as it were the Midwife of the Old Testament to open its Womb and bring the Messias into the World Howsoever at the least it is plain that the Old Testament brought him to his birth though it had not strength to bring forth and the Prophets as Moses from Mount Nebo came to a view of this Land of Canaan For the very first words of the New Testament being as it it were to fill up what only was wanting in the Old are the Book and History of his generations and birth Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work and reach the pitch of this days rejoycing if you would learn how the very Heathen flutter'd about this light what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation before-hand how the Sibyls Heathen Women and Virgil and other Heathen Poets in their writings before Christ's time let fall many passages which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God It is fine sport to see in our Authors how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture that Christ was near his birth did droop upon it and hang the wing did sensibly decay in his courage began to breath thick and speak imperfectly and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Feaver distractedly wildly without any coherence and scarce sense and how at last about the birth of Christ he plainly gave up the ghost and left his Oracular Prophets as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in their last voice being that their gread god Pan i. e. The Devil was dead and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end as if Christ's coming had chased Lucifer out of the World and the powers of Hell were buried that minute when a Saviour was born And now by way of Use Can ye see the Devil put out of heart and ye not put forward to get the Field can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this can ye be so cruel to your selves as to shew any mercy on that now disarmed enemy will ye see God send his Son down into the Field to enter the Lists and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World and ye not follow at his Alarm will ye not accept of a conquest which Christ so lovingly offers you It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea Chap. xi 3. look on it where God objects to Ephraim her not taking notice of his mercies her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ's death as may appear by the first verse of the Chapter compared with the second of Mat. 14. Well saith God I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their arms but they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man an admirable phrase with all those means that use to oblige one man to another with bands of love c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthening of my people I put them in a course to be able to go and fight and overcome all the powers of darkness and put off the Devils yoke I sent my son amongst them for this purpose Vers 1. And all this I did by way of love as one friend is wont to do for another and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy And this is our case beloved If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us if we do not improve them to our Souls health if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence and stick close to him as both our Friend and Captain Finally if we do not endeavor and pray that this his incarnation may be seconded with an other that as once he was born in our flesh to justifie us so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctifie us For there is a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mystical incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour For this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us God with us i. e. With our spirits or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts Of which briefly And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate mans soul if it were denied might directly appear by these two places of Scripture Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Again Ephes iii. 17. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith c. Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnation of Christ the better we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin that so we may keep close to the business of the day and at once observe both his birth to the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18. And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have engaged themselves in the courses of Actual heinous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1. and such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carcass or violence of the Body of sin The restared purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul
is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. i. 14. Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt 1. A guiltiness of the breach of the law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the soul a darkness of the understanding a perversness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in sum a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of soul and body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces then we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5. For there the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so overshadow the whole man and so sence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the ancients makes a large discourse of the unsatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that St. James doth c. i. ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infinite lust with which as St. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather falls backward and forward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsattable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the prosecution of evil and again he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a legacy at our birth or nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an house or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38. And in sum the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly Citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and vertue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our souls from this body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which together are but a Periphrasis of that which St. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful mother of Vipers by denying it all nourishment from without all advantages of temptations and the like which it is wont to make use of to beget in us all manner of sin let us aggravate every circumstance and inconvenience of it to ourselves and then endeavour to banish it out of us and when we find we are not able importune that strong assistant the Holy Spirit to curb and subdue it that in the necessity of residing it yet may not reign in our mortal bodies to tame and abate the power of this necessary Amorite and free us from the activity and mischief and temptations of it here and from the punishment and imputation of it hereafter And so I come to the third part or branch of this original sin to wit its legal guilt and this we do contract by such an early
the covetous man's sad galling Mules burthens of Gold his Achans Wedge that cleaves and rends in sunder Nations so that in the Hebrew that sin signifies wounding and incision Joel ii 8. and is alluded to by his piercing himself thorow with divers sorrows 1 Tim. vi 10. his very Purgatories and Limbo's nay Hell as devouring and perpetual as it and the no kind of satisfaction so much as to his eye from the vastest heaps or treasures were he not in love with folly and ruin had he not been drenched with philtres and charms had not the Necromancer plaid some of his prizes on him and as S. Paul saith of his Galatians even bewitched him to be a fool would we but make a rational choice of our sins discern somewhat that were amiable before we let loose our passion on them and not deal so blindly in absolute elections of the driest unsavory sin that may but be called a sin that hath but the honor of affronting God and damning one of Christ's redeemed most of our wasting sweeping sins would have no manner of pretensions to us and that you will allow to be one special accumulation of the folly and madness of these simple ones that they thus love simplicity The second aggravation is the continuance and duration of this fury a lasting chronical passion quite contrary to the nature of passions a flash of lightning lengthned out a whole day together That they should love simplicity so long It is the nature of acute diseases either to have intervals and intermissions or else to come to speedy crises and though these prove mortal sometimes yet the state is not generally so desperate and so it is with sins Many the sharpest and vehementest indispositions of the Soul pure Feavers of rage and lust prove happily but flashing short furies are attended with an instant smiting of the heart a hating and detesting our follies a striking on the thigh in Jeremy and in David's penitential stile a So foolish was I and ignorant even as a beast before thee And it were happy if our Feavers had such cool seasons such favorable ingenuous intermissions as these But for the hectick continual Feavers that like some weapons the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 barbed shafts in use among the Franks in Agathias being not mortal at the entrance do all their slaughter by the hardness of getting out the Vultures that so tyre and gnaw upon the Soul the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that never suffer the sinner fool to make any approach toward his wits toward sobriety again This passionate love of folly improved into an habitual steady course of Atheisticalness a deliberate peremptory final reprobating of Heaven the purity at once and the bliss of it the stanch demure covenanting with death resolvedness to have their part to run their fortune with Satan through all adventures this is that monstrous brat That as for the birth of the Champion in the Poet three nights of darkness more than Egyptian were to be crowded into one all the simplicity and folly in a Kingdom to help to a being in the World And at the birth of it you will pardon Wisdom if she break out into a passion and exclamation of pity first and then of indignation How long ye simple ones c. My last particular The first debt that Wisdom that Christ that every Christian Brother ows and pays to every unchristian liver is that of pity and compassion which is to him of all others the properest dole Look upon all the sad moanful objects in the world betwixt whom all our compassion is wont to be divided First the Bankrupt rotting in a Gaol secondly the direful bloody spectacle of the Soldier wounded by the Sword of War thirdly the Malefactor howling under the Stone or gasping upon the Rack or Wheel and fourthly the gallant person on the Scaffold or Gallows ready for execution And the secure senseless sinner is the brachygraphy of all these You have in him 1. A rich patrimony and treasure of grace purchased dear and setled on him by Christ most prodigally and contumeliously mispent exhausted 2. A Soul streaming out whole Rivers of blood and spirits through every wound even every sin it hath been guilty of and not enduring the Water to cleanse much less the Wine or Oyl to be poured into any one of them the whole Soul transfigured into one wound one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 congelation and clod of blood Then thirdly beyond this all the racks and pangs of a tormenting conscience his only present exercise And lastly all the torments in Hell the Officer ready hurrying him to the Judg and the Judg delivering him to the Executioner his minutely dread and expectation the dream that so haunts and hounds him And what would a man give in bowels of compassion to Christianity or but to humane kind to be able to reprieve or rescue such an unhappy creature to be but the Lazarus with one drop of water to cool the tipof the scalding Tongue that is engaged in such a pile of flames If there be any Charity left in this frozen World any Beam under this cold uninhabitable Zone it will certainly work some meltings on the most obdurate heart it will dissolve and pour out our bowels into a seasonable advice or admonition that excellent Recipe saith Themist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That supplies the place and does the work of the burnings and scarifyings A cry to stop him in his precipitous course a tear at least to solemnize if not to prevent so sad a fate And it were well if all our bowels were thus employed all our kindness most passionate love thus converted and laid out on our poor lapsed sinner-brethrens souls to seize upon those fugitives as Christ is said to do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. xi 16. to catch hold and bring them back ere it be yet too late rescue them out of the hands of their dearest espoused sins and not suffer the most flattering kind of death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Gal. de Athl. the Devil in the Angelical disguise the sin that undertakes to be the prime Saint the zeal for the Lord of Hosts any the most venerable impiety to lay hold on them Could I but see such a new fashioned Charity received and entertained in the World every man to become his brothers keeper and every man so tame as to love and interpret aright entertain and embrace this keeper this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Guardian Angel as an Angel indeed as the only valuable friend he hath under Heaven I should think this a lucky omen of the worlds returning to its wits to some degree of piety again And till then there is a very fit place and season for the exercise of the other part of the passion here that of Indignation the last minute of my last particular as the how long is an expression of Indignation Indignation not at the men for however
dead in trespasses and sins the making of a carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a spring or fountain of life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a soul to the soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by prison or banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the spirit as before a living reasonable man from the soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those creatures that have no soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a soul animals or living creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a soul and so call him an animal or hath not a soul and so call him a meer natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more then a soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth in him Gal. ii 20. This being premised that now you know what this new creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions 1. whence it comes 2. where it lodges 3. when it enters 4. what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17. but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way then any thing else Since Christs ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26. The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19. God sends then his Spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an arrow sent out of a bow which loses its union which it had with the bow and is now fastned in the But or white nor properly by way of infusion as the soul is in the body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods Spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that Spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a javelin or spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psal xviii 14. But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my spear and fasten in it but still hold the spear in my hand and having pierct it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39. And this God does by way of emanation as a loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the iron to it self which never stays till it be united Thus do you see from whence this principle comes to me and in what manner from Gods Spirit by this means uniting me to himself To the second question where it lodges my answer is in the heart of man in the whole soul not in the understanding not in the will a distinction of faculties invented by Philosophers to puzzle and perplex Divines and put them to needless shifts but I say in the whole soul ruling and guiding it in all its actions enabling it to understand and will spiritually conceived I say and born in the soul but nursed and fed and encreased into a perfect stature by the outward Organs and actions of the body for by them it begins to express and shew it self in the world by them the habit is exerted and made perfect the seed shot
up into an ear the Spring improved to Autumn when the tongue discourses the hands act the feet run the way of Gods Commandments So I say the soul is the mother and the operations of soul and body the nurse of this Spirit in us and then who can hold in his Spirit without stifling from breaking out into that joyful acclamation Blessed is the womb that bears this incarnate Spirit and the paps that give him suck Now this inward principle this grace of regeneration though it be seated in the whole soul as it is an habit yet as it is an operative habit producing or rather enabling the man to produce several gracious works so it is peculiarly in every part and accordingly receives divers names according to several exercises of its power in those several parts As the soul of man sees in the eye hears in the ear understands in the brain chooses and desires in the heart and being but one soul yet works in every room every shop of the body in a several trade as it were and is accordingly called a seeing a hearing a willing or understanding soul thus doth the habit of grace seated in the whole express and evidence it self peculiarly in every act of it and is called by as several names as the reasonable soul hath distinct acts or objects In the understanding 't is first spiritual wisdom and discretion in holy things opposite to which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. i. 28. an unapproving as well as unapproved or reprobate mind and frequently in Scripture spiritual blindness Then as a branch of this it is belief or assent to the truth of the promises and the like in the practical judgment 't is spiritual prudence in ordering all our holy knowledge to holy practice in the will 't is a regular choice of whatsoever may prove available to salvation a holy love of the end and embracing of the means with courage and zeal Lastly in the outward man 't is an ordering of all our actions to a blessed conformity with a sanctified soul In brief 't is one principle within us doth every thing that is holy believes repents hopes loves obeys and what not And consequently is effectually in every part of body and soul sanctifying it to work spiritually as an holy instrument of a divine invisible cause that is the Holy Ghost that is in us and throughout us For the third question when this new principle enters first you are to know that comes into the heart in a three-fold condition 1. as an harbinger 2. as a private secret guest 3. as an inhabitant or house-keeper As 't is an harbinger so it comes to fit and prepare us for it self trims up and sweeps and sweetens the soul that it may be readier to entertain him when he comes to reside and that he doth as the ancient gladiators had their arma praelusoria by skirmishing with our corruptions before he comes to give them a pitch-battel he brandishes a flaming sword about our ears and as by a flash of lightning gives us a sense of a dismal hideous state and so somewhat restrains us from excess and fury first by a momentary remorse then by a more lasting yet not purifying flame the Spirit of bondage In sum every check of conscience every sigh for sin every fear of judgment every desire of grace every motion or inclination toward spiritual good he it never so short-winded is praeludium spiritus a kind of John Baptist to Christ something that God sent before to prepare the wayes of the Lord. And thus the Spirit comes very often in every affliction every disease which is part of Gods discipline to keep us in some order in brief at every Sermon that works upon us at the hearing then I say the lightning flashes in our eyes we have a glimpse of his Spirit but cannot come to a full sight of it and thus he appears to many whom he will never dwell with Unhappy men that they cannot lay hold on him when he comes so near them and yet somewhat more happy then they that never came within ken of him stopt their ears when he spake to them even at this distance Every man in the Christian Church hath frequently in his life a power to partake of Gods ordinary preparing graces and 't is some degree of obedience though no work of regeneration to make good use of them and if he without the Inhabitance of the Spirit cannot make such use as he should yet to make the best he can and thus I say the Spirit appears to the unregenerate almost every day of our lives 2. When this Spirit comes a guest to lodge with us then is he said to enter but till by actions and frequent obliging works he makes himself known to his neighbours as long as he keeps his chamber till he declare himself to be there so long he remains a private secret guest and that 's called the introduction of the form that makes a man to be truly regenerate when the seed is sown in his heart when the habit is infused and that is done sometimes discernibly sometimes not discernibly but seldom as when Saul was called in the midst of his madness Acts ix he was certainly able to tell a man the very minute of his change of his being made a new creature Thus they which have long lived in an enormous Antichristian course do many times find themselves strucken on a sudden and are able to date their regeneration and tell you punctually how old they are in the Spirit Yet because there be many preparations to this Spirit which are not this Spirit many presumptions in our hearts false-grounded many tremblings and jealousies in those that have it great affinity between faith natural and spiritual seeing 't is a Spirit that thus enters and not as it did light on the Disciples in a bodily shape 't is not an easie matter for any one to define the time of his conversion Some may guess somewhat nearer then others as remembring a sensible change in themselves but in a word the surest discerning of it is in its working not at its entring I may know that now I have the Spirit better then at what time I came to it Undiscernibly Gods supernatural agency interposes sometimes in the mothers womb as in John Baptist springing in Elizabeth at Maryes salutation Luke i. 41. and perhaps in Jeremy Jer. i. 5. Before thou camest out of the womb I Sanctified thee and in Isaiah Isa xlix 5. The Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant But this divine address attends most ordinarily till the time of our Baptism when the Spirit accompanying the outward sign infuses it self into their hearts and there seats and plants it self and grows up with the reasonable soul keeping even their most luxuriant years within bounds and as they come to an use of their reason to a more and more multiplying this habit of
It makes him apply himself c. we mean not that the encrease of sin produces faith formally but only inciteth to believe by way of instruction by shewing us what distress we are in and consequently in what a necessity of a deliverer The meditation of our sinful courses may disclose our misery not redress it may explore not mend a sinner like a touchstone to try not any way to alter him It is the controuling Spirit which must effectually renew our spirits and lead us to the Christ which our sins told us we had need of The sense of sin may rouze the soul but it is the Spirit of God that layes the toils the feeling of our guilt may beat the waters but it is the great fisher of our souls which spreads the nets which entraps us as we are in our way to Hell and leads us captive to salvation The mere gripings of our Conscience being not produced by any Pharmacon of the spirit but by some distemper arising from sin what anxiety doth it cause within us What pangs and twinges to the soul O Lord do thou regenerate us and then thy Holy Spirit shall sanctifie even our sins unto our good and if thy grace may lead us our sins shall pursue and drive us unto Christ Secondly by way of character how to distinguish a true convert from a false A man which from an inveterate desperate malady shall meet with a miraculous unexpected cure will naturally have some art of expression above an ordinary joy you shall see him in an extasie of thanksgiving and exultancy whilst another which was never in that distress quietly enjoys the same health and gives thanks softly by himself to his preserver So is it in the distresses of the soul which if they have been excessive and almost beyond hope of recovery as the miracle must so will the expression of this deliverance be somewhat extraordinary The soul which from a good moral or less sinful natural estate is magis immutata quam genita rather chang'd then regenerate into a spiritual goes through this business without any great noise the Spirit entring into it in a still small voice or at a breathing but when a robustous obdurate sinner shall be rather apprehended then called when the Sea shall be commanded to give up his ship-wrack't and the Sepulchre to restore her dead the soul surely which thus escapeth shall not be content with a mean expression but will practice all the Hallelujahs and Magnificats which the triumphant Liturgies of the Saints can afford it Wherefore I say if any one out of a full violent course of sinning conceive himself converted and regenerated let him examine what a degree of spiritual exultancy he hath attained to and if he find it but mean and slight and perfunctory let him somewhat suspect that he may the more confirm the evidence of his calling Now this spiritual exultancy of the regenerate consists both in a solemn humiliation of himself and a spiritual rejoycing in God his Saviour both exprest in Maries Magnificat where she specifies in the midst of her joy the lowliness of his handmaid and in St. Pauls victory-song over death So that if the conversion of an inordinate sinner be not accompanied with unwonted joy and sorrow with a godly sense of his past distress and a godly triumph for his delivery if it be not followed with a violent eagerness to fasten on Christ finally if there be not somewhat above ordinary in the expression then I counsel not to distrust but fear that is with a sollicitous not suspicious trembling to labour to make thy calling and election sure to pray to that Holy Spirit to strike our hearts with a measure of holy joy and holy sorrow some way proportionable to the size of those sins which in our unregeneracy reigned in us and for those of us whom our sins have separated far from him but his grace hath called home to him that he will not suffer us to be content with a distance but draw us close unto himself make us press toward the mark and fasten our selves on that Saviour which hath redeemed us from the body and guilt of this so great death The third Use is of comfort and confirmation to some tender souls who are incorporated into Christ yet finding not in themselves that excessive measure of humiliation which they observe in others suspect their own state and infinitely grieve that they can grieve no more Whereas this doctrine being observed will be an allay to their sorrow and wipe some unnecessary tears from their eyes For if the greatness of sin past or the plentiful relicks of sin remaining do require so great a measure of sorrow to expiate the one and subdue the other if it be a deliverance from an habituate servitude to all manner of sin which provokes this extraordinary pains of expression then certainly they who have been brought up with the spirit which were from their baptism never wholly deprived of it need not to be bound over to this trade of sorrow need not to be set apart to that perpetual humiliation which a more stubborn sin or Devil is wont to be cast out by I doubt not but a soul educated in familiarity with the spirit may at once enjoy her self and it and so that if it have an humble conceit of it self and a filial of God may in earth possess God with some clearness of look some serenity of affections some alacrity of heart and tranquility of spirit God delights not in the torment of his children though some are so to be humbled yea he delights not in such burnt offerings as they bestow upon him who destroy and consume and sacrifice themselves but the Lords delight is in them that fear him filially and put their trust i. e. assurance confidence in his mercy in them that rejoyce that make their service a pleasure not an affliction and thereby possess Heaven before they come to it 'T is observed in husbandry that soil laid on hard barren starved ground doth improve it and at once deface and enrich it which yet in ground naturally fruitful and kept in heart and good case is esteemed unnecessary and burthensome You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned husbandmen observe aright whereof there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the world needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd soul which hath never been out of heart but hath alwayes had some inward life some fatness of
and nourishment from the spirit is rather opprest then improved by such an overflow The Christian is thereby much hindred in his progress of good works and cannot serve the Lord with alacrity that so perpetually hangs down his head like a Bulrush Wherefore the Country rule is that that ground is best which is mellow which being crusht will break but not crumble dissolve but not excessively Hence I say the habituate believer need not suspect his estate if he find not in himself such an extremity of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil the face of his devotion and clog the exercise of it His best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled but actually lively and alacrious in the wayes of godliness not to be too rigid and severe a tyrant over his soul but to keep it in a temper of Christian softness tender under the hand of God and yet man-like and able both in the performance of Gods worship and his own calling And whensoever we shall find our selves in either extreme either too much hardned or too much melted too much elevated or too much dejected then to pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our souls that we neither fail in humbling our selves in some measure for our sins nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our selves below the courage and comfort and spiritual rejoycing which he hath prescribed us O Holy Lord we are the greatest of sinners and therefore we humble our selves before thee but thou hast sent thy Christ into the world to save sinners and therefore we raise up our spirits again and praise and magnifie thy name And thus much of this point and in brief of the first consideration of these words to wit as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself to which end we beheld him in his double estate converted and unconverted In his unconverted state we found though a very great sinner yet not absolutely greater then those times brought forth and therefore we were to think of him relatively to his future estate and so we found him the greatest sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so glorious a Saint Whence we observe the rarity of such conversions that though Saul were yet every blasphemous sinner could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and salvation and this we proved both against the ancient Romans and modern Censors of morality and applied it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unregeneracy spotless from any reigning sin Afterward we came to Paul converted where we balk't the discourse of the condition of sin in the regenerate and rather observed the effect of it and in it that the greatness of his sin made as Paul so every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ Which being proved by a double ground we applied first by way of caution how that proposition was to be understood 2. by way of character how a great sinner may judge of his sincere certain conversion 3. by way of comfort to others who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in themselves in such measure as they see in others and so we have past through the first consideration of these words being conceived absolutely as St. Pauls profession of himself we should come to the other consideration as they are set down to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate and applying the salvation of sinners to our selves which business requiring the pains and being worthy the expence of an entire hour we must defer to a second exercise Now the God which hath created us hath elected redeemed called justified us will sanctifie us in his time will prosper this his ordinance will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and Lamb for evermore The XIX Sermon 1 Tim. I. 15. Of whom I am the chief IN all Humane writings and Learning there is a kind of poverty and emptiness which makes them when they are beheld by a judicious reader look starved and crest-faln their speeches are rather puft up then fill'd they have a kind of boasting and ostentation in them and promise more substance and matter to the ear then they are able to perform really to the understanding whence it falls out that we are more affected with them at the first hearing and if the Orator be clear in his expression we understand as much at the first recital as we are able to do at the hundredth repetition But there is a kind of Excellency in the Scripture a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublimity above all other writings in the world The reading of every section of it leaves a sting in the mind and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect understanding of it An intelligent man at every view finds in it a fresh mystery and still perceives that there is somewhat beyond not yet attain'd to like men digging in mines the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure and meets with that under ground which looking on the outward turf or surfice he never imagined to have been there This I observe unto you to shew you the riches both of all and especially of this Scripture whereinto the deeper I dig the more oar I find and having already bestowed one hour in the discussing of it without any violence or wresting or wire-drawing find plenty of new materials We have already handled the Words at large in one consideration as they are a profession of Paul himself I will not repeat you the particular occurrents We now without any more delay of preface come to the second consideration of them as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us i. e. as they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate and applying the salvation of sinners unto ourselves teaching each of us for a close of our Faith and Devotion to confess Of all c. Where first the cadence or manner how Paul falls into these words is worthy to be both observed and imitated the chief and whole business of this verse being the truth the acceptable truth of Christs Incarnation with the end of it the saving of sinners He can no sooner name this word sinners but his exceeding melting tenderness abruptly falls off and subsumes Of all sinners c. If there be any thing that concerns sinners I am sure I have my part in that for of that number I am the chief The note by the way briefly is That a tender conscience never hears of the name of sinner but straight applies it to it self It is noted by Aristotle the master of Human Learning that that Rhetorick was very thin and unprofitable very poor and like
was not quite able throughly to perform without help which deceitful consideration drew on Pelagius himself that was first only for nature at last to take in one after another five Subsidiaries more but only as so many horses to draw together in the Chariot with nature being so pursued by the Councils and Fathers from one hold to another till he was at last almost deprived of all acknowledging saith S. Austin Divinae gratiae adjutorium ad posse and then had not the Devil stuck close to him at the exigence and held out at the velle operari he might have been in great danger to have lost an Heretick But I absolutely impotent in my self to any supernatural duty being then rapt above my self strengthned by Christs perpetual influence having all my strength ability from him am then by that strength able to do all things my self As in the old Oracle the God inspired and spake in the ear of the Prophet and then the Vates spoke under from thence called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ecchoed out that voice aloud which he had received by whisper a kind of Scribe or Cryer or Herauld to deliver out as he was inspired The principal 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a God or Oracle the Prophet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an inspired Enthusiast dispensing out to his credulous clients all that the Oracle did dictate or as the Earth which is cold and dry in its elementary constitution and therefore bound up to a necessity of perpetual barrenness having neither of those two procreative faculties heat or moisture in its composition but then by the beams of the Sun and neighbourhood of Water or to supply the want of that rain from Heaven to satisfie its thirst this cold dry Element begins to teem carries many Mines of treasure in the Womb many granaries of fruit in its surface and in event 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 contributes all that we can crave either to our need or luxury Now though all this be done by those foraign aids as principal nay sole efficients of this fertility in the earth to conceive of its strength to bring forth yet the work of bringing forth is attributed to the Earth Heb. vi 7. as to the immediate parent of all Thus is it God's work 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Cyril to plant and water and that he doth mediately by Apollos and Paul yea and to give the encrease that belongs to him immediately neither to Man nor Angel but only ad Agricolam Trinitatem saith S. Austin but after all this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though God give the encrease thou must bring forth the fruit The Holy Ghost overshadowed Mary and she was found with child Mat. i. 18. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 she was found no more attributed to her the Holy Ghost the principal nay sole agent in the work and she a pure Virgin still and yet Luk. i. 31. 't is the Angels Divinity That Mary shall conceive and bring forth a Son All the efficiency from the Holy Ghost and partus ventrem the work attributed and that truly to Mary the subject in whom it was wrought and therefore is she call'd by the Ancients not only officina miraculorum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The shop of Miracles and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost as the Rhetorick of some have set it but by the Councils that were more careful in their phrases 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not only the Conduit through which he past but the Parent of whose substance he was made And thus in the production of all spiritual Actions the principal sole efficient of all is Christ and His Spirit all that is conceived in us is of the Holy Ghost The holy Principle holy Desire holy Action the posse velle operari all of him Phil. ii 12. But then being so overshadowed the Soul it self conceives being still assisted carries in the Womb and by the same strength at fulness of time as opportunities do Midwife them out brings forth Christian Spiritual Actions and then as Mary was the Mother of God so the Christian Soul is the Parent of all its Divine Christian Performances Christ the Father that enables with his Spirit and the Soul the Mother that actually brings forth And now that we may begin to draw up towards a conclusion Two things we may raise from hence by way of inference to our Practice 1. Where all the Christians non-proficiency is to be charged either 1. Upon the Habitual Hardness or 2. The Sluggishness or 3. The Rankness of his own wretchless heart 1. Hardness That for all the seed that is sown the softning dew that distills rain that is poured down the enlivening influences that are dispensed among us yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the hardness and toughness of the Womb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that dry unnutrifying Earth in the Philosopher's or in Christs dialect Stony-ground resists all manner of Conception will not be hospitable yield any entertainment even to these Angelical guests though they come as to Lot's house in Sodom only to secure the owner from most certain destruction This is the reason that so much of Gods Husbandry among us returns him so thin so unprofitable an Harvest ceciderunt in petrosa and 't is hard finding any better tillage now a-days the very Holy Land the milk and honey of Canaan is degenerate they say into this Composition and herein is a marvellous thing that where God hath done all that any man if it were put to his own partial judgment would think reasonable for him to do for his Vineyard gathered out stones those seeds of natural hardness and which deserves to be marked built a Wine-press Isa v. 2. a sure token that he expected a vintage in earnest not only manur'd for fashion or to leave them without excuse yet for all these Labruscas wild juiceless Grapes heartless Faith unseasoned Devotion intemperate Zeal blind and perverse Obedience that under that name shall disguise and excuse Disobedience tot genera labruscarum so many wild unsavoury fruits is the best return he can hear of One thing more let me tell you 'T is not the original hardness of Nature to which all this can be imputed for for the mollifying of that all this gardening was bestowed digging gathering out and indeed nothing more ordinary than out of such stones to raise up children unto Abraham But 't is the long habit and custom of sin which hath harrast out the Soul congealed that natural gravel and improved it into a perfect quarry or mine and 't is not the Preachers Charm the Annunciation of the Gospel that Power of God unto Salvation unto a Jew or Heathen 't is not David's Harp that could exorcise the evil Spirit upon Saul not the every day eloquence even of the Spirit of God that can in holy Esdras his phrase perswade them to Salvation 2. Sluggishness and inobservances of God's seasons
Psal li. 10. A wound cured up by repentance and differs only from the former purity as a scar from a skin never cut wanting somewhat of the beauty and outward clearness but nothing of either the strength or health of it Optandum esset ut in simplici Virginitate servaretur navis c. It were to be wished that the Ship our Souls could be kept in its simple Virginity never be in danger of either leak or shipwrack But this perpetual integrity being a desperate impossible wish there is one only remedy which though it cannot prevent a leak can stop it And this is repentance after sin committed Post naufragium tabula a means to secure one after a shipwrack to deliver him even in the deep Waters And this we call a restored Virginity of the Soul which Christ also vouchsafes to be conceived and born in The first degree of Innocence being not to have sinned the second to have repented In the second place The Mother of Christ in the flesh was a Virgin not only till the time of Christ's conception but also till the time of his birth Matth. i. 25. He knew her not till she had brought forth c. And farther as we may probably believe remained a Virgin all the days of her life after For to her is applied by the Learned that which is typically spoken of the East-gate of the Sanctuary Ezek. xliv 2. This gate shall be shut it shall not be opened no man shall enter in by it because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut A place if appliable very apposite for the expression Hence is she called by the Fathers Councils 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin against the Heresie of Helvidius The probability of this might be farther proved if it were needful And ought not upon all principles of nature and of justice the Virgin Soul after Christ once conceived in it remain pure stanch till Christ be born in it nay be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin never indulge to sensual pleasures or cast away that purity which Christ either found orwrought in it If it were a respective purity then ought it not perpetually retain and encrease it and never fall off to those disorders that other men supinely live in If it were a recovered purity hold it fast and never turn again As a Dog to his vomit or d Sow to her wallowing in the mire For this conception and birth of Christ in the Soul would not only wash a way the filth that the Swine was formerly mired in but also take away the Swinish nature that she shall never have any strong propension to return again to her former inordinate delights Now this continuance of the Soul in this its recovered Virginity is not from the firm constant stable nature of the Soul but as Eusebius saith in another case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From a more strong able Band the Union of Christ to the Soul his Spiritual Incarnation in it Because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut Ezek. xliv 2. i. e. It shall not be opened either in consent or practise to the lusts and pollutions of the World or Flesh because Christ by being born in it hath cleansed it because he the Word of God said the Word therefore the leprosie is cured in whom he enters he dwells and on whom he makes his real impression he seals them up to the day of redemption unless we unbuild our selves and change our shape we must be his In the third place if we look on the agent in this conception we shall find it both in Mary and in the Soul of Man to be the Holy Ghost that which is conceived in either of them is of the Holy Ghost Mat. i. 20. Nothing in this business of Christs birth with us to be imputed to natural power or causes the whole contrivance and final production of it the preparations to and laboring of it is all the workmanship of the Spirit So that as Mary was called by an Ancient so may the Soul without an Hyperbole by us be styled The Shop of Miracles and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost in which every operation is a miracle to nature and no tools are used but what the Spirit forged and moves Mary conceived Christ but it was above her own reach to apprehend the manner how for so she questions the Angel Luk. i. 34. How shall this be c So doth the Soul of Man conceive and grow big and bring forth Christ yet not it self fully perceives how this work is wrought Christ being for the most part insensibly begotten in us and to be discerned only spiritually not at his entrance but in his fruits In the fourth place That Mary was chosen and appointed among all the Families of the Earth to be the Mother of the Christ was no manner of desert of hers but Gods special favor and dignation whence the words run truly interpreted Luk. i. 28. Hail thou that art highly favored not as the Vulgar read Gratiâ plena full of Grace And again Vers 30. Thou hast found favor with God So is it in the case of Mans Soul there is no power of nature no preparation of Morality no art that all the Philosophy or Learning in the World can teach a man which can deserve this grace at Christs hands that can any way woo or allure God to be born spiritually in us which can perswade or entice the Holy Ghost to conceive and beget Christ in us but only the meer favor good pleasure of God which may be obtained by our prayers but can never be challenged by our merits may be comfortably expected and hoped for as a largess given to our necessities and wants but can never be required as a reward of our deserts For it was no high pitch of perfection which Mary observed in her self as the motive to this favour but only the meer mercy of God which regarded the lowliness of his hand-maid Luke i. 48. Whence in the fifth place This Soul in which Christ will vouchsafe to be born must be a lowly humble soul or else it will not perfectly answer Maries temper nor fully bear a part in her Magnificat where in the midst of her glory she humbly specifies the lowliness of his hand-maid But this by the way In the sixth place If we consider here with John the Baptist his forerunner coming to prepare his way and his Preaching repentance as a necessary requisite to Christs being born received in the World Then we shall drive the matter to a further issue and find repentance a necessary preparation for the birth of Christ in our hearts For so the Baptist's Message set down Isa xl 3. Prepare the ways c. is here interpreted by the event Mat. iii. 2. Repent
for the Kingdom of God is at hand As if this Harbinger had no other furniture and provision to bespeak in the heart that was to receive Christ but only repentance for sins I will not examine here the precedence of Repentance before Faith in Christ though I might seasonably here state the question and direct you to begin with John proceed to Christ first repent then fasten on Christ Only this for all The promises of Salvation in Christ are promised on condition of repentance and amendment they must be weary and heavy laden who ever come to Christ and expect rest Matth. xi 28. And therefore whosoever applies these benefits to himself and thereby conceives Christ in his heart must first resolve to undertake the condition required to wit Newness of life which yet he will not be able to perform till Christ be fully born and dwell in him by his enabling graces For you may mark that Christ and John being both about the same age as appears by the story Christ must needs be born before Johns Preaching So in the Soul there is supposed some kind of incarnation of Christ before repentance or newness of life yet before Christ he is born or at least come to his full stature and perfect growth in us this Baptist's Sermon that is this repentance and resolution to amendment must be presumed in our Souls And so repentance is both a preparation to Christs birth and an effect of it For so John preached Repent for c. Matth. iii. 2. And so also in the same words Christ preaches Repent c. Matth. iv 17. And so these two together John and Christ Repentance and Faith though one began before the other was perfected yet I say these two together in the fully regenerate man Fulfil all righteousness Matth. iii. 15. In the seventh place you may observe That when Christ was born in Bethlehem the whole Land was in an uproar Herod the King was troubled and all Jerusalem with him Matth. ii 3. Which whether we apply to the lesser city the Soul of Man in which or the adjoyning people amongst whom Christ is spiritually born in any man you shall for the most acknowledge the agreement For the man himself if he have been any inordinate sinner then at the birth of Christ in him all his natural sinful faculties are much displeased his reigning Herod sins and all the Jerusalem of habituate Lusts and Passions are in great disorder as knowing that this new birth abodes their instant destruction and then they cry oft in the voice of the Devil Mark i. 24. What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God Art thou come to torment and dispossess us before our time If it be applied to the Neighbor Worldlings which hear of this new convert then are they also in an uproar and consult how they shall deal with this turbulent spirit Which is made to upbraid our ways and reprove our thoughts Wisd ii Which is like to bring down all their trading and cousenage to a low ebb like Diana's Silver-smith in the Acts Chap. xix 24. which made a solemn speech and the Text says there was a great stir against Paul because the attempt of his upstart doctrine was like to undo the Shrine-makers Sirs ye know that by this craft we have our wealth And no marvel that in both these respects there is a great uproar seeing the spiritual birth of Christ is most infinitely opposite to both the common people of the World and common affections of the Soul two the most turbulent tumultuous wayward violent Nations upon Earth In the eighth and last place because I will not tyre you above the time which is allotted for the tryal of your parience you may observe the encrease and growth of Christ and that either in himself in Wisdom and Stature c. Luke ii 52. or else in his troop and attendants and that either of Angels to minister unto him Matth. iv 11. or of Disciples to follow obey him and then the harmony will still go currant Christ in the regenerate man is first conceived then born then by degrees of childhood and youth grows at last to the measure of the stature of this fulness and the Soul consequently from strength to strength from vertue to vertue is encreased to a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus Then also where Christ is thus born he chuses and calls a Jury at least of Disciple-graces to judge and sit upon thee to give in evidence unto thy Spirit That thou art the Son of God Then is he also ministred unto and furnished by the Angels with a perpetual supply either to encrease the lively or to recover decayed graces So that now Christ doth bestow a new life upon the man and the regenerate soul becomes the daughter as well as the Mother of Christ she conceives Christ and Christ her she lives and grows and moves in Christ and Christ in her So that at last she comes to that pitch and height and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that S. Paul speaks of Gal. ii 20. I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me and the life which I live in the flesh I live by the Faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me And do thou O Holy Jesus which hast loved us and given thy self for us love us still and give thy self to us Thou which hast been born in the World to save sinners vouchsafe again to be again incarnate in our Souls to regenerate and sanctifie sinners Thou which art the Theme of our present rejoycing become our Author of perpetual spiritual rejoycing that our Souls may conceive and bring forth and thou mayst conceive and regenerate our Souls that we may dwell in Christ and Christ in us And from the Meditation of thy Mortal flesh here we may be partakers with thee of thine Immortal glory hereafter Thus have we briefly passed through these words and in them first shewed you the real agreement betwixt Matthew and Isaiah in the point of Christ's Name and from thence noted that Jesus and Emmanuel is in effect all one and that Christs Incarnation brought Salvation into the World Which being proved through Christs several Incarnations were applied to our direction 1. To humble our selves 2. To express our thankfulness 3. To observe our priviledges 4. To make our selves capable and worthy receivers of this mercy Then we came to the Incarnation it self where we shewed you the excellency of this Mystery by the effects which the expectation and foresight of it wrought in the Fathers the Prophets the Heathens the Devils and then by way of Use what an horrible sin it was not to apply and imploy this mercy to our Souls Lastly We came to another birth of Christ besides that in the flesh his Spiritual Incarnation in Man's Soul which we compared with the former exactly in eight chief Circumstances and so left all to God's Spirit
never so great enemies of God until it appear as demonstrably to us as it did to those Israelites that it was the will of God they should be so dealt with and he that thinks it necessary to shed the blood of every enemy of God whom his censorious faculty hath found guilty of that charge that is all for the fire from Heaven though it be upon the Samaritans the not receivers of Christ is but as the Rabbies call him sometimes one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of blouds in the plural number and sons of fire yea and like the Disciples in my Text Boanerges sons of thunder far enough from the soft temper that Christ left them Ye know not what kind of spirit ye are of In the next place Elias Spirit was a Prophetick Spirit whose dictates were not the issue of discourse and reason but impulsions from Heaven The Prophetick writings were not saith S. Peter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I conceive in an agonistick sense of their own starting or incitation as they were moved or prompted by themselves but as it follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as they were carried by the Holy Ghost not as they were led but carried when the Lord speaks who can but Prophecy And so likewise are the actions Prophetick many things that are recorded to be done by Prophets in Scripture they proceed from some peculiar incitations of God I mean not from the ordinary or extraordinary general or special direction or influence of his grace cooperating with the Word as in the breast of every regenerate man for the Spirit of Sanctification and the Spirit of Prophecy are very distant things but from the extraordinary revelation of God's Will many times against the setled rule of duty acted and animated not as a living creature by a Soul but mov'd as an outward impellent a sphear by an intelligence and that frequently into eccentrical and planetary motions so that they were no further justifiable than that prophetick calling to that particular enterprize will avow Consequent to which is that because the prophetick office was not beyond the Apostles time to continue constantly in the Church any further than to interpret and superstruct upon what the Canon of the Scripture hath setled among Christians Christ and his Word in the New Testament being that Bath-Col which the Jews tell us was alone to survive all the other ways of Prophecy he that shall now pretend to that Prophetick Spirit to some Vision to teach what the Word of God will not own to some incitation to do what the New Testament Law will not allow of he that with the late Fryar in France pretends to ecstatical revelations with the Enthusiasts of the last age and Phanaticks now with us to ecstatical motions that with Mahomet pretends a dialogue with God when he is in an Epileptick fit sets off the most ghastly diseases I shall add most horrid sins by undertaking more particular acquaintance and commerce with the Spirit of God a call from God's Providence and extraordinary Commission from Heaven for those things which if the New Testament be Canonical are evaporate from Hell and so first leads captive silly women as Mahomet did his Wife and then a whole Army of Janizaries into a War to justifie and propagate such delusions and put all to death that will not be their Proselytes is far enough from the Gospel Spirit that lies visible in the New Testament verbum vehiculum spiritûs and the preaching of the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and is not infused by dream or whisper nor authorized by a melancholy or phanatick phansie and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 knows not what kind c. In the third place Elias was the great precedent and example of sharp unjudiciary procedure with Malefactors which from the common ordinary awards on Criminals in that execution proceeded Trial and the Malefactor suffered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without attending the formalities of Law Of this kind two Examples are by Mattathias cited 1 Macab ii one of Phinees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that zeal'd a zeal and in that run through Zimri and Cozbi and so as the Captain once answered for the killing the drowsie Sentinel reliquit quos invenit found them in unclean embraces and so left them And the variety of our interpretations in rendring of that passage in the Psalm Then stood up Phinehas and prayed in the Old and then stood up Phinehas and executed judgment in the New Translations may perhaps give some account of that action of his that upon Phinehas Prayer for Gods direction what should be done in that matter God raised him up in an extraordinary manner to execute judgment on those offenders And the other of Elias in the Text and he with some addition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In zealing the zeal of the Law called fire from Heaven upon those that were sent out from Ahazai to bring him to him And this fact of his by God's answering his call and the coming down of the fire upon them was demonstrated to come from God also as much as the prediction of the Kings death which was confirm'd by this means It may very probably be guest by Matathias his words in that place that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament but those two for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons to enflame their zeal to the Law he produceth no other and 't is observable that though there be practises of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament the stoning of S. Stephen of St. Paul at Iconium c. yet all of them practised by the Jews and not one that can seem to be blameless but that of Christ who sure had extraordinary power upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple upon which the Apostles remembred the Psalmists Prophecy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the zeal of Gods house carried him to that act of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus that call'd themselves by that name of Zealots and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the City but as it prov'd the hastners precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom by casting out killing the High-Priests first and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation and so embasing and intimidating and dejecting the hearts of the people that all was at length given up to their fury Josephus and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer And ever since no very honourable notion had of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament one of the fruits of the flesh Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven Jam. iii. and in the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter zeal a gall that
will imbitter all that come near it The short of it is the putting any man to death or inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal perfectly legal process is the importance of a zelotick Spirit as I remember in Maimonides him that curses God in the name of an Idol the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that meet him kill him i. e. the zealots permitted it seems if not authorized to do so And this is the Spirit of Elias that is of all others most evidently reprehended and renounced by Christ The Samaritans no very sacred persons added to their habitual constant guilts at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ himself and the Disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done call for fire from Heaven upon them in that case Christ tells them that the Gospel-Spirit was of another complexion from that of Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turn'd to them as he did to Peter when he said Get thee behind me Satan as to so many fiery Satanical-spirited men and checkt them for that their furious zeal with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The least I can conclude from hence is this that they that put any to death by any but perfectly legal process that draw the sword upon any but by the supreme Magistrates command are far enough from the Gospel-Spirit whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them And so if they be really what they pretend Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are in a prodigious mistake or ignorance They know not what Spirit they are of Yet farther is it observable of Elias that he did execrate and curse call for judgments from Heaven upon mens persons and that temper of mind in the parallel you may distribute into two sorts First in passing judgments upon mens future estates the censorious reprobating Spirit which though we find it not in Elias at this time yet is a consequent of the Prophetick Office and part of the burthen received from the Lord and layed upon those guilty persons concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of his Cabinet but then this rigor cannot without sin be pretended to by any else for in the blackest instances charity believes all things hopes all things and even in this sence covers the multitudes of sins Now this so culpable an insolent humour rashly to pass a condemning sentence was discernible in the Pharisees this Publican whose profession and trade is forbidden by that Law and this people that know not that Law is cursed so likewise in the Montanists nos spirituales and all others animals and Psychici so in the Romanists who condemn all but themselves and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoyned most directly contrary to the gospel-Gospel-Spirit of humility and charity doth prepare them one and the other inflame them to triumph and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy this deepest dye of blood the murthering of Souls which because they cannot do it really they endeavour in effigie anathematize and slaughter them here in this other Calvary the place for the crucifying of reputations turning them out of the Communion of their charity though not of bliss and I am confident reject many whom the Angels entertain more hospitably Another part of this cursing Spirit there is more peculiarly Elias's that of praying and so calling for curses on mens persons and that being upon the enemies of God and those appearing to Elias a Prophet to be such might be then lawful to him and others like him David perhaps c. in the Old Testament but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher Discipline to which Christians are designed by him in the New I say not only for that which concerns our own enemies for that is clear When thine enemy hungreth feed him and somewhat like that in the Old Testament When thine enemies Ox c. But I extend it even to the enemies of God himself and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded from the Text the Samaritans were enemies of Christ himself and were barbarous and inhumane to his person and they must not be curst by Disciples And he that can now curse even wicked men who are more distantly the enemies of God can call for I say not discomfiture upon their devices for that is charity to them to keep them from being such unhappy Creatures as they would be contrivers of so much mischief to the world but Plagues and Ruine upon their persons which is absolutely the voice of Revenge that sulphur-vapor of Hell he that delighteth in the misery of any part of Gods Image and so usurps upon that wretched quality of which we had thought the Devil had gotten the Monopoly that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joying in the Brother's misery but now see with horror is got loose out of that pit to rave among us he that would mischief if it were in his power and now it is not by unprofitable wishes of execration shews his good will toward it is quite contrary to the Gospel-spirit and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knows not c. Lastly Elias was not only rapt to Heaven but moved on Earth in a Fiery Chariot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Author of the Book of Macchabees his zeal had fire and fire again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an excessive fervency and agreeable to his temper is his appetite he desires nothing but fire upon his adversaries calls for fire and fire and fire as you may see it in the story And the Gospel-Spirit is directly contrary to this an allaying quenching spirit a gentle lambent flame that sits on the Apostles heads to enlighten and adorn by its vital warmth expelling partial hectick heats and burning Feverish distempers that spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned in the Gospel and putting in the place a cool sedate and equable temper to have peace with all men and chiefly with our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an admirable phrase in St. Paul to use as much diligence to restore the Earth to peace again as all the wind or air or perhaps fire in its bowels I mean ambitious contentious men do to set it a shaking and he that will not contribute his utmost to quench those flames that will not joyfully do any thing that may not directly or by consequence include sin toward the extinguishing a fire thus miserably gotten into the veins and bowels of a calamitous Kingdom is far enough from the Gospel-Spirit and so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he knows not c. I shall not clearly give you the Gospel-Spirit unless I proceed from its opposition to Elias his act to that other the opposition to the motion of those Disciples considered in the particular circumstances The case stood thus Christ was going up to Jerusalem thereupon the Samaritans receive him not
hearts any influence on your lives whether your Conversations are not still as Heathenish as ever If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel but only because you are born within the pale of the Church no other evidences of your Discipleship but your livery then God is little beholding to you for your service The same motives would have served to have made you Turks if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them and now all that fair Christian outside is not thank-worthy 'T is but your good fortune that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles or present Indians a worshipping either Jupiter or the Sun 'T was a shrewd speech of Clemens that the life of every unregenerate Man is an Heathen-life and the sins of unsanctified Men are Heathen-sins and the estate of a Libertine Christian an Heathen estate and unless our resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ we are all still Heathens and the Lord make us sensible of this our Condition The third and in sum the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live is that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us that as soon as he called up the Son he sent the Comforter This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven about so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers 7. that if it had not been for that Christ had tarried amongst us till this time but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears 'T is a fancy of the Paracelsians that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other Creatures as we feed on their flesh we should never die their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives their spirit increase our spirits and so our lives grow with our years the older we were by consequence the fuller of life and so no difficulty to become Immortal Thus hath God dealt with us first sent his Son his Incarnate Son his own Flesh to feed and nourish us and for all this we die daily he hath now given us his own very Life and incorporeous Essence a piece of pure God his very Spirit to feed upon and digest that if it be possible we might live There is not a vein in our Souls unless it be quite pin'd and shrivel'd up but hath some blood produced in it by that holy nourishment every breath that ever we have breathed toward Heaven hath been thus inspired besides those louder Voices of God either sounding in his Word or thundring in his Judgments there is his calm soft voice of Inspiration like the Night Vision of old which stole in upon the mind mingled with sleep and gentle slumber He draws not out into the Field or meets us as an Enemy but entraps us by surprize and disarms us in our quarters by a Spiritual Stratagem conquers at unawares and even betrays and circumvents and cheats us into Heaven That precept of Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To worship at the noise and whistling of the wind had sense and divinity in it that Iamblicus that cites it never dreamt of that every sound and whispering of this Spirit which rustles either about our ears or in our hearts as the Philosopher saith Tecum est intus est when it breaths and blows within us the stoutest faculty of our Souls the proudest piece of flesh about us should bow down and worship Concerning the manner of the Spirits working I am not I need not to dispute Thus far it will be seasonable and profitable for you to know that many other Illuminations and holy Graces are to be imputed to Gods Spirit besides that by which we are effectually converted God speaks to us many times when we answer him not and shines about our eyes when we either wink or sleep Our many sudden short-winded Ejaculations toward Heaven our frequent but weak inclinations to good our ephemerous wishes that no man can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death our every-day resolutions of obedience whilestwe continue in sin are arguments that God's Spirit hath shined on us though the warmth that it produced be soon chill'd with the damp it meets with in us For example there is no doubt beloved but the Spirit of God accompanies his Word as at this time to your ears if you will but open at its knock and receive and entertain it in your hearts it shall prove unto you according to its most glorious attribute Rom. i. The power of God unto salvation But if you will refuse it your stubborness may repel and frustrate God's Work but not annihilate it though you will not be saved by it it is God's still and so shall continue to witness against you at the day of doom Every word that was every darted from that Spirit as a beam or javelin of that piercing Sun every atome of that flaming Sword as the word is phrased shall not though it be rebated vanish the day of vengeance shall instruct your Souls that it was sent from God and since it was once refused hath been kept in store not to upbraid but damn you Many other petty occasions the Spirit ordinarily takes to put off the Cloud and open his Face towards us nay it were not a groundless doubt whether he do not always shine and the cloud be only in our hearts which makes us think the Sun is gone down or quite extinct if at any time we feel not his rays within us Beloved there be many things amongst us that single fire can do nothing upon they are of such a stubborn frozen nature there must be some material thing for the fire to consist in a sharp iron red hot that may bore as well as burn or else there is small hopes of conquering them Many men are so hardned and congealed in sin that the ordinary beam of the Spirit cannot hope to melt them the fire must come consubstantiate with some solid instrument some sound corpulent piercing judgment or else it will be very unlikely to thrive True it is the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent which can so invisibly infuse and insinuate its vertue through the inward man that the whole most enraged adversary shall presently fall to the earth Act. ix the whole carnal man lie prostrate and the sinner be without delay converted and this is a Miracle which I desire from my heart might be presently shewed upon every Soul here present But that which is to my present purpose is only this That God hath also other manners and ways of working which are truly to be said to have descended from Heaven though they are not so successful as to bring us thither other more calm and less boysterous influences which if they were received into an honest heart might prove semen
work so much miracle as Simon Magus is said to have done who undertook to raise the dead give motion to the head make the eyes look up or the tongue speak but the lower part of the man and that the heaviest will by no charm or spell be brought to stir but weigh sink even into Hell will still be carcass and corruption Damnation is his birth-right Ecclus xx 25. And it is impossible though not absolutely yet ex hypothesi the second Covenant being now sealed even for God himself to save him or give him life It is not David's Musick that exorcised and quieted Saul's evil spirit nor Pythagoras's Spondees that tamed a man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 set him right in his wits for ever that can work any effect on a fleshy heart So that Chrysostom would not wonder at the voice that cried O Altar Altar hear the voice of the Lord because Jeroboam's heart was harder than that nor will I find fault with Bonaventure that made a solemn prayer for a stony heart as if it were more likely to receive impression than that which he had already of flesh It were long to insist on the wilfulness of our fleshy hearts how they make a faction within themselves and bandy faculties for the Devil how when grace and life appear and make proffer of themselves all the carnal affections like them in the Gospel Joyn all with one consent to make excuses nothing in our whole lives we are so sollicitous for as to get off fairly to have made a cleanly Apology to the invitations of God's Spirit and yet for a need rather than go we will venture to be unmannerly We have all married a Wife espoused our selves to some amiable delight or other we cannot we will not come The Devil is wiser in his generation than we he knows the price and value of a Soul will pay any rate for it rather than lose his market he will give all the riches in the world rather than miss And we at how low a rate do we prize it it is the cheapest commodity we carry about us The beggarliest content under Heaven is fair is rich enough to be given in exchange for the Soul Spiritus non ponderat saith the Philosopher the Soul being a spirit when we put it into the balance weighs nothing nay more than so it is lighter than vanity lighter than nothing i. e. it doth not only weigh nothing but even lifts up the scale it is put into when nothing is weighed against it How many sins how many vanities how many idols i. e. in the Scripture phrase how many nothings be there in the world each of which will outweigh and preponderate the Soul It were tedious to observe and describe the several ways that our devillish sagacity hath found out to speed our selves to damnation to make quicker dispatch in that unhappy rode than ever Elias his fiery Chariot could do toward Heaven Our daily practice is too full of arguments almost every minute of our lives as it is an example so is it a proof of it Our pains will be employed to better purpose if we leave that as a worn beaten common place and betake our selves to a more necessary Theme a close of Exhortation And that shall be by way of Treaty as an Ambassador sent from God that you will lay down your arms that you will be content to be friends with God and accept of fair terms of composition which are That as you have thus long been enemies to God proclaiming hostility perpetually opposing every merciful will of his by that wilfulness so now being likely to fall into his hands you will prevent that ruine you will come in and whilst it is not too late submit your selves that you may not be forced as Rebels and outlaws but submit as Servants This perhaps may be your last parley for peace and if you stand out the battery will begin suddenly and with it the horrendum est Heb. x. 31. It is a fearful hideous thing to fall into the hands of the living God All that remains upon our wilful holding out may be the doom of Apostates from Christianity a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries Vers 27. And methinks the very emphasis in my Text notes as much Why will you die As if we were just now falling into the pit and there were but one minute betwixt this time of our jollity and our everlasting hell Do but lay this one circumstance to your hearts do but suppose your selves on a Bed of sickness laid at with a violent burning Fever such a one as shall finally consume the whole world as it were battered with thundering and lightning and besieged with fire where the next throw or plunge of thy disease may possibly separate thy soul from thy body and the mouth of Hell just then open and yawning at thee and then suppose there were one only minute wherein a serious resigning up thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having
palpable in every syllable of the World If they are so well brought up as to have learned their Creed and Catechism they have no other use for it but to break jests and swear by and would soon forget God's very Name or Attributes did they not daily repeat them over as School-boyes their parts and often comment on them by Oaths Prophanations and these are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Apostles phrase Ephes ii 12. without God in the world Others there are of a prouder lostier strain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that pitch Camp and arm and fortifie themselves against God that would fain be a forging some other Religion they are so weary and cloy'd with this Thus have I heard of some that have sought earnestly for an Alcoran and profess an opinion that all true Divinity lies there and expect to be esteemed great Wits of a deep reach for this supposal Others that have not skill enough to understand Turcism yet have lusts enough to admire it and the brave carnal Paradise it promises and if they cannot perswade themselves to believe in it yet they phancy it notably and because they cannot expect to have it in another life they will be sure of it in this Hence do they advance to such a pitch of sensuality as Heathenism was never guilty of their whole life is a perpetual study of the arts of death and their whole Souls an Holocaust or burnt Sacrifice to their fleshly lusts It were an horrid representation but to give you in a diagram the several Arts that the god of this World hath now taught men to vilifie and reproach the God of Heaven Profest Atheism begins to set up it comes in fashion and then some Courtiers must needs be in it Prophaning of Scripture making too cheap of it was never so ordinary that holy Volume was never so violently and coursly handled even ravished and defloured by unhallowed lips 'T is grown the only stuff in request and ordinariest garment to clothe a piece of scurrilous Wit in and the best of us can scarce chuse but give it some applause Beloved there is not a sin in the World that sticks closer to him that once entertained it the least indulgence in it is a desperate sign 'T is called the chair of scorners Psal 1. a sin of ease and pleasure a man that uses it that is once a merry Atheist seldom if ever proves a sad sober Christian Julian and many others have gone scoffing to Hell like men whose custom of mocking hath made wry mouthed scarcely composing themselves to a solemn Countenance till horrour either of Hell or Conscience hath put smiling out of date And if any of these sins are but crept in amongst you it will be worthy our enquiry and examination and God grant your own impartial Consciences may return you not guilty However this will but prove you no worse than Jews for they here acknowledg God in their brain and tongues they said The Lord liveth Your second Interrogatory must be Whether whilst you thus profess you do not also swear falsly And then 't is to be feared that every action of your lives will bring in an Evidence against you 'T were an accusation perhaps that you seldom hear of to be challenged for Hypocrites to be turned Puritans pretenders to Holiness yet this is it my Text must charge you with professing of Religion and never practising it assenting to the truth of Scripture in your brain but not adhering to it in your hearts believing in Christ and yet valuing him beneath the meanest sin you meet with Look over your Creed and observe whether your lives do not contradict every word in it and is it not Hypocrisie Perjury or if you will have it high Complementing with God to be thus profuse and prodigal in our professions which we never mean to perform Then is it to be called belief when it is sunk down into our hearts when it hath taken root in a well-tempered soil and begins to spring above ground and hasten into an ear That which grows like Moss on the tiles of an house which is set no deeper than the phancy will never prove either permanent or solid nourishment to the soul 'T were a new hours work to shew every defect in our Faith by our defections and desertions of Goa i our manners yet if you will be in earnest with your selves and apply the grounds premised to your serious Examination your meditations may throughly make up what here is likely to be omitted One thing take home with you for a Rule to eternity That every indulgence in any sin is a sure argument of an Infidel be you never so proud and confident of your Faith and Justification by it be you never so resolute that the Lord liveth yet if your obedience be not uniform if you imbrace not what you assent to surely you swear falsly Your particular failings I am not knowing enough to represent to you your own Consciences if they be but called to cannot chuse but reflect them to your sight Your outward profession and frequency in it for the general is acknowledged your Custom of the place requires it of you and the example of Piety that rules in your Eyes cannot but extort it Only let your lives witness the sincerity of your professions let not a dead Carcass walk under a living head and a nimble active Christian brain be supported with bed-rid mentionless Heathen limbs Let me see you move and walk as well as breathe that I may hope to see you Saints as well as Christians And this shall be the sum not only of my advice to you but for you of my Prayers That the Spirit would sanctifie all our hearts as well as brains that he will subdue not only the pride and natural Atheism of our understandings but the rebellions and infidelity and heathenism of our lusts that being purged from any reliques or tincture or suspicion of irreligion in either power of our Souls we may live by Faith and move by Love and die in Hope and both in Life and Death glorifie God here and be glorified with him hereafter The VIII Sermon LUKE xviii 11. God I thank thee that I am not as other men extortioners c. or even as this Publican THat we may set out at our best advantage and yet not go too far back to take our rise 't is but retiring to the end of the 8. verse of this Chapter and there we shall meet with an abrupt speech hanging like one of Solomons proverbs without any seeming dependence on any thing before or after it which yet upon enquiry will appear 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faln down from Heaven in the posture it stands in In the beginning of the Eight verse he concludes the former parable I tell you that he will avenge them speedily and then abruptly Nevertheless when the Son of man comes shall he
Pharisee is noted for An easiness and cheatableness that costs the bankrupting of many a jolly christian Soul He saith Plutarch that wants health let him go to the Physicians but he that wants 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a good durable habit of body let him go to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the masters of exercise otherwise he shall never be able to confirm himself into a solid firm constant health call'd thereupon by Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the constitution of wrestlers without which health it self is but a degree of sickness nourishment proves but swellings and not growth but a tympany Both these saith he Philosophy will produce in the soul not only teaching men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where by the way he repeats almost the whole decalogue of Moses though in an heathen Dialect to worship the Gods c. which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the health of the soul but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is above all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to be overjoyed or immoderately affected in all this This which he attributes to Philosophy in general is saith Aristotle an act of intellectual prudence or sobriety 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not to vouchsafe higher titles to himself than he is worthy of not to think himself in better health than he is which is not the dialect of a meer heathen but the very language of Canaan Rom. 12. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the very word in Aristotle which cannot be better exprest than by that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to have a moderate sober equal opinion of ones own gifts not to overprize Gods graces in our selves not to accept ones own person or give flattering titles to ones self in Jobs phrase This Chrysostom calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word near kin unto the former the meekness or lowliness of heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. when a man having attain'd to a great measure of grace and done great matters by it and knoweth it too yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fancies no great matter of himself for all this As the 3. children in Daniel having receiv'd a miracle of graces which affected even the enemies of God yet were not affected with it themselves Enabled to be martyrs and yet live Or as the Poet of Callimachus that stood after he was dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is Nebuchadnezzars phrase walking in the midst of the fire and yet they have no hurt Yet in their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their Song of praise all that they say of themselves is this and now we cannot open our mouths ver 9. for this saith Chrysostom we open our mouths that we may say this only that it is not for us to open our mouths By this low modest interpretation every Christian is to make of his own actions and gifts you may guess somewhat of the Pharisees misconceits For first were he never so holy and pure of never so spiritual Angelical composition yet the very reflecting on these excellencies were enough to make a devil of him The Angels saith Gerson as the Philosophers intelligences have a double habitude two sorts of imployments natural to them One upwards in an admiration of Gods greatness love of his beauty obedience to his will moving as it were a circular daily motion about God their Center as Boethius of them mentemque profundam circumeunt another downward of regiment and power in respect of all below which they govern and move and manage Now if it be questioned saith he which of these two be more honourable for the credit of the Angelical nature I determine confidently that of subjection pulchriorem perfectiorem esse quam secunda regitivae dominationis 't is more renown to be under God than over all the world besides As the service to a King is the greatest preferment that even a Peer of the Realm is capable of And then if an Angel should make a song of exultance to set himself out in the greatest pomp he would begin it as Mary doth her Magnificat For he hath regarded the low estate of his servant So that the blessed Virgins mention of her own lowliness was not a piece only of modest devotion but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of expression and high Metaphysical insinuation of the greatest dignity in the world And then let the Pharisee be as righteous as himself can fancy come to that pitch indeed which the contemptuous opinionative Philosophers feigned to themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Tatianus which is in the Church of Laodicaea's phrase I am rich and am increased in spiritual wealth and have need of nothing or the fools in the gospel I have store laid up for many years nay to St. Pauls pitch rapt so high that the schools do question whether he were viator or comprehensor a traveller or at his journeys end yet the very opinion of Gods graces would argue him a Pharisee this conceiving well of his estate is the foulest misconceit For if he be such a complete righteous person so accomplish't in all holy graces why should he thus betray his soul by depriving it of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which the very Heathens could observe so absolutely necessary this humility and lowliness of mind this useful and most ingenuous vertue always to think vilely of himself not to acknowledge any excellence in himself though he were even put upon the rack The Philosophers that wrote against pride are censured to have spoil'd all by putting their names to their books Modesty like Dina desiring never so little to be seen is ravished The sanctifying spirit that beautifies the soul ie an humbling spirit also to make it unbeauteous in its own eyes And this is the first misconceit the first step of Pharisaical hypocrisy thinking well of ones self on what ground soever contrary to that virgin grace Humility which is a vertue required not only of notorious infamous sinners for what thanks or commendation is it for him to be on the ground that hath faln and bruised himself in his race for him that is ready to starve to go a begging but chiefly and mainly of him that is most righteous when he that knows a great deal of good by himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great deal of good success in the spirit yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is not advanced a whit at the fancy of all this The Pharisees second misconceit is a favourable overprizing of his own worth expecting a higher reward than it in proportion deserves When looking in the glass he sees all far more glorious in that reflect beam than it is in the direct all the deformities left in the glass and nothing but fair return'd to him a rough harsh unpleasing voice smoothed and softned and grown harmonious in the Eccho there is no such cheating in the world as by reflexions A looking-glass by shewing some handsom persons their good faces
a shew of piety with a colour of zeal and tenderness in Gods cause and then the very devilishest part of the Devil his malice and uncharitableness shall go down smoothly with him And that this stratagem may not be thought proper to the Meridian only where the Pharisee liv'd Leo within 500. years after Christ and other of the Fathers have observed the same frequently practised by the Devil among the Primitive Christians ut quos vincere flammâ ferroque non poterat ambitione inflaret virus invidiae infunderet sub falsâ Christiani nominis professione corrumperet That they whom persecution could not affright ambition may puff up envy poyson and a false opinion of their own Christian purity betray to all the malice in the world Thus have Hereticks and Sectaries in all ages by appropriating to themselves those titles that are common to all the children of God left none for any other but of contumely and contempt as soon as they fancy to themselves a part of the spirit of God taken upon them the monopoly of it also Thus could not the Valentinians be content to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 themselves but all the world beside must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 animal and earthly 'T were long to reckon up to you the Idioms and characters that Hereticks have usurped to themselves in opposition and reproach and even defiance of all others the Pharisees separati Sadducees justi Novatians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 puri Messalians precantes As if these several vertues separation from the world love of justice purity daily exercise of prayer were no where to be found but amongst them Even that judicious learned eloquent yea and godly Father Tertullian is caught in this pit-fall as soon as he began to relish Montanus his heresie he straight changeth his style Nos spirituales and all other Orthodox Christians Psychyci animal carnal men The Devil could not be content that he had gain'd him to Montanism an heresie which 't is confest only a superlative care of Chastity abstinence and martyrdom brought him to but he must rob him of his charity too as well as his religion Not to keep any longer on the wing in pursuit of this censorious humour in the Pharisee and Primitive hereticks the present temper and constitution of the Church of God will afford us plenty of observation to this purpose amongst other crimes with which the reformation charge the Romanists what is there that we so importunately require of them as their charity that seeing with the Apostolical seat they have seiz'd upon the Keys of Heaven also they would not use this power of theirs so intemperately as to admit none but their own proselytes into those gates which Christ hath opened to all believers For this cause saith Eulogius in Photius were the Keys given to Peter not to John or any other because Christ foresaw Peter would deny him that so by the memory of his own failings he might learn humanity to sinners and be more free of opening the gates of Heaven because he himself had it not been for special mercy had been excluded other Apostles sfaith he having never faln so foully 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 migkt like enough have used sinners more sharply but 't was not probable that Peter would be such a severe Cato and yet there is not a more unmerciful man under Heaven than he that now tyrannizeth in his chair Spalatensis indeed after his revolt from us could ingenuously confess that he could have expected comfortably and perhaps have been better pleased to have been saved in the Church of England with a 1000. l. a year as in the Roman with 500. l. But do not all others of them count this no less than heresie in him thus to hope Cudsemius the Jesuit denies the English Nation to be Hereticks because they remain under a continual succession of Bishops But alas how few be there of them which have so much charity to afford us What fulminations and clattering of clouds is there to be heard in that Horizon What Anathematizing of hereticks i. e. Protestants what excommunicating them without any mercy 1. out of the Church then out of the book of life and lastly where they have power out of the Land of the living And yet would they be as liberal to us poor Protestants as they are to their own Stews and Seminaries of all uncleanness then should we be stor'd with indulgences But 't was Tertullian's of old that there is no mercy from them to be expected who have no crime to lay against us but that we are true Christians If they would but allow one corner of Heaven to receive penitent humble Protestants labouring for good works but depending on Christ's merit if they would not think us past hopes or prayers there might be possibly hoped some means of uniting us all in one fold But this precious Christian grace of Charity being now so quite perish't from off the earth what means have we left us but our prayers to prepare or mature this reconciliation Shall we then take heart also and bring in our action of trespass Shall we sit and pen our railing accusation in the form that Christ uses against the Pharisees Matth. 23. 13. Wo unto you Scribes and Pharisees Hypocrites for you shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men for you neither go in your selves neither suffer ye them that are entring to go in This we might do upon better grounds were we so revengefully disposed but we fear to incur our Saviours censure Luke 9. 55. And he turn'd and rebuk'd them saying Ye know not what manner of spirits ye are of We should much mistake our Christian spirit if we should not in return to their curses intercede with God in prayer for them First that he will bestow on them the grace of meekness or charity then sincerity and uprightness without wilful blindness and partiality and lastly to intercede for the salvation of all our souls together And this is the only way St. Paul hath left us Rom. 12. 20. by returning them good to melt them hoping and praying in the words of Solomon that by long forbearing this great Prince of the West will be perswaded and that our soft tongues may in time break the bone But whilst we preach charity to them shall we not betray partiality in our selves by passing over that uncharitable fire that is breaking out in our own chimnies 'T were to be wished that this Christian grace which is liberal enough of it self would be entertain'd as gratefully as it is preacht we should not then have so many 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of fire amongst us as we have who being inflam'd some with faction others with ignorant prejudice others with doting on their own abilities fall out into all manner of intemperate censures 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 words of the sword all sharp contumelious invectives
discerning good from evil 6. An expectation of a reward for any thing well done Lastly some gripes and twinges of the Conscience to all add a tender disposition a good Christian education common custom of the countrey where one lives where some vices are out of fashion nay at last the word of God daily preached not a love but servile fear of it These I say and the like may outwardly restrain unregenerate men from riots may curb and keep them in and consequently preserve the soul from that weight of the multitude of sins which press down other men to a desparation of mercy Thus is one unregenerate man less engaged in sin than another and consequently his soul less polluted and so in all likelihood more capable of the ordinary means of salvation than the more stubborn habituate sinner when every aversion every commission of every sin doth more harden against grace more alien and set at a greater distance from Heaven and this briefly we call a moral preparation of the soul and a purging of it though not absolutely from sin yet from some measure of reigning sin and disposing of it to a spiritual estate and this is no more than I learn from Bradwardine in his 16. de causa Dei ch 37. A servile fear a sight of some inconvenience and moral habit of vertue and the like Multum retrahunt à peccato inclinant ad opera bona sic ad charitatem gratiam opera verè grata praeparant disponunt And so I come to my last part to shew of what use this preparation of the soul is in order to Christs birth in us the ways of the Lord. I take no great joy in presenting controversies to your ears out of this place yet seeing I am already fallen upon a piece of one I must now go through it and to quit it as soon as I can present the whole business unto you in some few propositions of which some I shall only recite as conceiving them evident enough by their own light the rest I shall a little insist on and then apply and drive home the profit of all to your affections And in this pardon me for certainly I should never have medled with it had not I resolved it a Theory that most nearly concerned your practice and a speculation that would instruct your wills as well as your understandings The propositions which contain the sum of the business are these 1. No preparation in the world can deserve or challenge Gods sanctifying grace the Spirit bloweth where it listeth and cannot by any thing in us be predetermin'd to its object or its work 2. The Spirit is of power to work the conversiâ—n of any the greatest sinner at one minute to strike the most obdurate heart and soften it and out of the unnatural womb of stones infinitely more unfruitful than barrenness and age had made the womb of Sarah to raise up children unto Abraham According to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diseases are sometimes cur'd when the patient is at the extremity or height of danger in an ecstasie and almost quite gone 3. 'T is an ill Consequence that because God can and sometimes doth call unprepared sinners therefore 't is probable he will deal so with thee in particular or with unprepared men in general God doth not work in conversion as a physical agent to the extent of his power but according to the sweet disposition and counsel of his Will 4. In unprepared hearts there be many profest enemies to grace ill dispositions ambition atheism pride of spirit and in chief an habit in a voluptuous settled course of sinning an indefatigable resolute walking after their own lusts And therefore there is very little hope that Christ will ever vouchsafe to be born in such polluted hardned souls For 't is Basil's observation that that speech of the fools heart There is no God was the cause that the Gentiles were given over to a reprobate sense and fell headlong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into all manner of abominations Hence it is that Jobius in Photius observes that in Scripture some are called dogs Mat. xv 26. some unworthy to receive the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. xiii 11. that some hated the light and came not to it Joh. iii. 20. as if all those had taken a course to make themselves uncapable of mercy and by a perfect hostility frighted Christ out of their coasts In the liberal dispensation of miracles in the Gospel you would wonder to see Christ a niggard in his own countrey yet so in respect of other places he was and did not many miracles there because of their unbelief Mat. xiii 58. not that their incredulity had manacled him had shortned his hand or straitned his power but that miracles which when they met with a passive willingness a contentedness in the patient to receive and believe them were then the ordinary instruments of faith and conversion would have been but cast away upon obdurate hearts so that for Christ to have numbred miracles among his unbelieving Countrey-men no way prepared to receive them had been an injurious liberality and added only to their unexcusableness which contradicts not the Axiom of St Paul 1 Cor. xiii 22. That some signs are only for unbelievers for even those unbelievers must have within them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proneness or readiness to receive them with belief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in Jobius to open to the spirit knocking by those miracles and improve them to their best profit 5. Though God needs not yet he requires moral preparation of us as an ordinary means to make us more capable of grace for although according to Saint Austin Ne ipsâ quidem justitiâ nostrâ indiget Deus yet according to Salvian's limitation Fget juxta praeceptionem suam licet non juxta potentiam eget secundum legem suam non eget secundum Majestatem We are to think that God hath use of any thing which he commands and therefore must perform whatever he requires and not dare to be confident of the end without the observation of the means prescribed 'T is too much boldness if not presumption to leave all to his omnipotent working when he hath prescribed us means to do somewhat our selves 6. Integrity and Honesty of Heart a sober moral life and chiefly humility and tenderness of spirit in summ whatever degree of Innocence either study or fear or love or natural disposition can work in us some or all of which may in some measure be found in some men not yet regenerate are good preparations for Christs birth in us so saith Clement of Philosophy that it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. make ready and prepare the way against Christs coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with other helps that God hath given us all with this caution that it doth only prepare not perfect
facilitate the pursuit of wisdom to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God may bestow on us without this means To this purpose hath Basil a notable homily to exhort scholars to the study of forreign humane especially Grecian learning and to this end saith he that we prepare our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Heavenly spiritual Philosophy In the like kind the Fathers prescribe good works of charity observing out of the xix of St. Matthew that the distribution of all their substance to the poor was a praeludium in the Primitive believers to the following of Christ Prius vendant omnia quam sequantur from whence he calls alms deeds exordia quasi incunabula conversionis nostrae The like may be said though not in the same degree of all other courses quibus carnalium sarcinarum impedimenta projicimus for if these forementioned preparations be meer works of nature in us as some would have them then do they naturally encline the subject for the receiving of grace when it comes and by fitting as it were and organizing the subject facilitate its entrance or if they be works of Gods restraining preventing grace as 't is most orthodoxally agreed on then are they good harbingers for the sanctifying spirit good comfortable symptoms that God will perfect and crown the work which he hath begun in us 7. Gods ordinary course as far as by events we can judge of it is to call and save such as are thus prepared Thus to instance in a few of the first and chiefest 'T was appointed by God that she only should be vouchsafed the blessed office of dignity of being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ's Mother who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he in Photius fuller of vertues than any else of her sex could brag of In like manner that the rest of the family Christs Father and brethren in account on earth should be such whose vertues had bestowed a more eminent opinion though not place upon them amongst men so was Joseph and his sons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 famous for very just men James the brother of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy from the womb as Eusebius cites it called by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he out of Hegesippus which he interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the stay of the people and justice it self In brief if a Cornelius be to be called from Gentilism to Christianity ye shall find him in the beginning of his character Act. x. 1. to be a devout man and one that feared God with all his house gave much alms to the people and prayed to God alway one cut out as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the first-fruit of the Gentiles Now though none of these vertues can be imputed to nature in the substance of them but acknowledge a more supernatural spiritual agent in them yet are they to be reckoned as preparations to Christs birth in them because they did precede it for so in respect of his real incarnation in the world the type of his spiritual in the soul Mary was a vertuous pure virgin before the Holy Ghost overshadowed her Joseph a just man before the Holy Ghost appeared to him Mat. i. 19. James holy from the womb and Cornelius capable of all that commendation for devotion and alms-deeds Acts x. 1. before either Christ was preach't to him in the 37. or the Holy Ghost fell on him in the 44. verse 8. The Conversion of unprepared hardned blasphemous sinners is to be accounted as a most rare and extraordinary work of Gods power and mercy not an every days work like to be bestowed on every habituate sinner and therefore 't is commonly accompanied with some evident note of difference to point it out for a miracle Thus was Paul called from the Chief of sinners 1 Tim. i. 15. to the chief of Saints but with this mark that Christ Jesus might shew forth all long suffering c. which was in him first and perhaps last in that degree that others in his pitch of blasphemies might not presume of the like miracle of mercy And indeed he that is thus called must expect what Paul found a mighty tempest throughout him three days at least without sight or nourishment if not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a swoon a kiâ—d of ecstasie of the whole man at this tumultuary driving out of this high rank insolent habituate body of sin 'T is observed that when the news of Christ birth was brought by the wise men the city was straight in an uproar Herod was much troubled and all Jerusalem with him Mat. ii 3. for it seems they expected no such matter and therefore so strange and sudden news produced nothing but astonishment and tumult whilst Symeon who waited for the consolation of Israel makes no such strange business of it takes him presently into his embraces and familiarly hugs him in his arms having been before acquainted with him by his faith Thus will it at Christs spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be in an unprepared heart his reigning Herod sins and all the Jerusalem and Democracy of affections a strange tumult of repining old habituate passions will struggle fiercely and shake the whole house before they leave it If a strong man be to be dispossessed of house or abode without warning a hundred to one he will do some mischief at his departure and draw at least some pillar after him when as a prepared Symeon's soul lays hold as soon as he hears of him is already organiz'd as it were for the purpose holds out the arms and bosom of faith and at the first minute of his appearance takes him into his spiritual embraces This very preparation either had denied the strong man entrance or else binds his hands manacles that blind Sampson and turns him out in peace and then the spirit enters into that soul which it self or its harbingers have prepared in a soft still wind in a still voice and the soul shall feel its gale shall hear its whispering and shall scarce discern perhaps not at all observe the moment of its entrance Lastly by way of Corollary to all that hath been said though God can and sometimes doth call blasphemous sinners though nothing in us can facilitate Gods action to him though none of our performances or his lower works in us can merit or challenge his sanctifying grace though in brief all that we can do is in some respect enmity to grace yet certainly there is far more hope of the just careful moral man which hath used all those restraints which are given him that he shall be called and saved of such a one we are to judge far more comfortably and expect more confidently than of another more habituate sinner negligent of the commands of either God or nature And this I conceive I have in some measure proved through each part of the former discourse and so I should dismiss
moral men seem to me in as good if not better case than the other term of comparison the careless negligent debauch't men For upon their grounds is it not as easie for the converting spirit to enter and subdue one Lucifer one proud Devil in the heart otherwise pretty well qualified as to deal with a whole legion of blasphemous violent riotous railing ignorant Devils I have done all with the confutation of this loose groundless opinion which if 't were true would yet prove of dangerous consequence to be preached in abating and turning our edge which is of it self blunt and dull enough toward goodness nay certainly it hath proved scandalous to those without as may appear by that boast and exultancy of Campian in his Eighth reason where he upbraids us English-men of our abominable Lutheran licentious doctriâ—e as he calls it Quanto sceleratior es tanto vicinior gratiae and therefore I do not repent that I have been somewhat large in the refuting of it as also because it doth much import to the clearing of my discourse for if the meer moral men be farthest from Heaven then have I all this while busied my self and tormented you with an unprofitable nay injurious preparation whereas I should have prescribed you a shorter easier call by being extremely sinful according to these two Aphorisms of Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The strongest bodies are in greatest danger and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and height of a disease is the fittest opportunity for a miraculous cure But beloved let us more considerately bethink our selves let us study and learn and walk a more secure probable way to Heaven and for those of us which are yet unregenerate though we obtained no grace of God but that of nature and reason and our Christianity to govern us yet let us not contemn those ordinary restraints which these will afford us let us attend in patience sobriety and humility and prayers the good time and leisures of the spirit let us not make our reasonable soul our profession of men of Christians ashamed of us let not the heathen and beasts have cause to blush at us let us remain men till it may please him to call us into Saints lest being plunged in habitual confident sinning that Hell and Tophet on Earth the very omnipotent mercy of God be in a manner foiled to hale us out again let us improve rack and stretch our natural abilities to the highest that although according to our thirteenth Article we cannot please God yet we may not mightily provoke him Let every man be in some proportion to his gifts Christs Baptist and forerunner and harbinger in himself that whensoever he shall appear or knock he may enter lodge and dwell without resistence Lastly after all thy preparations be not secure if the bridegroom will not vouchsafe to rest with you all your provision is in vain all the morality and learning and gifts and common graces unless Christ at last be born in us are but embryo's nay abortives rude imperfect horrid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Philosopher dies in his nonage in whom Christ was never born The highest reach of years and learning is but infancy without the virility and manhood of the spirit by which we are made perfect men in Christ Jesus Wherefore above all things in the world let us labour for this perfection let us melt and dissolve every faculty and spirit about us in pursuit of it and at last seal and bless and crown our endeavours with our prayers and with all the Rhetorick and means and humility and violence of our souls importune and lay hold on the sanctifying Spirit and never leave till he hath blessed and breathed on us O thou mighty controuling holy hallowing Ghost be pleased with thine effectual working to suppress in us all resistence of the pride of nature and prepare us for thy kingdom of grace here and glory hereafter Now to him which hath elected us hath created and redeemed us c. The X. Sermon JOHN vii 48. Have any of the Pharisees believed on him IT is observable from History with what difficulty Religion attempts to propagate and establish it self with the many what Countenance and encouragement it hath required from those things which are most specious and pompous in the World how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and correspondencies and submit to the poor condition of sustaining it self by those beggarly helps which the World and the flesh will afford it Two main pillars which it relies on are Power and Learning the Camp and the Schools or in a word authority of great ones and countenance of Scholars the one to force and extort obedience the other to insinuate belief and assent the first to ravish the second to perswade One instance for all if we would plant Christianity in Turky we must first invade and conquer them and then convince them of their follies which about an hundred years ago Cleonard proposed to most Courts of Christendom and to that end himself studied Arabick that Princes would joyn their strength and Scholars their brains and all surprize them in their own land and language at once besiege the Turk and his Alcoran put him to the sword and his religion to the touchstone command him to Christianity with an high hand and then to shew him the reasonableness of our commands Thus also may we complain but not wonder that the Reformation gets ground so slow in Christendom because the forces and potent abettors of the Papacy secure them from being led captive to Christ as long as the Pope is riveted so fast in his chair and as long as the rulers take part with him there shall be no doubt of the truth of their religion unless it please God to back our arguments with steel and to raise up Kings and Emperours to be our Champions we may question but never confute his supremacy Let us come with all the power and Rhetorick of Paul and Barnabas all the demonstrations of reason and spirit yet as long as they have such Topicks against us as the authority of the Rulers and Pharisees we may dispute out our hearts and preach out our Lungs and gain no proselytes all that we shall get is but a scoffe and a curse a Sarcasm and an Anathema in the words next after my text This people which know not the law are cursed there is no heed to be taken to such poor contemptible fellows To bring all home to the business of the text Let Christ come with all the enforcement and violence and conviction of his spirit sublimity of his speech and miracles all the power of Rhetorick and Rhetorick of his power so that all that see or hear bear witness that never man spake as this man yet all this shall be accounted but a delusion but an inchantment of some seduced wretches unless the great men or deep scholars will be pleased
it or as the same word is rendred Eccles xxviii 3. no pardon no remission wrought by it a bare going down into the grave that no man is better for It doth even frustrate the sufferings of Christ and make him have paid a ransom to no purpose and purchased an inheritance at an infinite rate and no man the better for it Again Christ is not only contemn'd but injur'd not only slighted but robb'd he loses not only his price and his thanks but his servant which he hath bought and purchased with his blood For redemption is not an absolute setting free but the buying out of an Usurpers hands that he may return to his proper Lord changing him from the condition of a captive to a subject He which is ransomed from the Gallies is not presently a King but only recovered to a free and tolerable service nay generally if he be redeemed he is eo nomine a servant by right and equity his Creature that redeemed him according to the express words Luke i. 74. That we being delivered might serve him Now a servant is a possession part of ones estate as truly to be reckoned his as any part of his inheritance So that every unbeliever is a thief robs Christ not only of the honour of saving him but of one of the Members of his family of part of his goods his servant nay 't is not a bare theft but of the highest size a sacriledge stealing an holy instrument a vessel out of Gods Temple which he bought and delivered out of the common calamity to serve him in holiness Luke i. 74. to be put to holy special services In the third place Faith may be considered in reference to God the Father and that 1. as the Author or fountain of this Theological grace 2. as the commander of this duty of believing and either of these will aggravate the unbelievers guilt and add more articles to his indictment As God is the Author of faith so the Infidel resists and abandons and flies from all those methods all those means by which God ordinarily produces Faith all the power of his Scriptures all the blessings of a Christian education all the benefits of sacred knowledge in sum the prayers the sweat the lungs the bowels of his Ministers in Christs stead beseeching you to be reconciled 1 Cor. v. 20. spending their dearest spirits and even praying and preaching out their souls for you that you would be friends with God through Christ All these I say the Infidel takes no notice of and by his contempt of these inferiour graces shews how he would carry himself even towards Gods very spirit it it should come in power to convert him he would hold out and bid defiance and repel the omnipotent God with his omnipotent charms of mercy he that contemns Gods ordinary means would be likely to resist his extraordinary were there not more force in the means then forwardness in the man and thanks be to that controuling convincing constraining spirit if ever he be brought to be content to be saved He that will not now believe in Christ when he is preached would have gone very near if he had lived then to have given his consent andjoyn'd his suffrage in crucifying him A man may guess of his inclination by his present practices and if he will not now be his Disciple 't was not his innocence but his good fortune that he did not then betray him 'T was well he was born amongst Christians or else he might have been as sowr a prosest enemy of Christ as Pilate or the Pharisees an unbelieving Christian is for all his livery and profession but a Jew or Heathen and the Lord make him sensible 〈◊〉 his condition Lastly consider this duty of faith in respect of God the Father commanding it and then you shall find it the main precept of the Bible 'T were long to shew you the ground of it in the law of 〈◊〉 the obscure yet discernable mention of it in the moral law 〈◊〉 transcendently in the main end of all and distinctly though â—ot clearly in the first Commandment he that hath a mind to see may find it in Pet. Baro. de praest dignit div legis 'T were as â—â—â—som to muster up all the commands of the Old Testament which exactly and determinately drive at belief in Christ as generally in those places where the Chaldee Paraphrase reads instead of God Gods Word as Fear not Abraham for I am thy shield say they thy word is thy shield which speaks a plain command of faith for not to fear is to trust not to fear on that ground because Gods Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Word Joh. i. 1. i. e. Christ is ones shield is nothing in the world but to believe and rely and fasten and depend on Christ Many the like commands of Faith in Christ will the Old Testament afford and the new is nothing else but a perpetual inculcating of it upon us a driving and calling entreating and enforcing wooing and hastning us to believe In which respect the Schools calls it also necessary necessitate praecepti a thing which though we should be never the better for we are bound to perform So that though faith were not able to save us yet infidelity would damn us it being amongst others a direct breach of a natural a moral nay an Evangelical Commandment And so much for the danger of infidelity considered positively in relation to the Subject whom it deprives of Heaven the Object Christ and his offers in the Gospel which it frustrates and lastly the Author and commander of it God the Father whom it resists disobeys and scorns You will perhaps more feelingly be affected to the loathing of it if we proceed to the odious and dangerous condition of it above all other sins and breaches in the world which is my third part its comparative sinfulness It shall be more tolerable c. And this will appear if we consider it 1. in it self 2. in its consequences In it self it is fuller of guilt in its consequences fuller of danger then any ordinary breach of the moral Law In it self so it is 1. the greatest aversion from God in which aversion the School-men place the formalis ratio the very essence of sin it is the perversest remotion and turning away of the soul from God and getting as far as we can out of his sight or ken the forbidding of all manner of commerce or spiritual traffick or correspondence with God as may appear by that admirable place Heb. X. 38. The just shall live by faith but if any man draw back my soul hath no pleasure in him and verse 39. We are not of them which draw back unto perdition but of them that do believe to the saving of the soul Where the phrase of drawing back oppos'd here to faith and believing is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cowardly pusillanimous subducing of ones self a
intent to their study from medling at all with this science about the soul for he plainly tells them in his first de anima 't is too hard for any ordinary capacity and yet in the first of the Metaph. he defines the wise man to be one who besides his own accurate knowledg of hard things as the Causes of the soul c. is also able to teach any body else who hath such an habit of knowledg and such a command over it that he can make any Auditor understand the abstrusest mystery in it So then out of his own words he is convinced to have had no skill no wisdom in the business of the soul because he could not explain nor communicate this knowledg to any but choice Auditors The truth is these were but shifts of pride and ambitious pretences to cloak a palpable ignorance under the habit of mysterious deep speculation when alas poor man all that which he knew or wrote of the soul was scarce worth learning only enough to confute his fellow ignorant Philosophers to puzzle others to puff up himself but to profit instruct or edifie none In the third place concerning happiness he plainly bewrays himself to be a coward not daring to meddle with Divinity For 1 Eth. c. 9. being probably given to understand or rather indeed plainly convinced that if any thing in the world were then happiness must likely be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the gift of God bestowed on men yet he there staggers at it speaks sceptically and not so magisterially as he is wont dares not be so bold as to define it and at last does not profess his ignorance but takes a more honourable course and puts it off to some other place to be discust Where Andronicus Rhodius his Greek Paraphrase tells us he meant his Tract 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 about Providence but in all Laertius his Catalogue of the multitude of his writings we find no such title and I much suspect by his other carriages that the man was not so valiant as to deal with any so unwieldy a subject as the Providence would have proved Sure I am he might if he had had a mind to it have quitted himself of his engagements and seasonably enough have defined the fountain of happiness there in Ethicks but in the 10. c. it appears that it was no pretermission but ignorance not a care of deferring it to a fitter place but a necessary silence where he was not able to speak For there mentioning happiness and miserableness after death where he might have shewed his skill if he had had any he plainly betrays himself an arrant naturalist in defining all the felicity and misery to be the good or ill proof of their friends and children left behind them which are to them being dead happiness or miseries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of which they are not any way sensible But of what hath been spoken it is plain that the heathen never looked after God of their own accord but as they were driven upon him by the necessity of their study which from the second causes necessarily lead them in a chain to some view of the first mover and then some of them either frighted with the light or despairing of their own abilities were terrified or discouraged from any farther search some few others sought after him but as Aristotle saith the Geometer doth after a right line only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a contemplator of truth but not as the knowledg of it is any way useful or conducible to the ordering or bettering of their lives they had an itching desire to know the Deity but neither to apply it as a rule to their actions nor to order their actions to his glory For generally whensoever any action drove them on any subject which intrenched on Divinity you shall find them more flat then ordinary not handling it according to any manner of accuracy or sharpness but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as much use or as little as their study in the search of things constrained them to and then for most part they fly off abruptly as if they were glad to be quit of so cumbersom a subject Whence Aristotle observes that the whole Tract de causis was obscurely and inartificially handled by the ancients and if sometimes they spake to the purpose 't was as unskilful unexercised fencers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they lay on and sometimes strike a lucky blow or two but more by chance then skill sometimes letting fall from their pens those truths which never entred their understandings as Theophilus ad Aulo observes of Homer and Hesiod that being inspired by their Muses i. e. the devil spake according to that spirit lyes and fables and exact Atheism and yet sometimes would stumble upon a truth of Divinity as men possest with Devils did sometimes confess Christ and the evil spirits being adjured by his name came out and confest themselves to be devils Thus it is plain out of the Philosophers and Heathen discourses 1. Of God 2. The soul 3. Happiness that they were also ignorant as ignorance is opposed to piety or spiritual wisdom which was to be proved by way of premise in the 2. place Now in the third place for the guilt of their ignorance that it was a perverse gross malicious and unexcusable ignorance you shall briefly judge Aristotle 1 Met. 2. being elevated above ordinary in his discourse about wisdom confesses the Knowledg of God to be the best Knowledg and most honourable of all but of no manner of use or necessity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. No knowledg is better then this yet none more unnecessary as if the Evidence of truth made him confess the nobility of this wisdom but his own supine stupid perverse resolutions made him contemn it as unnecessary But that I may not charge the accusation too hard upon Aristotle above others and take as much pains to damn him as the Colen Divines did to save him we will deal more at large as Aristotle prescribes his wise men 1 Met. and rip up to you the unexcusableness of the heathen ignorance in general 1. by the authority of Clemens who is guest to be one of their kindest patrons in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where having cited many testimonies out of them concerning the unity he concludes thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Seeing that the Heathen had some sparks of the divine truth some gleanings out of the written word and yet make so little use of it as they do they do saith he shew the power of Gods word to have been revealed to them and accuse their own weakness that they did not improve it to the end for which it was sent that they encreased it not into a saving knowledg where by the way the word weakness is used by Clement by way of softning or mercy as here the Apostle useth ignorance when he
even become their property radicated in their mythical times and by continual succession derived down to them by their generations So that if either a natural man with the eye of reason or a spiritual man by observation of Gods other acts of justice should look upon the Gentiles in that state which they were in at Christs coming all of them damnable superstitious or rather idolatrous in their worship all of them damnable prophane in their lives and which was worse all of them peremptorily resolved and by a law of homage to the customs of their fathers necessarily engaged to continue in the road of damnation he would certainly give the whole succession of them over as desperate people infinitely beyond hopes or probability of salvation And this may appear by St. Peter in the 10. of the Acts where this very thing that the Gentiles should be called was so incredible a mystery that he was fain to be cast into a trance and to receive a vision to interpret it to his belief and a first or a second command could not perswade him to arise kill and eat verse 16. that is to preach to Gentiles he was still objecting the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prophaneness and uncleanness of them And at last when by the assurance of the spirit verse 15. and the Heathen Cornelius his discourse with him he was plainly convinced what otherwise he never dreamt possible that God had a design of mercy on the Gentiles he breaks out into a phrase both of acknowledgment and admiration Of a truth I perceive c verse 34. and that you may not judg it was one single Doctors opinion 't is added verse 45. And they of the Circumcision which believed were astonished because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost Nay in the 3. to the Ephesians verse 10. it is plain that the calling of the Gentiles was so strange a thing that the Angels themselves knew not of it till it was effected For this was the mystery which from the beginning of the world had been hid in God verse 9. which was now made known by the Church to principalities and powers v. 10. The brief plain meaning of which hard place is that by S. Paul's preaching to the Gentiles by this new work done in the Church to wit the calling of the Gentiles the Angels came to understand somewhat which was before too obscure for them till it was explained by the event and in it the manifold wisdom of God And this Proposition I might prove to you by many Topicks 1. by symtoms that their estate was desperate and their disease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 very very mortal as that God when he would mend a people he punisheth them with afflictions when he intends to stop a current of impetuous sinners he lays the ax to the root in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or total subversion of them but when his punishments are spiritual as they were here when he strikes neither with the rod nor with the sword but makes one sin the punishment of another as unnatural lust of idolatry and the like when he leaves a nation to it self and the very judgment laid upon them makes them only less capable of mercy then is it much to be feared that God hath little mercy intended for that people their desertion being a forerunner of judgment without mercy 2. I might prove it ab exemplo and that exactly with a nec datur dissimile in Scripture that the nine Monarchies which the learned observe in Scripture were each of them destroyed for idolatry in which sin the Heathen now received to mercy surpass all the precedent world and for all their many destructions still uniformly continued in their provocation These and the like arguments I purposely omit as concerning St. Peter's vision mentioned before out of the 10. of the Acts sufficiently to clear the point and therefore judging any farther enlargment of proofs superfluous I hasten with full speed to Application And first from the consideration of our estate who being the off-spring of those Gentiles might in the justice of God have been left to Heathenism and in all probability till St. Peter's vision discovered the contrary were likely to have been pretermitted eternally to make this both the motive and business of our humiliation for there is such a Christian duty required of us for which we ought to set apart some tithe or other portion of time in which we are to call our selves to an account for all the general guilts for all those more Catholick engagements that either our stock our nation the sins of our progenitors back to the beginning of the world nay the common corruption of our nature hath plunged us in To pass by that ranker guilt of actual sins for which I trust every man here hath daily some solemn Assizes to arraign himself my Text will afford us yet some farther indictments if 1700 years ago our father were then an Amorite and mother an Hittite if we being then in their loyns were inclosed in the compass of their Idolatry and as all in Adam so besides that we again in the Gentilism of our Fathers were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation how are we to humble our selves infinitely above measure to stretch and wrack and torture every power of our souls to its extent thereby to inlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against our selves which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of There is not a better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the world no more powerful medicine for the softning of the soul and keeping it in a Christian tenderness then this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable of this tiring of it out and bringing it down into the dust in the sense of its spiritual engagements For 't is impossible for him who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky vain fluctuating proud stubborn heart in the world 'T is impossible I say for him either wilfully to run into any actual sins or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his integrity This very one meditation that we all here might justly have been left in Heathenism and that the sins of the Heathens shall be imputed to us their children if we do not repent is enough to loosen the toughest strongest spirit to melt the flintiest heart to humble the most elevated soul to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries that it shall never have courage or confidence to venter on the danger of particular Rebellions 2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety which was of so hainous importance to examine our selves by their indictment 1. for our learning 2. for our lives 3. for the life of grace in us 1. For our learning Whether that be not mixed
with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance with a delight and acquiescence and contentation in those lower Elements which have nothing of God in them whether we have not sacrificed the liveliest and spritefullest part of our age and souls in these Philological and Physical disquisitions which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at Divinity if they be not set upon in that respect and made use of to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement their best friend they are very hurtful and of dangerous issue Whether out of our circle of humane heathen learning whence the Fathers produced precious antidotes we have not suckt the poyson of unhallowed vanity and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular or a satiety or loathing of our Theological learning as being too course and homely for our quainter palates Whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the Heathen knowledge as trusting to our selves or wit and good parts like the Philosophers in Athenagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not vouchsafing to be taught by God even in matters of religion but every man consulting and believing and relying on his own reason Again in making our study an instrument only to satisfie our curiosity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as speculators of some unknown truths not intending or desiring thereby either to promote vertue good works or the Kingdom of God in our selves or which is the ultimate end which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge the glory of God in others 2. In our lives to examine whether there are not also many relicks of heathenism altars erected to Baalim to Ceres to Venus and the like Whether there be not many amongst us whose God is their belly their back their lust their treasure or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that earthly unknown God whom we have no one name for and therefore is called at large the God of the world Whether we do not with as much zeal and earnestness and cost serve and worship many earthy vanities which our own phansies deisie for us as ever the Heathen did their multitude and shole of gods And in brief whether we have not found in our selves the sins as well as the blood of the Gentiles and acted over some or all the abominations set down to judge our selves by Rom. i. from the 21. verse to the end Lastly for the life of grace in us Whether many of us are not as arrant heathens as meer strangers from spiritual illumination and so from the mystical Commonwealth of Israel as any of them Clem. Strom. 2. calls the life of your unregenerate man a Heathen life and the first life we have by which we live and move and grow and see but understand nothing and 't is our regeneration by which we raise our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still meer Gentiles and Tatianus farther that without the spirit we differ from beasts only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the articulation of our voice So that in fine neither cur reason nor Christian profession distinguisheth us either from beast or Gentiles only the spirit is the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the Heathen sons of darkness Wherefore I say to conclude we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make a most earnest search and inquest on our selves whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism this ignorance this unregeneracy of nature and elevated any degree in the estate of grace and if we find our selves still Gentiles and which is worse then that still senseless of that our condition we must strive and work and pray our selves our of it and not suffer the temptations of the flesh the temptations of our nature the temptations of the world nay the temptations of our secular proud learning lull us one minute longer in that carnal security lest after a careless unregenerate natural life we die the death of those bold not vigilant but stupid Philosophers And for those of us who are yet any way Heathenish either in our learning or lives which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance O Lord make us in time sensible of this our condition and whensoever we shall humble our selves before thee and confess unto thee the sinfulness of our nature the ignorance of our Ancestors and every man the plague of his own heart and repent and turn and pray toward thy house then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and when thou hearest forgive remember not our offences nor the offences of our Heathen Fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins but spare us O Lord spare thy people whom thy Son hath redeemed and thy spirit shall sanctifie from the guilt and practice of their rebellions Now to God who hath elected us hath c. The XIII Sermon Acts XVII 30. And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent THEY which come from either mean or dishonoured Progenitors will desire to make up their fathers defect by their own industry 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Leo in his Tacticks Will be more forward to undertake any valiant enterprize to recover that reputation which their Ancestors cowardice and unworthy carriage forfeited So doth it nearly concern the son of a bankrupt to set upon all the courses of Thrift and stratagems of fiugality to get out of that hereditary poverty in which his fathers improvidence had engaged him Thus is it also in the poverty and bankrupt estate of the Soul they who come from prodigal Ancestors which have embezled all the riches of Gods mercy spent profusely all the light of nature and also some sparks out of the Scriptures and whatsoever knowledg and directions they met with either for the ordering of their worship or their lives spent it all upon harlots turned all into the adoring of those Idol-gods wherein consists the spiritual adultery of the soul Those I say who are the stems of this ignorant profane Idolatrous root ought to endeavour the utmost of their powers and will in probability be so wise and careful as to lay some strict obligations on themselves to strive to some perfection in those particulars which their Ancestors fail'd in that if the Gentiles were perversly blind and resolutely peremptorily ignorant then must their Progeny strive to wipe off the guilt and avoid the punishment of their ignorance Now this ignorance of theirs being not only by Clemens and the fathers but by Trismegistus in his Paemander defined to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a prophaneness an irrational sleep and drunkenness of the soul in sum an ignorance of themselves and of God and a stupid neglect of any duty belonging to either this ignorance being either in its self or in its fruits 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wickedness of the soul and all manner
shall shew him the law and light of nature in himself which before he never dreamt of Of those of you that ever spared one minute from your worldly affairs to think of your spiritual there is one thought that suddenly comes upon you and makes short work of all that spiritual care of your selves You conceive that you are of your selves utterly unable to understand or think or do any thing that is good and therefore you resolve it a great pain to no purpose ever to go about so impossible a project God must work the whole business in you you are not able of your selves so much as either see or move and that is the business which by chance you fell upon as soon as shook off again and being resolved you never had any eyes you are content to be for ever blind unless as it was wont to be in the old Tragedies some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some new supernatural power come down and bore your foreheads and thrust and force eyes into your heads 'T is a blessed desire and gracious humility in any one to invoke God to every thought they venture on and not to dare to pretend to the least sufficiency in themselves but to acknowledge and desire to receive all from God but shall we therefore be so ungratefully religious as for ever to be a craving new helps and succours and never observe or make use of what we have already obtained as 't is observed of covetous men who are always busied about their Incomes are little troubled with disbursements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without any proportion betwixt their receipts and expences Shall we be so senseless as to hope that the contempt of one blessing will be a means to procure us as many I told you that God had written a law in the hearts of every one of you which once was able and is not now quite deprived of its power to furnish with knowledge of good and evil and although by original and actual and habitual sin this inheritance be much impaired this stock of precepts drawn low yet if you would but observe those directions which it would yet afford you if you would but practice whatever that divine light in your souls should present and commend to you you might with some face petition God for richer abilities and with better confidence approach and beg and expect the grace that should perfect you to all righteousness In the mean time bethink your selves how unreasonable a thing it is that God should be perpetually casting away of alms on those who are resolved to be perpetually bankrupts how it would be reckoned prodigality of mercies to purchase new lands for him that scorns to make use of his inheritance As ever you expect any boon from God look I conjure you what you have already received call in your eyes into your brains and see whether your natural reason there will not furnish you with some kind of profitable though not sufficient directions to order your whole lives by bring your selves up to that stay'dness of temper as never to venture on any thing till you have askt your own souls advice whether it be to be done or no and if you can but observe its dictates and keep your hands to obey your head if you can be content to abstain when the soul within you bids you hold you shall have no cause to complain that God hath sent you impotent into the world but rather acknowledge it an unvaluable mercy of his that hath provided such an eye within you to direct you if you will but have patience to see such a curb to restrain and prevent you if thou wilt only take notice of its checks 'T is a thing that would infinitely please the Reader to observe what a price the Heathens themselves set upon this light within them which yet certainly was much more dimmed and obscured in them by their idolatry and superstition then I hope it can be in any Christian soul by the unruliest passion Could ever any one speak more plainly and distinctly of it then the Pythagoreans and Stoicks have done who represent conscience not only as a guide and moderator of our actions but as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a tutelary spirit or Angel or genius which never sleeps or dotes but is still present and employed in our behalf And this Arrian specifies to be the reasonable soul which he therefore accounts of as a part of God sent out of his own essence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a piece or shread or as others more according to modest truth call it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a ray or beam of that invisible Sun by which our dull unactive frozen bodies after the fall were warmed and re-inlivened Now if any one shall make a diligent inquisition in himself shall as the Philosopher in his Cynical humour light a candle to no purpose or as the Prophet Jeremy seek and make hue and cry after a man through all Jerusalem and yet not meet with him if I say any body shall search for this light in himself and find all darkness within then will you say I have all this while possest you with some phansies and Ideas without any real profit to be received from them you will make that complaint as the women for our Saviour We went to seek for him and when we went down all was dark and emptiness They have taken him away and I know not where they have laid him Nay but the error is in the seeker not in my directions he that would behold the Sun must stay till the cloud be over he that would receive from the fire either light or warmth must take the pains to remove the ashes There be some encumbrances which may hinder the most active qualities in the world from working and abate the edge of the keenest metal In sum there is a cloud and gloom and vail within thee like that darkness on the face of the deep when the earth was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without form and void Gen. i. 2. or like that at Lots door among the Sodomites or that of Aegypt thick and palpable and this have we created to our selves a sky full of tempestuous untamed affections this cloud of vapors have we exhaled out of the lower part of our soul our sensitive faculty and therewith have we so fill'd the air within us with sad black meteors that the Sun in its Zenith the height or pride of its splendor would scarce be able to pierce through it So that for to make a search for this light within thee before thou hast removed this throng and croud of passions which encompass it and still to complain thou canst not meet with it were to bring news that the Sun is gone out when a tempest hath only masked it or to require a candle to give thee light through a mud-wall Thou must provide a course to clear the sky and then thou shalt not need to
can be required of a Christian they look no farther then the outward work observe not what heart is under this outside but resolve their estate is safe they have as much interest in Heaven as any one Such men as these the Apostle begins to character and censure in the 12. verse of the Chapter As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh c. They that stand only on a fair specious out-side and think all the sap and life of Religion lies in the bark they do this and this these will have you circumcised and constrain you to a many burthensome ceremonies measuring out Religion to you by the weight thus much is required of you to do as Popish Confessors set their deluded votaries their task of Ave Maries and Pater nosters by tale and thus you may be sure to be saved In brief the Apostle here shews the unprofitableness of all these and sets up the inward sanctity and renewedness of heart against them all as the only thing that will stand us in stead and appear to be of any weight in the balance of the sanctuary If you observe all the commands and submit your selves to all the burden of both Law and Gospel and bear it upon your shoulders never so valiantly if you be content to be circumcised as Christ was or because he hath now abrogated that make use of Christian liberty and remain uncircumcised notwithstanding all inducements to the contrary In brief be you outwardly never so severe a Jew or Christian all that is nothing worth there is but one thing most peremptorily required of you and that you have omitted For neither circumcision availeth any thing neither uncircumcision but a new creature The particle but in the front of my Text is exclusive and restrictive it excludes every thing in the world from pretending to avail any thing from being believed to do us any good For by circumcision the Church of the Jews and by uncircumcision the whole profession of Christian Religion being understood when he saith neither of these availeth any thing he forcibly implies that all other means all professions all observances that men think or hope to get Heaven by are to no purpose and that by consequence it exactly restrains to the new creature there it is to be had and no where else thus doth he slight and undervalue and even reprobate all other wayes to Heaven that he may set the richer price and raise a greater estimation in us of this The substance of all the Apostles discourse and the ground-work of mine shall be this one Aphorism Nothing is efficaciously available to salvation but a renewed regenerated heart For the opening of which we will examine by way of doctrine wherein this new creature consists and then by way of use the necessity of that and unprofitableness of all other plausible pretending means and first of the first wherein this new creature consists 'T is observable that our state of nature and sin is in Scripture exprest ordinarily by old age the natural sinful man that is all our natural affections that are born and grow up with us are called the old man as if since Adams fall we were decrepit and feeble and aged as soon as born as a child begotten by a man in a consumption never comes to the strength of a man is alwayes weak and crazy and puling hath all the imperfections and corporal infirmities of age before he is out of his Infancy And according to this ground the whole Analogy of Scripture runs all that is opposite to the old decrepit state to the dotage of nature is phrased new The new Covenant Mark i. 27. The language of believers new tongues Mark xvi 17. A new commandment John xiii 34. A new man Ephes ii 15. In sum the state of grace is exprest by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all is become new 2 Cor. v. 17. So that old and new as it divides the Bible the whole state of things the world so it doth that to which all these serve man every natural man which hath nothing but nature in him is an old man be he never so young is full of years even before he is able to tell them Adam was a perfect man when he was but a minute old and all his children are old even in the cradle nay even dead with old age Eph. ii 5. And then consequently every spiritual man which hath somewhat elsé in him then he received from Adam he that is born from above John iii. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for it may be so rendred from the original as well as born again as our English read it he that is by Gods spirit quickned from the old death Ephes ii 5. he is contrary to the former a new man a new creature the old Eagle hath cast his beak and is grown young the man when old has entred the second time into his mothers womb and is born again all the gray hairs and wrinkles fall off from him as the scales from blind Tobits eyes and he comes forth a refin'd glorious beauteous new creature you would wonder to see the change So that you find in general that the Scripture presumes it that there is a renovation a casting away of the old coat a youth and spring again in many men from the old age and weak bed-rid estate of nature Now that you may conceive wherein it consists how this new man is brought forth in us by whom it is conceived and in what womb 't is carried I will require no more of you then to observe and understand with me what is meant by the ordinary phrase in our Divines a new principle or inward principle of life and that you shall do briefly thus A mans body is naturally a sluggish unactive motionless heavy thing not able to stir or move the least animal motion without a soul to enliven it without that 't is but a carcass as you see at death when the soul is separated from it it returns to be but a stock or lump of flesh the soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the body and soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the body without the soul Set a man to remove a mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it then a stone in the street could do but now let an omnipotent power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joyned to this soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the primitive Church of a grain of faith removing mountains and believe me all miracles are not yet out-dated The work of regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual life on one
grace into holy spiritual acts of Faith and Obedience from which 't is ordinarily said that Infants baptized have habitual Faith as they may be also said to have habitual repentance and the habits of all other graces because they have the root and seed of those beauteous healthful flowers which will actually flourish then when they come to years And this I say is so frequent to be performed at Baptism that ordinarily 't is not wrought without that means and in those means we may expect it as our Church doth in our Liturgies where she presumes at every Baptism that it hath pleased God to regenerate the Infant by his holy Spirit And this may prove a solemn piece of comfort to some who suspect their state more then they need and think 't is impossible that they should be in a regenerate condition because they have not as yet found any such notable change in themselves as they see and observe in others These men may as well be jealous they are not men because they cannot remember when their soul came to them if they can find the effects of spiritual life in themselves let them call it what they will a religious education or a custom of well doing or an unacquaintedness with sin let them comfort themselves in their estate and be thankful to God who visited them thus betimes let it never trouble them that they were not once as bad as other men but rather acknowledge Gods mercy who hath prevented such a change and by uniting them to him in the cradle hath educated and nursed them up in familiarity with the Spirit Lastly the Spirit sometimes enters into our hearts upon occasional emergencies the sense of Gods judgments on our selves or others the reflexion on his mercies the reading good Books falling into vertuous acquaintance but most eminently at and with the preaching of the Word and this by degrees as it seems to us but indeed at some one especial season or other which yet perhaps we are not able to discern and here indeed are we ordinarily to expect this guest if we have not yet found him here doth it love to be cherished and refreshed and warm'd within us if we have it for even it is the power of God unto salvation Rom. i. 16. The 3. condition in which this Spirit comes into our hearts is as an inhabitant or house-keeper The Spirit saith Austin first is in us then dwels in us before it dwels it helps us to believe when it dwels it helps and perfects and improves our faith and accomplishes it with all other concomitant graces So I say here the Spirit is then said to inhabit and keep house in us not as soon as it is entertained and received but when it breaks forth into acts and declares it self before all men When men see our good works and glorifie our Father Matth. v. 16. Before we were said to live in the Spirit now to walk as you shall see the phrases used distinctly Gal v. 25 〈◊〉 walk that is to go about conspicuously in the sight of all men breaking forth into works as the Sun after the dispersions of a mist or cloud whereby all men see and acknowledge his faith and obedience and find their own evil wayes reprehended and made manifest by his good as is noted in the 13. verse All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light Semblable to which is that of the Atheists repining at the godly man 2 Wisd ii 14. He is made to reprove our thoughts Thus is the third Quere resolved also when this inward principle enters 1. It comes as an harbenger in every outward restraint by which God keeps us from sinning 2. It enters as a guest in some season or other once for all In the womb at Baptism at some Sermon sometimes at a notable tempest shaking and stirring us violently ordinarily and for the most part not to be discerned by us and lastly it comes and dwels with us and shews it self in its works yet that not at any set time after his entrance not constantly without ever covering his face but when and as often as it pleases and the flesh resisteth not To the last Quere What works it performs the answer shall be brief every thing that may be called spiritual Faith Repentance Charity Hope Self-denial and the rest but these not promiscuously or in an heap altogether but by a wise dispensation in time and by degrees The soul being enabled by this inward principle is equally disposed to the producing of all these and as occasions do occur doth actually perform and produce them so that in my conceit that question concerning the priority of Repentance or Faith is not either of such moment or difficulty as is by some disputers pretended The seeds of them both are at one time planted in the soul and then there is no Faith in any subject but there is Repentance also nor Repentance without Faith So that where it is said Without Faith 't is impossible to please God in any thing else 't is true but argues no necessary precedence of it before other graces for the habits of them all are of the same age in us and then also will it be as true that without Repentance or without Love Faith it self cannot please God for if it be truly acceptable Faith there is both Repentance and Love in the same womb to keep it company Thus are we wont to say that only Faith justifieth but not Faith alone and the reason these promises in Scripture are made sometimes to one grace precisely sometimes to another is because they are all at once rooted in the man and in their habits chain'd together inseparably Faith saves every man that hath it and yet the believing'st man under Heaven shall not be saved without Charity Charity hides a multitude of sins and yet the charitablest man in the world shall never have his score cross't without Repentance A catalogue of these fruits of the Spirit you may at your leisure make up to your selves for your tryal out of the fifth to the Gal. from the 22. verse and 1 Peter i 5. All these graces together though some belonging to one some to another faculty of the soul are yet all at once conceived in it at once begin their life in the heart though one be perhaps sooner ready to walk abroad and shew it self in the world then another As in the 2 of Kings iv 34. Elisha went up on the bed and lay on the child and put his mouth on his mouth and eyes upon his eyes and hands upon his hands and stretched himself upon the child and the flesh of the child waxed warm and verse 35. the child sneezed seven times and opened his eyes Thus I say doth the Spirit apply it self unto the soul and measure it self out to every part of it and then the spiritual life comes at once into the soul
as motion beginning in the centre diffuses it self equally through the whole sphere and affecteth every part of the circumference and the flesh of the child waxed warm where the flesh indefinitely signifieth every part of it together and in the spiritual sense the whole soul and this is when the inward principle when the habit enters Then for acts of life one perhaps shews it self before another as the child first sneezed seven times a violent disburthening it self of some troublesom humors that tickle in the head to which may be answerable our spiritual clearing and purging our selves by Self-denial the laying aside every weight Heb. xii 1. then opened his eyes which in our spiritual creature is spiritual illumination or the eye of Faith these I say may first shew themselves as acts and yet sometimes others before them yet all alike in the habit all of one standing one conception one plantation in the heart though indeed ordinarily like Esay and Jacob the rougher come out first We begin our spiritual life in Repentance and contrition and with many harsh twinges of the Spirit and then comes Faith like Jacob at the heels smooth and soft applying all the cordial promises to our penitent souls In brief if any judgment be to be made which of these graces is first in the regenerate man and which rules in chief I conceive Self denial and Faith to be there first and most eminent according to that notable place Matth xvi 24. where Christ seems to set down the order of graces in true Disciples Let him deny himself and take up his cross that is forgo all his carnal delights and embrace all manner of punishments and miseries prepare himself even to go and be crucified and then follow me that is by a lively faith believe in Christ and prize him before all the world besides and indeed in effect these two are but one though they appear to us in several shapes for Faith is nothing without Self-denial it cannot work till our carnal affections be subjected to it Believe a man may and have flesh and fleshly lust in him but unless Faith have the pre-eminence Faith is no Faith The man may be divided betwixt the law of his members and the law of his mind so many degrees of flesh so many of spirit but if there be constantly but an even balance or more of flesh then spirit if 3 degrees of spirit and 5 of flesh then can there not be said to be any true Self-denial and consequently any Faith no more then that can be said to be hot which hath more degrees of cold then heat in it In brief 't is a good measure of Self-denial that sets his faith in his Throne and when by it faith hath conquered though not without continual resistance when it hath once got the upper hand then is the man said to be regenerate whereupon it is that the regenerate state is called the life of Faith Faith is become a principle of the greatest power and activity in the soul And so much for these 4 Queries from which I conceive every thing that is material and directly pertinent to instruct you and open the estate of a new creature may be resolved And for other niceties how far we may prepare our selves how co-operate and joyn issue with the spirit whether it work irresistibly by way of physical influence or moral perswasion whether being once had it may totally or finally be lost again and the like these I say if they are fit for any I am resolved are not necessary for a Countrey Auditory to be instructed in 'T will be more for your profit to have your hearts raised then your brains puft up to have your spirits and souls inwardly affected to an earnest desire and longing after it which will perhaps be somewhat performed if we proceed to shew you the necessity of it and unavailableness of all things else and that by way of Use and Application And for the necessity of renewedness of heart to demonstrate that I will only crave of you to grant me that the performance of any one duty towards God is necessary and then it will prove it self for it is certain no duty to God can be performed without it For 't is not a fair outside a slight performance a bare work done that is accepted by God if it were Cain would deserve as much thanks for his sacrifice as his brother Abel for in the outside of them there was no difference unless perhaps on Cain's side that he was forwardest in the duty and offered first Gen. iv 3. But it is the inside of the action the marrow and bowels of it that God judges by If a sum in gross or a bag sealed up would pass for payment in Gods audit every man would come and make his accounts duly enough with him and what he wanted in gold for his payment should be made up in counters But God goes more exactly to work when he comes to call thee to an account of thy stewardship he is a God of thoughts and a searcher of the heart and reins and 't will then be a harder business to be found just when he examines or clear when he will judge The least spot and blemish in the face of it the least maim or imperfection in the offering the least negligence or coldness in the performance nay the least corruption in the heart of him that doth it hath utterly spoiled the sacrifice Be the bulk and skin of the work never so large and beautiful to the eye if it come not from a sanctified renewed gracious heart it will find no acceptance but that in the Prophet Who hath required it at your hands This is not it that God is taken with or such as he commanded it may pass for a complement or a work of course but never be valued as a duty or real service Resolve thy self to dwell no where but in the Church and there like Simeon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb plant thy self continually in a Pillar with thy eyes and words fixt and shot up perpetually towards Heaven If there be not a spirit within thee to give light to the eyes to add sighs and groans to the voice all this that thou hast done is nothing but as a blind mans pretensions to sight and a dumb mans claim to speech and so in like manner in all our duties which the world and carnal men set a price on And the reason is because every spiritual seeming work done by a natural man is not truly so 't is nothing less then that which it is said to be his prayers are not prayers lip-labour perhaps but not devotion his serving of God is formality not obedience his hope of Heaven not a hope but a phancy If God or Satan a judge or a tempter should come to reason with him about it he would soon be worsted never be able to maintain his title to it
In brief the fairest part of a natural man that which is least counterfeit his desire and good affections to spiritual things which we call favourably natural desires of spiritual obedience these I say are but false desires false affections 1. They have no solidity or permanency in the will only fluid and transitory some flight sudden wishes tempests and storms of a troubled mind soon blown over the least temptation will be sure to do it They are like those wavering prayers without any stay of faith Jam. 1. 6. like a wave of the sea driven by the wind and tost 2. That being which they have is counterfeit they are not that which they are taken for We are wont to say that acts are distinguished by their objects he sees truly which judges the thing to be that that it is 't is true indeed that another man sees he that takes blew for green but he does not see truly so also he only willeth a good thing that wills that in it which is truly good Now the natural man when he is said to chuse spiritual things as Heaven Happiness and the like he desires not a spiritual but a carnal thing in desiring Heaven he desires somewhat that would free him from misery in happiness a natural or moral good that would be acceptable to any creature under Heaven and so a Turk will desire paradise and that very impatiently in hope that he shall have his fill of lust there Generally you may mark that in such desires of spiritual things 't is some carnality that moves unregenerate men somewhat it is that may please the flesh and then 't is not the spiritual but the carnal part of it that is their object which they woo and make love too which you may judge of by this that they are frequent and importunate in their wishes for glory seldom or never for grace though that also may be wished for carnally to make us more renowned and better esteemed in the world For the most part I say they desire glory for that will make them happy and out of danger of worldly misfortunes remission of sins for these lie heavy on their consciences and give them many a twinge that they would fain be eased of but seldom petition for grace as if holiness without other conveniencies or gains were not worth the having And this arises from hence that our love of Christ grows by sending out and fastning our affections on him as an object fittest for our turns that will advantage us most but not by receiving in his Image and shape into our souls this indeed would make us not only love but imitate him and having once tasted long after him this would sanctifie our souls whereas the other doth but only satisfie our greedy affections By what hath been said 't is plain enough though it might be much more amplified that grace is of absolute necessity to performance of any holy work acceptable to God that without it whatsoever is done in spiritual matters is carnal not indeed spiritual but equivocally and absurdly so called The natural mans desires of Heaven are not desires of Heaven his faith no faith his believing of the Scripture infidelity because he doth not apply them particularly to himself to obey them In sum when he prayes hopes or give alms he does somewhat indeed and 't is well done of him but he doth not truly either pray or hope or give alms there is some carnality in them that hath poysoned them and quite altered the complexion the constitution and inward qualities of the work And then indeed how impatient should every Christian be of this Coloquintida within him There 's mors in ollâ as the Prophet once spake that 's death in the pot that so infects and kills every thing that comes out of it How should we abhor and loath and detest this old leaven that so besowres all our actions this Heathenism of ungenerate carnal nature which makes our best works so unchristian To insist longer upon this were but to encrease your thirst not to satisfie it to make you sensible of that marasmus and desperate drought that hath gone over your souls but not to help you to any waters for the cure that shall come next as the last work of this exercise to be performed in a word Having learnt what this new creature is and how absolutely necessary to a Christian O let us not defer one minute longer to examine our estates whether we are yet renewed or no and by the acts which we daily perform observe whether the sanctifying habit be as yet infused into our souls If the grounds of our best duties that which moves us in our holiest actions be found upon search to be but carnal if a careful religious education custom of the place which we live in fear of humane laws nay perhaps a good soft tender disposition and the like be the things that make thee love God and perform holy duties and not any inward principle of sanctity within thee I counsel thee to think better of thine estate and consider whether the like motives had it so hapned that thou hadst been born and brought up in Turky might not have made thee worship Mahumet I would be sorry to be rigid I fear thou wilt find they might well then a new course must be taken all thy former heathen carnal or at best good moral life all thy formal performances the best of thy natural desires must be content to be rank't here with circumcision and uncircumcision availing nothing there is no trust or confidence to be placed on these Aegyptian staves of reed Es xxxvi 6. And then if thou wilt not live heartless for ever if ever thou meanst to move or walk or do any thing you must to that Creator of Spirits and Lover of Souls and never leave solliciting till he hath breathed another breath into your nostrils another Soul into your Soul you must lay your self at his feet and with all the violence and Rhetorick and humility that these wants will prompt thee to and woo and importune the Holy Spirit to overshadow thee to conceive all holy graces spiritually in thee and if thou canst not suddenly receive a gracious answer that the Holy Ghost will come in unto thee and lodge with thee this night yet learn so much patience from thy beggarly estate as not to challenge him at thy own times but comfortably to wait his leisure There is employment enough for thee in the while to prepare the room against his coming to make use of all his common graces to cleanse and reform thy foul corruptions that when the Spirit comes it may find thee swept and garnish't All the outward means which God hath afforded thee he commands thee to make use of and will require it at thy hands in the best measure even before thou art regenerate though thou sin in all thy unregenerate performances for want of inward sanctitie yet 't is
yea sum of our belief we deny and bandy against all our lives long If the story of Christ coming to judgment set down in the xxv of Matthew after the 30. verse had ever entred through the doors of our ears to the inward closets of our hearts 't is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the world but only works of mercy and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give him in that one point he either entertains or repels us and therefore our care and negligence in this one business will prove us either Christians or Infidels But alas 't is too plain that in our actions we never dream either of the judgment or the arraignment our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural Besides our Alms-deeds which concern only the outside of our neighbour and are but a kind of worldly mercy there are many more important but cheaper works of mercy as good counsel spiritual instructions holy education of them that are come out of our loyns or are committed to our care seasonable reproof according to that excellent place Lev xix 17. Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but in any wise reprove him a care of carrying our selves that we may not scandal or injure or offer violence to the soul and tender conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree as concerning the welfare of other mens souls and the chief thing required of us at the day of judgment are yet so out-dated in our thoughts so utterly defaced and blotted out in the whole course of our lives that it seems we never expect that Christ in his Majesty as a Judge whom we apprehend and embrace and hug in his humility as a Saviour Beloved till by some severe hand held over our lives and particularly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy or other we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief the Saints on Earth and Angels in Heaven will shrewdly suspect that we do only say over that part of our Creed that we believe only that which is for our turn the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ which cost us nothing but do not proceed to his office of a Judge do not either fear his judgments or desire to make our selves capable of his mercies Briefly whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge and so destroys the sum of his Faith and this is another kind of secret Atheism Fourthly Our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledgement of the Holy Ghost and 't is well we have all conn'd his name there for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians what is reported of the Ephesian Disciples Acts xix 2. They have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. But not to suspect so much ignorance in any Christian we will suppose indeed men to know whatsoever they profess and enquire only whether our lives second our professions or whether indeed they are meer Infidels and Atheistical in this business concerning the Holy Ghost How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed have not yet any further use to put it to but only to make up the number of the Trinity have no special office to appoint for him no special mercy or gift or ability to beg of him in the business of their salvation but mention him only for fashion sake not that they ever think of preparing their bodies or souls to be Temples worthy to entertain him not that they ever look after the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts 2 Cor. i. 22. Further yet how many better learned amongst us do not yet in our lives acknowledge him in that Epithet annext to his title the Holy Ghost i. e. not only eminently in himself holy but causally producing the same quality in us from thence called the sanctifying and renewing Spirit How do we for the most part fly from and abandon and resist and so violently deny him when he once appears to us in this Attribute When he comes to sanctifie us we are not patient of so much sowreness so much humility so much non-conformity with the world as he begins to exact of us we shake off many blessed motions of the Spirit and keep our selves within garrison as far as we can out of his reach lest at any turn he should meet with and we should be converted Lastly the most ordinary morally qualified tame Christians amongst us who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit how do they yet reject him out of all their thoughts How seldom do many peaceable orderly men amongst us ever observe their wants or importune the assistance of this Spirit In sum 't was a shrewd speech of the Fathers which will cast many fair out-sides at the bar for Atheists That the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an Heathen and that 't is our regeneration only that raises us up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still meer Gentiles He that believes in his Creed the person nay understands in the Schools the Attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet sees them only in the fountain neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own soul he that is still unregenerate and continues still gaping and yawning stupid and senseless in this his condition is still for all his Creed and learning in effect an Atheist And the Lord of Heaven give him to see and endeavours to work and an heart to pray and his Spirit to draw and force him out of this condition Fifthly Not to cramp in every Article of our Creed into this Discourse we will only insist on two more We say therefore that we believe the forgiveness of sins and 't is a blessed confidence that all the treasures in the world cannot equal But do our selves keep equipage and hand in hand accompany this profession Let me catechize you a while You believe the forgiveness of sins but I hope not absolutely that the sufferings of Christ shall effectually clear every mans score at the day of judgment well then it must be meant only of those that by repentance and faith are grafted into Christ and shall appear at that great marriage in a wedding garment which shall be acknowledged the livery and colours of the Lamb. But do our lives ever stand to this explication and restriction of the Article Do they ever expect this beloved remission by performing the condition of repentance Do we ever
go about to make our selves capable of receiving this mercy conditionally offer'd us Nay do we not by our wilful stupidity and pertinacious continuing in sin nullifie in respect of us all that satisfaction of Christ and utterly abandon those means which must bring home this remission to us The truth is our faith runs only on general terms we are willing to lay all our sins on Christs shoulders and perswade our selves somewhat slightly and coldly that he will bear them in the root and in the fruit in the bullion and in the coyn in the gross and in the retail i. e. both our original and our actual transgressions but we never take any course to rest satisfied that we in particular shall participate of this happiness This requires the humiliation of the whole man the spirit of bondage for a while afterwards a second purity and virginity of the soul recovered by repentance and then a soberly grounded faith and confidence and an expressing of it by our own forgiving of others And till this piece of our Creed be thus explained and interpreted in our conversation we remain but confident Atheists not able to perswade any body that hears us that indeed we believe what we profess Sixthly and lastly The resurrection of the body and its consequent everlasting life is the close of our Faith and end and prop and encouragement and consummation of our hope and yet we take most pains of all to prove our selves Infidels in this our whole carriage both in the choice and observance of our Religion shew that we do not depend on it that we put no confidence in the resurrection If we went on this assurance we should contemn any worldly encouragement and make the same thing both the object and end of our service We should scorn to take notice of so poor a thing as profit or convenience is in a matter of so high importance knowing and expecting that our reward shall be great in Heaven This one thought of a resurrection and an infinite reward of any faithful undertaking of ours would make us disdain and almost be afraid of any temporal recompense for our worship of God for fear it should by paying us before-hand deprive us of that everlasting one We should catch and be ambitious of that expression of devotion which were most painful and least profitable as to worldly advantage and yet we in the stupidity of Atheistical hearts are so improvidently covetous so hasty and impatient in our Religion that unless some present gain allure and draw us we have no manner of life or spirit or alacrity to this as we count it unprofitable service of God The least incumbrance in the world will fright us from the greatest forwardness and nimbleness and activity in Religion and the least appearance of promotion or other like encouragement will produce and raise in us these affections and expressions of zeal which the expectation of the resurrection could never work in us Our Religion is somewhat like that of the Samaritans before Christs time either Jews or Heathens according as their King Antiochus would have them after Christs time were perpetually either Jews or Christians according as the Romans their new Lords and Masters either threatned or granted priviledge to the Jews If there were any thing to be gotten by the profession they would be as solemn Christians as any So when the Goths and Vandals over-run Italy and whether upon good affection or compulsion from God I know not spared them that fled to the Basilica in Rome the place where the Christians exercised then I say they which formerly persecuted the Christians now bore them company very friendly to their Churches and to save their lives fled to the Temple for a refuge which before they abomin'd and made use of Christianity for their safe-guard which they would not own for their Religion and hurried to that Sanctuary for their lives which they would not visit for their Souls The condition of our Religion is like that which is upbraided to Ephraim Hos X. 11. Ephraim is like an Heifer that loveth to tread out the Corn. 'T was prohibited by the law to muzzle the Ox or Heifer that treadeth out the Corn 't was allowed them to feed as long as they did the work and that made Ephraim love the toil so well because that at the very time he performed the labour he enjoy'd the fruit of it had as we say his wages in his hand had some present emolument that would ingratiate his work to him was not left to such a tedious expectation to so long a date as to wait for his reward till the resurrection those were too hard terms for him he could not endure to be ty'd so long up to the empty rack or feed upon the bit And thus hasty are we in the exacting of our reward for our service of God we will never set our hands to it unless we may make our conditions we are resolved not to be such fools as to serve God for nought to spend the quickest of our spirits in a sowre crabbed profession and expect our thanks at dooms-day This plainly demonstrates that however our theory be possest our practice places no trust no confidence no assurance in that part of our Creed the resurrection Again 't was an excellent argument to perswade doubtful Christians in the youth and non-age of the Church of the certainty of the resurrection that religious men and those whom undoubtedly God loved were full of sufferings in this world and lived and died many of them without any expression of Gods favour to them which made them certainly to conclude that no doubt God hath some other course to exhibit himself in the riches of his mercy to them and seeing there was no hope but in another world Verily there should be a reward for the righteous doubtless there is a God that judgeth the Earth and by this argument we may try our selves for the sincerity of our faith in this business If we can be patient to endure afflictions here and not complain or grumble for a respite and deliverance but keep all our hopes to be accomplisht defer all our happiness to be performed to us at the resâ—rrection and though God kill us yet trust in him and be able to see through death in a trust That our Redeemer lives and that with these eyes we shall behold him then may we chear up and perswade our selves on good grounds that our hearts and lives do assent to the resurrection which our tongues brag of Take no heaviness to heart but drive it away and remember the end But if this consideration cannot digest the least oppression of this life cannot give us patience for the lightest encumbrance but for all our Creed we still fly out into all outrages of passion and extacies of impatience we plainly betray our selves men of this present world whose happiness or misery is only that which is temporary and
among all other moral vertues they have purchased humility the best if there be any preparative for the receiving of grace Mean while we are not to be mistaken as if we thought Gods purposes tyed to mans good behaviour or mans moral goodness to woo and allure Gods Spirit as that the Almighty is not equally able to sanctifie the foulest soul by his converting grace and the less polluted or that he requires mans preparation but our position is that in ordinary charitable reason we ought to judge more comfortably and hope more confidently of a meer moral man naturally more careful of his wayes that he shall be both called and saved that God will with his Spirit perfect and crown his morally good though imperfect endeavours then of another more debauch't sinner utterly negligent of the commands of either God or Nature Which position I have in brief proved though nothing so largely as I might in confutation of them who do utterly condemn unregenerate morality and deject it below the lowest degree of prophaneness as if they would teach a man his way to Heaven by boasting arrogantly what Paul converted confesses humbly I am the nearer to Christs Salvation because of all sinners I am the chief The Use in brief of this Thesis shall be for those who not as yet find the power of the regenerating spirit in them for I am to fear many of my auditors may be in this case and I pray God they feel and work and pray themselves out of it the Use I say is for those who are not yet full possessors of the spirit to labour to keep their unregeneracy spotless from the greater offence that if they are not yet called to the preferment of Converts and Saints the second part of Heaven that earthly City of God that yet they will live orderly in that lower regiment wherein they yet remain and be subject to the law of nature till it shall please God to take them into a new Common-wealth under the law of grace to improve their natural abilities to the height and bind their hands and hearts from the practice and study of outragious sins by those ordinary restraints which nature will afford us such as are a good disposition education and the like not to leave and refer all to the miraculous working of God and to encrease our sins for the magnifying of the vertue in recalling us God requires not this glory at our hands that we should peremptorily over-damn our selves that he may be the more honoured in saving us His mercy is more known to the world then to need this woful foil to illustrate it God is not wont to rake Hell for converts to gather Devils to make Saints of the Kingdom of Heaven would suffer great violence if only such should take it If Saul were infinitely sinful before he proved an Apostle though by the way we hear him profess he had lived in all good conscience yet expect not thou the same miracle nor think that the excess of sins is the cue that God ordinarily takes to convert us The Fathers in an obedience to the discipline and pedagogy of the old Law possest their soule in patience expecting the prophecied approach of the new did not by a contempt of Moses precipitate and hasten the coming of the Messias Cornelius liv'd a long while devoutly and gave much alms till at last God call'd him and put him in a course to become a Christian and do thou if thou art not yet called wait the Lords leisure in a sober moral conversation and fright not him from thee with unnatural abominations God is not likely to be wooed by those courses which nature loaths or to accept them whom the world is ashamed of In brief remember Saul and Cornelius Saul that he not many were called from a profest blasphemer Cornelius that before he was called he prayed to God alway and do thou endeavour to deserve the like mercy and then in thy prayer confess thine undeserving and petition grace as grace that is not as our merit but as his free-will favour not as the desert of our morality but a stream from the bounty of his mercy who we may hope will crown his common graces with the fulness of his Spirit And now O powerful God on those of us which are yet unregenerate bestow thy restraining grace which may curb and stop our natural inordinacy and by a sober careful continent life prepare us to a better capability of thy sanctifying Spirit wherewith in good time thou shalt establish and seal us up to the day of redemption And thus much concerning Saul unconverted how of all sinners he was the chief not absolutely that he surpassed the whole world in rankness of sin but respectively to his later state that few or none are read to have been translated from such a pitch of sin to Saint-ship Now follows the second consideration of him being proceeded Paul i. e. converted and then the question is Whether and how Paul converted may be said the chief of all sinners 'T were too speculative a depth for a popular Sermon to discuss the inherence and condition of sin in the regenerate the business will be brought home more profitably to our practice if we drive it to this issue That Paul in this place intending by his own example to direct others how to believe the truth and embrace and fasten on the efficacy of Christs Incarnation hath no better motive to incite himself and others toward it then a recognition of his sins that is a survey of the power of sin in him before and a sense of the relicks of sin in him since his conversion Whence the note is That the greatness of ones sins makes the regenerate man apply himself more fiercely to Christ This faithful saying was therefore to Paul worthy of all acceptation because of all sinners he was the chief St. Paul as every regenerate man is to be observed in a treble posture either casting his eyes backward or calling them in upon himself or else looking forward and aloof and accordingly is to be conceived in a treble meditation either of his life past or present state or future hopes In the first posture and meditation you may see first Paul alone who was before a blasphemer a persecuter and injurious secondly all the regenerate together For when we were in the flesh the motions of sin did work in our members c. and many the like In the second posture and meditation you may observe him retracting an error Acts xxiii deprecating a temptation with earnest and repeated intercessions 2 Cor. xii 7. fighting with and harrasing himself beating down his body and keeping it in subjection lest while he preacht to others he himself might be a cast-away 1 Cor. ix 27. c. In the third posture we find him Rom. vii 25. where after a long disguise he cries out I thank God through Jesus Christ our