one or few such fooles but emphaticall because that foole that any way denies God is the foole the veryest foole of all kinds of foolishnesse Now as God himselfe so his religion amongst us hath many enemies Enemies that deny God as Atheists And enemies that multiply gods that make many gods as Idolaters And enemies that deny those divers persons in the Godhead which they should confesse The Trinity as Jews and Turks So in his Religion and outward worship we have enemies that deny God his House that deny us any Church any Sacrament any Priesthood any Salvation as Papists And enemies that deny Gods house any furniture any stuffe any beauty any ornament any order as non-Conformitans And enemies that are glad to see Gods house richly furnished for a while that they may come to the spoile thereof as sacrilegious usurpers of Gods part But for Atheisticall enemies I call not upon them here to answer me Let them answer their own terrors and horrors alone at mid-night and tell themselves whence that proceeds if there be no God For Papisticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me Let them answer our Laws as well as our Preaching because theirs is a religion mixt as well of Treason as of Idolatry For our refractary and schismaticall enemies I call not upon them to answer me neither Let them answer the Church of God in what nation in what age was there ever seen a Church of that form that they have dreamt and beleeve their own dream And for our sacrilegious enemies let them answer out of the body of Story and give one example of prosperity upon sacriledge But leaving all these to that which hath heretofore or may hereafter be said of them I have bent my meditations for those dayes which this Terme will afford upon that which is the character and mark of all Christians in generall The Trinity the three Persons in one God not by way of subtile disputation as to persons that doubted but by way of godly declaration as to persons disposed to make use of it not as though I feared your faith needed it nor as though I hoped I could make your reason comprehend it but because I presume that the consideration of God the Father and his Power and the sins directed against God in that notion as the Father and the consideration of God the Son and his Wisedome and the sins against God in that apprehension the Son and the consideration of God the Holy Ghost and his Goodnesse and the sins against God in that acceptation may conduce as much at least to our edification as any Doctrine more controverted And of the first glorious person of this blessed Trinity the Almighty Father is this Text Blessed be God c. In these words Divisio the Apostle having tasted having been fed with the sense of the power and of the mercies of God in his gracious deliverance delivers a short Catechisme of all our duties So short as that there is but one action Benedicamus Let us blesse Nor but one object to direct that blessing upon Benedicamus Deum Let us blesse God It is but one God to exclude an Idolatrous multiplicity of Gods But it is one God notified and manifested to us in a triplicity of persons of which the first is literally expressed here That he is a Father And him we consider In Paternitate aeterna As he is the eternall Father Even the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ sayes our Text And then In Paternitate interna as we have the Spirit of Adoption by which we cry Abba Father As he is Pater miserationum The Father of mercies And as he expresses these mercies by the seale and demonstration of comfort as he is the God of comfort and Totius consolationis Of all comfort Receive the summe of this and all that arises from it in this short Paraphrase The duty required of a Christian is Blessing Praise Thanksgiving To whom To God to God onely to the onely God There is but one But this one God is such◠tree as hath divers boughs to shadow and refresh thee divers branches to shed fruit upon thee divers armes to spread out and reach and imbrace thee And here hee visits thee as a Father From all eternity a Father of Christ Iesus and now thy Father in him in that which thou needest most A Father of mercy when thou wast in misery And a God of comfort when thou foundest no comfort in this world And a God of all comfort even of spirituall comfort in the anguishes and distresses of thy conscience Blessed bee God even the Father c. First then 1 Part. Benedictus the duty which God by this Apostle requires of man is a duty arising out of that which God hath wrought upon him It is not a consideration a contemplation of God sitting in heaven but of God working upon the earth not in the making of his eternall Decree there but in the execution of those Decrees here not in saying God knowes who are his and therefore they cannot faile but in saying in a rectified conscience God by his ordinary marks hath let me know that I am his and therefore I look to my wayes that I doe not fall S. Paul out of a religious sense what God had done for him comes to this duty to blesse him There is not a better Grammar to learne then to learne how to blesse God and therefore it may be no levity to use some Grammar termes herein God blesses man Dativè He gives good to him man blesses God Optativè He wishes well to him and he blesses him Vocativè He speaks well of him For though towards God as well as towards man 1 Sam. 25.27 2 King 5.15 reall actions are called blessings so Abigail called the present which she brought to David A blessing and so Naaman called that which he offered to Elisha A blessing though reall sacrifices to God and his cause sacrifices of Almes sacrifices of Armes sacrifices of Money sacrifices of Sermons advancing a good publique cause may come under the name of blessing yet the word here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is properly a blessing in speech in discourse in conference in words in praise in thanks The dead doe not praise thee sayes David The dead men civilly dead allegorically dead dead and buryed in an uselesse silence in a Cloyster or Colledge may praise God but not in words of edification as it is required here and they are but dead and doe not praise God so and God is not the God of the dead but of the living of those that delight to praise and blesse God and to declare his goodnesse We represent the Angels to our selves and to the world with wings they are able to flie and yet when Iacob saw them aseending and descending Gen. 28.12 even those winged Angels had a Ladder they went by degrees There is an immediate blessing of God by the heart but God
of my Election and I depose for the seales and marks of that Decree These two witnesses The Spirit and My spirit induce a third witnesse the world it selfe to testifie that which is the testimony of this text That I am the child of God And so we passe from the two former parts The persons The Spirit and our spirit And their office to witnesse and to agree in their witnesse and we are fallen into our third part The Testimony it selfe That we are the Children of God This part hath also two branches 3. Part. First That the Testimony concernes our selves We are And then That that which we are is this We are the Children of God And in the first branch there will be two twiggs two sub-considerations 1 Wee A personall appropriation of the grace of God to our selves 2 We are we are now a present possession of those Graces First consider we the Consolation in the particle of appropriation Wee In the great Ant-hill of the whole world I am an Ant I have my part in the Creation I am a Creature But there are ignoble Creatures God comes nearer In the great field of clay of red earth that man was made of mankind I am a clod I am a man I have my part in the Humanity But Man was worse then annihilated again When satan in that serpent was come as Hercules with his club into a potters shop and had broke all the vessels destroyed all mankind And the gracious promise of a Messias to redeeme all mankind was shed and spread upon all I had my drop of that dew of Heaven my sparke of that fire of heaven in the universall promise in which I was involved But this promise was appropriated after in a particular Covenant to one people to the Jewes to the seed of Abraham But for all that I have my portion there for all that professe Christ Jesus are by a spirituall engrafting and transmigration and transplantation in and of that stock and that seed of Abraham and I am one of those But then of those who doe professe Christ Jesus some grovell still in the superstitions they were fallen into and some are raised by Gods good grace out of them and I am one of those God hath afforded me my station in that Church which is departed from Babylon Now all this while my soule is in a cheerefull progresse when I consider what God did for Goshen in Egypt for a little parke in the midst of a forest what he did for Jury in the midst of enemies as a shire that should stand out against a Kingdome round about it How many Sancerraes he hath delivered from famins how many Genevaes from plots and machinations against her all this while my soule is in a progresse But I am at home when I consider Buls of excommunications and solicitations of Rebellions and pistols and poysons and the discoveries of those There is our Nos We testimonies that we are in the favour and care of God We our Nation we our Church There I am at home but I am in my Cabinet at home when I consider what God hath done for me and my soule There is the Ego the particular the individuall I. This appropriation is the consolation We are But who are they or how are we of them Testimonium est clamor ipse sayes S. Chrysostome to our great advantage Even this that we are able to cry Abba Ver. 15. Father by the Spirit of Adoption is this testimony that we are his Children if we can truly do that that testifies for us The Spirit testifies two wayes Directly expresly personally Luke 5.20 as in that Man thy sins are forgiven thee And so to David by Nathan Transtulit The Lord hath taken away thy sin And then he testifies Per indicia by constant marks and infallible evidences We are not to looke for the first for it is a kind of Revelation nor are we to doubt of the second for the marks are infallible And therefore as S. Augustine said of the Maniches concerning the Scriptures Insani sunt adversus Antidotum quo sani esse possunt They are enraged against that which onely can cure them of their rage that was the Scriptures so there are men which will still be in ignorance of that which might cure them of their ignorance because they will not labour to finde in themselves the marks and seales of those who are ordained to salvation they will needs thinke that no man can have any such testimony They say Sumus It is true there is a blessed comfort in this appropriation if we could be sure of it They may we are we are already in possession of it The marks of our spirituall filiation are lesse subject to error then of temporall Shall the Mothers honesty be the Evidence Alas we have some such examples of their falshood as will discredit any argument built meerely upon their truth He is like the Father Is that the evidence Imagination may imprint those Characters He hath his land A supposititious child may have that Spirituall marks are not so fallible as these They have so much in them as creates even a knowledge 1 Iohn 3.2 Iohn 5.19 Now we are the Sons of God and we know that we shall be like him And we know that we are of God Is all this but a conjecturall knowledge but a morall certitude No tincture of faith in it Can I acquire and must I bring Certitudinem fidei an assurance out of faith That a Councell cannot erre And then such another faithfull assurance That the Councell of Trent was a true councell And then another That the Councell of Trent did truly and duly proceed in all wayes essentiall to the truth of a Councell in constituting their Decree against this doctrine And may I not bring this assurance of faith to S. Paul and S. Iohn when they say the contrary Is not S. Pauls sumus and S. Iohns scimus as good a ground for our faith as the servile and mercenary voices of a herd of new pensionary Bishops shovelled together at Trent for that purpose are for the contrary A particular Bishop in the Romane Church cites an universall Bishop Catarinus a Pope himselfe in this point and he sayes well Legem credendi statuit lex supplicandi Whatsoever we may pray for we may we must beleeve Certitudine fidei With an assurance of faith If I may pray and say Pater noster if I may call God Father I may beleeve with a faithfull assurance that I am the childe of God Stet invicta Pauli sententia Idem Let the Apostles doctrine sayes that Bishop remain unshaked Et velut sagitta sayes he This doctrine as an arrow shot at them will put out their eyes that think to see beyond S. Paul It is true sayes that Bishop there are differences Inter Catholicos Amongst Catholiques themselves in this point And then why do they charge us
trina immer sio that threefold dipping which was used in the Primitive Church in baptisme And in this baptisme thou takest a new Christian name thou who wast but a Christian art now a regenerate Christian and as Naaman the Leper came cleaner out of Jordan then he was before his leprosie for his flesh came as the flesh of a child so there shall be better evidence in this baptisme of thy repentance then in thy first baptisme better in thy self for then thou hadst no sense of thy own estate in this thou hast And thou shalt have better evidence from others too for howsoever some others will dispute whether all children which dye after Baptisme be certainly saved or no it never fell into doubt or disputation whether all that die truely repentant be saved or no. Weep these teares truly and God shall performe to thee first that promise which he makes in Esay The Lord shall wipe all teares from thy face Esay 25. all that are fallen by any occasion of calamity here in the militant Church and he shall performe that promise which he makes in the Revelation Revel 7.17 The Lord shall wipe all teares from thine eyes that is dry up the fountaine of teares remove all occasion of teares hereafter in the triumphant Church SERMON XVII Preached at VVhite-hall March 4. 1624. MAT. 19.17 And he said unto him Why callest thou me Good There is none Good but One that is God THat which God commanded by his Word to be done at some times that we should humble our soules by fasting the same God tommands by his Church to be done now In the Scriptures you have Praeceptum The thing it self What In the Church you have the Nunt The time When. The Scriptures are Gods Voyce The Church is his Eccho a redoubling a repeating of some particular syllables and accents of the same voice And as we harken with some earnestnesse and some admiration at an Eccho when perchance we doe not understand the voice that occasioned that Eccho so doe the obedient children of God apply themselves to the Eccho of his Church when perchance otherwise they would lesse understand the voice of God in his Scriptures if that voice were not so redoubled unto them This fasting then thus enjoyned by God for the generall in his Word and thus limited to this Time for the particular in his Church is indeed but a continuation of a great Feast Where the first course that which we begin to serve in now is Manna food of Angels plentifull frequent preaching but the second course is the very body and blood of Christ Jesus shed for us and given to us in that blessed Sacrament of which himselfe makes us worthy receivers at that time Now as the end of all bodily eating is Assimilation that after all other concoctions that meat may be made Idem corpus the same body that I am so the end of all spirituall eating is Assimilation too That after all Hearing and all Receiving I may be made Idem spiritus cum Domino the same spirit that my God is for though it be good to Heare good to Receive good to Meditate yet if we speake effectually and consummatively why call we these good there is nothing good but One that is Assimilation to God In which perfect and consummative sense Christ saies to this Man in this Text Why callest thou me good there is none good but one that is God The words are part of a Dialogue of a Conference betweene Christ Divisio and a man who proposed a question to him to whom Christ makes an answer by way of another question Why callest thou me good c. In the words and by occasion of them we consider the Text the Context and the Pretext Not as three equall parts of the Building but the Context as the situation and Prospect of the house The Pretext as the Accesse and entrance to the house And then the Text it selfe as the House it selfe as the body of the building In a word In the Text the Words In the Context the Occasion of the words In the Pretext the Pretence the purpose the disposition of him who gave the occasion We begin with the Context 1 Part. Context the situation the prospect how it stands how it is butted how it is bounded to what it relates with what it is connected And in that we are no farther curious but onely to note this that the Text stands in that Story where a man comes to Christ inquires the way to Heaven beleeves himselfe to be in that way already and when he heares of nothing but keeping the Commandements beleeves himselfe to be fargone in that way But when he is told also that there belongs to it a departing with his Riches his beloved Riches he breakes off the conference he separates himselfe from Christ for saies the Story This Man had great possessions And to this purpose to separate us from Christ the poorest amongst us hath great possessions He corners of the streets as well as he that sits upon carpets in the Region of perfumes he that is ground and trod to durt with obloquie and contempt as well as he that is built up every day a story and story higher with additions of Honour Every man hath some such possessions as possesse him some such affections as weigh downe Christ Jesus and separate him from Him rather then from those affections those possessions Scarce any sinner but comes sometimes to Christ in the language of the man in this Text Good Master what good thing shall I do that I may have eternall life And if Christ would go no farther with such men but to say to the Adulterer Do not thou give thy money to usury no more to the penurious Usurer but Do not thou wast thy selfe in superfluous and expensive feasting If Christ would proceed no farther but to say to the needy person that had no money Do not thou buy preferment or to the ambitious person that soares up after all Do not thou forsake thy selfe deject thy selfe undervalue thy selfe In all these cases the Adulterer and the Usurer The needy and the ambitious man would all say with the man in the Text All these things have we done from our youth But when Christ proceeds to a Vade vende to depart with their possessions that which they possesse that which possesses them this changes the case There are some sins so rooted so riveted in men so incorporated so consubstantiated in the soule by habituall custome as that those sins have contracted the nature of Ancient possessions As men call Manners by their names so sins have taken names from men and from places Simon Magus gave the name to a sin and so did gehazi and Sodom did so There are sins that run in Names in Families in Blood Hereditary sins entailed sins and men do almost prove their Gentry by those sins and are scarce beleeved to be rightly borne if
should all fall into hell and so there is mercy in hell And therefore saies the same Father Out of an unspeakeable wisdome and Fatherly care as Fathers will speak loudest to their Children and looke angerliest and make the greatest rods when they intend not the severest correction Christus saepius gehennam comminatus est quam regnum pollicitus Christ in his Gospell hath oftner threatned us with hell then promised us Heaven We are bound to praise God saies he as much for driving Adam out of Paradise as for placing him there Et agere gratias tam progehenna quam pro regno And to give him thanks as well for hell as for Heaven For whether he cauterise or foment whether he draw blood or apply Cordials he is the same Physitian and seekes but one end our spirituall health by his divers wayes For us who by this notification of hell escape hell Psal 118.17 We shall not dye but live that is not dye so but that we shall live againe Therefore is death called a sleepe Lazarus sleepeth saies Christ And Coemiteria are Dormitoria Iohn 11.11 Churchyards are our beds And in those beds and in all other beds of death for the dead have their beds in the Sea too and sleepe even in the restlesse motion thereof the voyce of the Archangel and the Trumpet of God shall awake them that slept in Christ before and they and we shall be united in one body for as our Apostle sayes here Heb. 11.39 We shall not prevent them so he sayes also That they shall not be made perfect without us Though we live to see Christ we shall not prevent them though they have attended Christ five thousand yeares in the grave they shall not prevent us but united in one body Rapiemur They and we shall be caught c. Rapiemur We shall be caught up This is a true Rapture Rapiemur in which we doe nothing our selves Our last act towards Christ is as our first In the first act of our Conversion we do nothing nothing in this last act our Resurrection but Rapimur we are caught In everything the more there is left to our selves the worse it is done that that God does intirely is intirely good S. Paul had a Rapture too He was caught up into Paradise 2 Cor. 12.4 but whether in the body or out of the body he cannot tell We can tell that this Rapture of ours shall be in body and soule in the whole man Man is but a vapour but a glorious and a blessed vapour when he is attracted and caught up by this Sun the Son of Man the Son of God O what a blessed alleviation possesses that man and to what a blessed levity if without levity we may so speake to what a cheerefull lightnesse of spirit is he come that comes newly from Confession and with the seale of Absolution upon him Then when nothing troubles his conscience then when he hath disburdened his soule of all that lay heavy upon it then when if his Confessor should unjustly reveale it to any other yet God will never speake of it more to his conscience not upbraid him with it not reproach him for it what a blessed alleviation what a holy cheerefulnesse of spirit is that man come to How much more in the endowments which we shall receive in the Rapture of this text where we do not onely devest all sins past as in Confession but all possibility of future sins and put on not onely incorruption but incorruptiblenesse not onely impeccancy but impeccability And to be invested with this endowment Rapiemur Wee shall be caught up and Rapiemur in Nubibus Wee shall be caught up in the Clouds We take a Sar to be the thickest In Nubibus and so the impurest and ignoblest part of that sphear and yet by the illustration of the Sun it becomes a glorious star Clouds are but the beds and wombs of distempered and malignant impressions of vapours and exhalations and the furnaces of Lightnings and of Thunder yet by the presence of Christ and his employment these clouds are made glorious Chariots to bring him and his Saints together Psal 135.7 Those Vapours and Clouds which David speaks of S. Augustin interprets of the Ministers of the Church that they are those Clouds Those Ministers may have clouds in their understanding and knowledge some may be lesse learned then others and clouds in their elocution utterance some may have an unacceptable deliverance and clouds in their aspect and countenance some may have an unpleasing presence and clouds in their respect and maintenance some may be oppressed in their fortunes but still they are such clouds as are sent by Christ to bring thee up to him And as the Children of Israel received direction and benefit Exod. 13.21 as well by the Pillar of Cloud as by the Pillar of Fire so do the Children of God in the Church as well by Preachers of inferiour gifts as by higher In Nubibus Christ does not come in a Chariot and send Carts for us Acts 1.11 He comes as he went This same Iesus which is taken up from you into Heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seene him goe into Heaven say the Angels at his Ascension Luk. 24.50 In what manner did they see him go He was taken up and a Cloud received him out of their sight So he went so he shall returne so we shall be taken up In the Clouds to meete him in the Ayre The Transfiguration of Christ was not acted upon so high a Scene In aëra as this our accesse to Christ shall be That hill was not so high nor so neare to the Heaven of Heavens as this region of the ayre shall be Nor was the Transfiguration so eminent a manifestation of the glory of Christ as this his comming in the ayre to Judgement shall be And yet Peter that saw but that Mat. 17.14 desired no more but thought it happinesse enough to be there and there to fixe their Tabernacles But in this our meeting of Christ in the ayre we shall see more then they saw in the Transfiguration and yet be but in the way of seeing more then we see in the ayre then we shall be presently well and yet improving The Kings presence makes a Village the Court but he that hath service to do at Court would be glad to finde it in a lodgeable and convenient place I can build a Church in my bosome I can serve God in my heart and never cloath my prayer in words God is often said to heare and answer in the Scriptures when they to whom he speaks have said nothing I can build a Church at my beds side when I prostrate my selfe in humble prayer there I do so I can praise God cheerefully in my Chappell cheerefully in my parish Church as David saies Psal 26.12 In Ecclesiis plurally In the Congregations In every
see Death we answer It may be that those Men whom Christ shal find upon the earth alive at his returne to Judge the World shall dye then and it may be they shall but be changed and not dye That Christ shall judge quick and dead is a fundamentall thing we heare it in S. Peters Sermon Acts 10.42 to Cornelius and his company and we say it every day in the Creed Hee shall judge the quick and the dead But though we doe not take the quick and the dead August Chrys as Augustine and Chrysostome doe for the Righteous which lived in faith and the unrighteous which were dead in sinne Though wee doe not take the quick and the dead as Ruffinus and others doe for the soule and the body He shall judge the soule which was alwaies alive and he shall the body which was dead for a time though we take the words as becomes us best literally yet the letter does not conclude but that they whom Christ shall finde alive upon earth shall have a present and sudden dissolution and a present and sudden re-union of body and soul again Saint Paul sayes Behold I shew you a mystery Therefore it is not a cleare case and presently 1 Cor. 15.51 and peremptorily determined but what is it We shall not all sleep but we shall all be changed But whether this sleeping be spoke of death it self and exclude that that we shall not die or whether this sleep be spoke of a rest in the grave and exclude that we shall not be buried and remain in death that may be a mystery still S. Paul sayes too 1 Thes 4.17 The dead in Christ shall rise first Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the ayre But whether that may not still be true that S. Augustine sayes that there shall be Mors in raptu August An instant and sudden dis-union and re-union of body and soul which is death who can tell So on the other side when it is said to him in whom all we were to Adam Pulvis es Dust thou art Gen. 3.19 1 Cor. 15.22 Rom. 5.12 and into dust thou shalt return when it is said In Adam all die when it is said Death passed upon all men for all have sinned Why may not all those sentences of Scripture which imply a necessity of dying admit that restriction Nisi dies judicii natur ae cursum immutet Pet. Mar. We shall all die except those in whom the comming of Christ shall change the course of Nature Consider the Scriptures then and we shall be absolutely concluded neither way Consider Authority and we shall finde the Fatherrs for the most part one way and the Schoole for the most part another Take later men and all those in the Romane Church Then Cajetan thinks that they shall not die and Catharin is so peremptory Cajetan Catharinus that they shall as that he sayes of the other opinion Falsam esse confidenter asserimus contra Scripturas sat is manifestas omnino sine ratione It is false and against Scriptures and reason saith he Take later men and all those in the reformed Church Calvin and Calvin sayes Quia aboletur prior natura censetur species mortis sed non migrabit anima à corpore S. Paul calls it death because it is a destruction of the former Beeing but it is not truly death saith Calvin and Luther saith Luther That S. Pauls purpose in that place is only to shew the suddennesse of Christs comming to Judgement Non autem inficiatur omnes morituros nam dormire est sepeliri But S. Paul doth not deny but that all shall die for that sleeping which he speaks of is buriall and all shall die though all shall not be buried saith Luther Take then that which is certain It is certain a judgement thou must passe If thy close and cautelous proceeding have saved thee from all informations in the Exchequer thy clearnesse of thy title from all Courts at Common Law thy moderation from the Chancery and Star-Chamber If heighth of thy place and Authority have saved thee even from the tongues of men so that ill men dare not slander thy actions nor good men dare not discover thy actions no not to thy self All those judgements and all the judgements of the world are but interlocutory judgements There is a finall judgement In judicantes judicatos against Prisoners and Judges too where all shal be judged again Datum est omne judicium All judgement is given to the Son of man John 5. and upon all the sons of men must his judgement passe A judgement is certain and the uncertainty of this judgement is certain too perchance God will put off thy judgement thou shalt not die yet but who knows whether God in his mercy do put off this judgement till these good motions which his blessed Spirit inspires into thee now may take roote and receive growth and bring forth fruit or whether he put it off for a heavier judgement to let thee see by thy departing from these good motions and returning to thy former sins after a remorse conceived against those sins that thou art inexcusable even to thy self and thy condemnation is just even to thine own conscience So perchance God will bring this judgement upon thee now now thou maist die but whether God will bring that judgement upon thee now in mercy whilest his Graces in his Ordinance of preaching work some tendernesse in thee and gives thee some preparation some fitnesse some courage to say Veni Domine Iesu Come Lord Iesu come quickly come now or whether he will come now in judgement because all this can work no tendernesse in thee who can tell Thou hearest the word of God preached as thou hearest an Oration with some gladnesse in thy self if thou canst heare him and never be moved by his Oratory thou thinkest it a degree of wisdome to be above perswasion and when thou art told that he that feares God feares nothing else thou thinkest thy self more valiant then so if thou feare not God neither Whether or why God defers or hastens the judgement we know not This is certain this all S. Pauls places collineate to this all the Fathers and all the Schoole all the Cajetans and all the Catharins all the Luthers and all the Calvins agree in A judgement must be and it must be In ictu oculi In the twinkling of an eye and Fur in nocte A thiefe in the night Make the question Quis homo What man is he that liveth and shall not passe this judgement or what man is he that liveth and knowes when this judgement shall be So it is a Nemo scit A question without an answer but ask it as in the text Quis homo Who liveth and shall not die so it is a problematicall matter and in such
dignity First The Father shall send you another Comforter Another then my selfe For Ver. 16. howsoever Christ were the Fountain of comfort yet there were many drammes many ounces many talents of discomfort mingled in that their Comforter was first to depart from them by death and being restored to them again by a Resurrection was to depart againe by another Transmigration by an Ascension And therefore the second mark by which Christ dignifies this Comforter is That he shall abide with us for ever And in the performance of that promise he is here with you now And therefore as we begun with those words of Esay which our Saviour applyed to himselfe The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath anointed me Esay 61.1 to binde up the broken hearted and to comfort all them that mourne So the Spirit of the Lord is upon all us of his Ministery in that Commandement of his in the same Prophet Consolamini Esay 40.1 consolamini Comfort ye comfort yee my people and speak comfortably unto Ierusalem Receive the Holy Ghost all ye that are the Israel of the Lord in that Doctrine of comfort that God is so farre from having hated any of you before he made you as that he hates none of you now not for the sins of your Parents not for the sins of your persons not for the sins of your youth not for your yester-dayes not for your yester-nights sins not for that highest provocation of all your unworthy receiving his Son this day Onely consider that Comfort presumes Sadnesse Sin does not make you incapable of comfort but insensiblenesse of sin does In great buildings the Turrets are high in the Aire but the Foundations are deep in the Earth The Comforts of the Holy Ghost work so as that only that soule is exalted which was dejected As in this place where you stand there bodies lie in the earth whose soules are in heaven so from this place you carry away so much of the true comfort of the Holy Ghost as you have true sorrow and sadnesse for your sins here Almighty God erect this building upon this Foundation Such a Comfort as may not be Presumption upon such a Sorrow as may not be Diffidence in him And to him alone but in three Persons Father Son and Holy Ghost be ascribed all Honour c. SERMON XXIX Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1628. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you WE Eipasse from the Person to his working we come from his comming to his operation from his Mission and Commission to his Executing thereof from the Consideration who he is to what he does His Specification his Character his Title Paracletus The Comforter passes through all Therefore our first comfort is Docebimur we shall be Taught He shall teach you As we consider our selves The Disciples of the Holy Ghost so it is a meere teaching for we in our selves are meerly ignorant But wen we consider the things we are to bee taught so it is but a remembring a refreshing of those things which Christ in the time of his conversation in this world had taught before He shall bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you These two then The comfort in the Action we shall be Taught and the comfort in the Way and Manner we shall not be subject to new Doctrines but taught by remembring by establishing us in things formerly Fundamentally laid will be our two parts at this time And in each of these these our steps First in the first we shall consider the persons that is the Disciples who were to learne not onely they who were so when Christ spoke the words but we All who to the end of the world shall seek and receive knowledge from him Vos ye first Vos ignorantes you who are naturally ignorant and know nothing so as you should know it of your selves which is one Discomfort And yet Vos ye Vos appetentes you that by nature have a desire to know which is another Discomfort To have a desire and no meanes to performe it Vos docebimini ye ye that are ignorant and know nothing ye ye that are hungry of knowledge and have nothing to satisfie that hunger ye shall be fed ye shall be taught which is one comfort And then Ille docebit He shall teach you He who cannot onely infuse true and full knowledge in every capacity that he findes but dilate that capacity where he findes it yea create it where he findes none The Holy Ghost who is not onely A Comforter but The Comforter and not onely so but Comfort it selfe He shall teach you And in these we shall determine our first Part. In our second Part The Way and Manner of this Teaching By bringing to our remembrance all things whatsoever Christ had said unto us there is a great largenesse but yet there is a limitation of those things which we are to learne of the Holy Ghost for they are Omnia All things whatsoever Christ hath taught before But then Sola ea Only those things which Christ had taught before and not new Additaments in the name of the Holy Ghost Now this largenesse extending it self to the whole body of the Christian Religion for Christ taught all that all that being not reducible to that part of an houre which will be left for this exercise as fittest for the celebration of the day in which we arenow we shall binde our selves to that particular consideration what the Holy Ghost being come from the Father in Christs Name that is Pursuing Christs Doctrine hath taught us of Himselfe concerning Himselfe That so ye may first see some insolencies and injuries offered to the Holy Ghost by some ancient Heretiques and some of later times by the Church of Rome For truly it is hard to name or to imagine any one sin nearer to that emphaticall sin that superlative sin The sin against the Holy Ghost then some offers of Doctrines concerning the Holy Ghost that have been obtruded though not established and some that have beene absolutely established in that Church And when we shall have delivered the Holy Ghost out of their hands we shall also deliver him into yours so as that you may feele him to shed himselfe upon you all here and to accompany you all home with a holy peace and in a blessed calme in testifying to your soules that He that Comforter who is the holy Ghost whom the Father hath sent in his Sons name hath taught you all things that is awakened your memories to the consideration of all that is necessary to your present establishment And to these divers particulars which thus constitute our two generall parts in their order thus proposed we shall now proceed As when our Saviour Christ received that confession of
answered not safely affirmed Truly I had rather put my salvation upon some of those ancient Creeds which want some of the Articles of our Creed as the Nicene Creed doth and so doth Athanasius then upon the Trent Creed that hath as many more Articles as ours hath The office of the Holy Ghost himself the Spirit of all comfort is but to bring those things to remembrance which Christ taught and no more They are many too many for many revolutions of an houre-glasse Spiritus Sanctus Therefore wee proposed at first That when we should come to this Branch for the proper celebration of the day we would only touch some things which the Holy Ghost had taught of himself that so we might detect and detest such things as some ancient and some later Heretiques had said of the Holy Ghost Now those things which the ancient Heretiques have said are sufficiently gain-said by the ancient Fathers The Montanists said the Holy Ghost was in Christ and in the Apostles but in a farre higher exaltation in Montanus then in either but Tertullian opposed that Manes was more insolent then the Montanist for he avowed himselfe to be the Holy Ghost and S. Augustine overthrew that Hierarchas was more modest then so and did but say That Melchisedech was the Holy Ghost and S. Cyprian would not indure that The Arrians said the Holy Ghost was but Creatura Creaturae made by the Son which Son himselfe was but made in time and not eternally begotten by the Father but Liberius and many of the Fathers opposed that as a whole generall Councell did Macedonius when he refreshed many Errours formerly condemned concerning the Holy Ghost and few of these have had any Resurrection any repulullation or appeared again in these later daies But in these later times two new Herefies have arisen concerning the Holy Ghost About foure hundred yeares since Euangelium Spiritus Sancti came out that famous infamous Booke in the Roman Church which they called Euangelium Spiritus Sancti The Gospel of the Holy Ghost in which was pretended That as God the Father had had his time in the government of the Church in the Law And God the Son his time in the Gospel so the Holy Ghost was to have his time and his time was to begin within fifty yeares after the publishing of that Gospel and to last to the end of the world and therefore it was called Euangelium aeternum The everlasting Gospel By this Gospel the Gospel of Christ was absolutely abrogated and the power of governing the Church according to the Gospel of Christ utterly evacuated for it was therein taught that onely the literall sense of the Gospel had been committed to them who had thus long governed in the name of the Church but the spirituall and mysticall sense was reserved to the Holy Ghost and that now the Holy Ghost would set that on foot And so which was the principall intention in that plot they would have brought all Doctrine and all Discipline all Government into the Cloyster into their religious Orders and overthrown the Hierarchy of the Church of Bishops and Priests and Deacons and Cathedrall and Collegiate Churches and brought all into Monasteries He that first opposed this Book was Waldo hee that gave the name to that great Body that great power of Men who attempted the Reformation of the Church and were called the Waldenses who were especially defamed and especially persecuted for this that they put themselves in the gap and made themselves a Bank against this torrent this inundation this impetuousnesse this multiplicy of Fryars and Monks that surrounded the world in those times And when this Book could not be dissembled and being full of blasphemy against Christ was necessarily brought into agitation yet all that was done by them who had the government of the Church in their hands then was but this That this Book this Gospel of the Holy Ghost should be suppressed and smothered but without any noyse or discredit and the Booke which was writ against it should be solemnly publiquely infamously burnt And so they kindled a Warre in Heaven greater then that in the Revelation Rev. 12.7 where Michael and his Angels fought against the Dragon and his Angels For here they brought God the Son into the field against God the Holy Ghost and made the Holy Ghost devest dethrone disseise and dispossesse the Sonne of his Government Now when they could not advance that Heresie Scrinium pectoris when they could not bring the Holy Ghost to that greatnesse when they could not make him King to their purposes that is King over Christ They are come to an Heresie cleane contrary to that Heresie that is to imprison the Holy Ghost And since they could not make him King over Christ himselfe they have made him a Prisoner and a flave to Christs Vicar and shut him up there In scrinio pectoris as they call it in that close imprisonment in the breast and bosome of one man that Bishop And so the Holy Ghost is no longer a Dove a Dove in the Ark a Dove with an Olive-Branch a Messenger of peace but now the Holy Ghost is in a Bull in Buls worse then Phalaris his Bull Buls of Excommunication Buls of Rebellion and Deposition and Assassinates of Christian Princes The Holy Ghost is no longer Omni-present Psal 139.7 as in Davids time Whither shall I goefrom thy Spirit but he is onely there whither he shall be sent from Rome in a Cloak-bagge and upon a Post-horse as it was often complained in the Councell of Trent The Holy Ghost is no longer Omniscient to know all at once 1 Cor. 2.10 .. as in S. Pauls time when the Spirit of God searched all things yea the deep things of God but as a Sea-Captaine receives a Ticket to be opened when he comes to such a height and thereby to direct his future course so the Holy Ghost is appointed to aske the Popes Nuntio his Legate what he shall declare to be truth So the Holy Ghost was sent into this Kingdome by Leo the tenth with his Legate that brought the Bull of Declaration for Hcnry the eights Divorce but the Holy Ghost might not know of it that is not take knowledge of it not declare it to be a Divorce till some other conditions were performed by the King which being never performed the Holy Ghost remained in the case of a new created Cardinall Ore clauso he had novoyce and so the Divorce though past all debatements and all consents and all determinations at Rome was no Divorce because he that sent the Holy Ghost from Rome forbad him to publish and declare it So that the style of the Court is altered from the Apostles time Acts 15.28 Then it was Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us First to the Holy Ghost before others and when it is brought to others it is to us
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
he gave them the holy Ghost in stead of Scriptures But to us who are weaker hee hath given both The holy Ghost in the Scriptures and if we neglect either we have neither If we trust to a private spirit and call that the holy Ghost without Scripture or to the Scriptures without the holy Ghost that is without him there where he hath promised to be in his Ordinance in his Church we have not the seale of that Promise the holy Ghost Finde then that promise in your holy love and sober studie of the Scriptures and finde the performance the fruits thereof in your conversation and then you have an Autumne better then any worldly Spring A vintage a gathering of those blessed fruits Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meckenesse temperance where by the way these are not called severally the fruits of the Spirit as though they were so many severall fruits which might be had one without another but collectively all together they are called the fruit It is not Love alone nor Joy alone no nor Faith alone that is the fruit of the holy Ghost Love but not love alone but that love when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can joy in that love and not repent it Joy but not joy alone but that joy when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can finde peace in that joy that you be not the sadder after for having beene so merry before this these these and all the rest together are the fruit of the holy Ghost and therefore labour to have them all or you lacke all And then lastly as we pursuing Gods Ordinance have beene able to say to you Accipite Spiritum sanctum Behold the holy Ghost in your selves behold he appeared to you when he moved you to come hither behold he appeared to you as often as he hath opened the window of the Arke your hearts to take in this Dove this houre so we may say unto you as we say in the Schoole There is an infusion of the holy Ghost liquor is infused into a vessell if that vessell hold it though it doe but cover the bottome and no more The holy Ghost is infused into you if he have made any entry if he cover any part if he have taken hold of any corrupt affection There is also a diffusion of the holy Ghost Liquor is diffused into a vessell when it fils all the parts of the vessell and leaves no emptinesse no driness The holy Ghost is diffused into you if he overspread you and possesse you all and rectifie all your perversnesses But then in the Schoole we have also an effusion of the holy Ghost And liquor is effused then when it so fils the vessell as that that overflowes to the benefit of them who will participate thereof Receive therefore the holy Ghost so as that the holy Ghost may overflow flow from your example to the edification of others That you may go home and say to your children receive ye the holy Ghost in the Spirit of contentment and acquiescence and thankfulnesse to God and me in that portion that I can leave you And say to your servants receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of obedience and fidelity And say to your neigh bours receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of peace and quiemesse And say to your Creditors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of patience and tendernesse and compassion and for bearing And to your debtors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of industry and labour in your calling You see Preaching it selfe even the Preaching of Christ himselfe had beene lost if the holy Ghost had not brought all those things to their remembrance And if the holy Ghost do bring these things which we preach to your remembrance you are also made fishers of men and Apostles and as the Prophet speaks Salvatores mundi Obad. 1.21 men that assist the salvation of the world by the best way of preaching an exemplar life and holy convesation Amen SERMON XXX Preached upon Whitsunday Part of the Gospell of the Day JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you THe two Volumes of the Scriptures are justly and properly called two Testaments for they are Testatio Mentis The attestation the declaration of the will and pleasure of God how it pleased him to be served under the Law and how in the state of the Gospell But to speake according to the ordinary acceptation of the word the Testament that is The last Will of Christ Jesus is this speech this declaration of his to his Apostles of which this text is a part For it was spoken as at his Death-bed his last Supper And it was before his Agony in the garden so that if we should consider him as a meere man there was no inordinatenesse no irregularity in his affection It was testified with sufficient witnesses and it was sealed in blood in the Institution of the Sacrament By this Wil then as a rich and abundant Ver. 3. and liberall Testator having given them so great a Legacy as a place in the kingdome of heaven yet he adds a codicill he gives more he gives them the evidence by which they should maintain their right to that kingdome that is the testimony of the Spirit The Comforter the Holy Ghost whom he promises to send to them Ver. 16. And still more and more abundant he promises them that that assurance of their right shall not be taken from them till he himself return again to give them an everlasting possession That he may receive us unto himself and that where he is we may also be The main Legacy Ver. 3. the body of the gift is before That which is given in this Text is part of that evidence by which it appeares to us that we have right and by which that right is maintained and that is knowledge that knowledge which we have of our interest in God and his kingdome here At that day ye shall know c. And in the giving of this we shall consider first the Legacy it self this knowledge Cognoscetis Ye shall know And secondly the time when this Legacy grows due to us In illo die At that day ye shall know And thirdly how much of this treasure is devised to us what portion of this heavenly knowledge is bequeathed to us and that is in three great summes in three great mysteries First ye shall know the mystery of the Trinity of distinct persons in the Godhead Ego in patre That I am in my Father And then the mystery of the Incarnation of God who took our flesh Vos in me That you are in me And lastly the mystery and working of our Redemption in our Sanctification Ego in vobis That Christ by his Spirit the Holy Ghost is in us Nequitia animae ignoratio
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
dependance or relation to any faculty in man or man himselfe have some concurrence and co-operation therein There we found that in the first creation God wrought otherwise for the production of creatures then he does now At first he did it immediatly intirely by himselfe Now he hath delegated and substituted nature and imprinted a naturall power in every thing to produce the like So in the first act of mans Conversion God may be conceived to work otherwise then in his subsequent holy actions for in the first man cannot be conceived to doe any thing in the rest he may not that in the rest God does not all but that God findes a better disposition and souplenesse and maturity and mellowing to concurre with his motion in that man who hath formerly been accustomed to a sense and good use of his former graces then in him who in his first conversion receives but then the first motions of his grace But yet even in the first creation the Spirit of God did not move upon that nothing which was before God made heaven and earth But he moved upon the waters though those waters had nothing in themselves to answer his motion yet he had waters to move upon Though our faculties have nothing in themselves to answer the motions of the Spirit of God yet upon our faculties the Spirit of God works And as out of those waters those creatures did proceed though not from those waters so out of our faculties though not from our faculties doe our good actions proceed too All in all is from the love of God but there is something for God to love There is a man there is a soul in that man there is a will in that soul and God is in love with this man and this soul and this will Aug. would have it Non amor ita egenus indigus ut rebus quas diligit subjiciatur sayes S. Aug. excellently The love of God to us is not so poore a love as our love to one another that his love to us should make him subject to us as ours does to them whom we love but Superfertur sayes that Father and our Text he moves above us He loves us but with a Powerfull a Majesticall an Imperiall a Commanding love He offers those whom he makes his his grace but so as he sometimes will not be denyed So the Spirit moves spiritually upon the waters He comes to the waters to our naturall faculties but he moves above those waters He inclines he governes he commands those faculties And this his motion upon those waters we may usefully consider in some divers applications and assimilations of water to man and the divers uses thereof towards man We will name but a few Baptisme and Sin and Tribulation and Death are called in the Scripture by that name Waters and we shall onely illustrate that consideration how this Spirit of God moves upon these Waters Baptisme Sin Tribulation and Death and we have done The water of Baptisme is the water that runs through all the Fathers Baptismus All the Fathers that had occasion to dive or dip in these waters to say any thing of them make these first waters in the Creation the figure of baptisme Tertul. There Tertullian makes the water Primam sedem Spiritus Sancti The progresse and the setled house The voyage and the harbour The circumference and the centre of the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Hierome calls these waters Matrem Mundi The Mother of the World Hieron and this in the figure of Baptisme Nascentem Mundum in figura Baptismi parturiebat The waters brought forth the whole World were delivered of the whole World as a Mother is delivered of a childe and this In figura Baptismi To fore-shew that the waters also should bring forth the Church That the Church of God should be borne of the Sacrament of Baptisme So sayes Damascen Damase Basil And he establishes it with better authority then his owne Hoc Divinus asseruit Basilius sayes he This Divine Basil said Hoc factum quia per Spiritum Sanctum aquam voluit renovare hominem The Spirit of God wrought upon the waters in the Creation because he meant to doe so after in the regeneration of man And therefore Pristinam sedem recognoscens conquiescit Terrul Till the Holy Ghost have moved upon our children in Baptisme let us not think all done that belongs to those children And when the Holy Ghost hath moved upon those waters so in Baptisme let us not doubt of his power and effect upon all those children that dye so We know no meanes how those waters could have produced a Menow a Shrimp without the Spirit of God had moved upon them and by this motion of the Spirit of God we know they produce Whales and Leviathans We know no ordinary meanes of any saving grace for a child but Baptisme neither are we to doubt of the fulnesse of salvation in them that have received it And for our selves Mergimur emergimus Aug. In Baptisme we are sunk under water and then raised above the water againe which was the manner of baptizing in the Christian Church by immersion and not by aspersion till of late times Affectus ameres sayes he our corrupt affections Idem and our inordinate love of this world is that that is to be drowned in us Amor securitatis A love of peace and holy assurance and acquiescence in Gods Ordinance is that that lifts us above water Therefore that Father puts all upon the due consideration of our Baptisme And as S. Hierome sayes Hier. Certainly he that thinks upon the last Judgement advisedly cannot sin then Aug. So he that sayes with S. Augustine Procede in confessionc fides mea Let me make every day to God this confession Domine Deus meus Sancte Sancte Sancte Domine Deus meus O Lord my God O Holy Holy Holy Lord my God In nomine tuo Baptizatus sum I consider that I was baptized in thy name and what thou promisedst me and what I promised thee then and can I sin this sin can this sin stand with those conditions those stipulations which passed between us then The Spirit of God is motion the Spirit of God is rest too And in the due consideration of Baptisme a true Christian is moved and setled too moved to a sense of the breach of his conditions setled in the sense of the Mercy of his God in the Merits of his Christ upon his godly sorrow So these waters are the waters of Baptisme Sin also is called by that name in the Scriptures Aquae peccatum Water The great whore sitteth upon many waters she sits upon them as upon Egges and hatches Cockatrices venomous and stinging sins Apoc. 17. Aqum and yet pleasing though venomous which is the worst of sin that it destroyes and yet delights for though they be called waters yet that is
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
called Christians that said Qui pius est summè Philosophatur The charitable man is the great Philosopher Trismeg and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee and hope that he hath done so upon another It is a moderation to be imbraced that Peter Martyr leads us to The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits we have not And therefore though by way of definition we may say This is that sin yet by way of demonstration let us say of no man This is that sinner I may say of no man This sin in thee is irremissible Now in considering this word Irremissible That it cannot be forgiven wee finde it to be a word rather usurped by the Schoole then expressed in the Scriptures Irremissibilitas for in all those three Euangelists where this fearfull denunciation is interminated still it is in a phrase of somewhat more mildnesse then so It is It shall not be forgiven It is not it cannot be forgiven It is an irremission it is not an irremissiblenesse Absolutely there is not an impossibility and irremissiblenesse on Gods part but yet some kinde of impossibility there is on his part and on ours too For if he could forgive this sin he would or else his power were above his mercy and his mercy is above all his works But God can doe nothing that implies contradiction and God having declared by what meanes onely his mercy and forgivenesse shall be conveyed to man God should contradict himselfe if he should give forgivenesse to them who will fully exclude those meanes of mercy And therefore it were not boldly nor irreverently said That God could not give grace to a beast nor mercy to the Devill because either they are naturally destitute or have wilfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace and mercy When we consider that God the Father whom as the roote of all we consider principally in the Creation created man in a possibility and ability to persist in that goodnesse in which he created him And consider that God the Son came and wrought a reconciliation for man to God and so brought in a treasure in the nature thereof a sufficient ransome for all the world but then a man knowes not this or beleeves not this otherwise then Historically Morally Civilly and so evacuates and shakes off God the Son And then consider that the holy Ghost comes and presents meanes of applying all this and making the generall satisfaction of Christ reach and spread it selfe upon my soule in particular in the preaching of the Word in the seales of the Sacraments in the absolution of the Church and I preclude the wayes and shut up my selfe against the holy Ghost and so evacuate him and shake him off when I have resisted Father Son and holy Ghost is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me If I blaspheme that is deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost my sin is irremissible therefore because there is no body left to forgive it nor way left wherein forgivenesse should work upon me So farre it is irremissible on Gods part and on mine too And then take it there in that state of irremissiblenesse and consider seriously the fearefulnesse of it Mat. 5.22 I have been angry and then as Christ tells me I have been in danger of a judgement but in judgement I may have counsell I may be heard I have said Racha expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Councell but a Councell does but consult what punishment is fit to be inflicted and so long there is hope of mitigation and commutation of penance But I have said fatue I have called my brother foole and so am in danger of hell fire August Chrysost In the first there is Ira an inward commotion an irregular distemper In the second there is Ira vox In the first it is but Ira carnis non animi It is but my passion it is not I that am angry but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it selfe but in the third there is Ira vox vituperatio A distemper within a declaration to evill example without and an injury and defamation to a third person and this exalts the offence to the height But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost in all the other cases there is danger danger of judgement danger of a Councell danger of hell but here is irremissiblenesse hell it selfe and no avoiding of hell no cooling in hell no deliverance from hell Irremissible Those hands that reached to the ends of the world in creating it span the world in preserving it and stretched over all in redeeming it those hands have I manacled that they cannot open unto me That tendernesse that is affected to all have I damped retarded that pronenesse stupified that alacrity confounded that voyce diverted those eyes that are naturally disposed to all And all this Irremissibly for ever not though he would but because he will not shew mercy not though I would but because I cannot ask mercy And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin from which there is no returning no redemption We are come now In quibus Script in our order to our third and last Branch of this last Part That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost is not a dreame of the Schoole-men though they have spoken many things frivolously of it but grounded in evident places of Scriptures Amongst which we looke especially how farre this Text conduces to that Doctrine There are two places ordinarily cited which seeme directly to concerne this sin and two others which to me seeme not to doe so Those of the first kinde are both in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Heb. 6.4 There the Apostle sayes For those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost If they fall away it is impossible to renew them by repentance Now if finall impenitence had been added there could have been no question but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost And because the Apostle speaks of such a totall falling away as precludes all way of repentance it includes finall impenitence and so makes up that sin The other place from which it rises most pregnantly Heb. 10.29 is Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace Ver. 26. As he had said before If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation But yet though from these places there arises evidence that such a sin there is as naturally shuts out
so there should be Diluvium Spiritus A flowing out of the holy Ghost upon all Joel 2.28 Esay 2.2 Joh. 3.8 as he promises Effundam I will poure it out upon all and Diluvium gentium That all nations should flow up unto him For this Spirit Spirat ubi vult Breathes where it pleases him and though a naturall winde cannot blow East and West North and South together this Spirit at once breathes upon the most contrary dispositions upon the presuming and upon the despairing sinner and in an instant can denizen and naturalize that soule that was an alien to the Covenant Empale and inlay that soule that was bred upon the Common amongst the Gentiles transform that soul which was a Goate into a Sheep unite that soul which was a lost sheep to the fold again shine upon that soul that sits in darknesse and in the shadow of death and so melt and poure out that soul that yet understands nothing of the Divine nature nor of the Spirit of God that it shall become partaker of the Divine nature 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 and be the same Spirit with the Lord. When Christ took our flesh he had not all his Ancestors of the Covenant he was pleased to come of Ruth a Moabite a poore stranger As he came so will the holy Ghost go to strangers also Shall any man murmur or draw into disputation why this Spirit doth not breath in all nations at once or why not sooner then it doth in some Doth this Spirit fall and rest upon every soul in this Congregation now May not one man finde that he receives him now and suffer him to go away again May not another who felt no motion of him now recollect himself at home and remember something then which hath been said now to the quickning of this Spirit in him there Since the holy Ghost visits us so successively not all at once not all with an equall establishment we may safely imbrace that acceptation of this word Arguet He shall he will Antequam abierit Before the end come Reprove convince the whole world of sin by this his way the way of comfort the preaching of the Gospell And that is the first acceptation thereof The second acceptation of the word is in the present Arguit not Arguet He shall but Arguit He doth now he doth reprove all the world As when the Devill confessed Christ in the Gospel as when Judas who was the Devils Devill for he had sold Christ to the Chiefe-Priests Mat. 26.14 before Satan entred into him after the Sop Iohn 13.27 professed this Gospel this was not Sine omni impulsu Spiritus Sancti Altogether without the motion of the Holy Ghost who had his ends and his purposes therein to draw testimonies for Christ out of the mouths of his adversaries so when a naturall man comes to be displeased with his owne actions and to discerne sin in them though his naturall faculties be the Instruments in these actions yet the Holy Ghost sets this Instrument in tune and makes all that is musique and harmony in the faculties of this naturall man At Ephesus S. Paul found certaine Disciples which were baptized and when he asked them Whether they had received the Holy Ghost Acts 19.2 they said That they had not so much as heard that there was a Holy Ghost So certainly infinite numbers of men in those unconverted Nations have the Holy Ghost working in them though they have never so much as heard that there is a Holy Ghost When we see any man doe any work well that belongs to the hand to write to carve to play to doe any mechanique office well doe we determine mine our consideration onely upon the Instrument the hand doe we onely say he hath a good a fit a well disposed hand for such a work or doe we not rather raise our contemplation to the soule and her faculties which enable that hand to do that work So certainly when a morall man hath any reproofe any sense of sin in himselfe the holy Ghost is the intelligence that moves in that spheare and becomes the soule of his soule and works that in him primarily of which naturall faculties or philosophicall instructions are but ministeriall instruments and suppletory assistances after And not only in the beginning of good actions but in the prosecution of some evill the holy Ghost hath an interest though we discern him not In the disposing of our sins the holy Ghost hath a working thus That when we intended some mischievous sin to morrow a lesse sin some sin of pleasure meets us and takes hold of us and diverts us from our first purpose and so the holy Ghost rescues us from one sin by suffering us to fall into another What action soever hath any degree of good what action soever hath any lesse evill in it then otherwise it would have had hath received a working of the holy Ghost though that man upon whom he hath wrought knew not his working nor his name As we thinke that we have the differences of seasons of Winter and Summer by the naturall motion of the Sun but yet it is not truly by that naturall motion but by a contrary motion of a higher spheare which drawes the Sun against his naturall course for if the Sun were left to himselfe we should not have these seasons so if the soul and conscience of a meere naturall man have any of these reproofes and remorses though perchance fear or shame or sicknesse or penalties of law yea though a wearinesse and excesse of the sin it selfe may seem to him to be the thing that reproves him and that occasions this remorse because it is the most immediate and therefore most discernible yet there is Digitus Dei The hand of God and spiritus Spiritus sancti The breath of the holy Ghost in all this who as a liberall almes-giver sends to persons that never know who sends works upon persons who never know who works So the holy Ghost reproves all the world of sin that is all the reproofe which even the naturall man hath and every man hath some at sometimes is from the holy Ghost and as in the former sense the Cum venerit When he eomes was Antequam abierit before he goes so here the Cum venerit is Quia adest because he is alwayes present and alwayes working And then there is a third acceptation where the Arguet is not in the future Operatus est That he shall do it nor in the present Arguit That he doth it now in every naturall man but it is in the time past Arguit He hath done it done it already And here in this sense it is not that the holy Ghost shall bring the Gospell before the end to all Nations that is Antequam abierit Nor that the holy Ghost doth exalt the naturall faculties of every man in all his good actions that is Quia semper adest but it
of spirit though it were Wine in the beginning it is lees and tartar in the end Inordinate sorrow growes into sinfull melancholy and that melancholy into an irrecoverable desperation The Wise-men of the East by a lesse light found a greater by a Star they found the Son of glory Christ Jesus But by darknesse nothing By the beames of comfort in this life we come to the body of the Sun by the Rivers to the Ocean by the cheerefulnesse of heart here to the brightnesse to the fulnesse of joy hereafter For beloved Salvation it selfe being so often presented to us in the names of Glory and of Joy we cannot thinke that the way to that glory is a sordid life affected here an obscure a beggarly a negligent abandoning of all wayes of preferment or riches or estimation in this World for the glory of Heaven shines downe in these beames hither Neither can men thinke that the way to the joyes of Heaven is a joylesse severenesse a rigid austerity for as God loves a cheerefull giver so he loves a cheerefull taker that takes hold of his mercies and his comforts with a cheerefull heart not onely without grudging that they are no more but without jealousie and suspition that they are not so much or not enough But they must be his comforts that we take in Deus Gods comforts For to this purpose the Apostle varies the phrase It was The Father of mercies To represent to us gentlenesse kindnesse favour it was enough to bring it in the name of Father But this Comfort a power to erect and settle a tottering a dejected soule an overthrowne a bruised a broken a troden a ground a battered an evaporated an annihilated spirit this is an act of such might as requires the assurance the presence of God God knows all men receive not comforts when other men think they do nor are all things comforts to them which we present and meane should be so Your Father may leave you his inheritance and little knowes he the little comfort you have in this because it is not left to you but to those Creditors to whom you have engaged it Your Wife is officious to you in your sicknesse and little knowes she that even that officiousnesse of hers then and that kindnesse aggravates that discomfort which lyes upon thy soul for those injuries which thou hadst formerly multiplied against her in the bosome of strange women Except the God of comfort give it in that seale in peace of conscience Nec intus nec subtus nec circa te occurrit consolatio sayes S. Bernard Non subtus not from below thee from the reverence and acclamation of thy inferiours Non circa not from about thee when all places all preferments are within thy reach so that thou maist lay thy hand and set thy foote where thou wilt Non intus not from within thee though thou have an inward testimony of a morall constancy in all afflictions that can fall yet not from below thee not from about thee not from within thee but from above must come thy comfort or it is mistaken S. Chrysostome notes and Areopagita had noted it before him Ex beneficiis acceptis nomina Deo affingimus We give God names according to the nature of the benefits which he hath given us So when God had given David victory in the wars by the exercise of his power then Fortitudo mea Psal 18.2 Psal 27.1 and firmamentum The Lord is my Rock and my Castle When God discovered the plots and practises of his enemies to him then Dominus illuminatio The Lord is my light and my salvation So whensoever thou takest in any comfort be sure that thou have it from him that can give it for this God is Deus totius consolationis The God of all comfort Preciosa divina consolatio nec omnino tribuitur admittentibus alienam Totius Bernardâ— The comforts of God are of a precious nature and they lose their value by being mingled with baser comforts as gold does with allay Sometimes we make up a summe of gold with silver but does any man binde up farthing tokens with a bag of gold Spirituall comforts which have alwayes Gods stampe upon them are his gold and temporall comforts when they have his stampe upon them are his silver but comforts of our owne coyning are counterfait are copper Because I am weary of solitarinesse I will seeke company and my company shall be to make my body the body of a harlot Because I am drousie I will be kept awake with the obscenities and scurrilities of a Comedy or the drums and ejulations of a Tragedy I will smother and suffocate sorrow with hill upon hill course after course at a voluptuous feast and drown sorrow in excesse of Wine and call that sickness health and all this is no comfort for God is the God of all comfort and this is not of God We cannot say with any colour as Esau said to Iacob Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 17.38 for he is the God of all blessings and hath given every one of us many more then one But yet Christ hath given us an abridgement Vnum est necessarium Luke 10.42 there is but one onely thing necessary And David in Christ tooke knowledge of that before when he said Vnum petii One thing have I desired of the Lord What is that one thing All in one Psal 27.4 That I may dwell in the house ef the Lord not be a stranger from his Covenant all the dayes of my life not disseised not excommunicate out of that house To behold the beauty of the Lord not the beauty of the place only but to inquire in his Temple by the advancement and advantage of outward things to finde out him And so I shall have true comforts outward and inward because in both I shall finde him who is the God of all comfort Iacob thought he had lost Ioseph his Son And all his Sons Gen. 37.35 and all his Daughters rose up to comfort him Et noluit consolationem sayes the Text He would not be comforted because he thought him dead Rachel wept for her children and would not be comforted Mat. 2.18 because they were not But what aylest thou Is there any thing of which thou canst say It is not perchance it is but thou hast it not If thou hast him that hath it thou hast it Hast thou not wealth but poverty rather not honour but contempt rather not health but daily summons of Death rather yet Non omnia possidet cui omnia cooperantur in bonum Bernard If thy poverty thy disgrace thy sicknesse have brought thee the nearer to God thou hast all those things which thou thinkest thou wantest because thou hast the best use of them 1 Cor. 3.23 All things are yours sayes the Apostle why by what title For you are Christs and Christ is Gods Carry back your comfort to the
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
yet this is still limited by the law of God so far as God hath instituted this power by his Gospel in his Church and far from inducing amongst us that torture of the Conscience that usurpation of Gods power that spying into the counsails of Princes supplanting of their purposes with which the Church of Rome hath been deeply charged And this usefull and un-mis-interpretable Confession which we speake of Adversum me is the more recommended to us in that with which David shuts up his Act as out of S. Hierome and out of our former translation we intimated unto you that he doth all this Adversum se I will confesse my sinnes unto the Lord against my selfe The more I finde Confession or any religious practise to be against my selfe and repugnant to mine owne nature the farther I will goe in it For still the Adversum me is Cum Deo The more I say against my selfe the more I vilifie my selfe the more I glorifie my God As S. Chry sostome sayes every man is Spontaneus Satan a Satan to himselfe as Satan is a Tempter every man can tempt himselfe so I will be Spontaneus Satan as Satan is an Accuser an Adversary I will accuse my selfe I consider often that passionate humiliation of S. Peter Exi à me Domine He fell at Iesus knees saying Depart from me for I am a sinfull man O Lord Luk. 5.8 And I am often ready to say so and more Depart from me O Lord for I am sinfull inough to infect thee As I may persecute thee in thy Children so I may infect thee in thine Ordinances Depart in withdrawing thy word from me for I am corrupt inough to make even thy saving Gospel the savor of death unto death Depart in withholding thy Sacrament for I am leprous inough to taint thy flesh and to make the balme of thy blood poyson to my soule Depart in withdrawing the protection of thine Angels from me for I am vicious inough to imprint corruption and rebellion into their nature And if I be too foule for God himselfe to come neare me for his Ordinances to worke upon me I am no companion for my selfe I must not be alone with my selfe for I am as apt to take as to give infection I am a reciprocall plague passively and actively contagious I breath corruption and breath it upon my selfe and I am the Babylon that I must goe out of Gen. 32.10 Mat. 8.8 or I perish I am not onely under Iacobs Non dignus Not worthy the least of all thy mercies nor onely under the Centurions Non dignus I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roofe That thy Spirit should ever speake to my spirit which was the forme of words in which every Communicant received the Sacrament in the Primitive Church Lord I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roofe Nor onely under the Prodigals Non dignus Luke 15.21 Not worthy to be called thy sonne neither in the filiation of Adoption for I have deserved to be dis-inherited nor in the filiation of Creation for I have deserved to be annihilated Mark 1.7 But Non dignus procumbere I am not worthy to stoop down to fall down to kneele before thee in thy Minister the Almoner of thy Mercy the Treasurer of thine Absolutions So farre doe I confesse Adversum me against my selfe as that I confesse I am not worthy to confesse nor to be admitted to any accesse any approach to thee much lesse to an act so neare Reconciliation to thee as an accusation of my selfe or so neare thy acquitting as a self-condemning Be this the issue in all Controversies whensoever any new opinions distract us Be that still thought best that is most Adversum nos most against our selves That that most layes flat the nature of man so it take it not quite away and blast all vertuous indeavours That that most exalts the Grace and Glory of God be that the Truth And so have you the whole mystery of Davids Confession in both his Acts preparatory in resenting his sinfull condition in generall and survaying his conscience in particular And then his Deliberation his Resolution his Execution his Confession Confession of true sins and of them onely and of all them of his sins and all this to the Lord and all that against himselfe That which was proposed for the second Part must fall into the compasse of a Conclusion and a short one that is Gods Act Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin This is a wide doore 2 Part. and would let out Armies of Instructions to you but we will shut up this doore with these two leaves thereof The fulnesse of Gods Mercy He forgives the sin and the punishment And the seasonablenesse the acceleration of his mercy in this expression in our text that Davids is but Actus inchoatus He sayes he will confesse And Gods is Actus consummatus Thou forgavest Thou hadst already forgiven the iniquity and punishment of my sin These will be the two leaves of this doore and let the hand that shuts them be this And this Particle of Connection which we have in the text I said And thou didst For though this Remission of sin be not presented here as an effect upon that cause of Davids Confession It is not delivered in a Quia and an Ergo Because David did this God did that for mans wil leads not the will of God as a cause who does all his acts of mercy for his mercies sake yet though it be not an effect as from a cause yet it is at least as a consequent from an occasion so assured so infallible as let any man confesse as David did and he shall be sure to be forgiven as David was For though this forgivenesse be a flower of mercy yet the roote growes in the Justice of God If wee acknowledge our sin 1 John 1.9 he is faithfull and just to forgive us our sin It growes out of his faithfulnesse as he hath vouchsafed to binde himselfe by a promise And out of his Justice as he hath received a full satisfaction for all our sins So that this Hand this And in our Text is as a ligament as a sinew to connect and knit together that glorious body of Gods preventing grace and his subsequent grace if our Confession come between and tie the knot God that moved us to that act will perfect all Here enters the fulnesse of his mercy Plenitudo Rev. 3 20. at one leafe of this doore well expressed at our doore in that Ecce sto pulso Behold I stand at the doore and knock for first he comes here is no mention of our calling of him before He comes of himselfe And then he suffers not us to be ignorant of his comming he comes so as that he manifests himself Ecce Behold And then he expects not that we should wake with that light and look out of our selves but he knocks
sense of the word But as some of our Expositors have found reason to interpret them Ne approximent That they shall not come neare him not neare God in the service of his Church to do themselves any good his Corrections shall harden them and remove them farther from him and from all benefit by his Ordinances First then God armes him with a pre-increpation upon Descent Nolite fieri Descensus Goe no lesse be not made lower The first sin that ever was was an ascending a climing too high when the purest Understandings of all The Angels fell by their ascending when Lucifer was tumbled downe by his Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High Esay 14.14 then he tried upon them who were next to him in Dignity upon Man how that clambring would worke upon him He presents to man the same ladder He infuses into man the same Ambition and as he fell with a Similis ero Altissimo I will be like the most High So he overthrew man with an Eritis sicut Dii Ye shall be as Gods It seemes this fall hath broake the neck of Mans ambition and now we dare not be so like God as we should be Ever since this fall man is so far from affecting higher places then his nature is capable of that he is still groveling upon the ground and participates and imitates and expresses more of the nature of the Beast then of his owne There is no creature but man that degenerates willingly from his naturall Dignity Those degrees of goodnesse which God imprinted in them at first they preserve still As God saw they were good then so he may see they are good still They have kept their Talent They have not bought nor sold They have not gained nor lost They are not departed from their native and naturall dignity by any thing that they have done But of Man it seemes God was distrustfull from the beginning He did not pronounce upon Mans Creation as he did upon the other Creatures that He was good because his goodnesse was a contingent thing and consisted in the future use of his free will For that faculty and power of the will Dionys is Virtus transformativa by it we change our selves into that we love most and we are come to love those things most which are below us As God said to the Earth and it was enough to say so Germinet terra juxta genus suum Gen. 1. Let the Earth bring forth according to her kinde Ambro. So Vive juxta genus tuum sayes S. Ambrose to Man Live according to thy kinde Non adulteres genus tuum doe not abase doe not allay doe not betray do not abastardise that noble kinde that noble nature which God hath imparted to thee imprinted in thee Mundi moles liber est Basil This whole world is one Booke And is it not a barbarous thing when all the whole booke besides remains intire to deface that leafe in which the Authors picture the Image of God is expressed as it is in man God brought man into the world as the King goes in state Lords and Earles and persons of other ranks before him So God sent out light and Firmament and Earth and Sea and Sunne and Moone to give a dignity to mans procession and onely Man himselfe disorders all and that by displacing himselfe by losing his place The Heavens and Earth were finished Et omnis exercitus eorum Gen. 2.1 sayes Moses All the Host thereof and all this whole Army preserves that Discipline onely the Generall that should governe them mis-governs himselfe And whereas we see that Tygers and Wolves Beasts of annoyance doe still keepe their places and natures in the world and so doe Herbs and Plants even those which are in their nature offensive and deadly Ambrose for Alia esui alia usui Some herbs are made to eat some to adorne some to supply in Physick whilest we dispute in Schools whether if it were possible for Man to doe so it were lawfull for him to destroy any one species of Gods Creatures though it were but the species of Toads and Spiders because this were a taking away one linke of Gods chaine one Note of his harmony we have taken away that which is the Jewel at the chaine that which is the burden of the Song Man himselfe Partus sequitur ventrem We verifie the Law treacherously mischievously we all follow our Mother we grovell upon the earth whose children we are and being made like our Father Psal 8.4 in his Image we neglect him What is Man that thou art mindfull of him and the sonne of Man that thou visitest him David admires not so much mans littlenesse in that place as his greatnesse He is a little lower then Angels A little lower then God sayes our former Translation agreeably enough to the word and in a good sense too Gods Lievtenant his Vice-gerent over all Creatures Thou hast made him to have Dominion over the works of thy hands and Dominion is a great it is a supreme estate And thou hast put all things under his feet as it follows there And yet we have forfeited this Jurisdiction this Dominion and more our owne Essence we are not onely inferior to the Beasts and under their annoyance but we are our selves become Beasts Consider the dignitie of thy soule which onely of all other Creatures is capable susciptible of Grace If God would bestow grace any where els no creature could receive it but thou Thou art so necessary to God as that God had no utterance no exercise no employment for his grace and mercy but for thee And if thou make thy selfe incapable of this mercy and this grace of which nothing but thou is capable then thou destroyest thy nature And remember then that as in the Kingdome of Heaven in those orders which we conceive to be in those glorious Spirits there is no falling from a higher to a lower order a Cherubim or Seraphim does not fall and so become an Archangel or an Angel but those of that place that fell fell into the bottomlesse pit So if thou depart from thy nature from that susciptiblenesse that capacity of receiving Grace if thou degenerate so from a Man to a Beast thou shalt not rest there in the state and nature of a Beast whose soule breaths out to nothing and vanishes with the life thou shalt not be so happy but thy better nature will remain in despite of thee thine everlasting soule must suffer everlasting torment Now as many men when they see a greater piece of coyne then ordinary 2 Part. they doe not presently know the value of it though they know it to be silver but those lesser coyns which are in currant use and come to their hands every day they know at first sight so because this stamp this impression of the image of God in Man is not well and clearly understood by every Man
capable of his Mercies and his Retributions as here in this Text he names onely those who are Recti corde The upright in heart They shall be considered rewarded The disposition that God proposes here in those persons Recti whom he considers is Rectitude Uprightnesse and Directnesse God hath given Man that forme in nature much more in grace that he should be upright and looke up and contemplate Heaven and God there And therefore to bend downwards upon the earth to fix our breast our heart to the earth to lick the dust of the earth with the Serpent to inhere upon the profits and pleasures of the earth and to make that which God intended for our way and our rise to heaven the blessings of this world the way to hell this is a manifest Declination from this Uprightnesse from this Rectitude Nay to goe so far towards the love of the earth as to be in love with the grave to be impatient of the calamities of this life and murmur at Gods detaining us in this prison to sinke into a sordid melancholy or irreligious dejection of spirit this is also a Declination from this Rectitude this Uprightnesse So is it too to decline towards the left hand to Modifications and Temporisings in matter or forme of Religion and to thinke all indifferent all one or to decline towards the right hand in an over-vehement zeale To pardon no errors to abate nothing of heresie if a man beleeve not all and just all that we beleeve To abate nothing of Reprobation if a man live not just as we live this is also a Diversion a Deviation a Deflection a Defection from this Rectitude this Uprightnesse For the word of this Text Iashar signifies Rectitudinem and Planiciem It signifies a direct way for the Devils way was Circular Compassing the Earth But the Angels way to heaven upon Iacobs ladder was a straight a direct way And then it signifies as a direct and straight so a plaine a smooth an even way a way that hath been beaten into a path before a way that the Fathers and the Church have walked in before and not a discovery made by our curiosity or our confidence in venturing from our selves or embracing from others new doctrines and opinions The persons then whom God proposes here to be partakers of his Retributions Recti Corde are first Recti that is both Direct men and Plaine men and then recti corde this qualification this straightnesse and smoothnesse must be in the heart All the upright in heart shall have it Upon this earth a man cannot possibly make one step in a straight and a direct line The earth it selfe being round every step wee make upon it must necessarily bee a segment an arch of a circle But yet though no piece of a circle be a straight line yet if we take any piece nay if wee take the whole circle there is no corner no angle in any piece in any intire circle A perfectt rectitude we cannot have in any wayes in this world In every Calling there are some inevitable tentations But though wee cannot make up our circle of a straight line that is impossible to humane frailty yet wee may passe on without angles and corners that is without disguises in our Religion and without the love of craft and falsehood and circumvention in our civill actions A Compasse is a necessary thing in a Ship and the helpe of that Compasse brings the Ship home safe and yet that Compasse hath some variations it doth not looke directly North Neither is that starre which we call the North-pole or by which we know the North-pole the very Pole it selfe but we call it so and we make our uses of it and our conclusions by it as if it were so because it is the neerest starre to that Pole He that comes as neere uprightnesse as infirmities admit is an upright man though he have some obliquities To God himselfe we may alwayes go in a direct line a straight a perpendicular line For God is verticall to me over my head now and verticall now to them that are in the East and West-Indies To our Antipodes to them that are under our feet God is verticall over their heads then when he is over ours To come to God there is a straight line for every man every where But this we doe not if we come not with our heart Praebe mihi fili cor tuum saith God Pro. 23.26 My sonne give me thy heart Was hee his sonne and had hee not his heart That may very well bee There is a filiation without the heart not such a filiation as shall ever make him partaker of the inheritance but yet a filiation The associating our selves to the sonnes of God in an outward profession of Religion makes us so farre the sonnes of God as that the judgement of man cannot and the judgement of God doth not distinguish them Iob 1.6 Because then when the sonnes of God stood in his presence Satan stood amongst the sons of God God doth not disavow him God doth not excommunicate him God makes his use of him and yet God knew his heart was farre from him So when God was in Councell with his Angels about Ahabs going up to Ramoth Gilead 1 King 22.22 A spirit came forth and offered his service and God refuses not his service but employes him though hee knew his heart to be farre from him So no doubt many times they to whom God hath committed supreme government and they who receive beames of this power by subordination and delegation from them they see Satan amongst the sonnes of God hypocrites and impiously disposed men come into these places of holy convocation and they suffer them nay they employ them nay they preferre them and yet they know their hearts are farre from them but as long as they stand amongst the sonnes of God that is appeare and conforme themselves in the outward acts of Religion they are not disavowed they are not ejected by us here they are not But howsoever wee date our Excommunications against them but from an overt act and apparant disobedience yet in the Records of heaven they shall meet an Excommunication and a conviction of Recusancy that shall beare date from that day when they came first to Church with that purpose to delude the Congregation to elude the lawes in that behalfe provided to advance their treacherous designes by such disguises or upon what other collaterall and indirect occasion soever men come to this place for though they bee in the right way when they are here at Church yet because they are not upright in heart therefore that right way brings not them to the right end And that is it which David lookes upon in God and desires that God should looke upon in him 2 Sam. 7.21 According to thine owne heart saith David to God hast thou done all these great things unto us For sometimes God doth give
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
it a Mysterie and a great mysterie yet he cals it a mysterie without controversie Without controversie great is the mysterie of God manifested in the flesh justified in the Spirit preached to the Gentiles beleeved in the world received into glory When he presents matter of consolation he would have it without controversie To establish a disconsolate soule there is alwaies Divinity enough that was never drawne into Controversie I would pray I finde the Spirit of God to dispose my heart and my tongue and mine eyes and hands and knees to pray Doe I doubt to whom I should pray To God or to the Saints That prayer to God alone was sufficient was never drawne into controversie I would have something to rely and settle and establish my assurance upon Doe I doubt whether upon Christ or mine owne or others merits That to rely upon Christ alone was sufficient was never drawne into Controversie At this time Christ disposed himselfe to comfort his Disciples in that wherein they needed comfort now their discomfort and their feare lay not in this whether there were different degrees of glory in Heaven but their feare was that Christ being gone and having taken Peter and none but him there should be no roome for them and thereupon Christ sayes Let not that trouble you for In my Fathers house are many mansions And so we have done with the former branch of this last part That it is piously done to beleeve these degrees of glory in Heaven That they have inconsiderately extended this probleme in the Roman Church That no Scriptures are so evident as to induce a necessity in it That this Scripture conduces not at all to it and therefore we passe to our last Consideration The right use of the right sense of these words First then Christ proposes in these words Consolation A worke Consolatio then which none is more divine nor more proper to God nor to those instruments whom he sends to worke upon the soules and consciences of others Who but my selfe can conceive the sweetnesse of that salutation when the Spirit of God sayes to me in a morning Go forth to day and preach and preach consolation preach peace preach mercy And spare my people spare that people whom I have redeemed with my precious Blood and be not angry with them for ever Do not wound them doe not grinde them do not astonish them with the bitternesse with the heavinesse with the sharpnesse with the consternation of my judgements David proposes to himselfe that he would Sing of mercy Psal 101.1 and of judgement but it is of mercy first and not of judgement at all otherwise then it will come into a song as joy and consolation is compatible with it It hath falne into disputation and admitted argument whether ever God inflicted punishments by his good Angels But that the good Angels the ministeriall Angels of the Church are properly his instruments for conveying mercy peace consolation never fell into question never admitted opposition How heartily God seemes to utter and how delightfully to insist upon that which he sayes in Esay Consolamini consolamini populum meum Comfort ye comfort ye my people Esay 40.1 And Loquimini ad cor Speake to the heart of Ierusalem and tell her Thine iniquities are pardoned How glad Christ seemes that he had it for him when he gives the sick man that comfort Fili confide My son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee What a Coronation is our taking of Orders by which God makes us a Royall Priesthood And what an inthronization is the comming up into a Pulpit where God invests his servants with his Ordinance as with a Cloud and then presses that Cloud with a Vaesi non woe be unto thee if thou doe not preach and then enables him to preach peace mercy consolation to the whole Congregation That God should appeare in a Cloud upon the Mercy Seat as he promises Moses he will doe That from so poore a man as stands here Levit. 16.2 wrapped up in clouds of infirmity and in clouds of iniquity God should drop raine poure downe his dew and sweeten that dew with his honey and crust that honied dew into Manna and multiply that Manna into Gomers and fill those Gomers every day and give every particular man his Gomer give every soule in the Congregation consolation by me That when I call to God for grace here God should give me grace for grace Grace in a power to derive grace upon others and that this Oyle this Balsamum should flow to the hem of the garment even upon them that stand under me That when mine eyes looke up to Heaven the eyes of all should looke up upon me and God should open my mouth to give them meat in due season That I should not onely be able to say as Christ said to that poore soule Confide fili My son be of good comfort but Fratres Patres mei My Brethren and my Fathers nay Domini mei and Rex meus My Lords and my King be of good comfort your sins are forgiven you That God should seale to me that Patent Ite praedicate omni Creaturae Goe and preach the Gospell to every Creature be that creature what he will That if God lead me into a Congregation as into his Arke where there are but eight soules but a few disposed to a sense of his mercies and all the rest as in the Arke ignobler creatures and of brutall natures and affections That if I finde a licentious Goat a supplanting Fox an usurious Wolfe an ambitious Lion yet to that creature to every creature I should preach the Gospel of peace and consolation and offer these creatures a Metamorphosis a transformation a new Creation in Christ Jesus and thereby make my Goat and my Fox and my Wolfe and my Lion to become Semen Dei The seed of God and Filium Dei The child of God and Participem Divinae Naturae Partaker of the Divine Nature it selfe This is that which Christ is essentially in himselfe This is that which ministerially and instrumentally he hath committed to me to shed his consolation upon you upon you all Not as his Almoner to drop his consolation upon one soule nor as his Treasurer to issue his consolation to a whole Congregation but as his Ophir as his Indies to derive his gold his precious consolation upon the King himselfe What would a good Judge a good natured Judge give in his Circuit what would you in whose breasts the Judgements of the Star-chamber or other criminall Courts are give that you had a warrant from the King to change the sentence of blood into a pardon where you found a Delinquent penitent How rufully do we heare the Prophets groane under that Onus visionis which they repeat so often O the burden of my vision upon Judah or upon Moab or Damascus or Babylon or any place Which is not only that that judgement would be a
Son are appropriated to him and made his so intirely as if there were never a soule created but his To enrich this poore soule to comfort this sad soule so as that he shall beleeve and by beleeving finde all Christ to be his this is that Liberality which we speake of now in dispensing whereof The liberall man deviseth liberall things and by liberall things shall stand Now you may be pleased to remember that when wee considered this word Cogitabit in our former part he shall Devise we found this Devising Originally to signifie a studying a deliberation a concluding upon premisses upon which we inferred pregnantly and justly that as to support a mans expense he must Vivere de proprio Live upon his owne so to relieve others he must Dare de suo Be liberall of that which is his Now what is ours Ours that are Ministers of the Gospell As wee are Christs so Christ is ours Puer datus nobis filius natus nobis There is a Child given unto us a Son borne unto us Esay 9. Even in that sense Christ is given to us that we might give him to others So that in this kind of spirituall liberality we can be liberall of no more but our owne we can give nothing but Christ we can minister comfort to none farther then he is capable and willing to receive and embrace Christ Jesus When therefore some of the Fathers have said Ratio pro fide Graecis Barbaris Just Mar. Rectified reason was accepted at the hands of the Gentiles as faith is of the Christians Philosophia per se justificavit Graecos Philosophie alone without faith justified the Grecians Clemens Satis fuit Gentibus abstinuisse ab Idololatria It was enough for the Gentiles Chrysost if they did not worship false Gods though they knew not the true truly Andrad when we heare Andradius in the Roman Church poure out falvation to all the Gentiles that lived a good morall life and no more when we heare their Tostatus sweepe away Tostatus blow away Originall sin so easily from all the Gentiles In prima operatione bona in charitate In the first good Morall worke that they doe Originall sin is as much extinguished in them by that as by Baptisme in us When we see some Authors in the Reformation afford Heaven to persons that never professed Christ this is spirituall prodigality and beyond that liberality which we consider now for Christ is ours and where we can apply him we can give all comforts in him But none to others Not that we manacle the hands of God or say God can save no man without the profession of Christ But that God hath put nothing else into his Churches hands to save men by but Christ delivered in his Scripture applied in the preaching of the Gospell and sealed in the Sacraments And therefore if we should give this comfort to any but those that received him and received him so according to his Ordinance in his Church we should be over-liberall for we should give more then our owne But to all that would be comforted in Christ we devise liberall things that is wee spend our studies our lucubrations our meditations to bring Christ Jesus home to their case and their conscience And by these liberall things we shall stand In our former part in that Civill liberality Stabit wee did not content our selves with that narrow signification of the word which some gave That the liberall man would stand to it abide by it that is continue liberall still habitually but that he should stand by it and prosper the better for it If this Liberality which we consider now in this second Part were but that branch of Charity which is bodily reliefe by bountifull Almes and no more yet wee might be so liberall in Gods behalfe as to pronounce that the charitable man should stand by it prosper for it and have a plentifull harvest for any sowing in that kinde The Holy Ghost in the 112. Psalme and 9. verse hath taken a word which may almost seeme to taste of a little inconsideration in such a charitable person a little indiscretion in giving in flinging in casting away for it is He hath dispersed Dispersed A word that implies a carelesse scattering But that which followes justifies it He hath dispersed he hath given to the poore Let the manner or the measure be how it will so it be given to the poore it will not be without excuse not without thanks And therefore wee have this liberall charity expressed by S. Paul in the same word too 2 Cor. 9 9. He hath dispersed but dispersed as before Dispersed by giving to the poore For there is more negligence more inconsideration allowed us in giving of Almes then in any other expense Neither are we bound to examine the condition and worthinesse of the person to whom we give too narrowly too severely Hee that gives freely shall stand by doing so Prov. 17.19 for He that pitieth the poore lendeth to the Lord And the Lord is a good Debtor and never puts Creditor to sue And if that bee not comfort enough S. Hicrom gives more in his-translation of that place foeneratur Domino he that pitieth the poore puts his money to use to God and shall receive the debt and more But the liberality which we consider here in this part is more then that more then any charity how large soever that is determined or conversant about bodily reliefe for as you have heard it is consolation applied in Christ to a distressed soule to a disconsolate spirit And how a liberall man shall stand by this liberality by applying such consolation to such a distressed soule I better know in my selfe then I can tell any other that is not of mine owne profession for this knowledge lyes in the experience of it For the most part men are of one of these three sorts Either inconsiderate men and they that consider not themselves consider not us they aske not they expect not this liberality from us or else they are over-confident and presume too much upon God or diffident and distrust him too much And with these two wee meet often but truly with seven diffident and dejected for one presuming soule So that we have much exercise of this liberality of raising dejected spirits And by this liberality we stand For when I have given that man comfort that man hath given me a Sacrament hee hath given me a seale and evidence of Gods favour upon me I have received from him in his receiving from me I leave him comforted in Christ Jesus and I goe away comforted in my selfe that Christ Jesus hath made me an instrument of the dispensation of his mercy And I argue to my selfe and say Lord when I went I was sure that thou who hadst received me to mercy wouldst also receive him who could not be so great a sinner as I And now when I come
Leo Magnus 42. B. 48. C. D. 63. B. 221. E. 321. B. 431. B. 535. D. 604. A. Leo Castrius 695. D. Lex XII Tabularum 445. D. Lombardus 237. B. notatus 334. E. Lorinus 426. C. 574. C. 687. E. 695. D. Lutherus 18. D. 130. B. 205. A. 231. C. 232. D. 271. D. 301. D. 404. C. Apophthegma ejus 405. C. 417. B. 426. A. 479. E. 501. A. 687. B. 786. B. 798. E. Lyra. 50. B. 555. D. M Magdeburgenses 489. C. 799. C. Maldonatus 197. D. 356. E. 489. D. 739. D. 771. B. 798. A. Mariana 687. E. Martialis 550. B. S. Martialis 758. C. P. Martyr 271. B. 347. C. Masoritae 153. C. Maximus 63. A. 535. E. Matchiavel 744. B. Melancthon 92. C. 744. C. 798. E. Melchior Canus 42. A. 740. B. Menander 220. A. Mendoza 162. B. D. Munsterus 747. C. Musculus 775. A. N Nicephorus 31. D. dictum ejus de Chrysostomo 490. C. 699. B. O Oecumenius 66. A. 232. C. 527. A. Oleaster 391. D. Origenes 99. D. 102. A. 118. C. 128. E. 170. E. 201. C. 262. D. 263. C. 299. B. 333. B. 362. C. 363. D. 386. B. 411. C. 546. C. 700. C. 710. E. primus concionator 758. D. 770. D. 784. C. Osiander 221. C. 298. B. P Palladius 473. C. Pamelius 329. C. Panigorolla 166. A. Papias 739. E. Paracelsus 64. E. Paraphrastes Chaldaeus 134. A. 269. D. 404. B. Pellicanus 221. C. 404. C. Peltanus 97. E. Pererius 50. A. 740. A. Philo Judaeus 170. B. 417. D. 420. C. 550. B. 561. C. 680. D. 812. C. Picus 531. D. Pindarus 442. D. Piscator 46. C. 49. E. 131. E. 737. E. 799. A. Plato 46. D. 68. E. 168. D. 318. D. 442. D. 752. E. 783. E. 812. C. Plinius 17. A. 222. A. 385. C. 537. D. 617. B. 665. B. 713. A. 788. B. Plotinus 812. C. Plutarchus 665. C. Polycarpus 758. C. Polybius 482. D. 551. A. Porphyrius 207. B. 289. B. Prosper 240. D. Prudentius 262. E. Psalmi Arabicè 582. A. Ptolomaeus 818. B. Q Quintilianus 289. B. R Rabbi Aben Ezra 131. C. Rabbi Moyses 63. E. 66. B. 608. B. Rabbi Solomon 50. B. 404. B. Reuchlinus 541. C. Rhemigius 4. B. 340. A. Ribera 184. C. Roffensis 789. A. Ruffinus 270. E. Rupertus 51. B. S Salmeron 489. D. Sanctius 151. E. 405. E. Sandaeus 495. A. 690. D. Scotus 111. B. Scribanius 142. C. Schonfeldius 743. B. Seneca 147. E. 168. E. 362. B. 387. E. 388. A. 713. E. 789. B. 812. D. Serarius 406. B. Septuaginta Interpretes 404. B. 416. A. 528. B. 585. A. Severianus 249. C. Sextus Senensis 786. E. Sidonius Apollinaris 33. B. Sophronius 490. C. Stenartius 605. E. Strabo 198. D. Stunnica 133. A. Synodus Dordrecthana 742. C. T Tacitus 481. E. Talmud 379. C. 492. A. Tannerus 605. D. Tertullianus 17. C. 18. A. 33. E. 80. A. memoria lapsus 101. B. 152. A. 168. C. 181. E. 207. E. 289. B. 290. D. 309. D. 312. B. 334. B. 337. B. C. 369. E. 370. E. 379. B. 388. A. 395. B. E. 397. E. 400. A. B. 408. A. 414. E. 504. B. 739. E. 783. E. 794. C. 800. E. Testamentum Syriacum 636. C. 737. E. Theocritus 478. A. Theodoretus 91. B. 232. A. 305. D. 462. A. 578. D. 795. A. Theophylactus 91. B. 181. B. 246. B. 527. A. 609. C. 795. C. Tremellius 131. E. 133. E. 510. A. 560. C. 585. A. 690. B. 737. E. 809. C. Trismegistus 287. B. 295. B. 347. C. 379. C. 501. C. Turrecremata 603. C. V G. Valentia 356. D. 605. D. Vincentius Lyrinensis 47. A. 699. B. 722. D. Virgilius 744. C. 784. A. Vita P. Nerei 116. E. Vega. 339. D. Ulpianus 194. E. Vossius 740. A. Us pergensis 208. A. Vulgata Editio 146. D. 157. D. 162. C. 260. A. 288. D. 311. A. 505. C. 610. E. 711. D. 717. C. 743. C. 761. B. W Waldo 291. D. AN ALPHABETICALL TABLE OF THE PRINCIPALL CONTENTS IN THIS BOOK The number of the Figures referreth to the Page the Letter to the like Letter in the Margin A ABsolute Decree how dangerously man may be abused by it 691. E There is no such in God of punishing man but as a sinner 675. C. D. E Absolution of sinnes the power of it 143. A. B The cheerefulnesse of their spirits that have newly received it 264. A 596. B The necessity of it 370. A. B Active life and Contemplative both good 30. D One not to despise the other ibid. Admiration and Wonder how it stands between Knowledge and Faith 194. A Adoption in civill use the Lawes and Customes of it 27. B Applyed to our spirituall Adoption ibid. Adversity not the best time to seeke the Lord in 139. C. D. 245. D. E Whether Adversity or Prosperity be the cause of most sinnes 658. D Adultory God expresseth all carnall and spirituall sinne by the name of Adultery 632. E Advice to bee mixed with Love and Charitie 93. C How many doe miscarry in it ibid. D Afflictions wherefore inflicted upon Men 109. C Wherefore on godly men 129. B. 480. A. B. C 664. E They are not evill 170. D Common as well to the good as bad 420. E Age the center of Reverence 31. D Allelujah Psalmes which they are and how many 654. A Almes to be done 94. B. 106. C Cheerfully and without delay 107. D Against those that neglect them 414. B Wee not to consider the person too severely that is to receive them 764. A Against being Alone 51. E. 761. E. 762. A Alphonso King of Casteel his blasphemy 640. E Amen ever doubled by Saint John and why 658. B Anabaptists their wicked opinions 23. C. 91. C 344. D Anathema the severall acceptations of it 401. E Saint Andrew the first Saint in the Calendar and why 718. C. D Angels how reconciled by the death of Christ 9. B Whether they understand thoughts 111. B Or see the Essence of God 120. E. 121. D. E They pray for us 130. A Whether they shall give account of their Stewardship over us at the day of Judgement 234. E. 235. A Thought in the Greeke Church to be created before the World 235. E Nothing in Scripture about their creation 235. D Not in themselves Immortall 237 B. C. Some men called by the ministry of Angels even from the beginning of the world 261. E They that fell might have repented according to the Schooles 262. B They that fell shall never befor given 346. B Of tutelar Angels 422. B Angels created with the Light 729. C Anger in God two errours about it noted by Lactantius 408. D Anointing in Scripture not alwayes taken for reall Unction 44. E. 45. A c Anointing proper to Kings as well as Priests 396. A Ant and the Bee the difference betweene their labour and yet we are commanded to learne of both 712. E Apatheia against indolencie and emptinesse of all Affections 156. A Apochrypha Bookes the good use that is made of them 220. D Of their esteeme
when the Gentiles had been long accustomed to make every power and attribute of God and to make every remarkable creature of God a severall God and so to worship God in a multiplicity of Gods it was a great work to limit and determine their superstitious and superfluous devotion in one God But when all these lines were brought into one center not to let that center rest but to draw lines out of that againe and bring more persons into that one centricall God-head this was hard forreason to digest But yet to have extended that from that unity to a duality was not so much as to a triplicity And thereupon though the Arians would never be brought to confesse an equality between the Son and the Father they were much farther from confessing it in the Holy Ghost They made sayes S. Augustine Filium creaturam Haeres 49. The Son they accounted to be but a creature but they made the Holy Ghost Creaturam Creaturae not onely a Creature and no God but not a Creature of Gods but a Creature a Messenger of the son who was himselfe with them but a Creature But these mysteries are not to be chawed by reason but to be swallowed by faith we professed three persons in one God in the simplicity of our infancy at our baptisme and we have sealed that contract in the other Sacrament often since and this is eternall life to die in that beliefe There are three that beare witnesse in heaven The Father the Word 1 John 5.7 and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And in that testimony we rest that there is a Holy Ghost and in the testimony of this text that this Holy Ghost falls down upon all that heare the word of God Now it is as wonderfull that this Holy Ghost should fall down from heaven Cecidit Esay 14.12 as that he should be in heaven Quomodo cecidisti How art thou fallen from heaven O Lucifer thou son of the morning was a question asked by the Propher of him who was so fallen as that he shall never returne againe But the Holy Ghost as mysterious in his actions as in his Essentiall or in his Personall beeing fell so from heaven as that he remained in heaven even then when he was fallen This Dove sent from heaven Gen 8.7 did more then that Dove which was sent out of the Arke That went and came but was not in both places at once Noah could not have shewed that Dove to his sons and daughters in the Arke then when the Dove was flowne out But now when this Dove the Holy Ghost fell upon these men at Peters Sermon Stephen who was then come up to heaven saw the same Dove the same Holy Ghost whom they whom he had left upon the earth felt upon the earth then As if the Holy Ghost fall upon any in this Congregation now now the Saints of God see that Holy Ghost in heaven whom they that are here feele falling upon them here In all his workings the Holy Ghost descends for there is nothing above him There is a third heaven but no such third heaven as is above the heaven of heavens above the seat and residence of the Holy Ghost so that whatsoever he doth is a descent a diminution a humiliation and an act of mercy because it is a Communication of himselfe to a person inferiour to himselfe But there is more in this Text then a descent When the Holy Ghost came upon Christ himselfe after his Baptisme there it is said He descended Though Christ as the Son of God were equall to him and so it was no descent for the Holy Ghost to come to him yet because Christ had a nature upon him in which he was not equall to the Holy Ghost here was a double descent in the Holy Ghost That he who dwells with the Father and the Son In luce inaccessibili In light inaccessible and too bright to be seene would descend in a visible form to be seene by men And that he descended and wrought upon a mortall man though that man were Christ Christ also had a double descending too He descended to be a man and he descended to be no man He descended to live amongst us and he descended to die amongst us He descended to the earth and he descended to hell Every operation of every person of the holy and blessed and glorious Trinity is a Descending But here the Holy Ghost is said to have fallen which denotes a more earnest communicating of himselfe a throwing a pouring out of himselfe upon those upon whom he falls He falls as a fall of waters that covers that it falls upon as a Hawk upon a prey it desires and it will possesse that it falls upon as an Army into a Countrey it Conquers and it Governes where it fals The Holy Ghost fals but farre otherwise Mat. 21.44 upon the ungodly Whosoever shall fall upon this stone shall be broken but upon whomsocver this stone shall fall it will grinde him to powder Indeed he fals upon him so as haile fals upon him he fals upon him so as he fals from him and leaves him in an obduration and impenitiblenesse and in an irrecoverable ruine of him that hath formorly despised and despighted the Holy Ghost But when the Holy Ghost fals not thus in the nature of a stone but puts on the nature of a Dove and a Dove with an Olive-branch and that in the Ark that is testimonies of our peace and reconciliation to God in his Church he fals as that kinde of lightning which melts swords and hurts not scabbards the Holy Ghost shall melt thy soule and not hurt thy body he shall give thee spirituall blessings and saving graces under the temporall seales of bodily health and prosperity in this world He shall let thee see that thou art the childe of God in the obedience of thy children to thee And that thou art the servant of God in the faithfulnesse of thy servants to thee And that thou standest in the favour of God bythe favor of thy superiours to thee he shall fall upon thy soul and not wound thy body give thee spirituall prosperity and yet not by worldly adversity and evermore over-shadow and refresh thy soul yet evermore keep thee in his Sunshine and the light of his countenance But there is more then this in this falling of the Holy Ghost in this Text. For it was not such a particular insinuation of the Holy Ghost as that he convaied himselfe into those particular men for their particular good and salvation and determined there but such a powerfull and diffusive falling as made his presence and his power in them to work upon others also So when he came upon Christ it was not to adde any thing to Christ but to informe others that that was Christ So when Christ breathed his spirit into the Apostles it was not meerly to infuse salvation into them but it was especially
to seale to them that Patent that Commission Quorum remiseritis That others might receive remission of sins by their power So the Holy Ghost fell upon these men here for the benefit of others that thereby a great doubt might be removed a great scruple devested a great disputation extinguished whether it were lawfull to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles Ver. 2. or no for as we see in the next Chapter Peter himselfe was reproved of the Jews for this that he had done and therefore God ratified and gave testimony to this service of his by this miraculous falling of the Holy Ghost as S. Augustine makes the reason of this falling very justly to have been so then this falling of the Holy Ghost was not properly or not meerly an infusing of justifying grace but an infusing of such gifts as might edifie others for S. Peter speaking of this very action in the next Chapter Ver. 15. fayes The Holy Ghost fell on them as on us in the beginning Which was when he fell upon them as this day This doth not imply Graduum aequalitatem an equall measure of the same gifts as the Apostles had who were to passe over the whole world and work upon all men But it implies Doni identitatem it was the same miraculous expressing of the presence and working of the Holy Ghost for the confirmation of Peter that the Gentiles might be preached unto and for the consolation of the Gentiles that they might be enabled to preach to one another for so it is expresly said in this Chapter Ver. 46. That they heard these men speake with divers tongues they that heard the Preacher were made partakers of the same gifts that the Preacher had A good hearer becomes a good Preacher that is able to edifie others It it true that these men were not to be literally Preachers as the Apostles upon whom the Holy Ghost fell as upon them were and therefore the gift of tongues may seeme not to have beene so necessary to them But it is not onely the Preacher that hath use of the tongue for the edification of Gods people but in all our discourses and conferences with one another we snould preach his glory his goodnesse his power that every man might speake one anothers language and preach to one anothers conscience that when I accuse my selfe and confesse mine infirmities to another man that man may understand that there is in that confession of mine a Sermon and a rebuke and a reprehension to him if he be guilty of the same sin Nay if he be guilty of a sin contrary to mine For as in that language in which God spoke the Hebrew the same roote will take in words of a contrary signification as the word of Iobs wife signifies blessing and cursing too so the covetous man that heares me confesse my prodigality should argue to himself If prodigality which howsoever it hurt a particular person yet spreads mony abroad which is the right and naturall use of money be so heavy a sin how heavy is my covetousnesse which besides that it keepes me all the way in as much penuriousnesse as the prodigall man brings himselfe to at last is also a publique sin because it emprisons that money which should be at liberty and employed in a free course abroad And so also when I declare to another the spirituall and temporall blessings which God hath bestowed upon me he may be raised to a thankfull remembrance that he hath received all that from God also This is not the use of having learnt divers tongues to be able to talke of the wars with Durch Captains or of trade with a French Merchant or of State with a Spanish Agent or of pleasure with an Italian Epicure It is not to entertaine discourse with strangers but to bring strangers to a better knowledge of God in that way wherein we by his Ordinance do worship and ferve him Now this place is ill detorted by the Roman Church for the confirmation of their Sacrament of Confirmation That because the Holy Ghost fell upon men at another time then at Baptisme therefore there is a lesse perfect giving of the Holy Ghost in Baptisme It is too forward a triumph in him who sayes of this place Pamclius Annot in Cypr. Epist 72. Locus insignis ad assertionem Sacramenti manus impositionis That is an evident place for Confirmation of the Sacrament of Confirmation It is true that S. Cyprian sayes there That a man is not truly sanctified Nisi utroque Sacramento nascatur Except he be regenerate by both Sacraments And he tels us what those two Sacraments are Aqua Spiritus Water and the Spirit That except a man have both these seales inward and outward he is not safe And S. Cyprian requires and usefully truly an outward declaration of this inward seale of this giving of the Holy Ghost For he instances expresly in this which was done in this Text That there was both Baptisme and a giving of the Holy Ghost Neither would S. Cyprian forbeare the use of Confirmation because it was also in use amongst some Heretiques Quia Novatianus facere audet non putabimus nos esse faciendum Cypr. Epist 72. Shall we give over a good custome because the Novatians doe the like Quia Novatianus extra Ecclesiam vendicat sibi veritatis imaginem relinquemus Ecclesiae veritatem Shall the Church forbeare any of those customes which were induced to good purposes because some Heretiques in a false Church have counterfaited them or corrupted them And therefore sayes that Father It was so in the Apostles time Et nunc quoque apud nos geritur We continue it so in our time That they who are Baptized Signaculo Dominico consummentur That they may have a ratification a consummation in this seale of the Holy Ghost Which was not in the Primitive Church as in the later Roman Church a confirmation of Baptisme so as that that Sacrament should be but a halfe-Sacrament but it was a Confirmation of Christians with an encrease of grace when they came to such yeares as they were naturally exposed to some tentations Our Church acknowledges the trueuse of this Confirmation for in the first Collect in the office of Confirmation it confesses that that child is already regenerated by water and the holy Ghost and prayes onely for farther strength And having like a good mother taught us the right use of it then our Church like a supreme Commander too enjoyns expresly that none be admitted to the Communion till they have received their Confirmation And though this injunction be not in rigour and exactnesse pursued and executed yet it is very necessary that the purpose thereof should be maintained That is that none should be received to the Communion till they had given an account of their faith and proficiencie For he is but an interpretative but a presumptive Christian who because he is so old ventures upon the Sacrament A