and consent and by reason of union though not immediately and directly work even upon the soul also As we see the fancy quick and roving when the blood iâ— inâ—lamed with choler the memory and apprehension dull in a Lethargy and other notable changes and effects in the faculties of the soul very easily disceâ—nâ—ble upon any sudden change or distemper in the body David often conâ—esseth that the troubles he met withal went sometimes to the very heart and soul of him The sorrows of my heart are enlarged In the multitude of the troubles or sorrows that I have in my heart My heart is disquieted within me Why art thou so vexed O my soul and why art thou so disquieted within me c Take but that one in Psal 143 The enemy hath persecuted my soul c. Therefore is my spirit vexed within me and my heart within me is dâ—solate 15. For the Soul then or Mind to be affected with such things as happen to the body is natural and such affections if not vitiated with excess or other inordinaâ—y blameless and without sin But experience sheweth us farther too oftâ—n God knoweth that persecutions â—fflictions and such other sad casualties as befal the body nay the very shadowâ— thereof the bare fears of such things and apâ—rehensions of their approach yea even many times when it is causeless may produce worse effects in the souls and be the causes of such vicious weariness and faintness of miâ—d as the Apostle here forewarneth the Hebrews to beware of Noâ— to speak of the Lapsâ— and Traditores and others that we read of in former times and of whom there is such mention in the ancient Councils and in the writings of the Fathers of the first Ages and the Histories of the Church How many have we seen even in our times who having â—eemed to stand fast in the profession of Truth and in the performance of the offices of Vertue and duties of Piâ—ty Allegiaâ—ce and Iustice before trial have yet when they have been hard put to it yea and sometimes not very hard neither fallen away starting aside like a broken â—oâ— and by flinching at the last discovered themselves to have been but very weak Christiens at the best if not rather very deep Hypocrites 16. It will sufficiently answer the doubt to tell you That persecutions and all occurrences from without are not the chief causes nor indeed in true propriety of speech any causes at all but the occasions only of the souls fainting under them Temptations they are I grant yet are they but temptation and it is not the temptation but the consenting to the temptation that induceth guilt If at any time any temptation either on the one hand or the other prevail against us St. Iames teacheth us where to lay the fault Not upon God by any means for God tempteth no man No nor upon the Devil neither let me add that too it were a sin to belie the Devil in this for though he be a tempter and that a busie one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Tempter yet that is the worse he can do he can but tempt us he cannot compel us When he hath plied us with all his utmost strength and tried us with all the engines and artifices he can devise the will hath its natural liberty still and it is at our choice whether we will yield or no. But every man when he is tempted saith he tempted cum affectu that is his meaning so tempted as to be overcome by the temptation is tempted of his own lâ—st 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 draâ—n away and enticed Drawn away by injuries and affrightments from doing good or enticed by delights and allurements to do evil It is with temptations on the left hand for such are those of which we now speak even as it is with those on the right yield not and good enough My Son saith Solomon if sinners intice thee consent not Prov. 1. It may be said also proportionably and by the same reason My Son if sinners affright thee comply not The Common saying if in any other holdeth most true in the case of Temptations No man taketh harm but from himself 17. And verily in the particular we are now upon of fainting under the Cross it is nothing but our own fears and the falseness of a misgiving heart that betrayeth us to the Tempter and undoeth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. as he said It is not any reality in the things themselves so much that troubleth the mind as our over-deep apprehensions of them All passions of the mind if immoderate are perturbations and may bring a snare but none more or sooner than fear The fear of man bringeth a snare saith Solomon And our Saviour Let not your hearts be troubled neither fear as if fear were the greatest troubler of the heart And truly so it is No passion not Love no nor yet Anger if self though great obstructers of Reason both being so irrational as Fear is It maketh us many times do things quite otherwise than our own reason telleth us we should do It is an excellent description that a wise man hath given of it Wisdom 17. Fear saith he is nothing else but the betraying of the succours which reason offereth He that letteth go his courage forfeiteth his reason withal and what good can you reasonably expect from an unreasonable man 18. Seest thou then a man faint-hearted Suspect him I had almost said Conclude him false-hearted too It is certainly a very hard thing if at all possible for a Coward to be an honest man or a true friend either to God or man He is at the best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a double-minded man but God requireth simplicity and singleness of heart He hath a good mind perhaps to be honest and to serve God and the King and to love his neighbour and his friend and if he would hold him there and be of that mind always all would be well But his double mind will not suffer him so to do He hath a mind withal to sleep in a whole skin and to save his estate if he can howsoever And so he becometh 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fickle and unstable in his ways turneth as the tide turneth There is no relying upon him no trusting of him Iethro well considered this when he advised Moses to make choice of such for Magistrates as he knew to be men of courage they that were otherwise he knew could not discharge their duty as they ought nor continue upright And when our Saviour said to his Disciples Luke 12. Isay unto you my friends Fear not them which kill the body He doth more than intimate that such base worldly fear cannot well consist with the Laws of true friendship 19. I insist somewhat the more upon this point because men are generally so apt to pretend to their own failings in this kind the outward force
both sorts as they are set down the one in the beginning of verse 19. The works of the Flesh are manifest which are these Adultery c. the other in the beginning of verse 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is Love c. And those differences are four First those effects of the former sort proceed originally from the Flesh these from the Spirit Secondly those are rather stiled by the name of Works these by the name of Fruit the Works of the Flesh but the Fruit of the Spirit Thirdly those are set forth as many and apart Works in the Plural These as many but united into one Fruit in the Singular Fourthly those are expresly said to be manifest of these no such thing at all mentioned 6. The first difference which ariseth from the nature of the things themselves as they relate to their several proper causes is of the four the most obvious and important and it is this That whereas the vicious habits and sinful actions catalogued in the former verses are the production of the Flesh the Graces and Vertues specified in the Text are ascribed to the Spirit as to their proper and original cause They are not the works of the Flesh as the former but the fruit of the Spirit 7. Where the first Question that every man will be ready to ask is What is here meant by the Spirit The necessity of expressing supernatural and divine things by words taken from natural or humane affairs hath produced another necessity of enlarging the significations of sundry of those words to a very great Latitude Which is one special cause of the obscurity which is found in sundry places of holy Scripture and consequently of the difficulty of giving the proper and genuine sence of such places and consequently to that amidst so many interpretations of one and the same place whilst each contendeth for that sence which himself hath pitched upon of infinite disputes and controversies in point of Religion Among which words three especially I have observed all of them of very frequent use in the New Testament which as they are subject to greater variety of signification than most other words are so have they ever yet been and are like to be to the Worlds end the matter and fuel of very many and very fierce contentions in the Church Those three are Faith Grace and Spirit Truly I am perswaded if it were possible all men could agree in what signification each of those three words were to be understood in each place where any of them are found three full parts at least of four of those unhappy Controversies that have been held up in the Christian Church would vanish 8. And of the three this of Spirit hath yet the greatest variety of Significations God in his Essence the Person of the Holy Ghost good Angels evil Angels extraordinary gifts wherewith the Apostles and others in the Primitive times were endowed the several faculties of the Soul as Understanding Affections and Conscience the whole Soul of man supernatural Grace besides many others not needful now to be remembred all come under this appellation of Spirit Much of the ambiguity of the World I confess is cut off when it is opposed to Flesh yet even then also it wanteth no variety The Divine and Humane Nature in the Person of Christ the literal and mystical sence of Scripture the Ordinances of the Old and New Testament the Body and the Soul Sensuality and Reason the corruption of Nature and the Grace of God all these may according to the peculiar exigence of several places be understood by the terms of Flesh and Spirit 9. Generally the word Spirit in the common notion of it importeth a thing of subtile parts but of an operative quality So that the less any thing hath of matter and the more of vertue the nearer it cometh to the nature of a Spirit as the Wind and the Quintessences of Vegetables or Minerals extracted by Chymical operation We use to say of a man that is of a sad sluggish and flegmatick temper that he hath no Spirit but if he belively active quick and vigorous we then say he hath spirit in him It is said of the Queen of Sheba when she saw the wisdom and royal state of King of Solomon that there was no more spirit left in her that is she stood mute and amazed at it as if she had had no life speech sense or motion in her The Soul is therefore called a Spirit because being it self no bodily substance it yet actuateth and enliveneth the body and is the inward principle of life thereunto called therefore The Spirit of life and St. Iames saith The body without the Spirit is dead that is it is a liveless Iump of flesh without the Soul So that whatsoever is principium agendi internum the fountain of action or operation as an inward principle thereof may in that respect and so far forth borrow the name of a Spirit Insomuch as the very flesh it self so far forth as it is the fountain of all those evil works mentioned in the foregoing verses may in that respect be called a Spirit and so is by St. Iames The Spirit that is in us lusteth after Envy saith he that is in very deed the Flesh that is in us for among the lusts and work of the flesh is envy reckoned in the very next verse before the Text. 10. To come up close to the Point for I fear I have kept off too long as they stand here opposed by Flesh I take to be clearly meant the Natural Corruption of Man and by Spirit the Supernatural Grace of God Even as the same words are also taken in some other places as namely in that saying of our Saviour Ioh. 3. That which is born of the Flesh is Flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit Which words may serve as a good Commentary upon this part of the Text for they do not only warrant the interpretation but afford us also the reason of it under the analogy of a twofold Birth or Generation The Generation whether of Plants or living Creatures is effectual by that prolifical vertue which is in the seed Answerable therefore unto the twofold Birth spoken of in the Scriptures there is also a twofold seed The first Birth is that of the Old man by natural generation whereby we are born the sons of Adam The second Birth is that of the New man by spiritual regeneration whereby we are born the Sons of God Answerably whereunto the first seed is Semen Adae the seed of old Adam derived unto us by carnal propagation from our natural Parents who are therefore called The Fathers of our Flesh together wherewith is also derived that uncleanness or corruption which upon our first birth cleaveth so inseparably to our nature and is the inward principle from which all the works of the flesh have their emanation But then there is another seed
one and pull all So he that hath any one spiritual grace in any degree of truth and eminency cannot be utterly destitute of any other But as for sins and vices it is not so with them They are not only distinct in their kinds natures and definitions for so are vertues too but they may also be divided from one another and parted asunder in respect of the subject wherein they are We are told Rom. 2. and if we were not told it we could not but see reason enough in these times to believe it that a Man may hate Idolatry a work of the flesh and yet love Sacrilege well enough a work of the flesh too There is no necessity that a Swearer should be an Adulterer or an Adulterer a Slanderer or a Slanderer an Oppressor or an Oppressor a Drunkard or a Drunkard a Seditious Person and so of many other 38. The reason of the difference is because all spiritual graces look one way they all run to the same indivisible point wherein they concenter to wit Almighty God who is bonum incommutabile unchangeable and one Even as all moral vertues concenter in the same common point of right reason But Sins which turn from God to follow the Creature and Vices which are so many deviations from the rule of right reason do not all necessarily run towards the same point but may have their several tendencies different one from another Because though God be one yet the Creatures are manifold and although the straight way from one place to another can be but one yet there may be many croaked turnings by-paths and deviations Even as Truth is but one and certain but Errors are manifold and endless 39. The Spirit of God whose fruits these are is first a renewing Spirit It createth a new heart in a Man whereby he becometh a kind of new Creature it disposeth him to Obedience And true obedience is copulative it submitteth to the Commanders will entirely it doth not pick and chuse The Spirit of God is secondly a holy Spirit the holy Spirit of Discipline and such a holy Spirit will not brook to dwell in a Soul that is subject to sin It will endure no such intimate they can no more dwell together than Light can fellow with darkness But where any Grace is wanting there must needs be the contrary sin to fill up the Vacuity and therefore where that Holy Spirit is there cannot be a total defect of any holy grace The Spirit of God is also a loving Spirit and sheddeth abroad the love of God in every heart it taketh possession of And Love is so comprehensive a Grace that it includeth all the rest and so is in effect the fulfilling of the whole Law There is a thread of Love that runneth through all the particular duties and offices of Christian life and stringeth them like so many rich Pearls into one Chain See 1 Cor. 13. throughout 40. A consideration not unuseful to quicken our care for the subduing of every sinful lust and our endeavour to have every grace of the Spirit habituated in us Knowing that so long as we allow our selves in any one sin suffer any one lust of the Flesh to remain in us unsubdued at least in respect of desire and endeavour there cannot be any one true grace of God in us There are certain common graces of Illumination which are the effects also of God Spirit and are therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual gifts and those indeed are given by dole Aliuâ— sic aliuâ— verò sic Knowledg to one to another Tongues to another Healings Miracles c. all by the same Spirit manifesting himself to sundry persons in sundry kinds and measures and dividing to every on severally as â—e will But it is nothing so in the special graces of Sanctification there is no distribution or division here Either all or none He that certainly wanteth any one at least in the desire and endeavour may justly suspect that all those he seemeth to have are but so many counterfeits All this variety of Graces maketh but one Fruit. 41. The last difference is That the works of the Flesh are expresly said to be manifest Vers. 19. but no such thing affirmed of the Fruit of the Spirit The most probable reasons of which difference are to my seeming one of these two following First the commonness and frequency of those above these every-where abroad in the World The Works of the Flesh Adultry Fornication Uâ—oleanness Wantonness Idolatry Witchoraft Hatreds Emulation Debate Wrath Strifes Seditions Heresies Envyings Murthers Gluttony Drunkenness and such like I name them because the bare reâ—ital of them will save me the labour of farther proof do so abound in all places that you can scarce look beside them Turn your eyes which way you will ye shall see cursed examples of some or other of these every day and in every street and every corner Alas the Works of the Flesh are but too manifest 42. But the fruits of the Spirit are not so Love Peace Gentleness Faith Meekness Temperance and the rest these are very thin grown in the World they are rarities not every where to be met withal Insomuch as David complainingly crieth out There is not one godly Man left Psal. 12. and Psal. 14. There is none that doth good no not one And the Prophet Ieremy when he had run to and fro in the streets of Ierusalem for the purpose to find a Man that executed judgment and sought after truth when he had imployed his legs and his eyes and his tongue in search he could not yet find the Man he looked for Hepps and Hâ—ws grow in every hedge when choicer fruits are but in some few gardens and every soil almost yields stones and rubbish but gold and precious stones are found in very few places 43. Secondly the Works of the Flesh may be said to be manifest and the 〈◊〉 of the Spirit not so with respect to our judgments of them and the easiness of discerning the one sort more than the other The works of the Flesh are so manifestly evil that no man of common sense can lightly be mistaken in them Murder Sedition Drunkenness Adultery it is not possible any Man should be of such gross understanding as to imagine they should be the Fruits of God's holy Spirit they are udoubtedly and manifestly to every Man's apprehension the Works of the Flesh. But as for the fruits of the Spirit they are not so manifest but that a Man who hath not his senses very well exercised to the descerning of good and evil may be easily deceived therein Hypocrisy is spun oftentimes of a very fine thread and the heart of Man abounding with so much hypocrisy as it doth and so much self-love and uncharitableness withal is the most deceitful thing yea and the most decevibable too actively and passively both of any thing in the world There are on the one side
to leave them a competence and in the hands of a God that would provide for all that kept innocence and trusted in his providence and protection which he had always found enough to make and keep him happy There was in his Diocess a Minister of almost his Age that had been of Lincoln Colledge when he left it who visited him often and always welcom because he was a Man of Innocence and open-heartedness This Minister asked the Bishop what Books he studied most when he laid the foundation of his great and clear Learning To which his Answer was That he declin'd reading many Books but what he did read were well chosen and read so often that he became very familiar with them and told him they were chiefly three Aristotle's Rhetorick Acquinas's Secunda Secundae and Tully but chiefly his Offices which he had not read over less than 20 times and could at this Age repeat without Book And told him also the learned Civilian Doctor Zouch who died lately had writ Elementa jurisprudentiâ—e which was a Book that he thought he could also say without Book and that no wise man could read it too often or love or commend it too much and he told him the study of these had been his toyl But for himself he always had a natural love to Genealogies and Heraldry and that when his thoughts were harassed with any perplext Studies he left off and turned to them as a recreation and that his very recreation had made him so perfect in them that he could in a very short time give an account of the Descent Arms and Antiquity of any Family of the Nobility or Gentry of this Nation Before I give an account of his last sickness I desire to tell the Reader that he was of a healthful constitution chearful and mild of an even temper very moderate in his diet and had had little sickness till some few years before his death but was then every Winter punish'd with a Diarrhed which left him not till warm weather return'd and remov'd it And this Distemper did as he grew elder seize him oftner and continue longer with him But though it weakned him yet it made him rather indispos'd than sick and did no way disable him from studying indeed too much In this decay of his strength but not of his memory or reason for this Distemper works not upon the understanding he made his last Will of which I shall give some account for confirmation of what hath been said and what I think convenient to be known before I declare his death and burial He did in his last Will give an account of his Faith and Perswasion in Point of Religion and Church-Government in these very words I Robert Sanderson Dr. of Divinity an unworthy Minister of Iesus Christ and by the providence of God Bishop of Lincoln being by the long continuance of an habitual distemper brought to a great bodily weakness and faintness of spirits but by the great mercy of God without any bodily pain otherwise or decay of understanding do make this my Will and Testament written all with my own hand revoking all former Wills by me heretofore made if any such shall be found First I commend my Soul into the hands of Almighty God as of a faithful Creator which I humbly beseech him mercifully to accept looking upon it not as it is in it self infinitely polluted with sin but as it is redeemed and purged with the precious blood of his only beloved Son and my most sweet Saviour Iesus Christ in confidence of whose merits and mediation alone it is that I cast my self upon the mercy of God for the pardon of my sins and the hopes of eternal life And here I do profess that as I have lived so I desire and by the grace of God resolve to dye in the Communion of the Catholick Church of Christ and a true Son of the Church of England which as it stands by Law established to be both in Doctrine and Worship agreable to the Word of God and in the most and most material Points of both conformable to the Faith and practice of the godly Churches of Christ in the primitïve and purer times I do firmly believe led so to not so much from the force of custom and education to which the greatest part of mankind owe their particular different perswasions in point of Religion as upon the clear evidence of truth and reason after a serious and unpartial examination of the grounds as well of Popery as Puritanism according to that measure of understanding and those opportunities which God hath afforded me and herein I am abundantly satisfied that the Schiâ—m which the Papists on the one hand and the Superstition which the Puritan on the other hand lay to our charge are very justly chargeable upon themselves respectively Wherefore I humbly beseech Almighty God the Father of Mercies to preserve the Church by his power and providence in peace truth and Godliness evermore to the worlds end which doubtless he will do if the wickedness and security of a sinful people and particularly those sins that are so rife and seem daily to increase among us of Unthankfulness Riot and Sacriledge do not tempt his patience to the contrary And I also farther humbly beseech him that it would please him to give unto our gracious Sovereign the Reverend Bishops and the Parliament timely to consider the great danger that visibly threatens this Church in point of Religion by the late great increase of Popery and in point of Revenue by sacrilegious enclosures and to provide such wholsom and effectual remedies as may prevent the same before it be too late And for a further manifestation of his humble thoughts and desires they may appear to the Reader by another part of his Will which follows As for my corruptible Body I bequeath it to the Earth whence it was taken to be decently buried in the Parish Church of Bugden towards the upper end of the Chancel upon the second or at the farthest the third day after my decease and that with as little Noise Pomp and Charge as may be without the invitation of any person how near soever related unto me other than the Inhabitants of Bugden without the unnecessary expence of Escutcheons Gloves Ribonds c. and without any Blacks to be hung any where in or about the House or Church other than a Pulpit-Cloth a Hearse-Cloth and a Mourning Gown for the Preacher whereof the former after my Body shall be interred to be given to the Preacher of the Funeral Sermon and the latter to the Curat of the Parish for the time being And my Will further is That the Funeral Sermon be preached by my own Houshold Chaplain containing some wholesome Discourse concerning Mortality the Resurrection of the Dead and the last Iudgment and that he shall have for his pains 5 l. upon condition that he speak nothing at all concerning my person either good or ill other
of spirits divers kinds of tongues interpretation of tongues All which and all other of like nature and use because they are wrought by that one and self-same Spirit which divideth to every one severally as he will are therefore called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Spiritual gifts and here 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifestation of the Spirit The word Spirit though in Scripture it have many other significations yet in this place I conceive it to be understood directly of the Holy Ghost the third Person in the ever-blessed Trinity For First in ver 3. that which is called the Spirit of God in the former part is in the latter part called the Holy Ghost f I give you to understand that no man speaking by the spirit of God calleth Iesus accursed and that no man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Again that variety of gifts which in ver 4. is said to proceed from the same Spirit is said likewise in ver 5. to proceed from the same Lord and in ver 6. to proceed from the same God and therefore such a Spirit is meant as is also Lord and God and that is only the Holy Ghost And again in those words in ver 11. All these worketh that one and the self-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will The Apostle ascribeth to this Spirit the collation and distribution of such gifts according to the free power of his own will and pleasure which free power belongeth to none but God alone Who hath set the members every one in the body as it hath pleased him Which yet ought not to be so understood of the Person of the Spirit as if the Father and the Son had no part or fellowship in this business For all the Actions and operations of the Divine Persons those only excepted which are of intrinsecal and mutual relation are the joynt and undivided works of the whole three Persons according to the common known Maxim constantly and uniformly received in the Catholick Church Opera Trinitatis ad extra sunt indivisa And as to this particular concerning gifts the Scriptures are clear Wherein as they are ascribed to God the Holy Ghost in this Chapter so they are elsewhere ascribed unto God the Father Every good gift and every perfect giving is from above from the Father of Lights Jam. 1. and elsewhere to God the Son Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ Eph. 4. Yea and it may be that for this very reason in the three verses next before my Text these three words are used Spirit in ver 4. Lord in ver 5. and God in ver 6. to give us intimation that these spiritual gifts proceed equally and undividedly from the whole three persons from God the Father and from his Son Iesus Christ our Lord and from the eternal Spirit of them both the Holy Ghost as from one intire indivisible and coessential Agent But for that we are gross of understanding and unable to conceive the distinct Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the Godhead otherwise than by apprehending some distinction of their operations and offices to us ward it hath pleased the Wisdom of God in the holy Scriptures which being written for our sakes were to be fitted to our capacities so far to condescend to our weakness and dulness as to attribute some of those great and common works to one person and some to another after a more special manner than unto the rest although indeed and in truth none of the three persons had more or less to do than other in any of those great and common works This manner of speaking Divines use to call Appropriation By which appropriation as power is ascribed to the Father and Wisdom to the Son so is Goodness to the Holy Ghost And therefore as the work of Creation wherein is specially seen the mighty power of God is appropiated to the Father and the work of Redemption wherein is specially seen the wisdom of God to the Son and so the works of sanctification and the infusion of habitual graces whereby the good things of God are communicated unto us is appropriated unto the Holy Ghost And for this cause the gifts thus communicated unto us from God are called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual gifts and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the manifestation of the Spirit We see now why spirit but then why manifestation The word as most other verbals of that form may be understood either in the active or passive signification And it is not material whether of the two ways we take it in this place both being true and neither improper For these spiritual gifts are the manifestation of the spirit actively because by these the Spirit manifesteth the will of God unto the Church these being the Instruments and means of conveying the knowledge of salvation unto the people of God And they are the manifestation of the spirit Passively too because where any of these gifts especially in any eminent sort appeared in any person it was a manifest evidence that the Spirit of God wrought in him As we read it Acts 10. that they of the Circumcision were astonished when they saw that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gifts of the Holy Ghost If it be demanded But how did that appear it followeth in the next verse For they heard them speak with tongues c. The spiritual Gift then is a manifestation of the Spirit as every other sensible effect is a manifestation of its proper cause We are now yet further to know that the Gifts and graces wrought in us by the holy Holy Spirit of God are of two sorts The Scriptures sometimes distinguish them by the different terms of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 although those words are sometimes again used indifferently and promiscuously either for other They are commonly known in the Schools and differenced by the names of Gratiae gratum facientes Gratiae gratis datae Which terms though they be not very proper for the one of them may be affirmed of the other whereas the members of every good distinction ought to be opposite yet because they have been long received and change of terms though haply for the better hath by experience been found for the most part unhappy in the event in multiplying unnecessary book-quarrels we may retain them profitably and without prejudice Those former which they call Gratum facientes are the Graces of Sanctification whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do acceptable service to God in the duties of his General Calling these latter which they call Gratis datas are the Graces of Edification whereby the person that hath them is enabled to do profitable service to the Church of God in the duties of his particular Calling Those are
given Nobis Nobis both to us and for us that is chiefly for our own good these Nobis sed Nostris to us indeed but for others that is chiefly for the good of our Brethren Those are given us ad salutem for the saving of our Souls these ad lucrum for the winning of other mens Souls Those proceed from the special love of God to the person and may therefore be called personal or special these proceed from the General love of God to his Church or yet more general to humane societies and may therefore rather be called Ecclesiastical or General Gifts or Graces Of the first sort are Faith Hope Charity Repentance Patience Humility and all those other holy graces fruits of the Spirit which accompany Salvation Wrought by the blessed and powerful operation of the holy Spirit of God after a most effectual but unconceivable manner regenerating and renewing and seasoning and sanctifying the hearts of his Chosen But yet these are not the Gifts so much spoken of in this chapter and namely in my Text Every branch whereof excludeth them Of those graces of sanctification first we may have indeed probable inducements to perswade us that they are or are not in this or that man But hypocrisie may make such a semblance that we may think we see spirit in a man in whom yet there is nothing but flesh and infirmities may cast such a fogg that we can discern nothing but flesh in a man in whom yet there is spirit But the gifts here spoken of do incurr into the senses and give us evident and infallible assurance of the spirit that wrought them here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a manifestation of the Spirit Again Secondly those Graces of sanctification are not communicated by distribution Alius sic alius verò sic Faith to one Charity to another Repentance to another but where they are given they are given all at once and together as it were strung upon one thread and linked into one chain But the Gifts here spoken of are distributed as it were by doal and divided severally as it pleased God shared out into several portions and given to every man some to none all for to one is given by the Spirit the Word of Wisdom to another the Word of Knowledge c. Thirdly those Graces of sanctification though they may and ought to be exercised to the benefit of others who by the shining of our light and the sight of our good works may be provoked to glorifie God by walking in the same paths yet that is but utilitas emergens and not finis proprius a good use made of them upon the bye but not the main proper and direct end of them for which they were chiefly given But the Gifts here spoken of were given directly for this end and so intended by the giver to be imployed for the benefit of others and for the edifying of the Church they were given to profit withal It then remaineth to understand this Text and Chapter of that other and later kind of spiritual Gifts Those Graces of Edification or Gratiae gratis datae whereby men are euabled in their several Callings according to the quality and measure of the graces they have received to be profitable members of the publick body either in Church or Common-wealth Under which appellation the very first natural powers and faculties of the Soul only excepted which flowing à principiis speciei are in all men the same and like I comprehend all other secondary endowments and abilities whatsoever of the reasonable Soul which are capable of the degrees of more and less and of better and worse together with all subsidiary helps any way conducing to the exercise of any of them Whether they be First supernatural graces given by immediate and extraordinary infusion from God such as were the gifts of tongues and of miracles and of healings and of prophesy properly so called and many other like which were frequent in the infancy of the Church and when this Epistle was written according as the necessity of those primitive times considered God saw it expedient for his Church Or whether they be Secondly such as Philosophers call Natural dispositions such as are promptness of Wit quickness of Conceit fastness of Memory clearness of Understanding soundness of Iudgment readiness of Speech and other like which flow immediately à principiis Individui from the individual condition constitution and temperature of particular persons Or whether they be Thirdly such as Philosophers call intellectual habits which is when those natural dispositions are so improved and perfected by Education Art Industry Observation or Experience that men become thereby skilful Linguists subtle Disputers copious Orators profound Divines powerful Preachers expert Lawyers Physicians Historians Statesmen Commanders Artisans or excellent in any Science Profession or Faculty whatsoever To which we may add in the Fourth place all outward subservient helps whatsoever which may any way further or facilitate the exercise of any of the former graces dispositions or habits such as are health strength beauty and all those other Bona corporis as also Bona Fortunae Honour Wealth Nobility Reputation and the rest All of these even those among them which seem most of all to have their foundation in Nature or perfection from Ar◠may in some sort be called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual gifts in as much as the spirit of God is the first and principal worker of them Nature Art Industry and all other subsidiary furtherances being but second Agents under him and as means ordained or as Instruments used by him for the accomplishing of those ends he hath appointed And now we have found out the just latitude of the spiritual gifts spoken of in this Chapter and of the manifestation of the Spirit in my Text From whence not to pass without some observable Inferences for our Edification We may here first behold and admire and magnifie the singular love and care and providence of God for and over his Church For the building up whereof he hath not only furnished it with fit materials men endowed with the faculties of understanding reason will memory affections not only lent them tools out of his own rich store-house his holy Word and sacred Ordinances but as sometimes he filled Bezaleel and Aholiab with skill and wisdom for the building of the material Tabernacle so he hath also from time to time raised up serviceable Men and enabled them with a large measure of all needful gifts and graces to set forward the building and to give it both strength and beauty A Body if it had not difference and variety of members were rather a lump than a Body or if having such members there were yet no vital spirits within to enable them to their proper offices it were rather a Corps than a Body but the vigour that is in every part to do its
office is a certain evidence and manifestation of a Spirit of life within and that maketh it a living Organical body So those active gifts and graces and abilities which are to be found in the members of the mystical body of Christ I know not whether of greater variety or use are a strong manifestation that there is a powerful Spirit of God within that knitteth the whole body together and worketh all in all and all in every part of the body Secondly though we have just cause to lay it to heart when men of eminent gifts and place in the Church are taken from us and to lament in theirs our own and the Churches loss yet we should possess our Souls in patience and sustain our selves with this comfort that it is the same God that still hath care over his Church and it is the same Head Iesus Christ that still hath influence into his members and it is the same blessed Spirit of God and of Christ that still actuateth and animateth this great mystical Body And therefore we may not doubt but this Spirit as he hath hitherto done from the beginning so will still manifest himself from time to time unto the end of the world in raising up instruments for the service of his Church and furnishing them with gifts in some good measure meet for the same more or less according as he shall see it expedient for her in her several different estates and conditions giving some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the Body of Christ till we all meet in the unity of the Faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. He hath promised long since who was never yet touched with breach of promise that he would be with his Apostles and their successors always unto the end of the World Thirdly where the Spirit of God hath manifested it self to any man by the distribution of gifts it is but reason that man should manifest the Spirit that is in him by exercising those gifts in some lawful Calling And so this manifestation of the Spirit in my Text imposeth upon every man the Necessity of a Calling Our Apostle in the seventh of this Epistle joineth these two together a Gift and a Calling as things that may not be severed As God hath dictributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one Where the end of a thing is the use there the difference cannot be great whether we abuse it or but conceal it The unprofitable Servant that wrapped up his Masters Talent in a napkin could not have received a much heavier doom had he mis-spent it O then up and be doing Why stand ye all the day Idle Do not say because you heard no voice that therefore no man hath called you those very gifts you have received are a Real Call pursuing you with continual restless importunity till you have disposed your selves in some honest course of life or other wherein you may be profitable to humane society by the exercising of some or other of those gifts All the members of the body have their proper and distinct offices according as they have their proper and distinct faculties and from those offices they have also their proper and distinct names As then in the body that is indeed no member which cannot call it self by any other name than by the common name of a member so in the Church he that cannot style himself by any other name than a Christian doth indeed but usurp that too If thou sayest thou art of the body I demand then What is thy office in the Body If thou hast no office in the Body then thou art at the best but Tumor praeter naturam as Physicians call them a Scab or Botch or Wenne or some other monstrous and unnatural excresâ—ency upon the body but certainly thou art no true part and member of the body And if thou art no part of the body how darest thou make challenge to the head by mis-calling thy self Christian If thou hast a Gift get a Calling Fourthly We of the Clergy though we may not ingross the Spirit unto our selves as if none were spiritual persons but our selves yet the voice of the World hath long given us the Name of Spiritualty after a peculiar sort as if we were spiritual persons in some different singular respect from other men And that not altogether without ground both for the name and thing The very name seemeth to be thus used by S. Paul in the 14. Chapter following where at ver 37. he maketh a Prophet and a Spiritual man all one and by Prophesying in that whole Chapter he most what meaneth Preaching If any man think himself to be a Prophet either spiritual let him acknowledge c. But howsoever it be for the Title the thing it self hath very sufficient ground from that form of speech which was used by our blessed Saviour when he conferred the ministerial power upon his Disciples and is still used in our Church at the collation of Holy Orders Accipite Spiritum Sanctum Receive the holy Ghost Since then at our admission into holy Orders we receive a spiritual power by the imposition of hands which others have not we may thenceforth be justly styled Spiritual persons The thing for which I note it is that we should therefore endeavour our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so to stir up those spiritual gifts that are in us as that by the eminency thereof above that which is in ordinary temporal men we may shew our selves to be in deed what we are in name Spiritual persons If we be of the Spiritualty there should be in us anothergates manifestation of the Spirit than is ordinarily to be found in the Temporalty God forbid I should censure all them for intruders into the Ministry that are not gifted for the Pulpit The severest censurers of Non-preaching Ministers if they had livd in the beginning of the Reformation must have been content as the times then stood to have admitted of some thousands of Non-preaching Ministers or else have denied many Parishes and Congregations in England the benefit of so much as bare reading And I take this to be a safe Rule Whatsoever thing the help of any circumstances can make lawful at any time that thing may not be condemned as universally and de toto genere unlawful I judge no mans conscience then or calling who is in the Ministry be his gifts never so slender I dare not deny him the benefit of his Clergy if he can but read if his own heart condemn him not neither do I. But yet this I say As the times now are wherein learning aboundeth even unto wantonness and wherein the world is full of questions and controversies
not from the deep of his heart that will not bend his endeavours withal to obtain what he desireth or rather indeed he prayeth not at all You may call it wishing and woulding and we have Proverbs against wishers and woulders rather than Praying Solomon accounteth the idle man's prayer no better and â—t thriveth accordingly with him The soul of the sluggard lusteth and hath nothing Prov. 13. To make all sure then here is your course Wrestle with God by your fervent prayers and wrestle with him too by your faithful endeavours and he will not for his goodness sake and for his promise sake he cannot dismiss you without a Blessing But omit either and the other is lost labour Prayer without study is presumption and study without prayer Atheism the one bootless the other fruitless You take your books in vain into your hand if you turn them over and never look higher and you take God's Name in vain within your lips if you cry Da Domine and never stir farther The Ship is then like to be steered with best certainty and success when there is Oculus ad coelum manus ad clavum when the Pilot is careful of both to have his eye upon the compass and his hand at the stern Remember these abilities you pray or study for are the gifts of God and as not to be had ordinarily with labour for God is a God of Order and worketh not ordinarily but by ordinary means so not to be had merely for the labour for then should it not be so much a gift as a purchace It was Simon Magus his error to think that the gift of God might be purchased with Money and it hath a spice of his sin and so may go for a kind of Simony for a man to think these spiritual gifts of God may be purchased with labour You may rise up early and go to bed late and study hard and read much and devour the fat and the marrow of the best Authors and when you have done all unless God give a blessing unto your endeavours be as thin and meagre in regard of true and useful learning as Pharaoh's lean kine were after they had eaten the fat ones It is God that both ministreth seed to the sower and multiplieth the seed sowen the Principal and the Increase are both his If then we expect any gift or the increase of any gift from him neither of which we can have without him let us not be behind either with our best endeavours to use the means he hath appointed or with our faithful prayers to crave his blessing upon those means These instructions are general and concern us all whatsoever our gifts be I must now turn my speech more particularly to you to whom God hath vouchsafed the manifestation of his Spirit in a larger proportion than unto many of your brethren giving unto you as unto his first born a double Portion of his Spirit as Elisha had of Elijah's or perhaps dealing with you yet more liberally as Ioseph did with Benjamin whose mess though he were the youngest he appointed to be five times as much as any of his brethrens It is needful that you of all others should be eft soons put in remembrance that those eminent manifestations of the Spirit you have were given you First it will be a good help to take down that swelling which as an Aposteme in the body through rankness of blood is so apt to ingender in the soul through abundance of knowledge and to let out some of the corruption It is a very hard thing Multum sapere and not altum sapere to know much and not to know it too much to excel others in gifts and not perk above them in self-conceit S. Paul who in all other things was sufficiently instructed as well to abound as to suffer need was yet put very hard to it when he was to try the mastery with this temptation which arose from the abundance of revelations If you find an aptness then in your selves and there is in your selves as of your selves such an aptness as to no one thing more to be exalted above measure in your own conceits boastingly to make ostentation of your own sufficiencies with a kind of unbecoming compassion to cast scorn upon your meaner brethren and upon every light provocation to fly out into those terms of defiance I have no need of thee and I have no need of thee to dispel this windy humour I know not a more sovereign remedy than to chew upon this meditation that all the Abilities and perfections you have were given you by one who was no way so bound to you but he might have given them as well to the meanest of your Brethren as to you and that without any wrong to you if it had so pleased him You may take the Receipt from him who himself had had some experience of the Infirmity even Saint Paul in the fourth of this Epistle What hast thou that thou hast not received and if thou hast received it why dost thou boast as if thou hadst not received it Secondly Every wise and conscionable man should advisedly weigh his own Gifts and make them his Rule to work by not thinking he doth enough if he do what Law compelleth him to do or if he do as much as other Neighbours do Indeed where Laws bound us by Negative Precepts Hitherto thou mayest go but further thou shalt not we must obey and we may not exceed those bounds But where the Laws do barely enjoyn us to do somewhat lest having no Law to compel us we should do just nothing it can be no transgression of the Law to do more Whosoever therefore of you have received more or greater gifts than many others have you must know your selves bound to do so much more good with them and to stand chargeable with so much the deeper account for them Crescunt dona crescunt rationes When you shall come to make up your accounts your receipts will be looked into and if you have received ten talents or five for your meaner brothers one when but one shall be required from him you shall be answerable for ten or five For it is an equitable course that to whom much is given of him much should be required And at that great day if you cannot make your accounts straight with your receipts you shall certainly find that most true in this sence which Solomon spake in another Qui apponit scientiam apponit dolorem the more and greater your gifts are unless your thankfulness for them and your diligence with them rise to some good like proportion thereunto the greater shall be your condemnation the more your stripes But thirdly Though your Graces must be so to your selves yet beware you do not make them Rules to others A thing I the rather note because the fault is so frequent in
not a market or a tide if it be possible be instant in season and out of season omit no opportunity to take in and put off all thou canst get so though thy beginnings be but small thy latter end shall wonderfully encrease By this means thou shalt not only profit thy self in the encrease of thy gifts unto thy self but which no other usury doth besides thou shalt also profit others by communicating of thy gifts unto them Which is the proper end for which they were bestowed and of which we are next to speak The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal To profit whom it may be Himself It is true If thou art wise thou shalt be wise for thy self said Solomon and Solomon knew what belonged to wisdom as well as another For Qui sibi nequam cui bonus He that is not good to himself it is but a chance that he is good to any body else When we seem to pity a man by saying he is no mans foe but his own or he is worst to himself we do indeed but flout him and in effect call him a fool and a prodigal Such a fool is every one that guiding the feet of others into the way of peace himself treadeth the paths that lead unto destruction and that preaching repentance unto others himself becometh a Cast-away He that hath a gift then he should do well to look to his own as well as to the profit of others and as unto doctrine so as well and first to take heed unto himself that so doing he may save himself as well as those that hear him This then is to be done but this is not all that is to be done In Wisdom we cannot do less but in Charity we are bound to do more than thus with our gifts If our own profit only had been intended 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 would have served the turn as well but the word here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which importeth such a kind of profit as redoundeth to community such as before in the 10th Chapter he professeth himself to have sought after Not seeking mine own profit he meaneth not only his own but the profit of many that they may be saved We noted it already as the main and essential difference between those graces of sanctification and these graces of edification that those though they would be made profitable unto others also yet were principally intended for the proper good of the Owner but these though they would be used for the owners good also yet were principally intended for the profit of others You see then what a strong Obligation lieth upon every man that hath received the Spirit conferre aliquid in publicum to cast his gifts into the common treasury of the Church to imploy his good parts and spiritual graces so as they may some way or other be profitable to his brethren and fellow-servants in Church and Commonwealth It is an old received Canon Beneficium propter officium No man setteth a Steward over his house only to receive his rents and then to keep the monies in his hand and make no provision out of it for Hines and Servants but it is the office of a good and wise Steward to give every of the houshold his appointed portion at the appointed seasons And whoso receiveth a spiritual gift ipso facto taketh upon him the office and is bound to the duties of a Steward As every man hath received the gift even administer the same one unto another as good stewards of the manifold graces of God 1 Pet. 4. It was not only for Orders sake and for the beautifying of his Church though that also that God gave some Apostles and some Prophets and some Evangelists and some Pastors and Teachers but also and especially for more necessary and profitable uses for the perfecting of the saints for the work of the Ministry for the edifying of the body of Christ Ephes. 4. 11 12. The members of the body are not every one for it self but every one for other and all for the whole The stomach eateth not to fill it self but to nourish the body the eye seeth not to please it self but to espy for the body the foot moveth not to exercise it self but to carry the body the hand worketh not to help it self but to maintain the body every joynt supplieth something according to the effectual working in the measure of every part for the fit joyning together and compacting and encreasing of the body to the edifying of it self in love Now ye are the body of Christ and members in particular Now this necessity of employing spiritual gifts to the good and profit of others ariseth first from the will and the intent of the Giver my Text sheweth plainly what that intent was The manifestation of the Spirit was therefore given to every man that he might profit withal Certainly as Nature doth not so much less doth the God of Nature make any thing to no purpose or barely for shew but for use and the use for which all these things were made and given is edification He that hath an estate made over to him in trust and for uses hath in equity therein no estate at all if he turn the commodities of the thing some other way and not to those special uses for which he was so estated in it So he that employeth not his spiritual gift to the use for which it was given to the profit of the Church he hath de jure forfeited to the giver And we have sometimes known him de facto to take the forfeiture as from the unprofitable servant in the Gospel Take the talent from him We have sometimes seen the experiment of it Men of excellent parts by slacking their zeal to have lost their very Gifts and by neglecting the use to have lost the principal finding a sensible decay in those powers which they were slothful to bring into act It is a just thing with the Father of Lights when he hath lighted any man a candle by bestowing spiritual Gifts upon him and lent him a candlestick too whereon to set it by providing him a stay in the Church if that man shall then hide his candle under a bushel and envy the light and comfort of it to them that are in the house either to remove his candlestick or to put out his candle in obscurity As the intent of the Giver so secondly the nature and quality of the gift calleth upon us for employment It is not with these spiritual gifts as with most other things which when they are imparted are impaired and lessened by communicating Here is no place for that allegation of the Virgins Nè non sufficiat Lest there be not enough for you and for us These Graces are of the number of those things that communicate themselves by
Multiplication not Division and by diffusion without waste As the seal maketh impression in the wáx and as fire conveyeth heat into Iron and as one candle tindeth a thousand all without loss of figure heat or light Had ever any man less knowledge or wit or learning by teaching of others had he not rather more The more wise the Preacher was the more he taught the people knowledge saith Solomon Eccles. 12. and certainly the more he taught them knowledge the more his own wisdom increased As the Widow's oil increased not in the Vessel but by pouring out and as the barley bread in the Gospel multiplied not in the whole loaf but by breaking and distributing and as the Grain bringeth increase not when it lyeth on a heap in the garner but by scattering upon the land so are these spiritual Graces best improved not by keeping them together but by distributing them abroad Tutius in credito quà m in sudario the talent gathereth nothing in the napkin unless it be rust and canker but travelling in the bank besides the good it doth as it passeth to and fro it ever returneth home with increase Thirdly our own unsufficiency to all offices and the need we have of other mens Gifts must enforce us to lend them the help and comfort of ours God hath so distributed the variety of his gifts with singular wisdom that there is no man so mean but his service may be useful to the greatest nor any man so eminent but he may sometimes stand in need of the meanest of his brethren of purpose that whilst each hath need of other each should help none should despise other As in a building the stones help one another every lower stone supporting the higher from falling to the ground and every higher stone saving the lower from taking wet and as in the body every member lendeth some supply to the rest and again receiveth supply from them so in the spiritual building and mystical body of the Church God hath so tempered the parts each having his use and each his defects that there should be no Schism in the body but that the members should have the same care one for another Such a consent there should be in the parts as was between the blind and lame man in the Epigram mutually covenanting the Blind to carry the Lame and the Lame to direct the Blind that so the Blind might find his way by the others Eyes and the Lame walk therein upon the other's Legs When a man is once come to that all-sufficiency in himself as he may truly say to the rest of his brethren I stand in no need of you let him then keep his gifts to himself but let him in the mean time remember he must employ them to the advantage of his master and to the benefit of his brother The manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit withal Surely then those men first of all run a course strangely exorbitant who instead of employing them to the profit bend those gifts they have received whether spiritual or temporal to the ruine and destruction of their brethren Instead of winning souls to Heaven with busie and cursed diligence compassing Sea and Land to draw Proselytes to the Devil and instead of raising up seed to their elder brother Christ seeking to make their brethren if it were possible ten times more the children of Hell than themselves Abusing their power to oppression their wealth to luxury their strength to drunkenness their wit to scoffing Atheism Prophaneness their learning to the maintenance of Heresie Idolatry Schism Novelty If there be a fearful woe due to those that use not their gifts profitably what woes may we think shall overtake them that so ungraciously abuse them But to leave these wretches be perswaded in the second place all you whom God hath made Stewards over his houshold and blessed your basket and your store to bring forth of your treasures things both new and old manifest the Spirit God hath given you so as may be most for the profit of your brethren The Spirit of God when he gave you wisdom and knowledge intended not so much the wisdom and the knowledge themselves as the manifestation of them or as it is in the next verse the Word of Wisdom and the Word of Knowledge as Christ also promised his Apostles to give them Os sapientiam a mouth and wisdom Alas what is wisdom without a mouth but as a pot of treasure hid in the ground which no man is the better for Wisdom that is hid and a treasure that is not seen what profit is in them both O then do not knit up your Masters talent in a Napkin smother not his light under a bushel pinch not his servants of their due provision put not up the Manna you have gathered till it stink and the worms consume it but above all squander not away your rich portions by riotous living Let not either sloth or envy or pride or pretended modesty or any other thing hinder you from labouring to discharge faithfully that trust and duty which God expecteth which the necessity of the Church challengeth which the measure of your gifts promiseth which the condition of your calling exacteth from you Remember the manifestation of the Spirit was given you to profit withal Thirdly since the end of all gifts is to profit aim most at those gifts that will profit most and endeavour so to frame those you have in the exercise of them as they may be likeliest to bring profit to those that shall partake of them Covet earnestly the best gifts saith my Apostle at the last verse of this Chapter and you have his Comment upon that Text in the first verse of the fourteenth Chapter Covet spiritual Gifts 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but rather that ye may prophesie And by prophesying he meaneth the instruction of the Church and people of God in the needful doctrines of Faith towards God Repentance from dead works and new and holy Obedience It is one stratagem of the Arch enemy of mankind and when we know his wiles we may the better be able to defeat him by busying men of great and useful parts in by matters and things of lesser consequence to divert them from following that unum necessarium that which should be the main in all our endeavours the beating down of sin the planting of Faith and the reformation of manners Controversies I confess are necessary the tongues necessary Histories necessary Philosophy and the Arts necessary other Knowledge of all sorts necessary in the Church for Truth must be maintained Scripture-phrases opened Heresie confuted the mouths of Adversaries stopped Schisms and Novelties suppressed But when all is done Positive and Practick Divinity is it must bring us to Heaven that is it must poise our judgments settle our
himself called not to deliberate but act without casting of scruples or fore-casting of dangers or expecting Commission from men when he had his warrant sealed within he taketh his weapon dispatching his errand and leaveth the event to the providence of God Let no man now unless he be able to demonstrate Phinees spirit presume to imitate his fact Those Opera liberi spiritus as Divines call them as they proceed from an extraordinary spirit so they were done for special purposes but were never intended either by God that inspired them or by those Worthies that did them for ordinary or general examples The error is dangerous from the privileged examples of some few exempted ones to take liberty to transgress the common rules of Life and of Laws It is most true indeed the Spirit of God is a free spirit and not tyed to strictness of rule nor limited by any bounds of Laws But yet that free spirit hath astricted thee to a regular course of life and bounded thee with Laws which if thou shalt trangress no pretension of the Spirit can either excuse thee from sin or exempt thee from punishment It is not now every way as it was before the coming of Christ and the sealing up of the Scripture Canon God having now settled a perpetual form of government in his Church and given us a perfect and constant rule whereby to walk even his holy word And we are not therefore now vainly to expect nor boastingly to pretend a private spirit to lead us against or beyond or but beside the common rule nay we are commanded to try all pretensions of private spirits by that common rule Adlegem ad testimonium To the Law and to the Testimony at this Test examine and Try the spirits whether they are of God or no. If any thing within us if any thing without us exalt it self against the obedience of this Rule it is no sweet impulsion of the holy Spirit of God but a strong delusion of the lying spirit of Satan But is not all that is written written for our Example or why else is Phinees act recorded and commended if it may not be followed First indeed Saint Paul saith All that is written is written for our learning but Learning is one thing and Example is another and we may learn something from that which we may not follow Besides there are examples for Admonition as well as for Imitation Malefactors at the place of execution when they wish the by-standers to take example by them bequeath them not the Imitation of their courses what to do but Admonition from their punishments what to shun yea thirdly even the commended actions of good men are not ever exemplary in the very substance of the action it self but in some vertuous and gracious affections that give life and lustre thereunto And so this act of Phinees is imitable Not that either any private man should dare by his example to usurp the Magistrates office and to do justice upon Malefactors without a Calling or that any Magistrate should dare by his Example to cut off graceless offenders without a due judicial course but that every man who is by virtue of his Calling endued with lawful authority to execute justice upon transgressors should set himself to it with that stoutness and courage and zeal which was in Phinees If you will needs then imitate Phinees imitate him in that for which he is commended and rewarded by God and for which he is renowned amongst men and that is not barely the action the thing done but the affection the zeal wherewith it was done For that zeal God commendeth him Numb 25. vers 11. Phinees the son of Eleazer the son of Aaron the Priest hath turned away my wrath from the children of Israel whilst he was zealous for my sake among them And for that zeal God rewardeth him Ibid. 13. He shall have and his seed after him the Covenant of an everlasting Pristhood because he was zealous for his God And for that zeal did Posterity praise him the wise son of Syrac Eccl. 45. and good old Matthias upon his death bed 1 Macc. 2. And may not this phrase of speech he stood up and executed judgment very well imply that forwardness and heat of zeal To my seeming it may For whereas Moses and all the congregation sate weeping a gesture often accompanying sorrow or perhaps yet more to express their sorrow lay grovelling upon the earth mourning and sorrowing for their sin and for the Plague it could not be but the bold lewdness of Zimri in bringing his strumpet with such impudence before their noses must needs add much to the grief and bring fresh vexation to the souls of all that were righteous among them But the rest continued though with double grief yet in the same course of humiliation and in the same posture of body as before Only Phinees burning with an holy indignation thought it was now no time to sit still and weep but rowzing up himself and his spirits with zeal as hot as fire he stood up from the place where he was and made haste to execute judgment Here is a rich example for all you to imitate whom it doth concern I speak not only nor indeed so much to you the Honourable and Reverend Iudge of this Circuit of whose zeal to do justice and judgment I am by so much the better perswaded by how much the eminency of your place and the weight of your charge and the expectation of the people doth with greater importunity exact it at your hands But I speak withal and most especially to all you that are in Commission of the peace and whose daily and continual care it should be to see the wholsome laws of the Realm duly and seasonably executed Yea and to all you also that have any office appertaining to justice or any business about these Courts so as it may lie in you to give any kind of furtherance to the speeding either of Iustice in Civil or of judgment in Criminal causes Look upon the zeal of Phinees observe what approbation it had from God what a blessing it procured to his seed after him what glorious renown it hath won him with all after-ages what ease it did and what good it wrought for the present State and think if it be not worthy your imitation It is good saith the Apostle to be zealously affected always in a good thing And is it not a good thing to do justice and to execute judgment nay Religion excepted and then care of that is a branch of justice too do you know any better thing any thing you can do more acceptable to God more serviceable to the State more comfortable to your own souls If you be called to the Magistracy it is your own business as the proper work of your Calling and men
Beloved it is admirable to observe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God's gracious courses which he useth for the calling of men to repentance In this particularity whereof we now speak see how his Mercy and Truth are met together and do most lovingly embrace each other Where he spareth in the end it is most certain he ever meant to spare from the beginning but that his everlasting purpose is part of his secret counsel and unrevealed will which as we cannot learn so we may not seek to know till the event declare it Now to bring this his secret purpose about he must work those men to repentance whom he hath thus everlastingly purposed to spare else his Justice should become unquestionable in finally sparing the impenitent Amongst other means to work men to Repentance this is one to threaten them with such Judgments as their sins have deserved which threatning the more terrible it is the more likely it is to be effectual and the more peremptory it is the more terrible it is So then God to bring those men to Repentance whom he meaneth to spare in his Word and by his Messengers denounceth against them such Iudgments as their sins have deserved and as his Iustice without their Repentance would bring upon them denounceth them I say absolutely and in a peremptory form without any express Clause of Reservation or Exception the more to terrifie and affright them and to cast them down to the deeper acknowledgment of his Justice and their own unworthiness which are yet to be understood conditionally and interpreted with reservation and exception of Repentance You have heard Evidence enough to acquit God's Truth and do by this time I doubt not perceive how as in all other things so in the revoking of his Threatnings God's Mercy and his Truth go hand in hand together Let us now see what profitable inferences may be raised hence for our use The sum of all we have said is but this God's Threatnings are terrible but yet conditional and if he spare to execute them when we are humbled by them it is a glorious illustration of his Mercy but without the least impeachment of his Truth Here is something for the Distressed something for the Secure something for All to learn First for the Distressed Consider this and take comfort all you that mourn in Sion and groan under the weight of God's heavy displeasure and the fearful expectation of those bitter Curses and Iudgments which he hath threatned against sin Why do you spend your strength and spirit in gazing with broad eyes altogether on Gods Iustice or Truth take them off a little and refresh them by fastening them another while upon his Mercy Consider not only what he threatneth but consider withal why he threatneth it is that you may repent and withal how he threatneth it is unless you repent He threatneth to cast down indeed but into Humiliation not into Despair He shooteth out his Arrows even bitter words but as Ionathan's Arrows for warning not for destruction Think not he aimeth so much at thy punishment when he threatneth alas if that were the thing he sought he could lay on load enough without words No it is thy amendment he aimeth at and seeketh therein and therefore holdeth not his tongue that if thou wilt take it for a warning he may hold his hand If the Father do but threaten the Child when the Rod lyeth by him it is very likely he meaneth not to correct him for that time but only to make him the more careful to obey and the more fearful to offend for the time to come Canst thou gather hope from the chiding of thy Earthly Father and wilt thou find no comfort in the chidings and threatnings of thy Heavenly Father whose bowels of tender compassion to usward are so much larger than any Earthly Parents can be by how much himself the Father of spirits is greater than those fathers of our flesh Yea but who am I will some disconsolate soul say that I should make Gods Threatnings void or what my Repentance that it should cancel the Oracles of Truth or reverse the Sentence of the eternal Judge Poor distressed soul that thus disputest against thine own peace but seest not the while the unfathomed depth of Gods Mercy and the wonderful dispensations of his Truth Know that his Threatnings are not made void or of none effect when thou by thy Repentance stayest the execution of them yea rather then are they of all other times most effectual for then do they most of all accomplish their proper End and the thing for which they were intended in thy Amendment Neither let his Truth make thee despair but remember that the tenor of all his most peremptory threatnings runneth with an implicit reservation and Conditional Exception of Repentance which condition if thou on thy part faithfully perform the Judgment shall be turned away and yet God's Truth no whit impaired This for the Distressed Now for the Secure Moses in Deut. 29. speaketh of a certain Root that beareth Gall and Wormwood that blesseth it self when God curseth and standeth unmoved when God threatneth Here is an Axe for that Root to hew it in pieces and unless it bring forth better fruit to cleave it out for the fire If therebe any sprigs or spurns of that Root here let them also consider what hath been said and tremble Consider this I say and tremble all you that make a mock at God and at his Word and imagine that all his Threatnings are but Bruta fulmina empty cracks and Powder without shot because sundry of them have fallen to the ground and not done the hurt they made shew of But know whosoever thou art that thus abusest the Mercy and despisest the Truth of God that as his Mercy never did so his Truth shall never fail Thou sayest some of his Threatnings have done no harm I say as much too and his mercy be blessed for it but what is that to secure thee If any where God's Threatnings did no harm and wrought no destruction it was there only where they did good and wrought Repentance If they have turned thee from thy sins as they have done some others there is hope thou mayest turn them away from thee as some others have done But if they have done no good upon thee in working thy Repentance certainly they hang over thee to do thee harm and to work thy destruction Gods Threatnings are in this respect as all his other words are sure and stedfast and such as Shall never return void but accomplish that for which they were sent if not the one way then without all doubt the other If they do not humble thee they must overwhelm thee if they work not thy Conversion they will thy Ruine As some strong Physick that either mendeth or endeth the Patient so are these And therefore when judgments are denounced resolve quickly off or
generation be visited with any such spiritual judgment as is the removal of their Candlestick and the want of the Gospel for the sins and impieties of their Ancestors in some former generations yet this ought no more to be accounted the punishment of one for another than it ought to be accounted the punishing of one for another to punish a man in his Old Age for the sins of his Youth For as the body of a man though the primitive moisture be continually spending and wasting therein and that decay be still repaired by a daily supply of new and alimental moisture is yet truly the same body and as a River fed with a living Spring though the water that is in the channel be continually running out and other water freshly succeeding in the place and room thereof is truly the same River so a Nation or People though one generation is ever passing away and another coming on is yet truly the same Nation or People after an hundred or a thousand years which it was before Again secondly The want of the Gospel is not properly a spiritual but rather a temporal punishment We call it indeed sometimes a spiritual Iudgment as we do the free use of it a spiritual blessing because the Gospel was written for and revealed unto the Church by the Spirit of God and also because it is the Holy Ordinance of God and the proper instrument whereby ordinarily the spiritual life of Faith and of Grace is conveyed into our souls But yet properly and primarily those only are Spiritual Blessings which are immediately wrought in the soul by the Spirit of God and by the same Spirit cherished and preserved in the heart of the receiver for his good and are proper and peculiar to those that are born again of the Spirit and all those on the contrary which may be subject to decay or are common to the reprobate with the Elect or may turn to the hurt of the receiver are to be esteemed temporal blessings and not spiritual And such a blessing is the outward partaking of the Word and Ordinances of God the want thereof therefore consequently is to be esteemed a temporal judgment rather than spiritual So that notwithstanding this instance still the former consideration holdeth good that God sometimes visiteth the sins of the fathers upon the children with outward and temporal but never with spiritual and eternal punishments Now if there could no more be said to this doubt but only this it were sufficient to clear God's Justice since we have been already instructed that these temporal judgments are not always properly and formally the punishments of sin For as outward blessings are indeed no true blessings properly because wicked men have their portion in them as well as the godly and they may turn and often do to the greater hurt of the soul and so become rather Punishments than Blessings so to the contrary outward punishments are no true punishments properly because the Godly have their share in them as deep as the Wicked and they may turn and often do to the greater good of the soul and so become rather Blessings than Punishments If it be yet said But why then doth God threaten them as Punishments if they be not so I answer First because they seem to be punishments and are by most men so accounted for their grievousness though they be not properly such in themselves Secondly for the common event because ut plurimum and for the most part they prove punishments to the sufferer in case he be not bettered as well as grieved by them Thirdly because they are indeed a kind of punishment though not then deserved but formerly Fourthly and most to the present purpose because not seldom the Father himself is punished in them who through tenderness of affection taketh very much to heart the Evils that happen to his Child sometimes more than if they had happened to himself See David weeping and pulling for his traiterous Son Absolom when he was gone more affectionately than we find he did for the hazards of his own person and of the whole State of Israel whilst he lived For if it be a punishment to a man to sustain losses in his Cattle or Goods or Lands or Friends or any other thing he hath how much more then in his Children of whom he maketh more account than of all the rest as being not only an Image but even a part of himself and for whose sakes especially it is that he maketh so much account of the rest The Egyptians were plagued not only in the blasting of their Corn the murrain of their Cattel the unwholesomness of their Waters the annoyance of Vermine and such like but also and much more in the death of their first-born that was their last and greatest Plague The news of his children slain with the fall of an house did put Iob though not quite out of Patience yet more to the trial of his patience than the loss of all his substance besides though of many thousands of Oxen and Asses and Sheep and Camels Now if no man charge God with Injustice if when a man sinneth he punishe him in his body or goods or good name or in other things why should it be suspected of Injustice when he sinneth to punish him in his Children at least there where the evil of the children seen or fore-seen redoundeth to the grief and affliction of the Father And so was David's Murther and Adultery justly punished in the loss of his incestuous Son Amnon and of his murtherous Son Absalom Upon which ground some think that clause unto the third and fourth generation to have been added in the Second Commandment respectively to the ordinary ages of Men who oftentimes live to see their Children to the third and sometimes to the fourth Generation but very seldom farther implying as they think that God usually punisheth the sins of the Fathers upon the Children within such a compass of time as they may in likelihood see it and grieve at it and then whatever evil it be it is rather inflicted as a punishment to them than to their Children This in part satisfieth the doubt That the Punishments which God layeth upon the Children for the Fathers sins are only temporal punishments and consequently by our second ground not properly punishments But yet for so much as these temporal evils be it properly be it improperly are still a kind of Punishment and we have been already taught from the third ground that all evils of punishment whether proper or improper are brought upon men evermore and only for their own personal Sins the doubt is not yet wholly removed unless we admit of a second Consideration and that concerneth the Condition of those Children upon whom such punishments are inflicted for their fathers Sins And first It is considerable that Children most times tread in their Fathers steps and
on your own time and suspendeth the judgments your sins have deserved for a space as here he did Ahab's upon his humiliation but be assured sooner or later vengeance will overtake you or yours for it You have Coveted an evil covetousness to your house and there hangeth a judgment over your house for it as rain in the clouds which perhaps in your sons perhaps in your grand-childs days sometime or other will come dashing down upon it and overwhelm it Think not the vision is for many descents to come De malè quaesitis vix gaudet tertius haeres seldom doth the third scarce ever the fourth generation pass before God visit the sins of the Fathers upon the Children if he do not in the very next generation In his sons days will I bring the evil upon his house Secondly if not only our own but our Fathers sins too may be shall be visited upon us how concerneth it us as to repent for our own so to lament also the sins of our forefathers and in our confessions and supplications to God sometimes to remember them that he may forget them and to set them before his face that he may cast them behind his back We have a good president for it in our publick Letany Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers A good and a profitable and a needful prayer it is and those men have not done well nor justly that have cavilled at it O that men would be wise according to sobriety and allow but just interpretations to things advisedly established rather than busie themselves nodum in scirpo to pick needless quarrels where they should not What unity would it bring to brethren what peace to the Church what joy to all good and wise men As to this particular God requireth of the Israelites in Lev. 26. that they should confess their iniquity and the iniquity of their Fathers David did so and Ieremy did so and Daniel did so in Psal. 106. in Ierem 3. in Dan. 9. And if David thought it a fit curse to pronounce against Iudas and such as he was in Psal. 109. Let the wickedness of his fathers be had in remembrance in the sight of the Lord and let not the sin of his mother be done away why may we not nay how ought we not to pray for the removal of this very curse from us as well as of any other curses The present age is rise of many enormous crying sins which call loud for a judgment upon the land and if God should bring upon us a right heavy one whereat all ears should tingle could we say other but that it were most just even for the sins of this present generation But if unto our own so many so great God should also add the sins of our forefathers the bloodshed and tyranny and grievous unnatural butcheries in the long times of the Civil wars and the universal Idolatries and superstitions covering the whole land in the longer and darker times of Popery and if as he sometimes threatned to bring upon the Iews of that one generation all the righteous blood that ever was shed upon the earth from the blood of the righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias so he should bring the sins of our Ancestors for many generations past upon this generation of ours who could be able to abide it Now when the security of the times give us but too much cause to fear it and regions begin to look white towards the harvest is it not time for us with all humiliation of Soul and Body to cast down our selves and with all contention of voice and spirit to lift up our prayers and to say Remember not Lord our offences nor the offences of our forefathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins Spare us good Lord spare the people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood and be not angry with us for ever Spare us good Lord Thirdly Since not only our fathers sins and our own but our Neighbours sins too aliquid malum propter vicinum malum but especially the sins of Princes and Governours delirant reges plectuntur Achivi may bring judgments upon us and enwrap us in their punishments it should teach every one of us to seek his own private in the common and publick good and to endeavour if but for our own security from punishment to awaken others from their security in sin How should we send up Supplications and prayers and intercessions for Kings and for all that are in authority that God would incline their hearts unto righteous courses and open their ears to wholesom counsels and strengthen their hands to just actions when but a sinful oversight in one of them may prove the overthrow of many thousands of us as David but by once numbring his people in the pride of his heart lessened their number at one clap threescore and ten thousand If Israel turn their backs upon their enemies up Ioshua and make search for the troubler of Israel firret out the thief and do execution upon him one Achan if but suffered is able to undo the whole host of Israel what mischief might he do if countenanced if allowed The hour I see hath overtaken me and I must end To wrap up all in a word then and conclude Thou that hast power over others suffer no sin in them by base connivence but punish it thou that hast charge of others suffer no sin in them by dull silence but rebuke it thou that hast any interest in or dealing with others suffer no sin upon them by easie allowance but distaste it thou that hast nothing else yet by thy charitable prayers for them and by constant example to them stop the course of sin in others further the growth of grace in others labour by all means as much as in thee lieth to draw others unto God lest their sins draw God's judgments upon themselves and thee This that thou mayest do and that I may do and that every one of us that feareth God and wisheth well to the Israel of God may do faithfully and discreetly in our several stations and callings let us all humbly beseech the Lord the God of all grace and wisdom for his Son Iesus sake by his holy Spirit to enable us To which blessed Trinity one only Wise Immortal Invisible Almighty most gracious and most glorious Lord and God be ascribed by every one of us the kingdom the power and the glory both now and for ever AD POPULUM The Fourth Sermon In St. Paul's Church London Nov. 4. 1621. 1 COR. VII 24. Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God IF flesh and blood be suffered to make the Gloss it is able to corrupt a right good Text. It easily turneth the doctrine of Gods grace into wantonness and as easily the doctrine of Christian liberty into
licentiousness These Corinthians being yet but Carnal for the point of Liberty consulted it seemeth but too much with this cursed Gloss. Which taught them to interpret their Calling to the Christian Faith as an Exemption from the duties of all other callings as if their spiritual freedom in Christ had cancelled ipso facto all former obligations whether of Nature or Civility The Husband would put away his Wife the Servant disrespect his Master every other man break the bonds of relation to every other man and all under this pretence and upon this ground that Christ hath made them free In this passage of the Chapter the Apostle occasionally correcteth this errour principally indeed as the present Argument led him in the particular of Marriage but with a farther and more universal extent to all outward states and conditions of life The summ of his Doctrine this He that is yoked with a wife must not put her away but count her worthy of all love he that is bound to a Master must not despise him but count him worthy of all honour every other man that is tied in any relation to any other man must not neglect him but count him worthy of all good offices and civil respects suitable to his place and person though Shee or He or that other be Infidels and Unbelievers The Christian Calling doth not at all prejudice much less overthrow it rather establisheth and strengtheneth those interests that arise from natural relations or from voluntary contracts either domestical or civil betwixt Man and Man The general rule to this effect he conceiveth in the form of an Exhortation that every man notwithstanding his calling unto liberty in Christ abide in that station wherein God hath placed him contain himself within the bounds thereof and chearfully and contentedly undergo the duties that belong thereto vers 17. As God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk And lest this Exhortation as it fareth with most other especially such as come in but upon the by as this doth should be slenderly regarded the more fully to commend it to their consideration and practice he repeateth it once again verse 20. Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called And now again once more in the words of this verse concluding therewith the whole discourse into which he had digressed Brethren let every man wherein he is called therein abide with God From which words I desire it may be no prejudice to my present discourse if I take occasion to entreat at this time of a very needful argument viz. concerning the Necessity Choice and Use of particular callings Which whilest I do if any shall blame me for shaking hands with my Text let such know First that it will not be very charitably done to pass a hard censure upon anothers labour no nor yet very providently for their own good to slight a profitable truth for some little seeming impertinency Secondly that the points proposed are indeed not impertinent the last of them which supposeth also the other two being the very substance of this Exhortation and all of them such as may without much violence be drawn from the very words themselves at leastwise if we may be allowed the liberty which is but reasonable to take in also the other two verses the 17. and the 20. in sence and for substance all one with this as anon in the several handlings of them in part will appear But howsoever Thirdly which Saint Bernard deemed a sufficient Apology for himself in a case of like nature Noverint me non tam intendisse c. let them know that in my choice of this Scripture my purpose was not so much to bind my self to the strict exposition of the Apostolical Text as to take occasion therefrom to deliver what I desired to speak and judged expedient for you to hear concerning 1. the Necessity 2. the Choice and 3. the Use of particular Callings Points if ever need to be taught and known certainly in these days most Wherein some habituated in idleness will not betake themselves to any Calling like a heavy jade that is good at bit and nought else These would be soundly spurred up and whipped on end Othersome through weakness do not make good choice of a fit Calling like a young unbroken thing that hath metal and is free but is ever wrying the wrong way These would be fairly checkt turned into the right way and guided with a steddy and skilful hand A third sort and I think the greatest through unsetledness or discontentedness or other untoward humour walk not soberly and uprightly and orderly in their Calling like an unruly Colt that will over hedge and ditch no ground will hold him no fence turn him These would be well fettered and side-hanckled for leaping The first sort are to be taught the Necessity of a Calling the second to be directed for the Choice of their Calling the third to be bounded and limited in the Exercise of their Calling Of which three in their order and of the First first the Necessity of a Calling The Scriptures speak of two kinds of Vocations or Callings the one ad Foedus the other ad Munus The usual known terms are the General and the Particular Calling Vocatio ad Foedus or the General Calling is that wherewith God calleth us either outwardly in the ministry of his Word or inwardly by the efficacy of his Spirit or joyntly by both to the faith and obedience of the Gospel and to the embracing of the Covenant of grace and of mercy and salvation by Jesus Christ. Which is therefore termed the General Calling not for that it is of larger extent than the other but because the thing whereunto we are thus called is one and the same and common to all that are called The same duties and the same promises and every way the same conditions Here is no difference in regard of Persons but One Lord one Faith one Baptism one Body and one Spirit even as we are all called in one hope of our Calling That 's the General Calling Vocatio ad Munus Our Particular Calling is that wherewith GOD enableth us and directeth us and putteth us on to some special course and condition of life wherein to employ our selves and to exercise the gifts he hath bestowed upon us to his glory and the benefit of our selves and others And it is therefore termed a Particular Calling not as if it concerned not all in general for we shall prove the contrary anon but because the thing whereunto men are thus called is not one and the same to all but differenced with much variety according to the quality of particular persons Alius sic alius verò sic Every man hath his proper gift of God one man on this manner another on that Here is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some called to be
Magistrates some Ministers some Merchants some Artificers some one thing some another as to their particular Callings But as to the General Calling there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the common Salvation all called to the same State of being the servants and children of God all called to the performance of the same duties of servants and to the expectation of the same inheritance of children all called to be Christians Of both which Callings the General and Particular there is not I take it any where in Scripture mention made so expresly and together as in this passage of our Apostle especially at the 20. vers Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he is called Where besides the matter the Apostles elegancy is observable in using the same word in both significations the Noun signifying the Particular and the Verb the General Calling Let every one abide in the same calling wherein he was called bearing sence as if the Apostle had said Let every man abide in the same Particular Calling wherein he stood at the time of his General Calling And the same and no other is the meaning of the words of my Text. Whence it appeareth that the Calling my Text implieth and wherein every man is here exhorted to abide is to be understood of the Particular and not of the General Calling And of this Particular Calling it is we now intend to speak And that in the more Proper and restrained signification of it as it importeth some setled course of life with reference to business office and employment accordingly as we say a man is called to be a Minister called to be a Lawyer called to be a Tradesman and the like Although I cannot be ignorant that our Apostle as the stream of his argument carried him here taketh the word in a much wider extent as including not only such special courses of life as refer to employment but even all outward personal states and conditions of men whatsoever whether they have such reference or no as we may say a man is called to Marriage or to single life called to riches or poverty and the like But omitting this larger signification we will hold our selves either only or principally to the former and by Calling understand A special setled course of life wherein mainly to employ a mans gifts and time for his own and the common good The Necessity whereof whilest we mention you are to imagine not an absolute and positive but a conditional and suppositive necessity Not as if no man could be without one de facto daily experience in these dissolute times manifesteth the contrary but because de jure no man should be without one This kind of Calling is indeed necessary for all men But how Not as a necessary thing ratione termini so as the want thereof would be an absolute impossibility but virtute praecepti as a necessary duty the neglect whereof would be a grievous and sinful enormity He that will do that which he ought and is in conscience bound to do must of necessity live in some calling or other That is it we mean by the necessity of a Calling And this Necessity we are now to prove And that First from the Obedience we owe to every of Gods Ordinances and the account we must render for every of Gods Gifts Amongst those Ordinances this is one and one of the first that in the sweat of our faces every man of us should eat our bread Gen. 3. The force of which precept let none think to avoid by a quirk that forsooth it was laid upon Adam after his transgression rather as a Curse which he must endure than as a Duty which he should perform For first as some of Gods Curses such is his Goodness are promises as well as curses as is that of the Enmity between the Womans seed and the Serpents so some of Gods Curses such is his Iustice are Precepts as well as Curses as is that of the Womans subjection to the Man This of eating our bread in the sweat of our face is all the three it is a Curse it is a Promise it is a Precept It is a Curse in that God will not suffer the earth to afford us bread without our sweat It is a Promise in that God assureth us we shall have bread for our sweat And it is a Precept too in that God enjoyneth us if we will have bread to sweat for it Secondly although it may not be gainsaid but that that injunction to Adam was given as a Curse yet the substance of the Injunction was not the thing wherein the Curse did formally consist Herein was the Curse that whereas before the fall the task which God appointed man was with pleasure of body and content of mind without sweat of brow or brain now after the Fall he was to toil and forecast for his living with care of mind and travel of body with weariness of flesh and vexation of spirit But as for the substance of the Injunction which is that every man should have somewhat to do wherein to bestow himself and his time and his gifts and whereby to earn his bread in this it appeareth not to have been a Curse but a Precept of divine institution that Adam in the time and state of innocency before he had deserved a Curse was yet enjoyned his Task To dress and to keep the garden And as Adam lived himself so he bred up his children His two first born though heirs apparent of all the world had yet their peculiar employments the one in tillage the other in pasturage And as many since as have walked orderly have observed Gods Ordinance herein Working with their hands the thing that is good in some kind or other those that have set themselves in no such good way our Apostle elsewhere justly blaming as inordinate or disorderly walkers And how can such disorderly ones hope to find approvance in the sight of our God who is a God of Order He commandeth us to live in a Calling and wo to us if we neglect it But say there were no such express Command for it the very distribution of God's gifts were enough to lay upon us this necessity Where God bestoweth he bindeth and to whom any thing is given of him something shall be required The inference is stronger than most are aware of from the Ability to the Duty from the Gift to the Work from the Fitting to the Calling Observe how this Apostle knitteth them together at the 17. Verse as God hath distributed to every man as the Lord hath called every one so let him walk God hath distributed to every man some proper gift or other and therefore every man must glorifie God in some peculiar Calling or other And in Eph. 4. having alledged that of the Psalm He gave gifts unto men immediately he inferreth He gave some Apostles some
take in paper which if a man had many millions of gold and silver could take up but a small portion of that precious time which God would have spent in some honest and fruitful employment But what do I speak of the judgment of reasonable men in so plain a matter wherein I dare appeal to the conscience even of the Usurer himself and it had need be a very plain matter that a man would refer to the conscience of an Usurer No honest man need be ashamed of an honest Calling if then the Usurers Calling be such what need he care who knoweth or why should he shame with it If that be his trade why doth he not in his Bills and Bonds and Noverints make it known to all men by those presents that he is an Usurer rather than write himself Gentleman or Yeoman or by some other stile But say yet our Usurer should escape at least in the judgment of his own hardened conscience from both these Rules as from the sword of Iehu and Hazael there is yet a third Rule like the sword of Elisha to strike him stone-dead and he shall never be able to escape that Let him shew wherein his Calling is profitable to humane society Hee keepeth no Hospitality if he have but a barr'd chest and a strong lock to keep his God and his Scriptures his Mammon and his Parchments in it he hath house-room enough He fleeceth many but cloatheth none He biteth and devoureth but eateth all his morsels alone He giveth not so much as a crum no not to his dearest Broker or Scrivener only where he biteth he alloweth them to scratch what they can for themselves The King the Church the poor are all wronged by him and so are all that live near him in every common charge he slippeth the collar and leaveth the burden upon those that are less able It were not possible Usurers should be so bitterly inveighed against by sober Heathen Writers so severely censured by the Civil and Canon Laws so uniformly condemned by godly Fathers and Councils so universally hated by all men of all sorts and in all Ages and Countries as Histories and experience manifest they ever have been and are if their Practice and calling had been any way profitable and not indeed every way hurtful and incommodious both to private men and publick societies If any thing can make a calling unlawful certainly the Usurers Calling cannot be lawful Our first care past which concerneth the Calling it self our next care in our choice must be to enquire into Our selves what Calling is most fit for us and we for it Wherein our Enquiry must rest especially upon three things our Inclination our Gifts and our Education Concerning which let this be the first rule Where these three concur upon one and the same Calling our consciences may rest assured that that Calling is fit for us and we ought so far as it lyeth in our power to resolve to follow that This Rule if well observed is of singular use for the setling of their consciences who are scrupulous and doubtful concerning their inward Calling to any office or employment Divines teach it commonly and that truly that every man should have an inward Calling from God for his particular course of life and this in the Calling of the Ministry is by so much more requisite than in most other Callings by how much the business of it is more weighty than theirs as of things more immediately belonging unto GOD. Whence it is that in our Church none are admitted into Holy Orders until they have personally and expresly made profession before the Bishop that they find themselves inwardly called and moved thereunto But because what that inward Calling is and how it should be discerned is a thing not so distinctly declared and understood generally as it should be it often falleth out that men are distressed in Conscience with doubts and scruples in this case whilest they desire to be assured of their inward Calling and know not how We are to know therefore that to this inward Calling there is not of necessity required any inward secret sensible testimony of Gods blessed sanctifying Spirit to a mans soul for then an unsanctified man could not be rightly called neither yet any strong working of the Spirit of illumination for then a meer heathen man could not be rightly called both which consequents are false For Saul and Iudas were called the one to the Kingdom the other to the Apostleship of whom it is certain the one was not and it is not likely the other was endued with the holy Spirit of Sanctification And many Heathen men have been called to several employments wherein they have also laboured with much profit to their own and succeeding times who in all probability never had any other inward motion than what might arise from some or all of these three things now specified viz. the Inclination of their nature their personal Abilities and the care of Education If it shall please GOD to afford any of us any farther gracious assurance than these can give us by some extraordinary work of his Spirit within us we are to embrace it with joy and thankfulness as a special favour but we are not to suspend our resolutions for the choice of a course in expectation of that extraordinary assurance since we may receive comfortable satisfaction to our souls without it by these ordinary means now mentioned For Who need be scrupulous where all these concur Thy Parents have from thy childhood destinated thee to some special course admit the Ministery and been at the care and charge to breed thee up in learning to make thee in some measure fit for it when thou art grown to some maturity of years and discretion thou findest in thy self a kind of desire to be doing something that way in thy private study by way of tryal and withal some measure of knowledge discretion and utterance though perhaps not in such an eminent degree as thou couldest wish yet in such a competency as thou mayst reasonably perswade thy self thou mightest thereby be able with his blessing to do some good to Gods people and not be altogether unprofitable in the Ministry In this so happy concurrence of Propension Abilities and Education make no farther enquiry doubt not of thine inward calling Tender thy self to those that have the power of Admission for thy outward calling which once obtained thou art certainly in thine own proper Course Up and be doing for the Lord hath called thee and no doubt the Lord will be with thee But say these three do not concur as oftentimes they do not A man may be destinated by his friends and accordingly bred out of some covetous or ambitious or other corrupt respect to some Calling wherefrom he may be altogether averse and whereto altogether unfit as we see some Parents that have the donations or Advocations of Church Livings in
we are able to search into whereby he layeth a restraint upon men and keepeth them back from many sins and mischiefs at least from the extremity of many sins and mischiefs whereunto otherwise Nature and Temptation would carry them with a strong current Not to speak yet of that sweet and of all other the most blessed and powerful restraint which is wrought in us by the Spirit of Sanctification renewing the soul and subduing the corruption that is in the flesh unto the obedience of the Spirit at which I shall have fitter occasion to touch anon In the mean time that there is something or other that restraineth men from doing some evils unto which they have not only a natural proneness but perhaps withal an actual desire and purpose might be shewn by a world of instances but because every mans daily experience can abundantly furnish him with some we will therefore content our selves with the fewer Laban meant no good to Iacob when taking his Brethren with him he pursued after him seven days journey in an hostile manner and he had power to his will to have done Iacob a mischief Iacob being but imbellis turba no more but himself his wives and his little ones with his flocks and herds and a few servants to attend them unable to defend themselves much more unmeet to resist a prepared enemy yet for all his power and purpose and preparation Laban when he had overtaken Iacob durst have nothing at all to do with him and he had but very little to say to him neither The worst was but this Thus and thus have you dealt with me And It is in the power of mine hand to do you hurt but the God of your father spake unto me yesternight saying Take thou heed that thou speak not to Jacob either good or bad See the story in Gen. 31. The same Iacob had a Brother as unkind as that Uncle nay much more despitefully bent against him than he for he had vowed his destruction The days of mourning for my father are at hand and then I will slay my Brother Jacob and although the Mother well hoped that some few days time and absence would appease the fury of Esau and all should be forgotten yet twenty years after the old grudge remained and upon Iacob's approach Esau goeth forth to meet him with 400 men armed as it should seem for his destruction which cast Iacob into a terrible fear and much distressed he was good man and glad to use the best wit he had by dividing his Companies to provide for the safety at least of some part of his charge And yet behold at the encounter no use at all of the 400 men unless to be spectators and witnesses of the joyful embraces and kind loving complements that passed between the two brothers in the liberal offers and modest refusals each of others courtesies in the 32 and 33 of Genesis A good Probatum of that Observation of Solomon When a mans ways please the Lord he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him Balaam the Conjurer when the king Balak had cast the hook before him baited with ample rewards in hand and great promotions in reversion if he would come over to him and curse Israel had both Covetousness and Ambition enough in him to make him bite so that he was not only willing but even desirous to satisfie the King for he loved the wages of unrighteousness with his heart and therefore made trial till he saw it was all in vain if by any means he could wring a permission from God to do it But when his eyes were opened to behold Israel and his mouth open that he must now pronounce something upon Israel though his eyes were full of Envy and his heart of Cursing yet God put a parable of Blessing into his mouth and he was not able to utter a syllable of any thing other than good concerning Israel in 22 and 24 of Numbers In all which and sundry other instances wherein when there was intended before-hand so much evil to be done and there was withal in the parties such a forward desire and such a solemn preparation to have it done and yet when all came to all so little or nothing was done of what was intended but rather the contrary it cannot first be imagined that such a stop should be made but by the powerful restraint of some superiour and over-ruling hand neither may we doubt in the second place that every such restraint by what second and subordinate means soever it be furthered is yet the proper work of God as proceeding from and guided by his Almighty and irresistible providence And as for that which hapned to Balaam that it was Gods doing the evidence is clear we have it from the mouth of two or three witnesses The Wizard himself confesseth it The Lord will not suffer me to go with you Num. 22. The King that set him on work upbraideth him with it I thought indeed to promote thee to great honour but lo the Lord hath kept thee back from honour Num. 24. And Moses would have Israel take knowledge of it The Lord thy God would not hearken unto Balaam but the Lord thy God turned the curse into a blessing because the Lord thy God loved thee Deut. 23. It was God then that turned Balaam's curse into a blessing and it was the same God that turned Laban's revengeful thoughts into a friendly Expostulation and it was the same God that turned Esau's inveterate malice into a kind brotherly congratulation He that hath set bounds to the Sea which though the waves thereof rage horribly they cannot pass Hitherto shalt thou go and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves and did command the waters of the Red Sea to stay their course and stand up as on heaps and by his power could enforce the waters of the River Iordan to run quite against the Current up the Channel he hath in his hands and at his command the hearts of all the sons of men yea though they be the greatest Kings and Monarchs in the world as the Rivers of waters and can wind and turn them at his pleasure inclining them which way soever he will The fierceness of man shall turn to thy praise saith David in Psal. 76. 10. and the fierceness of them shalt thou retain the latter clause of the verse is very significant in the Original and cometh home to our purpose as if we should translate it Thou shalt gird the remainder of their wrath or of their fierceness The meaning is this Suppose a mans heart be never so full fraught with envy hatred malice wrath and revenge let him be as fierce and furious as is possible God may indeed suffer him and he will suffer him to exercise so much of his corruption and proceed so far in his fierceness as he
temptations where this may fail We may deceive our selves then and thousands in the world do so deceive themselves if upon our abstaining from sins from which God with-holdeth us we presently conclude our selves to be in the state of grace and to have the power of godliness and the spirit of sanctification For between this restraining grace whereof we have now spoken and that renewing grace whereof we now speak there are sundry wide differences They differ first in their fountain Renewing Grace springeth from the special love of God towards those that are his in Christ Restraining Grace is a fruit of that general mercy of God whereof it is said in the Psalm that his mercy is over all his works They differ secondly in their extent both of Person Subject Object and Time For the Person Restraining Grace is common to good and bad Renewing Grace proper and peculiar to the Elect. For the Subject Restraining grace may bind one part or faculty of a man as the hand or tongue and leave another free as the heart or ear Renewing grace worketh upon All in some measure sanctifieth the whole man Body and soul and spirit with all the parts and faculties of each For the Object Renewing grace may with-hold a man from one sin and give him scope to another Restraining grace carrieth an equal and just respect to all Gods Commandments For the Time Restraining grace may tie us now and by and by unloose us Renewing grace holdeth out unto the end more or less and never leaveth us wholly destitute Thirdly they differ in their Ends. Restraining Grace is so intended chiefly for the good of humane society especially of the Church of God and of the members thereof as that indifferently it may or may not do good to the Receiver but Renewing Grace is especially intended for the Salvation of the Receiver though Ex consequenti it do good also unto others They differ fourthly and lastly in their Effects Renewing Grace mortifieth the corruption and subdueth it and diminisheth it as water quencheth fire by abating the heat but Restraining Grace only inhibiteth the exercise of the corruption for the time without any real diminution of it either in substance or quality as the fire wherein the three Children walked had as much heat in it at that very instant as it had before and after although by the greater power of God the natural power of it was then suspended from working upon them The Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still albeit God stopped their mouths for that time that they should not hurt him but that there was no change made in their natural disposition appeareth by their entertainment of their next guests whom they devoured with all greediness breaking their bones before they came to the ground By these two instances and examples we may in some measure conceive of the nature and power of the restraining Grace of God in wicked men It bridleth the corruption that is in them for the time that it cannot break out and manacleth them in such sort that they do not shew forth the ungodly disposition of their heart but there is no real change wrought in them all the while their heart still remaining unsanctified and their natural corruption undiminished Whereas the renewing and sanctifying grace of God by a real change of a Lion maketh a Lamb altereth the natural disposition of the soul by draining out some of the corruption begetteth a new heart a new spirit new habits new qualities new dispositions new thoughts new desires maketh a new man in every part and faculty compleatly New Content not thy self then with a bare forbearance of sin so long as thy heart is not changed nor thy will changed nor thy affections changed but strive to become a new man to be transformed by the renewing of thy mind to hate sin to love God to wrestle against thy secret corruptions to take delight in holy duties to subdue thine understanding and will and affections to the obedience of Faith and Godliness So shalt thou not only be restrained from sinning against God as Abimelech here was but also be enabled as faithful Abraham was to please God and consequently assured with all the faithful children of Abraham to be preserved by the Almighty power of God through faith unto salvation Which Grace and Faith and Salvation the same Almighty God the God of Power and of Peace bestow upon us all here assembled With all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord both theirs and ours even for the same our Lord Jesus Christs sake his most dear Son and our blessed Saviour and Redeemer To which blessed Father and blessed Son with the blessed Spirit most holy blessed and glorious Trinity be ascribed by us and the whole Church all the Kingdom the Power and the Glory from this time forth and for ever Amen AD POPULUM The Seventh Sermon At St. Paul's Cross London May 6. 1632. 1 Pet. II. 16. As free and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness but as the servants of God THere is not any thing in the World more generally desired than Liberty nor scarce any thing more generally abused Insomuch as even that blessed liberty which the eternal Son of God hath purchased for his Spouse the Church and endowed her therewithal hath in no Age been free from Abuses whilst some have sinfully neglected their Christian liberty to their own prejudice and other some have as sinfully stood upon it to the prejudice of their brethren So hardly through Pride and Ignorance and other Corruptions that abound in us do we hit upon the golden mean either in this or almost in any thing else but easily swerve into the Vicious Extreams on both hands declining sometimes into the Defect and sometimes into the Excess The Apostles therefore especially St. Peter and St. Paul the two chiefest planters of the Churches endeavoured early to instruct believers in the true Doctrine and to direct them in the right use of their Christian liberty so often in their several Epistles as fit occasion was offered thereunto Which we may observe them to have done most frequently and fully in those Two Cases which being very common are therefore of the greater consequence viz. the case of Scandal and the case of Obedience And we may further observe concerning these Two Apostles that St. Paul usually toucheth upon this Argument of Liberty as it is to be exercised in the case of Scandal but St. Peter oftner as in the Case of Obedience Whereof on St. Peter's part I conceive the reason to be this That being the Apostle of the Circumcision and so having to deal most with the Iews who could not brook subjection but were of all Nations under heaven the most impatient of a foreign yoke he was therefore the more careful to deliver the
our selves either by the devices of other men or by our own sloth and wilful default to be entangled again with the yoke of bondage And namely in this particular branch whereof we now speak whatsoever serviceable offices we do to any of our brethren especially to those that are in Authority we must perform our duty therein with all chearfulness of spirit and for Conscience sake but still with freedom of spirit and with liberty of Conscience as being servants to God alone and not to men We find therefore in the Scriptures a peremptory charge both ways that we neither usurp mastership nor undergo servitude A charge given by our Saviour Christ to his Disciples in the former behalf that they should not be called Rabbi neither Masters Matth. 23. and a charge given by the Apostle Paul to all Believers in the latter behalf that they should not be servants of men 1 Cor. 7. God forbid any man of us possessed with an Anabaptistical spirit or rather frenesy should understand either of those passages or any other of like sound as if Christ or his Apostle had had any purpose therein to slacken those sinews and ligaments and to dissolve those joynts and contignations which tie into one body and clasp into one structure those many little members and parts whereof all humane Societies consist that is to say to forbid all those mutual Relations of superiority and subjection which are in the world and so to turn all into a vast Chaos of Anarchy and Confusion For such a meaning is contrarious to the express determination of Christ and to the constant doctrine of St. Paul in other places and we ought so to interpret the Scriptures as that one place may consist with another without clashing or contradiction The true and plain meaning is this that we must not acknowledge any our supreme Master not yield our selves to be wholly and absolutely ruled by the will of any nor enthral our Iudgments and Consciences to the sentences or laws of any man or Angel but only Christ our Lord and Master in Heaven And this Interpretation is very consonant unto the Analogy of Scripture in sundry places In Eph. 6. to omit other places there are two distinctions implied the one in the 5. the other in the 7. Verses both of right good use for reconciling of sundry Texts that seem to contradict one another and for the clearing of sundry difficulties in the present argument Servants saith St. Paul there be obedient to them that are your Masters according to the flesh Which limitation affordeth us the distinction of Masters according to the flesh only and of Masters after the spirit also Intimating that we may have other Masters of our flesh to whom we may and must give due reverence so far as concerneth the flesh that is so far as appertaineth to the outward man and all outward things But of our spirits and souls and consciences as we can have no Fathers so we may have no Masters upon Earth but only our Master and our Father which is in Heaven And therefore in Mat 23. Christ forbiddeth the calling of any man upon Earth Father as well as he doth the calling of any man Master And both the prohibitions are to be understood alike and as hath been now declared Again saith St. Paul there with good will doing service as to the Lord and not to men which opposition importeth a second distinction and that is of Masters into supreme and subordinate those are subordinate Masters to whom we do service in ordine ad alium and as under another Those are supreme Masters in whom our obedience resteth in the final resolution of it without looking farther or higher Men may be our Masters and we their servants the first way with subordination to God and for his sake And we must do them service and that with good will but with reservation ever of our bounden service to him as our only supreme Sovereign and Absolute Master But the latter way it is high sacrilege in any man to challenge and it is High Treason against the sacred Majesty of God and of Christ for us to yield to any other but them the mastership that is the sovereign and absolute Mastership over us Briefly we must not understand those Scriptures that forbid either Mastership or Servitude as if they intended to discharge us from those mutual Obligations wherein either in nature or civility we stand tied one to another in the state Oeconomical Political or Ecclesiastical as anon it shall further appear but only to beget in us a just care amidst all the offices of love and duty which we perform to men to preserve inviolate that liberty which we have in Christ and so to do them service as to maintain withal our own freedom 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as free A thing whereof it behoveth us to have a special care and that for sundry and weighty respects First in regard of the trust reposed in us in this behalf Every honest man taketh himself bound to discharge with faithfulness the trust reposed in him and to preserve what is committed unto him by way of trust though it be another mans no less if not rather much more carefully than he would do if it were his own that so he may be able to give a good account of his trust Now these two the Christian Faith and the Christian Liberty are of all other the choicest Jewels whereof the Lord Jesus Christ hath made his Church the depository Every man therefore in the Church ought earnestly to contend as for the maintenance of the Faith as St. Iude speaketh so also for the maintenance of the liberty which was once delivered to the Saints even eo nomine and for that very reason because they were both delivered unto them under such a trust O Timothee depositum custodi St. Paul more than once calleth upon Timothy to keep that which was committed to his trust He meaneth it in respect of the Christian Faith which he was bound to keep entire as it was delivered him at his peril and as he would answer it another day And the like obligation lyeth upon us in respect of this other rich deposition this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Christian liberty for which we shall be answerable to Christ from whom we received it how we have both kept it and used it And if by our default and for want either of care or courage in us dolo vel latâ culpâ as the Lawyers say we lose or imbezel it as she said in the Canticles They made me the keeper of the Vineyard but mine own Vineyard have I not kept No doubt it will lie heavy upon us when we come to give in our Accounts Rather we should put on a resolution like that of Moses who would not yield to leave so much as an hoof behind him
final impenitency but by keeping out of the reach of these Presumptuous sins 25. From all these intimations in the Text we may conclude there is something more in Presumptuous sins than in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity the Obliquity greater and the Danger greater Which we are now a little farther to discover that so our care to avoid them may be the greater Their Obliquity is best seen in the Cause their Danger in the Effects It hath been cleared already that Presumptuous sins spring from the perversness of the will as the most proper and Immediate cause and it is the will that hath the chief stroke in all moral actions torender them good or bad better or worse It is a Maxime amongst the Cafuists Involuntarium minuit de ratione peccati and Voluntas distinguit maleficia say the Lawyers So that albeit there be many circumstances as of Time Place Persons c. and sundry other respects especially those of the Matter and of the End very considerable for the aggravating extenuating and comparing of sins one with another yet the consent of the Will is of so much greater importance than all the rest that all other considerations laid aside every sin is absolutely by so much greater or lesser by how much it is more or less voluntary Sithence therefore in sins of Ignorance and Infirmity there is less Wilfulness the Will being misled in the one by an Error in the Judgment and in the other transported by the violence of some Passion and in sins of Presumption there is a greater wilfulness wherein the Will wanting either information or leisure to resolve better doth yet knowingly and advisedly resolve to do ill it will necessarily follow that Presumptuous sins are therefore far greater sins than either of the other are The Will being abundantly and beyond measure wilful maketh the sin to be abundantly and beyond measure sinful Doubtless far greater was Davids sin in murthering though but his servant than either Peters in denying his Master or Sauls in blaspheming and persecuting his Saviour 26. Nor only do Presumptuous sins spring from a worse Cause than the other and thence are more Sinful but do also produce worse Effects than they and so are more dangerous whether we look at them before or at the time of Repentance or after Before Repentance they harden the heart wonderfully hey wast the conscience in a fearful manner and bring such a callous crust upon the tnner man that it will be a long and a hard work so to supple soften and iintender the heart again as to make it capable of the impressions of Repentance For alas what hope to do good upon a wilful man The most grave admonitions the most seasonable reproofs the most powerful exhortations the most convincing Reasons that can be used to such a man are but Tabula coeco as a curious Picture to a blind man for who so blind as he that will not see and Fabula surdo a pleasant tale to a deaf man for who so deaf as he that will not hear 27. Thus it is with wicked men and cast-aways whose brawny hearts are by these wilful rebellions fitted for and fatted up unto destruction And verily not much better than thus is it with Gods faithful servants for the time if at any time they hap to fall into any presumptuous sin In what a sad condition may we think poor David was after he had lain with the Wife and slain the Husband What musick could he now trow ye find in his own Anthems With what comfort could he say his Prayers Did not his tongue think ye cleave to the roof of his mouth And had not his right hand well-nigh forgot her cunning To the judgment of man no difference for some months together during his unrepentance betwixt holy David the man after Gods own heart and a profane scorner that had no fear of God before his eyes Such wast and havock had that great sin made and such spoil of the graces and pledges of Gods holy Spirit in his soul. Look how a sober wise man who when he is himself is able to order his words and affairs with excellent discretion when in a sharp burning-â—ever his blood is inflamed and his brains distempered will rave and talk at random and fling stones and dirt at all about him and every other way in his speeches and motions behave himself like a fool or mad-man so is the servant of God lying under the guilt of a Presumptuous sin before Repentance 28. And then when he doth come to repent Lord what a do there is with him before that great stomach of his will come down and his Masterful spirit be soundly subdued And yet down it must subdued it must be or he getteth no pardon What shrinking and drawing back when the wound cometh to be searcht And yet searcht it must be and probed to the bottom or there will be no perfect recovery Presumptuous sins being so grievous hath been shewed let no man think they will be removed with mean and ordinary Humiliations The Remedy must be proportioned both for strength and quantity Ingredients and Dose to the Quality and Malignity of the distemper or it will never do the cure As stains of a deep dye will not out of the cloth with such ordinary washings as will fetch out lighter spots so to cleanse the heart defiled with these deeper pollutions these crimson and scarlet sins and to restore it pure white as snow or wooll a more solemn and lasting course is requisite than for lesser transgressions It will ask more sighs more tears more Indignation more revenge a stronger infusion of all those soveraign ingredients prescribed by St. Paul 2 Cor. 7. before there can be any comfortable hope that it is pardoned The will of man is a sowre and stubborn piece of clay that will not frame to any serviceable use without much working A soft and tender heart indeed is soon rent in pieces like a silken garment if it do but catch upon any little nail But a heart hardned with long custom of sinning especially if it be with one of these presumptuous sins is like the knotty root-end of an old Oak that hath lain long a drying in the Sun It must be a hard wedge that will enter and it must be handled with some skill too to make it do that and when the wedge is entred it will endure many a hard knock before it will yield to the Cleaver and fall in sunder And indeed it is a blessed thing and to be acknowledged a gracious evidence of Gods unspeakable mercy to those that have wilfully suffered such an unclean spirit to enter in and to take possession of their souls if they shall ever be enabled to out him again though with never so much fasting and Prayer Potentes Potenter they that have mightily offended shall be sure to be mightily tormented if they repent not and therefore it is
to them that can lay hold of it for it is above the reach of Poets and Philosophers and beyond the ken even of professed Christians that want the eye of Faith to frame us to contentment with the present arising from the contemplation of the infinite love of our gracious Lord God joyntly with his infinite wisdom By these as many as are truly the Children of God by faith and not titulo tenùs only are assured of this most certain truth That whatsoever their heavenly Father in his wisdom seeth best for them that evermore in his love he provideth for them From which Principle every man that truly feareth God and hath fixed his hope there may draw this infallible conclusion demonstratively and by the Laws of good discourse per viam regressus This my good God hath presently ordered for me and therefore it must needs be he saw it presently best for me Thus may we sugere mel de petra gather grapes of thorns and figs of thistles and satisfie our selves with the honey of comfort out of the stony rock of barrenness and adversity 37. Where are they then that will tell you On the one side what jolly men they have been But miserum est fuisse Having been born and bred to better fortunes their spirits are too great to stoop to so low a condition as now they are in If it were with them as in some former times no men should lead more contented lives than they should do Or that will tell you on the other side what jolly men they shall be when such fortunes as they have in chase or in expectation shall fall into their hands they doubt not but they shall live as contentedly as the best Little do the one sort or the other know the falseness of their own unthankful and rebellious hearts If with discontent they repine at what they are I shall doubt they were never truly content with what they were and I shall fear unless God change their hearts that they will never be well content with what they shall be He that is indeed content when the Lord giveth can be content also when the Lord taketh away and with Iob bless the holy Name of God for both He had a mind contented in as good though perhaps not in so high a measure when he sate upon the dunghil scraping himself with a potsheard in the midst of his incompassionate friends as he had when he sate in the gate judging the people in the midst of the Princes and Elders of the Land 38. It were certainly therefore best for us to frame our minds now the best we can to our present estate be it better or worse that whether it shall be better or worse with us hereafter we may the better frame our minds to it then also We should all do in this case following the Lord which way soever he leadeth us as the Israelites followed the guidance of the cloudy-fiery-pillar When it went they went when it stood they stood and look which way it went to the North or to the South the same way they took and whether it moved swiftly or slowly they also framed their pace accordingly We are in like sort to frame our selves and wills to a holy submission to whatsoever the present good pleasure of his will and providence shall share out for us 39. Which yet let no man so desperately mis-understand as to please himself hereupon in his own sloth and supinity with Solomons sluggard whom that wise man censureth as a fool for it who foldeth his hands together and letteth the world wag as it will without any care at all what shall become of him and his another day And yet as if he were the only wise man Sapientum octavus wiser than seven men that can render a reason he speaketh Sentences but it is like a Parable in a fools mouth a speech full of reason in it self but by him witlesly applied and telleth you that Better is a handful with quietness than both the hands full with travel and vexation of spirit Would you not think him the most contented soul that lives But there is no such matter He is as desiring and as craving as the most covetous wretch that never ceaseth toyling and moyling to get more if he might but have it and never sweat for it 40. Nor yet Secondly so as to pass censure upon his brethren as if it were nothing but Covetousness or Ambition when he shall observe any of them by their providence industry and good endeavours in a fair and honest course to lay a foundation for their future better fortunes as the currish Philosopher snarled at his fellow Si pranderet olus sapienter regibus uti Nollet Aristippus For so long as the ways we go are just and straight and the care we take moderate and neither the things we look after unmeet for us nor the event of our endeavours improbable if withal the minds we bear be tempered with such an evenness as to expect the issue with patience and neither be puft up beyond measure with the good success of our affairs nor cast down beyond measure if they hap to miscarry it hindereth not but we may at once both be well contented with the Present and yet industriously provident for the future The same Poet hath meetly well expressed it there speaking again of the same person Omnis Aristippum decuit color status res Tentantem majora ferè praesentibus aequum It is a point of wisdom not a fruit of discontent when God openeth to a man a fair opportunity of advancing his estate to an higher or fuller condition than now he is in to embrace the opportunity and to use all meet diligence in the pursuit for the obtaining of his lawful desires Rather it is a fruit either of Pride or Sloth or both to neglect it though upon the pretence of being content with the present 41. Pass we now on from this Second to the Third and last points observed concerning the object of true Contentment which was the Indifferency of it as it standeth in the Text for the kind quantity quality and every other respect except the before excepted altogether unlimited 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indifferently Be it high or low rich or poor base or honourable easie or painful prosperous or troublous all is a point all that God sendeth is welcom He that hath learned St. Pauls Lesson can make a shift with any state and rest satisfied therewithall The Apostle a little enlargeth himself in the next verse shewing that in the change of outward things his mind yet continued unchanged and was still the same under the greatest contrarieties of events I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry both â—o abound and to suffer need And elsewhere he saith of himself and his fellow-labourers in the
should repose upon such things must needs rise and fall ebb and flow just as the things themselves do Which is contrary to the state of a true contented mind which still remaineth the same and unchanged notwithstanding whatsoever changes and chances happen in these outward and mutable things 7. We see now the unsufficiency of Nature of Morality of Outward things to bring Contentment It remaineth then that it must spring from Religion and from the Grace of God seated in the heart of every godly man which casteth him into a new mould and frameth the heart to a blessed calm within whatsoever storms are abroad and without And in this Grace there is no defect As the Lord sometimes answered our Apostle when he was importunate with him for that which he thought not fit at that time to grant sufficit tibi gratia My Grace is sufficient for thee He then that would attain to St. Pauls learning must repair to the same School where St. Paul got his learning and he must apply himself to the same Tutor that St. Paul had He must not languish in Porticu or in Lycaeo at the feet of Plato or Seneca but he must get him into the Sanctuary of God and there become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he must be taught of God and by the anointing of his holy Spirit of grace which anointing teacheth us all things 1 Ioh. 2. All other Masters are either Ignorant or Envious or Idle Some things they are not able to teach us though they would some things they are not willing to teach us though they might but this Anointing is every way a most compleat Tutor able and loving and active this anointing teacheth us all things and amongst other things this Art of Contentation also 8. Now as for the means whereby the Lord traineth us up by his holy grace unto this learning they are especially these three First by his spirit he worketh this perswasion in our hearts that whatsoever he disposeth unto us at any time for the present that is evermore the fittest and best for us at that time He giveth us to see that all things are guided and ordered by a most just and wise and powerful providence And although it be not fit for us to be acquainted with the particular Reasons of such his wise and gracious dispensations yet we are assured in the general that all things work together for the best to those that love God That he is a loving and careful Father of his children and will neither bring any thing upon them nor keep back any thing from them but for their Good That he is a most skilful and compassionate Physician such an one as at all times and perfectly understandeth the true state and temper of our hearts and affections and accordingly ordereth us and dieteth us as he seeth it most behoofeful for us in that present state for the preservation or recovery of our spiritual strength or for the prevention of future maladies And this perswasion is one special means whereby the Lord teacheth us Contentment with whatsoever he sendeth 9. Secondly whereas there are in the word scattered every where many gracious and precious promises not only concerning the life to come but also concerning this present life the spirit of grace in the heart of the Godly teacheth them by faith to gather up all those scattered Promises and to apply them for their own comfort upon every needful occasion They hear by the outward preaching of the Word and are assured of the truth thereof by the inward teaching of the Spirit That God will never fail them nor forsake them That he is their shepherd and therefore they shall not want but his goodness and mercy shall follow them all the days of their lives That his eye is upon them that fear him to deliver their souls from death and to feed them in the time of dearth That he will give grace and Worship and with-hold no good thing from them that live a godly life That though the Lions the great and greedy Oppressours of the world may lack and suffer hunger yet they which seek the Lord shall want no manner of thing that is good and a thousand other such like Promises they hear and believe The assurance whereof is another special means by which the Lord teacheth his children to repose themselves in a quiet content without fear of want or too much thoughtfulness for the future 10. Thirdly for our better learning besides these Lectures of his Providence and Promises he doth also both appoint us Exercises and discipline us with his Rod By sending changes and afflictions in our bodies and in our names in our friends in our estates in the success of our affairs and many other ways but always for our profit And this his wise teaching of us bringeth on our learning wonderfully As for those whose houses are safe from fear neither is the Rod of God upon them as Iob speaketh that are never emptied nor poured from vessel to vessel they settle upon their own dregs and grow muddy and musty with long ease and their prosperity befooleth them to their own destruction When these come once to stirring and trouble over-taketh them as sooner or later they must look for it then the grumbles and mud of their impatience and discontent beginneth to appear and becometh unfavoury both to God and man But as for those whom the Lord hath taken into his own tuition and nurturing he will not suffer them either to wax wanton with too long ease nor to be depressed with too heavy troubles but by frequent changes he exerciseth them and inureth them to all estates As a good Captain traineth his Souldiers and putteth them out of one posture into another that they may be expert in all so the Lord of hosts traineth up his Souldiers by the armour of righteousnes on the right hand and on the left by honour and dishonour by evil Report and good Report by health and sickness by sometimes raising new friends and sometimes taking away the old by sometimes suffering their enemies to get the upper hand and sometimes bringing them under again by sometimes giving success to their affairs even beyond their expectation and sometimes dashing then hopes when they were almost come to full ripeness He turneth them this way and that way and every way till they know all their postures and can readily cast themselves into any form that he shall appoint They are often abased and often exalted now full and anon hungry one while they abound and they suffer need another while Till with our Apostle they know both how to be abased and how to abound Till every where and in all things they be instructed both to be full and to be hungry both to abound and to suffer need Till they can at least in some weak yet comfortable measure do all things through Christ that strengtheneth them These exercises
this mind and so be at least thus far like-minded as to resolve to forbear all scornful and insolent speeches and behaviour of and towards one another without jeering without censuring without provoking without causless vexing one another or disturbing the publick peace of the Church For the servant of God must not strive but be gentle unto all men and patient So gentle and patient that he must study to win them that oppose themselves not by reviling but instructing them and that not in a loud and lofty strain unless when there is left no other remedy but first and if that will serve the turn only in love and with meekness Our conversation where it cannot be all out so free and familiar should yet be fair and amiable Gods holy truth we must stand for I grant if it be opposed to the utmost of our strength neither may we betray any part thereof by our silence or softness for any mans pleasure or displeasure where we may help it and where the defence of it appeareth to be prudentially necessary Yet even in that case ought we so to maintain the truth of God as not to despise the persons of men We are to follow the truth in love which is then best done when holding us close to the truth we are ready yet in love to our brethren to do them all the rights and to perform unto them all those respects which without confirming them in their Errors may any way fall due unto them 27. It is a perfect and a blessed Unity when all the three meet together unity of true Doctrine unity of loving Affection and unity of peaceable conversation and this perfection ought to be both in our Aims and in our Endeavours But if through our own weakness or the waywardness of others we cannot attain to the full perfection of the whole having faithfully endeavoured it pulchrum est in secundis tertiisve it will be some commendation and comfort to us to have attained so much as we could 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phil. 3. Nevertheless whereunto we have attained let us mind the same thing 28. To quicken us hereunto the duty being so needful and we withal so dull these few things following would be taken into consideration Consider first that by our Christian Calling we are all made up into one mystical body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and that by such a real though mysterious concorporation as that we become thereby 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as all of us members of Christ so every one of us one anothers members Now the sympathy and supply that is between the members of the natural body for their mutual comfort and the good of the whole the Apostle elegantly setteth forth and applieth it very fully to the mystical body of the Church in 1 Cor. 12. at large It were a thing prodigiously unnatural and to every mans apprehension the effect of a phrensie at the least to see one member of the body fall a beating or tearing another No! if any one member be it never so mean and despicable be in Anguish the rest are sensible of it No terms of betterness are then stood upon I am better than thou or I than thou no terms of defiance heard I have no need of thee or I of thee But they are all ready to contribute their several supplies according to their several abilities and measures to give ease and relief to the grieved part 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the reason is given at Ver. 25. there that so there might be no rent no schism no division or dis-union of parts in the body Consider secondly That by our Condition we are all fellow-brethren and fellow-servants in the same family of the houshold of faith all and these are obliging relations We ought therefore so to behave our selves in the house of God which is the Church of the living God as becometh fellow-brethren that are descended from the same Father and fellow-servants that live under the same Master We all wear one livery having all put on Christ by solemn profession at our holy Baptism We are fed at one Table eating the same spiritual meat and drinking the same spiritual drink in the holy Communion Every thing that belongeth to this House breatheth Union One body one spirit one calling one hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God and Father of all as the Apostle urgeth it Eph. 4. concluding thence that therefore we ought to be at one among our selves endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Any of us would think it a very disorderly house and ill governed if coming in by chance we should find the Children and Servants all together by the Ears though but once How much more then if we should observe them to be ever and anon snarling and quarrelling one with another and beating and kicking one another Ioseph thought he need say no more to his brethren to prevent their falling out by the way in their return homeward than to remind them of this that they were all one mans children And Abraham to procure an everlasting Amnesty and utter cessation thenceforth of all debate between himself and his Nephew Lot and their servants made use of this one argument as the most prevalent of all other for that end that they were Brethren Ecce quam bonum I cannot but repeat it once more Behold how good and joyful a thing it is for brethren to dwell together in unity 30. Consider thirdly how peace and unity forwardeth the work of God for the building up of his Church which faction and division on the other side obstructeth so as nothing more When all the workmen intend the main business each in his place and office performing his appointed task with chearfulness and good agreement the work goeth on and the building gets up apace But where one man draweth one way and another another way one will have things done after this fashion and another after that when one maketh and another marreth now one setteth up by and by cometh another and plucketh all down again how is it possible whilst things go thus that ever the building should be brought to any perfection or handsomness The Apostle well understood what he said when in the foregoing Chapter he joyned Peace and Edification together 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us follow after the things that make for peace and things wherewith we may edifie one another Where the Hearts and Tongues of the builders are divided the building will either come to nothing or prove but a Babel of Confusion For where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work Strife you see maketh ill work it buildeth up nothing unless it be the walls of Babel It is peace and concord that buildeth up the walls of Ierusalem which as it hath its name from Peace so hath it its beauty also and
man by the light of Nature or strength of humane discourse should have been able to have found out that way which Almighty God hath appointed for our salvation if it had not pleased him to have made it known to the world by supernatural revelation The wisest Philosophers and learnedst Rabbies nor did nor could ever have dreamt of any such thing till God revealed it to his Church by his Prophets and Apostles This mystery was hid from Ages and from Generations nor did any of the Princes of this world know it in any of those Ages or Generations as it is now made manifest to us since God revealed it to us by his Spirit As our Apostle elsewhere speaketh 11. The Philosophers indeed saw a little dimly some of those truths that are more clearly revealed to us in the Scriptures They found in all men a great proâ—livity to Evil and an indisposition to Good but knew nothing at all either of the true Causes or of the right Remedies thereof Some apprehensions also they had of a Deity of the Creation of the World of a divine Providence of the Immortality of the Soul of a final Retribution to be awarded to all men by a divine justice according to the merit of their works and some other truths But those more high and mysterious points especially those two that of the Trinity of Persons in the Godhead and that of the Incarnation of the Son of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Greek Fathers use to call them together with those appendices of the latter the Redemption of the World the Iustification of a sinner the Resurrection of the body and the beatifical Vision of God and Christ in the Kingdom of Heaven not the least thought of any of these deep things of God ever came within them God not having revealed the same unto them 12. It is no thanks then to us that very children among us do believe and confess these high mysterious points whereof Plato and Aristotle and all the other grand Sophies among them were ignorant since we owe our whole knowledge herein not to our own natural sagacity or industry wherein they were beyond most of us but to divine and supernatural revelation For flesh and bloud hath not revealed them unto us but our Father which is in Heaven We see what they saw not not because our eyes are better than theirs but because God hath vouchsafed to us a better light than he did to them Which being an act of special grace ought therefore to be acknowledged with special thankfulness Our Saviour hath given us the example I thank thee O Father Lord of heaven and earth because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes Mat. 11. 25. 13. Truly much cause we have to bless the holy Name of God that he hath given us to be born of Christian Parents and to be bred up in the bosom of the Christian Church where we have been initiated into these Sacred Mysteries being catechised and instructed in the Doctrine of the Gospel out of the holy Scriptures even from our very Childhood as Timothy was But we are wretchedly unthankful to so good a God and extremely unworthy of so great a blessing if we murmur against our Governours and clamour against the Times because every thing is not point-wise just as we should have it or as we have fancied to our selves it should be Whereas were our hearts truly thankful although things should be really and in truth even ten times worse than now they are but in their conceit only yet so long as we may enjoy the Gospel in any though never so scant a measure and with any though never so hard conditions we should account it a benefit and mercy invaluable 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so St. Paul esteemed it the very riches of the grace of God for he writeth According to the riches of his grace wherein he hath abounded towards us in all wisdom and prudence having made known to us the mystery of his will Eph. 1. If he had not made it known to us we had never known it aad that is the second Reason why a Mystery 14. There is yet a Third even because we are not able perfectly to comprehend it now it is revealed And this Reason will seâ—ch in the Quantum too For herein especially it is that this Mystery doth so far transcend all other Mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a great marvellous great Mystery In the search whereof Reason finding it self at a loss is forced to give it over in the plain field and to cry out O altitudo as being unable to reach the unfathomed depth thereof We believe and know and that with fulness of assurance that all these things are so as they are revealed in the holy Scriptures because the mouth of God who is Truth it self and cannot lie hath spoken them and our own Reason upon this ground teacheth us to submit ourselves and it to the obedience of Faith for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that so it is But then for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Nichodemus his question How can these things be it is no more possible for our weak understanding to comprehend that than it is for the eyes of Bats or Owls to look stedfastly upon the body of the Sun when he shineth forth in his greatest strength The very Angels those holy and heavenly spirits have a desire saith St. Peter it is but a desire not any perfect ability and that but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither to peep a little into those incomprehensible Mysteries and then cover their faces with their wings and peep again and cover again as being not able to endure the fulness of that glorious lustre that shineth therein 15. God hath revealed himself and his good pleasure towards us in his holy Word sufficient to save our souls if we will believe but not to solve all our doubts if we will dispute The Scriptures being written for our sakes it was needful they should be fitted to our capacities and therefore the mysteries contained therein are set forth by such resemblances as we are capable of but far short of the nature and excellency of the things themselves The best knowledge we can have of them here is but per speculum and in aenigmate 1 Cor. 13. as it were in a glass and by way of riddle darkly both God teacheth us by the eye in his Creatures That is per speculum as it were by a glass and that but a divine one neither where we may read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some of the invisible things of God but written in small and out-worn Characters scarce legible by us He teacheth us also by the Ear in the preaching of his holy Word but that in aenigmate altogether by riddles dark riddles That there should be three distinct Persons in one Essence and
works and glorifie your Father which is in heaven but even in the use of the Creatures and of all indifferent things in eating and drinking in buying and selling and in all the like actions of common life In that most absolute Form of Prayer taught us by Christ himself as the Pattern and Canon of all our Prayers the Glory of God standeth at both ends When we begin the first Petition we are to put up is that the Name of God may be hallowed and glorified and when we have done we are to wrap up all in the Conclusion with this acknowledgment that to him alone belongeth all the kingdom the power and the glory for ever and ever 11. The Glory of God you see is to be the Alpha and the Omega of all our votes and desires Infinitely therefore to be preferred not only before Riches Honour Pleasures Friends and all the comforts and contentments the World can afford us in this life but even before life it self The blessed Son of God so valued it who laid down his life for his Fathers Glory and so did many holy Martyrs and faithful Servants of God value it too who laid down their lives for their Masters Glory Nay let me go yet higher infinitely to be preferred even before the unspeakable joys of the life to come before the everlasting salvation of our own souls It was not meerly a strain of his Rhetorick to give his brethren by that hyperbolical expression the better assurance of his exceeding great love towards them that our Apostle said before at Chap. 9. of this Epistle that he could wish himself to be accursed to be made an Anathema to be separated and cut off from Christ for their sakes Neither yet was it a hasty inconsiderate speech that fell suddenly from him as he was writing fervente calamo and as the abortive fruit of a precipitate over-passionate zeal before he had sufficiently consulted his reason whether he should suffer it to pass in that form or not for then doubtless he would have corrected himself and retracted it upon his second thoughts as he did Acts 23. when he had inconsiderately reviled the High-Priest sitting then in the place of Judicature But he spake it advisedly and upon good deliberation yea and that upon his conscience yea and upon his Oath too and as in the presence of God as you may see it ushered in there with a most solemn Asseveration as the true real and earnest desire of his heart I speak the truth in Christ I lie not my conscience bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost Not that St. Paul wished their salvation more than his own understand it not so for such a desire neither was possible nor could be regular Not possible by the Law of Nature which cannot but begin at home Omnes sibi melius esse malunt quam alteri Nor regular by the course of Charity which is not orderly if he do not so too That is not it then but this That he preferred the Glory of God before both his own salvation and theirs Insomuch that if Gods Glory should so require hoc impossibili supposito he could be content with all his heart rather to lose his own part in the joys of heaven that God might be the more Glorified than that God should lose any part of his Glory for his salvation 12. And great reason there is that as his was so every Christian mans heart should be disposed in like manner that the bent of his whole desires and endeavours all other things set apart otherwise than as they serve thereunto should be the Glory of God For first all men consent in this as an undoubted verity That that which is the chiefest good ought also to be the uttermost end And that must needs be the chiefest good which Almighty God who is goodness it self and best knoweth what is good proposeth to himself as the End of all his Actions and that is meerly his own glory All those his high and unconceiveable acts ad intra being immanent in himself must needs also be terminated in himself And as for all those his powerful and providential acts ad extra those I mean which are exercised upon and about the creatures and by reason of that their efflux and emanation are made better known to us than the former if we follow them to their last period we shall find that they all determine and concentre there He made them he preserveth them he forgiveth them he destroyeth them he punisheth them he rewardeth them every other way he ordereth them and disposeth of them according to the good pleasure of his Will for his own names sake and for his one glories sake That so his Wisdom and Power and Truth and Iustice and Mercy and all those other his divine excellencies which we are to believe and admire but may not seek to comprehend might be acknowledged reverenced and magnified Those two great acts of his most secret and unsearchable councel than the one whereof there is not any one act more gracious the Destination of those that persevere in Faith and Godliness to eternal happiness nor any one act more full of terrour and astonishment than the other the designation of such as live and die in Sin and Infidelity without repentance to eternal destruction the Scriptures in the last resolution refer them wholly to his Glory as the last End The glory of his rich mercy being most resplendent in the one and the glory of his just severity in the other Concerning the one the Scripture saith that he predestinated us to the praise of the Glory of his grace Eph. 1. Concerning the other The Lord made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Prov. 16. He maketh it his End we should make it ours too if but by way of Conformity 13. But he requireth it of us secondly as our bounden Duty and by way of Thankfulness in acknowledgement of those many favours we have received from him Whatever we have nay whatever we are as at first we had it all from him so we still holdit all of him and that jure beneficiario as feudataries with reservation of services out of the same to be performed for the honour of the Donor Our Apostle therefore in our Lords behalf presseth us with the nature of our tenure and challengeth this duty from us by a claim of right Ye have them of God saith he and ye are not your own therefore glorifie God in your body and in your Spirit which are Gods Glorifie him in both because both are his As the rivers return again to the place whence they came Eccl. 1. they all come from the Sea and they all run into the Sea again So all our store as it issued at first from the fountain of his grace so should it all fall at last into the Ocean of his Glory For of him and through him and
artificial body be the materials never so strong yet if it be loose in the joynts when it is put to any stress as we call it to any use where the strength of it is like to be tried it will not endure it but be ready to fall one piece from another 8. Much of a mans strength whereby he is enabled to travel and to work lieth in his loyns and knees and in his arms and hands Whence it is that by an usual Trope in most Languages and so in the Scriptures too those parts are very often used Genua and Lacerti c. to signifie strength and weakness on the contrary usually described by the luxation of those parts The phrase is very frequent in Homer when one of the Grecian or Trojan Chieftains had given his adversary some deadly or desperate wound that he was not able to stand but fell on the ground to express it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as much as to say He loosened his knees Even as it is said of Belshazzar Dan. 5. when he was sore affrighted with the hand-writing upon the wall that the joynts bindings or ligatures of his loyns were loosed and his knees smote one against another So for the hands and arms we meet in the Scripture often with such like phrases as these that by such or such means as the occasion required such or such mens hands were either strengthened or weakned So it is said of Ish-bosheth 2 Sam. 4. when he heard of the death of Abner General of his Army his hands were weakned The like we find in many other places as namely in Ier. 38. 4. where in the Greek Translation the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the same with this in the Text is used Not to seek far a little after in this very Chapter we have both the Metaphors together in one verse Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 verse 12. which is another compound word from the same Theme As if he should say Support the hands that hang loose and have not strength enough to lift up themselves and bind up the palsie knees that are not well knit up in the joynts and so are unable to bear up the body 9. There is another Metaphor likewise often used by David and sometimes elsewhere which as it very well fitteth with the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so it serveth very well to express that feebleness or faintness of Spirit arising from fear and consternation of mind when great troubles come upon us whereof we now speak namely the melting of the heart or soul. 10. In Psal. 107. They that go down to the sea in ships when the stormy wind ariseth and lifteth up the waves so as the vessel is tossed up and down and the men reel to and fro and stagger like drunkards and are at their wits ends he saith of them that their very soul melteth away because of the trouble My soul melteth away for very heaviness in another Psalm speaking of himself and his own troubles In Psalm 22. he joyneth this and the other Metaphor both together I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joynt my heart also in the midst of my body is even like melting wax And so doth the Prophet Isaiah also describing the great miseries and terrors that should be at the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians he saith that by reason thereof all hands shall be weakned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again in the Greek and all hearts shall melt See also Ezek. 21. 7. to omit sundry other like 11. For even as wax which while it is hard will abide hard pressing and not yield or take impression when it is chafed or melted hath no strength at all to make resistance And as the Ice when the waters are congealed in a hard frost is of that firmness that it will bear a loaden cart uncrackt but as soon as a warm thaw hath fretted and loosened it dissolveth into water and becometh one of the weakest things in the world it is a common Proverb among us As weak as water so is the spirit of a man So long as it standeth firmly knit to God by a stedfast faith as David saith O knit my heart unto thee that I may fear thy name and true to it self in seipso totus teres atque rotundus by adhering to honest vertuous and religious Principles it is of impregnable strength against all outward attempts whatsoever Si fractus illabatur orbis if the weight of all the calamities in the world should come rushing upon him at once it would be able to bear up under them all and stand unruined amidst all those ruins The spirit of a man is of strength enough to sustain all his infirmities 12. But if the strength that is in us be weakness oh how great is that weakness If our spirits within us which should be as our life-guard to secure us against all attempts from without be shattered and dis-joynted through distrust in God or by entertaining fears and irresolutions so enfeebled that it is not able to stand out when it is fiercely assaulted but yieldeth the Fort to Satan and his temptations that is to say in plain terms if when any persecution or tribulation ariseth we be scandalized and fall away either from our Christian faith or duty forsake our standing and shrink from the rules of true Religion or a good conscience this is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the weakness and faintness ofmind spoken of in the Text. 13. We now see the Malady both in the Nature and in the Cause both what it is and whence it groweth We are in the next place to consider the part affected That the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 discovereth the mind or the soul That ye be not wearied and faint in your minds or souls And this occasioneth another doubt how it should be possible that worlaly tribulations which cannot reach beyond the outer-man in his possessions in his liberty in his good name in his bodily health or life should have such an operation upon his nobler part the soul as to cause a faintness there Our Apostle speaketh of resisting unto blood in the next verse as the highest suffering that can beâ—al a man in this world And our Saviour telleth his friends Luk. 12. that when their enemies have killed their bodies and from suffering so much his very best friends it seemeth are not exempted they have then done their worst they can proceed no farther they have no power at all over their souls 14. It is most true they have not And happy it is for us and one singular comfort to us that they have not Yet our own reason and every days experience can teach us that outward bodily afflictions and tribulations do by consequent and by way of sympathy
so many Mock-Graces and specious counter feits that carry a semblance of spiritual fruit but are not the things they seem to be And on the other side inordinate love of our selves partly and partly want of Charity towards our brethren have so disposed us to a capacity of being deceived that it is no wonder if in passing our judgments especially where our selves are concerned we be very much and very often mistaken It might rather be a wonder if we should not be sometimes mistaken 44. As most Errors claim to be a little akin to some Truths so most Vices challenge a kind of affinity to some Vertue Not so much from any proper intrinsecal true resemblance they have with such vertues as by reason of the common opposition they both have to one and the same contrary Vice As Prodigality hath some overly likeness with Liberality and so may hap to be mistaken for it for no other cause but this only that they are both contrary to Covetousness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle truly fallacy and deception for the most part arise from the appearance of some likeness oâ— similitude when things that are like but not the same are taken to be the same because they are like They that have given us marks of sincerity for the trial of our Graces have not been able to give us any certain Rules or infallible Characters whereby to try the sincerity of those Marks so as to remove all doubtings and possibility of erring 45. Whence I supose I may safely infer that the certainty of a Man's present standing in grace but much more then of his eternal future salvation although I doubt not but by the mercy of God it may be attainable in this life and that without extraordinary revelation in such a measure as may sustain the soul of an honest Christian with comfort is not yet either so absolutely necessary nor so void of fears and doubtings as some perhaps have imagined 46. Not so necessary but that a Man may be saved without it Many a good soul no doubt there is in the world that out of the experience of the falseness of his own heart and the fear of self-deceit and the sense of his own unworthiness could never yet attain to be so well persuaded of the sincerity of his own Repentance Faith and Obedience as to think that God would approve of it and accept it The censure were very hard and a great violation it would be of Charity I am sure and I think of Truth also to pronounce such a Man to be out of the State of Salvation or to call such his dis-persuasion by the name of Despair and under that name to condemn it There is a common but a great mistake in this matter Despair is far another manner of thing than many take it for When a Man thinketh himself so incapable of God's pardon that he groweth thereupon regardless of all duties and neither careth what he doth nor what shall become of him when he is once come to this resolution Over shoes over boots I know God will never forgive me and therefore I will never trouble my self to seek his favour in vain this is to run a deseperate course indeed this is properly the sin of Despair But when the fear that God hath not yet pardoned him prompteth him to better resolutions and exciteth him to a greater care of repentance and newness of life and maketh him more diligent in the performance of all holy duties that so he may be the more capable of pardon it is so far from being any way prejudical to his eternal salvation that it is the readiest way to secure it 47. But where the greatest certainty is that can be attained to in this life by ordinary means it is not ordinarily unless perhaps to some few persons at the very hour of death so perfect as to exclude all doubtings The fruits of the Spirit where they are true and sincere being but imperfect in this life and the truth and sincerity of them being not always so manifest but that a Man may sometimes be deceived in his judgment concerning the same it can hardly be what between the one and the other the imperfection of the thing and the difficulty of judging but that the Assurance which is wholly grounded thereupon and can therefore have no more strength than they can give it must be subject to Fears Iealonsies and Doubtings 48. I speak not this to shake any Man's comfort God forbid but to stir up every Man's care to abound and increase so much the more in all godliness and in the fruits of the Spirit by giving all diligence by walking in the Spirit and subduing the Lusts of the Flesh to make his Calling and Election sure Sure in it self that he fail not of Salvation in the end and sure to him also as far as he can that his comfort may be the greater and sounder in the mean time Now the God of all Grace and Glory send the Spirit of his Son plentifully into our Hearts that we may abound in the Fruits of godly living to the praise of his Grace our present comfort in this Life and the eternal salvation of our Souls in the Day of our Lord Iesus Christ. AD MAGISTRATUM The First Sermon At the Assizes at Lincoln in the Year 1690 at the Request of Sir DANIEL Dâ—IGNâ— Knight then High Sheriff of that Coâ—â—â—y Prov. 24. 10 12. 10. If thou faint in the day of adversity thy strength is small 11. If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death and those that are ready to be sâ—ain 12. If thou sayest Behold we know it not doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it and he that keepeth thy soul doth not he know it and shall not he render to every man according to his works 1. AS in most other things so in the performance of that duty which this Text aimeth at we are neither careful before-hand such is the uncharitableness of our incompassionate hearts to do well nor yet willing afterwards through the pride of our Spirits to acknowledg we have done ill The holy Spirit of God therefore hath directed Solomon in this Scripture wherein he would incite us to the performance of the duty to frame his words in such sort as to meet with us in both these corruptions and to let us see that as the duty is necessary and may not be neglected so the neglect is damnable and cannot be excused In the handling whereof I shall not need to bestow much labour either in searching into the contexture of the words or examining the differences of translations Because the sentence as in the rest of this Book for the most part hath a compleat sence within it self without any necessary either dependence upon any thing going before or reference to any thing coming after and the differences that are in the translations are neither many in number nor
power or both that when they have devised devices against them as they did against Ieremiah they shall not be able to put them in execution As a cunning rider that suffereth a wild untamed horse to fling and fly out under him but with the bridle in his jaws can give him a sudden stop at his pleasure even in the midst of his fullest career Or as a skilful fisher when some great fish hath caught the bait letteth it tumble and play upon the line a while and beat it self upon the water or against the bank and at last when he spieth his time striketh the hook into him and draweth him to the Land So can the Lord deal and often doth with the great Beâ—emoths and Leviathans of the World he letteth them go on in the pleasing devices of their own seduced hearts and suffereth them to prosper in their mischievous imaginations according to the old or as the new Translation rendreth it Psal. 140. in their wicked devices till they be even covered over with pride and violence But when the time is come which he in his eternal Counsel hath appointed he putteth his hook into their noses and his bridle into their lips they are both his own expressions by the Prophet in the case of Hezekiah and Senacherib and so defeateth all their malicious purposes for the future And though they fret and rage for anger and are as impatient as a wild Bull in a net which is another of the Prophets expressions elsewere yet is it to no purpose though they gnasâ— with their teeth through indignation and envy yet will they nill they they shall melt away and their desires shall perish Whereof besides sundry examples in Scripture God hath given us of this Nation some remarkable experiments especially in two never to be forgotten defeats the one of the invincible Armado in eighty eight the other of the Gunpowder Treason since 37. The mediation of which both examples and experiments would be as a soveraign Cordial to relieve our spirits and sustain our souls with comfort against those deliquia animae those fainting-fits that sometimes come upon us when we are either over-burdened under the pressures of our own sufferings or over-grieved at the prosperous successes of our cruel enemies The comfort is that neither they nor their devices can prevail against us any farther than God will give them leave and we know that if we cleave stedfastly to him he will not give them leave to prevail any farther than shall be for our good He that by his power stilleth the raging of the Sea and hath set it its certain bounds which it may not pass and by his peremptory decree hath said unto it Hitherto shalt thou go and here shalt thou stay thy proud waves by the same power also can still at his pleasure the madness and the tumult of the people Pilate that condemned Christ could have had no power so to do if it had not been given him from above And Iudas that betrayed him and the Iews that crucified him did no more than what God in his determinate counsel had fore-appointed to be done But not Pilate nor Iudas nor the Iews could hinder him from rising again from the dead The reason was because in the eternal Counsel of God Christ was to die and rise again therefore God suffer'd them to have power to procure his Death but they had no power at all to hinder his Resurrection 38. And therefore also fourthly it will well become us nay it is our bounden duty to submit to such sufferings as God shall call us to and to take up our cross when he shall think fit to lay it upon us with all willingness When we have to do with Satan and his temptations resistance may be of good use to us Resist the Devil and he will flie from you but when we have to do with God and his Chastisements it is in vain to oppose His hand is too mighty for us there is no way but to submit and to humble our selves thereunder by acknowledging our weakness and resigning our wills and desires to his wisdom and goodness It is the fondest thing in the world to think to redeem our selves out of troubles by our own wit or power alone without his leave Our own devices can no more help us if in his eternal Counsel he hath determined to afflict us than other mens devices can harm us if he have determined to protect us But how to behave our selves when any trouble is upon us or danger towards us the Apostle hath given us an excellent Rule and our Saviour an excellent Example The Rule is Phil. 4. 6. Be careful for nothing but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God As if he had said Acquaint him with your griefs what it is that troubleth you and with your desires what it is you would have commend all to his good pleasure and wisdom by your humble and hearty prayers and then take no further anxious care about it your heavenly father will take care of it who knoweth better than you do what is fittest to be done in it The Example is our Saviour's prayer in his agony Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me nevertheless not my will but thine be done He maketh his request known unto God in the former clause and then submitteth all to his will in the later 39. But you will say Must we sit still when trouble is upon us Suffer all and do nothing May we not cast and devise how to free our selves therefrom and use our best endeavours to effect it Doubtless you may There is nothing meant in what hath been hitherto said to exclude either prudent counsels or honest endeavours God forbid He taketh no pleasure either in fools or sluggards But here is the danger lest we should rest in our own counsels without asking counsel at his mouth or trust in our own endeavours without seeking help at his hand We are to use both Counsels and Endeavours provided ever that they be honest and lawful but there is something to be done besides both before and after Before we use them we must pray unto God that he would direct us in our Counsels and bless us in our endeavours and when we have used them we must by our prayers again commend the success of both to him who is able to save us and submit it wholly to his wisdom and goodness at what times and by what means and in what measure it will please him to save us For so it must be even as he will and no otherwise when all is done His counsel shall stand but so shall no device of Man that agreeth not thereunto 40. That therefore we may give unto our purposes as great a certainty of good success as such uncertain things are capable of it should be
XIX on Heb. xii 3. Newport 1648. Of these the I. II. III. IV. and X. were all missing and the XVIII was before faln into the hands of another who would not be perswaded to part with his Copy as he called it either to me upon entreaty perhaps to chastise me for my Ignorance who was so silly before as to think I had had some right to my own or to his fellow-Stationer upon any reasonable or rather as I am informed unreasonable terms which is done though not all out so agreeably to the old Rule Quod tibi fieri non vis yet very conformly to the old Proverb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 4. Of these Six thus in hazard to be all left out in the Impression Three are recovered and here presented to publick view and Three are not The first viz. that on Eccles. vii 1. I made a shift by the help of my memory to make up as near as it would serve me to what I had so long since spoken out of an old Copy of a Sermon formerly preached upon the same Text elsewhere For I am not ashamed to profess that most of those Ad Aulam were framed upon such Texts and out of such Materials as I had formerly made use of in other places but always cast as it were into new moulds For both fit it was the difference of the Auditories in the one place and in the other should be some what considered and besides my first crude meditaons being always hastily put together could never please me so well at a second and more leisurable review as to pass without some additions defalcations and other alterations more or less The Second and Third also viz. that on Prov. xvi 7. and that on 1 Pet. ii 17. it was my good hap searching purposely among the Papers of my late worthy friend and neighbour whose memory must ever be precious with me Thomas Harrington Esquire deceased there to find together with the Copies of divers others which I wanted not transcribed with his own hand But the Fourth and Fifth are here still wanting because I could not find them out and so is the Eighteenth also because I could not get it in The want of which last though hapning not through my default yet I have made a kind of compensation for by adding one other Sermon of those Ad Populum in lieu of that which is so wanting to make up the number an even score notwithstanding 5. As for the Sermons themselves the matter therein contained the manner of handling c. I must permit all to the Readers doom Who if he be homo quadratus perfectly even and unbyassed both in his Iudgment and Affection that is to say neither prepossessed with some false principle to forestal the one nor carryed aside with partiality for or prejudice against any person or party to corrupt the other will be the better able to discern whether I have any where in these Papers exceeded the bounds of Truth and Soberness or laid my self open to the just imputation either of Flattery or Falshood There hath been a generation of men wise 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for their own purposes but Malignants sure enough that laboured very much when time was to possess the world with an opinion that all Court Chaplains were Parasites and their Preaching little other than daubing I hope these Papers will appear so innocent in that behalf as to contribute somewhat towards the shame and confutation of that slander 6. The greater fear is that as the times are all men will not be well pleased with some passages herein especially where I had occasion to speak something of our Church Ceremonies then under command but since grown into disuse But neither ought the displeasure of men nor the change of times to cast any prejudice upon the Truth which in all variations and turnings of affairs remaineth the same it was from the beginning and hath been accustomed and therefore can think it no new thing to find unkind entertainment abroad especially from them whose interest it is to be or at leastwise to seem to be of a different perswasion For that the truth is rather on my side in this point than on theirs that dissent from me there is besides other this strong presumption onwards That I continue of the same judgment I was of twenty thirty forty years ago and profess so to do with no great hopes of bettering my temporal condition by so professing whereas hundreds of those who now decry the Ceremonies as they do also some other things of greater importance as Popish and Antichristian did not many years since both use them themselves and by their subscriptions approve the enjoyning of them but having since in compliance with the Times professed their dislike of them their portion is visibly grown fatter thereby If the face of affairs be not now the same it was when the Sermons wherein this Point is most insisted on were preached What was then done is not sure in any justice now chargeable upon me as a crime who never pretended to be a Prophet nor could then either foresee that the times would so soon have changed or have believed that so many men would so soon have changed with the times 7. Of the presumption aforesaid I have here made use not that the business standeth in need of such a Reserve for want of competent proof otherwise which is the case wherein the Lawyers chiefly allow it but to save the labour of doing that over again in the Preface which I conceive to be already done in the work it self With what success I know not that lieth in the breast of the Reader But that I spake no otherwise than I thought and what my intentions were therein that lieth in my own breast and cannot be known to the Reader who is therefore in charity bound to believe the best where there appeareth no pregnant probability to the contrary The discourses themselves for much of the matter directly tend to the peace both of Church and State by endeavouring to perswade to Unity and Obedience and for the manner of handling have much in them of Plainness little I think nothing at all of Bitterness and so are of a temper fitter to instruct than to provoke And these I am sure are no Symptomes of very bad Intentions If there be no worse Construction made of them than I meant nor worse Use I trust they neither will deserve much blame nor can do much hurt Howsoever having now adventured them abroad though having little else to commend them but Truth and Perspicuity two things which I have always had in my care for whereto else serveth that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherewith God hath endued man but to speak reason and to be understood if by the good blessing of Almighty God whom I desire to serve in the spirit of my mind they may become in any little degree instrumental to his Glory
the edification of his Church and the promoting of any one soul in Faith and Holiness towards the attainment of everlasting salvation I shall have great cause of rejoycing in it as a singular evidence of his underserved mercy towards me and an incomparably rich reward of so poor and unworthy labours Yet dare I not promise to my self any great hopes that any thing that can be spoken in an argument of this nature though with never so much strength of reason and evidence of truth should work any kindly effect upon the men of this generation when the times are nothing favourable and themselves altogether undisposed to receive it No more than the choisest Musick can affect the ear that is stopt up or the most proper Physick operate upon him that either cannot or will not take it But as the Sun when it shineth clearest in a bright day if the beams thereof be intercepted by a beam too but of another kind lying upon the eye is to the party so blinded as if the light were not at all so I fear it is in this case Not through any incapacity in the Organ so much especially in the learneder part among them as from the interposition of an unsound Principle which they have received with so much affection that for the great complacency they have in it they are loth to have it removed And as they of the Roman party having once throughly imbibed this grand Principle that the Catholick Church and that must needs be it of Rome is infallible are thereby rendred incapable to receive any impressions from the most regular and concluding discourses that can be tendred to them if they discern any thing therein disagreeing from the dictates of Rome and so are perpetually shut up into a necessity of erring if that Church can err unless they can be wrought off from the belief of that Principle which is not very easily to be done after they have once swallowed it and digested it without the great mercy of God and a huge measure of self-denial Even so have these our Anti-ceremonial Brethren framed to themselves a false Principle likewise which holdeth them in Errour and hardneth them against all impressions or but Offers of reason to the contrary 8. All Errors Sects and Heresies as they are mixed with some inferior Truths to make them the more passable to others so do they usually owe their original to some eminent Truths either misunderstood or misapplied whereby they become the less discernable to their own Teachers whence it is that such Teachers both deceive and are deceived To apply this then to the business in hand There is a most sound and eminent Truth justly maintained in our own and other Reformed Churches concerning the Perfection and Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures Which is to be understood of the revelation of supernatural Truths and the Substantials of Gods Worship and the advancing of Moral and Civil duties to a more sublime and spiritual height by directing them to a more noble end and exacting performance of them in a holy manner But without any purpose thereby to exclude the belief of what is otherwise reasonable or the practice of what is prudential This Orthodox Truth hath by an unhappy misunderstanding proved that great stone of offence whereat all our late Sectaries have stumbled Upon this foundation as they had laid it began our Anti-ceremonians first to raise their so often renewed Models of Reformation but they had first transformed it into quite another thing by them perhaps mistaken for the same but really as distant from it as Falshood from Truth to wit this That Nothing might lawfully be done or used in the Churches of Christ unless there were either Command or Example for it in the Scriptures Whence they inferred that whatsoever had been otherwise done or used was to be cast out as Popish Antichristian and Superstitious This is that unfound corrupt Principle whereof I spake that root of bitterness whose stem in process of time hath brought forth all these numerous branches of Sects and Heresies wherewith this sinful Nation is now so much pestered 9. It is not my purpose nor is this a place for it to make any large discovery of the cause of the mistake the unsoundness of the Tenent it self and how pernicious it is in the Consequents Yet I cannot but humbly and earnestly entreat them for the love of God and the comfort of their own souls as they tender the peace of the Church and the honour of our Religion and in compassion to thousands of their Christian Brethren who are otherwise in great danger to be either misled or scandalized that they would think it possible for themselves to be mistaken in their Principle as well as others and possible also for those Principles they rest upon to have some frailties and infirmities in them though not hitherto by them adverted because never suspected that therefore they would not hasten to their Conclusion before they are well assured of the Premisses nor so freely bestow the name of Popish and Superstitious upon the opinions or actions of their Brethren as they have used to do before they have first and throughly examined the solidity of their own Grounds finally and in order thereunto That they would not therefore despise the Offer of these few things ensuing to their consideration because tendered by one that standeth better affected to their Persons than Opinions 10. And first I beseech them to consider how unluckily they have at once both straitned too much and yet too much widened that which they would have to be the adequate Rule of warrantable actions by leaving out Prudence and taking in Example Nor doth it sound well that the examples of men though never so Godly should as to the effect of warranting our actions stand in so near equipage with the commands of God as they are here placed joyntly together without any character of difference so much as in degree But the superadding of Examples to Commands in such manner as in this Assertion is done either signifieth nothing or overthroweth all the rest which is so evident that I wonder how it could escape their own observation For that Example which is by them supposed sufficient for our warranty was it self either warranted by some Command or former Example or it was not If it were then the adding of it clearly signifieth nothing for then that warrant we have by it proceedeth not from it but from that precedent Command or Example which warranted it If it were not then was it done meerly upon the dictates of Prudence and Reason and then if we be sufficiently warranted by that Example as is still by them supposed to act after it we are also sufficiently thereby warranted to act upon the meer dictates of Prudence and Reason without the necessity of any other either Command or former Example for so doing What is the proper use that ought to be made of Examples is touched