first and chief work of the Spirit upon the Elect whereby he prepares them to receive himself For the more empty a man is of other things the more capable he is of the Spirit If you would fill a vessel with any other liquor then it holds you must first empty it of all that is in it before if you would fill it with Wine you must empty it of Beer or Water if any such liqour be in it For two material things cannot possibly subsist in the same place at the same time the substances of each being safe and sound And so if the Holy Spirit who is God must come into us all mortal and unstable creatures together with sin and our selves and what ever else is in us must go forth Humane reason and humane wisdom and righteousness and power and knowledge cannot receive the Holy Spirit but we must be emptied of these if ever we would receive him We must thus suffer our selves to be prepared by the Spirit to receive the Spirit but with this caution That when the Spirit of God hath wrought this in us we do not attribute it to our selves as our own work nor think any thing of our selves but descend into our own meer nothing Otherwise we shall be a hinderance to the Spirit that he cannot work in us after a more excellent manner And when a man is thus empty of himself and of other things then he becomes poor in spirit and such the Spirit alwayes fills and descends into with a wonderful and unresistible power and fills the outer and inner man and all the superior and inferior faculties of the soul with himself and all the things of God And this is the second work of the Spirit to fill those whom he hath emptied Now the usual and ordinary means through which the Spirit doth this are these three 1. The hearing of the Word preached But here we must distinguish of the Word For the Law is the word of God but St. Paul saith that by that word the Spirit is not given but by the Word of the Gospel And therefore how beautiful are the feet of them that bring the Gospel of peace for nothing is so sweet and precious as the word of the Gospel which brings with it the Holy Spirit This you may see Act. 10. 44. where it is said that whilest Peter yet spake the Holy Ghost fell on all them that heard the Word And therefore also the Gospel is called the ministration of the Spirit because as it proceeds from the Spirit and the Holy Spirit gives utterance so it also conveyes the Spirit to the faithful Now the gift of tongues and miracles and other such like gifts are at the present ceased in the Church but the gift of the Spirit is not ceased and this the Lord still joynes with the Ministery of the Gospel that he may keep up in our hearts the due respect of this ordinance and may preserve us from the wayes of those men who seek for the Spirit without the Word 2. Means is faith in the word heard For it is not every one that hears the word that receives the Spirit but onely they that hear with the hearing of faith For if thou hear the word of the Gospel a thousand times and wantest faith thou shalt never receive the Spirit for unbeleef shuts up the heart against the Spirit and ever opposes and resists the Spirit and never receives it But faith opens the heart to receive the Spirit By faith we lay hold on Christ in the word and through our union with Christ we obtain the Spirit For we have not the Spirit immediately in it self but in the flesh of Christ And when we by faith are made the flesh of Christ then we partake of that Spirit that dwels in the flesh of Christ Now through these two things the Word and Faith the Spirit communicates to us a new birth it begets us unto God and so we partaking of the nature of God partake also of the Spirit of God They are born of men have nothing in them but the spirit of men but they that are born of God have the Spirit of God That which is born of the flesh is flesh hath no spirit in it but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit and hath spirit in it So that there is no means to partake of the Spirit of God but by being born of God and the means by which we are born of God are the Word Faith 3. Means is Prayer For Christ hath said the Spirit is given to them that aske And the Disciples when they were to receive the promise of the Spirit continued with one accord in prayer and supplication Act. 1. 14. For God who hath promised to give us his Spirit hath commanded us to aske it and when God hath a minde to give us the Spirit he puts us in minde to ask it yea God gives us the Spirit that by it we may ask the Spirit seeing no man can ask the Spirit but by the Spirit Now in asking the Spirit there is no difference whether we ask it of the Father or of the Son seeing the Spirit proceeds from both and is the Spirit of both And therefore Christ promiseth the sending of the Spirit from both From the Father Joh. 14. The Spirit which the Father will send in my name From himself Joh. 16. Except I go the Comforter will not come but if I go I will send him to you So that both the Father and the Son give the Spirit and it is no matter whether we ask him either of the Father or of the Son so we ask him of the Father in the Son or of the Son in the Father And thus you see the way to obtain this power is to obtain the Spirit and also by what means this is done 2. The way to increase this power is to increase the Spirit And therefore it is as needful for us to know the means to increase the Spirit as to receive it And they among others are these 1. To continue in the use of the Word As the Spirit is first given by the word so by the same word it is increased and the more any Christian is in the use of the word the stronger and more vigorous and mighty is the Spirit in him but the neglect of the word is the quenching of the Spirit Let a Christian that is strong in the spirit neglect the word a while and he will soon become weak and as a man without strength For the Spirit is not bestowed on us but through the word neither doth it dwell in us but by the word and the more the word dwels in our hearts by faith the more the spirit dwells in our hearts by the word And according to the measure of the word in us is the measure of the Spirit 2. To increase faith For the more we beleeve the more we receive of
power of the Spirit coming on them then they are stronger then all opposition and Persecution whatsoever otherwise when these evils encounter them they with Demas leave the Work and imbrace the World And thus you see what necessity all the faithful Ministers of the Gospel have of the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them and without this power though they be called Ministers yet they are none For without this power they are unable to preach the Word to preach it powerfully and to persevere and hold out in the course of the Ministery they are unable to reprove the World to wrestle with and overcome the. Devil and to suffer that Persecution which necessarily attends that calling And so without this power they may Minister to themselves but cannot Minister to others the manifold graces of God they may do their own work but they cannot do Gods work they may seed themselves but not the Flock of Christ they may domineer over the sheep but cannot drive away the Wolf they may build up their own houses but cannot build up God house Secondly as the Holy Spirit and the power of it is necessary for Ministers so also for all other Christians whatsoever But some here will be ready to say yea but do all believers receive the Spirit of God and the power of the Spirit as Ministers do Yes Equally and alike with them without any difference This is evident Act. 11. 15. where Peter tels the Jews who contended with him for conversing and eating with the Gentiles that when he began to speak the Word to them the Holy Spirit fell on them saith he as on us at the beginning And again ver 17. Forasmuch then as God gave unto them the like gift as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ what was I that I could withstand God So that God gave the Holy Spirit to as many Gentiles as believed in like manner as he did unto the Apostles themselves and they received the same power of the Holy Spirit coming on them as the Apostles did Whereby you may perceive that not Ministers only are Spiritual men and all others temporal as the Papists have taught and many Ignorant people among our selves are still perswaded but all true Believers are spiritual as well as they being born of the Spirit and Baptized with the Spirit equally as they are And so all true Believers as well as Ministers being indued with the Spirit are also indued with the power of the Spirit and so have more then an Earthly power in them They have all of them power of another nature then the power of the World they partake of spiritual heavenly and divine power even of the very power of Christ himself which infinitely transcends all the power of the creature You see then clearly that all faithful Christians have the Spirit of power and the power of the Spirit coming on them aswel as Ministers And they stand in need of both these for these causes 1. They stand in need of the Spirit of power first to difference and distinguish them from Reprobates and Devils for without the gift of the Spirit there is no difference between us and them For Michael doth not differ from the Devil nor Gabriel from Belzebub but only by the Spirit And Moses differs not from Pharoah nor Abel from Cain not Jacob from Esau nor Peter from Judas in regard of their substance but in regard of the Spirit which the one received and the other were counted unworthy of 2. To advance them above the condition of flesh and blood and above all those in whom is none of Gods Spirit The excellency of each creature is according to its Spirit for the more excellent the spirit of the creature is the more excellent is the creature it self and each creature is valued and rated according to the Spirit of it How excellent then must they be above all the World who have received the Spirit that is of God Surely these are people of the most excellent spirit And hence it is that the righteous is more excellent then his neighbour because his spirit is more excellent then his neighbours 3. To unite them unto Christ The Spirit is the bond of Vnion between the Father and the Son in the Godhead and the Father and the Son are one in the Spirit as we spake before And now the same spirit is our bond of Vnion with Christ and makes us one with Christ as Christ is one with God and unites us unto Christ in the unity of God for as Christ is one with the Father in the Spirit so are we one with Christ in the Spirit For he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit and he that is not one Spirit with the Lord is not joyned to him 4. All faithful Christians stand in need of the power of the Spirit as well as of the Spirit of power 1. To change their nature which is impossible to all power but the power of the Spirit It would be a great power to change clay into Gold and a pibble into a Diamond but it is a greater change that is wrought in a Christian and requires a greater power For the power of the Spirit when it comes into our flesh changes the nature of it For it finds a man carnal it makes him spiritual it finds him earthly it makes him heavenly it finds him a drunkard it makes him sober an adulterer it makes him chast a swearer it makes him fear an oath proud it makes him humble it finds him darkness makes him light in the Lord in a word it finds him nothing but a lump of sin and makes him the righteousness of God in Christ Thus the power of the Spirit changes our whole corrupt nature and makes it conformable to the divine nature as fire makes the Iron in which it prevails like unto it self communicating its own nature to it After this sort the power of the Spirit changes our nature and our nature cannot be changed without it But without this power of the Spirit we shall always remain the same we were born without any change at all Yea our corruption will by daily use and exercise encrease in us till at last it quite eat out that common natural good which God hath given to every one of us for the common benefit of mankind 2. All Christians have need of the power of the Spirit to work grace in them For our natures are wholly carnal and corrupt and nothing can implant grace in them but the mighty power of Gods Spirit And it is as great a Miracle to see the Grace of God dwelling in the corrupt nature of man as to see the Stars grow upon the Earth And yet the power of the Spirit doth this as it is written truth shall spring out of the earth and again great and precious promises are made to us that we should be partakers of the
would tremble and bite in the truth In the 10. Chap. of Mat. Christ tells his Disciples that they should be brought before Governours and Kings for his names sake But saith he vers 19. When they shall deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you Here Christ tels his Disciples that they should be brought before great men yea before the greatest in the world to give testimony to his truth And surely it is a very hard thing for a man not to be daunted then but to be unmoveable before all worldly power and glory and all the terrible frowns and threats of mighty men Now saith Christ at such a time when you are to speak before the armed power of the world be not troubled beforehand how or what to say For if you have Christ and his Spirit in your hearts you cannot want words in your mouths And the truth which you profess is most glorious when it is most naked and destitute of the garnishings of humane eloquence and wisdom And therefore be not fearful before hand no nor yet careful touching what you shall say for it shall be given to you in that same hour in that same moment you shall have most present help How so for it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that dwels in you The spirit of truth that dwels in you shall inable you to speak the words of truth when you are called to it And though you it may be are plain and mean men and your lips would tremble and be quite closed up before such an Assembly of power and Majesty yet Gods spirit shall give you a mouth to speak even then And because if you were only supplied with a mouth to speak at such a time you would be ready to speak rashly and foolishly to the great prejudice and disadvantage of the truth therefore he will give you not only a mouth but wisdom too and he himself will manage his own cause with your mouths And you shall so speak as all your adversaries shall not be able to resist the truth that you speak but shall be so convinced in their consciences that their tongues shall not know what to say You shall have a mouth and wisdom and they shall want both And thus have many poor mean simple Christians when brought before Rulers and Magistrates been able to carry out the truth in that strength that all their adversaries have been put to silence and shame as you may see in a multitude of examples in the Book of Martyrs And all this they did by the power of the Spirit coming upon them Seventhly and lastly all Christians stand in need of the power of the Spirit to overcome afflictions and persecutions from which it is impossible they should be free in this world they being contrary to the world and the whole world to them A natural man who hath no strength in himself but his own strength faints and fails under affliction and persecution but the faithful have in them strength above natural strength strength above the strength of men even the strength of the Spirit coming on them and so they indure and overcome Our spirits are weak spirits and are conquered by every evil but when they are strenghtned by the power of Gods Spirit they are over all evils more then Conquerors And this is one thing observable between natural and spiritual strength in the overcoming of evil Natural strength seeks alwayes to throw off the evil and so it prevailes but spiritual strength neever seeks the removing of the evil but let the evil be what it will it stands to it and overcomes it For the strength of the Spirit is easily able to overcome all evils that can happen to flesh and bloud whether they arise from earth or hell And thus those blessed Martyrs mentioned Hebr. 11. and thousands and ten thousands of their consorts since have overcome cruel mockings and scourgings and bonds and imprisonment and stoning and sawing in sunder and slaying with the sword and all the woes of poverty and want and banishment and of living in wildernesses and caves and dens of the earth these and all other evils they have mightily overcome by this only power of the Spirit comming upon them Thus we stand in need of the power of the Spirit to overcome affliction and persecution and how much power we have in affliction and persecution to indure them and overcome them just so much of the power of the Spirit we have and no more And thus also have I declared unto you what necessity all Christians have of the power of the Spirit coming on them as well as Ministers And this was to strengthen the Vse of exhortation The second Use is for information and instruction after this manner If the receiving of the Spirit be the receiving of power then it clearly informs us that the way to partake of this power is to obtain this Spirit and the way to increase this power is to increase this Spirit I shall endeavour to speak to both these things and so shall conclude 1. The way to obtain this power is to obtain the Spirit And that we may obtain the Spirit we must first prepare our selves to receive the Spirit Now this Preparation doth not stand as Papists teach and many ignorant persons among our selves think in sweeping the soul from sin and then strewing it with graces that so we may be fit to receive the Spirit For first the sweeping of the soul from sin is not a work of our own before the coming of the Spirit but a work of the Spirit it self after it is come For no flesh can clear the soul of one sin it is the Spirit must do that And secondly for the strewing of the soul with grace neither is this a work of our own but a work of the Spirit it self after it is come For the Spirit it self brings all grace with it and before the comming of the Spirit there is no grace at all So that we cannot by any acts of our own prepare our selves to receive the Spirit but only by the Spirit we prepare our selves to receive the Spirit For it is not any work of our own upon our selves but the immediate work of the Holy Spirit upon us that can make us fit to receive himself It lies wholly in his own power and goodness first to prepare in us a place for himself and then after to receive and entertain himself in that place he hath so prepared Now the workes of the Spirit whereby he first prepares us for himself and then entertaines himself in us are these two especially 1. He empties us and 2. he fills us with himself whom he hath made empty 1. He empties us And this emptying is the
Christ and the more we receive of Christ the more we receive of the spirit in Christ For faith doth not apprehend bare Christ but Christ with his Spirit because these are inseparable Now alwayes according to the measure of Christ in us is the measure of the spirit and according to the measure of faith is the measure of Christ in us 3. To be much in prayer For the prayer of the spirit increases the spirit The more we have the spirit the more we pray and the more we pray the more we receive the spirit So that when we have the spirit in truth we shall have daily a greater and greater increase of it till we be filled with the spirit For the spirit comes from Christ in whom is the fulness of the spirit and carries us back again to Christ that we may receive still more of the spirit And so by the spirit that is in our hearts we lay hold on the spirit that is in Christ and receive more and more of it 4. To turn our selves daily from the creature to God For the more we inlarge our hearts towards the creature the less capable are we of the Spirit of God For to live much upon the creature is to live much according to the flesh and this quenches and straitens the spirit in us And therefore we must live abstractedly from the creatures and so use them as if we did not use them and so minde them as if we did not minde them and abandon the contents and satisfactions of flesh and blood and wean our selves from all things but the necessities of nature And the more free and loose we are from the creature the more capable are we of Gods spirit and the operations of it He that lives at greatest distance from the world and hath least communion with the things of it hath alwayes the greatest proportion of Gods spirit For as the Apostle saith If any man love the world the love of the Father that is the Holy Spirit is not in him so if any man love the Father the love of the world is not in him now the more any one loves the Father the less he loves the world and the less he loves the world the more the spirit dwels in him 5. To cease daily from our own works The more we act our selves the less doth the Spirit act in us And therefore we must must from day to day cease from our own works from the operations of our own minds and understandings and wils and affections and must not be the Authors of our own actions For we being flesh our selves what ever we do is fleshly seeing the effect cannot be better then the cause And if we mingle the works of our flesh with the works of Gods Spirit he will cease from working in us But the less we act in our selves according to the principles of our corrupt nature the more will the spirit act in us according to the principles of the divine nature But our own works are alwayes a mighty impediment to the operations of the Spirit 6. To encrease the spirit in us we must give up our selves to the Spirit that he only may work in us without the least opposition and resistance from us That as the soul acts all in the body and the body doth nothing of it self but is subject to the soul in all things so the spirit may do all in us and we may do nothing of our selves without the Spirit but be subject to the Spirit in all its operations For the Spirit of God cannot work excellently in us except it work all in all in us And in such a man in whom the Spirit hath full power the Spirit works many wonderful things that he according to humane sense is ignorant of For as the soul doth secretly nourish and cherish and refresh the body and disperses life and spirits through it even when the body is asleep and neither feels it nor knows it so the Holy Spirit dwelling in the soul by a secret kinde of operation works many things in it for the quickning and renewing it whilst it oftentimes for the present is not so much as sensible of it 7. The seventh means to encrease the spirit is to attribute the works of the spirit to the spirit and not to our selves For if we attribute to the flesh the works of the Spirit and take from the Spirit the glory of his own works he will work no longer in us Wherefore we must ascribe unto the Spirit the whole glory of his own works and acknowledge that we our selves are nothing and can do nothing and that it is he only that is all in all and works all in all and we our selves among all the excellent works of the Spirit in us must so remain as if we were and wrought nothing at all that so all that is of flesh and blood may be laid low in us and the Spirit alone may be exalted first to do all in us and then to have all the glory of all that is done And thus you see the means to encrease the Spirit and so consequently strength as well as to get it And by the daily use and improvement of these means we may attain to a great degree of spiritual strength that we may walk and not be weary and may run and not faint and may mount up as Eagles yea and may walk as Angels among men and as the powers of heaven upon earth to his praise and honour who first communicates to us his own strength and then by that strength of his own works all our works in us And thus is he glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe FINIS Uniformity Examined Whether it be found in the GOSPEL OR In the PRACTICE of the Churches OF CHRIST By WIL. DELL Minister of the Gospel 2 Cor. 4. 13. We having the same spirit of Faith according as it is written I believed and therefore have I spoken we also believe and therefore speak Published according to Order London Printed 1651. Vniformity Examined OBserving that our Brethren of Scotland together with the Assembly of Divines and the rest of the Presbyterian judgement do often both in their Discourse and writings exceedingly press for Vniformity I have been urged in my spirit to think upon the matter and to consider whether there could be any such thing found in the Word of the New Testament or in the practice of the Churches of Christ And for my part I ingenuously profess I cannot yet discover it and would be glad if any would instruct me further in this particular so he do it from the Word Now Vniformity what is it but an unity of form and the form they mean no doubt is outward for the inward form as it cannot be known by the outward senses so neither can it be accomplished by outward power And therefore till I know their meaning better I conceive that by uniformity they understand an unity
us hath to do with many strong Corruptions and Lusts in the Soul yet at last he prevails against them all and Judgement breaks forth into victory because Christ the Judgement of God in the Soul must needs in the end prevail against every sin of man Again Christ the Righteousness of God as he makes us righteous with his own righteousness and makes us the righteousness of God in him so he is called Righteousness not in himself onely but in us he is the Lord our Righteousness and by this Judgement and Righteousness is Zion and her converts redeemed and reformed And so true Gospel reformation is the destruction of sin out the faithfull by the presence of righteousness And therefore you see how grosly they are mistaken who take Gospel Reformation to be the making of certain Laws and Constitutions by the sacred power or Clergy for external conformity in outward duties of outward worship and government and to have these confirmed by civil sanction and inforced upon men by secular power when in the mean time all that inward corruption and sin they brought with them into the world remains in their hearts and natures as it did before After this manner the old Prelates reformed who were wont to say to the Kings We will study out the faith and you shall maintain it and the faith they studied and broughâ— to the Kings the Kings must maintain and not questâ—on but that it was Jure Divino And thus you see in general what Gospel Reformation is and that it is a cleer different thing from Civil Ecclesiastical Reformation 2. Now in the next place let us see how this Gospel Reformation is qualified whereby the difference between this and the other will appear yet more cleerly First then it is a spiritual Reformation For as the Kingdom of Christ is a spiritual Kingdom so all the things that belong to it are spiritual things and so the Reformation of it A carnal Reformation is not sutable to a spiritual Kingdom And spiritual it is because it proceeds from the Spirit and stands in spiritual things as you shall see more full anon But now the Reformation of the Civil and Ecclesiastical State is but a carnal Reformation wrought by the powes of flesh and blood and stands in outward and fleshly things as you shall presently see Secondly it is an inward Reformation For as the Kingdom of God is an inward Kingdom the kingdom of God is within you so the Reformation that belongs to it is an inward Reformation This true Gospel reformation lays hold upon the heart and soul and inner man and changes and alters and renews and reforms that and when the heart is reformed all is reformed And therefore this Gospel Reformation doth not much busie and trouble it self about outward forms or external conformity but onely minds the reforming of the heart and when thâ— heart is right with God the outward form cannot be amiss And therefore saith Christ touching the worship of the New Testament God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth but speaks not one word of any outward form So that God in this Gospel Reformation aims at nothing but the heart according to the tenour of the new covenant Jer. 31. 33. This shall be the covenant that I will will make with them after those dayes saith the Lord I will put my Law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts so that they shall not onely have the word of the letter in their books but the living word of God in their hearts and God intending to reform the Church begins with their hearts and intending to reform their hearts puts his word there and that living word put into the heart reforms it indeed But now Civil Ecclesiastical Reformation is onely outward and busies it self in reforming the outward man in outward things and so is very industrious and elaborate about outward forms and outward orders and outward government and outward confession and outward practice and thinks if these be put into some handsomeness and conformity they have brought about an excellent Reformation though the heart in the mean time remain as sinful vile and corrupt as ever and so altogether unreformed And so this Reformation is like that Reformation of the Scribes and Pharisees notorious hypocrites who made clean onely the outside of the cup or platter leaving them all filthy and unclean within and whited over sepulchres to make them beautifull outwardly when inwardly they were full of rottenness and corruption So Civil Ecclesiastical Reformation makes a man clean outwardly with an outward Confession of faith c. when inwardly he is all filthy through unbelief and whites him over with a few handsom forms of worship when inwardly he is full of ignorance of God and Atheism Object Now if any ask But must there be no change of outward things in the Reformation of the Gospel Answ I answer Yes an outward change that flows from an inward but not an outward change without an inward much less an outward change to enforce an inward 3. It is a thorow Reformation for it reforms the whole man it reforms not the soul onely but the body too and the very spirit of the mind the spirit as it animates and quickens and acts the body is called the soul as it is in it self in its own nature and essence so it is called the spirit of the mind and this Gospel Reformation reforms all that is both inward and outward and outward and inward man yea the inwardest of the inward man and not only the operations of the soul in the body but of the soul in its self But Civil Ecclesiastical Reformation reforms by halfs it reaches the body and orders that but attains not to the soul much less to the spirit of the mind Again Gospel Reformation reforms sin wholly aswell as the man it reforms all sin whatsoever I will turn my hand upon thee saith God by this Gospel Reformation and will purely purge away thy dross and take away all thy tin It reforms a man not only of outward sins but of inward It reforms him of those sins that seldome come forth into the view of the world as Atheisme ignorance of God pride vain glory self-seeking hypocrisie carnal mindedness and all the evil desires of the flesh and of the minde Yea it doth not only reform all evil things in us but all imperfect things doing away imperfect things by the coming of perfect things doing away our own strength by the coming in of Gods strength and our own wisdome and righteousness by the coming in of Gods wisdome and righteousness But now Civil-Ecclesiastical reformation reforms sin by the halfs aswel as the man and so only reforms outward and gross sins such as run into the eyes of the world which are the least by a thousand times of the evils that a man hath and
of the Church is as great a work as the Redemption of it you will acknowledge the work is too great for you and that it belongs only unto Christ seeing the Father hath committed the care of this work only to him and he hath taken this care and charge upon himself and it is onely sutable to him as being the Head of the Church and he only is able for it as being the Son of God and equall to God The third General By what means Christ brings this Reformation about And that is by these two and them onely to wit the Word and the Spirit The first means whereby Christ reforms the Church is the Word By this Christ doth all that ever he doth in his Kingdom by this he cals and rejects by this he binds and looseth by this he comforts and terrifies by this he enlightens and makes blind by this he kils and quickens by this he saves and damns and all that ever he doth in this Kingdom he doth by his word and without this he doth nothing of all that he doth Christ doth all in his Kingdom by the word only but Antichrist doth all things without the word even by the Decrees and Constitutions of men Now as Christ doth all other things in the Church by the word so he reforms too Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken to you All the powers in the world cannot reform the Church as the word of God can do for this is quick and powerful and sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and doth change and renew and reform all And therefore Christ when he comes to reform the Church comes with no worldly power or weapons but onely with the word in his mouth yea though God set him King upon his holy hill of Sion yet he reforms not by outward power but by preaching saying I will publish the decree whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And again The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath annointed me to preach the Gospel And again The Redeemer shall come to Sion and then follows the Covenant of God with the Redeemer My word shall never depart out of thy mouth Isa 59. 10. and in Psal 45. the Church saith by the Spirit to Christ Ride on prosperously in the word of truth meekness and righteousness which is the word of the Gospel And so Christ when the time of Reformation was come went up and down preaching the word And thus he brought to pass the glorious Reformation of the New Testament by preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and nothing else And when he was to eave the world he sent his Disciples to carry on the work of Reformation as he himself had begun it as he saith As my Father sent me so send I you not with the power of the world but with the power of the word and so he bid them go teach all Nations and preach the Gospel to every creature and by teaching and preaching to the world to reform the world and so accordingly they did Mark 16. ver 20. They went forth and preached everywhere the Lord working with them So that Christ sent them not forth with any power of swords or guns or prisons to reform the world or with any power of States or Armies but sent forth poor illiterate mechanick men and only armed them with the power of the word and behold what wonders they wrought by that power alone They turned the world upside down they changed the manners customes religion worship lives and natures of men they carryed all oppositions and difficulties before them they won many in most Kingdoms unto Christ and brought them into willing subjection and obedience to him and all this they did I say not with any earthly or secular power but by the ministery of the Gospel alone Christs great and onely Instrument for the conquering subduing and reforming of the Nations And so the power appeared to be Gods onely and not the creatures And thus you see how the word is one means Christ useth for Reformation And this word only works a right Reformation For this reforms truly and indeed all other power reforms but in appearance So that there is no true reformation of any thing but what is wrought by the word but what ever evill is reformed and not by the power of the word it is not truly reformed it is onely reformed in the flesh and not in the spirit it is only suspended in the outward operation of it but the seed and nature of it still remains in the heart to grow up and work again as opportunity serves And therefore what ever evil or corruption is reformed in thee see it be reformed by the power of the word if the word hath killed it in thee it is killed indeed if not it is alive in thee though it seem to be dead The outward power of the world may set up an image of Reformation but it is the word onely can work true Reformation And therefore let us learn to rely on the word for the Reformation of the Church For this is much for the honour of the word which God hath magnified above all his Name when we can neglect the power of the world and leave the whole work of Reformation to the power working and efficacy of the word alone which is Almighty and able to bring off the heart from all things to God As on the contrary it is a great dishonour to God and his word when men dare not relie on the word alone to reform the Church though it be stronger then men and Angels and all the creatures but will needs be calling in the power of the world and rest and rely on that for this work as if the power of the word were not sufficient But let such men know that if the power of the word will not reform men all the power of the world will never do it And therefore well said Luther Praedicare annuntiare scribere volo neminem autem vi adigam I will Preach and Teach and Write but I will constrain no body Oh therefore that our Civil and Ecclesiastical powers would so much honour Christs Word as to trust the reformation of his Kingdom with it and that as it is sufficient to reform the Church so you would be pleased to think it sufficient and thus shall you give Christ and his Word due honour as well as declare your own faith And if you would commit this work to the power of the word to which onely it belongs you should soon see what the Word would do There is no such glorious sight under heaven as to see the Word in the spirit and power of it come in to an unreformed world and to observe the changes and
to do it to the great prejudice and disturbance of both 2. That you would be pleased to think that Christ Kingdom which is not of this world hath sufficient power in it self to mannage all the affairs of it without standing in need of any ayd or help from the world Seeing the power of man is of no place or use in the Kingdom of God which is not a Temporal or an Ecclesiastical Dominion but a Spiritual 3. That you would suffer the little stone of Christs Kingdom to be hewen out of the Mountain of the Roman Monarchy whereof this Kingdom is a part without hands even by the power and efficacy of the word and spirit seeing the hands of men cannot help but hinder this work which is to be done without hands And that your might and your power would please to let God do this work of his without might and without power and by his Spirit only 4. That you would be pleased to suffer the assemblings of the Saints both publikely and privately as occasion serves seeing this can be no prejudice to the State but a great advantage in as much as they meet peaceably and make no tumulâ—s and in their assembling pray for the peace and welfare of this divided and distracted Kingdom And also that you take heed of scattering those Churches that meet in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Christ which are Christs own gatherings together least Christ so scatter you abroad that you never be gathered together again 5. That you take heed you do nothing to the prejudice of the faithful Gods own people as he hath warned you by the Spirit saying Touch not mine anoynted and do my Prophets no harm This place hath been miserably mistaken for the Kings of the Earth and the Clergy have shared it between themselves whereas indeed it belongs to neither for Gods anoynted are the faithful that are anoynted with the Spirit the oyl of God and so are anoynted as Christ was anoynted And these anoynted ones are the Lords Prophets and the Lord hath no Prophets but such as are anoynted with the Spirit Thus Christ was made the Lords Prophet The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath anoynted me to preach the Gospel and thus are all his Brethren made Prophets being fellows with him in his Unction And therefore take heed how you meddle with the Lords anoynted ones and with the Lords Prophets for as it is said He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he even reproved Kings for their sakes saying Touch not c. So the Lord hath still the same care of the same people and will suffer no man to do them wrong but will reprove Kings and Parliaments and Kingdoms and Cities and Counties and Committees he will reprove them all for their sakes and say Touch not mine anoynted and do my Prophets no harm for they that are anoynted with the Spirit are the flesh of Christ and the Prophets of God therefore touch them and harm at them your own peril It grieves me to see the rest of the Kingdom touching these anoynted ones of God and doing harm to these his Prophets abusing and spoyling and imprisoning them It would grieve me much more if I should see you doing the same for this would bring you as well as the Kingdom under Gods own reproof and the reproof of God who can indure Sixthly and lastly Take heed you do not hinder the free passage of the Gospel When God hath put his Spirit into the hearts of men take heed how you resist the Word in those mens mouths for the Word of God in the meanest instrument can never be resisted but will carry all before it The Honour Power Dignity Authority Nobility Magistracy of the Kingdom if they should once stand up to hinder the Word of God the Word of God would carry them all before it And therefore it grieves me to see how the City Countrey Counties Towns Villages do all rise up for the most part against the ministration of the Spirit for this is a certain sign of the undoing of them all God will suffer and endure any sin long but onely the contempt and opposition of the Gospel but when men once rise up against the Gospel in the Spirit and Power of it they are sure to be undone by it and to be shattered all in pieces for this brings swift Vengeance And therefore when I see the generality of the people of all sorts rise up against the Ministration of the Spirit which God hath now in these dayes of ours set up even in every County for salvation to his people but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the rest I am then exceedingly distressed and pained at the very heart for thee O England and for all thy Cities and Towns and Inhabitants for thou that dashest against the Spirit in the Gospel how shalt thou be dashed in pieces thy self and there shall be no healing for thee I could hope for Peace again and good dayes suddenly in this Kingdom but for this sin of the contempt and opposing the Gospel and this makes my hopes even at an end and the day of my fear is come forth upon me But oh you honourable and beloved Christians let not your soul enter into those mens secrets neither yet walk in their open and publike wayes for ruin and destruction are in their pathes and the way of peace they shall never know seeing God is about to enter into controversie with all flesh for their rising up against the Ministration of the Spirit And therefore be Wise here I beseech you that in the shattering of the Nation if there be no remedy you may be kept together as a blessed remnant and a hopeful seed of the following generation To conclude Honourable and Worthy we will be willingly contented to do and suffer all things with you we will chearfully run through honour and dishonour with you fame and infamy gain and loss trouble and quietness War and Peace Life and Death and do desire to reserve nothing to our selves Nisi unicum verbum domini but onely the Word of God in its own purity and liberty to preach it and to publish it and to profess it and to practise it for the glory of God and his only begotten Son and for the good of his Kingdom and this Kingdom And thus much unto you from the Lord. A REPLY To Mr. LOVE'S Contradictions SIR BEcause I would not wrong you in any measure in what you said I went to one who took your Notes in short-hand and he gave me what I here set down for yours which I well remember are the things you then spake for the substance of them To which I give you this following Reply Mr. LOVE Cast your eyes upon the begun Reformation though peradventure cryed down with Confidence No such thing as the Reformation of the Church c. Reply I taught indeed That the Kingdom of Christ is
from the glory of God but it will make much for the sanctifying of thy name the gathering and encreasing thy Kingdom the propagating the knowledge of thy word and to be brief it is a most excellent and profitable design But God no doubt laughed at this wisdom of mine and said Go to now I know thee to be wise and learned but this was never my manner that either Peter or Martin meaning himself should teach or form or govern or lead me For I am not a passive but an active God who use always to lead govern form Now saith he it is very grievous that our wisdom should be only passive and that we are commanded to mortifie and slay it and therefore many who could not endure this mortification have fallen horribly And thus this kinde of Gods government is wholly according to his own wisdom and councel and wholly without yea contrary to ours And thus we are in some measure acquainted with the government of Gods special providence over his Church 2. The second sort of Gods immediate Government of his Church is the Grvernment of his spiritual Presence or Gods government within us For the right Church is the City of God and hath God in the midst of it being built and framed and that according to every part of it by the Spirit to be the habitation of God this is the temple of the living God as God hath said and God is in it of a truth And if any would know what this Church is called the name of it is THE LORD IS THERE And so the whole guiding and ordering of this Church depends wholly on God who dwels within it For God will not dwell in his own Church and sit still whilst others that are without it shall govern it but the government of the right Church lies on his shoulders who is Immanuel God with us and in us And so this government of the Church is one of the invisible things of God in the Church Christ who fils it governing it by a most present and powerful but invisible influence leading it into truth by the Spirit of truth into patience by the Spirit of patience into love by the Spirit of love into power by the Spirit of power into humility meekness patience heavenly mindedness and into the fulness of all Righteousness by that Spirit which contains all these graces in it self and works them in all those in whom it dwels In this government we hear the voice behind us saying This is the way walk in it when we turn either to the right hand or to the left In this government we have not outward laws to order us as the Kingdoms of the world have but an inward law written in our hearts by the Spirit of God as God hath said I will write my law in their hearts and in their inward parts and this law is the word of life for the living Church or body of Christ can only be governed by a living word which is called the law of the spirit of life And according to this Government also God guides the true Church wonderfully the soul not seeing the ways and councels of God whereby he forms and fashions the Church according to his own minde and good pleasure clean contrary to humane reason and judgement for he brings them to mourning to bring them to comfort brings them to despair to bring them to faith to death to bring them to life yea even to hell to bring them to heaven leading his chosen people after such a manner that nothing would follow but faith which looks not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen And thus when the soul is in the midst of many fears woes agonies temptations till it feel in good earnest the true sorrows of death and pains of hell and in this darkness sees no beam nor the least glimmering of light and wants all counsel and knows not which way to turn it self then Christ comes and manifests himself to the soul and counsels and directs and comforts it and leads it into the path of life and redeems it from all distress subduing the world and the devil and sin and death and hell under it yea and carrying it into all the fulness of God Now these two sorts of Governments to wit the one of his special providence and the other of his spiritual presence the true Church never wanted in any Age And in this present Age when the Prelatical Government hath been dissolved for several years together Can any Christian think that the right Church of Christ hath been without all Government Nay all this while it hath been governed most powerfully by his special providence and most sweetly by his spiritual presence So that neither the world nor the devil have been able to prevail neither against its grace nor comforts And for an outward formal visible enforced Government after the manner of civil Corporations or worldly Kingdoms the true Church can as well want such a Government at all times as at any time yea and it is best without it as being farthest removed from the tyranny of men and more immediately under the Government of Christ its onely King and Law-Giver And therefore they that are so violent for an outward and visible Government of the Church after the manner of the Kingdoms of the World I do heartily wish that if it be the good pleasure of God they might sometime or other be exercised with temptations of despair and with the sence of the wrath of God and everlasting burnings For by this means their idle and vain thoughts and speculations of governing the Church of God by humane power and methods would soon vanish and they would soon give over to trouble themselves and the faithful about things that have neither power in them to free from eternal death nor to procure eternal life And thus much for that two-fold Government of the Church which God himself exercises immediately in and over it whereof we must not be ignorant if we desire to preserve the peace of the Church both in our selves and others Now besides this immediate Government of God there is another sort of Government of the Church which Christ exercises mediately by the Church And this also is Christs Government and not mans and men who have not known nor understood the former Government of Christ have mistaken this also through the same unbelief wherefore they not so much as minding the former Government of Christ which is immediate and by himself have made this mediate Government of the Church by man to be all And this also I say they have understood most grossly and carnally and not according to the Word but according to their own ignorant and seduced hearts I shall not trouble the Reader with their particular mis apprehensions in this matter seeing it is far more profitable to content our selves with the plain and evident truth then
Several SERMONS AND DISCOVRSES OF William Dell Minister of the Gospel Sometimes attending both the Generals in the ARMY AND Now Master of GONVIL and CAIUS Colledge in CAMBRIDGE Heretofore published at several times and on several occasions and now gathered in one Volumn for the benefit of the faithful and conviction of the world LONDON Printed for Giles Calvert at the Sign of the Black-Spread-Eagle at the West-end of Pauls towards Ludgate 1652. A Preface to the Reader WE are almost at the end of Bookes these paper works are now preaching their own Funerals whilst they are holding forth the spirit the letter is growen old and is dying into the newness of the spirit and there looks to be found into which all things shall be resolved being restored out of their enmity as into their Original whence they came even Preaching and Preachers Apostles Prophets Evangelists Pastors and Teachers given for the perfecting of the Saints for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ till we come into a spiritual uniformity in Christ being all filled and cloathed with him beyond all external forms which are the rudiments and elements of children with which state there is no uniformity consistent there being in it so many several statures and ages And the Design of Vniformity upon that is from none but Satan to kill Christ whilst he is a Child and stifle him in his swadling cloathes though the pretence be with Herod to give him honour and worship But how vain are these plots upon him who shall subdue all things to himself and swallow up death or the vail a part whereof external forms are into victory and bring forth judgement with triumph He shall swallow up all and rise up out of that which hath swallowed him and been his grave and that have we been and made every thing to be who are now giving up our dead expecting to live in the liberty of of our prisoner whom we see at last to be our Lord and Life We are now by an earthquake and the shaking of the prison beginning to awake and to make to our Prisoners feet as the Jaylor at Philippi did to Paul and Silas his looking for Salvation there waiting when he will lead his Captivity Captive and convert us from being Goales and Tombs to be his City and Temple built of precious stones in whom he will live and walk and cause us to live and walk in him We are giving up our own life which is death finding in these present earthquakes the true life which hath been buryed in us now rising and are with the whole Creation groaning to be found in him giving up all that we thought gain as loss and rejoycing in our decrease seeing his encrease and our dying dayly because he lives And we glory in him who hath wrought us to this to be content to lose our lives that we might find them now that the day is coming when all that will find their life shall lose it and whatsoever comes not into him the fire of destruction shall take hold of it and it shall be thrown with death and hell into the lake The ensuing Treatises have begotten this in me or driven it forth into a Preface or Epistle for which the book came into my hands by a Friends direction which office of love I could not refuse however conscious of my own unworthiness And I cannot dismiss it with so short a Preface having the Author and book in my heart and that venting it self out of its abundance yet not as Solomons fool who hath his heart in his mouth pouring out all that is in it or more then is convenient for an Epistolary Designe which is only to be a signe to acquaint the Reader of what good entertainment there is to be found within It is time now for us to hear of power which is in the Spirit who so long have been opposing it and languishing in flesh in man in forms external in wisdom of words in Ministers Preachers Writers Books Vniversities Moralities Councels Synods Assemblies Civil and worldly Power instead of standing upright and being strong in the Lord and the power of his might we have only exhibited a shell and carcase of Religion and have held out our selves the generation which these last Times by the expresse prediction of the spirit were to bring forth Having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof It hath been the hour and power of Darkness the man of sin his revealing and sitting in the Temple of God and holding forth himself to be God The Spirit hath given this Man large Rope he hath suffered this Absolom the underminer of his Father David his hair to grow and is now coming forth the strong and spread and tall oak where this man is hanging and twisting himself for his destruction He hath been contented to become the stone though precious and the head of the Corner to be rejected by the builders that Satan and all his Kingdom might fall upon him and dash themselves to pieces and he is pleased to make his way through these clouds and to rise more gloriously the King of Israel from under the stuff higher by the head and shoulders then any annointed with the oyl of gladness above his fellows This is the Child set for the fall and rising of many in Israel and a sign to be spoken against Christ the power of God and wisdom of God the foolishness and weakness of man What destructions do we see already made what heaps upon heaps by a Jaw-bone of an Ass the weakness of God stronger then man and the foolishness of God wiser then man How far is the day of the Lord already risen upon the tall Cedars of Lebanon and the oakes of Bashan and the high mountains and Hils upon the high Towers and fenced Wals what ruine upon these how many gallant Ships wrackt how many pleasant Pictures defaced And yet the rest of the trees and ships and Towers the high things which yet stand do not fear nor lay to heart nor begin to stoop and bow of themselves but say we sit as a Queen and shall see no sorrow they see not who is risen They bribe their own consciences as they did the Soldiers least they should speak the truth they are far from asking the question What ayled thee O sea that thou fleddest and thou Jordan that thou wast driven back ye mountains that ye skipped like Rams Tremble thou earth at the presence of the Lord Power belongs to God he puls down one and sets up another How hath he broken the staff of the wicked the Scepter of the rulers how hath hell enlarged her self and what glory and pomp is sent down thither which stand exspecting those by whose hand they were thrown down to come to
underneath them they fall sadly and desperately to the great scandal of the ways of God However if men be not called forth to such eminent doings and sufferings and so scape such manifest discoveries and downfals yet the form of godliness hath this evil in it That it brings a man onely to the troublesome part of Religion but not to the comfortable it engages a man in the same duties with the godly but supplies him not with the same strength it involves him in the same bitterness of flesh but doth not furnish him with the same joy of Spirit For as such a mans Religion doth not reach above flesh and blood no more doth his strength and comforts And so he performs duties at a low rate yea and his bare and empty form casts a black vail upon Religion and utterly obscures its beauty and glory and makes the world judge meanly of it and to think it a matter only of singularity and humour and not of power Whereas when a Christian walks in the strength of the Spirit doing and suffering the will of God beyond all strength and abilities of flesh and blood the world often times wonders and gazes at him and many are provoked to glorifie God who hath given such power to men For this power of godliness among other things hath these three advantages 1. It makes a man do every duty strongly and mightily And whatever might take a man off from duty or distract and disturbe him in it all fals to nothing before this power There is that strength in each duty performed by the power of the anoynting which declares it to be the operation of God himself in man and nothing else but the very power of God that is Jesus Christ himself in action in us 2. It makes a man inflexible in the ways of God that he shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but take straight steps towards the mark set before him No fear nor favours nor frowns nor flatteries nor temptations nor insinuations nor designs of others nor ends of his own can turn him aside He carries such strength in his Spirit as he can never be bended and so far forth as he partakes of the power of God is as unmoveable and unchangeable as God him self 3. It makes a man invincible by all evils and enemies Because all the power against him is but the power of the creature but the power in him is the power of God And the power of God easily overcomes the mightiest power of the creature but is never overcome by it And if this power in a Christian should be prevailed against God himself who is that power should be conquered which is impossible To conclude the power of godliness is the doer of every duty in Gods Kingdom the subduer of every sin the conquerour of each tribulation and temptation the life of every performance the glory of each grace the beauty of a Christians life the stability of his conversation the lustre of his Religion his great Honour and excellency both in doing and suffering yea it is the very glory of God himself in the Church of God for by faith the Lord arises on us and by this power of godliness his glory is seen upon us These considerations right honourable moved me to discourse of the power of the Holy Spirit coming on all Christians Ministers and People And besides the importunity of some other friends your Honours earnest desires of these notes hath especially prevailed with me to publish them Not that I am worthy to publish any thing but that the truth of God is worthy to be published be the instrument never so mean and unworthy And although I well know the doubtful success of such undertakings as these yet in this matter I am not at all carefull being most willing to be bound up in one condition with the truth of God and to have with it the same common friends and enemies Besides if Christ dwell in my heart by faith I carry in my bosome already my reward out of whom I neither regard praise or dispraise good or evil Now I was bold to prefix your Honours name to these Notes because your desire of them hath made them yours and also your many noble favors are a strong and continual engagement for me to serve you according to what God hath made me Especially I remember your extraordinary compassion and bowels towards me in the day of my deepest distress when my soul drew near to the Pit and the shadow of death sate upon my eye lids and I had not the least drop of comfort either from earth or heaven Your Honor then shewed me the kindness of the Lord and encompassed me both with your pitty and goodness though then through bitterness of spirit I tasted it not Wherefore when I remember the wonderful goodness of God to me after so great sorrow and darkness I cannot forget that part of his goodness which he was pleased to administer to me by your Honours hands And the remembrance of this causes me to pray that God would double the same goodness on you and that he would pour forth upon my Lord your Honour your noble off-spring and family this power of the holy Spirit here treated of which shall render you a thousand times more precious and excellent before God and his Saints then all worldly Honour aud Nobility whatsoever And by this means shall Religion shine in your Family in its native beauty and lustre and the Kingdom of God which stands not in word but in power shall appear in its bright glory among you till the Kingdom of the Son first fit you and then after deliver you up to the Kingdom of the Father and God be all in all immediately Which is the earnest prayer of your most humble and faithful servant WILLIAM DELL The Contents THe Context The Explication of the Words Three General Doctrines 1. That Christ gives his own people sufficient strength for their imployments his own strength for his own Works 2. That when Christ leaves his people in regard of sense he never leaves them without a promise and in that promise his Spiritual presence 3. That the pouring forth of the spirit is the means whereby God both increases and governs his Church The more special Doctrine from the words is That the receiving of the Spirit is the receiving of power For the Spirit it self is power 1. Essentially in it self 2. Operatively in us By being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge 2. Of Truth 3. Of Wisdom 4. of Faith which inables us To do Indure the same things with Christ himself 5. Of Righteousness in Destroying sin Imparting Grace 6. Of the fear of the Lord. 7. Of Love and Vnity The Use twofold 1. Exhortation to inforce this the necessity of having this power is urged in reference 1. To Ministers 2. To all Christians 1. Ministers stand in need of the power of the Spirit to come upon them 1.
Because without they have this power they are destitute of all power 2. Without this power they are insufficient for the work of the Ministery As being unable 1. To preach the Word that is the true Spiritual and living Word of God 2. To preach it zealously and powerfully But without this presence of the Spirit of power 1. Their Ministery is cold and hath no heat in it 2. Weak and hath no strength in it 3. To persevere in their ministery and to carry it on against all opposition and contradiction 4. To reprove the world of sin For the Spirit of judgement must needs be accompanied with the spirit of might 5. To incounter and overcome the Devil 6. To inable them to be comfortable and invincible against all evils and enemies 2. Christians this Spirit of power and power of the Spirit is necessary for all Christians as well as Ministers Object But do all Christians receive the Spirit of God as well as Ministers Answ Yes equally and alike without any difference Now this Spirit of power is necessary for them 1. To distingush them from reprobates and Devils 2. To exalt them above all the rest of mankinde who are destitute of the Spirit 3. To unite them unto Christ And the power of the Spirit is necessary for them 1. To change their natures which is the daily work of the Spirit till all be renewed 2. To work grace in them and each grace is so much of the power of the Spirit in the flesh 3. To inable them to mortifie sin and the power of the Spirit mortifies 1. The whole body of sin in all its parts and members and 2. Each particular strong corruption 4. To performe duties For no more strength in any duties then of the Spirit in them 5. To confess the Word before Kings and Magistrates 6. To publish the word and that both 1. In private 2. In publique in case of necessity 7. To suffer and overcome affliction Natural strength withdraws it self from the evil Spiritual strength stands to it and overcomes it The second Vse is for information and instruction shewing that the way to obtain this power is to obtain the Spirit and to encrease this power is to encrease the Spirit Now that we may obtain the Spirit we must first prepare our selves Wherein this preparation doth not consist Wherein it doth consist that 〈◊〉 1. In emptying us 2. The work of the Spirit afâ—er he hath emptied us is to fill us The means through whâ—ch the Spirit is conveyed to us 1. By the Word and his word the Word of the Gospel 2. By Faith whicâ— carries us to Christs flesh to receive of his Spirit Through the word and faith we are born of God and so partake of the Spirit of God 3. Prayer and in prayer we may ask the Spirit either of the Father or the Son Again that we may encrease the Spirit 1. We must be constant and continual in the use of the Word 2. We must daily encrease faith 3. Must be much in prayer 4. Must withdraw our seves from the creatures and live loose from them 5. Must cease from our own works 6. Must give our selves up to the Sprit that he may work his work in us 7. The works of the Spirit we must attribute to the Spirit and not to our flesh Christs Spirit a Christians strength OR A plain discovery of the mighty and invincible power that all Believers receive through the Gift of the SPIRIT Acts 1. 8. But ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me c. Or You shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you THese words are the more remarkable because they are the very last words in the conference between the Son of God and his beloved Apostles immediatly before his ascension into heaven Now you know when dear and intimate friends are to part as their love then runs strongest and their affections are most intire and vehement so then also they especially discourse of those things wherein most of all they desire to be satisfied and resolved Thus was it between Christ and his Apostles never was there such dear and intimate friendship and such sincere and burning love between any as between them The Apostles all of them loved Christ most truly and passionately and Peter who had three times denied him three times professed his love to him and being sorry that Christ should question his love the third time he thus answered Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee And Christ also loved them dearly yea he loved them first and having loved his own he loved them to the end and so he was not discontented with them for their leaving and forsaking him through-humane infirmity when he was led away to judgement and to death For though death quite puts out all natural love yet spiritual love is not extinguished but enlarged by death Now when such loving friends as these were even now ready to take their last leave one of another in regard of bodily presence who would not most willingly have been present to have heard what discourse passed between Christ and his Disciples at this their last parting Now Luke acquaints us with the Whole summe and substance of Christs discourse with his Apostles all the time he lived together with them after his Resurrection till the day wherein he Ascended into Heaven In the third verse of this Chapter he saith he did discourse with them De Regno Dei touching the Kingdome of God That is not only touching his Spiritual Kingdom which he sets up in each particular Christian and which begins at our regeneration and is consummate in glorification but also touching his Mediatory and Monarchical Kingdom which in the time appointed of his Father he should set up in the world When he should have the Heathen for his inheritance and the utmost ends of the earth for his possession and all people and Nations and Languages should serve him and he should reign from sea to sea and from the river to the worlds end This was the summ of Christs discourse with them And the Apostles were fully satisfied touching the thing onely they were unsatisfied touching the time For besides that the setting up of this Kingdom of the Messias in the power beauty and glory of it was at that time the common discourse and expectation of all Israel the Apostles themselves remembred many Prophesies and promises of the Old Testament for the restoring the Kingdom of David And this they thought Christ would have done in the daies of his flesh but presently all their hopes were blasted by his death But when they saw him risen again from the dead then presently their hearts were revived into their former hopes but yet again seeing nothing done all the time he conversed with them after the resurrection when now he was ready to Ascend into Heaven
their imployments for their sufferings and for their doings And as Souldiers that are under a wise and carefull Commander when they are neer an ingagement are not suffered to run rashly upon the enemy nor permitted to go forth to battle till they are armed and mounted so Christ would not suffer his Disciples to go forth in his warfare to incounter so many evils and oppositions and persecutions and the whole power of the world and of the Devil till first he had armed them with the power of Holy Spirit Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you c. Christ alwayes gives unto all those whom he sends forth and imployes of his own power for his own works heavenly power for heavenly works spiritual power for spiritual works the power of God to do the works of God Indeed Christ gives unto some a greater measure of power and to some a lesser according as he intends to use some in greater works and difficulties and some in lesser but still they have of Christs power whether more or lesse who are imployed by Christ and a little of that power that is communicated by Christ will inable a man to do great things far greater then the world suspects or imagines So that we may judge of our calling to any business and of our imployment in it by the power we have received from Christ for it If we have none of the power of Christ we were never set on work by Christ for Christ never sets any on his work with out communicating unto them of his power And hereby we may certainly know and conclude that those in the Ministery that are loose and vitious and idle and negligent and insufficient for that work were never called to it nor imployed in it by Christ but they run of their own heads when they were not sent and minister in the Church for the gain of money and preach onely that they might live Whereas if Christ had imployed them in that calling he would have furnished them with abilities for it and they being destitute of such abilities it is most evident they were not sent by Christ Judge then what a kinde of Reformation this church were like to have if some men might have their minds who would have ignorant and insufficient men yea loose and prophane men tolerated in the Ministry under pretence of keeping up ordinances when yet such men were never imployed by Christ nor supplyed with any power from him Yea and what ordinances I pray are those like to be which are kept up by men that are carnal not having the Spirit But you see here that Christs way and wisdom was different from this for he first gives the Apostles the power of the Spirit and then sent them to preach when he had first inabled them to preach 2. You see here that Christ being to leave his Disciples in regard of his bodily presence yet leaves behind him the promise of the Spirit of power and this was some establishment to them yea this gave great joy and comfort to them who before had their hearts filled with sorrow Christ though sometime he leave his people in regard of sense yet he never leaves them without a promise The soul sometimes in the hours of temptation and desertion may want the sense and feeling of Christ but it never wants a promise from Christ and the promise makes Christ present in his absence For Christ himself is spiritually present in the promise and not Christ onely but the Holy Spirit also for Christ and the Spirit are never asunder but as the Father and the Son are one so is Christ and the Spirit one and all are in the promise And so the promise is able to uphold the soul in any condition not because of its own nature but because God and Christ and the Spirit are present in the Promise and they are infinitely able to support the soul through the Promise under the greatest evils either of earth or hell Now this injoyment of God in the Promise is the injoyment of faith and not of sense and this injoyment of faith is the most excellent and intimate injoyment of Christ And thus may the soul injoy Christs presence in his absence his presence according to faith in his absence according to sence And therefore Christ departing from his Disciples in regard of his bodily presence leaves with them the promise of the Holy Spirit and in that promise his spiritual presence And this is the worst condition that Christ ever leaves his true Church in he leaves them his presence in a Promise when in regard of sense he forsakes them 3. Note that Luke being to speak in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles of the propagating and inlarging and governing the Christian Church doth first make mention of the pouring forth of the Spirit and that both upon the Apostles and afterwards upon the Disciples Signifying hereby that there is nothing so necessary for the increase and well ordering of the true Church of Christ as the pouring forth of the Spirit And therefore they are altogether deceived and walk in the light of Nature and not of God who think the increase and propagation and preservation and establishment and order and ordering of the Church of God depend especially upon the Councels and Decrees and Constitutions of men and that without these the Church of God would soon come to woful disorder yea to utter ruine and confusion as if Christ and his Spirit sate idle in heaven and had left the whole business of his Church to men and the sacred power confirmed with the secular were abundantly sufficient for the increase and well ordering of the Church In the mean time not regarding the promise of the Father or the pouring out of the Spirit by the Son And this is the very mystery of the mystery of iniquity among us and the very head of Antichrist which is yet to be broken And therefore let us know that as the Psalmist saith Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it and except the Lord keep the City the watchman watcheth but in vain so also except the Lord through his Word pour forth the promise of the Spirit and by that Spirit of his in and through the Word inlarge and govern the Church they labor in vain that undertake these things of themselves For it is the Spirit alone that through the faithful ministry of the Word makes the increase of the Church and layes hold on all the elect and brings them through faith into the unity of the Son and of the Father and teaches them and orders them and governs them and preserves them And therefore you see here that the promise of the Spirit is first performed before the Church of God hath any inlargement or government And now from these general things we proceed to the words more particularly Ye shall receive power when the
Holy Ghost is come upon you And here we may note two things 1. What he promises them and that is Power you shall receive power 2. How they should be made partakers of that power and that was by the Holy Spirits coming upon them The point we will insist on from both is this That the receiving of the Spirit is the receiving of power till we receive the Spirit we are altogether without power and when we receive the Spirit then first of all do we receive power power from on high By nature we are all without strength weak impotent creatures utterly unable to any thing that is truly and spiritually righteous and good For by nature we are nothing but flesh for that which is born of flesh is flesh and all flesh is grass a fading withering and decaying thing together with all the flowers of it that is the perfections and excellencies of it So that by nature we are all without power because we are nothing but flesh of which weakness is an inseparable adjunct But when we receive the Spirit we receive power for power is an inseparable adjunct of the Spirit as weakness is of flesh yea the Spirit it self which is given us is power and that both essentially and operatively in it self and in us 1. The Spirit is power essentially in it self for it is one God with the Father and the Son co-essential co-equal co-eternal and so as Christ is the power of God so also is the spirit the power of God yea the spirit is the God of power aswel as the power of God So that the Spirit is power in himself essentially and he that partakes of the power of the spirit partakes of that power which is God and no creature 2. The Spirit is power operatively in us by being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge for the Holy Spirit teaches us to know the things that are freely given to us of God yea he teaches us to know what sin is and what righteousness what death is and what life what Heaven is and what hell what our selves are and what God is and these things he teaches us to know otherwise then other men know them In a word the spirit teaches a Christian to know all things that is to know God and the Kingdom of God and all the things of both all other things being nothing in comparison of these Thus the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of knowledge in us and so of power for knowledge is the strength of a man Whereas an ignorant man is a weak man you may carry him whither you will but knowledge renders a man strong and unmoveable And in all things wherein the Holy Spirit is a spirit of knowledge in us he is also a spirit of strength The Holy Spirit is a spirit of Power in us by being in us a spirit of Truth And so the spirit is because it doth not onely lead us unto the truth that is unto the word which is the onely truth as it is written Sanctifie them through the truth thy Word is truth but also the Spirit leads us into the Truth it leads us into the truth and the truth into us till we and it become one by an inseparable union The Holy Spirit takes a beleever and leads him into one truth after another till at last it lead him into all truth Now wherein the Spirit is a Spirit of truth to us it is a Spirit of Power for through the truth we learn from the Spirit of truth we are altogether stedfast and unmovable among variety of different and contrary winds of Doctrine And this is the very cause that among so many divisions and factions and errours and heresies which wofully prevail in these present times of ours the people of God are not seduced and overcome to wit because they are all taught of God of God and not of men and have the Spirit of truth to lead them into the truth the Spirit I say and not men and so it is impossible that they should fully and finally be deceived For wherein we are taught by the Spirit of God it is unpossible we should be perverted by men Whereas on the contrary the true ground why so many are seduced and overcom by the errors and heresies of this age is because they have taken up their religion onely from mans teaching and have received their opinions or doctrine from men and so what one man hath taught us another man can unteach yea if we be led to the truth it self onely by man man can again lead us from it For all the world cannot lead any man into the truth till the Spirit lead him into it and when the Spirit doth lead us into the truth all the men in the world cannot lead us out of it but we are so sure of those things wherein the Spirit hath been a teacher to us that if all the Councels and Churches in the world yea all the Angels of Heaven should teach us contrary we would hold them accursed But a man that hath not been taught of the Spirit every day you may win him into new opinions by the power and authority of men together with the strength of other advantages But he that hath been led into the truth by the Spirit of truth is unmoveable and invincible among all doctrines And thus also the Holy Spirit by being a Spirit of truth is also a Spirit of Power in us 3. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Power in us by being in us a Spirit of Wisdom and so it is because it makes us wise with the wisdom of God wise upon earth after the rate of heaven wise to salvation There is no man wise without the Spirit of God for the wisdom of carnal men is but foolishness before God yea before Angels and Saints but the wisdom of the Spirit is most gracious and heavenly wisdom And this wisdom of the Spirit is the strength of a Christian the more he hath of it the more mighty he is both in all his doings and indurings It is said Eccles 9. 15. That there was a poor wise man delivered a small city from the power of a mighty King and therefore Solomon concludes that wisdom is better then strength for it can do greater things then strength can When David carried himself wisely Saul a great King was afraid of him he thought himself too weak to deal with David and David too mighty to deal with him because of his wisdom and Solomon asked Wisdom of God above all things for the strength of his Government all Government without this being but weak and brittle Thus wisdom contributes strength to us whereas we say of a man that wants wisdom he is a weak man And so the Holy Spirit being a Spirit of wisdom in us is also a Spirit of Power 4. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Power in us by being in us a Spirit of Faith For
faith is a work of the Spirit of power and no less power would work faith in us then that which raised up Christ from the dead when he lay under all the sin of man and all the Wrath of God and all the sorrows of death and all the paines of hell it must be a mighty power indeed that must raise Christ then and that power was the power of the Spirit and no less power will work faith So that whoever truely beleeves by this faith of the operation of God is sensible in his own soul of the self same power that raised Christ up from the dead And thus the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of Faith in us and so of Power For unbelief keeps a man in himself but faith carries a a man out to Christ now there is no man weaker then he that rests on himself and there is no man stronger then he that forsakes himself and rests on Christ And so a man through the power of Faith is able both to do and indure the self same things which Christ himself did and indured 1. He is able to do the same things that Christ himself did and therefore saith Christ all things are possible to him that beleeveth so that a beleever hath a kinde of omnipotency and all things are possible to him because by faith he lays hold upon the power of God and all things are possible to the power of God and so all things are possible to a beleever who is partaker of that power of God And hence Paul saith I can do all things through Christ that strengthneth me This Christ that strengthned him was the power of God and this power of God is not a finite power but an infinite nor a particular power but an universal and so can do not some things only but all things and so also can all they who are truly partakers of it by faith Yea Christ himself hath a greater expression then this yea such an one that I never durst have spoken if Christ himself had not first spoken it and that is this John 14. 12. He that beleeveth in me the works that I do shall be do and greater works then these because I go to the Father Where Christ saith a beleever shall not only do the same works with himself which also had been a great thing but also greater works then himself and this indeed is altogether admirable and wonderfull That a beleever shall do greater works then Christ But how is this made good Why thus Christ he overcame the Law and Sin and Death and Hell and the whole power of the Devill in a body and soul free from sin his humane nature being the immediate formation of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary and so had not the least spot of sin in it But now beleevers overcome the same evils even the Law Sin Death Hell and the whole power of the Devil in corrupted and polluted nature in bodies and souls at the first full of sin and afterwards defiled through many corruptions The Devil came to Christ and found nothing in him and so he overcame but he comes to a beleever and findes much in him and yet he overcomes And this truly is a greater work then Christ did And these works we do but not through our own power but through Christs of which we truly partake through faith 2. A Christian through the power of faith is able not only to do but also to suffer the same things that Christ himself sufferd Now the sufferings of Christ were the most grievous and intolerable to nature that ever were For how did Christ for the present as it were lay aside his Divine nature that he might suffer in his humane and how did he suffer in this the whole weight and condemnation of sin to the very utmost and the whole wrath of God to the utmost and all the sorrows of death and the pains of hell to the very utmost And among all the sufferings had not the least drop of comfort either from heaven or earth and yet through the power of the Spirit he indured and overcame all And so each Christian is able to indure and overcome the same evills by the same power and therefore Paul desired to know Christ truly and not onely the power of his resurrection which any one would desire to know but also the fellowship of his sufferings which flesh and blood trembles at yea and to be made conformable to his very death Yea I add yet further that if a Christian should chance to fall down into Hell as we beleeve Christ descended into Hell and so also many of his Saints have done as David and Hezekiah c. Yet a Christian through the power of the Spirit were able to overcome both the sins and the pains of Hell and therefore saith Solomon Love which is the power of the Spirit is too strong for death and too hard or too cruel for Hell As is evident in that Godly woman for I will name but one instance instead of many who thinking of the torments of hell and of the hatred and blasphemy of God which reigned in the damned did earnestly entreat God ut etiamsi damnaretur tamen Deum diligeret that though she were damned yet still she might love God Here love was too hard for Hell indeed And thus a beleever through faith is inabled both to do and indure the self same things which Christ himself did and endured and the Holy Spirit by being a Spirit of faith is a Spirit of Power in us 5. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of power in us by being in us a Spirit of Righteousness and so he is two waies 1. In regard of mortifying sin For the Spirit of God dwelling in us is not idle in us but continually active and so from day to day mortifies sin And this is the proper work of the Spirit in our flesh to destroy out of us whatsoever is contrary to it self and that is every sin lust and corruption Now our sins are our weakness a mans pride and passion and envy and covetousness and lust and intemperance and every sin is his weakness Now the Holy Spirit by being in us a Spirit of righteousness mortifies and destroyes all our sins and so takes away our weakness 2. Again as the Holy Spirit is a Spirit of righteousness in us in regard of mortifying sin so also in regard of imparting grace to us For all grace is the fruit and operation of the Spirit in our flesh and as all light is from the sun so is all grace from the Spirit Now every grace is so much strength in the soul Faith so much strength Hope so much strength Love so much strength and so humility and patience and temperance and godliness and brotherly Kindness and all other graces are so much strength and according to each mans measure of grace so is his measure of
strength and according to each mans measure of the Spirit so is his measure of grace And thus the Holy Spirit by being a Spirit of righteousness is also in us a Spirit of power 6. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of power in us by being in us a Spirit of the fear of the Lord and so he is by representing God to us in his Glory and Majesty according as he hath revealed himself to us in his word from which knowledge of God springs his fear For what is the reason that the men of the world fear not God but sin securely against the great and glorious God every day Why the reason is because they know not the Lord. Now the Spirit comes and reveals the Father in the Son and presents God to the soul through his word in his infinite and eternal power and justice and wisdom and truth and faithfulness and love and mercy and goodness c. and shines to the soul in each attribute of God and now when a man sees God by his own light and knows him by his own teaching then first doth he begin truely to fear God and the fear of God is his strength For he that fears God is free from all other fear he fears not men of high degree nor men of low degree nor the united power of all the creatures he fears not the fear of other men in their evils but in the midâ—â— of all fearful things he is without fear because he sanctifies the Lord of hosts in himself in his heart and makes him his fear and his dread And by this means amidst all evils he hath admirable confidence and assurance because he knows that no evil can befall him from any man or from any creature till first it be the will of God and also that what ever evil befalls him according to the will of God it shall work for good unto him in the end Thus the fear of the Lord is a Christians confidence and a beleevers strength whereas he that fears not God fears every thing yea not onely reall but imaginary evils and as evils multiply his fears so his fears again multiply his evils till at last he be swallowed up of both But the Holy Spirit being in us a Spirit of the fear the Lord is also in us a Spirit of strength 7. The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of power in us by being in us a Spirit of love and unity The Holy Spirit is a Spirit of love and unity in the Godhead for the Father loves the Son with the Spirit and the Son loves the Father with the Spirit and the Father is one with the Son in the Spirit and the Son is one with the Father in the Spirit and the Spirit is both the bond of love and unity between the Father and the Son and God being most love and most one is also most strong Now what the Spirit is in the Godhead he is the same in the Church of God which is the true temple and habitation of the Godhead and that is a Spirit of love and unity For why is there such constant love and unity between the members of the same body but because one Spirit runs through them all and so there is such constant love and unity between all beleevers because one Holy Spirit runs through them all And hence we may take notice of a remarkable difference between nature and grace for nature of one makes many for we all who are many among our selves even a whole world of men were but one in Adam omnes eramus ille unus homo but grace of many makes one for the Holy spirit which is as fire melts all the faithfull into one mass or lump and makes of many one body one thing yea it makes them one in the unity of God according to that of Christ John 17. 21. that they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that they also may be one in us mark the words for they are wonderful that they all may be one that is that all beleevers who are many among themselves may be all made one one How one As thou Father art in me and I in thee that is as thou and I being two persons are yet but one God after this highest example of unity let them be made One in us as long as they remain in themselves they are many and how much they remain in themselves they are many for their unity is not in themselves but they are one in us who are one that is how much the saints by the Spirit are carried into the Father and the Son who are one so much also are they made one not onely with the Father and the Son but also with one another You may see in the Acts how the multitude of beleevers after they had received the Spirit so far forth as they had received the Spirit Were of one heart and of one minde And this unity of beelievers is their strength and when God shall take away all those prejudices and suspicions and jealousies and particular ends and interests and divisions and separations and Schismes that are among his own people and the people of God shall be reduced into this blessed unity among themselves and the Lord be one and his name one among them all then shall the Church also be of admirable and invincible power So that all they that strive with it shall perish and all they that war against it shall be as nothing yea then shall the Lord make the Church as a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth and it shall thresh the Mountains that is the Kingdomes of the world and shall beat them small and shall make the hills that is the lesser Common-wealths as chaffe But till the Church of God attain to this unity it shall not do any excellent thing it shall not work any notable deliverance in the earth neither shall the inhabitants of the world fall When the Spirit of God shall be a Spirit of unity in the faithful and shall heal all the sad differences and dissensions that are now between them then also shall it be a Spirit of admirable power in them And thus much for the explication of the point The Vse is twofold 1. The first is to exhort all men everywhere to endeavour to partake of this supernatural spiritual and divine power of the Holy Spirit which is certainly communicated to all the faithful and Elect in Christ Jesus And let no man think it is a thing indifferent whether he have this power or no but know that the having of this power of the Spirit is of absolute necessity and that both for Ministers and for all other Christians 1. There is a necessity of this power of the Holy Spirit for Ministers and to them this present place doth chiefly relate 1. For first if they have not this power of the Holy Spirit they have no power at all For
Christ sent them only as his Father sent him and so Christ never gave unto them any earthly or humane or secular power no power of words or prisons no power of outward constraint and violence Christ gave them no such outward and worldly power for the inlargement of his Kingdom as not being at all sutable to it For his Kingdom is spiritual and what can carnal power do in a Spiritual Kingdom His Kingdom is heavenly and what can earthly power do in a heavenly Kingdom His Kingdom is not of this world and what can worldly power do in a Kingdom that is not of the World And though Antichrist and his Ministers have arrogated and usurped such a carnal and earthly and worldly power to themselves in their pretended managing the Kingdom of Christ yet the faithful Ministers of Christ cannot And therefore seeing the Ministers of the Gospel have no power from beneath they must needs have power from on high seeing they have no fleshly power they must needs have Spiritual power seeing they have no power from earth and from men they must needs have power from heaven and from God that is the power of the Holy Spirit coming on them or else they have no power at all 2. The Ministers of the Gospel must needs have this power of the Holy Spirit because otherwise they are not sufficient for the Ministery For no man is sufficient for the work of the Ministery by any natural parts and abilities of his own nor yet by any acquisite parts of humane learning and knowledge but onely by this power of the Holy Spirit and till he be indowed with this notwithstanding all his other accomplishments he is altogether insufficient And therefore the very Apostles were to keep silence till they were induced with this power they were to wait at Jerusalem till they had received the promise of the spirit and not to preach till then Yea Christ himself did not betake himself to the work of the Ministery till first the spirit of God came upon him and anointed him to preach And therefore for thirty years together he did not preach publikely and ordinarily till at Johns Baptism he received this power of the spirit coming on him Now if Christ himself and his Apostles were not sufficient for the Ministery till they had received this power from on high no more are any other Ministers whatsoever For as I said it is not natural parts and abilities and gifts and learning and eloquence and accomplishments that make any man sufficient for the Ministery but only the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon him So that who ever is destitute of the spirit of power is insufficient for the work of the Ministery and that in these regards 1. Without this power of the spirit Ministers are utterly unable to preach the Word that is the true spiritual and living Word of God For to preach this Word of God requires the Power of God One may speak the word of man by the power of man but he cannot speak the Word of God but by the power of God And Christ himself in all his Ministery spake nothing of himself in the strength of his humane nature but he spake all he spake by the power of God and without this power of God he could not have spoken one word of God And so in like manner no man is able to preach Christ but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For Christ is the power of God and can never be represented but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For as we see light in his light that is the Father who is light in the Son who is light or else the Son who is light in the Holy Spirit who is light So we know power in his power that is the Son who is power in the Holy Spirit who is power And Christ who is the power of God can never be made known to the Church but by the ministration of the spirit which is the power of God So that it is not an easie thing to preach Christ the power of God yea none can do it aright but by the power of the Holy Spirit comming upon him 2. Without this power of the Spirit Ministers are unable to preach the word powerfully They may it may be happen upon the outward word yet there is no power in their Ministry till they have received this power of the spirit comming upon them Otherwise their Ministery is cold and there is no heat in it it is weak and there is no strength in it 1. It is cold and there is no heat in it Without men have received the power of the spirit there is no fire in their preaching Their ministery is unlike the ministery of Elias whose ministery was as fire and unlike John Baptists who in his ministery was a burning and shining light and unlike Christs whose ministery made the Disciples hearts burn within them and unlike the Apostles who having received this spirit were as men made all of fire running through the world and burning it up Without this spirit a mans ministery is cold it warms the hearts of none it inflames the spirit of none but leaves men still frozen in their sins 2. It is weak and hath no might in it There is no strength in a Ministery where there is no spirit Whereas when men have received the spirit then their ministery is a powerful ministery as Paul 1 Thess 1. 5. The Gospel came to you not in word onely but in power and in the Holy Ghost and therefore in povver because in the Holy Spirit And again 1 Cor. 2. 4. My speech and preaching was not with the entising words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power Where you see the spirit and power in the work of the Ministery are alwayes conjoyned as the Sun and light are And that Ministery that is in the spirit is alway in power And being in power it is alwayes effectual either to convert men or to inrage them And the inraging of men is as evident a sign of the spirit of power in a mans ministery as the conversion of men Whereas a cold and dead ministry that is destitute of this power doth as we use to say neither good nor harm neither converts nor inrages neither brings in righteousness nor destroyes sin neither kils nor quickens any but leaves men in their old temper for many years together and never stirs them But the ministration of the spirit and power is operative and mighty and carries all before it And though evil and carnal men will ever be murmuring and wrangling and opposing and contending against such a ministry yet they are never able to resist the wisdom and spirit of it as the Libertines Cyrenians and Alexandrians were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake And therefore let them that will needs be striving
against such a ministery know that they strive against more then a meer man they strive against power from on high against the greatest power that ever God put forth against the power of Christ himself and his eternal spirit and so they shall never be able to prevail against this power but shall surely sinke under it But to return from whence we have a little digressed 3. Without this power of the spirit as Ministers are not able to preach the Word nor to preach it powerfully so neither are they able to hold out in their ministry and to carry it on strongly against all opposition and contradiction Peter and John preached the Gospel but presently the Rulers and Elders and Scribes convented them and straightly threatned them and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus And now if the Apostles had wanted this power of the spirit they would presently have been snibd and awed and would have sneaked away and you should have heard no more of them But they having received this power all the threatnings and scornings of the Rulers and Magistrates could not deterr them from the discharge of their office and that ministery they had received from Christ But though before they were fearful and trembling and daunted at the apprehension of the least danger yet now having received this power they are altogether undaunted and said to the Rulers and Elders whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more then unto God judge ye As if they should have said O ye Rulers and Elders of the people our case is a plain case wherein we are most willing that even your own selves should be Judges For we have received a command from God to preach the Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ and you forbid us to do that which God hath commanded us Now do you your selves be Judges who is fittest to be obeyed God or you the great and glorious God of heaven and earth or poor wretched men such as your selves Nay what God hath commanded us we must and will obey against all your threatnings and punishments and what ever you can say or do We cannot conceal but must publish what we have seen and known of our Lord Jesus Christ of his incarnation life death resurrection ascension kingdom glory and of that great redemption and salvation which he hath wrought and purchased for all the Elect of God Now I would to God that the unjust commands of all Magistrates and secular Powers whatsoever might be no otherwise obeyed then this unjust command of the Rulers was by Peter and John and that no man would dare to yield more obedience to the creature then to the Lord of all For no Princes or Magistrates in the world have any power to forbid the preaching of the everlasting Gospel which God hath commanded should be published to all Nations for the obedience of Faith I say they have no power at all to forbid the preaching of this Gospel or of any one truth of it though never so cross to their designs And if they should yet herein ought we to know no more obedience then Peter and John did here We ought to obey God and not them and to make known the whole minde of God though it be never so contrary to their minde After the example of Peter and John who having received this power of the Holy Spirit held on their Ministery against all the countermands and threatnings and punishments of the Magistrates Whereas without this power they had soon fainted and failed and had never been able to have gone through with it 4. Without this power of the Holy Spirit Ministers are not able to reprove the world For every man by nature seeks the amity of the world and no man by his good will would provoke the enmity of it against himself And therefore flesh and blood will never reprove the world of sin but allows it and countenances it in sin But now the Spirit when he is come he will reprove the world of sin When a man hath this power of the Spirit in him then presently he reproves and argues the world of sin and so by his ministery bids defiance to the whole world and provokes the whole world against himself And this no man either can do or dares do except he be first indued with this power of the Spirit coming on him And therefore saith Micah Cha. 3. vers 8. I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin The world of all other things cannot indure the reproof of sin and the declaration of its evil wayes And therefore it is exceedingly offended yea and extreamly rages against the faithful teachers of the Word with all sorts of punishments and persecutions as the examples of all the Prophets Apostles and faithful teachers of the Word of God in all ages do declare Yea and Christ himself testifies touching himself therefore the world hates me because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evil But now they that will connive at sin and flatter the world in its own wayes these are the onely men of reckoning and live in all worldly Honour and prosperity And all ages can witness that all Teachers are not of that strength and resolution to contemn the hatred and fury of the world Nay the most are quite overcome with the prosperity of this present life and with the desire of friends and riches and preferment and so wink at the sins of the world and are Ministers in whose mouths are no reproofs though the whole world lye in wickedness For thus they escape the rage and violence and obtain the favour and love of the men of this world And thus weak and unworthy are those men who are onely indued with their own Spirits But now saith Micah I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin As if he should have said the power of the Spirit of the Lord dwelling in me puts forth its self two wayes in judgement and in fortitude 1. In judgement and this signifies the reproving and the condemning sin and wickedness as the Prophet himself explicates saying that I might declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin But seeing their being full of judgement doth not want danger but exposes a man to a thousand evils in as much as the world can indure nothing less then the reproof of sin therefore I am by the power of the Spirit not onely full of judgement but also Secondly full of Might and as the Spirit of judgement exposes me to danger so the Spirit of might inables me to contemn those dangers So that though the world because of the Spirit of judgement threatens never so many evils yet the
Prophet is not frighted from his office but through the Spirit of might discharges it faithfully in despight of all those threatnings And whatever Ministers want this Spirit of might though out of danger they may be confident yet at the very first incounter of evil they will bend and yeeld and speak and do all things for the favour of the world rather then for the truths sake they will expose themselves to the hatred and opposition of the world 5. Without this power of the Spirit they are unable to wrestle with and overcome the Devil whose subtilty and wrath and malice and power they must needs encounter with in the work of the Ministry Christ as soon as he was indued with this power and anointed by the spirit to preach was immediately led into the wilderness to be temped of the devil who would fain have taken him off from the work of the Ministery if it had been possible But Christ being indued with this power overcame the divel And Christ before he sent his Apostles to preach the Kindgdom of God as you may see Luke 9. 1. called them together and gave them power and authority over all devils and when they returned they told him that the devils themselves were subject to them But now the seven sons of Sceva who were destitute of this power when they took upon them to call over one who had an evill spirit the name of the Lord Jesus and to say we adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth The evil spirit answered and said Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are ye and so the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped upon them and overcame them and prevailed against them and they fled away naked and wounded Acts 19. So that they being destitute of this power from on high the devil was presently too hard for them and they were overcome by the devil But now they that are invested with this power of the Holy Spirit are able to wrestle with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this world and to out-wrestle them and to tread Satan himself under their feet Sixthly without this power of the Holy Spirit they are unable to suffer persecution for the Word but the least touch of evil causes them to pull in their hornes and each reproach and opposition and persecution shakes them down Whereas this power makes them confident couragious comfortable and invincible in the midst of all evils See this in some examples Our Lord Jesus Christ being anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power did not onely preach the truth in his life but also witnessed a good confession before Pontius Pilate and sealed to the truth with His death Paul who was indued with the same power when Agabus foretold him by the Holy Spirit his bonds at Jerusalem and the brethren hearing it came weeping to Paul and besought him to keep himself out of bonds by not going up thither Paul reproved them and told them that he was ready not onely to be bound but to dye at Jerusalem for the Lord Jesus Chrysostome was indued with the same power and so resolved to preach the truth and not to depart from the truth though the whole world should wage war against him alone And professed that he desired nothing more then to suffer for the cause of Christ and that if it were offered to him of God whether he would immediately go to heaven or stay on earth and suffer for Christ he would a thousand times rather chuse this latter then the former Because in going immediately to heaven he should seek himself but in staying on earth to suffer for Christ he should wholly deny himself and seek his honour alone Luther was indued with the same spirit of power and so when he was called to Wormes before the Emperour Charls the fifth and before all the estates of the Empire to render a reason of his Doctrine and some of his friends perceiving undue dealing among his adversaries perswaded him not to go to expose himself to danger but he answered with a mighty spirit I have decreed and am resolved because I am called to go into the City in the name of our Lord Jesus Christi though I knew there were so many Devils to oppose me as there are tiles on all the houses of the City And when he was called to return to Wittenberge by the people which he could not do without most evident and apparent danger he being already condemned by the Edicts and Authority both of the Pope and Emperour and so in regard of them could expect no less then a violent death every day yet for all this he was resolved to return to his charge and upon this occasion hath this passage to the Duke of Saxony But what shall I do unavoidable causes urge me God himself calls and compells me and here I will turn my back to no creature Go to then let me do it in the name of Jesus Christ who is Lord both of life and death Again in his answer to the Dialogue of Sylvester Prierias who had threatned him he saith I have nothing that I can loose I am the Lords and if I am lost I am lost to the Lord that is I am found And therefore seek some body else to fright for me you cannot Again in his answer to Ambrosius Catharinus he saith of the Pope and his Instruments they seek not to overcome me with Scriptures but to destroy me out of the earth but I know and am sure that Christ our Lord lives and reigns And being even filled with this knowledge and confidence I will not fear many thousands of Popes For greater is he that is in us then he that is in the World And again in his Epistle to his Father he hath this remarkable passage What if the Pope shall kill me or condemn me below hell He cannot rayse me up again when I am slain and kill me a second and third time And having once condemned me I would never have him absolve me For I am confident that the day is at hand wherein that Kingdom of abomination and destruction shall be it self destroyed But would I might first be counted worthy either to be burned or slain by him that so my blood might cry the lowder and urge his judgement to be the more hastened But if I am not worthy to testifie with my blood let me at least intreat and implore this mercy that I may testifie by my life and Doctrine that Jesus Christ alone is our Lord and God blessed for ever and ever Calme Melancton was indued with the same Spirit of power and so when his enemies threatned him not to leave him a place in all Germany whereon to set his foot he said avido tranquillo animo expecto exilia I expect banishment with a desirous and peace able mind Many more Examples might be produced to show that when Ministers are indued with the
Divine nature and again he hath predestinated us that we should be conformable to the Image of his Son That is as in other things so also in all his vertues So that the power of the Spirit implants grace in our nature and each grace is so much of the power of the Spirit in our flesh as was said before Wherefore we must needs learn to know whose power the power of grace is For though grace be a power in our flesh it is not the power of our flesh for Paul saith in me that is in my flesh dwels no good thing but and if any good be in my flesh it dwels not in my flesh but in Gods Spirit which dwels in me As light is in the ayr but dwels in the Sun so when men are regenerate good is in the flesh but dwels in the spirit For grace in the soul is nothing but so much of the power of the Spirit immediately dwelling and working in us and when the Spirit is gone all grace goes along with him as all light with the Sun but it dwels in him and is inseparable from him 3. All Christians stand in need of the power of the spirit to enable them to mortifie and destroy sin There is no power in our flesh against sin but all the power of our flesh is for it and therefore it must be another power then the power of our flesh that must destroy sin and that can be no other then the power of Gods Spirit And the power of the Spirit destroys the whole body of sin and each particular strong corruption 1. The whole body of sin in all the parts and members and branches of it each several influence and operation of the Spirit being a several destruction of some sin or other For as the spirit that is in us lusts after envie or pride or vain-glory or covetousness or uncleanness or the like so the Spirit we have of God according to its mighty power destroys all those sinful works of our corrupt spirit and mortifies all the deeds of our flesh according to that of Paul if ye mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit ye shall live The flesh will never mortifie its own deeds but the spirit must mortifie the deeds of the flesh and this will mortifie them according to the whole Latitude of them 2. Again as the power of the Spirit sudues the whole body of sin so also it over powers each particular strong corruption and keeps a Christian straight and upright in the ways of God Every man hath some one corruption to which by nature he is more inclined then to another and this is the byas of a man but the strength of the Spirit will over-power this A boul if it be thrown with strength knows not its byas but is carryed on strait as if it had no byas at all So the Godly have still some flesh in them which is their byas and carries them from God to themselves and the World but the strength of the spirit takes away this byas and makes us take straight steps to God 4. All Christians-stand in need of the power of the Spirit to inable them to perform duties to perform them aright that is spiritually For spiritual duties may be performed for the outward work carnally and in such duties there is no strength but weakness because there is none of the Spirit in them For there is no power in any duty except there be something of the spirit in the duty There is no more power in praying nor in preaching nor in hearing nor in meditation nor in reading nor in resisting evil nor in doing good nor in any duty of sanctification or of mortification then there is of the Spirit in them And according to the measure of the spirit in each duty is the measure of power in the duty If there be none of the Spirit in a mans duties there is no power at all in them but onely weakness and deadness and coldness and unpofitableness If a little of the spirit there is a little power if abundance of the Spirit there is great power and that duty that is most spiritual is the most powerful And therefore saith Paul I will pray with the Spirit and I will sing with the spirit and all the worship of the faithful is in the spirit Philip. 3. 3. We are the Circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh So that there is no more power in any duty then there is of the Spirit in it and there is no more acceptance of any duty with God then there is of power in it Fifthly all Christians stand in need of the Power of the Spirit to inable them to the use of the Word and that both in private and in publique as occasion serves 1. In private for no man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit No man can speak of Christ spiritually but by the Spirit and without this spirit which searches the deep things of God and reveals them to us Christians are unable to give the Sense of the Word of God in their families and among their friends and acquaintance and are also ashamed to do it Whereas the Spirit of God gives both ability and boldness as Aquila and Priscilla his wife did not onely speak the word in their family but also took Apollos a Minister home when they perceived him somewhat ignorant in the mystery of Christ and instructed him in the way of God more perfectly 2. They have need of the power of the spirit to inable them to speak the word of God in publike as every Christian may do if he come where people are ignorant of Gods Word and there be no Minister to do it This I say in such a case he may do by vertue of his anointing with the spirit And for this you may see the practise of Stephen and Philip who were but Deacons and not Elders or Ministers and yet published the Word where the people were ignorant yea you may see Act. 8. how all the Disciples except the Apostles were by reason of a great persecution scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria and they that were so scattered went everywhere preaching the Word because the people among which they were were ignorant and there was no body else to do it And God having made known Christ unto them they could not but declare him unto others the love both of Christ and of their brethren constraining them But this is in case of necessity and where other fuithful Christians are absent otherwise when Christians are present no man can take that to himself without the consent of all which belongs to all Sixthly all Christians stand in need of this power of the spirit to inable them to confess the word before Kings and Rulers and Magistrates when they are called thereunto Whereas without this power they
of outward form in the Churches of God yea some of them do declare so much calling the thing they would have External Vniformity Now such a thing as this after so much meditation and recollection as my other imployments and the many distractions that necessarily attend my present condition will permit me I cannot discern in the Word of the Gospel For Christ speaking of the Church of the New Testament saith Joh. 4. 23. The hour cometh and now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in Spirit and Truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him God is a Spirit and they that worship him must worship him in Spirit and Truth In which words it is most evident that the worship of God in the time of the New Testament is inward and spiritual consisting in faith hope love and in prayer which is the operation of the three former c. And so is so far from Vniformity as it hath been explicated and as they understand it that it is not at all capable of it And therefore I cannot but wonder at the strange workings of darkness in the minds of men who would have an exernal Vniformity in a worship that is inward and spiritual and of which the outward form is no part at all but is meerly accidental and so absolutely various Again as I finde not this Vniformity in the doctrine of the Gospel so neither in the practice of the Saints who had the spirit of the Gospel as that practice is represented to us in the Word In Acts 1. 14. I read how the Apostles being together with the women and Mary the Mother of Jesus and his brethren continued 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one accord or mind in prayer and supplication and Acts 2. v. 44. 46. how all that believed were together and continued daily 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one minde in the Temple and did break bread from house to house c. And in all this there was Vnity but no external Vniformity neither name nor thing Again Acts 4. 23. Peter and John being let go by the Magistrates went to their own company which many of our Clergy would term a Conventicle and reported all that the chief Priests and Elders had said to them and when they heard it they lift up their voice to God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with one mind and prayed Here was inward Vnity in faith and love and joy and spiritual prayer but no external Vniformity and vers 32. The multitude of them that believed were of one heart and one soul Vnity still but nothing of external Vniformity Further we read Acts chap. 7. and chap. 8. that Stephen and Philip who by the Church were ordained Deacons and were to serve only for the Ministery of the Table yet by vertue of the anointing preached the Word of God freely and powerfully and how all the Members of the Church of Jerusalem who were neither Ministers not Deacons being scattered abroad by Persecution went Preaching the Word everywhere where they came in that case of necessity the unction of the Spirit of which all Believers partake alike being one fundamental ground of such Ministery where there are no Believers to call to the Office and in this though there was unity of faith spirit and doctrine yet I am sure they will say there was no such uniformity as they would have Again Acts 20. Paul the first day of the Week preached to the Disciples of Macedonia from the Evening till Midnight which Dr. Pocklington in a printed Sermon saith was out of order that is out of Prelatical order or Presbyterial Vniformity and after brake bread and did eat and talked with them a long while till break of day and going from thence he arrived at Ephesus and there called the Elders of the Chuch together and appeals to them after what manner he had been with them to wit serving the Lord with all humility of minde and with many tears and temptations c. and how he had held back nothing profitable for them but had taught them publikely and from house to house which I wish were more in use now-a-dayes if it might obtain so much leave from Vniformity and had preached to them Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ our chief work towards God since our fall and corruption being Repentance which is the change of the creature towards God through Gods own work in the creature and this is not done without the sorrow of the flesh and our chief work towards Christ who is given to us as a head being Faith or Union And in the end exhorts the Presbyters to take heed to themselves who according to the Church principles of this age want no admonition themselves seeing they are become a peremptory rule to all others and to the flocks over which the holy Spirit and not Patrons had made them Over-seers to feed the Church of God which he had purchased with his own blood c. But in all this neither practices himself nor preaches to them nor commands them to preach to others or impose upon others any such kind of thing as external uniformity And so surely they that so vehemently urge this thing that they make it all in all in their Reformation have some other teacher then the Apostle who being taught of Christ as Christ was taught of God yet knew no such thing at all in the worship of God as Vniformity And yet further that the world if it be possible may be the more convinced observe a little more seriously the practice of Christ and the Saints in reference to this point and you shall see nothing less then external Vniformity See this in the prayer of Christ Prayer for the duty it self being nothing but so much spiritual worship as being the voyce of the Spirit in the flesh both in head members This Christ sometimes performed with his eyes lifted up to Heaven sometimes being prostrate with his body on the Earth and so several times several wayes and as he so the Saints have some prayed standing lifting up their hands as Moses some kneeling and lifting up their hands as Solomon some standing and not lifting up their eyes as the Publican c. And what external Vniformity in all this And as for Praying so for Preaching Christ sometimes preached in a ship sometimes on the shoar sometimes in the City Jerusalem sometimes in the Temple sometimes in the Desart sometimes early sometimes late as if he intended on purpose to witness against that piece of the Mystery of Iniquity which in after Ages should be called Vniformity So Paul preached sometimes on the Jews Sabbath sometimes on the first day of the week sometimes each day of the week sometimes in the day sometimes in the night sometimes prayed in the house sometimes on the shoar he circumcised Timothy among the weak refused to circumcise Titus among the perverse became as a Jew to the Jews as a
Greek to the Greeks to the weak as weak to the strong as strong all things to all men that he might win some and what external Vniformity was here And then for the Sacraments Christ administred the Sacrament of the Supper immediately after Supper Paul at midnight and it may be others in the morning or at noone and what external Vniformity in all this And for Government sometimes the Apostles met together into a Councel and in that Councel ordered things not of their own heads or by plurality of voyces but by the Word and Spirit and what they ordered by the Word and Spirit they put in execution by the power of the Word and Spirit and not by the power of the World At other times Ministers and Believers did things by the Word and Spirit among themselves by the mutual consent of both or else Believers alone among themselves if there were no Ministers present And where the number of Believers were more they stood in need of more Officers and where fewer of fewer Officers and all these things are the free ordering of the Churches who have Christ the Spirit and the Father among them and in them and so are taken out of the bondage of men into the freedom of God That truly I see not the Gospel more setting its spirit against any thing of Antichrist then against this point of external uniformity For if we have one Lord Christ Spirit Faith Baptism and God all other things are free to the Churches as God shall order by them and no otherwise and the reason and wisdom and prudence of man have no place in this world where the Sun of righteousness shines as the only light But against this that hath been said do lie some objections as first The Prophet foretold that the Lord should be one and his name one and doth not this imply external uniformity I answer nothing less for the Apostle explicates plainly and clearly what it is to have the Lord one and his name one among believers Eph. 4. ch 4. 5. 6. where he saith there is in the spiritual Church one Body and one Spirit one hope of our calling one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and father of all who is above all through all and in all Where you see that among believers there is a manifold unity but no external uniformity yea the prayer of Christ the Son for the Church unfolds clearly the promise of God the Father to the Church Joh. 17. Christ prays that they all who are many among themselves according to the flesh may be one as thou Father art in me and I in thee that is according to the unity of the Spirit not external uniformity that after this manner they also may be one in us But again it is objected out of 1 Cor. 14. that the Apostle requires that all things may be done in the Church decently and in order and doth not this imply external uniformity I answer that they will hardly admit in their Parish Churches such a decency and order as the Apostle there means neither are they capable of it For he saith before When the whole Church is come together into some place that all may prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted and that during this exercise of prophesying if any thing be revealed to another the former to give place and he must speak that hath the clearest light seeing the Spirit to whomsoever it is given it is given to profit withall And that though all may prophesie one by one yet all may not prophesie at once for then it would not be order but confusion which the Apostle would have avoided saying Let all things be dâ—ne decently and in order And this decency too he perswades to by the word he doth not enforce by secular power And if they will call this uniformity for beleevers to prophesie one after another according to the variety of the gifts of the Spirit and not many or two or three at once or the same time we willingly agree with them but how far this thing is from their sence every one knows Thus you see these objections answered and I am confident there are no more can be brought but may as clearly and easily be answered as these And therefore I say I wonder and wonder again that we having covenanted and agreed together solemnly to endeavour for a Government most agreeable to the word of God should in the mean time be left so void of the spirit and light of the Gospel as to fall upon external uniformity which is nowhere to be found in the Gospel nor in the practise of primitive Christians Yea while I consider more seriously of the Matter me thinks external uniformity is a monstrous thing how glorious soever in their eyes and not to be found either in nature or in grace either in Christs Kingdom or the Kingdoms of the World In nature is no external uniformity extended to all the works of nature for look into the world and see if there be not variety of forms heavenly and earthly bodies having several form and in the earth each bird beast tree plant creature differs one from another in outward form If the whole creation should appear in one form or external uniformity what a monstrous thing would it be nothing differing from the first chaos But the variety of forms in the world is the beauty of the world So that though there be a most admirable unity among all the creatures yet there is nothing less then external uniformity Again as there is no external uniformity spread over the great world so nor yet over the little world or man For look upon a man consisting of head and members unto which the Apostle compares the Church and you shall not finde all the members like one another neither in regard of their outward forms nor operations for the hand doth not move as the foot nor the foot act as the hand and if all the members should appear and act in one form what a monster would a man be And yet among the members though there be no external uniformity yet there is admirable unity And yet again look into the Kingdoms of the world and you shall see no such thing in them as external uniformity Here in England you shall observe that York is not governed as Hull nor Hull as Hallifax nor that as Bristol c. neither is one County governed uniformly as another there is no uniformity in the government of Kent and Essex nor one town governed like another in Godmanchester the youngest son inherits in Huntington the Eldest nor one Corporation governed like another nor one Company in the City governed as another and yet between all Counties Cities Towns Corporations Companies there is unity though no external uniformity Yea look upon the famous City of London and there are it may be an hundred thousand families or more in it and each one governed after a
several manner and among all these families there is no external uniformity and yet they all agree well enough in the unity of a City Nay further to bring but one man to an uniformity of life and practice by an outward Law would be the most absolute tyranny in the world and make his life worse then death To compel every man by a Law every day in the week or every Munday Tuseday c. in the week to an uniformity of life that he shall rise at the same time use the same postures speak the same words eat the same food receive the same physick sit and stand and walk and lie down at the same set times who ever heard of such a cruel bondage What an absurd and intolerable thing then is uniformity in the life of a man taking away all freedom of the soul But how much more evil and intolerable is uniformity in the life of a Christian or of the true Churches of Christ taking away all freedom of the Spirit of God who being one with God works in the freedom of God and is not to be bound with any authoritative or coercive power of poor dark ignorant vain foolish proud and sinful men What now then do the Presbyters mean by uniformity Would they have the word preached and the Sacraments administred and the name of God called on and all this done in Spirit and truth in the Churches of Christ this truly is unity and not uniformity and such an unity as no man can compel But would they have the Word preached the name of God called on Sacraments administred the spiritual Discipline of the spiritual Church mannaged the vertues of Christ and graces of the Spirit in the Saints exercised and all this in one and the same outward form or uniformity This is the burthen of the Saints the bondage of the Church the straitning of the Spirit the limiting of Christ and the eclipsing the glory of the Father And how wise so ever these men may be in natural and carnal things yet their wisdom is but foolishness in spiritual things in which there is no more uniformity then in the workings of the Spirit who works severally in several Saints and severally in the same Saints at several times And therefore they that would tye the Church to an uniformity which works not of it self but as the Spirit works in it let them first tye the Spirit to an uniformity and we are contented But these men seem to run a sad hazard who would thus reduce the workings of the Spirit in Christians and Churches to an outward uniformity according to their own mind and fancy and so would rule and order and enlarge and straiten the Spirit of God by the spirit of man seeing it is worse to sin against Christ in the Spirit then against Christ in the flesh And therefore till I be otherwise taught by the word I cannot conceive that there ought to be or is possible to be any such external uniformity in the Churches of Christ as these men strive wrastle sweat contend for I will not say are ready to fight for but that several Churches of Christ having unity of doctrine faith the Spirit ordinances c. may have divers forms of outward administrations as God and Christ by the Spirit shall lead them and that every Church is in these things to be left free and no Church forced by any outward power to follow or imitate another Church against its Will not being freely led unto it by the Spirit of God Neither do I think that God hath set up any company of men or Synod in the world to shine to a whole Nation so that all People shall be constrained to follow their judgement and to walk by their light seeing other Ministers and Christians may have more light and spirit then they Neither hath Christ promised his presence and spirit to Ministers more then to believers nor more to an hundred then two or three And if two or three Christians in the Country being met together in the name of Christ have Christ himself with his word and Spirit among them they need not ride many miles to the Assembly at London to know what to do or how to carry and behave themselves in the things of God And therefore for any company of men of what repute soever to set up their own judgement in a Kingdom for a peremptory rule from which no man must vary and to compel all the faithful people of God who are the very members of Jesus Christ himself to fall down before it upon pain of being cast into the burning fiery furnace of their indignation heated seven times more hot then ordinary through the desired access of secular power to their power is a far worse work in my eyes then that of King Nebuchadnezzars setting up a golden Image and forcing all to fall down before it seeing spiritual Idolatry is so much worse then corporal as the spirit is better then the flesh And therefore I do think let them teach me better by the word that can that uniformity the great Diana of the Presbyterians and the Image that falls down from the brain and fancy of man hath no footing in the Scriptures or in the practise of the Churches of Christ And that the Presbyterian uniformity is neer a kin to Prelatical conformity and is no other then the same thing under another word after the manner of Prelacy and Presbytery and do conclude that unity is Christian uniformity Antichristian And this I have only hinted and that briefly among many occasions to discover to the faithfull that some of the very dregs of Antichristianisme still prevail and domineer under the very name of Reformation And also to give occasion to men of more spirit and abilities and leisure to discourse more fully to this point that the Serpents head of Formality which is so carefully nourished by humane reason may be crushed in pieces by the power of the word 1 JOHN 2. 27. The annointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man should teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things and is truth and is no lye and even as it hath taught you you shall abide in him The spiritual Church is taught by the anointing the carnal Church by Councels FINIS The Building Beauty Teaching and Establishment of the truly Christian and Spiritual CHURCH Represented in an EXPOSITION On Isai 54 from Vers 11. to the 17. PREACHED To His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the general Officers of the Army with divers other Officers and Souldiers and People At Marston being the Head-quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford June 7. 1646. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel attending on His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army Together with a faithful Testimony touching that valiant and victorious Army in the Epistle to the Reader Matth. 5. 11. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you
and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Vers 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Psal 69 9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me Published according to Order London Printed for G. Calvert at the Black Spread Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1651. To the Reader HAving obtained this grace from God to be called into some friendship and familiarity with Jesus Christ among the rest of his poor Saints so as to to hear and receive from him something of the minde and bosome of the Father according to his Free-grace who hath mercy on whom he will and having after many tears and temptations not-unknown to many yet in the body obtained this further grace to speak the Word of God with boldness I have also though most unworthy been counted worthy to be taken into some fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and to endure the contradiction of sinners and oft-times to encounter the rage and madness of men yea and to fight with men after the manner of beasts altogether brutish and furious And thus it hath fared with me often especially at two remarkable times The one at Lincoln upon occasion of two Sermons preached there on these words of the Prophet Isaiah 9. 7. Of the enâ—crease of his Government peace there shall be no end Wherein giving unto Christ his own proper due many were angry I had taken too much from men to whom yet nothing belongs but iniquiry shame and confusion they could not bear this that the Lord alone should be exalted But that Doctrine of Truth being the Lords and not mine the Lord himself hath strongly upheld with the right hand of his righteousness and the glory of it hath since shone into many hearts in this Kingdom much contrary to their desire The other time wherein I met with remarkable opposition was lately at Marston the Head quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford whither some coming out of the City of London in all probability out of some special design seeing the old malignity now acts in a new form and is daily coming forth in a second and more plausible cunning and deceiving edition became exceeding angry and heady against the plain and clear Truth of the Gospel delivered in this following Exposition wherein the whole truth and substance of what was then delivered is exactly set down and nothing abated but rather some things farther pressed adding as Jeremiah in the second role many like words to the former Now some of these men seeing themselves and their new designs cleerly discovered by the light of the Word and made altogether naked suddenly they grew fierce and furious contradicting and blaspheming yea some of them speaking the language of Hell upon earth of which there are some witnesses as became men of such a generation These men according to the operation of that spirit which works mightily in the children of disobedience come and fill the whole City with lyes and slanders laying to my charge things that I knew not the falshood and untruths whereof there are some hundreds and some of them of great and eminent worth and piety ready to witness Wherefore of meer necessity I was constrained to publish this Exposition as a witness to this present and the following generations of these mens resisting the Spirit and acting against Christ himself in the Word And though the Discourse be very plain not favouring of any accurateness of humane wisdom and learning yet they that are themselves spiritual will acknowledge something of the Spirit in it and for that cause will rellish and love it though others will therefore be at the greater enmity against it But for my part I have set down my resolution in the Lord in this Cause of Jesus Christ not to weigh all the power of earth or Hell one feather but to put it to the utmost tryal whether the truth of the Gospel or the slanders and lyes of men shall prevail whether the smoak of the bottomless Pit that comes forth out of the mouth of these and many others shall be able to blot out or darken the brightness of Christs coming in the Ministery of the Gospel yea and whether the power and malice of the Devil and the World shall be stronger then the love and protection of Jesus Christ And I doubt not but the more the World acts in the spirit of the Devil the more will Christ enable us to act in his own Spirit till all at last shall be forced to acknowledge that the Spirit that is in us is stronger then the spirit that is in the World And what now have all these men obtained by all their malice and fury but a greater and more open discovery of the truth and to cause that that light of the Gospel that only stone in one Congregation should through the printing of it have its beams scattered in many pars of the Kingdom and where ever the truth comes the children of the truth will entertain it and ask no body leave And thus through the over-ruling power of Gods wisdom do these men betray their own and their fellows cause and overthrow their own and their ends and whilst they think to oppress the truth propagate it the more and thus shall truths enemies perish and the truth it self flourish yea flourish through slanders oppositions contradictions blasphemies and all the vileness and villany in the world And all this confidence in us arises hence because Christ is not as a dead man but is risen and ascended and sits at the right hand of God and fils all things and doth all things in heaven and in earth in the World and in the Church among his friends and among his enemies till these be made his foot-stool which is the very thing we are now in expectation of Now one thing more which I think fit to acquaint the world withall in this Epistle is this That none of these thorny hearers durst after come to Discourse with me or to look me in the face but one among them that seemed of a better temper then the rest upon the urging of a godly Citizen then present did speak with me and the question he asked of me was this Whether I thought that all Presbyterians were carnal Gospellers I told him I was far from thinking any such thing for I knew some of them very godly Christians and did acknowledge the grace of God in them and that for mine own part I did not allow any such distinction of Christians as Presbyterians and Independents this being onely a distinction of mans making tending to the division of Church and added that as in Christs Kingdom neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature so in this same kingdom of Christ neither Presbytery availeth any thing nor Independency but a new creature and that
not travel with child for more are the children of the desolate then of the marryed wife saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations Spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate Cities to be inhabited So that there shall certainly be a most wonderful and numerous increase of the faithful in the Christian Church till they become as the stars of heaven and as the drops of the morning dew that cannot be told all of them assembled in the beauties of holiness And therefore let us not be overmuch troubled though at present we see in a numerous nation but few true children of the spiritual Church for God shall bless these few and bid them increase and multiply and replenish the earth so that though the Assemblies of the Saints be now but thin and one comes from this place and another from that to these Assemblies and in many and most places of the kingdom these few are fain to come together secretly for fear of the Jews that is the people of the letter yet through the pouring forth of the Spirit it shall come to pass at last that they shall come in flocks and as doves to their windows And it shall be said to the Church by the Lord Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together and come to thee As I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a bride doth c. till at last the Church shall say in her heart Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Yea these very promises are now in the very act of accomplishing among us for the spiritual Church hath received a very great increase within these few years and God hath many faithfull people in many places of this Kingdom and of this my self and many more in this Army are witnesses for having marched up and down the Kingdom to do the work of God and the Sate we have met with many Christians who have much Gospel light and which makes it the more strange in such places where there hath been no Gospel Ministery which hath put me in minde of that prophecy Isa 66. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a Nation be born at once For as soon as Sion travelled nay before she travelled she brought forth her children There was no outward Ministery of the Gospel to travel or take pains with them and yet Sion brings forth her children And one thing that is remarkable touching the increase of the Church at this day is this That where Christ sends the Ministration of the Spirit there many young people are brought in to Christ as being most free from the forms of the former age and from the Doctrines and Traditions of men taught and received instead of the pure and unmixed Word of God whereas many old professors who are wholly in the form prove the greatest enemies to the power of godliness and thus the first are the last and the last first Now this great and sudden increase of the faithful is that which doth so exceedingly trouble the World and makes them angry at the very heart For if they were but a few mean contemptible and inconsiderable persons whom they might easily suppress and destroy they would be pretty quiet but when they begin to increase in the land as Israel did in Egypt and notwithstanding all the burdens of their task-masters wherewith they are afflicted and grieved do yet increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceeding mighty till they begin to fill the land and when they consult to deal wisely with them lest they multiply too much do yet see them grow and multiply the more that they know not at what Countrey or City or Town or Village or Family to begin to suppress them this is that which doth so exceedingly vex and inrage the world and makes them even mad again as we see this day For the increase of the faithful as it is the glory of the Church so it is the grief and madness of the world But these men in vain attempt against this increase of the faithful as the Egyptians against the increase of the Israelites for none can hinder the increase of the Church but they that hinder God from pouring out his Spirit and according to the measure of God pouring forth the Spirit is and must be the increase of the Church in despite of all the opposition of the world And thus much touching the first promise of the Churches Increase Now in the words I read to you the Lord comes to another promise so that the Lord because of the Churches weakness addes one promise to another and these promises are nothing but the out goings and manifestations of his love throug the Word Christ But to look more neerly upon the words Vers 11. Oh thou afflicted Affliction in the world doth so inseparably attend the Church that the Church even takes its denomination from it Oh thou afflicted The condition of the Church is an afflicted condition For the Church being born of God and born of the Spirit is put into a direct contrariety to the world which is born of the flesh and is also of its father the devil And so the whole world is malignant against the faithful and spiritual Church and all that are not regenerate set their faces yea their hearts and their hands against the Saints and the unregenerate world is against the regenerate and the carnal world against the spiritual and the sinful world against the righteous and all the people and nations in the world are against that people and nation which the Apostle cals a holy nation and a peculiar people As the world cannot endure God in himself So neither can it endure God in the Saints and so the more God dwels in the Saints the more doth the world afflict the Saints for they oppose not the faithful for any thing of flesh and blood in them but because that flesh and blood of theirs is the habitation of God and the very presence of God himself is there as he saith I will dwell in them and walk in them Agreeable to this is that of Christ where he saith All this shall they do to you for my Names sake that is when the Name of Christ is called upon us and we are taken into his Name that is into his righteousness and life and truth and wisdom and holiness and into his Nature which comprehends all this then when the world
perceives the Name of God in the Sons of men and the nature of God in the natures of men then presently they fall a persecuting the Saints for this Name and Natures sake and he that strikes at God in his Saints would if he could strike at God in himself And therefore let the world take heed what they do in this point for while they persecute the Saints they are found fighters against God himself because God is one with them and they are one with God in Christ And let the Saints be admonished so to hide and retire themselves into God through Christ that whoever is an enemy to them and opposes them may rather be an enemy to God and oppose God then them they living and acting in God and not in themselves Now this affliction the Church meets with in the world is profitable for the Church it is good for it that it should be afflicted for the more it is afflicted in the flesh the more it thrives in the Spirit this affliction stirres us up to the exercise of our faith and prayer yea then is our faith most active and vigorous and our prayers most fervent till they fill the whole heavens again then are we most in the use of the Word then are we set off furthest from the world then do we keep closest to God then have we neerest intercourse and communion with him so that we could better want fire and water and the sun then want affliction which God out of his meer love through his over-ruling power and wisedome causes to work unto us for good So that we who are placed in the hand of Christ are set in such a condition wherein nothing can do us any harm for ever but evil it self must work good unto us But we proceed Tossed with Tempest Where we see that the Church is not onely afflicted but violently afflicted one wave comes against it after another as in a tempest and the more spiritual the Church is the more doth the world become as a raging sea against it because the more spiritual the Church is made it is set in the more contrariety to the world and the world to it The Psalmist describes this temper in the world against the Church They came upon me like a ramping and a roaring Lyon And again They came upon me to eat up my flesh as they would eat bread When the Saints have appeared in the Spirit and acted in the Spirit how violent and enraged hath the world been against them It would toss them as in a tempest from place to place from post to pillar as they say till it hath quite tost them out of the world Yea men naturally meek and moderate how fierce have they become against the Saints when there hath appeared any glorious discoveries of Christ in them For the enmity that is in the seed of the Serpent against the seed of the Woman will be still breaking forth And though it may for a time be covered under many moral vertues and a form of godliness yet when God leaves them to themselves and lets them act outwardly according to their inward principles how cruelly and maliciously and fiercely and desperately do they act against the Saints of God Yea there is not that enmity between Turk and Jew as there is between carnal Gospellers and spiritual Christians the former hating these and being angry against these to the very death And when ever the Lord shall suffer these to exercise their enmity against the Church then shall the Churches condition become such as it is here described afflicted and tossed with tempest And not comforted The Church of God in all the evil it meets withal in the world hath not one drop of comfort from the world it hath affliction tribulation persecution from the world but no comfort This we see in Christ the Head you know what he suffered in the world in the dayes of his flesh he was despised and rejected of men and so full of sorrows that he took his name from them and was called A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief At last out of meer envy and malice they apprehended him bound him buffeted him spit on him crucified him and all this would have been but a small matter to have suffered from the Heathen but he suffered all this from the onely visible Church of God in the World who put him to the most painful and shameful death of the Cross between two malefactors to bear the world in hand that he was the third and the chief And in all this evil he had no body to pitty him or have compassion on him but they laughed at him and derided him and mocked and jeered him but no body comforted him And as it was with Christ the Head so it is with Christ the body and members they in all the evils and woes and sorrows and oppositions and persecutions they have from the world have no body to comfort them or take compassion on them Refuge failed me saith David no man cared for my soul Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness saith Heman Psal 88. 18. Brethren and Beloved ye that are partakers of the heavenly calling and of the divine nature if ever the Lord suffer the world to prevail against you to afflict you and toss you from one evil to another as in a tempest to reproach you throw you out of your comforts banish you imprison you c. you shall finde no body to comfort you no body will take notice of you or regard you or own you or pitty you or be so sensible of your condition as to say Alas my brother You must look for affliction in the World but you must look for no comfort there When God shall cast us into sorrows and sufferings let us not look for one worldly man to stand by us no not of those that now smile upon us and pretend friendship to us no norâ— yet of our neer relations but then that shall be fulfilled I was a stranger to my brethren an alien to my mothers children Nay yet further they that are weak or worldly Christians will stand aloof from thee and will be shye to own and countenance and encourage and comfort thee publikely The disciples of Christ when he was led to the Cross they all forsook him and fled and left him to tread the wineâ—press alone And so if you suffer in the righteousness and truth of God you shall find little comfort from men O thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted Now this the Lord doth in much mercy to his Saints he leaves them destitute of earthly Comfort that they may look for heavenly he leaves them destitute of all comfort from men that they may look for comfort from God alone And therefore when thou art brought into such a case to be afflicted and not comforted lift up thy heart to God and expect all from him Saith
Christ Joh 16. The world shall hate you and persecute you and shall put you out of their synagogues and shall kill you and in doing all this shall think they do God good service But saith he I will send you the comforter Christ knew well enough that among all these evils they should have no Comforter on earth and therefore promises to send them one from heaven And therefore when thy soul is placed in affliction never look after any earthly or sensual or creature comforts for they will prove poison to thy soul but only look for heavenly comforts such as the Spirit brings such as flow immediately from God for these are pure and sweet and unmixed and refreshing and supporting and satisfying and enduring comforts comforts that are able to make thee rejoyce not only in fulness but in wants not only among friends but in the midst of enemies not only in good report but in evil report not only in prosperity but in tribulations not only in life but in death they will make thee go singing to prison to the Cross to the grave they are mighty comforts infinitely stronger then all the sorrows of the flesh and hence it is that many Saints and Martyrs have gone cheerfully to the stake and sung in the very flames the comforts of God in their souls have strengthned them to this Thou that art a beleever and in union with Christ never doubt of this comfort in thy greatest sorrows When Christ had none to stand by him and comfort him God sent an Angel from heaven to do it And so when we are left alone in the world rather then we shall want comfort God will send us an Angel from heaven to comfort us yea the Spirit it self which is greater then all the Angels in heaven and we shall certainly be comforted by God when we are afflicted and tossed with tempest and not comforted by men Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours c. The Lord seeth the Church in its affliction without all comfort in the world and then the Lord comes and comforts it himself and this he doth by a promise They are the sweetest comforts that are brought to us in the promises The promises are the swadling-clothes of Christ they carry Christ wrapt up in them and Christ represented to the Church hath been the comfort of it in all its evils outward or inward And therefore whatever affliction takes hold on thee have recourse to the promises to draw thy comforts from Christ through them Oh how sweet is that life that is led in the promises a life led in the promises is the best life in the world Men that have estates in money or land depend on those things for their maintenance but a Christian may have little or nothing of these in the world but he hath a promise which is a thousand times better and makes his life more comfortable I am God All-sufficient and I will not fail thee nor forsake thee whereupon he comes to this resolution The Lord is my portion saith my soul I will trust in him Oh how sweet a life is this life that knows no cares nor fears nor troubles nor disquietments here saith a believer lies my estate and living and the lot of mine inheritance and this is a thousand times better and more certain estate then all the Mannors and Lordships in the Kingdom for my bread shall be given me my waters shall be sure The Lord is my shepheard and I shall not want no not then when the Lions the great men of the Kingdom to whom every poor man is a prey shall lack and sufferâ—hunger He that hath given me his own Nature and Spirit will not leave me destitute of food and clothing Take another instance A man feeling the bitterness of affliction to flesh and blood is ready to think Oh how shall I ever be able to suffer this or that or to part with my relations with my estate with my life and all that is near and dear unto me Why when a Christian lays hold on the promise God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able O saith a Christian God will never bring me to any temptation or trial but he will give me strength proportionable to it or above it and so lives satisfied with the truth and goodness and power of God And thus you see in these instances that a life led in the promises is the sweetest and best life when a man can draw all from God himself through a promise And this in general That God comforts his Church by a promise But to come more particularly to the words Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires Vers 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones The promise relates to the Spiritual Church of the New Testament and this you shall observe is oft in Scripture compared to a building and that to a most stately sumptuous magnificent and glorious building as being all built of precious stones and so more glorious then the first Temple which was built up of common stones and it was prophesied that the glory of the second Temple should far exceed the glory of the first The first Temple was Solomons which was indeed filled with the outward presence of God but the second Temple is the humanity of Jesus Christ or the flesh of Christ both head and members this is the living Temple of the living God the Temple that God hath built by his Spirit for his own habitation wherein God dwels truly really spiritually and most neerly by the way of the most neer union whereby God and the creature are knit together and this spiritual Temple is more glorious then the first material one either according to the first edition of it by Solomon or the second edition of it by the Fathers in the dayes of Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes Here then you see that the Lord promiseth to build up the Church of the New Testament with stones of fair colours with precious stones I will not stand to enquire particularly into the natures of the several stones here named for the Jews themselves do not fully agree about them It shall be sufficient for us to attain to the meaning of the Spirit in this place and that is this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament is not to be built with common but with pretious stones Now the full sense of these words I shall give you forth in several particulars 1. You see here the matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is not of common but of precious stones elect and precious stones and such are the faithful For 1. They have a more excellent nature then other men have for they are born of God and so partake of the nature of God and so in
this sense may be said to come forth from God as the child from the father and the Lord Jesus did not more truly partake of the nature of man then these do partake of the nature of God and therefore saith Peter Great and precious promises are made to us that we should be partakers of the divine nature Others have only the nature of men in them or which is worse the nature of the devil but the faithful have in them the nature of God communicated to them through a new birth 2. They have a more excellent spirit then others have as it was said of Daniel that there was a more excellent spirit found with him then with all the other wise men Now the excellency of each creature is according to the spirit of it but the Saints have the Spirit of God even the Spirit of the Father and the Son dwelling in them they have the same spirit of God dwelling in their flesh as Christ had dwelling in his flesh so that the very Spirit of God is found in the faithful and therefore they are more glorious then the rest of the world 3. They have a more excellent lustre then other men One thing that appertaines to the excellency of precious stones is the lustre of them Now this lustre in the faithfull is the glory of God upon them The Lord shall arise upon thee and his glory shall bee seen upon thee saith Isaiah Chap. 60. And Paul saith We all beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So that as Christ was taken into the glory of the Father so are we taken into the glory of Christ as he saith Joh. 17. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them for the head and members are taken into the same glory acccording to their proportion 4. They have more excellent operations for the faithful are not such precious stones that are onely for shew but they also have some vertue in them even the very vertues of Jesus Christ for they having the same Nature and Spirit of God as he had are able according to the measure of the gift of Christ to do the same works that he did and so the Saints are excellent in the operations of faith hope love humility meekness patience temperance heavenly mindedness c. And in this regard also are more precious then the rest of the world And therfore the Lord cals them his Jewels In the day whrein I make up my jewels and elswhere they are called the precious Sons of Sion The people of God are a most precious people men and women of a precious anointing though some wicked and scurrilous Libellers against the spiritual Church will not allow them this name but according to the anointing they have received from Sathan reproach it And yet still it is a truth that the gates of hell shall not prevail against That the truly faithful are precious stones in the building of the Church partaking of the Nature and Spirit of God and of the lustre and operation of both Whereas on the contrary other people are the vile of the earth the true filth and off-scouring of all things Psal 15. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned a man that is a natural man a sinful and unregerate man who hath no other nature in him but that corrupt nature he brought into the world though in this present world he may be a Gentleman or a Knight or a Noble man or a King yet in the eys of God and his Saints he is but a vile person and a poor mean Christian that earns his bread by hard labour is a thousand times more precious and excellent then he according to the judgement of God and his Word And thus much for the first thing The matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made that is of precious stones 2. Now the next thing observable is the variety of these precious stones For the spiritual Church is not built up of precious stones of one sort onely not all of Saphires or all of Agates or all of Carbuncles but of all these both Saphires Agates Carbuncles and many other precious stones of fair colours And this notes the diversity of gifts in the Saints of God For though all of them are precious stones yet they are of diversity of colours and lustre and operations And this also makes for the greater glory of the Church for the variety of lustre adds to the beauty and ornament of it In the body of a man there is not one member but many If the body were all but one member it would be but a lump of flesh but the variety of members with their several gifts and operations are the glory of the body And so it is in the Church the Body of Jesus Christ wherein are divers members with diversity of gifts and operations excellently set forth by Paul 1 Cor. 12. 4. c. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit And there are differences of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God that worketh all in all But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withall For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisedom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another faith by the same Spirit to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecie to another discerning of spirits to another divers kinds of tongues to another interpretation of tongues but all these worketh that one and the same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will Here you see are diversities of gifts and administrations and operations in the faithful but all proceed from one and the same Spirit and whatsoever gift proceeds from the Spirit there is an excellent beauty a heavenly lustre in it And therefore labour to distinguish between those gifts that are connatural to thee and flow from thy own spirit and those gifts that are supernatural and flow from Gods Spirit In all the operations of thine own spirit in all thy natural abilities parts wisdom learning actings there is nothing but ungloriousness deformity darkness death how specious soever they may appear to the world but in the gifts and operations that flow from Gods Spirit there is a heavenly beauty and lustre and glory yea even in weak Christians that are true Christians you shall oft see and discern an excellent beauty in some gift or other which they have received from the Spirit which shines not forth so clearly in some stronger Christians And therefore let us not expect all gifts in all men and that every man should excell in every gift for then one would be saying to another I have no need of thee But God hath given diversity of gifts to
divers Saints that each may acknowledge something in another which he hath not himself and may reckon his perfection to lie in his Vnion and Communion with them that so the Communion of Saints may be kept up in the world in despight of the world One Christian hath the gift of Faith another the gift of Prayer another the gift of utterance in preaching another the gift of courage another the gift of meekness and the like and no man hath all things in himself that every man in the sight of his own wants may be kept humble And this a is glorious thing in this building that the lustre of each stone adds to the lustre of all and the lustre of all is communicated to each stone and so in the Spiritual building what one hath from the Spirit it is for all and what all have is for each one If thou hast the gift of utterance in the ministration of the Spirit it is to build up me if I have the spirit of Prayer it commends thee as caâ—efully to God as my self one watches over another as over his own soul and if any be weak the strong support them if any be doubtfull they that have the gift of knowledge direct them If one be troubled the rest mourn with him if one be comforted the rest rejoyce with him and they are all so linked together in the body of Christ that the good and evill of one extends to all Where thou canst fince such another communion there joyn thy self but if this be the onely excellent Communion in the world who would not willingly joyn himself to that spiritual people where no man calls his grace his own but all gifts are in common among all every one having a share in the faith hope love prayer peace joy wisdom strength of all and all having a share in these gifts and graces that are in any one And thus much for the diversity of the stones as well as the preciousness of them 3. The third thing that reveals the sense of the words is to observe that this spiritual building of the Church of the New Testament is made up all of precious stones without any mixture of common stones is made up of Saphires Agates Carbuncles and adds And all thy borders of pleasant stones Here then must be no mingling of the precious and the vile the holy and the profane the faithful and the unbeliever the spiritual and the carnal but all must be precious If a man had a Jewel that had here and there only a precious stone in it and all the rest common pebbles there would be no great glory in such a Jewel but the common stones would take off from the lustre of the precious ones And so the Church is Gods Jewel in the world and it must be made up onely of precious stones as you see here And where are their eyes that perceive not this There be some that talk much against New Doctrine which is the old reproach of the Gospel but surely there was never newer Doctrine then this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament should be made up of all the People that live in a Kingdom and that all that are born in such a Nation should necessarily be stones for the building up the New Jerusalem This is a new Doctrine indeed which neither the Old nor the New Testament owns but was conveyed into the world by the spirit of Antichrist For God doth not now make any People or kindred or Nation his Church but gathers his Church out of every people and kindred and Nation and none can be stones of this building but those that are first elect and after made precious through a new birth and the gift of the Spirit And this Doctrine the Word will justifie against the world for Paul writing to the Churches of Ephesus and Corinth c. doth he mean all the people that lived at Ephesus or Corinth No but the faithful and elect Children by adoption Saints by calling and saith So it was meet for him to judge of them all And if any were mistaken for a Saint that was none surely he carried himself very like one he was outwardly in sheeps clothing or he had not been reckoned among the flock and so if a stone be taken into this building that is not truly precious yet it is so like one in shew and colour that it can hardly be discerned to be other but by a very skilful Lapidary And indeed such a mistake there may be in Christs Kingdom here that a few counterfeit stones may be taken up among many precious ones but that is the mistake of a false Church where a thousand counterfeit ones are taken in for one truly precious wherein for one faithful Christian there are many Formalists and many more profane This is not such a building the Prophet speaks of for this is all of elect and precious stones But I cannot enlarge on these things because this exercise I intend chiefly as an Exposition onely I will add one or two things more touching this particular and so go on 1. If the Church of the New Testament is to be built all of precious stones what a building is that where the onely care is to keep these stones out of the building lest by their glory and lustre they should darken the rest 2. Consider when the Church shall be built up all of such precious stones what a glorious Church will that be when the glory of the Lord shall shine forth in every stone of this building how will there be then glory upon glory till the glory of the Church first darken and then put out all the glory of the world 3. Consider what great enemies they are to the true and native glory of the Church that would have every man in a Kingdom a member of the Church and would have those taken into the flock that are none of Christs sheep and those taken into the Church of God that are not of God and would gather up any stones to make up this Temple of God These are the men that would keep off those glorious things from being fulfilled in the Church which are spoken of it in the Word 4. We are to take notice who is the Builder of such a structure as this all made up of precious stones and you shall finde in the word that the builder and maker of it is God I will do it saith the Lord behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and I will lay thy foundations with Saphires and I will make thy windows of Aggates it is all Gods work from the beginning to the end For who can build unto God a living Temple to dwell in but himself This the Prophet speaks plainly where he saith The man whose name is the branch he shall build the Temple of the Lord even he shall build it It lies in the power of no man to make such a building as this is
What wild and woful work do men make when they will undertake to be building the Church by their own humane wisdom and prudence and counsel when they think we will have the Church of God thus and thus and we will make it up of such and such men and we will govern it by such and such Laws and we will get the power of the Magistrate to back ours and then what we cannot do by the power of the Word and Spirit we will do by the power of flesh and blood Poor men that think that these new Heavens wherein the Lord will dwell must be the work of their own fingers or that the new Jerusalem must of necessity come out of the Assembly which is to come down from God out of Heaven or that they can build the house of God all of precious stones whereas this must be Gods own work and his own doing and no State or Councel in the World can bring this about and after much tryal and paines and weariness the Lord will at last teach his own that the gathering and laying these pretious stones together must be the Lords own doing even his own doing When the building of the Church is left to men how wofully is it mannaged why saith one we must needs admit such an one he is the chief man in the Parish or he is a man of good esteem in the world or he is a Noble man or he is my neer kinsman or is thus and thus related to me or he is a good civil fair dealing man and we must needs admit him and thus will flesh and blood be ever making a carnal temple for God to dwell in but Gods true habitation can never be framed but by the Spirit And therefore for the building of the Church let us look higher then the highest instruments for it must be the Lords own work by the word and Spirit and though every man be against it and oppose it yet the Lord will do it when there are no hands to build it up he will build it up without hands I will lay thy stones with c. It follows Ver. 13. And thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children See here how the prophet by the Spirit carries up the Saints above all visible and sensible things even as high as God himself God saith he to the Church shall build thee and God shall teach thee all thy children shall be taught of the Lord. The note is this That all the true and genuine children of the Church have Gods own teaching in all the things of God they have the Father and the Son to teach them by the Spirit This truth Christ himself confirmes where he saith It is written that they shall be all taught of God he therefore that heard and learned of my father commeth to me And again the spirit when he is come he shall lead you into all truth Which doctrine John after preached thus 1 Joh. 2. 27. The anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye â—ceed not that any man should teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things Hereby now we perceive how few true children of the Church there be among those who are commonly called Christians for among all these how few are there who have the teaching of God but most have their teaching only from men and no higher Consider therefore I pray whether the knowledge you have be from the teaching of God or the teaching of man you all pretend to know that Christ is the Son of the living God and that redemption and salvation is by him alone but how came ye by this knowledge did you read it in the letter or did some body tell you so or hath God himself taught you this For no man knows the Son but the Father and he to whom the Father will reveal him and therefore when Peter said thou art Christ the Son of the living God Christ answered flesh and blood hath not taught thee this but my Father which is in heaven And so though all of you profess your selves Christians yet none of you know Christ truly but only such as are taught of the Father And this holds in all other points as touching calling and faith and union and justification and sanctification and the gift and sealing of the Spirit touching the spiritual Kingdom of Christ and the Government of it oh consider whether you have the teaching of God in these things or no and if you have not the teaching of God you are none of the children of the Church what ever truth thou knowest from the letter if thou hast not the teaching of the Spirit it will do thee no good thou knowest not any thing spiritually and savingly wherein thou hast not the teaching of God All thy children shall be taught of the Lord. And therefore what a sad thing is it when men look for their teaching no farther then men they onely look to the Minister or to such an able learned Orthodox man as they phrase it or at the highest to the Assembly and what they shall teach them they are resolved to stand by it and build upon it for their foundation in the mean time never regarding in truth the teaching of God but say what can so many grave learned godly men err and shall not we believe what they determine why now these are none of the children of the spiritual Church for they neither have Gods teaching nor care for it but the spiritual Church is all taught of God Object But you will say doth God teach without means Answ I answer no God teacheth but it is by the Word and that chiefly in the Ministery of it and he that pretends to be taught of God without the Word is not taught of God but of the Devil And therefore no man is to despise the Ministery of the Word which is Gods own Ordinance and to depend upon I know not what revelations and inspeakings without the word seeing God teacheth all his children by the word and none without it And therefore it is not the Prophets meaning when he saith all thy children shall be taught of the Lord that they should neglect and despise the Word and the Ministery of it but that we ought so to use the Word and the means as not to look for our teaching from them but from God himself in and through them and when you come to hear not to think I will hear what Mr. such an one or Mr. such one will say but with the Psalmist I will hear what the Lord God will say And truly I would not care to hear what any man in the world would say in whom Christ himself did not speak Now much more might be said of this teaching of God but that I intend brevity in all as namely that this teaching 1. Is a clear and evident teaching that you shall have certainty in what
goodly heritage And their righteousness is of me saith the Lord. That is these servants of mine are not men of a humane and morall righteousness only but they partake of the righteousness of God in Christ Their righteousness is of me or thus though they are sinners before the world for as the world reckons their own sin for righteousness so it reckons Gods righteousness for sin yet they are righteous before me and in my eyes So that however the world reckons us evil doers and not worthy to live in the world yet God reckons us righteous and our righteousness is before him To conclude seeing God hath engaged himself to secure us in his wayes both from the weapons and tongues of men Go and tell the Foxes that we will walk without fear in the world both to day and to morrow and the third day we shall be perfected FINIS Right Reformation OR The Reformation of the CHURCH of the NEW TESTAMENT Represented in GOSPEL-LIGHT In a Sermon preached to the Honourable House of COMMONS on Wednesday November 25. 1646. Together with a REPLY to the chief Contradictions of Master LOVE'S Sermon preached the same day All published for the good of the Faithful at their desire By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel attending on His Excellency Sir THOMAS FAIRFAX John 7. 12. And there was much murmuring among the people concerning him for some said He is a good man others said nay but He deceiveth the people John 16. 3. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor Me. Credo me Theologum esse Christianum in regno veritatis vivere ideo me debitorem esse non modo affirmandae veritatis sed etiam asserendae defendendae seu per sanguinem seu per mortem Luth. London Printed by R. White for Giles Calvert at the Black-Spread-Eagle near the West-end of Pauls 1651. TO THE HONOVRABLE THE COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT Honourable and Worthy AS the LORD represented these Truths to you before in the Ministery of the Word so now again He offers them to your second consideration in this Printed Book because he hath a minde you should take notice of them And I must needs say it is the LORD'S voyce to you and I hope he will move your hearts to regard it though Satan hath mightily bestirr'd himself by casting an ill Vizzard upon the Truth to make you dislike it But if you like CHRIST the worse for a Face spit on and buffeted you may want a SAVIOUR And if you like the truth of CHRIST the worse for a scratcht Face you may make your dwelling place with Errour and Humane Doctrines which are all one Micaiah had no sooner delivered the truth of God but there was a False Prophet to smite him on the face the LORD no sooner prepares Instruments to reveal his Truth but Satan hath his Instruments ready to turn the truth of GOD into a lye And this GOD suffers to be done to exercise your skill and wisdom that you might learn not to be offended at the Truth with the World but to receive and love the Truth notwithstanding all the indignities and reproaches of men When you reade what you have heard you must needs acknowledge it to be the minde of GOD if you have received the anointing of the Spirit and the truth herein contained shall prevail with all that belong to GOD. For my part I am not careful touching the success of it I can trust GOD with that whose Word it is For as the Doctrine of the World hath the weak power of the World to carry on that so the Doctrine of Jesus Christ hath the mighty power of GOD to carry on that and the power of GOD in the World shall as soon be made void as the true Doctrine of the Gospel though called Error Heresie and Schism and have all the misguises of Hell put upon it The truth you then heard delivered and may here reade again shall carry all opposition and opposers before it and none shall be able to stand against it that engage against it And of this both your selves and this generation shall be Witnesses If any think that I gave too much power to CHRIST in the Reforming of the Church his own Body let them consider again that too much cannot be given to CHRIST in GODS Kingdom seeing he is all in all in it Neither is that exaltation the Gospel gives to CHRIST in this Business any diminution to your selves neither by making CHRIST all in the Kingdom of GOD are you made ever the less in the Kingdomes of this World But what ever power the Word of GOD hath given you I will deny you none of it nay I will be among the first that shall attribute it to you And do desire you would no more any of you be displeased for attributing the Reformation of the Church to CHRIST alone then the Redemption Iustification Sanctification or Glorification of it to CHRIST alone The former being every whit as great and glorious a work of CHRIST as the latter I do most willingly allow you your Thrones in the Kingdoms of this World but only desire to reserve to Christ his own Throne in the Kingdom of GOD. There are those indeed that would lift you up to this Throne not because they would have you sit there but place them there they would ascribe to you the power only due to the Son of GOD not because they would have you use it but would use it themselves they would derive power from you to do that which they say you cannot do the power they attribute to you in the things of GOD they say is not well in your hands but in theirs And here I would desire you to take notice of the working of the Mystery of Iniquity from the Head to the very Little-toes of the Man of Sin At first you know the Pope interested himself in the Emperour and Powers of the World for his own advantage and support no doubt rather then for theirs after the Prelates successively said to worldly Kings Lend us your power and we will lend you ours Let our spiritual power deal in temporal things and your temporal power shall deal in spiritual things and still the Clergy-power which call'd it self spiritual so linkt it self with the temporal that the power that was not of God might be upheld by the power that was of God and having got this advantage they cried Destroy one Destroy both and so the Prelates were wont to say No Bishop no King And their successors in the Kingdom of Antichrist still cry No Minister no Magistrate and so still mingle interests and powers with the civil Magistrate that under the Magistrate the power of GOD they might cunningly shrowd that power that is not of GOD. And thus they still under the name of the Magistrate seek themselves the drawing off that power that is only his from him to themselves to whom
understood carnally and have apprehended the whole Scriptures not according to Gods mind but according to their own not according to the sense of the Spirit but according to the sense of the flesh And thus was Antichrists kingdom first set up and thus it hath been kept up and continued even by the carnall understanding of the Scriptures For they have understood the Church the kingdom of God in the world carnally the rock on which it is built carnally the door of this Kingdom carnally the Laws of it carnally the Liberties of it carnally the Power Authority Government Glory Officers c. all carnally And to this very day which of the things of God doth not the carnal Church understand carnally Faith hope love it understands carnally Redemption Adoption Justification Sanctification Glorification Union with Christ Communion of the Spirit Access to the Father together with Christ the Head and the Church the Body in their joint union and offices and all other things they understand carnally and have a fleshly sense and apprehension of them And as they understand all other things of Gods kingdom carnally so also the Reformation of it And there are not greater and grosser Mistakes about any of the things of God then about this men imagining the Reformation of the Church which is altogether a spiritual and heavenly kingdom after the manner of the Reformation of Worldly States and Commonwealths which only stands in outward things and is brought to pass by humane Counsels and humane Power Now because this is not only a gross but a generall Error in all Sorts of People both of high and of low degree I shall indeavour at this time according to the good hand of God with me to represent in some Gospel light to this Honorable and Christian Auditory the true Reformation of the Church of the New-Testament And blessed is he who shall not be offended at it For this purpose I made choice of the Words now read Vntill the time of Reformation For the better understanding of which we must read the Context Ver. 9. The first Tabernacle was a figure for the time then present in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect as pertaining to the conscience V. 10. Which stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances it should be righteousnesses or justifications of the flesh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 imposed on them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 untill the time of Reformation In which words the Apostle shews the imperfection of the worship of the old Law because it stood in outward rites ceremonies duties performances and so could not make him that used them and was busied in them perfect as pertaining to his conscience and therefore God did not simply and absolutely impose these things on the Church to continue for ever but only untill the time wherein all things were to be reformed not only evill things but imperfect And then all that outward Religion was to be abolished Now if the Law of Moses could not make men perfect as pertaining to the Conscience much less can any new laws invented now And if any such laws should be imposed on the people of God now the Gospel hath the same strength in it self to make them void as the former and also the same ground from them because all such laws and ordinances devised by men cannot make them that obey and practise them perfect as pertaining to the Conscience and therefore are all to be at an end when the time of Reformation comes Quest Now if you ask me when this time of Reformation was Answ I answer It was when Christ came not a servant as Moses but the Son out of the bosome of the Father the great Prophet of the new Testament whose doctrine was not letter as Moses was but Spirit and life And now when Christ the Minister of the new Testament came with the ministration of the Spirit now was the time of Reformation In the time of the Law there were outward duties and performances and ceremonies and sacrifices and strict laws to injoyn the observation of these things carrying along with them the severity of death and yet notwithstanding all this there was no true Reformation but under all that outward Religion men were inwardly as corrupt and wicked as the very heathen for all their Circumcision in the flesh they were uncircumcised in heart for all their outward washing they were inwardly unclean for all their blood of buls and goats their sins remained in their natures and consciences for all their strict forcing of men to the duties of the outward worship of God the people still remained far from God even in all those duties So that notwithstanding the outward worship of Moses Law the people remained inwardly corrupt filthy and unclean and without any true Reformation before God till Christ who was God in the flesh came with the ministration of the Spirit and then indeed was the time of Reformation Vntil the time of Reformation The thing then the Spirit would have us take notice of in these words is this That the time of the Gospel is the time of Reformation When ever the Gospel is preached in the spirit and power of it that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the time of Reformation For our more orderly proceeding in this point we will observe this Method 1. Show what true Gospel-Reformation is and how it is qualified that so you may the better distinguish it from Political and Ecclesiastical Reformation Now both these I joyn together because the carnal Church hath always interested and mingled it self with the power of the world as being able to doe nothing without it 2. I will indevor to shew to whose hands the work of Gospel-Reformation is committed 3. By what means he to whose hands it is committed brings it about 4. The advantages of such a Reformation where it is wrought 5. The Vse The first General What true Gospel Reformation is and how qualified 1. What it is It is the mortifying destroying and utter abolishing out of the Faithful and Elect all that sin corruption lust evil that did flow in upon them through the Fall of Adam Or It is the taking away and destroying the body of sin out of the Faithfull and Elect by the presence and operation of the righteousness of God dwelling in their hearts by faith This is true Gospel-Reformation and besides this I know no other This the Evangelical Prophet Isaiah describeth Chap. 1. 27. Zion shall be redeemed with judgment and her Converts with righteousness Now Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith as he discovers reproves condemns and destroys sin so he is called Judgement And thus is Judgement to be understood in the Gospel sense and not terribly as in the sense of the Law And this Judgement shall at last break forth into victory that is though Christ in
alterations it makes there And thus you see that one means that Christ useth for the Reformation of his Church is the Word But here I must further declare to you that this Word by which Christ reforms the Church is not the Word of the Law for the Law made nothing perfect but the Word of the Gospel This this is the onely Word that works Reformation For first 1. This Word works faith and therefore it is called the word of faith because faith comes by hearing of this Word Rom. 10. ver 8. and ver 17. Now as the Word workes faith so faith apprehends the Word even that Word that was with God and was God this living and eternal Word dwels in our hearts by faith as the Apostle saith That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith And this Word dwelling in us by faith changeth us into it is own likeness as fire changeth the Iron into its own likeness and takes us up into all its own vertues And so the word dwelling in the flesh reforms the flesh and it dwels in us through faith and faith is wrought by the Gospel So that the Word whereby Christ reforms is not the Word without us as the Word of the Law is but the Word within us as it is written The Word is nigh thee even in thy mouth and in thy heart and this is the word of Faith If thou live under the Word many years and if it come not into thy Heart it will never change thee nor reform thee And therefore the reforming Word is the Word within us and the Word within us is the Word of faith 2. The Gospel reformes because it doth not only reveal Christs righteousness as it is written The righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith but also it communicates it to us And therefore it is called the Word of righteousness because it works righteousness So that Christ the righteousness of God is conveyed to us through this Word of righteousness And when the righteousness of God revealed in the Gospel comes and dwels in us what Reformation of sin doth this work all sin perisheth at the rebuke of his countenance for the righteousness of God will endure no sin in us And so the Gospel reforms by working righteousness in us 3. The Gospel reforms because it shews us Christ and by shewing us him it changeth us into his Image the more we see Christ in the Gospel the more are we made like unto him that as we have born the Image of the earthly so we may bear the Image of the Heavenly Adam 2. Yea the Gospel shews us God in Christ in all his glory and changeth us into that glory of God which is shewen us we all saith Paul with open face beholding as in a glass and this glass is the Gospel the glory of the Lord are changed into the same Image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord so that the Gospel by shewing us God changeth us into the Image of God and God through the Gospel ariseth on us till his glory be seen upon us And thus you see the grounds of the Gospels Reformation So that now the Word of the Gospel is the only Reforming Word and if there be never so much preaching if it be but Legal it will reform no body aright because there can be no working Faith nor communicating righteousness nor changing men into Gods Image and so there can be no true Reformation And thus much for the first Means of Reformation which Christ useth which is the Word and this Word the Gospel 2. Means the Spirit For the Spirit accompanies the Word in the Ministery of the Gospel and therefore the Gospel is called the Ministration of the Spirit that is the Word and Spirit in union and operation In the Law there was the Letter without the Spirit and so that could do nothing but in the Gospel the Word and the Spirit are alwayes joyned and therefore saith Christ The words that I speak are spirit and Life that is they come from the spirit and carry spirit with them And this Spirit that is present in the word of the Gospel and works in it and is given by it reforms mightily and therefore it is called the spirit of judgement and burning And the Lord looking to this time of reformation promised long before to pour out his Spirit upon all flesh and so to reform all flesh Now the Spirit poured forth upon the flesh reforms it two wayes 1. By taking away all evils out of the flesh 2. By changing the flesh into its own likeness 1. The Spirit poured forth upon the flesh reforms it all by taking all evil out of the flesh As first all Sin and Corruption saith Paul If you mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit yee shall live the deeds of the flesh are not to be mortified by any power but by the Spirit all pride and envy and lust and covetousness and carnal mindedness and all other evils of the flesh are reformed by the presence of the Spirit in it and no other way 2. The Spirit reforms not only all Sins in the Church but all Errors and Heresies and false doctrines as is evident by that of Paul 1 Cor. 3. 12. If any man build upon this foundation gold silver precious stones wood hay stubble every mans work shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire and the fire shall try every mans work of what sort it is c. So that a man may lay Christ for a foundation and yet build wood hay and stubble upon him that is humane doctrines and the inventions of men and false and wicked opinions 2. The destruction of this hay wood and stubble that is error heresie and humane doctrines in the Church of God that is the people built on Christ shall not be by Laws of States or Constitutions of Councels but by the Holy Spirit which is as fire The Spirit shall come into the Saints and burn up all that corrupt and false doctrine that will not indure the Spirit and error shall never be destroyed but by the Spirit of truth So that the Spirit reforms all error as well as all corruptions in the faithful 2. The Spirit doth not only reform the flesh by taking away all evil out of it whether corruptions or errors but also it changeth the flesh into its own likeness For the Spirit is as fire that changeth every thing into its self and so doth the Spirit in the flesh make the flesh spiritual like heavenly fire it changeth men into its own likeness and makes them spiritual heavenly holy meek good loving c. And thus the Spirit reforms indeed When the Spirit is poured forth upon a man how wonderfully doth it reform him this works a change in him in good earnest and no man is ever truly reformed till he
the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked And Antichrist himself his greatest Enemy he destroys by the Spirit of his mouth and the brightness of his coming 2. Neither did Christ command his Apostles to use any such outward power but he sent his Disciples to preach and bid them say into what house soever they entered Peace be to this house and if men would not receive peace and the doctrine of peace not to force them but to depart thence and to shake off the dust of their feet as a witness against them that they had been there according to the will of Christ and the Father and offered them mercy and salvation which they refused And this is all that the Ministers of the Gospel can do to any that refuse their doctrine and not to go presently to the secular Magistrate to ask power to punish them or imprison them or sell their goods as is now practised in some parts of the Kingdom even upon the Saints and if men be wicked is it not misery enough for them to refuse eternal life except also they inflict on them Temporal death Is it not misery enough for men to refuse the good things of heaven except they also deprive them of the good things of this present life and yet as Luther said of the Clergy Quando non invocat brachium seculare morte utraque terret mundum When doth it not call upon the secular power and terrifie the world with both deaths Surely Christ and the Word approve not these ways For Math. 18. Christ imposeth no other punishment on them that would not hear the Church then that he should be reckoned as a heathen and Paul Titus 3. Teacheth us after once and twice admonition to avyd an Heretick but not to imprison him or kill him or banish him and again they that do these things shall not inherite the Kingdom of God and again he that beleeves not shall be damned but not one word of outward or corporal punishment in all the Gospel 3. Yea Christ reproveth his Disciples for discovering such a spirit of tyranny as to punish men for not receiving him Luk. 9. when the Apostles of a Prelatical and Antichristian Spirit in that particular desired fire to come down from Heaven upon them that would not receive him Christ did severely rebuke them saving Ye know not of what spirit ye are not of Christs Spirit which is meek but of Sathans who was a murderer from the beginning and of Antichrists his first begotten in the world and he adds the Son of man came not to destroy mens lives but to save them and therefore to go about to turn the Gospel not to save mens lives but to destroy them and so to change Christ himself from a Saviour into a Destroyer this is Antichrist Triumphant All these things shew that worldly power hath no place at all in the Reformation of the Gospel Now I should have proceeded here to answer some Objections as namely 1. That of Luke 14. compel them to come in this I forgetting named not May a Christian then live as he list No by no means for he hath the Word and Spirit in him to keep him from living as he list and he knows that no man in Gods Kingdom may live as he wils but as God wils But would you have no Law No Laws in Gods Kingdom but Gods Laws and these are a thousands times better then all the Laws of men and they are these three The Law of a new nature The Law of the spirits of life that is in Christ The Law of love But would you have no Government Yes but the government of Christ the Head and the Holy Ghost the Spirit in and over the Church the body They that would govern the faithful the Members of Christs own body make themselves the head of those Members and so Antichrist may as well be found in a combination of men as in one single person But would you have no Order Yes the best thas is even such an Order as is in the body of Christ where every Member is placed by Christ and none by it self The Order of the spiritual Church is a spiritual Order and not a carnal But would you have sin suffered No but more truly and throughly destroyed then any power of the world can destroy it even by the Spirit of judgement and burning But would you have sinners suffered No but punished more severely then any powers of the world can punish them For he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of lips he shall slay the wicked And as for those that are outwardly wicked the Magistrate is to keep them in order for the quiet of the State he having power over their persons estates and lives I should also have proceeded to the next thing The advantages of such a Gospel Reformation where it is wrought together with the Vses but because I would not be everlong I pass by these things and so proceed no farther in this Discourse But now being brought hither by an unexpected providence I shall crave liberty to speak a few words to you in the behalf of two Kingdoms that is this Kingdom and Gods 1. That which I have to request of you for this Kingdom is that you would regard the oppression of the poor and the sighing of the needy Never was there more injustice and oppression in the Nation then now I have seen many oppressed and crushed and none to help them I beseech you consider this with all your hearts for many who derive power from you are great oppressors And therefore I require you in the name of God to discharge the trust that God hath put into your hands and so to defend the poor and fatherless to do justice to the afflicted and needy to deliver the poor and needy and to rid them out of the hands of the wicked This is your business discharge your duty if you will not then hear what the Lord saith Psal 12. 5. for the oppression of the poor for the sighing of the needy now will I arise saith the Lord and Gods rising in this case would prove your ruine If you will not do Gods work in the Kingdom which he hath cal'd you too he will do it himself without you as it is written He shall deliver the needy when he cryeth the poor also and him that hath no helper he shall save their souls from deceit and violence the common evils of the times And this is all that I have to say for this Kingdom 2. I have a few more things to say touching Gods Kingdom and the first is this 1. That as Christ Kingdom and the Kingdoms of the world are distinct So you would be pleased to keep them so and not mingle them together your selves nor suffer others
a spiritual Kingdom and the Reformation of it is answerable and that Christ himself who is the Lord the Spirit is the Reformer of this spiritual Kingdom by his Word and Spirit but little thought that any man would have been so blind or worse as to have affirmed the preaching of this spiritual and glorious Reformation was to preach against all reformation Is the Reformation of Jesus Christ which he works by his Word and Spirit in all the faithful and in all the Churches of the Saints no Reformation at all How durst you affirm this Mr. Love Mr. LOVE As if all were encompassed within the narrow heart of man Reply Yet I said plainly enough When the heart is reformed all is reformed and Gospel Reformation though it begins in the inward man ends in the outward Did you Sir accuse me rightly then or no Mr. LOVE If this be so Race out the first Article of the Covenant Reply I had rather the whole Covenant were raced out then the least truth contained in the word of God Though I like the Covenant well enough according to the true intention of it Again if the thing be truly considered it will appear that you are more against the Covenant then I for the Covenant engages us to reform according to the word of God but you it seems would reform without yea against the Word with outward and secular power which you will not suffer in the Magistrates hands neither but will needs have it in your own Mr. LOVE If this Doctrine be true That Gospel-Reformation be only spiritual then I wonder how Paul was so out who said When I come I will set all things in Order surely that was a Church-Order Reply But pray What outward or secular power had Paul who suffered not onely much from the world but most from the false Apostles to set the Church in order Did Paul think you use any worldly power to set the Church in order or only the power of the word and spirit But these men think if the Church be to be set in order by the word and spirit onely which were sufficient in Pauls time it 's like to be out of order for them Mr. LOVE To cry down all kinde of Government under heart-government and all Reformation as carnal because you have the Civil Magistrates hand to it is against that place of Paul 1 Tim. 2. 2. Pray for Kings and all that are in Authority that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all godliness and honesty Reply Well argu'd now indeed Babes and sucklings you shall come forth and answer this Master in Israel The sense of this place is evidently this That Christians should pray for Kings and Governors that God would so incline their hearts that whilst we live in godliness under them they would suffer us to live in peace and not make us fare the worse in the world for our interest in the Kingdom of God And what one drop can Mr. Love squeeze out of this Scripture to cool the tip of his tongue For the meaning is not That the Magistrate should enforce godliness but portect us in godliness Mr. LOVE To justle out the Magistrates power is to justle out the first Article of the Covenant What again and they that justle out that will justle out you shortly Reply Good Sir Ascribe not your own work to our hands The justling out the Magistrate have you not made it the chief part of your business now for a long while together and are you not still so diligently acting it every day that now you think your work is in some forwardness and you are pretty well able to deal with him And now because you would not be mistrusted your selves you publickly slander us with it We see clearly thorow all your slender disguises Mr. LOVE Ezra was of another mind Ezra 7. 26. Whosoever will not do the Law of thy God and the Law of thy King let Judgement be executed speedily upon him whether it be unto death or unto banishment or to confiscation of goods or to imprisonment Reply Well Sir will you stand to this place and shall this end the Controversie Pray mark then This was part of the Decree of Artaxerxes a King of the Nations touching the Jews for the rebuilding of the material Temple That they should have liberty to do it and not be molested in the doing of it but should have what assistance the State could afford The Decree was this Ezra 7. 13. I make a Decree That all they of the people of Israel and of the Priests and Levites in any Realm which are minded of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem go with thee Forasmuch as thou art sent of the King and his seven Councellors to enquire concerning Judah and Jerusalem according to the Law of thy God that is in thy hand c. And vers 21. I Artaxerxes the King do make a Decree to all the Treasurers beyond the River That whatsoever Ezra the Priest shall require of you it be done speedily unto two hundred Talents of silver And then vers 26 follows Whoever will not do the law of thy God and the law of thy King Let him be so and so punished as you have heard 1. Here then you see That Artaxerxes made no Decree to enforce all the Jews to go build but as the Text saith Those that were minded of their own free will See you not here that even a King of the Nations thought it unreasonable to force any man to go to build Gods material house against his will 2. And secondly you see How he gave them no laws how to build but permitted them to do it according to the law of their God that was in their hands 3. And thirdly you see How he deterred any from hindering them from this work upon pain of death banishment c. Do you not perceive now by this time how you then deceived the people by giving them the letter of the Word without the 〈◊〉 sense of it as Satan dealt with Christ in his temptations Such Sermons bring an Hour of Temptation upon the people This then is the force of the place 1. First That the Magistrate may make a Decree for all that are minded of their own free will to build the Spiritual Temple of Jesus Christ and to gather up into a Communion of Saints 2. Secondly That he ought to permit this to be done according to the law of our God that is in our hands or rather according to the law of the Spirit of life that is in our Hearts and not to enforce upon us any Clergy constitutions 3. And thirdly That he may deter you and the rest of the Kingdom that are of the like minde with you from resisting and hindering this work which hath its Authority from Heaven That so the Saints the Kingdom of Christ may pray for the Magistrate and Christ the King of Saints may bless the Magistrate and make
with him But I am perswaded better things of you though I thus speak and even such things as are suitable to the light of the Gospel and to the vertues and graces of Christ and his Spirit which have been hitherto and I hope will yet still be very manifest not only in You Honorable Ones who have the chief Conduct but also in very many of the Councel and Army besides And upon such a gathering together of Gods people and Saints let the world if it please still laugh at that word who can but think he hath some choice and singular work in hand for his own glory The Lord God Almighty hath already done great and wonderful works by you and is yet doing greater if you will continue to beleeve and obey and in all these things he only is to be exalted and not You. For hath not that Day of the Lord of Hosts dawned yea the morning of it is already gone forth Which is upon every one that is proud and lofty and upon every one that is lifted up and he is to be brought low and the Lord alone is and must be exalted in this day Now the Lord cause you to dwell and continue in that Church which is the body of Christ and habitation of God and give you peace with those that are reconciled to God by Christ and to one another in Christ by the Spirit in which union and communion I remain Your assured Servant W. D. TO THE READER SUCH are the noises of waters and thundrings and earthquakes among us and so great and continued are our shakings and confusious through hatred and love hopes and fears joyes and sorrows triumphs and indignations that there is no silence in heaven for so much as half an hour Wherefore though I discourse here touching so sweet and glorious a thing as PEACE and do declare from the very word or else I had said nothing wherein the true peace of the true Church consists and also how the faithful and Churches may preserve that peace in their Communion with one another which they have in the Son and in the Father yet mens heads and hearts are now so full that it is to be doubted but few will regard it Notwithstanding considering that there is among us an election of grace and a flock of Christ who both know and will hear his voyce at any time I thought good to speak this in their behalf for whose profit all the creatures of God were made in the world and all the gifts of Christ are given in the Church And though I am very conscious of my rudeness of speech in this Discourse as also of my weakness and infirmity in many things having not yet attained to a perfect man and to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ and so dare not say that every jot and tittle here is of the pure river of water of life without any humane mixture yet they that are spiritual and able to judge will own all in it that is of the word and spirit of truth and will not reject silver tryed four or five times because it is not tryed seven times And what is weak and imperfect in it the true Church of Christ for whose dear sake and love I have spoken all this seeing it is as Luther speaks The Queen of Mercy whose very bowels are meer compassions and forgivenesses of sins will easily pass it by and forgive it And as for men haughty and high in their own spirit contemning and disdaining any thing that agrees not to their palate I do as easily despise their censure as they lightly pass it It is enough that I seek the glory of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God and the welfare of that Church that is his body and for the rest let me become as vile as the Apostles were made to the world who were counted the filth and offsouring of all things or as Mr Baily Rutherford Bastwick Pryn Love or any other of my old enemies in Parliament and City not worth the naming have sought to make me All whom unless God give them repentance to life I cite as once Hierom of Prague did his enemies in the like cause To appear within a few years before the most high and righteous Judge Jesus Christ to answer all that they have done wickedly if not maliciously against his Name Truth Gospel Spirit People and that under the form and pretence of godliness And now well knowing that the more any thing is of Christ the more enmity and opposition it will meet with from the world and from the worldly Church I commit Christs own word and cause to his own care and protection who lives and reigns for this very purpose to uphold his own despised truth against the glorious but deceitful doctrines of men and to make all his enemies his foot-stool And so waiting in this assured hope if thou love Christ I remain Thine in him VVilliam Dell. The Contents THE Introduction pag. 149 The Gospel propounded is neither 1. Between the Church and the world p. 150 2. Nor between the Spiritual and Carnal children of the Church ibid. 3. But between the faithful or true children of the true Church p. 151 The true Church described p. 152 The true Church of God differs from the Churches of men in 13. particulars from p. 153 to p. 157 How this Church may be known p. 158 How we may be joyned to it p. 159 The Church a great mystery as well as Christ p. 160 Seven bonds of this Churches Vnity viz. ibid. 1. One body p. 161 2. One Spirit p. 165 3. One Hope of our calling p. 167 4. One Lord. p. 169 5. One Faith p. 172 6. One Baptisme p. 175 7. One God and Father of all who is above all through all and in all p. 176 These seven bonds are sufficient for the Vnity and Peace of the Church without any additions of mans devising 178. How the true Church of believers thus made one by God may be preserved one in their communion among themselves p. 180 To this end 1 They must know some things otherwise then yet they do ibid. Particularly they must be instructed touching the government of the church ibid. This Government is twofold 1. Immediate And this also is twofold 1. The Government of Gods speciall Providence p. 181 2. The government of his spiritual presence p 182 These two Governments the true church never wanted in any age nor in this p. 184 2. Mediate This also is Christs Government and not mans p. 185 And it is Christs ordering all things by the faithful among the faithful in reference to the communion of Saints ibid. This is drawn forth into several particulars which are these 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church 186 2. What kinde of power it is which the true Church hath set down in 6. particulars 188 And here
and not in the light of the Word which shows us clearly that it is as possible to reconcile Michael and the Devil as the Angels of both 2. Neither secondly do I finde any way in the World to reconcile all those together who are commonly called The visible Church seeing even among these there are two distinct sorts of children as Paul teacheth us one sort of those that are born after the flesh as Ishmael and Esau and another of those who are born after the spirit as Isaac and Jacob and there is as great enmity between these in the Church as between the former in the world for they that are born after the flesh are always persecuting them that are born after the spirit but never agreeing with them Now of these two sorts of Christians one makes up the body of Christ the other the body of Antichrist The spiritual children make up Christs true body as it is written He gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his body for these being born of the Spirit do also partake of the Spirit and so are the true flesh of Christ as all that flesh is in which the Spirit dwels and these all worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh that is in no fleshly Forms Ceremonies or Worship The carnal children of the Church make up Antichrists true body For as Christs body consists of spiritual Christians so Antichrists of carnal For Antichrist sets up in the temple of God as well as Christ and as Christ get his body together of spiritual Christians so Antichrist gets his body together of carnal Christians and these have a form of Religion or godliness but they have no spirit or power in that form yea under the form of godliness they exercise the greater power of ungodliness And Christ and his Spirit and all their things are nowhere more opposed then by those in the Church who have the letter of the word but want the spirit of it being taught of men only and not of God So that all that part of Christianity that is destitute of the Spirit and hath the name only and not the anointing of Christians this makes up the body of Antichrist And now there can be no more agreement between these two bodies of Christ and of Antichrist that is between spiritual and carnal Christians then between Christ and Antichrist themselves the heads of these bodies And as I finde nothing in the word so neither do I propound any thing for an agreement here for to go about to reconcile there where the Father never intended nor the Son never undertook any reconciliation would not be a work of wisedom but of weakness So then the way of peace I shall speak of is between the children of peace touching whom God hath promised That he will give them one heart and one way and for whom Christ hath prayed That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in theâ— that they also may be one in us And these are the elect made faithful called to be Saints and sanctified through their calling and these are the true Church of God The peace then I seek by this Discourse is the peace of the true Church Wherefore I shall first declare the Church it self whose peace I seek and then after declare wherein this Churches true peace and unity lies and also how it may be preserved among themselves it being first wrought by Jesus Christ For the Church it self what I have learned touching it I shall speak plainly and something largely because the right understanding hereof is so absolutely necessary to our present business and yet there are very many and very great mistakes and mis apprehensions touching it even among the faithfull The right Church then is not the whole multitude of the people whether good or bad that joyn together in an outward form or way of worship for in this Church there are Whoremongers Idolaters Thieves Murderers and all sorts of wicked and unbelieving persons which are so far from being the Church of Christ that they are the very Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and therefore I shall not speak of this Church But the Church I shall speak of is the true Church of the New Testament which I say is not any outward or visible society gathered together into the consent or use of outward things forms ceremonies worship as the Churches of men are neither is it known by seeing or feeling or the help of any outward sense as the Society of Mercers or Drapers or the like but it is a Spiritual and Invisible Fellowship gathered together in the unity of faith hope and love and so into the unity of the Son and of the Father by the Spirit wherefore it is wholly hid from carnal eyes neither hath the world any knowledge or judgement of it This true Church is the Communion of Saints which is the communion believers have with one another not in the things of the world or in the things of men but in the things of God for as believers have their union in the Son and in the Father so in them also they have their communion and the communion they have with one another in God cannot be in their own things but in Gods things even in his light life righteousness wisdom truth love power peace joy c. This is the true Communion of Saints and this Communion of Saints is the true Church of God Now this true Church of God differs from the Churches of men in very many particulars as follows 1. Members come unto the Churches of men either of their own minds or else by the perswasion or by the forcing of others and so but after the will of man but none come to this true Church but from the drawing of God the Father and his own calling according to his own purpose 2. In the Churches of men members are admitted through an outward confession of doctrine but none are admitted into this true Church but through a new birth from God and his Spirit Joh. 3. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God which is the right Church of the New Testament For that which is born of the flesh is flesh and so remains without in the world but that which is born of the spirit is spirit and so hath entrance into the true Church 3. In the Churches of men there are more wicked then righteous but in this true Church of Christ the people are all righteous not one excepted as it is written Thy people shall be all righteous Isa 60. For they all have their iniquities forgiven them and they are all redeemed and washed with the blood of the Lamb. 4. In the Churches of men the people for the most part are onely taught of men who are their heads and leaders and whose judgements they depend on
Christ speaking in me which to you wards is not weak but mighty who ever is the instrument Christ is the only Preacher of the New Testament and that which is the true Gospel is the ministration of the Spirit for holy men spake as they were moved by the holy Spirit and were first anointed with the Spirit before they preached Judas who preached the word and was not anointed with the Spirit proved a traitor to Christ and who ever preach the word without the Spirit are the successors of Judas and also traitors to Christ 11. The Churches of men have the government of them laid on mens shoulders whether single persons as Pope or Archbishop or combined as the General Councel or a National Assembly but the true Church hath its government laid only on Christs shoulders as the Prophet fore-told Isa 9. Vnto us a child is born a Son is given and the government shall lie on his shoulders and Zech. 6. 12. He shall build the temple of the Lord c. and he shall sit and rule upon his throne for none can rule the true Church but he that built it For if the Church be gathered together in Christ as the true Church is Christ is alwaies in the midst of them and if Christ is ever present with them his own self how cometh it to pass that Christ may not reign immediately over them Wherefore the true Church reckons it sufficient authority that they have Christ and his Word for the ground of their practice and what ever they finde in the word they presently set upon the practice of it and never ask leave either of civil or ecclesiastical powers but the Churches of men will do nothing without the authority of the Magistrate or Assembly though it be never so clear in the word of God For in their Religion they regard the authority of men more then the authority of God 12. The Churches of men are still setting themselves one above another but the assemblies of the true Church are all equal having Christ and the Spirit equally present with them and in them and therefore the believers of one congregation cannot say they have power over the believers of another congregation seeing all congregations have Christ and his Spirit alike among them and Christ hath not anywhere promised that he will be more with one then with another And so Christ and the Spirit in one congregation do not subjected neither are subject to Christ and the Spirit in another congregation as if Christ and the Spirit in several places should be above and under themselves But Christ in each assembly of the faithful is their head and this head they dare not leave and set up a fleshly head to themselves whether it consist of one or many men seeing Antichrist doth as strongly invade Christs headship in many as in one man in a Councel as in a Pope Lastly The churches of men the gates of hell which are sin and death shall certainly prevail against but the true church of Christ though the gates of hell do always fight against it yet they shall never prevail against it as Christ hath promised Mat. 16. 18. Vpon this rock I will build My church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it In these things among other the true Church of Christ differs from the churches of men By which we may clearly see that the true Church is not an outward and visible society or corporation neither can it be pointed out by the finger loe here or loe there seeing it is not confined to any certain place time or person but it is wholly a spiritual and invisible society as I have said that is assembled in the Son and in the Father who are the true pale and circumference of this Church and out of whom no part of it is to be found Now hereupon it will presently be said if the true Church be invisible as you have affirmed then 1. How shall we know it 2. How can we joyn our selves to it To both which I hope I shall return a clear answer And first to this Question How shall we know the true Church seeing it is invisible I answer Just so as Christ the head is known is the church his body known and no other way now Christ is known 1. By the revelation of the Father when Peter confessed Christ to be the Son of the living God Christ told him that flesh and blood had not revealed it to him but his Father now the members of Christ can no more be known without this revelation of the Father then Christ the head of these members seeing the Apostle hath said that as he is so are we in this world so that he had need of other eyes then the world sees withal that would discern the true Church and of another Revelation then any that flesh and blood can make 2. Christ was known by the Spirits resting on him Joh. 1. 33. And I knew him not said John Baptist but he that sent me to baptize with water the same said unto me Vpon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Spirit and I saw and bare record that this is the Son of God After the same manner the Church of Christ is known to wit by the Spirits comming and remaining on it So that whatever people have received the Spirit of Christ of what sort or condition soever they be they are the Church of Christ and they that are destitute of this Spirit are not of the Church 3. Christ was known by the works he did Joh. 10. 37. If I do not the works of my Father believe me not but if I do though you believe not me believe the works that ye may know that the Father is in me and I in him And thus also is the true Church known by doing the works of Christ seeing Christ hath said He that believes in me the works that I do shall he do c. And thus the body of Christ is known by its living the life of the head which is the life of faith and love and the members of Christ are known by their doing the works of the head Thus then you see that though the true Church be spiritual and cannot be known by our outward senses yet we have certain tokens of her spiritual presence whereby we may reckon that in this or that place there be certain of her members As by a natural example though the soul of man in it self be spiritual and invisible and cannot be discerned by any of our senses yet may we have sure tokens of its presence by the effects and operations of the soul in that body wherein it dwels as the exercise of reason understanding discourse c. so likewise the true Church which is invisible in it self may yet be known by some certain signs as by the word of faith which sounds no where but in
forth as the Spirit is manifested in each Now if any shall say How may I know Christs Spirit in these acts and duties from a mans own I answer That as by the Word of God we can judge of all other Words and Doctrines and as by the Faith of Christ we can judge of all other beliefs so by the Spirit of Christ we can judge of all other spirits and can know where is the same spirit and where is a different or a contrary spirit as the members of the body can judge of the one-ness of Spirit that is among themselves The third bond of the true Churches unity is ONE HOPE OF OUR CALLING Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling As all Believers are called by one calling which is the inward and effectual voyce of God to the soul by his Spirit through the Gospel so they are all called into one blessed hope of obtaining the Kingdom and glory of God And no one is called to this hope more then another or hath more interest or share in it then another Fishes that live in the Sea though some be greater and some less yet none hath more interest or share in it then another but all being alike produced in it enjoy it alike and creatures that live on the earth though some be greater and some less yet all enjoy the Sun and Ayr alike and yet nearer the members of the body though of different quantity form and office yet all have alike interest in the head and all its senses and in the soul and all its faculties So all the faithful enjoy Christ alike and in him the Spirit and the Father and no Believer hath more interest in Christ and God then another So that all the faithful are called to the same things and God gives not more nor better things to one then to another but he gives immortality glory eternal life the Kingdom of Heaven which is the inheritance of the Saints or which is all one himself alike to all and makes all to sit alike in heavenly places in Christ and in the Father All the faithful then are equally called to an Vnity of hope and none can hope for greater or better things then another It was a very carnal thing in the Mother of Zebedee's children to desire of Christ That one of her Sons might sit at his right hand and another at his left hand in his Kingdom where all alike sit at his right hand and none at all at his left Indeed in the Kingdoms of men some have greater estates then others and are in higher Honour and Authority and this breeds envie and emulation and strife and distances c. but in the Sons Kingdom and in the Fathers all that are counted worthy to dwell therein do alike inherit all things All things are yours saith Paul And he that overcomes shall inherit all things saith John And the least believer hath no less and the greatest hath no more and this causes unity and peace among them We see what a strong bond of peace and agreement unity of hope is in them that travel together that fight together that labour together and so much more in them who are equally called by God to the Kingdom of God And this is the third bond of the true Churches Vnity Vnity of Hope Now they break this bond of the Churches Vnity that live out of this hope of the Church whose hope is in earthly carnal base things who pretending to be Christians yet live onely in the hopes of men in hopes of worldly profit honour preferment and the attaining and enjoyment of the things of this life which they according to the eagerness of their hopes prosecute mightily by all ways and means These men I say break the Vnity of the Church for what true Vnity can they have with the true Church that live not in unity of hope with it Seeing worldly hopes carry men one way and the hopes of Believers carry them another carnal hopes make men leave God for the world and the hope of Saints make them leave the world for God Wherefore they that differ in their hopes which are their ends must needs differ in their ways and works and so he that lives out of the hope of the Church lives also out of the unity of it The fourth bond of the true Churches unity is ONE LORD The right Church hath not many Lords but One and this one and only Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ And so all the subjects of this Kingdom are fellow servants to one Lord to whom they do owe equal obedience and this also is a strong bond of Vnity For when there are divers Lords there are divers minds and wils and ends and so divers laws and these breed divisions and dissentions and wars among men but where there is but one Lord there is also but one Law and where people live by one Law under one Lord unto whom all are equally subject this breeds peace and union Now the Lordship of the Church is the Royal Prerogative of Christ and no creature must presume to arrogate this honour to himself seeing unto the very Angels he hath not put in subjection this world to come whereof we speak And for men Christ hath charged his own Apostles who if there were any difference among Believers might undoubtedly challenge the preheminence I say Christ hath charged even them on this sort Matth. 23. 10. Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant That is you may and ought to be servants to one another but not masters and this same doctrine the Apostle James preacheth Jam. 3. 1. My brethren saith he be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation it is not fit for brethren who are equal among themselves to make themselves masters over one another Christ also hath spoken again so plainly to this matter Math. 20. that one would wonder that ever the Beast or his image should dare to arrogate to themselves Lordship over the People of God in so clear a light Ye know saith Christ to the twelve that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority over them but it shall not be so amongst you he speaks it peremptorily that some Believers should not exercise dominion and authority over Believers no not the greatest over the least all being fellow servants alike under one Lord. Wherefore they that are puffed up in their hearts against their fellow servants might better think thus with themselves why Christ is our Lord as well as theirs and is as much over us as over them and we are not over our fellow servants nor they under us but both of us are equally under Christ and Christ is equally over us both and so Christ hath given us the same laws he hath given them to
wit that we should believe in him and love one another and he expects the same obedience from us as from them and so we are not to command one another but are all alike to be commanded by him It was the evil servant that beat his fellow servants upon hopes of the delay of his Masters coming And this is the fourth bond of the true Churches Vnity Vnity of Lord. Now they break this bond of the Churches Vnity that either make themselves or others Lords over the Church besides Christ and parcel out this one Kingdom of the Son to many Lords to the great dishonour of Christ and dis-union of the Church The Pope was the first that professed himself to be the general Master in the whole Church of God and after the Pope a general Councel took this honour to it self and by degrees this last became as hard yea a harder taskmaster to the Church then the former After when particular Kingdoms fell off from the Pope and his Antichristian Church the mystery of iniquity was not by this means wholly dissolved but only was contracted and brought into a less compass for then the Archbishop made himself general master of the Church in each particular Kingdom as the Pope before had done in all and after the Archbishop rises up a National Assembly as the General Councel after the Pope and each of these in their courses usurp Lordship over the Church of Christ to the sad dissolution of its unity Most evident then it is that during the time of the Apostasie the Church hath been most miserably Lorded even amongst us for the Priest he Lorded it over the People the Arch-deacon over the Priest the Dean over the Arch-deacon the Bishop over the Dean and the Arch-bishop over the Bishop under which woful bondage the Church cried out as Isa 26. O Lord our God other Lords besides thee have had dominion over us And is this bondage of the Church now eased by casting off those strange Lords Yea do not men rather seek to encrease it by setting yet stranger over it whose names are so full of mystery that the common people cannot understand them for now they would have the Classical Presbytery set over the Congregational and the Provincial over the Classical and the National over the Provincial for so it is Voted THAT IT IS LAWFULL AND AGREEABLE TO THE WORD OF GOD THAT THERE BE A SUBORDINATION OF CONGREGATIONAL CLASSICAL PROVINCIAL AND NATIONAL ASSEMBLIES FOR THE GOVERNMENT OF THE CHURCH Now here is mystery and nothing but a certain rising up into the old power under a new name And mark how they prove this subordination of Congregational Classical Provincial and National Assemblies to wit by that Scripture Mat. 18. where it is written If thy brother trespass against thee and will neither hear thy admonition nor councel nor the admonition and councel of other brethren TELL THE CHURCH that is the Congregation of the faithful Now from this place they prove the fore mentioned subordination of Assemblies just as the Pope once proved himself to be above the Emperour to wit because it is written Gen. 1. That God made two great lights the Sun to rule by day and the Moon by night Now if this might be brought about which they design the Church would be so far from being eased of its strange Lords that it should have them exceedingly multiplied for what is a National Assembly but an Archbishop multiplied and what a Provincial Assembly but a Bishop multiplied And a Classical but a Dean and Arch deacon multiplied And thus the former Lords being removed they would in their stead cause the Church to swarm with Classical Provincial and National Lords and would by no means suffer Christs own Kingdom to return to his own Lordship and Dominion And thus whilest they by secular power seek to enforce these Ecclesiastical Lords over the Church they absolutely break in pieces the unity of it even whilst they bear the simple people in hand that they above all other men seek to preserve it seeing the plurality of Lords is alwayes the cause of Schisms and divisions in the Church which can never be one but under one Lord the Lord Jesus Christ The fifth bond of the true Churches Vnity is ONE FAITH The true Church of God hath but one Faith wrought by one Spirit apprehending the same Christ or the same living and eternal truth of God So that Abraham and Moses and David and all the Prophets and all the Apostles and we who now believe and all that shall believe hereafter all have and do and shall live in the same mystery of faith that is Believers in all Ages do not live their own lives but all live the life of Christ in their own souls and bodies each one receiving equally from Christ the life of Christ which they all live alike in him being one with him as the branches live equally the life of the Vine and one brnch lives it not more then another Through faith then every Christian is carryed out of himself and all his own things into Christ whom he apprehends with all his fulness for his own and in this faith all Christians are equal and none hath a better or worse faith then another So that in regad of faith also there is among the true Church unity and equality For all Believers have one and the same faith of the operation of God wrought by the same Spirit which raised up Christ from the dead and that faith which the Spirit works neither sin death nor the devil can possibly prevail against and so the faith of the operation of the Spirit is altogether invincible in all the faithful Among true Christians some are not justified by faith and some by works but all are saved through faith without the works of the law Among true Christians one Believers faith doth not apprehend one word and anothers another word but the faith of each and of all apprehends one and the same word of truth and life which is Christ himself Yesterday and to day and the same for ever Among Believers one doth not live his own life and another Christs which indeed would make them very different and unequal but all live Christs life alike and none their own And thus is the whole Church knit together in Vnity of Faith Now this unity of faith is mightily able to preserve peace among Believers notwithstanding diversity either of inward gifts or outward works 1. Vnity of Faith preserves peace notwithstanding diversity of inward gifts inasmuch as we are not made members of Christs body through such and such gifts but meerly through faith and so he that hath one or a less gift is equally a member of Christ through his faith with him that hath another or a greater gift and so unity of faith which makes us all one body in Christ is to keep us one notwithstanding diversity of gifts and operations and
hath put on to deceive shall after a few years vanish away it shall return into the shape of its first beginning And therefore let us know whatever rules orders or humane inventions men do study and devise to govern their Churches by the true Church of Christ shall ever be known by the scepter and sword of the onely Gospel preached in it which is fully sufficient for the regiment of the Church else Christ were an imperfect Law-giver And all those that do affirm that the votes determinations rules and constitutions of Councels are better for the well ordering and governing the Church then the pure and naked word of the Gospel by the ministration of the Spirit in my judgement they speak blasphemously Let us now hear what Luther saith to this purpose Christians saith he ought to be governed by that word and no other whereby they are made Christians that is free from sin and this is only by the pure Gospel of God without the addition of Councels Doctors Fathers For what is it to govern Christians by that word which though they keep yet neither do they become Christians nor continue such nay they cease to be Christians and lose Christ And of this sort is every word besides the Gospel and salvation reigns in us not by the laws of men but by the power of Christ Farther they that are not Christians are to be restrained other ways then by the traditions of men for these are to be let alone and as Paul saith We are not to mingle with them There is the secular sword there is the Magistrate for these and it belongs to him to restrain those that are evil from evil deeds by the power of the sword But the Bishop or Overseer governs Christians without the sword only by the Word of God seeing it is certain they are not Christians except they be spontaneously good and such they are made by the force of the spirit of faith as Paul saith Rom. 8. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the children of God What madness then is it to urge them that are willingly good with the Laws of the evil And yet saith he There are not a few light and vain men that think that the business of the Gospel is to be promoted with weapons and cuffes And the same Luther in his Epistle to the Christians and Preachers of Erphurd saith Consider in your minde with what sword I subdued the Papacy and the whole state of religious men who before were dreadful to all of whom it was said Who shall fight with the Beast that hath power to make war with the Saints and to overcome them And yet saith he I never touched them with so much as one of my fingers but Christ destroyed and overthrew all that detestable Kingdom by discovering their iniquities by the Spirit of his mouth that is by the Word of the Gospel In which passages of his besides what is spoken before it is apparent that there is no other instrument of the true Churches power but the word of the Gospel which is the only scepter and sword of Christs Kingdom 5. What the true Church can do by vertue of this power Now the true Church by the power it hath received from Christ can 1. Gather it self together when and as often as it pleaseth The company of Believers have power to gather themselves togeâ—ther for their mutual good instruction preservation edification and for the avoiding or preventing of evil and that without the consent or authority of any extrinsecal and forraign power whatever else Christ were not a sufficient founder of his Church And if every free Society not subjected to tyranny hath power in it self to congregate and come together as conveniency and necessity shall require as is evident in all civil Corporations and in all Fraternities and meetings of love much more hath the Church of Christ which is the freest Society in the world power to meet together into a communion of Saints though it be without and against the consent and authority of the powers of the world And thus the Disciples immediately after Christs resurrection though the People and Rulers were wholly set against them did often meet together among themselves though privately and Christ himself came and stood in the midst of them and finding them in that way of Communion said Peace be unto them And so by his own presence did both justifie and encourage such meetings And after the Apostles with other Believers to the number of an hundred and twenty met together in an upper room to pray and to choose an Apostle in the stead of Judas Act. 1. And at the day of Pentecost they all met again Act. 2. Though the Elders of the Church and Rulers of the state were utterly against their meetings And again Act. 4. Peter and John after the threatnings of the Rulers and the Jews went and met with their own company which was now mightily encreased by the Ministery of the Gospel and declared to them all things that God had done by them and the Rulers had done against them whereupon all of them joyned together in the praise of God for the success of the Gospel against the power of the world And again Act. 6. the Church of its own accord met together to chuse seven Deacons And a multitude of other instances might be produced By all which it appears that the Church of Believers hath power of it self to appoint its own meetings as conveniency or necessity shall require for the good of the Church And therefore none are to presume to deny the Church this power which it hath received from him that hath all power in heaven and in earth Neither ought the true Church to suffer this power to be taken from them which they have received from so good a hand but still to use their own Christian meetings though the Powers of the world never so much oppose them as the Apostles and Believers in their time began and as Believers after for 300 years continued notwithstanding the barbarous cruelties of the persecuting Emperours 2. As the Church of the faithful hath power from Christ to meet together so secondly to appoint its own outward orders For the Church whilst it dwels in flesh and bloud uses some external Rites by which it is neither sanctified in soul or body but they are things meerly of outward Order and decency And these things each Church or Communion of Saints may order by it self according to the wisedom of the Spirit so it observe these Rules 1. That they do all things in love seeing all Laws without love are tyranny and so whatsoever is not from and for love is not to be appointed and if it be it is again to be abolished seeing no Text of the Scripture it self if it build not up love is rightly interpreted 2. They are to do all things for peace and all
outward Orders in the Church must be to procure and to preserve Peace among the faithful and not to break it They are most unhappy and pernicious Orders that do not only offend a few of Christs little ones which it sefâ— is a sad thing but do grieve disquiet and prejudice the peace of the generality of the faithful 3. They must do all things after the wisdom of the Spirit and not after the manner of the world seeing the Church is not to be ordered according to the manner of the world but rather against it as the Apostle saith Be not conformed to this world 4. They must appoint nothing as of necessity For there is no more pestilent doctrine in the Church then to make those things necessary which are not necessary For thus the liberty of faith is extinguished and the consciences of men are ensnared We doubt not but Believers may order any outward things for their own good so they do not impose them necessarily on any as if the observing of them were righteousness and the omission of them sin And so the Church after all its Orders it is to leave indifferent things as it found them that is free and at the liberty of the faithful to observe or not observe as they shall see cause or judge convenient For all these kinde of things are indifferent in their own nature and God regards no more the manner and form and time and circumstances of spiritual duties then the manner and form c. of our eating and drinking and working and marrying and trading for all which it is sufficient if they be done in Christian wisdom and discretion without being tied necessarily to a set and unchangeable form 5. They may perswade their Orders if they see cause by the spirit of love and meekness but must not enforce them upon pain of secular punishment or Church censure as those use to do that make themselves Lords and Tyrants in the Church For these outward things the Church can order onely for the willing but not for the unwilling And so if some Believers shall think good upon just grounds to do otherwise in these outward things then the generality of the Church yet ought the Church to be so far from censuring them that it is to entertain Communion with them notwithstanding any such differences For when Christians are knit to Christ by faith and do receive and walk in his Spirit all other things are indifferent to them to do or not to do to use or not to use at their own freedom And Christ onely being sufficient for all his whatever is besides Christ is a perishing thing and so is so far from being to be imposed that in it self it is not to be valued Now if the Church do appoint any outward Orders these rules it is to observe yea the spiritual Church doth always observe them and never made rules in it self upon other terms then are here set down But on the contrary the carnal Church or Churches of men they especially trouble themselves about these outward things and of these they make Laws and Constitutions yea sin and righteousness and by these things they judge the Church and the members of Christ In such sort that they that will submit to their Rules and impositions shall be the Church of Christ but they that will not shall be reckoned Hereticks and Schismaticks And hereby they declare that they are fallen from the power of godliness to the form and from the substance of Religion to the circumstances inasmuch as they advance empty forms and shadows in the place of righteousness and peace and joy in the holy Spirit And to these we may say with Peter Why tempt ye God in putting such a yoak upon the Disciples and Members of Christ And though this kinde of Church will with these things still be troubling us and biting us by the heel yet in the power and prerogative of the seed of the Woman we will by degrees bruise its head till at last we break it quite in pieces Now one thing more I shall adde touching the Churches power to appoint its own Orders as conceiving it very necessary to be known and that is this That the true Church hath power to appoint these outward Orders not for it self onely but also for its Officers which also are part of it self and it is not to suffer its Officers to frame or impose such on it For the Church is not the Officers but the Officers are the Churches as Paul hath taught us saying to the Church All things are yours whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas And so the Officers are the Churches and are to be ordered by it in these things but are not to order it And if the Officers of the Church forgetting that they are servants shall presume by themselves to order outward things for the Church without the Church as now is done the Church still remains above the Officers and hath power to interpret change or wholly take away all those things as it sees occasion to wit so far as they are a stumbling block to the weak and a grief to the strong and tend to work division among the faithful Presumptuous Officers are they and know not where Christ hath set them who instead of being ordered by the Church go about to order it and make themselves the Lords of the Church being but the servants of it 3. The true Church hath power to chuse its Officers and if there because to reform them or depose them The Church hath power to chuse its own Officers True indeed it is that as in the natural so in the spiritual body every member is in office and that the Ministry of the New Testament being the Ministration of the Spirit is common to all that have received the Spirit Wherefore if every Believer hath received the Spirit to profit withall and hath power and priviledge as opportunity serves and necessity requires to speak the word that the power and vertue of Christ may be declared through them all there is no doubt but any Community of Christians may by a common consent chuse one or mo to speak to all in the name of all Agreeable to this is that of Paul 2 Tim. 2. 2. where he commands That the office of teaching be committed to faithful men who are able to teach others Where the Apostle contemning all superfluous ceremonies and pomp of ordaining onely seeks that the Ministers may be fit and able to teach and without any more ado commits the Ministry of the word unto them More parricularly in this matter we shall enquire after these three things 1. What Officers are to be chosen 2. Out of whom they are to be chosen And 3. By whom they are to be chosen For the first What Officers are to be chosen Paul teaches us this saying They must be faithful men apt and able to teach others For as among natural men in the world they
that have most natural power and abilities are fittest to be the Officers so among spiritual men in the Church they are fittest to be the Officers that have most spiritual power that is such in whom Christ and the Spirit are most manifest and of this the faithful of all sorts are Judges Wherefore no natural parts and abilities nor no humane learning and degrees in the Schools or Vniversities nor no Ecclesiastical Ordination or Orders are to be reckoned sufficient to make any man a Minister but only the teaching of God and gifts received of Christ by the Spirit for the work of the Ministry which the faithful are able to discern and judge of 2. Out of whom these Officers are to be chosen And that is out of the flock of Christ and nowhere else Indeed Antichrist bringing in humane learning instead of the Spirit chose his Ministers onely out of the Vniversities but the right Church chuses them out of the faithful seeing it reckons no man learned and so fit to speak in the Church but he that hath heard and learned from the Father Moreover it is plain that as natural power is founded on a natural gift and he must needs be a man that is capable of humane power so supernatural power is founded on a supernatural gift and he must needs be a Believer that is capable of this spiritual power And so a man must needs first be of the Church ere he can have any power or office in it Wherefore all unbelievers and carnal men are so far from having any power in the true Church that they have no place in it and are so far from being Officers that they are not members For they that neither have nor know spiritual power themselves how can they exercise it among others 3. By whom they are to be chosen And that is by the Congregation or Community of Believers For if every free Society hath power to chuse its own Officers much more hath the true Church this power being as is said the freest Society under heaven And so the true Church is not to have Officers thrust over them by others but is to chuse them its self If any object against this that Paul commanded Timothy and Titus to appoint Elders and that Paul and Barnabas Act. 14. 23. did chuse Elders in every Church with prayer and fasting And therefore it may seem that the Congregation hath not power to chuse its own Ministers but that some chief Ministers must appoint other Ministers in each Congregation To this I answer That if there were any Ministers among us that did hold the place of the Apostles living and acting evidently in the vertues of Christ and in the knowledge and power of the Spirit I would not doubt to allow them as much authority in ordaining Ministers as Paul and Barnabas or any of the other Apostles had But since it is very evident that very few of these have the Spirit of the LORD upon them how should they have Authority to appoint Ministers who cannot themselves be reckoned Believers or spiritual But secondly If they were true Ministers through the anointing of the Spirit yet could they not appoint Ministers in other Congregations without their own consent and approbation but those whom the whole Church chuses they are to commend to God by prayer and if they should refuse to do this yet he who is chosen by the Church is sufficiently its Minister through the Churches choice alone Neither did Paul or Barnabas or Timothy or Titus appoint any Minister by their own single Authority without the consent of the Church as may appear by those Scriptures 1 Tim. 3. and Titus 1. where Paul saith The Overseers or Elders as also the Deacons or Ministers should be blameless and unreproveable Now neither Timothy nor Titus knew of themselves who were blameless in those places but onely received the Testimony of the Church which chose them to that office Further we see Act 6. that the Twelve Apostles together did not by themselves appoint any to a lower office to wit to be Deacons without the Churches own choice of them But say the Twelve to the multitude of the Disciples Look ye out among your selves seven men of honest report full of the holy Spirit and wisedom whom we may appoint over this business And those whom the Church chose the Apostles confirmed Wherefore if it were not lawful for the Apostles at their own pleasure to appoint men to minister so much as alms to the necessities of the poor without the choice and consent of the Church much less was it lawful for them to appoint any among Believers to the hard and difficult work of the Ministry without their own choice and approbation By all which it is clear that the Congregations of the faithful have power in themselves according to the doctrine of the Gospel to chuse their own Ministers And therefore seeing the true Church of God cannot possibly be without the word seeing it is born and nourished and encreased and strengthened and preserved and comforted and perfected by it And seeing the generality of the Clergy of these times are ignorant of the mystery of the Gospel and destitute of the Spirit it must come to pass that either the Church must perish for want of the word or else according to what we have heard Believers must meet together as they can conveniently up and down the Kingdom and such Meetings must chuse one or mo fit persons from among themselves to be their Elders in the Lord and then by prayer to commend them to the work of the Ministry and so to acknowledge them for their Pastors And there is no doubt but what Believers met together in the name of Christ do in this matter it is done through the working and approving of God himself And besides this way I see no other how in this great defection of the Clergy the Church may have the true word of God restored to their meetings and assemblies again Now this thing that is so directly cross to the way and working of Antichrist for many Ages together and is so opposite to Fathers Schoolmen Councels Doctors Antiquity Custom and the general praâ—ctice of the Kingdom cannot be hoped to be accomplished at once but by degrees as the lightnings of the Gospel shall enlighten the world and the Spirit shall be poured forth And therefore in this matter let some begin and the rest follow as this practice shall be cleared up to them from the Scriptures For none are to be forced in this matter if Authority should entertain this truth but the Spirit is to be allowed its own liberty to blow when and where and on whom he listeth Neither ought this to trouble any if all do not presently agree with them it is sufficient if at first a few begin whom others may follow afterwards as God shall perswade them Now as the Church hath power to chuse its Officers so if
after they have once drunk of this cup of abomination what hope can there be that any thing hereafter should be done right among them 8. And lastly because after so many Councels things have not been the better but the worse in the Church through their means for it is not dead laws and orders wrtten by men will do the true Church any good but the living law of God written in their hearts by the Spirit as God hath promised to do saying I will write my law in their hearts and put in it their inward parts For as the law of sin hath been written in our natures to corrupt us so the law of the Spirit of life must be written also in our natures to reform us Wherefore after all their Decrees Laws Rules Orders c. the Church commonly hath been so far from being bettered that it hath become more ignorant of the Word superstitious formal prophane then before All these things being seriously considered the Church may very well want Councels Now if any shall say Yea but had not the Church a Councel in the Apostles times as we see Act. 15 and did not they order and decree matters in the Church I answer the Church had a Councel then but far differing from the Councels now adaies for 1. That Councel was not called nor packed together by secular power but freely met together by the general consent o◠the Church of the faithful For by the Believers at Antioch it was agreed that Paul and Barnabas should go to the Apostles and Elders at Jerusalem about the matters in controversie 2. This Councel did not consist only of the Apostles and Elders but of the brethren also and whole Church and the whole Church as well as the Apostles and Elders did agree and order what was done in that matter 3. That free Councel consisting of the Apostles Elders and Brethren did not determine any thing by their meer power and authority but debated the business by the word by the word concluded it And so it was not the Authority of the Councel did any thing but the Authority of the Word that did all in that matter as you may see in the fore named place And in these regards that Councel differs from ours Now if notwithstanding all this the Church upon some occasions desire a Councel for herein as in all other outward things it is free it must minde these things 1. That it hath power it self to call one as the Primitive Church had And what men can object against this of worldly Princes calling them let them not say what they did but what they ought to have done 2. As the Church it self is to chuse its Councel so it is to chuse it out of its self For the Councels of the Church are to be chosen out of the Church and not of the world out of the faithful and not out of unbelievers For the natural man that neither knows nor savours the things that be of God can be of no use here but he must be able to know the word of God from the doctrines of men and to separate the precious from the vile that is employed in this matter And so the natural carnal and litter 〈◊〉 man must be declined here where the things are wholly spiritual and divine and the spiritual man onely who speaks spiritual things by a spiritual rule must be heard and regarded and so a man must first be of the Church ere he can be of the Councel 3. As the Church is to chuse men out of it self for its Councel so likewise it is to chuse brethren as well as Elders and Ecclesiastical men are not to meddle alone in the matters of the Church and to thrust out other Christians as if they were necessarily to be concluded in and by them 4. In chusing Elders and Brethren to this work great care is to be had that they chuse not men of worldly power or place lest wordly power and Authority and honour might seem to bear sway in the things of the Kingdom of God but they are rather to make choyce of men destitute of these things that it may appear whatever they do is done only by the clear evidence of the word and influence of the spirit and so onely by the law of love all secular power and force being excluded 5. The Church hath power to judge of all Doctrines and that both of its Officers and Councels The Clergie and Ecclesiastical men have been wont to challenge to themselves the knowledge and judgement of Doctrines and have excluded ordinary Christians from it whereas in truth the judgement of doctrine belongeth to the people and not to the Ministers And all Christs Sheep have power to judge of the doctrine the Ministers teach whether it be Christs Voyce or a Strangers John 10. and Christ commanded them to take heed of false Prophets which come to them in sheeps cloathing being inwardly ravening wolves Mat. 7. And the Apostle commands them to try the spirits whether they be of God and hath said Let one or two speak and the rest judge 1 Cor. 14. c. by which with many other Scriptures it is evident That Ministers are not to judge of doctrine for the People but the People are to judge of the doctrine of the Ministers and according as they find it to be of God or not of God to receive it or reject it For every one is to be saved by his own faith and not by another mans and so is to take heed how he hear the things of faith at his own peril and he is not if he will be wise to salvation to take up things on trust in a matter that concerns either his eternal life or eternal death 2. As the Church is to judge of the Doctrine of its Officers so also of its Councels For the Church judges of them and their doctrine also by the word and doth not take all that they determine for truth to be certain and unquestionable Yea in the first Councel of the Apostles Act. 15. Other Churches and Christians had both liberty and power to try both the doctrine and Spirit of the very Apostles in that matter and were not to swallow it down whole as they say because the Apostles had determined it and they were holy men but the faithful were to judge whether or no they had judged according to the word and if not they might have resisted them as Paul did Peter And Paul gives this liberty to Christians yea we have it from Christ himself whether Paul had allowed it or no to try the very Apostles themselves and the very Angels of Heaven whether they bring the right word or no for Christ commanded the Apostles to teach that Nations to observe and do whatsoever he had commanded them and nothing else and saith Paul If I or an Angel from heaven bring you any other doctrine let him be accursed So that the Church
violence and to perswade peace but not to threaten or enforce it For such is the nature of the Church that inward perswasion is required nowhere more then here For none may be compelled to the faith against their wils and God will be loved with the whole heart and also hypocrisy is a sin chiefly hated of God Whereby it comes to pass that the whole manner of governing the Church must have this scope that they that are perswaded may be first called unto it and after kept in it upon the same account And so the more this manner shall be free from dominion so much the more fit it is to govern increase and confirm the Church And this way onely was used as long as the Apostles lived and those that succeeded them in the same Spirit and that unquestionably for 300 years after Yea and when the Church come to be countenanced by worldly authority yet this same freedom still was allowed of which shall produce a few testimonies I read that Constantine the Emperour would have no man enforced to be of one religion more then another Also the same Constantine in his Epistle to his Subjects inhabiting the East saith Let no man be grievous one to another but what every man thinketh BEST that let him DO For such as are wise ought thorowly to be perswaded that they onely mean to live holily as they should do whom the Spirit of God moveth to take their delight and recreation in reading his holy will And if others wilfully will go out of the way cleaving to the Synagogues of false Doctrine they may at their own perill As for us we have the worthy House or Congregation of Gods verity which he according to his own goodness and nature hath given us And this also we wish to them that with like participation and common consent they may feel with us the same delectation of minde And after Let no man hurt or be prejudiciall to his neighbour in that wherein he thinketh himself to have done well If by that which any man knoweth or hath experience of he thinketh he may profit his neighbour let him do the same if not let him give over and remit it till another time For there is a great diversity between the willing and voluntary embracing of Religion and that whereunto a man is forced and constrained I read also that Ethelbert King of Kent Being converted to the faith ann 586. after his conversion innumerable others dayly did come in and were converted to the faith of Christ whom the King did especially embrace but COMPELLED NONE for so he had learned THAT THE FAITH AND SERVICE OF CHRIST OUGHT TO BE VOLUNTARY AND NOT COACTED The Church then at first consisted onely of the willing and such as were perswaded unto it by the word till Antichrist began to prevail and then they fell from perswading to forcing and they no longer went about to make men willing by the word but to get power from the Kings of the earth to force them against their wils And this main piece of the mystery of iniquity was perfectly brought forth by Boniface the third who was the first that used these words in the Church Volumus mandamus statuimus ac praecipimus We will we require we appoint we command which is not the voice of the true Ministers of Christ but the true voice of theeves and murderers And from that time the peace of the Church decayed apace when there were moe unwilling forced unto it then willing perswaded And true peace will never be restored to it again till men shall abandon the power of force and onely use the perswasion of the word that the Church may consist onely of a willing people The fourth Rule is To make void the distinction of Clergy and Laity among Christians For the Clergy or Ecclesiastical men have all along under the reign of Antichrist distinguished themselves from other Christians whom they called the Laity and have made up a distinct or several Kingdom among themselves and separated themselves from the Lay in all things and called themselves by the name of the Church and reckoned other Christians but as common and unclean in respect of themselves Whereas in the true Church of Christ there are no distinctions nor sects nor difference of persons no Clergy or Laity no Ecclesiastical or Temporal but they are all as Peter describes them 1 Pet. 2. 9. A chosen generation a royall Priesthood a holy Nation a peculiar people to shew forth the virtues of him that called them out of darkness into his marvelous light And so all Christians through the Baptisme of the Spirit are made Priests alike unto God and every one hath right and power alike to speak the word and so there is among them no Clergy or Laity but the Ministers are such who are chosen by Christians from among themselves to speak the word to all in the name and right of all and they have no right nor authority at all to this office but by the consent of the Church And so Presbyters and Bishops or which is all one Elders and Overseers in the Church differ nothing from other Christians but onely in the office of the word which is committed to them by the Church as an Alderman or Common Councel man in the City differs nothing from the rest of the Citizens but only in their Office which they have not of themselves neither but by the Cities choice or as the Speaker in the House of Commons differs nothing from the rest of the Commons but only in his office which he hath also by the choice of the House and thus and no otherwise doth a Minster differ from other Christians as Paul saith Let a man so esteem of us as of the Ministers of Christ and dispensers of the mysteries of God But Antichrist he hath cast out the simplicity of Christian people and brought Sects into the Church dividing it into Clergy and Laity and this distinction they have made visible by their garments disguising their Clergy in their habit from other Christians that they might appear holier then they and of another order from them And this distinction hath proved a Seminary of implacable discord and heart-burning in the Church For hereupon the Clergy have prefer'd themselves above others Christians and have exercised authority and coercive power and domination and very tyranny over them and have made themselves their Lords and given them Laws rules forms orders after their own mindes and agreeable to their own advantages and would not so much as suffer them to judge whether they were agreeable to the word of God or no as if other Christians were their Subject Slaves Vassals yea very dogs And hence again the Laity as they called them have envied and maligned them and hated and opposed them and as they could get power have been subduing them and have looked upon them as men of a different sect and interest from
themselves whose prosperity was their ruine and whose power was their inslaving and all this was to the making void Christian brotherhood and communion Wherefore the right Church to preserve in it the peace of Christ must admit of no such distinction of Laity and Clerg but all Christians must equallâ—â—â—main â—â—main it it Kings Priests and Prophets unto God The fifth Rule is To keep equality in the Church and that both between Christians and Churches for this also is an excellent way to preserve peace 1. To keep equality between Christians For though according to our first Nativity whereby we are born of men there is great inequality some being born high some low some honourable some mean some Kings some Subjects c. yet according to our new or second birth whereby we are born of God there is exact equality for here are none better or worse higher or lower but all have the same faith hope love the same God Christ Spirit the same divine nature the same precious promises the same incorruptible Crown and inheritance of Saints in light And therefore saith Paul speaking of this true Church There is neither Jew nor Greek nor bond nor free nor male nor female but all are one in Christ Jesus Indeed in the world and before men I say again there is distinction of persons and inequality but in Christs Kingdom and before God all Believers aae equal and this equality preserves peace But when in this Kingdom some will be advancing themselves above others like Diotrephes that would have the preheminence and some will be striving to sit at the right hand and some at the left whilst they leave others to sit at the footstool this is that which breeds difference among the very Disciples who envied Zebedees children for such a desire And therefore Christ to preserve peace forbad Lordship in his Church and commanded service and tells them that the nature of his Kingdom is not to place men one over another but one under another and that the greatest must be the least the greatest in the way of the spirit must be the least in the way of the flesh 2. As equality among Christians is to be kept for the preserving of peace so also among Churches For all Churches are equal as well as all Christians and there is no Church can set it self before or above another all being sisters of one Mother beams of one Sun branches of one Vine streams of one Fountain members of one Body branches of one golden Candlestick and so all equal in all things Wherefore there may and ought to be a consociation of Churches but no subordination which makes void at once both equality and unity And so that Church or those Churches that will set themselves above other Churches that are their equals as the Classical above the Congregational c. they are the breakers of Christian peace and unity and the unskilful vote of the Assembly for the subordination of Churches was not a way to make peace but to mar peace in the Church of God Moreover no Church can be subjected to another but Christ who is present in it and is King and Lawgiver is subjected too which not true Church will either require or allow For if the true Church will not subject the Word of God which they have received to any men or Angels but will judge all by it and will suffer none to judge it much less will they subject Christ the Lord of all to any other power or authority for so they should dishonour and disanul their Head Where two or three are met in Christs name Christ himself is among them and the Head of them and so they can submit to no body else seeing Christ hath made no greater nor surer promise of his presence to any body then to them The sixth Rule is To keep the Officers of the Church in subordination to the whole Church or community and not to suffer them to get head over it seeing the very nature of ruling the Church is not Dominion but Service We reade Act. 11. 2. that when Peter had preached in the house of Cornelius a Gentile or Heathen the Church of the circumcision to whom Peter was Minister contended with him that he went in to men uncircumcised and did eate with them for as yet they knew not that the Gentiles were to be called And Peter was fain to give an account to them of the whole matter and to shew them that he was warned of God in a Vision to do so c. And this was a sign that Peter was a servant of the Church and in subordination to it and no Lord over it And after vers 22. when the Church at Jerusalem heard that the Grecians at Antioch had received the Gospel they sent Barnabas to Antioch to forward and perfect the Work And also the Church at Antioch sent forth Paul and Barnabas to the work of the Ministry in divers Towns and Countries All which are an evident sign that the Church was above the Officers and not the Officers above the Church Now this also will preserve peace in the Church to keep the Officers in their proper place and to let them remain as servants in the Church which Christ hath commanded and not to let them grow up to be Lords and Masters which Christ knowing the evil and inconvenience thereof hath forbidden For if the Officers get above the Church though they be never so good they are masterful and troublesome and though never so bad yet will they get a party in the Church for themselves and so work disturbance but if the Church remain as it ought above the Officers it quits them when they grow evil and unruly and chooses better in their stead and so preserves union Whereas fixed and unmoveable Officers when they do degenerate are the causes of all disturbances and confusions both in Church and State The seventh Rule is For all true Christians and Congregations to take Christ alike for their Head and not to set up visible heads or Ring-leaders to themselves of men no not of the best men For whilst some said we are of Paul others we of Apollos others we of Cephas they were all in this matter carnal and divided both from Christ and among themselves whilst several set up several heads whom they especially owned and after whom they were called Whereas each that believed by the Ministry of Paul or Apollos or Cephas were through the same faith and spirit with them as neer to Christ as themselves were and so were not to set up a fellow member as a Head to the division of the body I say each believer and Communion of Saints hath Christ equally for their Head and so ought not to set up any outward or visible Head for them to joyn to for this is to rend the body in pieces and to work great division and distraction among the faithful And therefore I conceive it
is a mistake among some brethren to call the Congregations of Christ by the names of men though godly and eminent and to say Mr. such an ones Church or Mr. such an ones Church and so to put the Church under several Heads which works distinction and division whereas they should rather say the Church of Christ in such or such a place it being wherever it is one Church under one Head and Governor Jesus Christ And therefore let us know that it is part of the mystery of iniquity for the Church or faithful to have one or moe visible Heads to go to not being contented with Christ alone And though this hath been and will be the practice of the carnal Church yet the spiritual Church and people do only own and have recourse to Christ their true and spiritual Head And so they all living as one body and members one of another under one onely Head live all in invincible peace and unity whereas difference of outward Heads and Ringleaders alwayes breeds difference and divisions among Christians The eighth Rule is For the true Church to keep out all error in Doctrine seeing this breeds not onely division but confusion and ruine also in the Church Wherefore the Congregations of Christ must be the more careful and watchful in this matter When some false Apostles taught at Antioch that Except Christians were circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not be saved which was a most dangerous error against Christ and the Gospel the whole Church first at Antioch and presently after at Jerusalem met together to keep it out which accordingly through God they did So that what ever Doctrines are evidently against the Word of truth and Gospel of our salvation the Church is to take care to keep them out as it loves its own peace and unity Now if any say By what means may the Church be able to keep out error I Answer It may certainly keep out Error by these means 1. Let the Church suffer none to teach among them that are not themselves taught of God though they have never so great natural parts and never so much humane learning For when they are the Teachers that are taught of God they will only teach the truth which they have heard and learned from God And the line of every mans teaching must extend no further But when they teach that are not so taught they will in many things vary from the truth as it is in Jesus yea and under a form of sound doctrine will give forth an unsound and false sense to the deceiving of many that are weak and simple and so under pretence of Christ will utter the voice of a stranger and endanger the mis-leading of some sheep for a time 2 Let the faithful examine every thing that is taught by the Word of God and not receive doctrines upon trust from their Teachers who through the reputation of their learning and holiness may easily lead them unawares into error And therefore let the Church compare the present Doctrine Preached and Printed and generally received with the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles which without doubt is sure and certain seeing those holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit And whatever Doctrine shall be found contrary to or different from that Doctrine let them reject it as reprobate silver seeing the Church is to be built upon no other foundation of Doctrine then that of the Prophets and Apostles And though through Gods especial goodness the Doctrine of the Gospel be again revived among us at this present time yet ought we not to sit down content with the present state of things but to search and see if our present Doctrine do not yet err from the Primitive purity and brightness of the Gospel and that in many considerable points and whether some or many corruptions do not yet remain among us to be purged out by the light and truth of the Apostles Doctrine Wherefore to conclude this thing let us know that the Church cannot possibly keep out Error longer then it precisely keeps it self to the bare and naked Word of God and tries all Doctrines of their Teachers by it 3. The Church that it may be able to keep out Errors must desire of God the Spirit which he hath promised that this Spirit of Truth may lead them into the true and spiritual knowledge of the word and understanding of the minde of Christ For no man can make any right Judgement of the word he hears or reads without the teaching of the Spirit And by this Anointing as we shall be certainly taught which is Truth so also we shall discern which is Error and that by so clear and true a light that we shall not mistake Wherefore Christians must take heed that they do not think with carnal people that the ability to judge of divine truths and humane and Antichristian errors depends upon humane learning Arts and Sciences for thus it will come to pass that they judging themselves unable to judge of matters of Religion will wholly leave the judgement of them to those whom they conceive after this manner learned whereby they leave open a wide door through which the Teachers may bring in all sorts of Errors upon them But Believers must know that the gift of the Spirit onely without all humane learning is sufficient to teach us perfectly which is Truth and which Error and to make us able to judge of all doctrines of men and Angels and that all humane learning in the world without the Spirit is not able to do this And so a poor plain Country man by the Spirit which he hath received is better able to judge of Truth and Error touching the things of God then the greatest Philosopher Scholar or Doctor in the world that is destitute of it 4 Another notable means to keep Error out of the Church is to restore in it that most antient Gospel-Ordinance of Prophesying which how much soever it have been out of use during the reign of Antichrist yet is no other then the very commandment of the Lord as Paul witnesseth 1 Cor. 14. 31. where he saith When the whole Church is met together ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted and adds vers 3â— If any man think himself to be a Prophet or spiritual let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord Wherefore brethren labour that ye may prophesie So that prophesying in the Church is Gods own Commandment as every Prophet and spiritual man must acknowledge Now this divine Ordinance of prophesying is three wayes helpful to keep out Error 1. For first When one man only speaks in the Church and no man is suffered to speak besides him as he is very subject to be puffed up and to conceit that wisdom onely dwels with him so he iâ— more ready to vent the
and kill the faithful in stead of Heretikes at his own pleasure till he have destroyed all the faithful in the land Wherefore let all Christians take heed how they favour the Magistrates with this power to punish those whom he judges Heretiks for if he shall change his minde as he easily may seeing he is but a man or if another shall succeed him of another minde that very Sword may be sheathed in their own bowels which now they draw forth against other mens 3. When the Magistrate assumes power to himself to suppress error this makes Ministers negligent in studying the Scriptures the Magistrate doing that by force which they ought to do by the word and so saves them their labour For when once the Ministers shall have so far interessed themselves in tâ—e Magistrate as to procure him to call for the Goaler and Executioner against whomsoever shall oppose their Doctrine they will then need no great paâ—ns to study the word that they may be able to convince the gainsayers and perswade the rebellious seeing the Magistrates sword at all adventure is to defend their Doctrine and all the objections against it either from reason or Scripture the hangman is to answer And so the Pastors having their work as they conceive thus done for them to their hands do commonly betake themselves to ease and idleness and to the prosecution and injoyment of worldly things and grow careless and negligent of the Scripture and word of God whereupon error steals in apace upon the Teachers themselves whereby by degrees they corrupt and seduce very many And thus whilst the Magistrate thinks to chase out error before him one way he lets it in behinde him seven wayes 4. This takes men off from the certain means to destroy errors which is the word and leads them to that which can never destroy it which is the sword of the Magistrate and so the Devil herein hath a notable Stratagem For he fears not all the Swords and Halters and Weapons and Prisons in the world to destroy error withall but as securely contemns all these things as Leviathan a Bulrush and yet doth earnestly stir up the world to use these things against him and his errors as the only meanes to subdue him Whereas the only thing he fears is the word of God which is that mighty power than can binde the Devil and destroy his Kingdom and break down all his strong holds of errors and Heresie and he is in no sort able to stand out against the power thereof Wherefore in his great cunning he causes men to lay aside this that is able to prevail against him and to go to the sword of the Magistrate which will do him no harm And thus the sword of the Magistrate presuming to lift it self up against Error in stead of the word of God is so far from destroying Error that it upholds it and strengthens Satans Kingdom whilst it seems to destroy it By these things it appears how great an Error and evil it is for any to attribute to the Magistrate or for the Magistrate to assume to himself power to suppress Error by the sword If any shall yet demand whether the Magistrate can do nothing at all towards the suppressing of Errors I answer This he may do he may and ought and if he be a godly man he will countenance and encourage faithful Ministers that are called of God and anointed by the Spirit to this work of the Gospel and having done this he need not trouble himself any farther for the word preached will do all the rest And let it not be doubted but if the truth of God do enter the Lists against Error it will be infinitely able to prevail of it self alone without calling in any power or borrowing any weapons from the world The ninth Rule is By no means to inforce Vniformity in the outward orders and discipline of the Church For such Vniformity hath been in all ages not only the hinderance but the very break neck of the Churches peace and unity Now because this is so vehemently and strongly urged by the unskilful builders of this age I shall the more fully acquaint the Reader with the State of this business from the very beginning of the Gospel and show when this part of the mystery of iniquity first invaded the Church of God Most manifest iâ— is that the Apostles and Disciples of Christ were only intent about the Doctrine of Salvation and so accordingly preached and pressed nothing but faith in Christ and love to all the Saints as being the only necessary things which Christians were to regard And for all outward Rites and Ceremonies and forms wherein Christ had made them frâ—e they commanded them to stand fast in that liberty And so they gave no heed nor regard to the observation of dayes and times neither bound the Church to any Ceremonies or Rites except those necessary things mentioned Act. 15. to wit things strangled and blood which was then ordained by the holy spirit not without urgent and necessary cause For when the murdering and blood of Infants was commonly laid to the charge of Christians by the Heathens they had no other Argument to help thâ—mselves but their own Law by which they were commanded to abstain from the blood of common Beasts much more from the blood of innocent men And therefore that Law seemeth to be given by the holy Spirit and also for the same end to be continued in the Church so long as the cause thereof that is the persecutions of the heathen Gentiles continued And besides these we reade of no other Ceremonies or Rites which the Apostles greatly regarded but left such things free to the Liberty of Christians every man to use therein his own discretion for the using or not using thereof Whereupon as concerning all the ceremonial observations of dayes times places meats drinks vestures and such others of all these things neither was the diversity among men greatly noted nor any Vniformity greatly required Thus Christian Liberty prevailed in the Church and Christian men did not much struggle about indifferent things till the Asians and Romans began to dis-agree about Easter-day to compose which controversy Polycarpus a godly Martyr went to Rome ann 157. and in the reign of Antoninus Pius to Anicetus then Bishop there and though these two to wit Polycarpus and Anicetus differed in their judgements and opinions in this matter yet they still retained Christian communion and avoided all breach of peace Afterwards in the reign of Commodus the Christians enjoying some respite from pesecution began to contend again among themselves about the ceremony of Easter and neither yet did the difference prevail so far as to break the bond of love and communion of brotherly life though they of the West pretending the tradition of Paul and Peter which yet indeed was the tradition of Hermes and Pius and not theirs kept one day and they of Asia
the Commonwealth As the Lord of Arras a City of Picardie was wont to say that Flanders would be governed otherwise then France or Burgundy And this consideration saith he rightly understood to wit not to press Uniformity in the Church but to let the Church use its liberty in these things would be an excellent beginning of the Reformation of the Church notwithstanding the contradiction of many of the Court of Rome Luther also that chosen Vessel of Christ did clearly oppose this evil of Vniformity He thus delivers his judgement touching Vniformity of Ceremonies If one Church will not follow another of its own accord in those outward things what need is there that it should be compelled by the Decrees of Councels which presenly are turned into laws and snares of souls And therefore let one Church freely imitate another or let it be suffered to use its own way so that unity of Spirit be preserved in Faith and the Word though there be variety and diversity in the flesh or Elements of the world Again the same Luther after he had set down a Form of Celebrating the Supper for the Church of Christ at Wittingberg concludes thus In quibus omnibus cavendum ne legem ex libertate faciamus c. That is In all which we must take heed that we make not a law of liberty or constrain them to sin who shall either do otherwise or shall omit some things so they permit the words of blessing to remain entire and do all act here in Faith For these ought to be the Rites of CHRISTIANS that is of the children of the FREE-WOMAN who may keep them willingly and of their own accord having power to change them when and as often as they will And therefore there is no cause that any should either desire or establish any necessary Form as a law in this matter whereby he may either ensnare or trouble mens consciences And therefore we read not in the ancient Fathers or Primitive Church any example of any such Rite but onely in the Romane Church And if so be they had established any thing for a law in this matter we ought not to have kept it Quod legibus hic obstringi nec possent nec debent Because these things neither could nor ought to be bound by Laws Moreover if divers men shall use a diverse Rite let none either judge or contemne another but let every one abound in his own sense and let us all savour and judge the same things though for Forms we act diversly and let each Rite please others lest by diversity of Rites follow divesity of opinions and sects as it came to pass in the Church of Rome For outward Rites though we cannot want them as neither meat nor drink yet they commend us not to God but onely Faith and love commend us to him And therefore let that of Paul take place here That the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and so no Rite nor Form is the Kingdom of God but faith within us c. And at the end of the same form for the Church of Wittenberg which he writes out for Nicholas Hausmannus a Godly Minister he saith Which Copy either you or others may follow if you please if not we willingly give place to the anointing being our selves to receive from you or any others more profitable things These things he spake like a Christian indeed and we acknowledge the voice of Christ in him as in others that act these things peremptorily and command and inforce them by secular power we are sensible of the voice of strangers and of such strangers as are Theeves and Murtherers Melancton also perswades certain Christians to unity who differed in Vniformity in these words Seeing we do agree among our selves in the chief Articles of Christian Doctrine let us imbrace one another with mutual love and let not unlikeness and variety of Rites and Ceremonies and Bucer quoting this place adds no nor of Ecclesiastical government disjoyn our minds Upon all these Testimonies which these godly men give from the light of the word which we acknowledge in them it is evident that all forms are to be left free to the faithful and Congregations of Saints and when any shall set down any form the Congregations of the faithful may use them so far forth as they please or may add or alter or wholly reject them and no Laws are to be made in this matter which the secular power should inforce to insnare Consciences and to infringe Christian Liberty and to straighten the Spirit in those in whom it dwels and to obscure the vertues of Christ in his people Wherefore it is most evident that they are most horribly mistaken that now urge external Vniformity on the Church as the only means of Vnity who scarce minding I am sure not naming one body one spirit one hope of calling one Lord Faith Baptism c. to make the Church one do earnestly and fiercely labour for one outward Form and Order one Directory one Confession one Catechism one Discipline and to have these things of their own devising inforced on the Church by the power of the State as the onely means their hearts can find out to make the Church one But the Seers are blinde in this matter and the Prophets prophesie false things For if the unity of the Church stand onely or chiefly in Vniformity what woful division will be found in it For the Fathers before the flood lived in one form the Fathers after the flood in another the Believers under the Law in an other the Believers under the Gospel in another yea these being free from all forms used any according to the wisdom of the Spirit Christ himself and John Baptist who both lived in the same time observed no Vniformity between them for John lived retiredly in the wilderness and came neither eating nor drinking and Christ lived in the frequency of the world and did both eat and drink And their Disciples observed no Vniformity for Johns Disciples fasted oft and Christs not at all in those days Besides at first the believing Jews used another form then the believing Gentiles and after among the Gentiles the Greek Church used one form the Latine another and several Churches under both several forms and so the Church on earth according to the infirmity of the flesh still uses some or other form and the Church in Heaven is without all form Now then if we shall have no Vnity but where is Vniformity what an Earthquake of confusion and division will this make through the whole Church of God in all ages and under all Gods own dispensations in the world yea through the whole Church in Earth and Heaven Wherefore I dare be bold to affirm that imposed and inforced Vniformity is one of the greatest enemies to the true Churches unity that Antichrist himself could devise
love and not to destroy either by force These Rules are to be observed as means of peace if the things be circumstantial Now if they be very truths wherein Christians differ yet such wherein they may erre without danger of salvation then these Rules are of use 1. To hear them speak their judgements with freedom and not to condemn them unheard for thus mayst thou soon condemn the innocent and make thy self guilty 2. To understand fully what thy adversary means before thou contend against him lest it thou want this wisdom and patience thou oppose not so much his judgement as thy own conceit Much better is it calmly to hear a mans minde from himself then hastily to guesse at it yea to conclude it is so before thou hast heard him speak If thou canst but have patience to hear him relate his own minde perhaps in the end thou shalt understand it differs little from thy own in substance 3. Reproach not any thing thy adversary speakes with this That thou never heardest it before for this may not so much discover his error as thy ignorance and that which seems to thee a new error if it be truly examined by the word may prove an old truth And if thou wilt needs condemn whatever savours of novelty how shall the truths we yet know not be brought in or the errors that yet remain with us be purged out 4 Be not over-confident in what thou holdest upon thy own judgement or other mens strengthened from multitude custom and antiquity for men have erred most grossely even in those things wherein they have thought themselves most certain And therefore Prove all things that thou mayst hold fast that which is good It is much better to hold fast the truth upon clear grounds from the word then upon the strongest presumptions of thy own heart 5. In these differences make the word the Judge and not men The word of God is the sole and perfect Judge in all the things of God And therefore one said well Qui ponit legem judicem ponit Deum qui autem addit hominem addit bestiam That is He that makes the Law Judge makes God Judge but he that makes man Judge makes a beast Judge For every man is brutish in his knowledge And then only are we sure of any thing when we have the word of God for it Neither is it sufficient to take the word in any fashion for Judge in these matters but we must necessarily attain the knowledge of it by the teaching of the Spirit seeing we see so many differences of judgements among men that make use alike of the same outward word for their rule Now though all have the same outward word yet all are not of one minde except they attain to one Spirit for Paul saith 1 Cor. 2. that only the Spirit of God knows the things of God Neither doth mans sense or reason understand the things of the Spirit but the spirituall man judgeth all things And hence it follows that we can onely judge aright of divine truths by the word and we can onely judge aright of the word if we have the Spirit to be the interpreter of it to us 6. If thou canst not prevail with him by the word that he should agree with thee wherein he differs then observe that moderate and Christian rule of Paul where he saith As many as be perfect be thus minded if any be otherwise minded God shall also reveal this to him And so let us wait with patience will God of his good pleasure shall please to teach him as he hath been pleased to teach us because without this teaching he can never know it aright though thou teach him never so much 7. And lastly When in many inconsiderable points of Religion we cannot agree with many that are truly faithfull nor they with us let us according to Pauls rule leave the finall judgement of these things to the due time appointed of God as Paul hath said Judge nothing before the time And if you ask what time this is Christ hath told us saying If any one hear my word and believe not I judge him not but the word that I have spoken the same shall judge him at the last day For the things of God are so far beyond the sense reason knowledge judgement and discerning of all the men in the world that many times the purest thâ—ngs are reckoned vile and the most spiritual things carnal and the very highest things of the mystery of God and Christ but conceits or errors and therefore it is fit that the judgement of these things which are so far beyond humane comprehension should be deferred to the last day Gods judgement being better in his own time then in ours Now in case the doctrine wherein we differ be such as is absolutely necessary to salvation and without beleeving which men can have no interest in Christ yet even in this case 1. Hear them speak and be rather confident that the truth of God will prevail over their error then fearfull that their error will prevail against the truth and so strive not for secular power to shut up mens mouths and to restrain mens writtings though they speak and print things that seem never so contrary to the truth of God and doctrine of the Gospel For if men have not liberty to divulge their doctrines publikely they will spread them privately to infect and corrupt many ere it can be known or prevented and if men vent errors publikely if there be as publick liberty to preach the truth I doubt not the success of the truth against it at any time with all that belong to God And it is the only Gospel way to conquer error by the truth and all humane yea and devilish doctrines by the Gospel which is the ministration of the Spirit and therefore so mighty that all false teachers and false doctrines must needs fall down before it seeing stronger is that Spirit that is in it then that spirit that is in the world which is its own spirit and the devils And if the Gospel of Christ have given already such proof of its power in former times when the whole world lay in horrible ignorance and error darkness covered the earth and gross darkness the people and yet the Gospel alone without any conjunction of earthly power of States and Kingdoms with it did binde the devil and cast him out of his possessions and dominions and overthrow all false Religions men had received from their fore-fathers through many generations and changed the manners customes opinions Religions and very natures of men and utterly dispelled errrors and heresies of all sorts I say seeing the Gospel hath already given such large testimony of its power and made so great a conquest of the world when it was wholly under the power of the devil I see no reason that we should now so doubt the power of it as to suffer no man to
say any thing but what likes us or what is indeed agreeable to the word as if error should have now gotten more power to make void the word then the word power to make void error Wherefore if the word be suffered to have free passage I dare rest on that alone and so dare all that have felt the power of it in their own hearts for the conquering and destroying all errors and Heresies whatsoever in the true Church of God And now it would be profitable to hear what some other men who have walked in the same light and Spirit have said in this matter Zuinglius in his book quoted in the margent speaks thus Haec unica eaque sola via est qua ad concordiam proxime perveniri potest c. that is This is the one and only way whereby we may most suddenly attain to concord if whatsoever things may be or are commonly said for any opinion or against it be freely propounded in the Churches so that the people be allowed free judgement in all these things For God who is not the God of discord but of peace nevers suffers those who are gathered together in his spirit to erre or be deceived And if this way were observed we should shortly see the Churches of Christ enjoying sweet peace and concord But now as often as there are some Princes and Cities that would have the doctrine of the Gospel free to all presently there are others that would stop and hinder the course of it and so long there must needs arise great discords and dissentions And hence I would have you judge whether you or we are departed from the Church of God and the doctrine of it For we suffer those writings that proceed as well from you as from the Papists to be openly and freely read and read again and the evils which are taught in them we slay by the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God but you think all this business may be dispatched with PUBLICK EDICTS AND COMMANDS And therefore do you be judge whose cause is most to be suspected ours who suffer the doctrine of our adversaries to be published in our Churches and overthrow them by the word or yours who reproach our doctrine before the simple people as heretical in the mean time by your good will neither suffering them to read it nor understand it Thus far he Luther also in his Epistle to Frederick and John Dukes of Saxony speaking against that Spirit which he cals Spiritus Alstetinus a proud haughty enthusiastical spirit that despised faith and love and the cross and the whole Scriptures as low things not worth their minding and gloried in strange Revelations and superlative holiness which they had above other believers And these enemies of the Gospel especially were gathered together in Alsteta and Luther writes to the Dukes in whose Province this Town was to this purpose touching them Quod vero praesentis interest negotii nolim ab illustrissimis D. V. praedicandi officium praecludi cuiquam c. That is But for what pertains to our present business I would not that the office of preaching should be denyed to any by your most illustrious Lordships but let there be granted to them free Liberty to preach and let them exhibite the best proof of their learning For I said by the Testimony of Paul It must needs be that there must be sects and the word of God must strive and wage war in camps And therefore it is evident in Psa 67. that the Evangelists are called Armies and that Christ in the Psalms is called more then once the King of Armies Now if their spirit be a right and approved spirit it will easily subsist before us without all fear and so if our spirit be right as we hope it is it will fear neither them nor any body else But if they transgress the bounds of the Gospel and will not contain their hands but will do their work with violence it is the duty of your most Illustrious Lordships when they 〈◊〉 fierce and seditious to repress them or to banish them out of your Dominions saying we will easily grant to you to fight with the word for the proving and examining which is true Doctrine but we will restrain the fierceness of your spirits and contain your hands for these things belong to our Magistracie And therefore they that will not herein obey let them depart the Country For saith he we who are Ministers of the word may preach but we must do no violence and Daniel hath witnessed that Antichrist shall be destroyed without hands And Isaiah saith that Christ shall fight in his Kingdom with the spirit of his mouth and the rod of his lips c. Also Albertus Duke of Borussia when the great controversieâ—ell â—ell out between Andreas Osiander and Morlinus and other Ministers touching the Righteousness whereby a Christian is made righteous before God he would not forbid either side either the Pulpit or Press but left them free to both alike and desired them to forbear reproaches one against another and to debate the business quietly by the word of God Likewise the Bohemians in a certain exhortation of theirs to Kings and Princes to stir them up to the zeal of the Gospel subscribed by Procopius and Conradus and other Captains of the Bohemians have these words They say that is the Papists it ought not to be suffered that we should be heard in confessing our faith Now how may that be proved by the holy Scripture since Christ heard the devil as is written Mat 4 And they are not better then Christ nor we worse then the devil If they be righteous and have the truth with them as they say they have and we be unrighteous why do they fear since the truth ought not to be afraid of falshood and Zorobabel declared That truth is of all things the most mighty and overcometh all things For Christ is the truth John 14. I am the way the truth and the devil is the father of lyes John 8. Therefore if the Pope and his Priests have the truth let them overcome us with the word of God but if they have lyes then they cannot long abide in all their presumption Wherefore we exhort and beseech all the Imperial Cities all Kings Princes Noble-men rich poor for Gods sake and for his Righteousness that one of them write hereof to another and that there may be some means made how we may commune with you safely and friendly at some such place as shall be fit both for you and us and bring with you your Bishops and Teachers and let them and our Teachers fight together with the word of God and let us hear them and let not one overcome the other by violence or false subtilty but only by the word of God c. By all which it appears That let mens Doctrine be what it will they ought to be
heard and convinced by the word and not presently to be silenced and subdued by force Now secondly if upon hearing and debating things by the word it shall clearly appear that our adversaries hold such things which are so false and erroneous that they cannot be reckoned believers and members of Christ that hold them nor can retain those Doctrines without unvoidable damnation then in this case the true Church hath Authority from the word to do these things 1. To condemn the doctrine 2. To excommunicate their persons 1. The Church ought to condemn the doctrine as contrary to the Gospel and to that eternal and unchangeable and most clear and certain truth which Christ hath heard from the Father and delivered to his Church which is the faith once given to the Saints and never to be altered And so to tell the people what Doctrine it is even such as carries in it an utter enmity to Christ and his Spirit and so consequently death and damnation and that therefore they are to take heed of it as they love eternall life and would void eternall death And thus Christ condemned the Doctrine of the Scribes and of the Pharisees and of the Sadduces and bid his Disciples Beware of them and Paul the Doctrine of Hymeneus and Philetus which did eat as a canker c. 2. The Church in this case may also excommunicate the Person yea though he should be silent and not seduce others seeing believers can have no true communion with such an one who is in enmity to the word of life in which all the true communion of the faithfull stands Wherefore such persons may justly be cut off from the Society of the faithfull But herein also these Rules are to be observed to wit 1. That this censure be not proceeded to for every varying from the truth as is already said but for denying such truths or holding such errors as make a man incapable of salvation 2. That this be not done till all other wayes have been tryed to reclaim him 3. That this be done not by two or three persons but by the whole Church or communion 4. That it be done not by their own but by Christs Authority who is alwayes present in his Church as the Head of that body and that it be done not by any humane Passion or violence but by the efficacy of the holy Spirit who is alwayes present among believers as the Spirit of those members And this Excommunication thus regulated is the last punishment the Church can inflict by the warrant and authority of Christ and it cannot imprison any or banish them or fine them or put them to death for we must not expound that place of Paul Haereticum hominem devita as Hugo Charensis did to take a Heretike out of his life but him that is a Heretike we must avoid we must not kill the former being Christs rule the latter Antichrists Now these things have I spoken and propounded to the faithfull and Churches of Christ wherever the providence of God shall cast this Book which may travel farther on this errand then weak flesh can do and I so propound them all as being most ready my self to hear from any what they can propound in more light and evidence of the word And I do humbly and earnestly intreate all faithfull Christians that whatever they shall conceive of my judgement in these matters they will yet take in good part my care to recover and preserve Peace and Vnity in the true Church of Christ The desire of which through Gods goodness is much stronger in my heart then any private interest or respect of mine own FINIS Ephes 4. 11 12 13. Esai 25 7. 8. Acts 16. 2 Tim. 3. 5. Esa 2. 12. 13. Esa 14. 9. Gen 49 5. Gen 49. 10. 11. Num. 12. 14. Es 37. 12. Revel 20. 9. Es 9. 5. Acts 13. 32. Dan. 2. 31. Gal. 6. Psalm 148. vers 13. 14. a John 4 19. b John 13. 1. The summ of Christs discourse with his Disciples after his Resurrection till his Ascension (a) Psal 2. 8. (b) Dan. 7. 14. (c) Psal 72. 8. Quest Answ 1. General Doctrine Melius est nullum habere quam sacrilegum impium sceleratum ministrum qui non venit nisi ut mactet perdat sicut fur latro Luth. de instit Ministr Eccl. 2. General Doctrine 3. General Doctrine The particular handling of the words The Doctr. The Spirit is Power two wayes 1. Essentially in it self 2. Operatively in us By being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge 2. A Spirit of Power 3. A Spirit of Wisdom 2 Cor. 1. 10. 4. A spirit of Faith Ephes 1. 19. The power of faith inables us 1. to do the same things Christ himself did Phil. 4. 13. 2. To suffer the same things that Christ himself suffered Phil. 3. 10. Cant. 8. 5 6. 5. A spirit of Righteousness 1. Mortifying sin 2. Imparting grace 6 A spirit of the fear of the Lord. Isa 8. 13. 7. A spirit of love and Vnity Isa 41. 15. 1. Vse A necessary for Ministers to have the power of the Spirit 1. Otherwise they have no power at all 2. Without this they are insufficient for the work of the Ministry 1. They are unable to preach the Word 2. Unable to preach it powerfully 1. The Ministery cold without this power 2 Weak Acts 6. 10. 3 Unable to hold out in the Ministery Acts 4. 17. 18. Acts 4. 19. 4. Unable to reprove the world 5. Unable to wrestle with and overcome the devil 6 Unable to suffer persecution for the Word * Mihi vero qui vocatus sum decretum certum est ingredi urbem in nomine Domini nostri Iesu Christi etiamsi scirem tot diabolos mihi oppositos quot sunt tegulae in omnibus totius urbis tectis * Verum quid faciam urgent me causae inevitabiles Deus cogit vocat hic nulli creaturae tergiversandum est Age fiat igitur in nomine Iesu Christi qui est Dominus vitae mortis Nihil habeo quod possim perdere Domini ego sum si perdor Domino perdor id est invenior Alium ergo quaere quem terreas Verum ego scio certus sum Iesum Christum Dominum nostrum vivere regnare qua scientia fiducia inflatus non timebo etiam multa millia Paparum Major est enim qui in nobis quam qui in mundo est Quid si me occidat Papa aut damnel ultra Tartara Occisum non suscitabit ut bis iterum occidat damnatum vero ego voâ—â—ut nunquam absolvat Confido enim instare diem illum quo deâ—â—ruetur regnum illud abominationis perditionis Vtinam nos primi digni simus vel exuri vel occidi ab eo quò sanguis noster magis clamet urgeat judicium illius accelerari Sed si digni non sumus sanguine testificari hanc
saltem oremus imploremus misericordiam ut vitâ voce testemur quòd Iesus Christus solus est Dominus Deus noster Benedictus in secula seculorum Luther in Epist ad Patr. The Holy Spirit and the power of it necessary for all Christians Question Answer They need the Spirit of power They need the power of the Spirit 1. To change their nature 2. To work Grace a Psal 25. 11. 2 Pet. 1. 14. 3. To mortifie sin 1. The whole body of sin Rom. 8. 13. 2. Particular strong corruptions 4. To perform duties To inable them to the use of the word In private Act. 18. 16. In publike To inable them to confess the word 7. To overcome afflictions and persecutions Second use The way to get this power is to get this Spirit To this end we must prepare our selves Wherein preparation doth not consist Wherein it doth 1. The Holy Spirit empties us A caution 2. Fills us The means are 1. The hearing of the Word 2. Faith 3. Prayer 2. The Way to increase this power Jer. 36. 32. Joh. 8. 44. Deut. 33. 29. 1 Pet. 1. 12. The great incâ—ease of the spiritual â—huâ—ch Rev. 5. 9. Vse The affliction of the Spiritual Church The spiritual Church is violently afflicted The spiritual Church in affliction hath no comfort from the world The spiritual Church in affliction comforted by a promise The special promise that comforts the Church is that God himself shall build it up gloriously The matter of which the spiritual Church is made The variety of the precious stones in the building of the spiritual Church The spiritual Church is made up only of precious stones The Builder of the spiritual Church is God The teacher of the Spâ—ritual Church is God The Spiritual Church being taught of God is peaceable in it self The establishment of this Spiritual Church The Spiritual Church being established is without fear and terror The worlds enmity against this spiritual Church thus built taught and establisht The world hath no success in their undertakings against the spiritual Church Rev. 3. 11 Antichrists Kingdom set up by the carnal understanding of the Scriptures The Reformation of the Church understood carnally The imperfection of the worship of the old Law No outward law can make men perfect as pertaining to the conscience and so the Gospel abolishes all such outward laws imposed on conscience as well now as heretofore Doctr. Gospel Reformation 1. What it is Christ Judgement Christ Righteousness Gospel Reformation is 1. Spiritual 2. Inward Latth 23. 25. 3. Thorow Isa 1. 25. 4. Powerful 5. Constant Christ the Reformer Note 1 The care of the Church given to Christ 2 Christ takes it 1. Out of obedience 2. Love 3. The work of Reformation only sutable to Christ 4. Christ only able for the work of Reformation 1. The Word The Gospel-Reformes 1. Works faith 2. Cummunicates Righteousness 3. Shews Christ 2. The second means Christ useth to reform the Church withall 2. All errours Object Answ 1. Unbeseem the the Gospel * Though the truth carry its evidence in it self theâ—ord â—ord of God is greater then all the testimonies of men yet for their sakes that are weak I have inserted the judgements of some godly men as I have accidentally met with them who have spoken of these things in the spirit that so you may see the truth though it hath but few followers yet it hath some Melancton on Psal 110. v. 3. habebis populum non coastum gladio sed verbo collectum laeto corde amplectentem evangelium te sponte celebrantem Diâ—cernit igitur ecclesiam ab imperiis mundanis externam servitutem a cultibus cordis accensis voce evangelii a spiritu sancto Ag. Religio cogi non vult doceri expetit Immanitate non stabilitur sed evertitur Polan This Charls to whom Leo gave the title of the most Christian King was a great conqueror and overcame many Nations with the sword and as the Turk compelleth to his faith so he compelled with Violence to the faith of Christ but alas the true faith of Christ whereunto the Holy Ghost draws mens hearts through preaching the Word of truth he knew not c. Tindal Fides sua sponte non coacte agere vult Luth. Christus non voluit vi igne cogere homines ad fidem Luth. Haereticos comburere est contra voluntatem spiritus Luth. He hath given in the Church the sword of the spirit to inforce with and not the sword of the Magistrate Prorsus diversa ratio est regni Christi mundi Mundani Magistratus quae volunt imperant subditi coguntur obedientiam praestare At in Regno Christi quod non est mundana aut pontificia Dominatio sed spirituale regnum nihil simile geritur sed quivis alterius judex quilibet alteri subjectus est At tyranni animicida illi nihil morantes vocem Christi regnum meâ—m non est de hoc mundo ex Ecclesia Politiam civilem seu potius Pontificium imperium constituerunt Luth. Quare ipsam sedem Bestiae nego nihil moratus sit ne bonus vel malus qui in ea sedet Sedes inquam quae fit super omnes sedes nulla est in Ecclesia super terram jure divino sed omnes sunt aequales quia una fides unum baptisma unus Christus c. Luth. Where there is no wordly superiority over one another there is no worldly compulsion of one another In the natural body there is no convocation of many members to govern one or of more members to govern fewer but the foot performs its office without being under the authoritative power of the hands yea each member performs its office aright without being in subordination to another by the guidance of that head to which it is united and of that Spirit that dwels in it each member having an immediate influence of the head upon it self though it may outwardly seem to be further from the head then another member And thus it is in Beleevers and Congregations Quid autem vi coactione opus vobis est qui hujusmodi certamen decertatis in quo cogi nemo debet Ulrichus ab nutren to the Councel of Priests What need you the power of the Magistrate to defend the truth who have so many Scriptures to defend it the truth of God being to be defended by the Word of God and not by the power of men Idem I could produce many more Testimonies but these are sufficient to shew that I am not alone in this point against Forcible reformation but have the Armory of David to defend it withall on which there hang a thousand bucklers all shields of mighty men 2. Unsutable to Christs Kingdom This stand in the Spirit 2. The Subjects of it are a spiritual people Isa 11. 9 Isa 60. 18. 3. A willing people Psal 110. 3. 3. Humane institution is set up 4. It brings men into
it doth not belong Being in the mean time really against Magistracy further then it is serviceable to their own ends Whereas we reckon Magistracy not less Magistracy no less the Ordinance of GOD though we suffer under it and by it This Clergy-Antichristian power where ever it is will still sit upon the power of the Nation the power of Anti-christ so domineering over the powers of the World that none but the power of CHRIST can cast it off That will still be uppermost what power soever is supream Besides all the experience of former Ages which is the greatest wonder in the World that men consider not GOD gives you sparklings enough of it in this Age some preaching That the government of the Church which they make outward and visible and over mens estates bodies and lives belongs not to King nor Parliament but to the Ministers and their Elders and better it is there should be no government at all say they then not in their hands by whom it should be And here lies the Mystery of Iniquity in this That they make the whole Kingdom a Church then require a power authority and jurisdiction in their Church-Kingdom which the Magistrate is not to deal withal but themselves Whereas we acknowledge the whole power of the Kingdom to belong to the Magistrate and onely give unto CHRIST the power of his own Kingdom which is not of the World but spiritual and heavenly And here also fully to deliver my self from misapprehensions I understand not by the Church of CHRIST any company of men whatsoever who under the notion of a Church or Saints or any other title may plead priviledge or exemption of their lives liberties or estates from the power of the Civil Magistrate for that were to justifie the Papal Prelatical or any other government of a newer name which under pretence of Jus Divinum shall set up and exercise an outward and visible power and jurisdiction free and exempted from the authority and power of the civil Magistrate which I utterly both deny and detest as Antichristian And therefore I humbly represent how prejudicial this may prove to you in the end to suffer a Generation of men in the Kingdom under the name either of Church or Clergy whose power preferment interest is different and excentrical from the power welfare and interest of the Kingdom and what a ballance they may prove against the State where they live in turning and tumultuous times as they themselves know so I hope you clearly perceive it as well as they How they already dare lift up the Head against you who sees not How do they manifest their discontents against you in Pamphlets and Pulpits in their Sermons and Prayers because you have not setled the Government they have studied out for you as Jus Divinum and the certain and unchangeable minde of GOD though they can neither make it out to your selves nor to any body else by the Word that it is so And how do they labour to instill into the people their own discontents perswading them you have done nothing at all because you have not done all that ever they would have you do though you can see neither Scripture nor reason for it And for this cause rendring you every where odious to the people Many other things besides do they scramble up and use against you which they conceive may make for your disadvantage and dis-interest in the people because they think they shall never get much higher except they make you a little lower for they must according to the law of Antichrist set their feet on your power to get up to their own Some discoveries of this spirit you might see in Mr. Loves Sermon telling you before your faces and before the people That some call'd you a Mungrel Parliament Indeed the King as I understand call'd the Parliament at Oxford so but Mr. Love was the first for ought I can learn that ever named you so and I wish he may be the last but any Doctrine is orthodox out of a mans mouth of his Order farther threatning you with a discerning people to look into your actions and to spy out your boundless priviledges as if you must do justice not out of the love of Righteousness but out of fear of Mr. Loves discerning people Telling you also The Clergy had done as much service for you in their Pulpits as your Regiments in the Field that by this means he might minde you what they can do against you as well as for you if you be not servants to their designes for they that have heretofore been for you can if they please turn to others against you who shall be more for themselves And in many other things flying out against your worthy Commanders in the Army upon suspitions of his own and against the Articles at Oxford c. For it is no proper Presbyterial Doctrine that does not at least meddle with the affairs of the State which in time they may hopefully come to order In these and divers other things he took his full swing all of them no doubt deeply appertaining to the mystery of the Gospel The other things he spake to the disadvantage of the ignorant and weak and neither to the Truths disadvantage nor mine I shall clear in a short Reply set after the Discourse and so shall trouble you no farther with any such stuffe but only with a smart expression from one it seems of some note in the Assembly who said If the Parliament approved Mr. Dells Sermon it were no blasphemy to say They were no Parliament So that it seems you shall be no longer a Parliament then you approve what the Assembly approves but the Kingdom hopes you are built upon a better foundation And to him who hath been so bold with you I shall only crave leave to Reply in your presence If the Assembly which I hope they will not should condemn that Doctrine of the Gospel for the substance of it delivered then by Mr. Dell it will be no blasphemy to say They are the enemies of the truth of Christ And I hope the last prop of Antichrist in the Kingdom For your selves Honourable and Worthy I beseech you consider that GOD is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working that all power is given to CHRIST in Heaven and in Earth that he might give free passage to the Gospel And therefore take heed after GOD hath blest your Power and Forces in the field and subdued that Malignant power that was against you and hath given you a little peace quietness in the Kingdom you do not now begin your affaires with discountenancing disrelishing much less condemning the faithful and true Word of GOD witnessed in the Scriptures and confest to by the faithful and Martyrs of Christ in all Ages and with the setting off from you that Ministery that hath most of the Spirit in it lest the Lord withdraw his presence from you and your
latter end be not answerable to your beginnings It might be easily shewed unto you how many great and wise Kings and Magistrates acting according to humane wisdom and prudence despising or neglecting the wisdom of the Word have with all their own wisdom prudence and designes destroyed themselves and their Kingdoms For it is written He takes the wise in their own craftiness And again The Lord knows the thoughts of men that they are but vain And therefore renounce the wisdom of the world with all its fleshly Counsels and cleave close to the true faithful and sincere Doctrine of the Gospel and then though you have many enemies and Kingdoms against you you shall not be moved but GOD will yet establish you in all the shakings of the World and your Enemies shall be as a thing of nought I shall no longer detain you but only desire this in the behalf of the faithful GODS peculiar portion in the Kingdom That you would not suffer us to be oppressed by our Adversaries who would use your power against us not for you but for themselves neither would suffer them thus publickly and shamelessely to call us Sectaries and Hereticks who do believe and profess the truth of the Gospel in sincerity and simplicity of heart according to what we have received from GOD but that you would suffer yea procure us to live quietly and safely under you in the faith and practice of the Gospel we in all things obeying you as becomes Christians The Remainder is to assure you That there is no man shall serve the State more sincerely according to his place and calling nor in more faithfulness and humility tender the Truth of GOD either to your selves or the Kingdom as occasion serves according to the measure of the gift of CHRIST Then Your Servant in the Gospel W. DELL To the Reader Christian Reader THE Times we live in are dangerous times it is dangerous to conceal the truth and dangerous to publish the truth if we publish the truth God hath taught us and we have heard and learn'd from the Father we fall into the hands of men if we conceal it we fall into the hands of God And therefore in this case in a contrary choice to David I reckon it much better to fall into the hands of men then into the hands of God seeing the wrath of men can but reach the body but the wrath of God body and soul I shall therefore willingly confess Christ amidst an adulterous and sinful generation not doubting but Christ will confess me before his Father and before his Angels And for the reproaches of men it is best conquering them as Luther was wont to say Silendo contemnendo by silence and contempt of them seeing a man may as easily restrain Satan himself in his various workings as stop the mouthes of his instruments And therefore it is good for us Christians to do the work of God without so much as taking notice of such men and if sometimes we are sensible of these things because we are flesh yet as we are Christians we are above them in the Spirit and see already in certain faith and hope all evils and enemies under our feet And therefore for Mr. Love and other men of the same mold and mettal I am resolved neither now nor hereafter to take them into any more consideration then the business it self necessarily requires and where they may be omitted without prejudice to the truth to let them quite alone being every day through the use of affliction enabled to patience and through patience brought to experience and so to a proportionable measure of hope And this carries me above the shame of the world in the strength of the love of God For the Doctrine contained in this Discourse thou shalt not finde it New light as some men slanderously affirm but the ancient light that sprang forth in the first morning of the Gospel but was since obscured by the New darkness of Antichrist which these men love better then that old light and will by no means exchange the one for the other But this light that now after a long night breaks forth again in some of its first glory let these men set their hearts at rest for they shall never be able to obscure it again and the fire of the Spirit that GOD hath kindled in the Kingdom they shall never be able to quench with any fire either of Earth or Hell And therefore we fear them not though they breath forth threatnings now and ere long are like to breath forth blood For by all their subtile and industrious actings in the end they shall not work the truths ruine but their own And these as well as their forefathers of the same race and lineage in whose stead they are now risen up shall in due time become a reproach and a shame and their name shall be for a curse to all Gods chosen Reader It is my earnest desire that the Lord would deliver thee from this new form of the Mystery of Iniquity which in every Age puts on a several form when the old one is discovered by the light of the Word And in this present Age it is become so Exceeding cunning and so furnished with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness under the form of Righteousness that it seems to be the last and subtilest work of Antichrist that is now in hand and he that prevails in this encounter hath Antichrist under his feet for ever but none are like to prevail here but the Faithful and Elect alone And therefore hold fast that which thou hast that no man take thy Crown and consider Christs encouragement to this work in the following verse Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God which is New Jerusalem which commeth down out of Heaven from my God and I will write upon him my New Name Christian Reader I commit thee and the Word now offered to thee in this Discourse to God and his powerful blessing and wonderful working Remaining Thine in the Difficult and Despised Service of Jesus Christ in the Gospel W. DELL Right Reformation OR The Reformation of the Church of the New Testament represented in Gospel-Light Heb. 9. 10. Vntill the time of Reformation THe natural man saith Paul 1 Cor. 2. knows not the things of the Spirit neither can he for they are spiritually discerned Now a man that is not born of God and his Spirit with all his parts abilities reason wisdom prudence learning is but a natural man still and so hath no right knowledg of the things of God and his Spirit And hence it hath come to pass that the things of God and his spirit have been so grosly and dangerously mistaken by the World and the carnal Church For all the spiritual things of God they have