that Grace which God shed upon the whole communion of Saints that is upon all those who in this Academy the Church do embrace the Medium that is the Ordinances of the Church And this knowledge of God by this faith may be diminished and encreased for it is but In aenigmate sayes our Text darkly obscurely Clearly in respect of the naturall man but yet but obscurely in respect of that knowledge of God which we shall have in heaven for sayes the Apostle As long as we
sense by the Ancients The Ancients saies that ancient Father Basil which reason prevailes upon S. Ambrose too Ambrose Nos cum sanctorum fidelium sententia congruentes We beleeve and beleeve it because the Ancients beleeved it to be so that this is spoken generally of the Holy Ghost Hieron S. Basil and S. Ambrose assume it as granted S. Hierom disputes it argues concludes it Vivificator ergo Conditor ergo Deus This Spirit of God gave life therefore this Spirit was a Creator therefore God S. Augustine prints his seale deepe Secundùm quod ego intelligere possum ita est as far as my understanding can reach it is so and his understanding reached far But he addes Nec ullomodo c. Neither can it possibly be otherwise Tertui Cypt. We cannot tell whether that Poem which is called Genesis be Tertullians or Cyprians It hath beene thought an honour to the learnedest of the Fathers to have beene the Author of a good Poem In that Poem this text is paraphrased thus Immensusque Deus super aequora vastameabat God God personally moved upon the waters Truly the later Schoole is as they have used it a more Poeticall part of divinity then any of the Poems of the Fathers are take in Lactantius his Poem of the Phenix and all the rest and for the Schoole there Aquinas saies Secundùm Sanctos intelligimus Spiritum sanctum As the holy Fathers have done we also understand this personally of the Holy Ghost To end this these words doe not afford such an argument for the Trinity or the third Person thereof the Holy Ghost as is strong enough to convert or convince a Jew because it may have another sense but we who by Gods abundant goodnesse have otherwise an assurance Psal 104.30 Iob 26.13 and faith in this doctrine acknowledge all those other places Thou sendest forth thy Spirit and they are created By his spirit he hath garnished the Heavens and the rest of that kinde to be all but ecchoes from this voyce returnes from Iob and from David and the rest of this doctrine of all comfort first and betimes delivered from Moses that there is a distinct person in the Godhead whose attribute is goodnesse whose office is application whose way is comfort And so we passe from our first That it is not onely the Power of God but the Person of God To the second in this branch His Action Ferebatur The Action of the Spirit of God Ferebatur the Holy Ghost in this place is expressed in a word of a double and very diverse signification for it signifies motion and it signifies rest And therefore Psal 139.2 as S. Augustine argues upon those words of David Thou knowest my downe sitting and my uprising That God knew all that he did betweene his downe sitting and his uprising So in this word which signifies the Holy Ghosts first motion and his last rest we comprehend all that was done in the production and creation of the Creatures Deut. 32.11 Hier. This word we translate As the Eagle fluttereth over her young ones so it is a word of Motion And S. Hierom upon our Text expresses it by Incubabat to sit upon her young ones to hatch them or to preserve them so it is a word of rest And so the Jews take this word to signifie Cyprian properly the birds hatching of eggs S. Cyprian unites the two significations well Spiritus sanctus dabat aquis motum limitem The Holy Ghost enabled the waters to move and appointed how and how far they should move The beginnings and the waies and the ends must proceed from God and from God the Holy Ghost That is by those meanes and those declarations by which God doth manifest himselfe to us for that is the office of the holy Ghost to manifest and apply God to us Now the word in our Text is not truly Ferebatur The Spirit moved which denotes a thing past but the word is Movens Moving a Participle of the present So that we ascribe first Gods manifestation of himself in the creation and then the continuall manifestation of himself in his providence to the holy Ghost for God had two purposes in the creation Vt sint ut maneant That the creature should be and be still August That it should exist at first and subsist after Be made and made permanent God did not mean that Paradise should have been of so small use when he made it he made it for a perpetuall habitation for man God did not mean that man should be the subject of his wrath when he made him he made him to take pleasure in and to shed glory upon him The holy Ghost moves he is the first author the holy Ghost perpetuates settles establishes he is our rest and acquiescence and center Beginning Way End all is in this word Recaph The Spirit of God moved and rested And upon what And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters S. Augustine observing aright That at this time of which this Text is spoken Facies aquarum The waters enwrapped all the whole substance the whole matter of which all things were to be created all was surrounded with the waters all was embowelled and enwombed in the waters And so the holy Ghost moving and resting upon the face of the waters moved and rested did his office upon the whole Masse of the world and so produced all that was produced and this admits no contradiction no doubt but that thus the thing was done and that this this word implies But whether the holy Ghost wrought this production of the severall creatures by himself or whether he infused and imprinted a naturall power in the waters and all the substance under the waters to produce creatures naturally of themselves hath received some doubt It need not for the worke ascribed to the holy Ghost here is not the working by nature but the creating of nature Not what nature did after but how nature her self was created at first In this action this moving and resting upon the face of the waters that is all involved in the waters the Spirit of God the holy Ghost hatched produced then all those creatures For no power infused into the waters or earth then could have enabled that earth then to have produced Trees with ripe fruits in an instant nor the waters to have brought forth Whales in their growth in an instant The Spirit of God produced them then and established and conserves ever since that seminall power which we call nature to produce all creatures then first made by himselfe in a perpetuall Succession And so have you these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters literally historically And now these three termes The Spirit of God Moved Vpon the face of the waters You are also to receive in a spirituall sense in the second world the Christian Church The Person the Action
Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost The verdict is That we are the children of God The Spirit beareth c. First then 1 Part. a slacknesse a supinenesse in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit hath occasioned divers errours when the word hath been intended in one sense and taken in another All the significations will fall into these foure for these foure are very large It is spoken of God or of Angels or of men or of inferiour creatures And first of God it is spoken sometimes Essentially sometimes Personally God is a Spirit Iohn 4.24 Esay 31.3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth So also The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit For if they were God they were Spirit So God altogether and considered in his Essence is a Spirit but when the word Spir it is spoken not essentially of all but personally of one then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum The holy Ghost Goe and baptize Mar. 28.19 In the name of the Father and Sonne Spiritus sancti and the holy Ghost And as of God so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects of good Angels Sent farth to minister for them Heb. 1.14 1 King 22.22 Hosea 4.12 Esay 19.3 that shall be heires of salvation And evill Angels The lying Spirit that would deceive the King by the Prophet The Spirit of Whoredome spirituall whoredome when the people ask counsell of their stocks And Spiritus vertiginis The spirit of giddinesse of perversities as we translate it which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people in his judgement Of man also is this word Spirit spoken two wayes The Spirit is sometimes the soule Psal 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit sometimes it signifies those animall spirits which conserve us in strength and vigour The poyson of Gods arrowes drinketh up my spirit And also Job 6.4 Luke 1.47 the superiour faculties of the soule in a regenerate man as there My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour And then lastly of inferiour creatures it is taken two wayes too of living creatures The God of the spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Ezek. 1.21 and of creatures without life other then a metaphoricall life as of the winde often and of Ezckiels wheeles The Spirit of life was in the wheeles Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text it is not of Angels nor of men nor of other creatures but of God and not of God Essentially but Personally that is of the Holy Ghost Origen sayes Antecessores nostri The Ancients before him had made this note That where we finde the word Spirit without any addition it is alwayes intended of the Holy Ghost Before him and after him they stuck much to that note for S. Hierome makes it too and produces many examples thereof but yet it will not hold in all Didymus of Alexandria though borne blinde in this light saw light and writ so of the Holy Ghost as S. Hierome thought that work worthy of his Translation And hee gives this note That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost they adde to the word Spirit Sanctus Holy Spirit or at least the Article The The Spirit And this note hath good use too but yet it is not universally true If we supply these notes with this That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit as cannot consist with the Divine nature there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost but of his gifts or of his working as when it is said The Holy Ghost was not yet for his person was alwayes And where it is said Iohn 7.39 1 The fl 5.19 Quench not the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost himselfe cannot be quenched we have enough for our present purpose Here it is Spirit without any addition and therefore fittest to bee taken for the Holy Ghost And it is Spirit with that emphaticall article The The Spirit and in that respect also fittest to be so taken And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here not of his person but his operation yet it gives just occasion to looke piously and to consider modestly who and what this person is that doth thus worke upon us And to that purpose we shall touch upon foure things First His Universality He is All He is God Secondly His Singularity He is One One Person Thirdly His roote from whence he proceeded Father and Son And fourthly His growth his emanation his manner of proceeding for our order proposed at first leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity it will be almost necessary to stop a little upon each of these First then the Spirit mentioned here the Holy Ghost is God and if so Deus equall to Father and Son and all that is God He is God because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him He is called Jehovah Iebovah sayes to Esay Goe and tell this people Esay 6.9 Acts 28.29 c. And S. Paul making use of these words in the Acts he sayes Well spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him and the Essentiall Attributes of God He is Eternall so is none but God where we heare of the making of every thing else in the generall Creation we heare that the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1.2 but never that the Spirit was made He is every where so is none but God Psal 139.7 1 Cor. 2.10 whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit He knowes all things so doth none but God The Spirit searcheth all things yca the deep things of God He hath the name of God the Attributes of God and he does the works of God Is our Creator our Maker God Iob 33.4 The Spirit of God hath mademe Is he that can change the whole Creation and frame of nature in doing miracles God The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wildernesse Esay 63.14 Esay 48.16 Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets shew him to be God The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Is it argument enough for his God-head Esay 61.1 Luke 4.18 that he sent Christ himselfe Christ himselfe applies to himselfe that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to preach Acts 1.16 Iohn 16.13 He foretold future things The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before sayes S. Peter He establishes present things The Spirit of truth guides into all truth And he does this by wayes proper onely to God for our illumination is his He shall receive of me Ver. 14. 1 Cor. 6.11 Iohn 3.5 Iohn 16.8 sayes Christ and shew it you Our Justification is his Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the Spirit of God Our regeneration is his There is a
any subject a falling for for our bodies we say a man is falne sick And for his state falne poore And for his mind falne mad And for his conscience falne desperate we are borne low and yet we fall every way lower so universall is our falling sicknesse Sin it selfe is but a falling The irremediable sin of the Angels The undeterminable sinne of Adam is called but so The fall of Adam The fall of Angels And therefore the effectuall visitation of the holy Ghost to man is called a falling too we are fallen so low as that when the holy Ghost is pleased to fetch us againe and to infuse his grace he is still said to fall upon us But the fall which we consider in the Text is not a figurative falling not into a decay of estate nor decay of health nor a spirituall falling into sin a decay of grace but it is a medicinall falling a falling under Gods hand but such a falling under his hand as that he takes not off his hand from him that is falne but throwes him downe therefore that he may raise him To this posture he brings Paul now when he was to re-inanimate him with his spirit rather to pre-inanimate him for indeed no man hath a soule till he have grace Christ who in his humane nature hath received from the Father all Judgement and power and dominion over this world hath received all this upon that condition that he shall governe in this manner Psal 2.8 Aske of me and I shall give thee the Heathen for thine inheritance sayes the Father How is he to use them when he hath them Thus Thou shalt breake them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potters vessell Now God meant well to the Nations in this bruising and breaking of them God intended not an annihilation of the Nations but a reformarion for Christ askes the Nations for an Inheritance not for a triumph therefore it is intended of his way of governing them and his way is to bruise and beat them that is first to cast them downe before he can raise them up first to breake them before he can make them in his fashion August Novit Dominus vulnerare ad amorem The Lord and onely the Lord knowes how to wound us out of love more then that how to wound us into love more then all that to wound us into love not onely with him that wounds us but into love with the wound it selfe with the very affliction that he inflicts upon us The Lord knowes how to strike us so as that we shall lay hold upon that hand that strikes us and kisse that hand that wounds us Ad vitam interficit ad exaltationem prosternit sayes the same Father No man kills his enemy therefore that his enemy might have a better life in heaven that is not his end in killing him It is Gods end Therefore he brings us to death that by that gate he might lead us into life everlasting And he hath not discovered but made that Northerne passage to passe by the frozen Sea of calamity and tribulation to Paradise to the heavenly Jerusalem There are fruits that ripen not but by frost There are natures there are scarce any other that dispose not themselves to God but by affliction And as Nature lookes for the season for ripening and does not all before so Grace lookes for the assent of the soule and does not perfect the whole worke till that come It is Nature that brings the season and it is Grace that brings the assent but till the season for the fruit till the assent of the soule come all is not done Therefore God begun in this way with Saul and in this way he led him all his life Tot pertulit mortes quot vixit dies He dyed as many deaths as he lived dayes Chrysost for so himselfe sayes Quotidie morior I die daily God gave him sucke in blood and his owne blood was his daily drink He catechized him with calamities at first and calamities were his daily Sermons and meditations after and to authorize the hands of others upon him and to accustome him to submit himself to the hands of others without murmuring Christ himself strikes the first blow and with that Cecidit he fell which was our first consideration in his humiliation and then Cecidit in terram He fell to the ground which is our next I take no farther occasion from this Circumstance but to arme you with consolation In terram how low soever God be pleased to cast you Though it be to the earth yet he does not so much cast you downe in doing that as bring you home Death is not a banishing of you out of this world but it is a visitation of your kindred that lie in the earth neither are any nearer of kin to you then the earth it selfe and the wormes of the earth You heap earth upon your soules and encumber them with more and more flesh by a superfluous and luxuriant diet You adde earth to earth in new purchases and measure not by Acres but by Manors nor by Manors but by Shires And there is a little Quillet a little Close worth all these A quiet Grave And therefore when thou readest That God makes thy bed in thy sicknesse rejoyce in this not onely that he makes that bed where thou dost lie but that bed where thou shalt lie That that God that made the whole earth is now making thy bed in the earth a quiet grave where thou shalt sleep in peace till the Angels Trumpet wake thee at the Resurrection to that Judgement where thy peace shall be made before thou commest and writ and sealed in the blood of the Lamb. Saul falls to the earth So farre But he falls no lower God brings his servants to a great lownesse here but he brings upon no man a perverse sense or a distrustfull suspition of falling lower hereafter His hand strikes us to the earth by way of humiliation But it is not his hand that strikes us into hell by way of desperation Will you tell me that you have observed and studied Gods way upon you all your life and out of that can conclude what God meanes to doe with you after this life That God took away your Parents in your infancy and left you Orphanes then That he hath crossed you in all your labours in your calling ever since That he hath opened you to dishonours and calumnies and mis-interpretations in things well intended by you That he hath multiplied ficknesses upon you and given you thereby an assurance of a miserable and a short life of few and evill dayes nay That he hath suffered you to fall into sins that you your selves have hated To continue in sins that you your selves have been weary of To relapse into sins that you your selves have repented And will you conclude out of this that God had no good purpose upon you that if ever
Begin with me againe as thou begunst with Adam in innocency and see if I shall husband and governe that innocency better then Adam did for for this heart which I have from him I have it in corruption and Job 4. who can bring a cleane thing out of uncleannesse Therefore Davids prayer goes farther in the same place Renew a constant spirit in me Present cleannesse cannot be had from my selfe but if I have that from God mine owne cloathes will make me foule againe and therefore doe not onely create a cleane spirit but renew a spirit of constancy and perseverance Therefore I have also another Prayer in the same Psalme Psal 51.12 Spiritu principali confirma me Sustaine me uphold me with thy free spirit thy large thy munificent spirit for thy ordinary graces will not defray me nor carry me through this valley of tentations not thy single money but thy Talents not as thou art thine owne Almoner but thine owne Treasurer It is not the dew but thy former and later raine that must water though it be thy hand that hath planted Not any of the Rivers though of Paradise but the Ocean it selfe that must bring me to thy Jerusalem Create a clean heart Thou didst so in Adam and in him I defiled it Renew that heart Thou didst so in Baptisme And thy upholding me with thy constant spirit is thy affording me means which are constant in thy Church But thy confirming me with thy principall spirit is thy making of those meanes instituted in thy Church effectuall upon me by the spirit of Application the spirit of Appropriation by which the merits of the Son deposited in the Church are delivered over unto me This then is the force of Davids reason in this Petition Ossa implentur vitiis Iob 20.11 as one of Iobs friends speaks My bones are full of the sins of my youth That is my best actions now in mine age have some taste some tincture from the habit or some sinfull memory of the acts of sin in my youth Adhaeret os meum carni as David also speaks Psal 102.5 Lam. 4.8 My bones cleave to my flesh my best actions taste of my worst And My skin cleaves to my bones as Ieremy laments That is My best actions call for a skin for something to cover them And Therefore not Therefore because I have brought my selfe into this state but because by thy grace I have power to bring this my state into thy sight by this humble confession Sana me Domine O Lord heale me Thou that art my Messias be my Moses Exod. 13.19 and carry these bones of thy Ioseph out of Egypt Deliver me in this consideration of mine actions from the terror of a self-accusing and a jealous and suspicious conscience 1 King 13.31 Bury my bones beside the bones of the man of God Beside the bones of the Son of God Look upon my bones as they are coffind and shrowded in that sheet the righteousnesse of Christ Jesus Accedant ossa ad ossa as in Ezekiels vision Let our bones come together Ezek. 37.7 bone to bone mine to his and looke upon them uno intuitu all together and there shall come sinews and flesh and skin upon them and breathe upon them and in Him in Christ Jesus I shall live My bones being laid by his though but gristles in themselves my actions being considered in his though imperfect in themselves shall bear me up in the sight of God And this may be the purpose of this prayer this sanation grounded upon this reason O Lord heale me for my bones are vexed c. But yet David must and doth stop upon this step he stayes Gods leisure and is put to his Vsquequo But thou O Lord how long David had cryed Miserere he had begged of God to look towards him Vsquequo and consider him He had revealed to him his weak and troublesome estate and he had entreated reliefe but yet God gave not that reliefe presently nor seemed to have heard his prayer nor to have accepted his reasons David comes to some degrees of expostulation with God but he dares not proceed far it is but usquequo Domine which if we consider it in the Originall and so also in our last Translation requires a serious consideration For it is not there as it is in the first Translation How long wilt thou delay David charges God with no delay But it is onely Et tu Domine usquequo But thou O Lord how long And there he ends in a holy abruptnesse as though he had taken himselfe in a fault to enterprise any expostulation with God He doth not say How long ere thou heare me If thou heare me how long ere thou regard me If thou regard me how long ere thou heale me How long shall my bones how long shall my soule be troubled He sayes not so but leaving all to his leisure he corrects his passion he breaks off his expostulation As long as I have that commission from God Dic animae tuae Salus tua sum Psal 35.3 Say unto thy soule I am thy salvation my soule shall keep silence unto God of whom commeth my salvation Silence from murmuring how long soever he be in recovering me not silence from prayer that he would come for that is our last Consideration David proposed his Desire Miserere and Sana Looke towards me and Heale me that was our first And then his Reasons Ossa Anima My bones my soule is troubled that was our second And then he grew sensible of Gods absence for all that which was our third Proposition for yet for all this he continues patient and solieites the same God in the same name The Lord But thou O Lord how long Need we then any other example of such a patience then God himselfe Domine who stayes so long in expectation of our conversion But we have Davids example too who having first made his Deprecation Ver. 1. That God would not reprove him in anger having prayed God to forbeare him he is also well content to forbeare God for those other things which he asks till it be his pleasure to give them But yet he neither gives over praying nor doth he encline to pray to any body else but still Domine miserere Have mercy upon me O Lord and Domine fana O Lord heale mee Industry in a lawfull calling favour of great persons a thankfull acknowledgement of the ministery and protection of Angels and of the prayers of the Saints in heaven for us all these concur to our assistance But the root of all all temporall all spirituall blessings is he to whom David leads us here Dominus The Lord Lord as he is Proprietary of all creatures He made All and therefore is Lord of All as he is Iehovah which is the name of Essence of Being as all things have all their being from him their very being and their well-being their Creation
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall