Much of the ambiguity of the word I confess is cut off when it is opposed to flesh yet even then also it wanteth no varietie The literal and mystical sense the Ordinances of the old and new Testament the body and the soul sensuality and reason the corruption of nature and the grace of God all these may according to the peculiar exigence of several places be understood by the termes of Flesh and Spirit Generally the word Spirit in the common notion of it importeth a thing of subtile parts but of an operative qualitie so that the less any thing hath of matter and the more of vertue the nearer it cometh to the nature of a Spirit as the Wind and the quint-essences of Vegetables or Minerals extracted by Chymical operations We use to say of a man that is of a sad sluggish and flegmatick temper that he hath no spirit but if he be lively active quick and vigorous we then say he hath a spirit in him It is said of the Queen of Sheba when she saw the Wisdom and Royal state of King Salomon that there was no more spirit left in her that is she stood mute and amazed at it as if she had no life speech sense or motion in her the soul is therefore call'd a spirit because it being it self no bodily substance it yet actuateth and enliveneth the body and is the inward Principle of life thereunto called therefore The spirit of life And Saint James saith The body without the spirit is dead that is it is a liveless lump of flesh without the soul So that whatsoever is Principium agendi internum may in that respect and so far forth borrow the name of a spirit insomuch as the very flesh it self so far forth as it is the fountain of all those evil works mentioned in the fore-going verses may in that respect be called a spirit and so it is by Saint James The spirit that is in us lusteth after envy saith he that is in very deed the flesh that is in us for among the lusts and works of the flesh is envie reckoned in the very next verse before the Text To come up close to the point for I fear I have kept off too long as they stand here opposed By Flesh I take to be clearly meant the natural corruption of man And by Spirit the Supernatural grace of God even as the same words are also taken in some other places as namely in that saying of our Saviour John 3. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Which words may serve as a good Commentary upon this part of the Text for they do not only warrant the Interpretation but afford us also the Reason of it under the Analogie of a twofold Birth or Generation The Generation whether of Plants or living Creatures is effectual by that prolifical vertue which is in the Seed Answerable therefore unto the twofold Birth spoken of in the Scriptures there is also a twofold Seed The first Birth is that of the old man by Natural Generation whereby we are born the sons of Adam The second Birth is that of the new man by Spiritual Regeneration by which we are born the sons of God Answerable whereunto the first Seed is Semen Adae the seed of Adam derived unto us by carnal Propagation from our natural Parents who are therefore called The fathers of our flesh together wherewith is also derived that uncleanness or corruption which upon our first Birth cleaveth so inseparably to our nature and is the inward Principle from which all the works of the flesh have their emanation But then there is another Seed Semen Dei as S. John cals it the seed of the second Adam Jesus Christ God blessed for ever derived unto us by the communication of the Holy Spirit inwardly renewing us together wherewith is also derived a measure of inherent supernatural grace as the inward Principle whence all these choyce fruits of the Spirit do flow So that upon the whole matter these two points are clear First clear it is that all the wicked practices recited and condemned in the fore-going verses with all other of like quality do proceed meerly from the corruption that is in us from our own depraved minds and wils without any the least co-operation of the Holy Spirit of God therein It cannot stand with the goodness of God to be the Principal and neither with his goodness nor greatness to be an Accessory in any sinful action He cannot be either the Author or the Abettor of any thing that is evil Whoso therefore hath committed any sin let him take heed he do not add another and a worse to it by charging God with it rather let him give God and his Spirit the glory by taking all the blame and shame of it to himself and his own flesh All sinful works are works of the flesh Secondly It is clear also that all the holy affections and performances here mentioned with all other Christian vertues and graces accompanying salvation not here mentioned though wrought immediately by us and with the free consent of our wils are yet the fruit of Gods Spirit working in us that is to say they do not proceed Originally from any strength of nature or any inherent power in mans free will nor are they acquired by the culture of Philosophy the advantages of Education or any improvement whatsoever of natural abilities by the helps of Art or Industry but are in truth the proper effects of that supernatural grace which is given unto us by the good pleasure of God the Father merited for us by the precious blood of God the Son and conveyed into our hearts by the sweet and secret inspiration of God the Holy Ghost Love Joy Peace c. are fruits not at all of the Flesh but meerly and entirely of the Spirit All those very many passages in the new Testament which either set forth the unframableness of our nature to the doing of any thing that is good Not that we are sufficient of our selves to think a good thought In me that is in my flesh there dwelleth no good thing and the like or else ascribe our best performance to the glory of the grace of God Without me you can do nothing All our sufficiency is of God Not of our selves it is the gift of God It is God that worketh in you both the will and the deed and the like are so many clear confirmations of this truth Upon the evidence of which truth it is that our Mother the Church hath taught us in the Publick Service to beg at the hands of Almighty God that he would indue us with the grace of his Holy Spirit to amend our lives according to his holy Word and again consonantly to the matter we are now in hand with almost in terminis that he would give to all men increase of grace to
A SERMON Preached at NEWPORT IN THE ISLE of WIGHT October 1648. In the time of the TREATY BY ROBERT SANDERSON D. D. Chaplain to the late KING and Regius-Professor of Divinity in the University of OXON. London Printed by T. M. for Andrew Crook at the Green Dragon in S. Pauls Church-yard 1653. A SERMON PREACHED In the Isle of WIGHT Before the late KING GALAT. 5. 22 23. Ver. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness Temperance against such there is no Law HE that shall impartially look upon former and the present times shall find that of Salomon exactly true There is no new thing under the sun Vetus fabula novi Histriones The things we see done are but the same things that have been done onely acted over again by new Persons and with a few new circumstances It was in the Apostles times and in the Churches of Galatia even as it is with us in these dayes False Teachers had crept in among them who by their Hypocrisie and pretensions of the Spirit had so corrupted their Faith that they were removed after a sort unto another Gospel and so extremely sowred their Charity that from provoking and envying they were now grown to biting and devouring one another The Apostle wondering at this so unexpected a change I marvel you are so soon removed Gal. 1. 6. to see them so befooled in their understandings and bewitched in their affections as to suffer so sore and sudden a decay in the two most Essential parts of Christian Religion Faith and Charity thought it high time for him after he had first schooled them O foolish Galatians who hath bewitched you to offer this advice towards the allaying of those heats and distempers that were the causes of this so sad and dangerous an alteration The Remedy he prescribeth for that end verse 16. is short but very sure if they will follow it Walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh As if he had said You talk much of the Spirit but you make it little appear in the fruit of your lives that you are led by the Spirit The Spirit and the flesh are contraries and they lust contrary things verse 17. If you were as careful to walk in the Spirit as you are to boast of it you would not be so forward as now you are by the cherishing of unbrotherly contentions and other wayes to fulfil the Lusts of the flesh An hard thing it is to bring an overweening Hypocrite to a true understanding of himself for Pride and Hypocrisie are two such things as few men are willing to own That they might therefore with better certainty be able to discern whether they were indeed Spiritual or but yet carnal the Apostle proceedeth to describe the flesh and the Spirit by sundry their different effects A Catalogue we have for that purpose of the works of the flesh in seventeen particulars in the three next verses before the Text and then another Catalogue of the fruit of the Spirit in nine Particulars in the Text it self Wherein we may observe three things First the Notion or general Description of spiritual graces as they are here proposed they go under this name The fruit of the Spirit Secondly the particular species given in under that name or Notion They are these nine Love Joy Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Faith Meekness and Temperance Thirdly a special Priviledge belonging to all and every the aforesaid particulars to wit exemption from the Law Against such there is no Law In the general Description which is like to be our onely business at this time the thing we are to take notice of is the difference that may be observed between the Titles under which Saint Paul hath entered the several particulars of both sorts as they are set down the one in the beginning of verse 19. The works of the flesh are manifest which are these Adultery c. The other in the beginning of verse 22. But the fruit of the spirit is Love c. And these differences are four First Those effects of the former sort proceed originally from the flesh these from the Spirit Secondly Those are rather styled by the name of Works these by the name of Fruit The Works of the flesh but the Fruit of the Spirit Thirdly Those are set forth as many and apart Works in the Plural these as many but united into one Fruit in the Singular Fourthly Those are expresly said to be manifest of these no such thing at all mentioned The first difference which ariseth from the nature of the things themselves as they relate to their several proper causes is of the four the most obvious and important and it is this That whereas the vicious habits and sinful actions Catalogued in the former verses are the productions of the flesh The graces and vertues specified in the Text are ascribed to the Spirit as to their proper and Original cause they are not the Works of the flesh as the former but the Fruit of the Spirit Where the first question that every man will be ready to ask is What is here meant by the Spirit The necessity of expressing Supernatural and Divine things by words taken from Natural or Humane affairs hath produced another necessity of enlarging the significations of sundry of those words to a very great latitude which is one special cause of the obscurity which is found in sundry places of Holy Scripture and consequently of the difficulty of giving the proper and genuine sense of such places and consequently to that amidst so many interpretations of one and the same place whâ—lst each contendeth for that sense which himself hath pitched upon of infinite Disputes and Controversies in point of Religion Among which words three especially I have observed all of them of very frequent use in the New Testament which as they are subject to greater variety of significations than most other words are so have they ever yet been and are like to be to the worlds end the matter and fuel of very many and very fiery contentions in the Church These three are Faith Grace and Spirit Truly I am perswaded if it were possible all men could agree in what signification each of these three words were to be understood in each place where any of them are found three full parts at least of the four of those unhappy Controversies that have been held up in the Christian Church would vanish And of the three this of the Spirit hath yet the greatest variety of significations God in his Essence the Person of the Holy Ghost good Angels evil Angels extraordinary Gifts wherewith the Apostles and others in the Primitive times were endowed the several faculties of the soul as understanding affections and conscience the whole soul of man Supernatural grace besides many others not needful now to be remembred all come under the appellation of Spirit
calmness less toylsom and vexatious then are Hatreds and Debates and Emulations and Seditions and Murthers and those other works of the flesh Now if as the task is easier so the benefit be greater what can excuse our folly if we do not give up our selves to be ordered by the guidance of the Spirit in every thing rather then yield to satisfie the lusts of the flesh in any thing And the benefit is greater A sure reward saith Solomon For God is not unrighteous to forget your labour of faith and love A great reward saith David and that many times for a very little work done the giving of a Cup of cold Water to refresh a thirsty soul shall not want its reward It is our Apostles elsewhere that we should alwaies abound in the work of the Lord and that upon this very ground forasmuch as you know saith he that your labour is not in vain in the Lord If we labour in his work we shall find the fruit of it in time Onely let us be content to stay the time and not be thrusting in the Sickle before the Corn be half ripe The Husbandman when he hath done his work in earing and sowing doth not look to receive the precious fruits of the earth into his Garners again the next day or the next month but he hath long patience for it and whether it chance to be an early Harvest or a late Harvest he waiteth still and taketh the season as it falleth Even so have we need of Patience that after we have done the will of God and suffered according to the will of God we may receive the promised reward for in due time we shall reap if we faint not The final reward is sure veniens veniet it will come at last and not fail us and it is so great withal Copiosa nimis that when it cometh it will abundantly recompence all our Work yea and our Patience too Nay let me say if that reward were not nor any other world to come yet the fruits we reap in the mean time even in this world from a godly life is incomparably greater then any that the works of the flesh can yeild us even in the judgment of Heathen men Vertue ever carrieth its reward with it as being Bonum propter se expetendum a thing to be desired and imbraced for its own worth without respect to any further reward and certainly the evenness of the mind and vacuity from those secret lashes those horrors and fears that haunt a guilty conscience and the sweet comfort and complacency that a righteous soul findeth in the sincere performance of his bounden duty to God and man in eschuing evil and doing good is a fruit infinitely more valuable then all the pleasures and sensualities of a wicked life How happy then is he that truly serveth God who both hath his Fruit in holiness onward that is the hundred fold Mark 10. and shall in the end have everlasting life to boot There are of the four Differences proposed two more yet behind which I must dispatch in few words The 3d is That the works of the flesh are spoken of as many {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} works in the Plural but the fruit of the Spirit is spoken of as one {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} Fruit in the singular many works but one fruit There is such a connexion of Vertues and Graces that albeit they differ in their Objects and natures yet they are inseparable in the Subject As when many links make up one chain pull one and pull all So he that hath any one Spiritual Grace in any degree of truth and eminency cannot be utterly destitute of any other But as for sin and Vices it is not so with them they are not only distinct in their kinds natures and definitions for so are Vertues too but they may also be divided from one another and parted asunder in respect of the Subject wherein they are We are told Rom. 2. and if we were not told it we could not but see reason enough otherwise to believe it that a man may hate Idolatry a work of the flesh and yet love Sacriledge well enough a work of the flesh too There is no necessity that a swearer should be an Adulterer or an Adulterer a slanderer or a slanderer an oppessor or an oppressor a drunkard or a drunkard a seditious person and so of many other The reason of the difference is because all spiritual graces look one way they all runne to the same indivisible point wherein they concenter to wit Almighty God who is Bonum Incommunicabile unchangeable and one even as all moral vertues concenter in the same common point of Right Reason But sins which turn from God to follow the Creature and vices which are so many deviations from the rule of Right Reason do not only necessarily run towards the same point but may have their several tendencies different one from another Because though God be one yet the creatures are manifold and although the strait way from one place to another can be but one yet there may be many crooked turnings by-paths and deviations Even as Truth is but one and certain but Errors are manifold and endless The Spirit of God whose fruits these are is first a renewing Spirit It createth a new heart in a man wherby hee becometh a kind of new creature it disposeth him to obedience And true obedience is copulative it submitteth to the Commanders wil entirely it doth not pick and choose The Spirit of God is secondly a holy Spirit The holy Spirit of Discipline And such a holy Spirit wil not brook to dwel in a soul that is subject to sin it wil endure no such inmate they can no more dwell together then light can fellow with darknesse but where any grace is wanting there must needs be the contrary sin to fill up the vacuity And therefore where that holy Spirit is there cannot be a total defect of any holy grace The spirit of God is also a loving Spirit and sheddeth abroad the love of God in every heart it taketh possession of and love is so comprehensive a grace that it includeth all the rest and so is in effect the fulfulling of the whole Law There is a thred of love that runneth through all the particular duties and offices of Christian life and stringeth them like so many rich Pearles into one chain See 1 Cor. 13. throughout A Confideration not unuseful to quicken our care for the subduing of every sinfull lust and our endeavour to have every grace of the Spirit habituated in us knowing that so long as we allow our selves in any one sin suffer any one lust of the flesh to remain in us unsubdued at least in respect of desire and endeavor there cannot be any one true grace of God in us There are certain common graces of Illumination which are the
effects also of Gods Spirit and are therfore cal'd {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} spiritual gifts these indeed are given by dole alius sic alius verò sic knowledg to one to another tongues to another healings miracles c. All by the same spirit manifesting himself to sundry persons in sundry kinds and measures and dividing to every one severally as he will but it is nothing so in the special graces of Sanctification there is no distribution or division here either all or none He that certainly wanteth any one at least in the desire and endeavour may justly suspect that all those he seemeth to have are but so many counterfeits all this variety of graces maketh but one fruit The Last difference is that the works of the flesh are expresly said to be manifest ver. 19. but no such thing affirmed of the fruit of the Spirit The most probable reasons of which difference are to my seeming one of these two following First the commonness and frequency of those above these every where abroad in the world The works of the flesh Adultery Fornication Uncleannesse Wantonnesse Idolatry Witchcraft Hatreds Emulation Debate Wrath Strifes Seditions Herefies Envying Murthers Gluttony Drunkennesse and such like I name them because the bare recitall of them will save me the labour of further proof do so abound in all places that you can scarce look beside them turn your eyes which way you will you shall see cursed examples of some or other of these every day and in every street and corner Alas the works of the flesh are but too manifest But the fruits of the spirit are not so Love Peace Gentlenesse Faith Meeknesse Temperance and the rest These are very thin grown in the world they are rarities not every where to be met withall insomuch as David complaingly cryeth out there is not one godly man left Psal. 12. and Psal. 14. There is none that doth good no not one And the Prophet Jeremiah when he had run to and fro in the streets of Jerusalem for the purpose to find out a man that executed Judgement and sought after truth when he had employed his legs and his eyes and his tongue in the search he could not yet find the man he looked for Hippes and Haws grow in every hedge when choicer fruits are but in some few gardens And every soyle almost yeilds stones and rubbish but gold and precious stones are found in very few places Secondly the works of the flesh may be said to be manifest and the fruits of the Spirit not so with respect to our judgments of them and the easinesse of desiring the one more then the other The works of the flesh are so manifestly evill that no man of common sense can lightly be mistaken in them Murder sedition drunkennesse adultery it is not possible any man should be of such gross understanding as to imagine they should be the fruits of Gods holy Spirit they are undoubtedly and manifestly to every mans apprehension the works of the flesh but as for the fruits of the Spirit they are not so manifest but that a man who hath not his senses verie well exercised to the discerning of good and evil may be easily deceived therein Hypocrisie is spun oftentimes of a very fine thred and the heart of man abounding with so much hypocrisy as it doth and so much selflove and uncharitableness withal is the most deceitful thing yea and the most deceivable too actively and passively both of any thing in the world There are on the one side so many Mock-graces and specious counterfeits that carry a semblance of spiritual fruit but are not the things they seem to be And on the other side inordinate love of our selves partly partly want of Charitie towards our brethren have so disposed us to a capacity of being deceived that it is not a wonder if in passing our judgments especially where our selves are concerned we be very much and very often mistaken It might rather be a wonder if we should not be sometimes mistaken As most errors claime to be a little a kin to some truths so most vices challenge a kind of Affinity to some vertue Not so much from any proper intrinsecall true resemblance they have with such vertues as by reason of the common opposition they both have to one and the same contrary vice As Prodigality hath some overly likenesse with liberalitie and so may hap to be mistaken for it for no other cause but this only that they are both contrary to covetuousnesse {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} saith Aristotle truely fallacy and deception for the most part arise from the appearance of some likenesse or similitude when things that are like but not the same are taken to be the same because they are like They that have given us marks of sincerity for the trial of our graces have not been able to give us any certain rules or infalliable Characters whereby to try the sincerity of those marks so as to remove all doubting and possibilitie of erring Whence I suppose I may safely infer that the certaintie of a mans present standing in grace but much more then of his eternall future Salvation although I doubt not but by the mercy of God it may be attainable in this life and that without extraordinary Revelation in such a measure as may sustain the soul of an honest Christian with coÌ„fort is not yet either so absolutely necessary nor so void of fears and doubtings as some perhaps have imagined Not so necessary but that a man may be saved without it Many a good soul no doubt there is in the world that out of the experience of the falsenesse of his own heart and the fear of self-deceit and the sense of his own unworthinesse could never yet attaine to be so well perswaded of the sincerity of his own repentance Faith and Obedience as to think that God would approve of it and accept it The censure were very hard and a great violation it would be of charitie I am sure and I think of truth also to pronounce such a man to be out of the state of Salvation or to call such his dis-perswasion by the name of despair and under that name to condemne it There is a common but a great mistake in this matter Despair is quite another manner of thing then many take it for When a man thinketh himself so incapable of Gods pardon that he growes thereupon regardlesse of all duties and neither careth what he doth nor what shall become of him when he is once come to this resolution over shoos over boots I know God will never forgive me and therefore I will never trouble my self to seek his favour in vain this is to run a desperate course indeed this is properly the sin of despair But when the fear that God hath not yet pardoned him prompteth him to better resolutions and exciteth him to a greater care of repentance and newnesse of life and maketh him more diligent in the performance of all holy duties that so he may be more capable of pardon It is so far from being any way prejudicial to his eternal salvation that it is in the readiest way to secure it But where the greatest certainty is that can be attained to in this life by ordinary means it is not ordinarily unless perhaps to some few persons at the very hour of death so perfect as to exclude all doubtings The fruits of the Spirit where they are true and sincere being but imperfect in this life and the truth and sincerity of them being not always so manifest but that a man may sometimes be deceived in his judgment concerning the same it can hardly be what between the one and the other the imperfection of the thing and the difficulty of judging but that the Assurance which is wholly grounded thereupon and can therefore have no more strength then they can give it must be subject to fears and jealousies and doubtings I speak not this to shake any mans comfort God forbid but to stir up every mans care to abound and increase so much the more in all godlinesse and in the fruits of the Spirit giving all diligence by walking in the Spirit and subduing the lusts of the flesh to make his calling and election sure Sure in it self that he fail not of salvation in the end and sure to him also as far as he can that his comfort may be the greater and sounder in the mean time Now the God of all grace and glory send the Spirit of his Son plentifully into our hearts that we may abound in the fruits of godly living to the praise of his grace our present comfort in this life and the eternall salvation of our souls in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ FINIS Eccles. 1. 9. Gal. 1. 6. 5. 26. 5. 15. Gal. 3. 1. 1 Kin. 10. 5. Gen. â—2 7 Jam. 2 26 Jam. 4 5. John 3. 6. Heb. 12. 9. 1 Ioh. 3. 9. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Rom. 7. 18. John 15. 17. 2 Cor. 3. 5. Ephes. 2. 8. Phil. 2. 13 Matth. 7. 16. Matth. 12. 23. Jam. 1 20. Col. 1. 10. Mat. 3. 8 10. Gen. 2 15. Prov 4. 23 Heb. 12. 15. Jam. 1. 21. Psal. 115. 1. Rom 11. 18. 1 Cor. 15. 10. Phil. 1. 22. 2 Tim. 2. 6. Psal. 128. 2. Prov. 31. 31. 1 Cor 9. 7. Hor. 2. Ep. 1. Terent. Wisd. 5. 7. Jer. 9. 5. Hab. 2. 13. Psal. 39. 6 Hab. 2. 13. 1 Pet. 1. 18 Rom. 6. 21. Solinus Isa. 55. 1. Mat. 11. 30 1 Joh. 5. 3. Prov. 11. 8. Heb. 6 10. Psal. 19. 11 Mat. 10 42 1 Cor. 15. ult. Jam. 5 7. Heb. 10. 36 Gal. 6. 9. Heb. 10. 37. Rom. 6. 22 Mar. 10. 30 Rom. 2. 22 Psal. 51. 10 Gal. 6. 15. Wisd. 1. 4 5. Rom. 13. 10. 1 Cor. 12. 1. 14. 1. 1 Cor. 12. 8 -10 Jer. 51 c Jer. â—7 9. 2 Pet. 1. 5.