blowing from one point but like light issuing from the body of the Sun it is light round about and in every word of God there is a treasure and something will be found somewhere to answer every doubt and to clear every obscurity and to teach every truth by which God intends to perfect our understandings But then take this rule with you Do not pass from plainess to obscurity nor from simple principles draw crafty conclusions nor from easiness pass into difficulty nor from wise notices draw intricate nothings nor from the wisdom of God lead your hearers into the follies of men your principles are easie and your way plain and the words of faith are open and what naturally flows from thence will be as open but if without violence and distortion it cannot be drawn forth the proposition is not of the family of faith Qui nimis emungit elicit sanguinem he that wrings too hard draws blood and nothing is fit to be offer'd to your charges and your flocks but what flows naturally and comes easily and descends readily and willingly from the fountains of salvation 4. Next to this analogy or proportion of faith let the consent of the Catholick Church be your measure so as by no means to prevaricate in any doctrine in which all Christians always have consented This will appear to be a necessary Rule by and by but in the mean time I shall observe to you that it will be the safer because it cannot go far it can be instanced but in three things in the Creed in Ecclesiastical Government and in external forms of worship and Liturgy The Catholick Church hath been too much and too soon divided it hath been us'd as the man upon a hill us'd his heap of heads in a Basket when he threw them down the hill every head run his own way quot capita tot sentèntiae and as soon as the Spirit of Truth was opposed by the Spirit of Error the Spirit of peace was disordered by the Spirit of division and the Spirit of God hath over-power'd us so far that we are only fallen out about that of which if we had been ignorant we had not been much the worse but in things simply necessary God hath preserved us still unbroken all Nations and all Ages recite the Creed and all pray the Lords Prayer and all pretend to walk by the Rule of the Commandments and all Churches have ever kept the day of Christs Resurrection or the Lords day holy and all Churches have been governed by Bishops and the Rites of Christianity have been for ever administred by separate Orders of men and those men have been always set apart by Prayer and the imposition of the Bishops hands and all Christians have been baptized and all baptized persons were or ought to be and were taught that they should be confirm'd by the Bishop and Presidents of Religion and for ever there were publick forms of Prayer more or less in all Churches and all Christians that were to enter into holy wedlock were ever joined or blessed by the Bishop or the Priest in these things all Christians ever have consented and he that shall prophecy or expound Scripture to the prejudice of any of these things hath no part in that Article of his Creed he does not believe the Holy Catholick Church he hath no fellowship no communion with the Saints and Servants of God It is not here intended that the doctrine of the Church should be the Rule of Faith distinctly from much less against the Scripture for that were a contradiction to suppose the Church of God and yet speaking and acting against the will of God but it means that where the question is concerning an obscure place of Scripture the practice of the Catholick Church is the best Commentary Intellectus qui cum praxi concurrit est spiritus vivificans said Cusanus Then we speak according to the Spirit of God when we understand Scripture in that sense in which the Church of God hath always practis'd it Quod pluribus quod sapientibus quod omnibus videtur that 's Aristotles Rule and it is a Rule of Nature every thing puts on a degree of probability as it is witnessed by wise men by many wise men by all wise men and it is Vincentius Lirinensis great Rule of truth Quod ubique quod semper quod ab omnibus and he that goes against what is said always and every where and by all Christians had need have a new revelation or an infallible spirit or he hath an intolerable pride and foolishness of presumption Out of the Communion of the Universal Church no man can be saved they are the body of Christ and the whole Church cannot perish and Christ cannot be a head without a body and he will for ever be our Redeemer and for ever intercede for his Church and be glorious in his Saints and g. he that does not sow in these furrows but leaves the way of the whole Church hath no pretence for his errour no excuse for his pride and will find no alleviation of his punishment These are the best measures which God hath given us to lead us in the way of truth and to preserve us from false doctrines and whatsoever cannot be prov'd by these measures cannot be necessary There are many truths besides these but if your people may be safely ignorant of them you may quietly let them alone and not trouble their heads with what they have so little to do things that need not to be known at all need not to be taught for if they be taught they are not certain or are not very useful and g. there may be danger in them besides the trouble and since God hath not made them necessary they may be let alone without danger and it will be madness to tell stories to your flocks of things which may hinder salvation but cannot do them profit And now it is time that I have done with the first great remark of doctrine noted by the Apostle in my Text all the Guides of souls must take care that the doctrine they teach be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 pure and incorrupt the word of God the truth of the Spirit That which remains is easier 2. In the next place it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 grave and reverend no vain notions no pitiful contentions and disputes about little things but becoming your great employment in the ministery of souls and in this the Rules are easie and ready 1. Do not trouble your people with controversies whatsoever does gender strife the Apostle commands us to avoid and g. much more the strife it self a controversie is a stone in the mouth of the hearer who should be fed with bread and it is a temptation to the Preacher it is a state of temptation it engages one side in lying and both in uncertainty and uncharitableness and after all it is not food for souls it is the food of contention it is
it at all Remember that the Snail out-went the Eagle and won the goal because she set out betimes To sum up all every good man is a new Creature and Christianity is not so much a Divine institution as a Divine frame and temper of Spirit which if we heartily pray for and endeavour to obtain we shall find it as hard and as uneasie to sin against God as now we think it impossible to abstain from our most pleasing sins For as it is in the Spermatick vertue of the Heavens which diffuses it self Universally upon all sublunary bodies and subtilly insinuating it self into the most dull and unactive Element produces Gold and Pearls Life and motion and brisk activities in all things that can receive the influence and heavenly blessing so it is in the Holy Spirit of God and the word of God and the grace of God which S. John calls the seed of God it is a Law of Righteousness and it is a Law of the Spirit of Life and changes Nature into Grace and dulness into zeal and fear into love and sinful habits into innocence and passes on from grace to grace till we arrive at the full measures of the stature of Christ and into the perfect liberty of the sons of God so that we shall no more say The evil that I would not that I do but we shall hate what God hates and the evil that is forbidden we shall not do not because we are strong of our selves but because Christ is our strength and he is in us and Christs strength shall be perfected in our weakness and his grace will be sufficient for us and he will of his own good pleasure work in us not only to will but also to do velle perficere saith the Apostle to will and to do it throughly and fully being sanctified throughout to the glory of his Holy name and the eternal salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father c. FIDES FORMATA OR Faith working by Love SERM. III. JAMES II. 24. You see then how that by Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only THat we are justified by Faith S. Paul tells us That we are also justified by Works we are told in my Text and both may be true But that this Justification is wrought by Faith without Works to him that worketh not but believeth saith S. Paul That this is not wrought without Works S. James is as express for his Negative as S. Paul was for his Affirmative and how both these should be true is something harder to unriddle But affirmanti incumbit probatio he that affirms must prove and therefore S. Paul proves his Doctrine by the example of Abraham to whom Faith was imputed for Righteousness and therefore not by Works And what can be answered to this Nothing but this That S. James uses the very same Argument to prove that our Justification is by Works also For our Father Abraham was justified by works when he offered up his Son Isaac Now which of these says true Certainly both of them but neither of them have been well understood insomuch that they have not only made divisions of heart among the faithful but one party relies on Faith to the disparagement of Good Life and the other makes Works to be the main ground of our hope and confidence and consequently to exclude the efficacy of Faith The one makes Christian Religion a lazy and unactive Institution and the other a bold presumption on our selves while the first tempts us to live like Heathens and the other recalls us to live the life of Jews while one says I am of Paul and another I am of S. James and both of them put it in danger of evacuating the institution and the death of Christ one looking on Christ only as a Law-giver and the other only as a Saviour The effects of these are very sad and by all means to be diverted by all the wise considerations of the Spirit My purpose is not with subtle Arts to reconcile them that never disagreed the two Apostles spake by the same Spirit and to the same last design though to differing intermedial purposes But because the great end of Faith the design the definition the state the oeconomy of it is that all Believers should not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit Before I fall to the close handling of the Text I shall premise some preliminary Considerations to prepare the way of holiness to explicate the differing sences of the Apostles to understand the Question and the Duty by removing the causes of the vulgar mistakes of most men in this Article and then proceed to the main Inquiry 1. That no man may abuse himself or others by mistaking of hard words spoken in mystery with alegorical expressions to secret senses wrapt up in a cloud such as are Faith and Justification and Imputation and Righteousness and Works be pleased to consider That the very word Faith is in Scripture infinitely ambiguous insomuch that in the Latine Concordances of S. Hierom's Bible published by Robert Stephens you may see no less then twenty two several senses and accceptations of of the word Faith set down with the several places of Scripture referring to them to which if out of my own own observation I could add no more yet these are an abundant demonstration That whatsoever is said of the efficacy of Faith for Justification is not to be taken in such a sence as will weaken the necessity and our carefulness of good life when the word may in so many other sences be taken to verifie the affirmation of S. Paul of Justification by Faith so as to reconcile it to the necessity of Obedience 2. As it is in the word Faith so it is in Works for by Works is meant sometimes the thing done sometimes the labour of doing sometimes the good will it is sometimes taken for a state of good life sometimes for the Covenant of Works it sometimes means the Works of the Law sometimes the Works of the Gospel sometimes it is taken for a perfect actual unsinning Obedience sometimes for a sincere endeavour to please God sometimes they are meant to be such which can challenge the Reward as of Debt sometimes they mean only a disposition of the person to receive the favour and the grace of God Now since our good Works can be but of one kind for ours cannot be meritorious ours cannot be without sin all our life they cannot be such as need no repentance it is no wonder if we must be justified without Works in this sence for by such Works no man living can be justified And these S. Paul calls the Works of the Law and sometimes he calls them our righteousness and these are the Covenant of Works But because we came into the World to serve God and God will be obeyed and Jesus Christ came into the World to save us from sin and
believing his Word praying for his Spirit supported with his Hope refreshed by his Promises recreated by his Comforts and wholly and in all things conformable to his Life that is the true Communion The Sacraments are not made for Sinners until they do repent they are the food of our Souls but our Souls must be alive unto God or else they cannot eat It is good to confess our sins as St. James sayes and to open our wounds to the Ministers of Religion but they absolve none but such as are are truly penitent Solemn Prayers and the Sacraments and the Assemblies of the Faithful and fasting days and acts of external worship are the solemnities and rites of Religion but the Religion of a Christian is in the Heart and Spirit And this is that by which Clemens Alexandrinus defined the Righteousness of a Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all the parts and faculties that make up a man must make up our Religion but the heart is Domus principalis it is the Court of the great King and he is properly served with interior graces and moral Vertues with a humble and a good mind with a bountiful heart and a willing Soul and these will command the eye and give laws to the hand and make the shoulders stoop but anima cujusque est quisque a mans soul is the man and so is his Religion and so you are bound to understand it True it is God works in us his Graces by the Sacrament but we must dispose our selves to a reception of the Divine blessing by Moral instruments The Soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it must work together with God and the body works together with the soul But no external action can purifie the soul because its Nature and Operations being Spiritual it can no more be changed by a Ceremony or an external Solemnity than an Angel can be caressed with sweet Meats or a a Mans belly can be filled with Musick or long Orations The sum is this No Christian does his Duty to God but he that serves him with all his heart And although it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness even the external also yet that which makes us gracious in his Eyes is not the external it is the love of the heart and the real change of the mind and obedience of the spirit that 's the first great measure of the Righteousness Evangelical 2. The Righteousness Evangelical must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees by extension of our Obedience to things of the same signification Leges non ex verbis sed ex mente intelligendas sayes the Law There must be a Commentary of kindness in the understanding the Laws of Christ. We must understand all Gods meaning we must secure his service we must be far removed from the dangers of his displeasure And therefore our Righteousness must be the purification and the perfection of the Spirit So that it will be nothing for us not to commit Adultery unless our Eyes and Hands be chast and the desires be clean A Christian must not look upon a woman to lust after her He must hate Sin in all dimensions and in all distances and in every angle of its reception A Christian must not sin and he must not be willing to sin if he durst He must not be lustful and therefore he must not feed high nor drink deep for these make provisions for lust and amongst Christians great eatings and drinkings are acts of uncleanness as well as of intemperance and whatever ministers to sin and is the way of it partakes of its nature and its curse For it is remarkable that in good and evil the case is greatly different Mortification e. g is a duty of Christianity but there is no Law concerning the Instruments of it We are not commanded to roll our selves on thorns as St. Benedict did or to burn our flesh like St. Martinian or to tumble in Snows with St. Francis or in pools of water with St. Bernard A man may chew Aloes or ly upon the ground or wear sackcloth if he have a mind to it and if he finds it good in his circumstances and to his purposes of mortification but it may be he may do it alone by the Instrumentalities of Fear and Love and so the thing be done no special Instrument is under a command * But although the Instruments of vertue are free yet the Instruments and ministeries of vice are not Not only the sin is forbidden but all the wayes that lead to it The Instruments of vertue are of themselves indifferent that is not naturally but good only for their relation sake and in order to their end But the Instruments of vice are of themselves vitious they are part of the sin they have a share in the phantastick pleasure and they begin to estrange a mans heart from God and are directly in the prohibition For we are commanded to fly from temptation to pray against it to abstain from all appearances of evil to make a covenant with our eyes to pluck them out if there be need And if Christians do not understand the Commandments to this extension of signification they will be innocent only by the measures of humane Laws but not by the righteousness of God 3. Of the same consideration it is also that we understand Christs Commandments to extend our Duty not only to what is named and what is not named of the same nature and design but that we abstain from all such things as are like to sins * Of this nature there are many All violences of Passion Irregularities in Gaming Prodigality of our time Undecency of action doing things unworthy of our Birth or our Profession aptness to go to Law Ambitus or a fierce prosecution even of honourable employments misconstruction of the words and actions of our brother easiness to believe evil of others willingness to report the evil which we hear curiosity of Dyet peevishness toward servants indiscreet and importune standing for place and all excess in ornaments for even this little instance is directly prohibited by the Christian and Royal Law of Charity For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Paul the word is a word hard to be understood we render it well enough Charity vaunteth not it self and upon this S. Basil says that an Ecclesiastick person and so every Christian in his proportion ought not to go in splendid and vain Ornaments 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Every thing that is not wisely useful or proportioned to the state of the Christian but ministers only to vanity is a part of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a vaunting which the Charity and the Grace of a Christian does not well endure * These things are like to sins they are of a suspicious nature and not easily to be reconcil'd to the Righteousness Evangelical It is no wonder if Christianity be nice and curious it is the cleanness and the purification of the Soul and Christ intends
Natural man cannot choose but do evil but it is because he will do so he is not born in the second Birth and renewed in the Baptism of the Spirit 2. We have brought our selves into an accidental necessity of sinning by the evil principles which are suck'd in by great parts of mankind We are taught ways of going to Heaven without forsaking our sins of repentance without restitution of being in charity without hearty forgiveness and without love of believing our sins to be pardoned before they are mortified of trusting in Christs death without conformity to his life of being in Gods favour upon the only account of being of such an opinion and that when we are once in we can never be out We are taught to believe that the events of things do not depend upon our crucifying our evil and corrupt affections but upon eternal and unalterable Counsels that the promises are not the rewards of obedience but graces pertaining only to a few praedestinates and yet men are Saints for all that and that the Laws of God are of the race of the Giants not to be observed by any grace or by any industry this is the Catechism of the ignorant and the prophane but without all peradventure the contrary propositions are the way to make the world better but certainly they that believe these things do not believe it necessary that we should eschew all evil and no wonder then if when men upon these accounts slacken their industry and their care find sin still prevailing still dwelling within them and still unconquerable by so slight and disheartned labours For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every fool and every ignorant person is a child still and it is no wonder that he who talks foolishly should do childishly and weakly 3. To our weak and corrupted nature and our foolish discourses men do dayly superinduce evil habits and customs of sinning Consuetudo mala tanquam hamus infixus animae said the Father an evil custom is a hook in the soul and draws it whither the Devil pleases When it comes to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Saint Peter's word is a heart exercised with covetous practices then it is also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is weak and unable to do the good it fain would or to avoid the evil which in a good fit it pretends to hate This is so known I shall not insist upon it but adde this only that wherever a habit is contracted it is all one what the instance be it is as easie as delicious as unalterable in vertue as in vice for what helps Nature brings to a vitious habit the same and much more the Spirit of God by his power and by his comforts can do in a vertuous and then we are well again You see by this who are and why they are in this evil condition The evil natures and the evil principles and the evil manners of the world these are the causes of our imperfect willings and weaker actings in the things of God and as long as men stay here sin will be unavoidable For even meat it self is loathsom to a sick stomack and it is impossible for him that is heart-sick to eat the most wholsom diet and yet he that shall say eating is impossible will be best confuted by seeing all the healthful men in the world eat heartily every day 2. But what then Cannot sin be avoided Cannot a Christian mortifie the deeds of the body Cannot Christ redeem us and cleanse us from all our sins Cannot the works of the Devil be destroyed That 's the next particular to be inquired of Whether or not it be not necessary and therefore very possible for a servant of God to pass from this evil state of things and not only hate evil but avoid it also He that saith he hath not sinned is a liar but what then Because a man hath sinned it does not follow he must do so always Hast thou sinned do so no more said the wise Bensirach and so said Christ to the poor Paralytick Go and sin no more They were excellent words spoken by a holy Prophet Let not the Sinner say he hath not sinned for God shall burn coals of fire upon his head that saith before the Lord God and his Glory I have not sinned Well! that case is confessed All men have sinned and come short of the glory of God But is there no remedy for this Must it always be so and must sin for ever have the upper hand and for ever baffle our resolutions and all our fierce and earnest promises of amendment God forbid There was a time then to come and blessed be God it hath been long come Yet a little while saith that Prophet and Iniquity shall be taken out of the earth and Righteousness shall reign among you For that 's in the day of Christ's Kingdom the manifestation of the Gospel When Christ reigns in our hearts by his Spirit Dagon and the Ark cannot stand together we cannot serve Christ and Belial And as in the state of Nature no good thing dwells within us so when Christ rules in us no evil thing can abide For every Plant that my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up and cast away into the fires of consumption or purification But how shall this come to pass since we all find our selves so infinitely weak and foolish I shall tell you It is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a Needle than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven saith Christ. It is impossible to Nature it is impossible to them that are given to vanity it is impossible for them that delight in the evil snare But Christ adds With Men this is impossible but with God all things are possible What we cannot do for our selves God can do for us and with us What Nature cannot do the Grace of God can So that the thing may be done not indeed by our selves but gratia Dei mecum saith S. Paul God and Man together can do it But if it can be done any way that God has put into our powers the consequent is this No mans good will shall be taken in exchange for the real and actual mortification of his sins He that sins and would fain not sin but sin is present with him whether he will or no let him take heed for the same is the Law of sin and the Law of death saith the Apostle and that mans heart is not right with God For it is impossible men should pray for deliverance and not be heard that they should labour and not be prosperous unless they pray amiss and labour falsely Let no man therefore please himself with talking of great things with perpetual conversation in pious discourses or with ineffective desires of serving God He that does not practice as well as he talks and do what he desires and what he ought to do confesses himself to sin greatly against his conscience
and it is a prodigious folly to think that he is a good man because though he does sin yet it was against his mind to do so A mans conscience can never condemn him if that be his excuse to say that his conscience check'd him ad that will be but a sad Apology at the day of Judgement Some men talk like Angels and pray with great fervor and meditate with deep recesses and speak to God with loving affections and words of union and adhere to him in silent devotion and when they go abroad are as passionate as ever peevish as a frighted Fly vexing themselves with their own reflections They are cruel in their Bargains unmerciful to their Tenants and proud as a Barbarian Prince They are for all their fine words impatient of reproof scornful to their Neighbours lovers of money supream in their own thoughts and submit to none all their spiritual life they talk of is nothing but spiritual fancy and illusion they are still under the power of their passions and their sin rules them imperiously and carries them away infallibly Let these men consider There are some men think it impossible to do as much as they do The common Swearer cannot leave that Vice and talk well and these men that talk thus well think they cannot do as well as they talk but both of them are equally under the power of their respective sins and are equally deceived and equally not the Servants of God * This is true but it is equally as true That there is no necessity for all this for it ought and it may be otherwise if we please For I pray be pleased to hear S. Paul Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh There 's your remedy For the Spirit lusteth against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit there 's the cause of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that ye may not or cannot do the things ye would that 's the blessed consequent and product of that cause That is plainly As there is a state of carnality of which S. Paul speaks in my Text so that in that state a man cannot but obey the flesh so there is also a state of spirituality when sin is dead and righteousness is alive and in this state the flesh can no more prevail than the Spirit could do in the other * Some men cannot chuse but sin for the carnal mind is not subject to God neither indeed can be saith S. Paul but there are also some men that cannot endure any thing that is not good It is a great pain for a temperate man to suffer the disorders of Drunkenness and the shames of Lust are intolerable to a chaste and modest person This also is affirmed by S. John Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him So that you see it is possible for a good man not to commit the sin to which he is tempted but the Apostle says more He doth not commit sin neither indeed can he because he is born of God And this is agreeable to the words of our Blessed Saviour A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit and a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit that is As the child of Hell is carried to Sin pleno impetu he does not check at it he does it and is not troubled so on the other side a child of God is as fully convinc'd of righteousness and that which is unrighteous is as hateful to him as Colocynths to the taste or the sharpest punctures to the pupil of the eye We may see something of this in common experiences What man of ordinary prudence and reputation can be tempted to steal or for what price would he be tempted to murder his friend If we did hate all sins as we hate these would it not be as easie to be as innocent in other instances as most men are in these and we should have as few Drunkards as we have Thieves In such as these we do not complain in the words of my Text What I would not that I do and what I would I do not Does not every good man overcome all the power of great sins And can he by the Spirit of God and right Reason by fear and hope conquer Goliath and beat the Sons of the Giant and can he not overcome the little children of Gath Or is it harder to overcome a little sin than a great one Are not the temptations to little sins very little and yet are they greater and stronger than a mighty Grace Could the poor Demoniack that liv'd in the Graves by the power of the Devil break his iron chains in pieces and cannot he who hath the Spirit of God dissolve the chains of sin Through Christ that strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul Satis sibi copiarum cum Publio Decio nunquam nimium hostium fore said one in Livie which is best rendred by S. Paul If God be with us who can be against us Nay there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Paul We are more than Conquerors For even amongst an Army Conquerors there are degrees of exaltation and some serve God like the Centurion and some like S. Peter some like Martha and some like Mary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all good men conquer their temptation but some with more ease and some with a clearer Victory and more than thus Non solum viperam terimus sed ex ea antidotum conficimus We kill the Viper and make Treacle of him that is not only escape from but get advantages by temptations But we commonly are more afraid than hurt Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us so we read the words of the Apostle but S. Chrysostom's rendition of them is better for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a perfect passive and cannot signifie the strength and irresistibility of sin upon us but the quite contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the sin that is so easily avoided as they that understand that language know very well And if we were so wise and valiant as not to affright our selves with our own terrours we should quickly find that by the help of the Spirit of God we can do more than we thought we could It was said of Alexander Bene ausus est vana contemnere he did no great matter in conquering the Persians because they were a pitiful and a soft people only he understood them to be so and was wise and bold enough not to fear such Images and men of clouts But men in the matter of great sins and little do as the Magicians of Aegypt when Moses turned his Rod into a Serpent it moved them not but when they saw the Lice and the Flies then they were afraid We see that by the Grace of God we can escape great sins but we start at Flies and a
of us by any measures but of the Commandment without and the heart and the conscience within but he never intended his Laws to be a snare to us or to entrap us with consequences and dark interpretations by large deductions and witty similitudes of faults but he requires of us a sincere heart and a hearty labour in the work of his Commandments he calls upon us to avoid all that which his Law plainly forbids and which our Consciences do condemn This is the general measure The particulars are briefly these 1. Every Christian is bound to arrive at that state that he have remaining in him no habit of any sin whatsoever Our old man must be crucified the body of sin must be destroyed he must no longer serve sin sin shall not have the dominion over you All these are the Apostles words that is plainly as I have already declared you must not be at that pass that though ye would avoid sin ye cannot For he that is so is a most perfect slave and Christs freed man cannot be so Nay he that loves sin and delights in it hath no liberty indeed but he hath more shew of it than he that obeys it against his will Libertatis servaveris umbram Si quicquid jubeare velis He that loves to be in the place is a less prisoner than he that is confined against his will 2. He that commits any one sin by choice and deliberation is an enemy to God and is under the dominion of the flesh In the case of deliberate sins one act does give the denomination he is an Adulterer that so much as once foully breaks the holy Laws of Marriage He that offends in one is guilty of all saith S. James S. Peters Denial and Davids Adultery had passed on to a fatal issue if the mercy of God and a great repentance had not interceded But they did so no more and so God restored them to Grace and Pardon And in this sense are the words of S. John 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that does a sin is of the Devil and he that is born of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he does not commit a sin he chooses none he loves none he endures none talia quae non faciet bonae fidei spei Christianus they do no great sin and love no little one A sin chosen and deliberately done is as Tertullians expression is crimen devorà torium salutis it devours salvation For as there are some sins which can be done but once as a man can kill his Father but once or himself but once so in those things which can be repeated a perfect choice is equivalent to a habit it is the same in principle that a habit is in the product In short he is not a child of God that knowingly and deliberately chooses any thing that God hates 3. Every Christian ought to attain to such a state of life as that he never sin not only by a long deliberation but also not by passion I do not say that he is not a good Christian who by passion is suddenly surpriz'd and falls into folly but this I say that no passion ought to make him choose a sin For let the sin enter by anger or by desire it is all one if the consent be gain'd It is an ill sign if a man though on the sudden consents to a base action Thus far every good man is tied not only to endeavour but to prevail against his Sin 4. There is one step more which if it be not actually effected it must at least be greatly endeavoured and the event be left to God and that is that we strive for so great a dominion over our sins and lust as that we be not surprized on a sudden This indeed is a work of time and it is well if it be ever done but it must alwayes be endeavoured But in this particular even good men are sometimes unprosperous S. Epiphanius and S. Chrysostom grew once into choler and they past too far and lost more than their argument they lost their reason and they lost their patience and Epiphanius wished that S. Chrysostom might not die a Bishop and he in a peevish exchange wished that Epiphanius might never return to his Bishoprick when they had forgotten their foolish anger God remembred it and said Amen to both their cursed speakings Nay there is yet a greater example of humane frailty St. Paul and Barnabas were very holy persons but once in a heat they were both to blame they were peevish and parted company This was not very much but God was so displeased even for this little flye in their Box of Oyntment that their story sayes they never saw one anothers face again These earnest emissions and transportations of passion do sometime declare the weakness of good men but that even here we ought at least to endeavour to be more than Conquerors appears in this because God allows it not and by punishing such follies does manifest that he intends that we should get victory over our sudden passions as well as our natural lusts And so I have done with the third inquiry in what degree God expects our innocence and now I briefly come to the last particular which will make all the rest practicable I am now to tell you how all this can be effected and how we shall get free from the power and dominion of our sins 4. The first great instruments is Faith He that hath Faith like a grain of Mustard-seed can remove Mountains the Mountains of sin shall fall flat at the feet of the Faithful man and shall be removed into the sea the sea of Christs blood and penitential waters Faith overcometh the World saith S. John and walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh there are two of our Enemies gone the world and the flesh by Faith and the Spirit by the Spirit of Faith and as for the Devil put on the shield of Faith and resist the Devil and he will flee from you saith the Apostle and the powers of sin seem insuperable to none but to them that have not Faith we do not believe that God intends we should do what he seems to require of us or else we think that though Gods grace abounds yet sin must superabound expresly against the saying of S. Paul or else we think that the evil spirit is stronger than the good Spirit of God Hear what St. John saith My little children ye are of God and have overcome the evil one for the spirit that is in you is greater than that which is in the world Believest thou this If you do I shall tell you what may be the event of it When the Father of the boy possessed with the Devil told his sad story to Christ he said Master if thou canst do any thing I pray help me Christ answered him If thou canst believe all things are possible to him that believeth N. B. And
and returns to it with passion and abides with pleasure This will not do it such a man cannot be justified for all his believing But therefore the Apostle shews us a more excellent way This is a true saying and I will that thou affirm constantly that they who have believed in God be careful to maintain good works The Apostle puts great force on this Doctrine he arms it with a double Preface the saying is true and it is to be constantly affirmed that is it is not only true but necessary it is like Pharaoh's dream doubled because it is bound upon us by the decree of God and it is unalterably certain that every Believer must do good works or his believing will signifie little nay more than so every man must be careful to do good works and more yet he must carefully maintain them that is not do them by fits and interrupted returns but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be incumbent upon them to dwell upon them to maintain good works that is to persevere in them But I am yet but in the general be pleased to go along with me in these particular considerations 1. No mans sins are pardoned but in the same measure in which they are mortified destroyed and taken away so that if Faith does not cure our sinful Natures it never can justifie it never can procure our pardon And therefore it is that as soon as ever Faith in the Lord Jesus was Preached at the same time also they preached Repentance from dead works in so much that S. Paul reckons it among the fundamentals and first principles of Christianity nay the Baptist preached repentance and amendment of life as a preparation to the Faith of Christ. And I pray consider can there be any forgiveness of sins without repentance But if an Apostle should preach forgiveness to all that believe and this belief did not also mean that they should repent and forsake their sin the Sermons of the Apostle would make Christianity nothing else but the Sanctuary of Romulus a device to get together all the wicked people of the world and to make them happy without any change of manners Christ came to other purposes he came to sanctifie us and to cleanse us by his Word the word of Faith was not for it self but was a design of holiness and the very grace of God did appear for this end that teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live holily justly and soberly in this present world he came to gather a People together not like Davids Army when Saul pursued him but the Armies of the Lord a faithful people a chosen generation and what is that The Spirit of God adds a People zealous of good works Now as Christ proved his power to forgive sins by curing the poor mans Palsie because a man is never pardoned but when the punishment is removed so the great act of justification of a sinner the pardoning of his sins is then only effected when the spiritual evil is taken away that 's the best indication of a real and an eternal pardon when God takes away the hardness of the heart the love of sin the accursed habit the evil inclination the sin that doth so easily beset us and when that is gone what remains within us that God can hate Nothing stayes behind but Gods creation the work of his own hands the issues of his holy Spirit The Faith of a Christian is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it destroyes the whole body of sin and to suppose that Christ pardons a sinner whom he doth not also purge and rescue from the dominion of sin is to affirm that he justifies the wicked that he calls good evil and evil good that he delights in a wicked person that he makes a wicked man all one with himself that he makes the members of an harlot at the same time also the members of Christ but all this is impossible and therefore ought not to be pretended to by any Christian. Severe are those words of our Blessed Saviour Every plant in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away Faith ingrafts us into Christ by Faith we are inserted into the vine but the plant that is ingrafted must also be parturient and fruitful or else it shall be quite cut off from the root and thrown into the everlasting burning And this is the full and plain meaning of those words so often used in Scripture for the magnification of Faith The just shall live by Faith No man shall live by Faith but the just man he indeed is justified by Faith but no man else the unjust and the unrighteous man hath no portion in this matter That 's the first great consideration in this affair no man is justified in the least sense of justification that is when it means nothing but the pardon of sins but when his sin is mortified and destroyed 2. No man is actually justified but he that is in some measure sanctified For the understanding and clearing of which Proposition we must know that justification when it is attributed to any cause does not alwayes signifie justification actual Thus when it is said in Scripture We are justified by the death of Christ it is but the same thing as to say Christ dyed for us and he rose again for us too that we might indeed be justified in due time and by just measures and dispositions he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification that is by his Death and Resurrection he hath obtained this power and effected this mercy that if we believe him and obey we shall be justified and made capable of all the blessings of the Kingdom But that this is no more but a capacity of pardon of grace and of salvation appears not only by Gods requiring Obedience as a condition on our parts but by his expresly attributing this mercy to us at such times and in such circumstances in which it is certain and evident that we could not actually be justified for so saith the Scripture We when we were enemies were reconciled to God by the death of his Son and while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us that is then was our Justification wrought on Gods part that is then he intended this mercy to us then he resolved to shew us favour to give us Promises and Laws and Conditions and Hopes and an infallible Oeconomy of Salvation and when Faith layes hold on this Grace and this Justification then we are to do the other part of it that is as God made it potential by the Death and Resurrection of Christ so we laying hold on these things by Faith and working the Righteousness of Faith that is performing what is required on our parts we I say make it actual and for this very reason it is that the Apostle puts more Emphasis upon the Resurrection of Christ than upon his Death Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that
they fed this Family and ruled it by the word of their proper Ministry They had the keyes of this house the Stewards Ensign and they had the Rulers place for they sat on twelve Thrones and judged the twelve Tribes of Israel But of this there is no question And as little of another proposition that this Stewardship was to last for ever for the power of Ministring in this Office and the Office it self were to be perpetual For the issues and powers of Government are more necessary for the perpetuating the Church than for the first planting and if it was necessary that the Apostles should have a rod and a staff at first it would be more necessary afterwards when the Family was more numerous and their first zeal abated and their native simplicity perverted into arts of hypocrisie and forms of godliness when Heresies should arise and the love of many should wax cold The Apostles had also a power of Ordination and that the very power it self does denote for it makes perpetuity that could not expire in the dayes of the Apostles for by it they themselves propagated a succession And Christ having promised his Spirit to abide with his Church for ever and made his Apostles the Channels the Ministers and conveyances of it that it might descend as the inheritance and eternal portion of the Family it cannot be imagined that when the first Ministers were gone there should not others rise up in the same places some like to the first in the same Office and Ministry of the Spirit But the thing is plain and evident in the matter of fact also Quod in Ecclesiâ nunc geritur hoc olim fecerunt Apostoli said S. Cyprian What the Apostles did at first that the Church does to this day and shall do so for ever For when S. Paul had given to the Bishop of Ephesus rules of Government in this Family he commands that they should be observed till the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and therefore these authorities and charges are given to him and to his Successors it is the observation of S. Ambrose upon the warranty of that Text and is obvious and undeniable Well then The Apostles were the first Stewards and this Office dies not with them but must for ever be succeeded in and now begins the inquiry who are the successors of the Apostles for they are they must evidently be the Stewards to feed and to rule this Family There are some that say that all who have any portion of work in the Family all the Ministers of the Gospel are these Stewards and so all will be Rulers The Presbyters surely for say they Presbyter and Bishop is the same thing and have the same name in Scripture and therefore the Office cannot be distinguished To this I shall very briefly say two things which will quickly clear our way through this bush of thorns 1. That the word Presbyter is but an honourable appellative used amongst the Jews as Alderman amongst us but it signifies no order at all nor was ever used in Scripture to signifie any distinct company or order of Clergy And this appears not only by an induction in all the enumerations of the Offices Ministerial in the New Testament where to be a Presbyter is never reckoned either as a distinct Office or a distinct Order but by its being indifferently communicated to all the Superior Clergy and all the Princes of the People 2. The second thing I intended to say is this that although all the Superior Clergy had not only one but divers common appellatives all being called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even the Apostolate it self being called a Deaconship yet it is evident that before the common appellations were fixt into names of propriety they were as evidently distinguished in their Offices and Powers as they are at this day in their Names and Titles To this purpose S. Paul gave to Titus the Bishop of Crete a special Commission Command and Power to make Ordinations and in him and in the person of Timothy he did erect a Court of Judicature even over some of the Clergy who yet were called Presbyters against a Presbyter receive not an accusation but before two or three witnesses there is the measure and the warranty of the Audientia Episcopalis the Bishops Audience Court and when the accused were found guilty he gives in charge to proceed to censures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You must rebuke them sharply you must silence them stop their mouths that 's S. Pauls word that they may no more scatter their venom in the ears and hearts of the people These Bishops were commanded to set in order things that were wanting in the Churches the same with that power of S. Paul other things will I set in order when I come said he to the Corinthian Churches in which there were many who were called Presbyters who nevertheless for all that name had not that power To the same purpose it is plain in Scripture that some would have been Apostles that were not such were those whom the Spirit of God notes in the Revelation and some did love preeminence that had it not for so did Diotrephes and some were Judges of questions and all were not for therefore they appealed to the Apostles at Jerusalem and S. Philip though he was an Evangelist yet he could not give confirmation to the Samaritans whom he had baptized but the Apostles were sent for for that was part of the power reserved to the Episcopal or Apostolick Order Now from these premises the conclusion is plain and easie 1. Christ left a Government in his Church and founded it in the persons of the Apostles 2. The Apostles received this power for the perpetual use and benefit for the comfort and edification of the Church for ever 3. The Apostles had this Government but all that were taken into the Ministry and all that were called Presbyters had it not If therefore this Government in which there is so much disparity in the very nature and exercise and first original or it must abide for ever then so must that disparity If the Apostolate in the first stabiliment was this eminency of power then it must be so that is it must be the same in the succession that it was in the foundation For after the Church is founded upon its Governors we are to expect no change of Government If Christ was the Author of it then as Christ left it so it must abide for ever for ever there must be the Governing and the governed the Superior and the subordinate the Ordainer and the ordained the Confirmer and he confirmed Thus far the way is straight and the path is plain The Apostles were the Stewards and the ordinary Rulers of Christs Family by virtue of the order and office Apostolical and although this be succeeded to for ever yet
no man for his now or at any time being called a Presbyter or Elder can pretend to it for besides his being a Presbyter he must be an Apostle too else though he be called in partem sollicitudinis and may do the office of assistance and under-stewardship yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Government and Rule of the Family belongs not to him But then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who are these Stewards and Rulers over the houshold now To this the answer is also certain and easie Christ hath made the same Governors to day as heretofore Apostles still For though the twelve Apostles are dead yet the Apostolical order is not it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a generative order and begets more Apostles Now who these minores Apostoli are the successors of the Apostles in that Office Apostolical and supream regiment of souls we are sufficiently taught in Holy Scriptures which when I have clearly shewn to you I shall pass on to some more practical considerations 1. Therefore Certain and known it is that Christ appointed two sorts of Ecclesiastick persons XII Apostles and the LXXII Disciples to these he gave a limited commission to those a fulness of power to these a temporary imployment to those a perpetual and everlasting from these two societies founded by Christ the whole Church of God derives the two superiour orders in the sacred Hierarchy and as Bishops do not claim a Divine right but by succession from the Apostles so the Presbyters cannot pretend to have been instituted by Christ but by claiming a succession to the LXXII And then consider the difference compare the Tables and all the world will see the advantages of argument we have for since the LXXII had nothing but a mission on a temporary errand and more then that we hear nothing of them in Scripture but upon the Apostles Christ powred all the Ecclesiastical power and made them the ordinary Ministers of that Spirit which was to abide with the Church for ever the Divine institution of Bishops that is of Successors to the Apostles is much more clear then that Christ appointed Presbyters or Successors of the LXXII And yet if from hence they do not derive it they can never prove their order to be of Divine institution at all much less to be so alone But we may see the very thing it self the very matter of fact S. James the Bishop of Jerusalem is by S. Paul called an Apostle Other Apostles saw I none save James the Lords Brother For there were some whom the Scriptures call the Apostles of our Lord that is such which Christ made by his Word immediately or by his Spirit extraordinarily and even into this number and title Matthias and S. Paul and Barnabas were accounted But the Church also made Apostles and these were called by S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Apostles of the Churches and particularly Epaphroditus was the Apostle of the Philippians properly so faith Primasius and what is this else but the Bishop saith Theodoret for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those who are now called Bishops were then called Apostles saith the same Father The sense and full meaning of which argument is a perfect commentary upon that famous prophecy of the Church Instead of thy Fathers thou shalt have children whom thou mayst make Princes in all Lands that is not only the twelve Apostles our Fathers in Christ who first begat us were to rule Christs Family but when they were gone their Children and Successors should arise in their stead Et nati natorum qui nascentur ab illis their direct Successors to all generations shall be Principes populi that is Rulers and Governours of the whole Catholick Church De prole enim Ecclesiae crevit eidem paternita◠id est Episcopi quos illa genuit Patres appellat constituit in sedibus Patrum saith S. Austin the Children of the Church become Fathers of the faithful that is the Church begets Bishops and places them in the seat of Fathers the first Apostles After these plain and evident testimonies of Scripture it will not be amiss to say that this great affair relying not only upon the words of institution but on matter of fact passed forth into a demonstration and greatest notoriety by the Doctrine and Practice of the whole Catholick Church For so S. Irenaeus who was one of the most Ancient Fathers of the Church and might easily make good his affirmative We can says he reckon the men who by the Apostles were appointed Bishops in Churches to be their Successors unto us leaving to them the same power and authority which they had Thus S. Polycarp was by the Apostles made Bishop of Smyrna S. Clement Bishop of Rome by S. Peter and divers others by the Apostles saith Tertullian saying also that the Asian Bishops were consecrated by S. John And to be short that Bishops are the Successors of the Apostles in the Stewardship and Rule of the Church is expresly taught by S. Cyprian and S. Hierom S. Ambrose and S. Austin by Euthymius and Pacianus by S. Gregory and S. John Damascen by Clarius à Muscula and S. Sixtus by Anacletus and S. Isidore by the Roman Councel under S. Sylvester and the Councel of Carthage and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or succession of Bishops from the Apostles hands in all the Churches Apostolical was as certainly known as in our Chronicles we find the succession of our English Kings and one can no more be denyed then the other The conclusion from these Premises I give you in the words of S. Cyprian Cogitent Diaconi quod Apostolos id est Episcopos Dominus ipse elegerit Let the Ministers know that Apostles that is the Bishops were chosen by our blessed Lord himself and this was so evident and so believed that S. Austin affirms it with a nemo ignorat No man is so ignorant but he knows this that our blessed Saviour appointed Bishops over Churches Indeed the Gnosticks spake evil of this Order for they are noted by three Apostles S. Paul S. Peter and S. Jude to be despisers of Government and to speak evil of Dignities and what Government it was they did so despise we may understand by the words of S. Jude they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the contradiction or gainsaying of Corah who with his company rose up against Aaron the High Priest and excepting these who were the vilest of men no man within the first 300 years after Christ opposed Episcopacy But when Constantine received the Church into his arms he found it universally governed by Bishops and therefore no wise or good man professing to be a Christian that is to believe the Holy Catholick Church can be content to quit the Apostolical Government that by which the whole Family of God was fed and taught and ruled and beget to himself new Fathers and new Apostles who by wanting succession from the Apostles
of our Lord have no Ecclesiastical and Derivative Communion with these fountains of our Saviour If ever Lirinensis's rule could be used in any question it is in this Quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus That Bishops are the Successors of the Apostles in this Stewardship and that they did always rule the Family was taught and acknowledged always and every where and by all men that were of the Church of God and if these evidences be not sufficient to convince modest and sober persons in this question we shall find our faith to fail in many other Articles of which we yet are very confident For the observation of the Lords day the consecration of the holy Eucharist by Priests the baptizing Infants the communicating of Women and the very Canon of the Scripture it self relye but upon the same probation and therefore the denying of Articles thus proved is a way I do not say to bring in all Sects and Heresies that 's but little but a plain path and inlet to Atheism and Irreligion for by this means it will not only be impossible to agree concerning the meaning of Scripture but the Scripture it self and all the Records of Religion will become useless and of no efficacy or perswasion I am entred into a Sea of matter but I will break it off abruptly and sum up this inquiry with the words of the Councel of Chalcedon which is one of the four Generals by our Laws made the measures of judging Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is sacriledge to bring back a Bishop to the degree and order of a Presbyter It is indeed a rifling the order and intangling the gifts and confounding the method of the Holy Ghost it is a dishonouring them whom God would honour and a robbing them of those spiritual eminencies with which the Spirit of God does anoint the consecrated heads of Bishops And I shall say one thing more which indeed is a great truth that the diminution of Episcopacy was first introduced by Popery and the Popes of Rome by communicating to Abbots and other meer Priests special graces to exercise some essential Offices of Episcopacy have made this sacred Order to be cheap and apt to be invaded But then adde this If Simon Magus was in so damnable a condition for offering to buy the gifts and powers of the Apostolical Order what shall we think of them that snatch them away and pretend to wear them whether the Apostles and their Successors will or no This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to belye the Holy Ghost that is the least of it it is rapine and sacrilege besides the heresie and schism and the spiritual lye For the Government Episcopal as it was exemplified in the Synagogue and practised by the same measures in the Temple so it was transcribed by the eternal Son of God who translated it into a Gospel Ordinance it was sanctified by the Holy Spirit who named some of the persons and gave to them all power and graces from above it was subjected in the Apostles first and by them transmitted to a distinct Order of Ecclesiasticks it was received into all Churches consigned in the Records of the Holy Scriptures preached by the universal voice of all the Christian World delivered by notorious and uninterrupted practice and derived to further and unquestionable issue by perpetual succession I have done with the hardest part of the Text by finding out the persons intrusted the Stewards of Christs Family which though Christ only intimated in this place yet he plainly enough manifested in others The Apostles and their Successors the Bishops are the men intrusted with this great charge God grant they may all discharge it well And so I pass from the Officers to a consideration of the Office it self in the next words Whom the Lord shall make Ruler over his Houshold to give them their meat in due season 2. The Office it self is the Stewardship that is Episcopacy the Office of the Bishop The name signifies an Office of the Ruler indefinitely but the word was chosen and by the Church appropriated to those whom it now signifies both because the word it self is a monition of duty and also because the faithful were used to it in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets The word is in the Prophecy of the Church I will give to thee Princes in Peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Bishops in Righteousness upon which place S. Hierom sayes Principes Ecclesiae vocat futuros Episcopos The Spirit of God calls them who were to be Christian Bishops Principes or chief Rulers and this was no new thing for the chief of the Priests who were set over the rest are called Bishops by all the Hellenist Jews Thus Joel is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop over the Priests and the son of Bani 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop and Visitor over the Levites and we find at the purging of the Land from Idolatry the High Priest placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishops over the House of God Nay it was the appellative of the High Priest himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishop Eleazar the Son of Aaron the Priest to whom is committed the care of Lamps and the daily Sacrifice and the holy unction Now this word the Church retained choosing the same Name to her superior Ministers because of the likeness of the Ecclesiastical Government between the Old and New Testament For Christ made no change but what was necessary Baptism was a rite among the Jews and the Lords Supper was but the post-coenium of the Hebrews changed into a mystery from a type to a more real exhibition and the Lords Prayer was a collection of the most eminent devotions of the Prophets and Holy men before Christ who prayed by the same Spirit and the censures Ecclesiastical were but an imitation of the proceedings of the Judaical Tribunals and the whole Religion was but the Law of Moses drawn out of its vail into clarity and manifestation and to conclude in order to the present affair the Government which Christ left was the same as he found it for what Aaron and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple that Bishops Priests and Deacons are in the Church it is affirmed by S. Hierom more than once and the use he makes of it is this Esto subjectus Pontifici tuo quasi animae parentem suscipe Obey your Bishop and receive him as the nursing Father of your Soul But above all this appellation is made honourable by being taken by our blessed Lord himself for he is called in Scripture the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls But our enquiry is not after the Name but the Office and the Dignity and Duty of it Ecclesiae gubernandae sublimis ac divina potestos so S. Cyprian calls it a High and a Divine power from God of governing the Church rem magnam preciosam in conspectu Domini so S.
imploretur remedium run to the King for remedy for therefore God hath set the Imperial fortune over humane affairs ut possit omnia quae noviter contingunt emendare componere modis ac regulis competentibus tradere that the King may amend and rule and compose every new arising question And it is not to be despised but is a great indication of this Truth that the Answers of the Roman Princes and Judges recorded in the Civil Law are such that all Nations of the world do approve them and are a great testimony how the sentences of Kings ought to be valued even in matters of Religion and questions of greatest doubt Bona conscientia Scyphus est Josephi said the old Abbot of Kells a good Conscience is like Joseph's Cup in which our Lord the King divines And since God hath blessed us with so good so just so religious and so wise a Prince let the sentence of his Laws be our last resort and no questions be permitted after his judgment and legal determination For Wisdom saith By me Princes rule by me they decree justice and therefore the spirit of the King is a divine eminency and is as the spirit of the most High God 4. Let no man be too busie in disputing the laws of his Superiors for a man by that seldom gets good to himself but seldom misses to do mischief unto others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said one in Laertius Will a Son contend with his Father that 's not decent though the son speak that which is right he may possibly say well enough but he does do very ill not only because he does not pay his duty and reverential fear but because it is in it self very often unreasonable to dispute concerning the command of our Superior whether it be good or no for the very commandment can make it not only good but a necessary good It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things said the Council of Jerusalem and yet these things were not necessary but as they were commanded to abstain from a strangled hen or a bloody pudding could not of themselves be necessary but the commandment came authority did interpose and then they were made so 5. But then besides the advantages both of the Spirit and the authority of Kings in matter of question the Laws and Decrees of a National Church ought upon the account of their own advantages be esteemed as a final sentence in all things disputed The thing is a plain command Hebrews 13. 7. Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God this tells what Rulers he means Rulers Ecclesiastical and what of them whose faith follow they must praeire in articulis they are not Masters of your Faith but Guides of it and they that sit in Moses chair must be heard and obeyed said our blessed Saviour These words were not said for nothing and they were nothing if their authority were nothing For between the laws of a Church and the opinion of a Subject the comparison is the same as between a publick spirit and a private The publick is far the better the daughter of God and the mother of a blessing and alwayes dwels in light The publick spirit hath already passed the tryal it hath been subjected to the Prophets tryed and searched and approved the private is yet to be examined The publick spirit is uniform and apt to be followed the private is various and multiform as chance and no man can follow him that hath it for if he follows one he is reproved by a thousand and if he changes he may get a shame but no truth and he can never rest but in the arms and conduct of his Superior When Aaron and Miriam murmured against Moses God told them they were Prophets of an inferior rank than Moses was God communicated himself to them in dreams and visions but the Ruach hakkodesh the publick spirit of Moses their Prince that was higher and what then wherefore then God said were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses plainly teaching us that where there is a more excellent spirit they that have a spirit less excellent ought to be afraid to speak against it And this is the full case of the private and publick spirit that is of a Subject speaking against the Spirit and the Laws of the Church In Heaven and in the air and in all the regions of Spirits the Spirit of a lower Order dares not speak against the Spirit of an higher and therefore for a private Spirit to oppose the publick is a disorder greater than is in Hell it self To conclude this point Let us consider whether it were not an intolerable mischief if the Judges should give sentence in causes of instance by the measures of their own fancy and not by the Laws who would endure them and yet why may they not do that as well as any Ecclesiastick person preach Religion not which the Laws allow but what is taught him by his own private Opinion but he that hath the Laws on his side hath ever something of true Religion to warrant him and can never want a great measure of justification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Laws and the Customs of the Country are the results of wise Counsels or long experience they ever comply with Peace and publick benefit and nothing of this can be said of private Religions for they break the Peace and trouble the Conscience and undoe Government and despise the Laws and offend Princes and dishonour the wisdom of Parliaments and destroy Obedience Well but in the last place but if we cannot do what the Laws command we will suffer what they impose and then all is well again But first who ever did so that could help it And secondly this talking of passive Obedience is but a mockery for what man did ever say the Laws were not good but he also said the Punishment was unjust And thirdly which of all the Recusants did not endeavour to get ground upon the Laws and secretly or openly asperse the Authority that put him to pain for doing that which he calls his duty and can any man boast of his passive Obedience that calls it Persecution he may think to please himself but he neither does or sayes any thing that is for the reputation of the Laws Such men are like them that sail in a storm they may possibly be thrown into a Harbour but they are very sick all the way But after all this I have one thing to observe to such persons That such a passive Obedience as this does not acquit a man before God and he that suffers what the Law inflicts is not discharged in the Court of Conscience but there is still a sinner and a debter For the Law is not made for the righteous but for sinners that is the punishment
he runs to commit his sin with as certain an event and resolution as if he knew no Argument against it These notices of things terrible and true pass through his Understanding as an Eagle through the Air as long as her flight lasted the air was shaken but there remains no path behind her Now since at the same time we see other persons not so learned it may be not so much versed in Scriptures yet they say a thing is good and lay hold of it they believe glorious things of Heaven and they live accordingly as men that believe themselves half a word is enough to make them understand a nod is a sufficient reproof the crowing of a Cock the singing of a Lark the dawning of the day and the washing their hands are to them competent memorials of Religion and warnings of their duty What is the reason of this difference They both read the Scriptures they read and hear the same Sermons they have capable Understandings they both believe what they hear and what they read and yet the event is vastly different The reason is that which I am now speaking of the one understands by one Principle the other by another the one understands by Nature and the other by Grace the one by Humane Learning and the other by Divine the one reads the Scriptures without and the other within the one understands as a Son of Man the other as a Son of God the one perceives by the proportions of the world and the other by the measures of the Spirit the one understands by Reason and the other by Love and therefore he does not only understand the Sermons of the Spirit and perceives their meaning but he pierces deeper and knows the meaning of that meaning that is the secret of the Spirit that which is spiritually discerned that which gives life to the Proposition and activity to the Soul And the reason is because he hath a Divine Principle within him and a new Understanding that is plainly he hath Love and that 's more than Knowledge as was rarely well observed by S. Paul Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth that is Charity makes the best Scholars No Sermons can edifie you no Scriptures can build you up a holy Building to God unless the Love of God be in your hearts and purifie your Souls from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit But so it is in the regions of Stars where a vast body of Fire is so divided by excentrick motions that it looks as if Nature had parted them into Orbs and round shells of plain and purest materials But where the cause is simple and the matter without variety the motions must be uniform and in Heaven we should either espy no motion or no variety But God who designed the Heavens to be the causes of all changes and motions here below hath placed his Angels in their houses of light and given to every one of his appointed Officers a portion of the fiery matter to circumagitate and roll and now the wonder ceases for if it be enquired why this part of the fire runs Eastward and the other to the South they being both indifferent to either it is because an Angel of God sits in the Centre and makes the same matter turn not by the bent of its own mobility and inclination but in order to the needs of Man and the great purposes of God And so it is in the Understandings of Men when they all receive the same Notions and are taught by the same Master and give full consent to all the Propositions and can of themselves have nothing to distinguish them in the events it is because God has sent his Divine Spirit and kindles a new fire and creates a braver capacity and applies the Actives to the Passives and blesses their operation For there is in the heart of man such a dead sea and an indisposition to holy flames like as in the cold Rivers in the North so as the fires will not burn them and the Sun it self will never warm them till Gods holy Spirit does from the Temple of the New Jerusalem bring a holy flame and make it shine and burn The Natural man saith the holy Apostle cannot preceive the things of the Spirit they are foolishness unto him for they are spiritually discerned For he that discourses of things by the measures of sense thinks nothing good but that which is delicious to the palate or pleases the brutish part of Man and therefore while he estimates the secrets of Religion by such measures they must needs seem as insipid as Cork or the uncondited Mushrom for they have nothing at all of that in their constitution A voluptuous person is like the Dogs of Sicily so fill'd with the deliciousness of Plants that grow in every furrow and hedge that they can never keep the scent of their Game 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Chrysostom The fire and water can never mingle so neither can sensuality and the watchfulness and wise discerning of the Spirit Pilato interroganti de veritate Christus non respondit When the wicked Governour asked of Christ concerning Truth Christ gave him no answer He was not fit to hear it He therefore who so understands the Words of God that he not only believes but loves the Proposition he who consents with all his heart and being convinc'd of the truth does also apprehend the necessity and obeys the precept and delights in the discovery and lays his hand upon his heart and reduces the notices of things to the practice of duty he who dares trust his proposition and drives it on to the utmost issue resolving to go after it whithersoever it can invite him this Man walks in the Spirit at least thus far he is gone towards it his Understanding is brought in obsequium Christi into the obedience of Christ. This is a loving God with all our mind and whatever goes less than this is but Memory and not Understanding or else such notice of things by which a man is neither the wiser nor the better 3. Sometimes God gives to his choicest his most elect and precious Servants a knowledge even of secret things which he communicates not to others We finde it greatly remark'd in the case of Abraham Gen. 18. 17. And the Lord said Shall I hide from Abraham that thing that I do Why not from Abraham God tells us ver 19. For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And though this be irregular and infrequent yet it is a reward of their piety and the proper increase also of the spiritual man We find this spoken by God to Daniel and promised to be the lot of the righteous man in the days of the Messias Dan. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tryed but the wicked shall do wickedly and what then None of
the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand Where besides that the wise man and the wicked are opposed plainly signifying that the wicked man is a Fool and an Ignorant it is plainly said that None of the wicked shall understand the wisdom and mysteriousness of the Kingdom of the Messias 4. A good life is the best way to understand Wisdom and Religion because by the experiences and relishes of Religion there is conveyed to them such a sweetness to which all wicked men are strangers there is in the things of God to them which practise them a deliciousness that makes us love them and that love admits us into Gods Cabinet and strangely clarifies the Understanding by the purification of the Heart For when our Reason is raised up by the Spirit of Christ it is turned quickly into experience when our Faith relies upon the Principles of Christ it is changed into Vision and so long as we know God only in the ways of man by contentious Learning by Arguing and Dispute we see nothing but the shadow of him and in that shadow we meet with many dark appearances little certainty and much conjecture But when we know him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the eyes of holiness and the intuition of gracious experiences with a quiet spirit and the peace of Enjoyment then we shall hear what we never heard and see what our eyes never saw then the mysteries of Godliness shall be opened unto us and clear as the windows of the morning And this is rarely well expressed by the Apostle If we stand up from the dead and awake from sleep then Christ shall give us light For although the Scriptures themselves are written by the Spirit of God yet they are written within and without and besides the light that shines upon the face of them unless there be a light shining within our hearts unfolding the leaves and interpreting the mysterious sense of the Spirit convincing our Consciences and preaching to our hearts to look for Christ in the leaves of the Gospel is to look for the living amongst the dead There is a life in them but that life is according to S. Paul's expression hid with Christ in God and unless the Spirit of God be the Promo-condus we shall never draw it forth Humane Learning brings excellent ministeries towards this it is admirably useful for the reproof of Heresies for the detection of Fallacies for the Letter of the Scripture for Collateral testimonies for exterior advantages but there is something beyond this that humane Learning without the addition of Divine can never reach Moses was learned in all the Learning of the Egyptians and the holy men of God contemplated the glories of God in the admirable order motion and influences of the Heaven but besides all this they were taught of God something far beyond these prettinesses Pythagoras read Moses's Books and so did Plato and yet they became not Proselytes of the Religion though they were learned Scholars of such a Master The reason is because that which they drew forth from thence was not the life and secret of it Tradidit arcano quodcunque Volumine Moses There is a secret in these Books which few men none but the Godly did understand and though much of this secret is made manifest in the Gospel yet even here also there is a Letter and there is a Spirit still there is a reserve for Gods secret ones even all those deep mysteries which the old Testament covered in Figures and Stories and Names and Prophesies and which Christ hath and by his Spirit will yet reveal more plainly to all that will understand them by their proper measures For although the Gospel is infinitely more legible and plain than the obscurer Leaves of the Law yet there is a Seal upon them also which Seal no man shall open but he that is worthy We may understand something of it by the three Children of the Captivity they were all skill'd in all the wisdom of the Chaldees and so was Daniel but there was something beyond that in him the wisdom of the most high God was in him and that taught him a learning beyond his learning In all Scripture there is a spiritual sense a spiritual Cabala which as it tends directly to holiness so it is best and truest understood by the Sons of the Spirit who love God and therefore know him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every thing is best known by its own similitudes and analogies But I must take some other time to speak fully of these things I have but one thing more to say and then I shall make my Applications of this Doctrine and so conclude 5. Lastly there is a sort of Gods dear Servants who walk in perfectness who perfect holiness in the fear of God and they have a degree of Clarity and divine knowledge more than we can discourse of and more certain than the Demonstrations of Geometry brighter than the Sun and indeficient as the light of Heaven This is called by the Apostle the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ is this brightness of God manifested in the hearts of his dearest Servants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But I shall say no more of this at this time for this is to be felt and not to be talked of and they that never touched it with their finger may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their heart and be never the wiser All that I shall now say of it is that a good man is united unto God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a flame touches a flame and combines into splendor and to glory so is the Spirit of a man united unto Christ by the Spirit of God These are the friends of God and they best know Gods mind and they only that are so know how much such men do know They have a special Vnction from above So that now you are come to the top of all this is the highest round of the Ladder and the Angels stand upon it they dwell in Love and Contemplation they worship and obey but dispute not and our quarrels and impertinent wranglings about Religion are nothing else but the want of the measures of this State Our light is like a Candle every wind of vain Doctrine blows it out or spends the wax and makes the light tremulous but the lights of Heaven are fixed and bright and shine for ever But that we may speak not only things mysterious but things intelligible how does it come to pass by what means and what Oeconomy is it effected that a holy life is the best determination of all Questions and the surest way of knowledge Is it to be supposed that a Godly man is better enabled to determine the Questions of Purgatory of Transubstantiation is the gift of Chastity the best way to reconcile Thomas and Scotus and is a temperate man alwaies a better Scholar than a Drunkard To this I answer that in all things in
cannot know him And this is the particular I am now to speak to The way by which the Spirit of God teaches us in all the ways and secrets of God is Love and Holinesse Secreta Dei Deo nostro filiis domus ejus Gods secrets are to himself and the sons of his House saith the Jewish Proverb Love is the great instrument of Divine knowledge that is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the height of all that is to be taught or learned Love is Obedience and we learn his words best when we practise them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle those things which they that learn ought to practise even while they practise will best learn Quisquis non venit profectò nec didicit Ita enim Dominus docet per Spiritus gratiam ut quod quisque didicerit non tantum cognoscendo videat sed etiam volendo appetat agendo perficiat St. Austin De gratia Christi lib. 1. c. 14. Unlesse we come to Christ we shall never learn for so our Blessed Lord teaches us by the grace of his Spirit that what any one learns he not only sees it by knowledge but desires it by choice and perfects it by practice 4. When this is reduced to practice and experience we find not only in things of practice but even in deepest mysteries not only the choicest and most eminent Saints but even every good man can best tell what is true and best reprove an error He that goes about to speak of and to understand the mysterious Trinity and does it by words and names of mans invention or by such which signifie contingently if he reckons this mystery by the Mythology of Numbers by the Cabala of Letters by the distinctions of the School and by the weak inventions of disputing people if he only talks of Essences and existencies Hypostases and personalities distinctions without difference and priority in Coequalities and unity in Pluralities and of superior Praedicates of no larger extent then the inferior Subjects he may amuse himself and find his understanding will be like St. Peters upon the Mount of Tabor at the Transfiguration he may build three Tabernacles in his head and talk something but he knows not what But the good man that feels the power of the Father and he to whom the Son is become Wisdom Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption he in whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is spred to whom God hath communicated the Holy Ghost the Comforter this man though he understands nothing of that which is unintelligible yet he only understands the mysteriousnesse of the Holy Trinity No man can be convinced well and wisely of the Article of the Holy Blessed and Vndivided Trinity but he that feels the mightiness of the Father begetting him to a new life the wisdom of the Son building him up in a most holy Faith and the love of the Spirit of God making him to become like unto God He that hath passed from his Childhood in Grace under the spiritual generation of the Father and is gone forward to be a young man in Christ strong and vigorous in holy actions and holy undertakings and from thence is become an old Disciple and strong and grown old in Religion and the conversation of the Spirit this man best understands the secret and undiscernable oeconomy he feels this unintelligible Mystery and sees with his heart what his tongue can never express and his Metaphysicks can never prove In these cases Faith and Love are the best Knowledg and Jesus Christ is best known by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and if the Kingdom of God be in us then we know God and are known of him and when we communicate of the Spirit of God when we pray for him and have received him and entertained him and dwelt with him and warmed our selves by his holy fires then we know him too But there is no other satisfactory knowledge of the Blessed Trinity but this And therefore whatever thing is spoken of God Metaphysically there is no knowing of God Theologically and as he ought to be known but by the measures of Holiness and the proper light of the Spirit of God But in this case Experience is the best Learning and Christianity is the best Institution and the Spirit of God is the best Teacher and Holiness is the greatest Wisdom and he that sins most is the most Ignorant and the humble and obedient man is the best Scholar For the Spirit of God is a loving Spirit and will not enter into a polluted Soul But he that keepeth the Law getteth the understanding thereof and the perfection of the fear of the Lord is Wisdom said the wise Ben-Sirach And now give me leave to apply the Doctrine to you and so I shall dismiss you from this attention Many ways have been attempted to reconcile the differences of the Church in matters of Religion and all the Counsels of man have yet prov'd ineffective Let us now try Gods method let us betake our selves to live holily and then the Spirit of God will lead us into all Truth And indeed it matters not what Religion any man is of if he be a Villain the Opinion of his Sect as it will not save his Soul so neither will it do good to the Publick But this is a sure Rule If the holy man best understands Wisdom and Religion then by the proportions of holiness we shall best measure the Doctrines that are obtruded to the disturbance of our Peace and the dishonour of the Gospel And therefore 1. That is no good Religion whose Principles destroy any duty of Religion He that shall maintain it to be lawful to make a War for the defence of his Opinion be it what it will his Doctrine is against Godliness Any thing that is proud any thing that is peevish and scornful any thing that is uncharitable is against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that form of sound Doctrine which the Apostle speaks of And I remember that Ammianus Marcellinus telling of George a proud and factious Minister that he was an Informer against his Brethren he says he did it oblitus professionis suae quae nil nisi justum suadet lene he forgot his Profession which teaches nothing but justice and meekness kindnesses and charity And however Bellarmine and others are pleased to take but indirect and imperfect notice of it yet Goodness is the best note of the true Church 2. It is but an ill sign of Holiness when a man is busie in troubling himself and his Superiour in little Scruples and phantastick Opinions about things not concerning the life of Religion or the pleasure of God or the excellencies of the Spirit A good man knows how to please God how to converse with him how to advance the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus to set forward Holiness and the Love of God and of his Brother and he knows also that there is no Godliness in
had a Revenue almost treble to any of the largest of the Tribes I will not insist on what Villalpandus observes it may easily be read in the 45. of Ezekiel concerning that portion which God reserves for himself and his service but whatsoever it be this I shall say that it is confessedly a Prophecy of the Gospel but this I add that they had as little to do and much less than a Christian Priest and yet in all the 24 courses the poorest Priest amongst them might be esteemed a rich man I speak not this to upbraid any man or any thing but Sacriledge and Murmur nor to any other end but to represent upon what great and Religious grounds the then Bishop of Derry did with so much care and assiduous labour endeavour to restore the Church of Ireland to that splendor and fulness which as it is much conducing to the honour of God and of Religion God himself being the Judge so it is much more necessary for you than it is for us and so this wise Prelate rarely well understood it and having the same advantage and blessing as we now have a gracious King and a Lieutenant Patron of Religion and the Church he improved the deposita pietatis as Origen calls them the Gages of Piety which the Religion of the ancient Princes and Nobles of this Kingdom had bountifully given to such a comfortable competency that though there be place left for present and future Piety to enlarge it self yet no man hath reason to be discouraged in his duty insomuch that as I have heard from a most worthy hand that at his going into England he gave account to the Arch-bishop of Canterbury of 30000 l. a year in the recovery of which he was greatly and principally instrumental But the goods of this World are called waters by Solomon Stollen waters are sweet and they are too unstable to be stopt some of these waters did run back from their proper Channel and return to another course than God and the Laws intended yet his labours and pious Counsels were not the less acceptable to God and good men and therefore by a thankful and honourable recognition the Convocation of the Church of Ireland hath transmitted in Record to posterity their deep resentment of his singular services and great abilities in this whole affair And this honour will for ever remain to that Bishop of Derry he had a Zerubbabel who repaired the Temple and restored its beauty but he was the Joshua the High-Priest who under him ministred this blessing to the Congregations of the Lord. But his care was not determined in the exterior part only and Accessaries of Religion he was careful and he was prosperous in it to reduce that Divine and excellent Service of our Church to publick and constant Exercise to Unity and Devotion and to cause the Articles of the Church of England to be accepted as the Rule of publick confessions and perswasions here that they and we might be Populus unius labii of one heart and one lip building up our hopes of Heaven on a most holy Faith and taking away that Shibboleth which made this Church lisp too undecently or rather in some little degree to speak the speech of Ashdod and not the language of Canaan and the excellent and wise pains he took in this particular no man can dehonestate or reproach but he that is not willing to confess that the Church of England is the best Reformed Church in the world But when the brave Roman Infantry under the Conduct of Manlius ascended up to the Capitol to defend Religion and their Altars from the fury of the Gauls they all prayed to God Vt quemadmodum ipsi ad defendendum templum ejus concurrissent ita ille virtutem eorum numine suo tueretur That as they came to defend his Temple by their Arms so he would defend their Persons and that Cause with his Power and Divinity And this excellent man in the Cause of Religion found the like blessing which they prayed for God by the prosperity of his labours and a blessed effect gave testimony not only of the Piety and Wisdom of his purposes but that he loves to bless a wise Instrument when it is vigorously employed in a wise and religious labour He overcame the difficulty in defiance of all such pretences as were made even from Religion it self to obstruct the better procedure of real and material Religion These were great things and matter of great envy and like the fiery eruptions of Vesuvius might with the very ashes of Consumption have buried another man At first indeed as his blessed Master the most holy Jesus had so he also had his Annum acceptibilem At first the product was nothing but great admiration at his stupendious parts and wonder at his mighty diligence and observation of his unusual zeal in so good and great things but this quickly passed into the natural daughters of Envy Suspicion and Detraction the Spirit of Obloquy and Slander His zeal for recovery of the Church Revenues was called Oppression and Rapine Covetousness and Injustice his care of reducing Religion to wise and justifiable principles was called Popery and Arminianism and I know not what names which signifie what the Authors are pleased to mean and the people to construe and to hate The intermedial prosperity of his Person and Fortune which he had as an earnest of a greater reward to so well-meant labours was supposed to be the production of Illiberal Arts and ways of getting and the necessary refreshment of his wearied spirits which did not always supply all his needs and were sometimes less than the permissions even of prudent charity they called Intemperance Dederunt enim malum Metelli Nevio poetae their own surmises were the Bills of Accusation and the splendour of his great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Doing of good works was the great probation of all their Calumnies But if Envy be the accuser what can be the defences of Innocence Saucior invidiae morsu quaerenda medela est Dic quibus in terris sentiet aeger opem Our Blessed Saviour knowing the unsatisfiable angers of men if their Money or Estates were medled with refused to divide an Inheritance amongst Brethren it was not to be imagined that this great person invested as all his Brethren were with the infirmities of Mortality and yet employed in dividing and recovering and apportioning of Lands should be able to bear all that reproach which Jealousie and Suspicion and malicious Envy could invent against him But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Sophocles And so did he the Affrightments brought to his great Fame and Reputation made him to walk more warily and do justly and act prudently and conduct his affairs by the measures of Laws as far as he understood and indeed that was a very great way but there was Aperta justitia clausa manus Justice was open but his Hand was shut and though every
discourse that the pleasures of reading the Book would be the greatest if the profit to the Church of God were not greater Flumina tum lactis tum flumina nectaris ibant Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella For so Sampson's Riddle was again expounded Out of the strong came meat and out of the eater came sweetness his Arguments were strong and the Eloquence was sweet and delectable and though there start up another combatant against him yet he had only the honour to fall by the hands of Hector still haeret lateri lethalis arundo the headed arrow went in so far that it could not be drawn out but the barbed steel stuck behind And whenever men will desire to be satisfied in those great questions the Bishop of Derry's Book shall be his Oracle I will not insist upon his other excellent writings but it is known every where with what Piety and acumen he wrote against the Manichean Doctrine of Fatal necessity which a late witty man had pretended to adorn with a new Vizor but this excellent Person washed off the Ceruse and the meritricious paintings rarely well asserted the oeconomy of the Divine Providence and having once more triumphed over his Adversary plenus victoriarum trophaeorum betook himself to the more agreeable attendance upon sacred Offices and having usefully and wisely discoursed of the sacred Rite of Confirmation imposed his hands upon the most Illustrious Princes the Dukes of York and Gloucester and the Princess Royal and ministred to them the Promise of the Holy Spirit and ministerially established them in the Religion and Service of the holy Jesus And one thing more I shall remark that at his leaving those Parts upon the Kings Return some of the Remonstrant Ministers of the Low Countries coming to take their leaves of this great man and desiring that by his means the Church of England would be kind to them he had reason to grant it because they were learned men and in many things of a most excellent belief yet he reproved them and gave them caution against it that they approached too near and gave too much countenance to the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians He thus having served God and the King abroad God was pleased to return to the King and to us all as in the days of old and we sung the song of David In convertendo captivitatem Sion When King David and all his Servants returned to Jerusalem this great person having trod in the Wine-press was called to drink of the Wine and as an honorary Reward of his great services and abilities was chosen Primate of this National Church In which time we are to look upon him as the King and the Kings great Vicegerent did as a person concerning whose abilities the World had too great testimony ever to make a doubt It is true he was in the declension of his age and health but his very Ruines were goodly and they who saw the broken heaps of Pompey's Theatre and the crushed Obelisks and the old face of beauteous Philaenium could not but admire the disordered glories of such magnificent structures which were venerable in their very dust He ever was used to overcome all difficulties only Mortality was too hard for him but still his Vertues and his Spirit was immortal he still took great care and still had new and noble designs and proposed to himself admirable things He governed his Province with great justice and sincerity Vnus amplo consulens pastor gregi Somnos tuetur omnium solus vigil And had this remark in all his Government that as he was a great hater of Sacriledge so he professed himself a publick Enemy to Non-residence and often would declare wisely and religiously against it allowing it in no case but of necessity or the greater good of the Church There are great things spoken of his Predecessor S. Patrick that he founded 700 Churches and Religious Convents that he ordained 5000 Priests and with his own hands consecrated 350 Bishops How true the story is I know not but we were all witnesses that the late Primate whose memory we now celebrate did by an extraordinary contingency of Providence in one day consecrate two Arch-Bishops and ten Bishops and did benefit to almost all the Churches in Ireland and was greatly instrumental to the Re-endowments of the whole Clergy and in the greatest abilities and incomparable industry was inferior to none of his most glorious Antecessours Since the Canonization of Saints came into the Church we find no Irish Bishop canonized except S. Laurence of Dublin and S. Malachias of Down indeed Richard of Armagh's Canonization was propounded but not effected but the Character which was given of that learned Primate by Trithemius does exactly fit this our late Father Vir in Divinis Scripturis eruditus secularis Philosophiae jurisque Canonici non ignarus clarus ingenio sermone scholasticus in declamandis sermonibus ad populum excellentis industriae He was learned in the Scriptures skill'd in secular Philosophy and not unknowing in the Civil and Canon Laws in which studies I wish the Clergy were with some carefulness and diligence still more conversant he was of an excellent spirit a Scholar in his discourses an early and industrious Preacher to the people And as if there were a more particular sympathy between their souls our Primate had so great a Veneration to his memory that he purposed if he had lived to have restored his Monument in Dundalke which Time or Impiety or Unthankfulness had either omitted or destroyed So great a lover he was of all true and inherent worth that he loved it in the very memory of the dead and to have such great Examples transmitted to the intuition and imitation of posterity At his coming to the Primacy he knew he should at first espie little besides the Ruines of Discipline a Harvest of thorns and Heresies prevailing in the hearts of the People the Churches possessed by Wolves and Intruders Mens hearts greatly estranged from true Religion and therefore he set himself to weed the fields of the Church he treated the Adversaries sometimes sweetly sometimes he confuted them learnedly sometimes he rebuked them sharply He visited his Charges diligently and in his own person not by Proxies and instrumental Deputations Quaerens non nostra sed nos quae sunt Jesu Christi he designed nothing that we knew of but the Redintegration of Religion the Honour of God and the King the Restoring of collapsed Discipline and the Renovation of Faith and the Service of God in the Churches And still he was indefatigable and even at the last scene of his life intended to undertake a Regal Visitation Quid enim vultis me otiosum à Domino comprehendi said one he was not willing that God should take him unimployed But good man he felt his Tabernacle ready to fall in pieces and could go no further for God would have no more work done by that
and it is a long time before Nature makes them capable of help for there are many deaths and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed but they have but very few capacities of Physick to shew that infancy is as liable to death as old age and equally exposed to danger and equally uncapable of a remedy with this only difference that old age hath diseases incurable by nature and the diseases of childhood are incurable by art and both the states are the next heirs of death 3. But all the middle way the case is altered Nature is strong and Art is apt to give ease and remedy but still there is no security and there the case is not altered 1. For there are so many diseases in men that are not understood 2. So many new ones every year 3. The old ones are so changed in circumstances and intermingled with so many collateral complications 4. The Symptoms are oftentimes so alike 5. Sometimes so hidden and fallacious 6. Sometimes none at all as in the most sudden and most dangerous Imposthumations 7. And then the diseases in the inward parts of the body are oftentimes such to which no application can be made 8. They are so far off that the effects of all medicines can no otherwise come to them than the effect and juices of all meats that is not till after two or three alterations and decoctions which change the very species of the medicament 9. And after all this very many principles in the art of Physick are so uncertain that after they have been believed seven or eight Ages and that upon them much of the practice hath been established they come to be considered by a witty man and others established in their stead by which men must practise and by which three or four generations of men more as happens must live or die 10. And all this while the men are sick and they take things that certainly make them sicker for the present and very uncertainly restore health for the future that it may appear of what a large extent is humane calamity when Gods providence hath not only made it weak and miserable upon the certain stock of a various nature and upon the accidents of an infinite contingency but even from the remedies which are appointed our dangers and our troubles are certainly encreased so that we may well be likened to water our nature is no stronger our abode no more certain if the sluces be opened it falls away and runneth apace if its current be stopped it swells and grows troublesome and spills over with a greater diffusion if it be made to stand still it putrifies and all this we do For 4. In all the process of our health we are running to our grave we open our own sluces by viciousness and unworthy actions we pour in drink and let out life we increase diseases and know not how to bear them we strangle our selves with our own intemperance we suffer the fevers and the inflammations of lust and we quench our souls with drunkenness we bury our understandings in loads of meat and surfets and then we lie down upon our beds and roar with pain and disquietness of our souls Nay we kill one anothers souls and bodies with violence and folly with the effects of pride and uncharitableness we live and die like fools and bring a new mortality upon our selves wars and vexatious cares and private duells and publick disorders and every thing that is unreasonable and every thing that is violent so that now we may add this fourth gate to the Grave Besides Nature and Chance and the mistakes of Art men die with their own Sins and then enter into the Grave in haste and passion and pull the heavy stone of the Monument upon their own heads And thus we make our selves like water spilt on the ground we throw away our lives as if they were unprofitable and indeed most men make them so we let our years slip through our fingers like water and nothing is to be seen but like a showr of tears upon a spot of ground there is a Grave digged and a solemn mourning and a great talk in the Neighbourhood and when the daies are finished they shall be and they shall be remembred no more And that 's like water too when it is spilt it cannot be gathered up again There is no redemption from the Grave inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitäi lampada tradunt Men live in their course and by turns their light burns a while and then it burns blew and faint and men go to converse with Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows Son of Naim and Tebitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the Resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers only to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the new Testament one only excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the Resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by S. Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulness and the only exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same process was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spiritual capacities So that although the Lord of Nature did not break the bands of Nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the Eternal mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the Grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulness that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first
a vice that she might only see it and loath it but never taste of it so much as to be put to her choice whether she would be virtuous or no. God intending to secure this Soul to himself would not suffer the follies of the world to seize upon her by way of too neer a trial or busie temptation 3. She was married young and besides her businesses of Religion seemed to be ordained in the providence of God to bring to this honourable Family a part of a fair Fortune and to leave behind her a fairer Issue worth ten thousand times her Portion And as if this had been all the publick business of her life when she had so far served Gods ends God in mercy would also serve hers and take her to an early blessedness 4. In passing through which line of providence she had the art to secure her eternal Interest by turning her Condition into Duty and expressing her Duty in the greatest eminency of a virtuous prudent and rare affection that hath been known in any example I will not give her so low a testimony as to say only that she was chast She was a Person of that severity modesty and close Religion as to that particular that she was not capable of uncivil temptation and you might as well have suspected the Sun to smell of the Poppy that he looks on as that she could have been a person apt to be sullied by the breath of a soul question 5. But that which I shall note in her is that which I would have exemplar to all Ladies and to all Women She had a love so great for her Lord so intirely given up to a dear affection that she thought the same things and loved the same loves and hated according to the same enmities and breathed in his soul and lived in his presence and languished in his absence and all that she was or did was only for and to her dearest Lord Si gaudet si flet St tacet hunc loquitur Coenat propinat poscit negat innuit unus Naevius est And although this was a great enamel to the beauty of her Soul yet it might in some degrees be also a reward to the Virtue of her Lord For she would often discourse it to them that convers'd with her that he would improve that interest which he had in her affection to the advantages of God and of Religion and she would delight to say that he called her to her Devotions he encouraged her good inclinations he directed her piety he invited her with good Books and then she loved Religion which she saw was not only pleasing to God and an act or state of duty but pleasing to her Lord and an act also of affection and conjugal obedience and what at first she loved the more forwardly for his sake in the using of Religion left such relishes upon her spirit that she found in it amability enough to make her love it for its own So God usually brings us to him by instruments of nature and affections and then incorporates us into his Inheritance by the more immediate relishes of Heaven and the secret things of the Spirit He only was under God the light of her eyes and the cordial of her spirits and the guide of her actions and the measure of her affections till her affections swell'd up into a Religion and then it could go no higher but was confederate with those other duties which made her dear to God which rare combination of Duty and Religion I chuse to express in the words of Solomon She forsook not the guide of her youth nor brake the Covenant of her God 6. As she was a rare Wife so she was an excellent Mother For in so tender a constitution of spirit as hers was and in so great a kindness towards her Children there hath seldom been seen a stricter and more curious care of their persons their deportment their nature their disposition their learning and their customs And if ever kindness and care did contest and make parties in her yet her care and her severity was ever victorious and she knew not how to do an ill turn to their severer part by her more tender and forward kindness And as her custom was she turned this also into love to her Lord For she was not only diligent to have them bred nobly and religiously but also was careful and sollicitous that they should be taught to observe all the circumstances and inclinations the desires and wishes of their Father as thinking that virtue to have no good circumstances which was not dressed by his copy and ruled by his lines and his affections And her prudence in the managing her children was so singular and rare that when ever you mean to bless this family and pray a hearty and a profitable prayer for it beg of God that the children may have those excellent things which she designed to them and provided for them in her heart and wishes that they may live by her purposes and may grow thither whither she would fain have brought them All these were great parts of an excellent Religion aâ— they concerned her greatest temporal relations 7. But if we examine how she demeaned her self towards God there also you will find her not of a common but of an exemplar piety She was a great reader of Scripture confining her self to great portions every day which she read not to the purposes of vanity and impertinent curiosities not to seem knowing or to become talking not to expound and rule but to teach her all her duty to instruct her in the knowledge and love of God and of her Neighbours to make her more humble and to teach her to despise the world and all its gilded vanities and that she might entertain passions wholly in design and order to Heaven I have seen a female Religion that wholly dwelt upon the face and tongue that like a wanton and an undressed tree spends all its juice in suckers and irregular branches in leafs and gum and after all such goodly outsides you should never eat an Apple or be delighted with the beauties or the perfumes of a hopeful blossom But the Religion of this excellent Lady was of another constitution It took root downward in humility and brought forth fruit upward in the substantial graces of a Christian in Charity and Justice in Chastity and Modesty in fair Friendships and sweetness of Society She had not very much of the forms and outsides of godliness but she was hugely careful for the power of it for the moral essential and useful parts such which would make her be not seem to be religious 8. She was a very constant person at her prayers and spent all her time which Nature did permit to her choice in her devotions and reading and meditating and the necessary offices of houshold Government every one of which is an action of Religion some by nature some by adoption To these also
God gave her a very great love to hear the word of God preached in which because I had sometimes the honour to minister to her I can give this certain testimony that she was a diligent watchful and attentive hearer and to this had so excellent a judgment that if ever I saw a woman whose judgment was to be revered it was hers alone and I have sometimes thought that the eminency of her discerning faculties did reward a pious discourse and placed it in the regions of honour and usefulness and gathered it up from the ground where commonly such Homilies are spilt or scattered in neglect and inconsideration But her appetite was not soon satisfied with what was useful to her soul she was also a constant Reader of Sermons and seldom missed to read one every day and that she might be full of instruction and holy principles she had lately designed to have a large Book in which she purposed to have a stock of Religion transcribed in such assistances as she would chuse that she might be readily furnished and instructed to every good work But God prevented that and hath filled her desires not out of Cisterns and little Aquaeducts but hath carried her to the Fountain where she drinks of the pleasures of the River and is full of God 9. She always lived a life of much innocence free from the violences of great sins her person her breeding her modesty her honour her Religion her early marriage the Guide of her soul and the Guide of her youth were as so many fountains of restraining grace to her to keep her from the dishonours of a crime Bonum est portare jugum ab adolescentiâ it is good to bear the yoke of the Lord from our youth and though she did so being guarded by a mighty providence and a great favour and grace of God from staining her fair soul with the spots of hell yet she had strange fears and early cares upon her but these were not only for her self but in order to others to her neerest Relatives For she was so great a lover of this Honourable Family of which now she was a Mother that she desired to become a channel of great blessings to it unto future ages and was extremely jealous lest any thing should be done or lest any thing had been done though an Age or two since which should intail a curse upon the innocent posterity and therefore although I do not know that ever she was tempted with an offer of the crime yet she did infinitely remove all sacriledge from her thoughts and delighted to see her estate of a clear and dis-intangled interest she would have no mingled rights with it she would not receive any thing from the Church but Religion and a Blessing and she never thought a curse and a sin far enough off but would desire it to be infinitely distant and that as to this Family God had given much honour and a wise head to govern it so he would also for ever give many more blessings and because she knew the sins of Parents descend upon Children she endeavoured by justice and religion by charity and honour to secure that her channel should convey nothing but health and a fair example and a blessing 10. And though her accounts to God were made up of nothing but small parcels little passions and angry words and trifling discontents which are the allays of the piety of the most holy persons yet she was early at her repentance and toward the latter end of her days grew so fast in Religion as if she had had a revelation of her approaching end and therefore that she must go a great way in a little time her discourses more full of religion her prayers more frequent her charity increasing her forgiveness more forward her friendships more communicative her passion more under discipline and so she trimmed her lamp not thinking her night was so neer but that it might shine also in the day time in the Temple and before the Altar of Incense But in this course of hers there were some circumstances and some appendages of substance which were highly remarkable 1. In all her Religion and in all her actions of relation towards God she had a strange evenness and untroubled passage sliding toward her Ocean of God and of infinity with a certain and silent motion So have I seen a River deep and smooth passing with a still foot and a sober face and paying to the Fiscus the great Exchequer of the Sea the Prince of all the watry bodies a tribute large and full and hard by it a little brook skipping and making a noise upon its unequal and neighbour bottom and after all its talking and bragged motion it payed to its common Audit no more than the Revenues of a little cloud or a contemptible vessel So have I sometimes compared the issues of her Religion to the solemnities and famed outsides of anothers piety It dwelt upon her spirit and was incorporated with the periodical work of every day she did not believe that Religion was intended to minister to fame and reputation but to pardon of sins to the pleasure of God and the salvation of souls For Religion is like the breath of Heaven if it goes abroad into the open air it scatters and dissolves like Camphyre but if it enters into a secret hollowness into a close conveyance it is strong and mighty and comes forth with vigour and great effect at the other end at the other side of this life in the days of death and judgment 2. The other appendage of her Religion which also was a great ornament to all the parts of her life was a rare modesty and humility of spirit a confident despising and undervaluing of her self For though she had the greatest judgment and the greatest experience of things and persons that I ever yet knew in a person of her youth and sex and circumstances yet as if she knew nothing of it she had the meanest opinion of her self and like a fair taper when she shined to all the room yet round about her own station she had cast a shadow and a cloud and she shined to every body but her self But the perfectness of her prudence and excellent parts could not be hid and all her humility and arts of concealment made the vertues more amiable and illustrious For as pride sullies the beauty of the fairest vertues and makes our understanding but like the craft and learning of a Devil so humility is the greatest eminency and art of publication in the whole world and she in all her arts of secrecy and hiding her worthy things was but like one that hideth the wind and covers the oyntment of her right hand I know not by what instrument it happened but when death drew neer before it made any show upon her body or revealed it self by a natural signification it was conveyed to her spirit she had a strange secret perswasion that the
eminency and singularity Church-men that 's your appellative all are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual men all have received the Spirit and all walk in the Spirit and ye are all sealed by the Spirit unto the day of Redemption and yet there is a spirituality peculiar to the Clergy If any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness you who are spiritual by office and designation of a spiritual calling and spiritual employment you who have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus and minister the Spirit of God you are more eminently spiritual you have the Spirit in graces and in powers in sanctification and abilities in Office and in Person the Vnction from above hath descended upon your heads and upon your hearts you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency and praelation spiritual men All the people of God were holy Corah and his company were in the right so far but yet Moses and Aaron were more holy and stood neerer to God All the people are Prophets It is now more than Moses wish for the Spirit of Christ hath made them so If any man prayeth or prophesieth with his head covered or if any woman prophesieth with her head uncovered they are dishonoured but either man or woman may do that work in time and place for in the latter days I will pour out of my Spirit and your daughters shall prophesie and yet God hath appointed in his Church Prophets above these to whose Spirit all the other Prophets are subject and as God said to Aaron and Miriam concerning Moses to you I am known in a dream or a vision but to Moses I speak face to face so it is in the Church God gives of his Spirit to all men but you he hath made the Ministers of his Spirit Nay the people have their portion of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven so said S. Paul To whom ye forgive any thing to him I forgive also and to the whole Church of Corinth he gave a Commission in the Name of Christ and by his Spirit to deliver the incestuous person unto Satan and when the primitive Penitents stood in their penitential stations they did Chairs Dei adgeniculari toti populo legationem orationis suae commendare and yet the Keys were not only promised but given to the Apostles to be used then and transmitted to all Generations of the Church and we are Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the manifold Mysteries of God and to us is committed the word of reconciliation And thus in the Consecration of the mysterious Sacrament the people have their portion for the Bishop or the Priest blesses and the People by saying Amen to the mystick Prayer is partaker of the Power and the whole Church hath a share in the power of Spiritual Sacrifice Ye are a royal Priesthood Kings and Priests unto God that is so ye are Priests as ye are Kings but yet Kings and Priests have a glory conveyed to them of which the people partake but in minority and allegory and improper communication But you are and are to be respectively that considerable part of mankind by whom God intends to plant holiness in the World by you God means to reign in the hearts of men and g. you are to be the first in this kind and consequently the measure of all the rest To you g. I intend this and some following Discourses in order to this purpose I shall but now lay the first stone but it is the corner stone in this foundation But to you I say of the Clergy these things are spoken properly to you these Powers are conveyed really upon you God hath poured his Spirit plentifully you are the Choicest of his Choice the Elect of his Election a Church pick'd out of the Church Vessels of honour so your Masters use appointed to teach others authorised to bless in his Name you are the Ministers of Christ's Priesthood Under-labourers in the great Work of Mediation and Intercession Medii inter Deum Populum you are for the People towards God and convey Answers and Messages from God to the People These things I speak not only to magnifie your Office but to inforce and heighten your Duty you are holy by Office and Designation for your very Appointment is a Sanctification and a Consecration and g. whatever holiness God requires of the People who have some little portions in the Priesthood Evangelical he expects it of you and much greater to whom he hath conveyed so great Honours and admitted so neer unto himself and hath made to be the great Ministers of his Kingdom and his Spirit and now as Moses said to the Levitical Schismaticks Corah and his Company so I may say to you Seemeth it but a small thing unto you that the God of Israel hath separated you from the Congregation of Israel to bring you to himself to do the Service of the Tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the Congregation to minister to them And he hath brought thee neer to him Certainly if of every one of the Christian Congregation God expects a holiness that mingles with no unclean thing if God will not suffer of them a luke-warm and an indifferent service but requires zeal of his Glory and that which St. Paul calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labour of love if he will have them to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing if he will not endure any pollution in their Flesh or Spirit if he requires that their Bodies and Souls and Spirits be kept blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus if he accepts of none of the people unless they have within them the conjugation of all Christian Graces if he calls on them to abound in every Grace and that in all the periods of their progression unto the ends of their lives and to the consummation and perfection of Grace if he hath made them Lights in the World and the Salt of the Earth to enlighten others by their good Example and to teach them and invite them by holy Discourses and wise Counsels and Speech seasoned with Salt what is it think ye or with what words is it possible to express what God requires of you They are to be Examples of Good life to one another but you are to be Examples even of the Examples themselves that 's your duty that 's the purpose of God and that 's the design of my Text That in all things ye shew your selves a pattern of good works in Doctrine shewing uncorruptness gravity sincerity sound speech that cannot be condemned that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed having no evil thing to say of you Here then is 1. Your Duty 2. The degrees and excellency of your Duty The Duty is double 1. Holiness of Life 2. Integrity of Doctrine Both these have their heightnings in several degrees 1. For your Life and Conversation
for the People to bless the People to divert Judgments from them to deprecate the wrath of God to make an attonement for them and to reconcile them to the eternal mercy certain it is that though the Sermons of a wicked Minister may do some good not so much as they ought but some they can but the Prayer of a wicked Minister does no good at all it provokes God to anger it is an abomination in his righteous eyes Thirdly The Ecclesiastical Order is by Christ appointed to minister his holy Spirit to the People The Priests in Baptism and the holy Eucharist and Prayer and Intercession The Bishop in all these and in Ordination besides and in Confirmation and in Solemn Blessing Now then consider what will be the event of this without effect Can he minister the Spirit from whom the Spirit of God is departed And g. since all wickedness does grieve the Spirit of God and great wickedness defiles his Temples and destroys them unto the ground and extinguishes the Spirit that drives iniquity away these persons are no longer spiritual men they are carnal and sold under sin and walk not in the Spirit they are spiritual just as Simon Magus was a Christian or as Judas was an Apostle he had the name of it but what says the Scripture he fell from it by transgression only this as he that is Baptized has for ever a title to the Promises and a possibility of Repentance and a right to Restitution until he renounces all and never will or can repent so there is in all our holy Orders an indelible character and they can by a new life be restored to all their powers but in the mean time while they abide in sin and carnality the cloud is over the face of the Sun and the Spirit of God appears not in a fiery tongue that is not in material and active demonstrations and how far he will be ministred by the Offices of an unworthy man we know not only by all that is said in Scripture we are made to fear that things will not be so well with the people till the Minister be better only this we are sure of that though one man may be much the worse for another mans sin yet without his own fault no man shall perish and God will do his work alone and the Spirit of God though he be ordinarily conveyed by Ecclesiastical Ministries yet he also comes irregularly and in ways of his own and prevents the external Rites and prepossesses the hearts of his Servants and the people also have so much portion in the Evangelical Ministration that if they be holy they shall receive the holy Ghost in their hearts and will express him in their lives and themselves also become Kings and Priests unto God while they are zealous of good works And to this purpose may the proverb of the Rabbins be rightly understood Major est qui respondit Amen quam qui benedicit He that sayes Amen is greater than he that blesses or prays meaning if he heartily desires what the other perfunctorily and with his lips only utters not praying with his heart and with the acceptabilities of a good life the Amen shall be more than all the Prayer and the People shall prevail for themselves when the Priest could not according to the saying of Midrasich Tehillim Quicunque dicit Amen omnibus viribus suis ei aperiuntur portae paradisi sicut dictum est ingredietur gens justa He that says Amen with his whole power to him the gates of Paradise shall be open according to that which is said And the righteous Nation shall enter in And this is excellently discoursed of by S. Austin Sacramentum gratiae dat etiam Deus per malos ipsam vero gratim non nisi per seipsum vel per sanctos suos and g. he gives remission of sins by himself or by the members of the Dove so that good Men shall be supplied by God But as this is an infinite comfort to the people so it is an intolerable shame to all wicked Ministers the benefit which God intended to minister by them the people shall have without their help and whether they will or no but because the people get nothing by their ministration or but very little the Ministers shall never have their portion where the good people shall inhabit to eternal Ages And I beseech you to consider what an infinite confusion that will be at the day of Judgment when they to whom you have preach'd Righteousness shall enter into everlasting glory and you who have preached it shall have the curse of Hanameel and the reward of Balaam the wages of unrighteousness But thus it was when the Wise men asked the Doctors where Christ should be born they told them right but the Wise men went to Christ and found him and the Doctors sate still and went not Fourthly Consider That every sin which is committed by a Minister of Religion is more than one and it is as soon espied too for more men look upon the Sun in an Eclipse than when he is in his beauty but every spot I say is greater every mote is a beam it is not only made so but it is so it hath not the excuses of the people is not pitiable by the measures of their infirmity and g. 1. It is reckoned in the accounts of malice never of ignorance for ignorance it self in them is always a double sin and g. it is very remarkable that when God gave command to the Levitical Priests to make attonement for the sins of ignorance in the people there is no mention made of the Priests sin of ignorance God supposed no such thing in them and Moses did not mention it and there was no provision made in that case as you may see at large in Levit. 4. and Numb 15. But 2. because every Priest is a man also observe how his sin is described Levit. 4. 3. If the Priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the People that is if he be so degenerate and descend from the glory where God hath placed him and do sin after the manner of the people then he is to proceed to remedy intimating that it is infinitely besides expectation it is a strange thing it is like a monstrous production it is unnatural that a Priest should sin according as the People do however if he does it is not connived at which a sentence gentle as that finds which is a sin of ignorance or the sin of the people no it is not for it is always malice it is always uncharitableness for it brings mischief to their Congregations and contracts their blessings into little circuits and turns their bread into a stone and their Wine to Vinegar And then besides this 3. It is also scandalous and then it is infinitely against Charity such Ministers make the people of God to sin and that 's against the nature of their Office
must give your selves up wholly to the Word of God and Prayer they must watch and pray that they fall not into temptation but you must watch for your selves and others too the people must mourn when they sin but you must mourn for your own infirmities and for the sins of others and indeed if the life of a Clergy-man does not exceed even the piety of the People that life is in some measure scandalous and what shame was ever greater than is described in the Parable of the Traveller going from Jerusalem to Jericho when to the eternal dishonour of the Levite and the Priest it is told that they went aside and saw him with a wry neck and a bended head but let him alone and left him to be cured by the good Samaritane The Primitive Church in her Discipline used to thrust their delinquent Clergy in laicam communionem even then when their faults were but small and of less reproach than to deserve greater censures yet they lessened them by thrusting them into the Lay Communion as most fit for such Ministers who refused to live at the height of Sacerdotal piety Remember your dignity to which Christ hath called you shall such a man as I flee said the brave Eleazar shall the Stars be darkness shall the Embassadors of Christ neglect to do their King honour shall the glory of Christ do dishonourable and inglorious actions Ye are the glory of Christ saith S. Paul remember that I can say no greater thing unless possibly this may add some moments for your care and caution that potents potenter cruciabuntur great men shall be greatly tormented if they sin and to fall from a great height is an intolerable ruine Severe were the words of our Blessed Saviour Ye are the Salt of the earth if the Salt have lost his savour it is thenceforth good for nothing neither for Land nor yet for the Dunghil a greater dishonour could not be expressed he that takes such a one up will shake his fingers I end this with the saying of S. Austin Let your religious prudence think that in the world especially at this time nothing is more laborious more difficult or more dangerous than the Office of a Bishop or a Priest or a Deacon Sed apud Deum nihil beatius si eo modo militetur quo noster Imperator jubet but nothing is more blessed if we do our duty according to the Commandment of our Lord. I have already discoursed of the integrity of life and what great necessity there is and how deep obligations lie upon you not only to be innocent and void of offence but also to be holy not only pure but shining not only to be blameless but to be didactick in your lives that as by your Sermons you preach in season so by your lives you may preach out of season that is at all seasons and to all men that they seeing your good works may glorifie God on your behalf and on their own THE Ministers Duty IN LIFE DOCTRINE SERM. X. The second Sermon on Titus 2. 7. In Doctrine shewing uncorruptness gravity sincerity c. NOW by the order of the words and my own undertaking I am to tell you what are the Rules and Measures of your Doctrine which you are to teach the people 1. Be sure that you teach nothing to the people but what is certainly to be found in Scripture Servemus eas mensuras quas nobis per Legislatorem Lex spiritualis enunciat the whole spiritual Law given us by our Law-giver that must be our measures for though by perswasion and by faith by mis-perswasion and by error by false Commentaries and mistaken glosses every man may become a Law unto himself and unhappily bind upon his Conscience burdens which Christ never imposed yet you must bind nothing upon your Charges but what God hath bound upon you you cannot become a Law unto them that 's the only priviledge of the Law-giver who because he was an interpreter of the Divine Will might become a Law unto us and because he was faithful in all the house did tell us all his Fathers Will and g. nothing can be Gods Law to us but what he hath taught us But of this I shall need to say no more but the words of Tertullian Nobis nihil licet ex nostro arbitrio indulgere sed nec eligere aliquid quod de suo arbitrio aliquis induxerit Apostolos Domini habemus Authores qui nec ipsi quicquam de suo arbitrio quod inducerent elegerunt sed acceptam à Christo disciplinam fideliter nationibus assignarunt Whatsoever is not in and taken from the Scriptures is from a private spirit and that is against Scripture certainly for no Scripture is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith S. Peter it is not it cannot be of private interpretation that is unless it come from the Spirit of God which is that Spirit that mov'd upon the waters of the new Creation as well as of the old and was promised to all to you and to your Children and to as many as the Lord our God shall call and is bestowed on all and is the earnest of all our inheritance and is given to every man to profit withall it cannot prove God to be the Author nor be a light to us to walk by or to show others the way to Heaven This Rule were alone sufficient to guide us all in the whole Oeconomy of our Calling if we were not weak and wilful ignorant and abused but the holy Scripture hath suffered so many interpretations and various sounds and seemings and we are so prepossess'd and predetermin'd to misconstruction by false Apostles without and prevailing passions within that though it be in it self sufficient yet it is not so for us and we may say with the Eunuch How can I understand unless some man should guide me and indeed in S. Paul's Epistles there are many things hard to be understood and in many other places we find that the well is deep and unless there be some to help us to draw out the latent senses of it our souls will not be filled with the waters of Salvation Therefore that I may do you what assistances I can and if I cannot in this small portion of time instruct you yet that I may counsel you and remind you of the best assistances that are to be had if I cannot give you rules sufficient to expound all hard places yet that I may shew how you shall sufficiently teach your people by the rare rules and precepts recorded in places that are or may be made easie I shall first give you some advices in general and then descend to more particular Rules and Measures 1. Because it is not to be expected that every Minister of the Word of God should have all the gifts of the Spirit and every one to abound in Tongues and in Doctrines and in Interpretations you may therefore make great use
of false Doctrines for above all things this is to be taken care of 1. Although every place of Scripture hath a literal sense either proper or figurative yet every one hath not a spiritual and mystical interpretation and g. Origen was blam'd by the Ancients for forming all into spirit and mystery one place was reserv'd to punish that folly Thus the followers of the Family of love and the Quakers expound all the Articles of our Faith all the hopes of a Christian all the stories of Christ into such a clancular and retir'd sense as if they had no meaning by the letter but were only an Hieroglyphick or a Phythagorean Scheme and not to be opened but by a private key which every man pretends to be borrowed from the Spirit of God though made in the forges here below To which purposes the Epistles of S. Hierom to Avitus to Pammachius and Oceanus are worth your reading In this case men do as he said of Origen Ingenii sui acumina putant esse Ecclesiae Sacramenta Every man believes God meant as he intended and so he will obtrude his own dreams instead of Sacraments g. 2. Whoever will draw spiritual senses from any History of the Old or New Testament must first allow the literal sense or else he will soon deny an Article of necessary belief A story is never the less true because it is intended to profit as well as to please and the narrative may well establish or insinuate a precept and instruct with pleasure but if because there is a Jewel in the golden Cabinet you will throw away the inclosure and deny the story that you may look out a mystical sense we shall leave it arbitrary for any man to believe or disbelieve what story he please and Eve shall not be made of the rib of Adam and the Garden of Eden shall be no more then the Hesperides and the story of Jonas a well dress'd fable and I have seen all the Revelation of S. John turn'd into a moral Commentary in which every person can signifie any proposition or any virtue according as his fancy chimes This is too much and therefore comes not from a good principle 3. In Moral Precepts in Rules of Polity and Oeconomy there is no other sense to be inquired after but what they bear upon the face for he that thinks it necessary to turn them into some further spiritual meaning supposes that it is a disparagement to the Spirit of God to take care of Governments or that the duties of Princes and Masters are no great Concerns or not operative to eternal felicity or that God does not provide for temporal advantages for if these things be worthy Concerns and if God hath taken care of all our Good and if godliness be profitable to all things and hath the promise of the life that now is and that which is to come there is no necessity to pass on to more abstruse senses when the literal and proper hath also in it instrumentality enough towards very great spiritual purposes God takes care for servants yea for Oxen and all the beasts of the field and the letter of the Command enjoyning us to use them with mercy hath in it an advantage even upon the spirit and whole frame of a mans soul and g. let no man tear those Scriptures to other meanings beyond their own intentions and provisions In these cases a spiritual sense is not to be inquired after 4. If the letter of the story inferres any undecency or contradiction then it is necessary that a spiritual or mystical sense be thought of but never else is it necessary It may in other cases be useful when it does advantage to holiness and may be safely us'd if us'd modestly but because this spiritual or mystical interpretation when it is not necessary cannot be certainly prov'd but relies upon fancy or at most some light inducement no such interpretation can be us'd as an argument to prove an Article of Faith nor relied upon in matters of necessary Concern The three measures of meal in the Gospel are but an ill argument to prove the Blessed and Eternal Trinity and it may be the three Angels that came to Abraham will signifie no more than the two that came to Lot or the single one to Manoah or S. John this Divine Mystery relies upon a more sure foundation and he makes it unsure that causes it to lean upon an unexpounded vision that was sent to other purposes Non esse contentiosis infidelibus sensibus ingerendum said S. Austin of the Book of Genesis Searching for Articles of Faith in the by-paths and corners of secret places leads not to faith but to infidelity and by making the foundations unsure causes the Articles to be questioned I remember that Agricola in his Book de animalibus subterraneis tells of a certain kind of spirits that use to converse in Mines and trouble the poor Labourers They dig mettals they cleanse they cast they melt they separate they joyn the Ore but when they are gone the men find just nothing done not one step of their work set forward So it is in the Books and Expositions of many men They study they argue they expound they confute they reprove they open secrets and make new discoveries and when you turn the bottom upwards up starts nothing no man is the wiser no man is instructed no truth discover'd no proposition clear'd nothing is alter'd but that much labour and much time is lost and this is manifest in nothing more than in Books of Contrversie and in mystical Expositions of Scripture Quaerunt quod nusquam est inveniunt tamen Like Isidore who in contemplation of a Pen observ'd that the nib of it was divided into two but yet the whole body remain'd one Credo propter mysterium he found a knack in it and thought it was a mystery Concerning which I shall need to say no more but that they are safe when they are necessary and they are useful when they teach better and they are good when they do good but this is so seldom and so by chance that oftentimes if a man be taught truth he is taught it by a lying Master it is like being cur'd by a good witch an evil spirit hath an hand in it and if there be not errour and illusion in such interpretations there is very seldom any certainty What shall I do to my vineyard said God Isai. 5. Auferam sepem ejus I will take away the hedge that is custodiam Angelorum saith the gloss the custody of their Angel guardians and Isai. 9. God says Manasseh humeros suos comedit Manasseh hath devour'd his own shoulders that is gubernatores dimovit say the Doctors hath remov'd his Governours his Princes and his Priests it is a sad complaint 't is true but what it means is the Question but although these senses are pious and may be us'd for illustration and the prettiness of discourse yet