in the Flesh justified in the Spirit seen of Angels preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the World received up into Glory were then all riddle And as our Knowledge now is far clearer than that of God's ancient People was so is our Consolation and Joy also being established on better Promises revealed with more Evidence and embraced with more Firmness and Certitude Death is now swallowed up in victory and hath lost its sting so that our Fears are less as our Hopes are stronger sweeter and more comfortable being now not under the Spirit of Bondage but of Adoption which makes us go boldly to the Throne of Grace The Result of all is this That the Oeconomy of the Spirit followed that of the Father and of the Son That the Holy Ghost was not properly to be styled a Comforter till Christ went up from Earth to Heaven and that if our Lord had remained here below the blessed Comforter would not have come down in that plentifull Effusion of his Gifts and Graces as he did after our Lord's departure which is the Third thing proposed But before I enter upon this subject I shall first take notice of the sender of Him which our Lord says was Himself I will send him unto you Christ had before told his Disciples That He would pray the Father that He would send them another Comforter Joh. 14. 16. v. 26. That the Father would send Him in his Name But chap. 15. 26. as here in the Text He takes it upon Himself to send him I will send Him unto you from the Father And both with Truth For the Father and the Son sent and had an equal share in sending Him He is therefore called The Spirit of the Father Mat. 10. 20. and The Spirit of the Son Gal. 4. 6. For he proceedeth from both From the Father 't is said expresly Joh. 15. 26. and from the Son if not in express terms yet virtually imply'd in that He is said to be the Spirit of Christ as well as of the Father and must therefore come from Him because sent from Him too The only difference being this That the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father as from Him who hath by the Original Communication a right of Mission which denotes only distinction of Order The Father being as the Spring the Son as the Fountain and the Holy Ghost as the Stream flowing from both From whence we may collect two Things 1. That the Holy Ghost is a real distinct Person from the Father and the Son in as much as He is sent by them For how can He be the same with them that send Him If he proceed from the Father he must be distinct in subsistence and if his Coming depended on the Son 's going away and sending Him after he was gone He cannot be the Son who therefore departed that He might send Him 2. It follows hence That the Holy Ghost is equal to the Father and the Son For whatsoever proceedeth from God must be God whatsoever partakes of his Essence must be equal with Him And surely if the Son have the same right of Mission with the Father as we learn from the Text he must be acknowledged to have the same Essence with him too And had not the Holy Ghost been Equal with the Son as with the Father how could He have supplied his Place Or what Expediency could there have been in the Holy Spirit 's coming when being less than Christ he could have never been able to doe as much as Christ did and so the exchange must needs have been to the Apostle's loss and not as Christ himself had told them it should prove to their benefit and advantage St. Augustine's Prayer then was not impertinent Domine da mihi alium Te alioqui non dimittam Te Give me Lord another as good as thy self or I will never leave Thee nor ever consent that Thou shouldst leave me Nor is it any diminution to the Deity of the Holy Ghost that He is said here to be sent by the Son These Expressions To be sent or To come and the like being not Expressions of disparagement For He was so sent as to come too and to come of his own accord His coming being free and voluntary He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend in a Letter the very Mind of him that sent it which shews an agreement indeed and concord with Him that sent him but implies no Inferiority nor any the least degree of Subjection 'T is the Spirits honour to be sent to be a Leader and though sent He be yet is He as free an Agent as He that sent him Tertullian calls Him Christi Vicarium Christ's Vicar on Earth But if that argued any inequality in the Spirit it might as well in the Son too who is styled in Scripture the Angel and Messenger of God and is said to go about his Father's business that sent Him But to leave this Argument as more proper to convince a Macedonian Heretick than needfull for any true Believer I shall proceed to the third Thing namely The time when the Holy Ghost was to be sent and that was after our Lord's departure If I depart I will send him unto you But what necessity was there may some say of Christ's departing in order to the Spirit 's Coming Might He not have tarried here and the Spirit have come for all that Was the stay of the one any lett or hinderance to the coming of the other Or might not Christ have sent for as well as go away himself to send him To this I say 1. That it was decreed from all Eternity That God the Father should draw us to his Son Joh. 6. 44. 2dly That God the Son should instruct us chap. 17. 6 8. And 3dly That God the Holy Ghost should assist and establish us in all Truth And so the whole Work of our Redemption should be ascribed to the Father as electing To the Son as consummating and to the Holy Ghost as applying it God the Father had done his part God the Son was at this instant doing his too It remained only that the Comforter should come to perfect both which could not be till the Son had performed his Task here on Earth and should go away to Heaven For the Acts of the Holy Ghost pre-suppose those of a Redeemer 'T is the part of that Blessed Spirit to inflame our Souls with the Love of God but in order to this effect 't is absolutely necessary that the Redeemer should first appease God Our first Parent was not able to endure the terror of the voice of his provoked Majesty but was forc'd to hide his head And what is each Sinner but as Flax before the consuming fire of his Justice Till our Redeemer then had disarm'd that Justice till he had made men's Peace and Reconciliation the Holy Ghost could not excite any motions of Love in them
sending them strong delusions because they receive not the love of the truth that they should believe a lie and delivering them up to those whose interest it is still to keep them in it and whose business to beguile unstable Souls that have no ballast in them Their Proselytes being usually such as are weak or loose men that have lost either their reason or their conscience This being the condition of the greatest part of mankind to be blinded with ignorance or prejudice against the Truth and of corrupt lives no marvel if they be so easily deluded by those who come with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness with their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their slight of hand and cunning craftiness creeping first into men's houses and then into their hearts and affections dazling the eyes of such silly people with glittering pretences of stricter severities with a shew of wisedom and neglect of the body of self-denial rigorous observances and mortifications of notions of a higher and sublimer strain oppositions of science falsly so called that puzzle their own and others understandings and of greater favour and liberty to nature while they promise liberty and allure through the Lusts of the flesh and a thousand such artifices No marvel I say if every one has not wit enough to discover such gaudy impostures nor grace to withstand them These are disguises able to deceive if it were possible the very Elect. But that they shall not we have our Saviour's warrant for it Matt. 24. 24. The gates of hell shall never finally prevail against the Church nor the true Members of it Their eyes can see through the sheeps-cloathing and pierce into that corruption which lies under the painted sepulchres In vain is the Net spread in the sight of these Birds not to be caught with such chaff Ad populum phaleras Christ's Disciples will soon smell out a Cheat be it never so well laid these Children of light being in their generation not be outwitted by the children of this world They will not dance after every Seducer's pipe nor be charmed by every Siren charm he never so wisely Christ's Sheep are rational and will not follow a Stranger They are all taught of God and have an Unction from above which teaches them all things to discover errour and truth that they may avoid the one and embrace the other True indeed the Apostles had a more extraordinary gift of discerning Spirits than others had and St. John upon the very sight of a Cerinthus could immediately pronounce him Satan's First-born But every true Disciple of Christ has as infallible a light to guide him which is a holy prudence and a sanctified reason that is as the Apostle phrases it senses exercized to discern good from evil Let him then make use of these and they will safely direct him in his choice nor will the Spirit of God be wanting to him if he be not wanting to himself Should an Angel from Heaven object against the truth he would not yield to him or Should an Angel of darkness transform himself into an Angel of light his own natural ugliness would soon betray him at last to the eye of a Disciple of Christ and his noisome stench to his Nose Satan and all his Minsters have a cloven foot that will shew them Be their leaves never so glorious or flourishing yet these trees shall be known by their fruits which is the Second thing to be considered By their Fruits Not by any secret character of Reprobation nor mark of the Beast stampt on their foreheads which some with the advantage of their Enthusiastical Spectacles can so plainly see when they are invisible to all other men's eyes not by the blossomes of good purposes nor the thin fig-leaves of a hollow profession For Satan may confess a Christ as well as a St. Peter and Pirates may hang out the Flaggs of those Princes whose Subjects they intend to rob every one can wear Christ's Livery and none boast more of it than they who are the Devil's servants as you may find these false prophets here did v. 21 22 23. 'T is not by such signs as these then that we must know them but by their fruits i. e. by their doctrines as some by their practices as others understand them or rather indeed by both of them joined together and so making up a full and complete Criterium whereby to judge of them And first We may know them by their doctrines For indeed these be the proper and genuine fruits of a Prophet Nor can we better judge of the quality of a Messenger than by the nature of that message he delivers They who make no other use of their being counted Prophets but to infuse higher degrees of all kind of Piety and Charity without doubt are sent from God for the Devil would never help them to credit and reputation in the World who should employ it only to the advancement of Piety On the other side if their design be to infuse into their Followers seeds of impiety and injustice of uncleanness and uncharitableness of fedition and rebellion be their pretences never so specious or their behaviour never so fair to be sure they are to be rankt among the false prophets The wisedom that is from above says S. James is first pure then peaceable easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality and without hypocrisie whereas that which descendeth not from above is earthly sensual and devilish always levelled at interest lust or pride And therefore St. Paul yokes seducing spirits and doctrines of Devils 1 Tim. 4. v. 1. To let us know that the latter is an infallible sign of the former But here it may be objected How can we know doctrines to be true or false To this I answer 1. Negatively Not by the maxims of natural reason which are so far from being infallible that if extended beyond the sphere of Philosophy for whose Meridian only they are calculated they are for the most part defective if not wholly false stretch them never so far they can never be adequate to those things which are to be believed nor any foundation for a divine Faith all assent wrought by them in the Soul being but opinion or science Nor 2. from Antiquity which is so far from being a certain rule that it can be no certain mark of Faith Nor 3. by the writings of learned men which at best can never pretend to infallibility and being humane judgments can make up no more but a humane testimony and which can never exactly be known by all men some having neither skill nor leisure to inquire much less ability to find it out 2. I answer Positively That the Scripture is that which must direct us in our search for Truth this alone being a Rule in it self infallible as dictated by an infallible Spirit in respect of us also clear and known and in
recourse to Miracles we must of necessity conclude them to be of a higher Efficiency Those many more than ordinary Tempests devouring Earthquakes firey Inundations and Apparitions which have been seen and heard of so many though they may indeed have natural Causes yet 't is highly probable that these things are not the ordinary Effects of Nature but that the Almighty for the Manifestation of his Power and Justice may set Spirits whether good or evil on work to do the same things sometimes with more State and Magnificence of horror As the Frogs of Egypt ordinarily bred out of putrification and generation were yet for a plague to that wicked Nation supernaturally also produced I might instance in sundry miraculous Preservations whereunto in all probability Angels concur How many have fallen from very high Precipices into deep Pits past the natural probability of hope which yet have been preserved not from Death only but from Hurt How many have been raised up from deadly Sicknesses when all natural Helps have given them for lost God's Angels no doubt have been their secret Physicians Have we had instinctive intimations of the Death of some absent friends which no humane intelligence had bidden us to suspect who but Angels have been our Informers Have we been kept from Dangers which our best Providence could neither have foreseen nor diverted we owe these strange escapes to our invisible Spies and Guardians And thus Gerson attributes the wonderfull preservation of Infants from so many perils they usually run into to the super-intendency of Angels Indeed where we find a probability of second Causes in Nature we are apt to confine our Thoughts to them and look no higher yet even there many times are unseen Hands Had we seen the House fall upon the Heads of Job's Children we should perhaps have ascrib'd it to the natural force of a vehement Blast when now we know it was the work of a Spirit Had we seen those Thousands of Israelites falling dead of the Plague we should have complain'd of some strange infection in the Air when David saw the Angel acting in that Mortality When the Israelites forcibly expell'd the Canaanites nothing appear'd but their own Arms but the Lord of Hosts could say I will send mine Angel before thee by whom I shall drive them thence Exod. 33. 2. Nothing appear'd when the Egyptians first-born were struck dead in one night the Astrologers would perhaps say they were Planet-struck but 't was an Angel's hand that smote them Balaam saw his Ass disorderly starting in the path He who formerly had seen Visions now sees nothing but a Wall and a Way but his Ass who for the present had more of the Prophet than his Master could see an Angel and a Sword Nothing was seen at the Pool of Bethesda but a moved Water when the sudden Cures were wrought which perhaps might be attributed to some beneficial Constellation but the Scripture tells us that an Angel descended and infused that healing quality into the Water Elias could see an Army of the Heavenly Host encompassing Him when Gehezi could not till his Master's Prayers had opened his Eyes We need not make use of Cardan's Eye-salve to discern Spirits in the Air our Reason may discover them though our Eyes cannot and by the manifest good Effects they produce we may boldly say Here hath been an Angel though we have not seen Him All this may serve to confute the ancient Error of Sadducees who made Angels to be nothing but good Motions or good Thoughts turning them into an Allegory as Hymeneus and Philetus did the Resurrection And 't is observed that they who deny'd Angels did withall deny a Resurrection and both upon the same ground their loose temper which prevails so much with their Successors inclining 'em to baffle themselves out of the belief of those things whose real Being brings them so little advantage 'T is not strange that such men's Senses should swallow up their Faith since it deprives them of their Reason though probably such fancies are rather the issues of their Desires than of their Judgment Behold here a cloud of Witnesses against them not Revelation only but even Sense too backt with Reason Authority and Experience of all Ages and of all Conditions of Men Good and Bad Heathens and Christians If nothing will satisfie their curiosity but a Vision I must tell them that the commerce we have with Spirits is not now by the Eye nor shall any thing confute their Infidelity but Hell where to their cost they shall meet with those Devils whose company they are here so fond of and yet their very Infidelity methinks were they not stupid as well as impious might serve to rectifie their belief here which being the unquestionable effect of Satan is no small evidence of his Existence I shall not stand to confute them the Text does it for me If their Faith be not strong enough their Eyes to be sure will be too weak to discern Angels these cannot be the Objects of Sense since they are Spirits which points to the first thing exprest here their Nature Spirits 'T is an easier matter to prove that there are Angels than to describe what they are Spirits have so little affinity with our Natures that 't is no marvel if they exceed our Apprehensions But this notion suggests so much to us that they are intellectual Substances immaterial incorporeal and consequently immortal In all which capacities most resembling the Almighty and the fairest Copies of the great Original of all things Yet are they not void of all kind of matter no more than the Soul of Man is it being peculiar to the Father of Spirits to be one most pure and simple Act whereas every created Being though never so refin'd admits of some dross some alloy is compounded either by natural composition as consisting of matter and form or at least Metaphysical of the Act and the Power Yet so far we may and ought to allow Angels to be immaterial as not to consist of any corporeal matter though never so fine and subtle for this were to destroy the very Nature of a Spirit and our Saviour's argument whereby he convinced the Disciples that he was no Spirit as they took him for Behold my hands and my feet that it is I my self for a Spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have Luk. 24. 39. I shall not trouble you with any Philosophical discourse to prove Angels incorporeal nor with those tedious and impertinent Niceties of the Schools grounded upon their being so How Millions of Angels can lodge together in one point as a Legion of them did in one Man How they move in an instant and pass from one extream to another without going through the middle parts and the like curious matters contributing nothing at all to our edification Some passages there are indeed in Scripture which at first blush seem to favour the corporeity of Angels but in effect