Soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the Body and Soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the Body without the Soul Set a man to remove a Mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it than a stone in the street could do but now let an Omnipotent Power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joined to this Soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the Primitive Church of a grain of Faith removing Mountains and believe me all Miracles are not yet out-dated The work of Regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual Life on one dead in trespasses and sins the making of a Carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the Soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a Spring or Fountain of Life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this Soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a Soul to the Soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by Prison or Banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the Spirit as before a living reasonable man from the Soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those Creatures that have no Soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a Soul animals or living Creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the Soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his Soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a Soul and so call him an animal or hath not a Soul and so call him a mere natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more than a Soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth 〈◊〉 him Gal. ii 20 This being premised that now you know what this new Creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions first whence it comes secondly where it lodges thirdly when it enters fourthly what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17 but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way than any thing else Since Christs Ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26 The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our Bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19 God sends then his spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an Arrow sent out of a Bow which loses its union which it had with the Bow and is now fastned in the Butt or White nor properly by way of infusion as the Soul is in the Body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a Javelin or Spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psalm xviii 14 But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my Spear and fasten in it but still hold the Spear in my hand and having pierc't it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this Bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39 And this God does by way of emanation as a Loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the Iron to
it self which never stays till it be united Thus do you see from whence this principle comes to me and in what manner from Gods spirit by this means uniting me to himself To the second question where it lodges my answer is in the heart of man in the whole soul not in the understanding not in the will a distinction of faculties invented by Philosophers to puzzle and perplex Divines and put them to needless shifts but I say in the whole Soul ruling and guiding it in all its actions enabling it to understand and will spiritually conceived I say and born in the Soul but nursed and fed and encreased into a perfect stature by the outward Organs and actions of the body for by them it begins to express and shew it self in the World by them the habit is exerted and made perfect the Seed shot up into an Ear the Spring improved to Autumn when the tongue discourses the hands act the feet run the way of Gods commandments So I say the Soul is the Mother and the operations of Soul and Body the Nurse of this Spirit in us and then who can hold in his spirit without stifling from breaking out into that joyful acclamation Blessed is the womb that bears this incarnate spirit and the paps that give him suck Now this inward principle this grace of regeneration though it be seated in the whole Soul as it is an habit yet as it is an operative habit producing or rather enabling the man to produce several gracious works so it is peculiarly in every part and accordingly receives divers names according to several exercises of its power in those several parts As the Soul of man sees in the Eye hears in the Ear understands in the Brain chooses and desires in the heart and being but one Soul yet works in every room every shop of the Body in a several trade as it were and is accordingly called a seeing a hearing a willing or understanding Soul thus doth the habit of grace seated in the whole express and evidence it self peculiarly in every act of it and is called by as several names as the reasonable Soul hath distinct acts or objects In the understanding 't is first spiritual wisdom and discretion in holy things opposite to which is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. i. 28 an unapproving as well as unapproved or reprobate mind and frequently in Scripture spiritual blindness Then as a branch of this it is belief or assent to the truth of the promises and the like In the practical judgment 't is spiritual prudence in ordering all our holy knowledge to holy practice In the will 't is a regular choice of whatsoever may prove available to Salvation a holy love of the end and embracing of the means with courage and zeal Lastly in the outward man 't is an ordering of all our actions to a blessed conformity with a sanctified Soul In brief 't is one principle within us doth every thing that is holy believes repents hopes loves obeys and what not And consequently is effectually in every part of Body and Soul sanctifying it to work spiritually as an holy instrument of a divine invisible cause that is the Holy Ghost that is in us and throughout us For the third question when this new principle enters first you are to know that comes into the heart in a threefold condition first as an harbinger secondly as a private secret guest thirdly as an inhabitant or Housekeeper As 't is an harbinger so it comes to fit and prepare us for it self trims up and sweeps and sweetens the Soul that it may be readier to entertain him when he comes to reside and that he doth as the ancient gladiators had their arma praelusoria by skirmishing with our corruptions before he comes to give them a Pitch-Battel he brandishes a flaming Sword about our Ears and as by a flash of lightning gives us a sense of a dismal hideous state and so somewhat restrains us from excess and fury first by a momentany remorse then by a more lasting yet not purifying flame the Spirit of bondage In summ every check of Conscience every sigh for sin every fear of judgment every desire of grace every motion or inclination toward spiritual good be it never so short-winded is praeludium spiritus a kind of John Baptist to Christ something that God sent before to prepare the wayes of the Lord. And thus the spirit comes very often in every affliction every disease which is part of Gods Discipline to keep us in some order in brief at every Sermon that works upon us at the hearing then I say the lightning flashes in our Eyes we have a glimpse of his spirit but cannot come to a full sight of it and thus he appears to many whom he will never dwell with Unhappy men that they cannot lay hold on him when he comes so near them and yet somewhat more happy than they that never came within ken of him stopt their Ears when he spake to them even at this distance Every man in the Christian Church hath frequently in his life a power to partake of Gods ordinary preparing graces and 't is some degree of obedience though no work of regeneration to make good use of them and if he without the Inhabitance of the spirit cannot make such use as he should yet to make the best he can and thus I say the spirit appears to the unregenerate almost every day of our lives 2. When this spirit comes a guest to lodge with us then is he said to enter but till by actions and frequent obliging works he makes himself known to his Neighbours as long as he keeps his Chamber till he declare himself to be there so long he remains a private secret guest and that 's called the introduction of the form that makes a man to be truly regenerate when the Seed is sown in his heart when the habit is infused and that is done sometimes discernibly sometimes not discernibly but seldom as when Saul was called in the midst of his madness Acts ix he was certainly able to tell a man the very minute of his Change of his being made a new Creature Thus they which have long lived in an enormous Antichristian course do many times find themselves strucken on a sudden and are able to date their regeneration and tell you punctually how old they are in the spirit Yet because there be many preparations to this spirit which are not this spirit many presumptions in our hearts false-grounded many tremblings and jealousies in those that have it great affinity between Faith natural and spiritual seeing 't is a spirit that thus enters and not as it did light on the Disciples in a bodily shape 't is not an easy matter for any one to define the time of his conversion Some may guess somewhat nearer than others as remembring a sensible change in themselves but in a word the surest discerning of it
especially that of Joh. 3. 〈…〉 on that 〈…〉 and generally Christ is the person 〈…〉 bridegroom Now as those bridegroom 〈…〉 solemnly brought out from under the 〈…〉 25.1 〈…〉 of darkness comes to us 〈…〉 of his 〈…〉 whither he hath 〈…〉 to be seen 〈…〉 morning at the rising of the 〈◊〉 saith the 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 star 〈…〉 that 〈…〉 sense 〈…〉 of God to the 〈◊〉 whether 〈…〉 or by voice from heaâ—en at last 〈…〉 of righteousness was ready to come forth their 〈…〉 and his son John the Baptist of whom it is peculiarly said he was a â—rning and a shining lamp this light from heaven that of Prophecy began to shew it self as the Phosphorus of Daduchus the light bearer or torch-bearer to bring out this bridegroom into the world who when he was come should imitate the Sun in his course 〈…〉 and warm all the parts of the babâ—â—able world before he set again This we know Christ did by 〈…〉 rays by those his Apostles 〈…〉 which makes it 〈…〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 of Christ and not only of 〈…〉 in the creatures V. 8. 〈…〉 is 〈…〉 is thought to be the 〈…〉 to the Chaldee 〈…〉 and the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as 〈◊〉 and 〈…〉 But it is not so 〈◊〉 that 〈…〉 the feminine of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but rather 〈…〉 then it may not be 〈◊〉 to remember 〈…〉 of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to take food and from the◠〈…〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈…〉 meat or food So Iam. 4.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for food in thâ— plural the Chaldee renders 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for food so Psal â—8 22 〈…〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for food 〈…〉 Sam. 13.5 7 10. And to this sense the 〈…〉 here to inclinâ— First by rejoycing the heart precedent which being the effect attributed to wine 〈…〉 that this second part of the verse should 〈◊〉 long 〈…〉 and the effects thereof and so secondly it follows it enlightens the eyes That this is an effect of taking food peculiarly hath been noted at large Psal â—â— note 〈◊〉 from that passage of Jonathan when the tasting 〈◊〉 little honey was the inlightning his eyes and so the phrase is used to express any refection of mind or body And so it will be most agreeable here the law of God and obedience thereto being the most proper aliment to the soul as it is said to be Christs meat to do the will of him that 〈◊〉 him and the effect thereof all manner of refreshment to the spirit when on the other side sin puts men into a sad weak famishing condition such as the prodigal in the Gospel is described in To this sense of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for food the reader will be more inclined 1. by the context v. 7. where the law of the Lord is said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to make my soul or life return which is the ordinary expression of foods refreshing us when we faint with hunger So Psal 23.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he restores my soul a consequent of the green pasture and still waters v. 2. he refresheth me So 1 Sam. 30.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his spirit 〈…〉 him as an effect of eating and drinking after 〈…〉 days So Lam. 1.16 the conforter 〈…〉 or bringing back the soul i. â— he that 〈…〉 restoring refresh me And then this restoring of the soul and 〈◊〉 food to it are in effect all one This food be◠〈◊〉 that of Paradise without the curse â—â—â—ext to 〈…〉 us by God without our labour the 〈…〉 of knowledge and of life 〈…〉 the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in the 〈…〉 from both the roots 〈…〉 dimensum or por◠〈…〉 â—is purged and drest before 〈…〉 V. 10. 〈…〉 signifies will be uncertain The 〈◊〉 renders it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 oâ—ryzum 〈…〉 Hierome conceives 〈…〉 that which comes 〈…〉 gold But the 〈…〉 precious stone and Psal 〈…〉 precious stone And this latter is very 〈…〉 the word and is but a light variation of it 〈◊〉 other languages if we may believe Hesyâ—â—â— For 〈◊〉 he speaking of the 〈…〉 which is but this 〈◊〉 with the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Pa◠〈…〉 Topaâ— and is a precious stone Meanwhile it is also clear that it is used for fine gold also of which the Crown is made Psal â—â— 3 and of which 〈◊〉 vessels Job 28.17 and so it may be here also V. 11. Warned The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here used hath three significations First to shine and is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to shine forth Dan. 12.3 Secondly by a metaphor to admonish and warn and then is rendred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezech. 33.3 to signifie 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ezech. 33.9 to declare before â—and and Thirdly to flourish in the Chaldeâ— Paraphrase Hos 14.6 and Psal 90.6 From the second of these most of the Antient Interpreters render it here the Chaldee thy servant was circumspect in them the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keeps them and so oft elsewhere and from them the Syriack Latine Arabick and Aethiopick But the context â—â—ems rather to determine it to the first or which 〈◊〉 all one to the third sense the glorious and flourishing condition that is to be attained to either in 〈◊〉 or in another world by this means of careful obedience unto Gods commands and by no other for to this it follows that in keeping of them there is great reward V. 13. Presumptuous From 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—bullivit intumuit to boil to swell is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proud or insolent one that on set purpose deliberately commits any ill and also the action that is so committed This the LXXII render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the Latine ab alienis from strangers or strange sins or other mens sins most probably misreading the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and taking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from strangers for it V. 14. Let the words The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the future is literally to be rendred shall be and 〈◊〉 the LXXII and Latine read it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—raâ—â—â— and the words shall be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ut complaceant such as shall be acceptable before God or in his sight or more expresly an acceptable sacrifice So 't is used Exod. 28.38 Lev. 22.20 21. Isai 56.7 Jer. 6.20 in all the places where it occurs And to this sense the context confines it speaking of that abstinence from all wilful known presumptuous sins which is required of all men to make their prayers or any other their best performances or sacrifices acceptable before God according to that of the Apostle exhorting to lift up clean or holy hands 1 Tim. 2.8 and the Prophet Isai 1.16 Wash ye make ye clean till then surely God heareth not sinners John 9.31 The Twentieth
themselves that they shall perpetuate the wealth and greatness which they have gathered but are very wide of their expectations find themselves foully deceived and frustrated And yet they that succeed them in their estates go after them in the same track imitate that folly which was so fatal to them and think themselves happy that they shall enjoy the fruits of it 14. Like sheep they are laid in the grave death shall feed on them and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning and their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling Paraphrase 14. But then death comes upon them all and defeats all their expectations As sheep or other such creatures they die remove from all their splendid possessions to those dark invisible plains where they continue as a flock in a pasture till that great morning of the resurrection when the righteous shall be assumed by God to assist in judicacature and so shall arise in their old shapes when the earth shall give up her dead and the grave wherein their beauty strength and form decayed and was consumed shall at length it self decay and lose its strength death having lost its sting and the grave its victory and so being no longer the mansion for the bodies of just men 15. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me Selah Paraphrase 15. And accordingly my comfort is that God will after my death one day restore me again to life into his hands I commend my spirit not doubting but he will hereafter receive me to glory And so for all others that constantly adhere to and wait on God whatever terrors they meet with here they have this full matter of confidence that God hath particular care of them and will either deliver them out of their dangers or convert them to their greatest good rewarding them abundantly in the resurrection 16. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich when the glory of his house is increased Paraphrase 16. It is therefore most unreasonable to be troubled at or to envy the increase of wordly riches or honour or any kind of greatness or prosperity to the worldly man 17. For when he dyeth he shall carry nothing away his glory shall not descend after him Paraphrase 17. For death will soon overtake him and then he cannot carry his wealth with him his present glory and greatness shall not then yield him the least advantage 18. Though whilst he lived he blest his soul and men will praise thee when thou dost well to thy self Paraphrase 18. Indeed might his own word be taken he were an happy man for so he flattereth himself that he hath goods laid up for many years and as long as this life lasts he entertains no other thoughts But when death comes all these flattering fallacies vanish 'T is not thine own mouth but anothers whose commendation will be worth the having and that will not be had but for the real kindnesses and good turns thou dost unto thy self in doing that which will prove thy durable good and not in saying magnificent things of thy present state applauding thy temporal felicities 19. He shall go to the generation of his fathers they shall never see light Paraphrase 19. The just shall be gathered to their fathers in peace die indeed as their fathers did before them but the wicked shall be destroyed for ever their death shall be their entrance into endless unexpressible darkness and misery and to that they shall be for ever confined 20. Man that is in honour and understandeth not is like the beasts that perish Paraphrase 20. The conclusion then is There is not a more brutish creature more fit to be pitied than envied than a worldly wicked man advanced to greatness in this world and pleasing himself in it he doth not at all understand his own condition he triumphs and thinks himself very happy and whilst he doth so death unexpectedly seises upon him and confutes him sweeps him away helpless and friendless as a beast of the field that just now took himself for one of the greatest men in the world just as they perish and leave all behind them so doth he Only the wise and virtuous the upright v. 10 14. have better hopes and shall not fail of atteining them Annotations on Psalm XLIX V. 2. Low and high The difference between 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may here briefly be noted The former is taken for a great or eminent person in any respect of virtue extraction strength c. So 1 Sam. 26.15 Art thou not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a man is expounded by what follows and who is like thee in Israel signifying there the military valour and reputation of Abner and many the like Whereas as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth signifies an earthy or frail mortal mean man And so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here sons of this mean man are the lower and ordinary sort of men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sons of the earth say the LXXII not that they read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earth for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but because they would in their reading allude to the original of the word as oft they do And then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 are the contrary to these persons of the higher quality The Chaldee express the former phrase by the sons of old Adam the latter by the sons of Jacob making this difference between the rest of mankind and the people of Israel and giving the latter the preeminence over all other and so they make them comprehensive words containing Gentiles and Jews i. e. all the men in the world and that very fitly the Psalm following being the equal concernment of them both But 't is more likely that the phrases denote only the several conditions of men of the lower and higher rank for so the consequents interpret it rich and poor the former according to the sacred style frequently observable explicative of the latter of those and the latter of the former by way of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 V. 4. Dark saying The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proverb or parable is of great latitude signifies primarily any similitude by which another thing is exprest thence a figurative speech either by way of fiction and fable such are riddles or significant apologues as that of Jotham Jud. 9.7 and many others in Scripture both in the old and new Testament or by way of application of some true example or similitude as when the sluggard is bid go to the ant the impenitent sinner to the swallow and crane which return at their certain seasons and so are fit to preach returning or repentance to sinners And finally it belongs to all moral doctrine either darkly or only sententiously delivered because the wise men of the world were wont to deliver that in short concise sentences
there were no Competition as it might be Chance so it might be Necessity too Thou art fain to be vertuous because thou canst be nothing else goodness must go for thy refuge but not thy choice were there no rival sin no competitor lust to pretend for thee 'T is therefore not only an act of wisdom but of goodness too observable in Gods wonderful dispensation of things under the Gospel to leave the Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the confines of two most distant people improveable into good and capable of evil like Erasmus's Picture at Rome or that vulgar Lie of Mahomet's Tomb at Aleppo betwixt two Load-stones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Synesius calls it a stake between God on one side and all the Devils in Hell on t'other made up of a Canaanite and an Israelite a law in the members as well as a law in the mind or as Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswasions in the members many Topicks of Rhetorick many strong Allectives to evil in the lower carnal part of the man as well as invitations and obligations to good in the upper and spiritual Thus did God think fit to dispose it even in Paradise it self the flesh tempted with carnal objects even before the first sin had disordered that flesh A Palate for the sweetness of the Apple to please and an eye for the beauty to invite as well as an upper Masculine faculty a Reason for commands to awe and threats to deter yea and it seems in Heaven it self and the Angels there where is no flesh and blood that officina cupidinum shop or workhouse of desires yet even there is an inlet for Ambition though not for lust a liableness to the filthiness of the spirit though not of the flesh or else Lucifer had still stood Favourite could never have forfeited that state of bliss And so 't is ever since in this inferiour Orb of ours Behold I set before thee life and death blessing and cursing on one side all the joys of Heaven to ravish and enrap thee the mercies of Christ to draw thee with the cords of a man with the bands of love to force and violence thy love by loving thee first by setting thee a copy of that heavenly passion to transcribe but then withal death in the other scale death which it seems hath something amiable in it too it would not be so courted else a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Macarius styles it a gallantry of Hell a purple garment of darkness that such sholes of men and I tremble to think and say so large a quantity of baptized Christians are so ambitious of sell all that 's comfortable and valuable in this life to purchase it And were there not both these set before us by God life on one side and death on t'other blessing on one side and cursing on t'other a double canvass for thy soul a rivalry a competition and somewhat on both sides amiable to somewhat in thee life to the immortal death to the perishing part of thee blessing to the rational divine cursing to the bedlam brutish part of thee the man of God could not go on as he doth in that place Deut. 30.19 therefore chuse life that thou and thy sons may live Were there but one in our reach 't were necessity still and not choice and that most absolutely destructive of all judgment to come Hell might be our Fate but not our Wages our Destiny but not our Reward and Heaven any thing more truly than a Crown of righteousness A Piece of the Philosopher there hath been a long while in the world that hath had a great stroke in debauching the Divine that the Understanding doth necessarily and irresistibly move the Will that whatever hath once passed the judicium practicum got not only the assent of the Judgment that 't is true but the allowance also that 't is good and fit to be chosen cannot chuse but be desired and prosecuted by the Will from whence the Divine subsumes that where Faith is once entered though that but a Speculative I wish it were not sometimes but a Phantastical Faith there Works must and will infallibly follow I confess it were admirable news if this were true if all that knew these things were sure to do them if there were no such thing possible as Sin against Light Sin against Gospel Sin against Conscience if the lives of Believers could not prove infidel the actions of those that acknowledge God that make no doubt of the truth of Christianity could not avoid or escape being Godlike and Christian if 't were but a flash of S. Augustin's wit that the wicked Infidel believes contrary to Faith the wicked Believer lives contrary to it There were then but one care left a Christian to be catechiz'd aright which the Solifidian calls Faith or to be confident of his own Election which the Fiduciary calls Faith and then Quis separabit any thing else will be wrought in me by Christ or that any thing else will be unnecessary to be wrought Instead of this Pagan Principle that ties up all in the chains of inevitable Fate if it be examin'd give me leave to mention to you one Aphorism of Christian Philosophy which is but the interpretation of the competition that now I speak of that the Will is no more necessitated to obey the suggestions of Reason than of the Sensual Appetite of the upper than the lower Soul that 't is an indifferent middle Faculty able to chuse the evil and refuse the good or to satisfie the Philosophers importunity which resolves it impossible to chuse the evil unless under the appearance of good you may take it in a clearer notion able to chuse the pleasant and refuse the honest to chuse the sensual carnal and refuse the intellectual spiritual good And that you may see the ground of this observe that the whole Man is made up of three parts Spirit Soul and Body 1. The Body or Flesh lusting against the Spirit And 2. the Spirit again lusting against the Flesh Those two Extremes perfectly contrary one to the other in their appetites and therefore called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the Masculine t'other the Feminine part one the Monarch in the Soul t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Commonalty one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Child one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the voice and image of God in us t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bestial part one the Man t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four-footed creatures in us And these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do or as the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that you do not this is a consequent of that Contrariety you do not the thing that you would i. e. perhaps perfectly purely without some tack or mixture however I am sure not
thy self to God might recover you to Heaven O then what power and energy what force and strong efficacy would there be in this voice from God Why will you die I am resolved that heart that were truly sensible of it that were prepared seasonably by all these circumstances to receive it would find such inward vigor and spirit from it that it would strike death dead in that one minute this ultimus conatus this last spring and plunge would do more than a thousand heartless heaves in a lingring sickness and perhaps overcome and quit the danger And therefore let me beseech you to represent this condition to your selves and not any longer be flattered or couzened in a slow security To day if you will hear his voice harden not your hearts If you let it alone till this day come in earnest you may then perhaps heave in vain labour and struggle and not have breath enough to send up one sigh toward Heaven The hour of our death we are wont to call Tempus improbabilitatis a very improbable inch of time to build our Heaven in as after death is impossibilitatis a time wherein it is impossible to recover us from Hell If nothing were required to make us Saints but outward performances if true repentance were but to groan and Faith but to cry Lord Lord we could not promise our selves that at our last hour we should be sufficient for that perhaps a Lethargy may be our fate and then what life or spirits even for that perhaps a Fever may send us away raving in no case to name God but only in oaths and curses and then it were hideous to tell you what a Bethlehem we should be carried to But when that which must save us must be a work of the Soul and a gift of God how can we promise our selves that God will be so merciful whom we have till then contemned or our souls then capable of any holy impression having been so long frozen in sin and petrified even into Adamant Beloved as a man may come to such an estate of grace here that he may be most sure he shall not fall as St. Paul in likelihood was when he resolved that nothing could separate him So may a man be engaged so far in sin that there is no rescuing from the Devil There is an irreversible estate in evil as well as good and perhaps I may have arrived to that before my hour of death for I believe Pharaoh was come to it Exod. ix 34 after the seventh Plague hardning his heart and then I say it is possible that thou that hitherto hast gone on in habituate stupid customary rebellions mayst be now at this minute arrived to this pitch That if thou run on one pace farther thou art engaged for ever past recovery And therefore at this minute in the strength of your age and lusts this speech may be as seasonable as if death were seizing on you Why will you die At what time soever thou repentest God will have mercy but this may be the last instant wherein thou canst repent the next sin may benumb or fear thy heart that even the pangs of death shall come on thee insensibly that the rest of thy life shall be a sleep or lethargy and thou lie stupid in it till thou findest thy self awake in flames Oh if thou shouldst pass away in such a sleep Again I cannot tell you whether a death-bed repentance shall save you or no. The Spouse sought Christ on her bed but found him not Cant. iii. 1 The last of Ecclesiastes would make a man suspect that remembring God when our feeble impotent age comes on us would stand us in little stead Read it for it is a most learned powerful Chapter This I am sure of God hath chosen to himself a people zealous of good works Tit. ii 14 And they that find not some of this holy fire alive within them till their Souls are going out have little cause to think themselves of God's election So that perhaps there is something in it that Matth. iii. 8 the Exhortation Bring forth fruits worthy of repentance is exprest by a sense that ordinarily signifies time past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 have brought forth fruits It will not be enough upon an exigence when there is no way but one with me to be inclinable to any good works to resolve to live well when I expect to die I must have done this and more too in my life if I expect any true comfort at my death There is not any point we err more familiarly in and easily than our spiritual condition what is likely to become of us after death Any slight phansie that Christ died for us in particular we take for a Faith that will be sure to save us Now there is no way to preserve our selves from this Error but to measure our Faith and Hopes by our Obedience that if we sincerely obey God then are we true believers And this cannot well be done by any that begins not till he is on his Death-bed be his inclinations to good then never so strong his faith in Christ never so lusty yet how knows he whether it is only fear of death and a conviction that in spight of his teeth he must now sin no longer that hath wrought these inclinations produced this faith in him Many a sick man resolves strongly to take the Physicians dose in hope that it will cure him yet when he comes to taste its bitterness will rather die than take it If he that on his Death-bed hath made his solemnest severest Vows should but recover to a possibility of enjoying those delights which now have given him over I much fear his fiercest resolutions would be soon out-dated Such inclinations that either hover in the Brain only or float on the Surface of the Heart are but like those wavering temporary thoughts Jam. i. 6 Like a wave of the Sea driven by the wind and tost they have no firmness or stable consistence in the Soul it will be hard to build Heaven on so slight a foundation All this I have said not to discourage any tender languishing Soul but by representing the horrors of death to you now in health to instruct you in the doctrine of Mortality betimes so to speed and hasten your Repentance Now as if to morrow would be too late as if there were but a small Isthmus or inch of ground between your present mirth and jollity and your everlasting earnest To gather up all on the Clue Christ is now offered to you as a Jesus The times and sins of your Heathenism and unbelief God winked at Acts xvii 30 The Spirit proclaims all this by the Word to your hearts and now God knows if ever again commands all men every where to repent Oh that there were such a Spirit in our hearts such a zeal to our eternal bliss and indignation at Hell that we would give one heave and
abroad in Tents we have seen or heard of him but have not yet brought him home into our hearts there to possess and rectify and instruct our wills as well as our understandings Thirdly The whole mystery of Christ articulately set down in our Creed we as punctually believe and to make good our names that we are Christians in earnest we will challenge and defie the Fire and Faggot to perswade us out of it and these are good resolutions if our practices did not give our Faith the lye and utterly renounce at the Church Door whatsoever we profest in our Pews This very one thing that he which is our Saviour shall be our Judge that he which was crucified dead and buried sits now at the right hand of God and from thence shall come to judge the world this main part yea summ of our belief we deny and bandy against all our lives long If the story of Christ coming to judgment set down in the xxv of Matthew after the 30. Verse had ever entred through the doors of our Ears to the inward Closets of our hearts 't is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the World but only works of mercy and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give him in that one point he either entertains or repels us and therefore our care and negligence in this one business will prove us either Christians or Infidels But alas 't is too plain that in our actions we never dream either of the Judgment or the Arraignment our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural Besides our Alms-deeds which concern only the outside of our neighbour and are but a kind of worldly mercy there are many more important but cheaper works of mercy as good counsel spiritual instructions holy education of them that are come out of our loyns or are committed to our care seasonable reproof according to that excellent place Lev. xix 17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but in any wise reprove him a care of carrying our selves that we may not scandal or injure or offer violence to the Soul and tender Conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree as concerning the welfare of other mens Souls and the chief thing required of us at the day of Judgment are yet so out-dated in our thoughts so utterly defaced and blotted out in the whole course of our lives that it seems we never expect that Christ in his Majesty as a Judge whom we apprehend and embrace and hug in his humility as a Saviour Beloved till by some severe hand held over our lives and particularly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy or other we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief the Saints on Earth and Angels in Heaven will shrewdly suspect that we do only say over that part of our Creed that we believe only that which is for our turn the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ which cost us nothing but do not proceed to his office of a Judge do not either fear his Judgments or desire to make our selves capable of his mercies Briefly whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge and so destroys the summ of his Faith and this is another kind of secret Atheism Fourthly Our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledgment of the Holy Ghost and 't is well we have all conn'd his name there for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians what is reported of the Ephesian Disciples Acts xix 2 They have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. But not to suspect so much ignorance in any Christian we will suppose indeed men to know whatsoever they profess and enquire only whether our lives second our professions or whether indeed they are mere Infidels and Atheistical in this business concerning the Holy Ghost How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed have not yet any further use to put it to but only to make up the number of the Trinity have no special office to appoint for him no special mercy or gift or ability to beg of him in the business of their Salvation but mention him only for fashion sake not that they ever think of preparing their Bodies or Souls to be Temples worthy to entertain him not that they ever look after the earnest of the spirit in their hearts 2 Cor. i. 22 Further yet how many better learned amongst us do not yet in our lives acknowledge him in that Epithet annext to his title the Holy Ghost i. e. not only eminently in himself holy but causally producing the same quality in us from thence called the sanctifying and renewing spirit How do we for the most part fly from and abandon and resist and so violently deny him when he once appears to us in this Attribute When he comes to sanctifie us we are not patient of so much sowreness so much humility so much non-conformity with the world as he begins to exact of us we shake off many blessed motions of the spirit and keep our selves within garrison as far as we can out of his reach lest at any turn he should meet with and we should be converted Lastly The most ordinary morally qualified tame Christians amongst us who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit how do they yet reject him out of all their thoughts How seldom do many peaceable orderly men amongst us ever observe their wants or importune the assistance of this Spirit In summ 't was a shrewd Speech of the Fathers which will cast many fair out-sides at the bar for Atheists That the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an Heathen and that 't is our Regeneration only that raises us up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles He that believes in his Creed the Person nay understands in the Schools the Attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet sees them only in the fountain neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own Soul he that is still unregenerate and continues still gaping and yawning stupid and senseless in this his condition is still for all his Creed and Learning in effect an Atheist And the Lord of Heaven give him to see and endeavours to work and an heart to pray and his spirit to draw and force him out of this condition Fifthly Not to cramp in every Article of our Creed into this Discourse we will only insist on two
the meer eating of an apple In the next place as Adam was no private person but the whole humane nature so this sin is to be considered either in the root or in the fruit in its self or in its effects In its self so all mankind and every particular man is and in that name must humble himself as concerned in the eating of that fruit which only Adams teeth did fasten on is to deem himself bound to be humbled for that pride that curiosity that disobedience or whatsoever sin else can be contained in that first great transgression and count you this nothing to have a share in such a sin which contains such a multitude of Rebellions 'T is not a slight perfunctory humiliation that can expiate not a small labour that can destroy this monster which is so rich in heads each to be cut off by the work of a several repentance Now in the last place as this sin of all mankind in Adam is considered in its effects so it becomes to us a body of sin and death a natural disorder of the whole man an hostility and enmity of the flesh against the spirit and the parent of all sin in us as may appear Rom. vii and Jam. 1.14 Which that you may have a more compleat understanding of consider it as it is ordinarily set down consisting of three parts 1. A natural defect 2. A moral affection 3. A legal guilt i. e. a guiltiness of the breach of the Law for these three whatsoever you may think of them are all parts of that sin of our nature which is in and is to be imputed to us called ordinarily original sin in us to distinguish it from that first act committed by Adam of which this is an effect And first that natural defect is a total loss and privation of that primitive justice holiness and obedience which God had furnisht the Creature withal a disorder of all the powers of the Soul a darkness of the understanding a perverseness of the will a debility weakness and decay of all the senses and in summ a poverty and destruction and almost a nothingness of all the powers of Soul and Body And how ought we to lament this loss with all the veins of our heart to labour for some new strain of expressing our sorrow and in fine to petition that rich grace which may build up all these ruines to pray to God that his Christ may purchase and bestow on us new abilities that the second Adam may furnish us with more durable powers and lasting graces than we had but forfeited in the first The following part of this sin of our nature viz. A moral evil affection is word for word mentioned Rom. vii 5 For there the Greek words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinarily translated motions of sins and in the margin the passions of sins are more significantly to be rendred affections of sins i. e. by an usual figure sinful affections That you may the better observe the encumbrances of this branch of this sin which doth so over shadow the whole man and so fence him from the beams and light of the spiritual invisible Sun I am to tell you that the very Heathen that lived without the knowledge of God had no conversation with and so no instruction from the Bible in this matter that these very Heathens I say had a sense of this part of original sin to wit of these evil moral lusts and affections which they felt in themselves though they knew not whence they sprang Hence is it that a Greek Philosopher out of the antients makes a large Discourse of the unfatiable desire and lust which is in every man and renders his life grievous unto him where he useth the very same word though with a significant Epithet added to it that S. James doth c. 1. ver 15. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 infinite lust with which as S. James saith a man is drawn away and enticed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so saith he that part of the mind in which these lusts dwell is perswaded and drawn or rather fall backward and forward 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which lust or evil concupiscence he at last defines to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an unsatiable intemperance of the appetite never filled with a desire never ceasing in the persecution of evil and again he calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our birth and nativity derived to us by our parents i. e. an evil affection hereditary to us and delivered to us as a Legacy at our Birth and Nativity all which seems a clear expression of that original lust whose motions they felt and guest at its nature Hence is it that it was a custom among all of them I mean the common Heathen to use many ways of purgations especially on their children who at the imposition of their names were to be lustrated and purified with a great deal of superstition and ceremony such like as they used to drive away a plague or a cure for an House or City As if nature by instinct had taught them so much Religion as to acknowledge and desire to cure in every one this hereditary disease of the soul this plague of mans heart as 't is called 1 Kings viii 38 And in summ the whole learning of the Wisest of them such were the Moralists was directed to the governing and keeping in order of these evil affections which they called the unruly citizens and common people of the soul whose intemperance and disorders they plainly observed within themselves and laboured hard to purge out or subdue to the government of reason and virtue which two we more fully enjoy and more Christianly call the power of grace redeeming our Souls from this Body of sin Thus have I briefly shewed you the sense that the very Heathen had of this second branch of original sin which needs therefore no farther aggravation to you but this that they who had neither Spirit nor Scripture to instruct them did naturally so feelingly observe and curse it that by reason of it they esteemed their whole life but a living death 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and their body but the Sepulchre of the soul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both which together are but a periphrasis of that which S. Paul calls in brief the body of death And shall we who have obtained plenty of light and instruction besides that which nature bestowed on us with them shall we I say let our Eyes be confounded with abundance of day shall we see it more clearly to take less notice of it Shall we feel the stings of sin within us which though they do but prick the regenerate prove mortal to the rest of us and shall we not observe them Shall we not rather weep those Fountains dry and crop this luxury of our affections with a severe sharp sorrow and humiliation Shall we not starve this rank fruitful Mother of
do what the words signify Cassian hath said over the same thing more largely and earnestly That we injoy this treasure it is necessary that we say the Psalms with the same spirit with which they were composed and accommodate them unto our selves in the same manner as if every one of us had composed them or as if the Psalmist had directed them purposely for our uses not satisfying our selves that they had their whole completion in or by the Prophet but discerning every of us our own parts still to be performed and acted over in the Psalmists words by exciting in our selves the same affections which we discern to have been in David or in others at that time loving when he loves fearing when he fears hoping when he hopes praising God when he praises weeping for our own or others sins when he weeps begging what we want with the like spirit wherein his petitions are framed loving our enemies when he shews love to his praying for ours when he prays for his having zeal for the glory of God when the Psalmist professes it humbling our selves when he is humbled lifting up our spirit to heaven when he lifts up his giving thanks for Gods Mercies when he doth delighting and rejoycing in the beauty of the Messias and of the Church his Spouse when he is delighted and rejoyceth when he relates the wonderful works of God in the Creation of the World bringing his People out of Aegypt c. admiring and glorifying God as he stands amazed and glorifies him and when he mentions the Punishments inflicted on rebellious sinners and Rewards and Favours bestowed on the obedient we likewise are to tremble when he trembles and exult when he exults and walk in the Court of Heaven the Sanctuary as he walks and wish to dwell in it as he wishes Finally where he as a Master teacheth exhorts reprehends and directs the just man each of us must suppose him speaking to him and answer him in such due manner as the instruction of such a Master exacts And that we may in some measure performe this vital substantial part of our task Let us saith he at the beginning of the Psalm beg of God that light and affection and gust and savour with which David was affected when he made it and that with the affection and desire of obteining what he felt 31. And if it be here objected First that there be many things in these Psalms which are not agreeable to every mans condition and so cannot at all times be attended with the spirit of the reciter as the Eucharistical Psalms are not proper for him that is in distress c. Secondly that there are many which have no propriety to the spirit of any Christian as those which are spent in calling down vengeance on Gods and the Psalmists enemies Let them be confounded and put to shame that seek after my soul Psal 35.4 Let them be as chaffe before the wind and let the Angel of the Lord chase them v. 5. Let destruction come upon them at unawares v. 8. and especially Psal 109. allmost throughout the answer will not be difficult To the first 1. that the very objection is a grant that the Psalms contein devotions proper to the most distant conditions of all men and then that which is no way agreeable to my present circumstances being yet most agreeable and accommodate to several other men this is but a summons to my charity to swell above its own banks and diffuse it self to the refreshing and supplying of others wants and so this not any defect but an advantage in the Psalms which will never be complained of by those which begin their Forms as our Saviour directed addressing them to the common Father and Redeemer of all men and desire not to inclose benedictions but take all others into a principal part of their care and so can pray most zealously for any thing that any other Christian stand in needs of And yet 2. it will be hard to mention any thing which was ever fit for the Psalmist to say which will not have some propriety to every of us in whatsoever condition 'T is certain as to the particular instance that he that is in the greatest distress hath yet various matter for and obligations to Thanksgivings when his very distress which seems to set him at the greatest distance from it is the most peculiar ingagement to it God's taking all away bringing to the boiles and dunghill from the ease and splendor of the Palace is Job's summons to blessing the name of the Lord as well as the memory of his greatest donatives and the Psalmist oft assures us of the goodness and most valuable benefits of afflictions and consequently teaches us the duty of blessing and magnifying our benefactor for the mercy of those wholsome be they never so bitter ingredients And the same will be found appliable to all other affections of the Psalmist which will seldome miss to meet seasonable matter to work on in any mans breast which wants not devotion to discern and bring it home to him 32. To the second Objection I shall not need accommodate any other answer than the Reader will find allready given in the Margin and Paraphrase and Annotation on Psal 35.4 and other the like that the Hebrew is as capable of the Future as the Imperatiue mood and sense and so the Translation in all reason to be changed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not let them be confounded and put to shame but they shall blush and be ashamed they shall be turned back 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall be as chaffe before the wind and the Angel of the Lord shall chase them Their way 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be dark and slippery and the Angel of the Lord shall persecute them Destruction shall come upon him unawares and his net that he hath hid shall catch himself into that very destruction shall he fall That David who was a Prophet inspired by God with knowledge of future events should thus rather predict and denounce Gods just judgments on obstinate sinners and that out of designs purely charitative by denouncing to work repentance that repentance might frustrate and cancel the denunciation is much more reasonable for us to resolve than that in the spirit when possibly without the power of Elias he should so frequently call for thunder from heaven either upon his own or Gods enemies And in many places particularly that of Psal 109. 't is reasonable to resolve that it is Christ himself that speaketh in the Prophet as being the person there principally concerned and the completion most signal in many circumstances there mentioned the succession especially of Matthias in his Apostolical and Episcopal office And then there remains no more question or difficulty how these and the like passages are to be accommodated to the Christians affection and spirit than how the plain denunciations of the Gospel are to be entertained by it
those that are in the greatest distresses be thou gratiously pleased to look upon me to be atoned and reconciled toward me 2. Wash me throughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin Paraphrase 2. O let not any the least of these crimes that I have been guilty of in this matter be permitted to appear in thy sight or rise up in judgment against me but seal me thy perfect pardon for every one of them 3. For I acknowledge my transgressions and my sin is ever before me Paraphrase 3. For I do most willingly confess that I have committed in the compassing of one carnal pleasure many horrid and odious sins These are a perpetual terror to my conscience an amazing prospect continually outfacing and tormenting me 4. Against thee only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest Paraphrase 4. And though the dignity and office wherein thou hast placed me over thy people leave me not liable to any humane process or judicature among men yet am I most sadly culpable and liable to vengeance from thee the pure God of heaven the transcendent Ruler over all the Kings of the earth Thou mayest most justly proceed against me as against the most criminous rebel indite me and arraign me of adultery drunkenness and murther also and whatever suit thou wagest against me thou art sure to cast me whatsoever vengeance thou exactest to be inflicted on me I must most deservedly and inevitably fall under it 5. Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me 6. Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom Paraphrase 5 6. Lord I am a most polluted creature the corruption of my nature the bare inclinations of my will to any unlawful object ought in any reason to be strictly watched and industriously rejected by me and thy grace continually sollicited to inable me to overcome them and not in the least degree favoured or indulged or yielded to when I so well know that thou requirest purity of the heart and affections and forbiddest the very first thoughts of any unlawful injoyment and beside this revelation of thy will that I should thus keep my self pure art pleased to grant me thy grace to make me inwardly sensible of this part of my duty and this is a great inhauncing of my sin committed against all these obligations 7. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean wash me and I shall be whiter than snow Paraphrase 7. Lord be thou pleased to absolve me and solemnly to declare and seal to me thy reconciliation after the same manner as the priest is wont to do when upon the unclean thing he sprinkles water mixed with the ashes of an heifer and of cedar wood and of hyssop and of scarlet Lev. 14.6 7. Num. 19.6 the solemn ceremony for the purification of sin v. 9. and whereby the blood of the lamb of God the death of the Messias was praefigured and then I shall again be restored to that blessed state from which I have so sadly fallen by my outragious miscarriages 8. Make me to hear joy and gladness that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoyce Paraphrase 8. I am in a most sad and wretched condition thy just displeasure and wrath for my sins as long as it continues over me is the setting my soul upon the torture my own conscience being the executioner under thee O be thou pacified and reconciled toward me and it shall be the joyfullest news that ever came to any poor tortured suppliants ears when he is taken off from the rack and all his bones set and restored to ease again 9. Hide thy face from my sins and blot out all mine iniquities Paraphrase 9. Lord pardon my sins and return to thy wonted favour toward me 10. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right spirit within me Paraphrase 10. I have sadly fallen from my wonted purity and sincerity Lord by the good work of thy grace upon my heart restore me to it again and renew me inwardly and throughly my very thoughts as well as my actions that I never fall into the least beginning of any such pollution again 11. Cast me not away from thy presence and take not thy holy spirit from me Paraphrase 11. Lord it is just with thee to reject me from all spiritual commerce and communication with thee who have resisted thy spirit and wasted my soul by so many wilful commissions against thee just that thou shouldest withdraw thy grace to which I have done such despite O do not thou thus severely punish me by withdrawing that which now more than ever I stand in need of 12. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation and uphold me with thy free spirit Paraphrase 12. Without thy help and aids I am utterly unable to get out of this broken condition the free and voluntary assistances of thy spirit are so perfectly necessary to me that I can never think a good thought make the least attempt toward recovering the purity from whence I am fallen without them O be thou pleased to restore them to me and thereby to support and establish me 13. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways and sinners shall be converted unto thee Paraphrase 13. And this thy exceeding mercy to a sinner so sadly laps'd may be a means to bring wicked livers home to repentance I shall be able to incourage them to return by proclaiming mine own success who have fallen as sadly as any of them can have done And being thus incouraged by my example and experience many I doubt not by the assistance of thy grace shall be brought home to thy service and the practice of the duties of new life 14. Deliver me from blood-guiltiness O God thou God of my salvation and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness Paraphrase 14. Oh that sin of murther is an horrid and crying sin of a black and deep dy and though mine own hands have not been polluted with it yet my conscience assures me the guilt of the murther of Uriah lies on me who projected and contrived it by others O thou blessed Lord from whom all my deliverance must come be thou pleased to deliver me from this one as from those other foul Commissions and it will be most joyful news to me and with the greatest exultation of heart shall I proclaim thy abundant mercies to me 15. O Lord open thou my lips and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise Paraphrase 15. This work of grace from thee shall set my lips wide open in praising and magnifying thee 16. For thou desirest not sacrifice else would I give it thou delightest not in burnt-offerings Paraphrase 16. 'T is not any the richest hecatombe or most chargable oblation for my sin that thou expectest
rooms were laid see note a on Psalm 148. i. e. whereas in the building of an upper story there must be some walls or pillars to support the weight of it and on that the beams are laid God here by his own miraculous immediate power laid and ever since supported these upper rooms there being nothing there but waters to support them and those we know the most fluid tottering body not able to support it self and therefore that is another work of his divine power that the waters which are so fluid and unable to contein themselves within their own bounds should yet hang in the middle of the air and be as walls or pillars to support that region of air which is it self another fluid body Ibid. Wind. What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which sometimes signifies spirit sometimes wind which is nothing but air moved is set to import here might be somewhat uncertain were it not for the next verse where 't is said of the Angels He maketh his Angels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and his ministers a flaming fire which the Apostle Heb. 1.7 expresly expounds of the Angels There as Angels and Ministers are but several names of the same divine creatures so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and fire are but expressions of the several appearances of them sometimes in airy sometimes in flaming clouds In this part of v. 3. is described the use of clouds for God's appearing to us here below exprest by mention of his chariot and walking He is we know an infinite Spirit and so invisible to any material created finite faculty yet he is said to come down to us to presentiate and exhibit himself to us at some times more than others then especially when the Angels who are the attendants and officers of his Court the satellitium or guard that wait upon him mentemque profundam circumeunt and incompass this profound Mind as the Platonists styled God do visibly appear unto us And these again being in their own nature either spiritual and so invisible substances or else if bodies of a most subtile indiscernible nature are wont when they purpose to appear to come in clouds either airy or that air being ascended fiery and flaming In which respect that airy or fiery cloud when it is in motion especially is fitly resembled to an Eagle with wings in which those Angels descend and overshadow first then perhaps light on us as an Eagle or Dove doth first hover over then light on any thing and then God is agreeably said to come or fly or walk on those wings of the wind or moved air or white cloud i. e. to be eminently present where the Angels thus appear From hence therefore it may be resolved that as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the plural in the next verse are the winds i. e. agitated air or clouds wherein the Angels appear and those defined by their opposition to flaming fire to be clouds of pure air white not fiery clouds so the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is the generical word belonging to both those sorts of clouds which the Angels make use of to descend and appear in and those clouds of such a breadth as to resemble the wings of an Eagle or great Bird and then God who makes the clouds his chariot his vehiculum to bring him down may fitly be said to walk on these wings toward us Thus Psal 18.10 God's riding on the Cherub is again exprest by flying on the wings of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which we there also render the wind There the Angels are sure meant by the Cherub and those as in the Ark pictured with wings Now in the Ark the wings of the Cherubim were so placed one toward the other that they made over the Propitiatory a kind of Seat and that was looked on as the seat of God and accordingly the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or spirit there and here on whose wing◠God is said to fly there and walk here must be those agitated clouds whereby as with wings the Angels fly down to us and so God is said to walk or be present on them This makes it necessary to render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same sense in both verses and that according to the original notion of it air or wind which are exactly all one save that the latter intimates motion and so is the fitter to express these clouds by which the Angels descend most frequently with some incitation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a violent rushing blast Act. 2.2 Aben Ezra and Kimchi in this fourth verse are willing to take the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 winds in the genuine notion and Angels in a metaphorical interpreting it by Psal 148.8 wind and storm fulfilling his word where the wind is described as a kind of minister and so Angel of God But the Apostle Heb. 1.7 expresly applying the words of this fourth verse to the Angels obligeth us thus to interpret them V. 8. They go up by the mountains It is not here certain whether 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mountains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 valleys or plains be to be read as in the nominative or as in the accusative case If they be in the nominative then we must reade as in a parenthesis the mountains ascend the plains or valleys sink down joyning the end of the verse unto the place to haste away v. 7. thus The waters once stood above the mountains those places which now are such but at the uttering God's voice they fled and hasted away the mountains ascending and the valleys descending unto the place which thou hast prepared for them Thus the LXXII and Latin understood it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascendunt montes descendunt campi the mountains ascend and the plains descend referring to the change that was made in the earth from being perfectly round and incompassed with waters into that inequality wherein now it is great mountains in some parts and great cavities in other parts wherein the waters were disposed which before covered the face of the earth But they may be more probably in the accusative case and then 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the waters v. 6. which were understood v. 7. though not mentioned for it was the waters that there fled and hasted away must be here continued also viz. that the waters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascend or climb the mountains and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 descend or fall down upon the valleys or fissures or hollow places ditches and the like receptacles of waters for so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now signifies among the Rabbins And this sense the Chaldee follow they ascend from the abyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the mountains and they descend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into the valleys to the place And this is the clearest exposition of it rendring an account of the course of waters since the gathering them together in the Ocean that from thence they are by the power
us for ever for it 28. My soul melteth away for heaviness strengthen thou me according to thy word Paraphrase 28. My sorrow and vehement contrition exprest by the tears of my very soul qualifies me for that comfort and raising up which thou hast promised to all truly humbled sinners 29. Remove from me the way of lying and grant me thy law graciously Paraphrase 29. And then I may be a meet suiter for thy grace to mortifie every wicked desire in me every false apostatizing or hypocritical affection and to inliven me to a pious vertuous life exactly regulated by thy will and word the richest donative that can be bestowed upon me 30. I have chosen the way of truth thy judgments have I laid before me Paraphrase 30. This of obedience and fidelity and sincere adherence to thee is to me far more eligible and desirable than the contrary v. 29. I have therefore proposed to my self thy Law as the rule of my life and stedfastly resolved to direct all my actions by it 31. I have stuck unto thy testimonies O Lord put me not to shame Paraphrase 31. And having done so if I adhere and constantly cleave unto them persevere as I have resolved I am sure I shall never be disappointed of my expectations I shall never miss of the comforts of this life or the joys of a better 32. I will run the way of thy commandments when thou shalt inlarge my heart Paraphrase 32. This is matter of infinite delight and pleasure to me and a special act of thy gracious dealing with us men to bind up our present joys in our practice of vertue to make us at once pious and happy This shall certainly ingage me to all the speed and diligence of a most alacrious obedience HE. 33. Teach me O Lord the way of thy statutes and I shall keep it unto the end Paraphrase 33. O blessed Lord God let thy holy spirit direct and guide me in performing an acceptable obedience to thee and I shall by all laws of justice and gratitude be ingaged to continue the course with all possible care and diligence 34. Give me understanding and I shall keep thy Law yea I shall observe it with my whole heart Paraphrase 34. Be thou pleased to illuminate my mind to remove from me that darkness of spirit that my corruptions and sins have brought upon me and give me that practical pliableness and docileness and humility that may be assistant to the work by the continuance of thy grace to work in me to doe as well as to will to perform a most carefull watchfull diligent and withall a most impartial uniform obedience to thee 35. Make me to go in the path of thy commandments for therein is my delight Paraphrase 35. Lord let me never fail of thy direction and guidance in all the obedience which by thy grace I shall indeavour to perform to thee There is nothing so pleasurable to me as to be thus exercised and imployed O do thou conduct and assist and direct me in it 36. Incline mine heart unto thy testimonies and not to covetousness Paraphrase 36. It is much more desirable to me to be imployed in thy laws than in any matter of the greatest secular advantage O let thy grace so prevent and bend my heart that this pleasure may still possess me and never give place to any secular pursuance or carnality 37. Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity and quicken thou me in thy way Paraphrase 37. Lord grant me a strict guard over mine eyes those inlets of many sins withdraw me from all delight or complacency in wealth or worldly grandeur on which the lust of the eye is wont to be placed in frail false deceitfull beauty which is apt to accend foul flames within the breast in any other vain transporting object and on the contrary inliven and inflame in me all pious and vertuous designs and pursuits 38. Stablish thy word unto thy servant who is devoted to thy fear Paraphrase 38. There are in thy word the revelation of thy will to us the greatest arguments imaginable to ingage us to fear and reverence of and uniform obedience to thee promises of the divinest and terrors of the most formidable sort To this are the oracles of God all designed to bring us to the practice of true piety O grant me that grace that I may never permit these to depart out of my mind but make use of them constantly to this end to which thou hast designed them persevere firmly in thy obedience 39. Turn away my reproach which I fear for thy judgments are good Paraphrase 39. O what a shame and reproach would it be to me who acknowledge thy yoke to be so easie and pleasurable the obedience to thy commands so sweet and desirable ever to fall off from it into any unprofitable work of darkness This the sight of my own frailty bids me to fear beyond all things and to be for ever jealous of my self in this behalf O let thy word and thy grace give me that stability v. 38. and constancy that I never thus shamefully miscarry 40. Behold I have longed after thy precepts quicken me in thy righteousness Paraphrase 40. All that I can say of my self is that I have an ardent desire to obey thee O let thy grace which in mercy thou wilt not fail to give to all such that in humility address to thee excite and inliven me from time to time in all works of obedience to thee that so I may daily improve in all righteousness VAV. 41. Let thy mercies come unto me O Lord even thy salvation according to thy word Paraphrase 41. Lord be thou graciously pleased to compassionate me to espouse my cause to rescue me out of mine enemies hands according to the promise thou hast made unto me 42. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me for I trust in thy word Paraphrase 42. And then I shall be able to make a solid reply to all my despitefull enemies which are ready to insult over me in any distress and upbraid my trust and reliance on thee 43. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth for I have hoped in thy judgments Paraphrase 43. It is thy promise of eternal immutable truth that thou wilt never forsake them that trust in thee and adhere to thee O let me never be forsaken by thee in any such eminent degree that I may doubt of applying this promise to my self and assuming on the strength thereof this assurance that thou wilt infallibly rescue me 44. So shall I keep thy Law continually for ever and ever Paraphrase 44. This shall ingage and oblige the constancy of my obedience to thee from this time to the end of my life 45. And I will walk at liberty for I seek thy precepts Paraphrase 45. And being delivered by thee I will most chearfully and alacriously set to the ways
none that requireth or avengeth for my soul none that defends or vindicates it V. 7. That I may praise The Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ad laudandum to praising may indifferently be rendred either in the first person that I or in the third plural that they may praise i. e. the just in the next words And to that latter sense the following words seem to incline it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in me shall the righteous come about in me 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for my cause saith the Chaldee shall they come about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the just shall make thee a crown of praise say they not come about me or as the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they watch for me in the notion wherein they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 expect wait for Job 36.11 but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as that signifies for me or for my cause on occasion of me come about incompass God believe in him praise his name when so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be rendred they see how graciously God hath dealt with me The Jewish Arab reads And the righteous shall take me for a crown to them The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies so to incompass or come about as when a multitude of people assemble on any occasion so Prov. 14.18 the simple inherit folly but the prudent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall incompass knowledge i. e. seek it and follow it with all diligence and so to incompass God is to frequent his sanctuary devoutly and diligently to make addresses to him The word also in Arabick dialect signifies â—o be multiplied and so it will commodiously be rendred on occasion of me the righteous shall be multiplied when they see thy mercifull returns or dealings toward me The Hundred and Forty Third PSALM A Psalm of David The hundred forty third is a mournfull supplication for deliverance from powerfull enemies and was composed by David as some think at the time of Absalom's rebellion as others more probably and in harmony with the two former at the time of his being pursued by Saul in the Cave of Engedi 1. HEar my prayer O Lord give ear to my supplications in thy faithfulness answer me and in thy righteousness Paraphrase 1. O Lord I beseech thee to hear and answer my requests which my present distresses force me to present to thee and thy abundant grace and promises of never-failing mercy give me confidence that thou wilt favourably receive and perform unto me 2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant for in thy sight shall no man living be justified Paraphrase 2. I know my sins have justly provoked and brought down these pressures on me but thou art graciously pleased to be reconciled with humbled penitent sinners thou hast promised by a covenant of mercy not to charge on such with severity all the sins of which they have been guilty and were it not for that covenant 't were impossible for any frail imperfect sinfull creature such as every meer man is to appear with hope or comfort before thine exact tribunal To this thy promised mercy mine onely appeal lies and having sincerely vow'd to perform unto thee all faithfull be it never so mean and imperfect obedience I can put in my claim founded on thy faithfull promise v. 1. and hope and beg for this seasonable mercy and deliverance from thee 3. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul he hath smitten my life down to the ground he hath made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead Paraphrase 3. For my malicious enemies have calumniated first then persecuted me and now at length brought me to a very sad and dejected estate forced me to hide my self under ground to fly from one cave to another from the cave of Adullam 1 Sam. 22. to the cave of Engedi ch 24. 4. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me my heart within me is desolate 5. I remember the days of old I meditate on all thy works I muse on the work of thy hands Paraphrase 4 5. This hath cast me into great perplexity see Psal 142.3 filled me with a most anxious horrour wherein yet I have been able to support my self by reflecting on thy former mercies and deliverances which thy acts of power have been signally interposed to work for me 6. I stretch forth my hands unto thee my soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land Selah Paraphrase 6. To thee therefore I address my prayers with all the earnestness which my distresses can infuse into me The ground that is parcht with heat and drought and gaspes for some showre from the clouds to refresh it is an emblem of me at this time who pant and gasp and call importunately for some refreshment and relief from thee having no other means in the world to which I can apply my self 7. Hear me speedily O Lord my spirit faileth hide not thy face from me lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit Paraphrase 7. O Lord I beseech thee hasten to my relief my present exigences challenge and importune it from thee If thou do not interpose in my behalf I shall suddenly be overwhelmed by mine enemies and destroyed 8. Cause me to hear thy loving kindness in the morning for in thee do I trust cause me to know the way wherein I should walk for I lift up my soul unto thee Paraphrase 8. O be thou graciously pleased to shew forth thy pity and thy bounty timely and speedily to me who have no other refuge to resort to but that of thine overruling sovereign aid in this is my confidence for this I offer up the humblest devotions of my soul O be thou my guide to direct me to that course whatever it is which thou shalt chuse and wilt prosper to me 9. Deliver me O Lord from mine enemies I flee unto thee to hide me Paraphrase 9. Lord to thee do I betake my self as to mine onely refuge under the safeguard of thy protection I desire to secure my self O be thou graciously pleased to afford me that mercy and thereby to rescue me out of mine enemies hands 10. Teach me to doe thy will for thou art my God thy spirit is good lead me into the land of uprightness Paraphrase 10. Above all by thy paternal goodness I beseech thee be thou pleased so to conduct me in all my ways that I may doe nothing but what is perfectly good and acceptable in thy fight To which end Lord let thy gracious and sanctifying spirit the onely fountain and author of all goodness and holiness direct and assist me in every turn and motion of my life and bring me into a steady constant course of all strict and righteous living that antepast or first part of heaven on earth which thou wilt be sure to crown with a state of â—â—â—fect purity and impeccability
felicity of this life consists they shall also be means of accumulating all other prosperities upon us They whom all men love and revere will be in least danger of being hurt by them but on the contrary shall receive all aids and assistance from them and they that have the favour of God have therein a title to all auspicious influences of his providence which are the onely sure way to prosperity here and to all eternity 5. Trust in the Lord with all thy heart and lean not to thine own understanding 6. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths Paraphrase 5 6. A second duty that I shall recommend to thee on the same account as a special ingredient in thy prosperities is the reposing thy trust entirely and cordially on God so as not to rely on thine own wisedom contrivances or artifices to compass thy designs in this world but to keep thy self to the ways and means which God affords thee and approves of and this beyond all worldly policies will secure thee of a most happy and easie and expedite passage through all the dangers of this life 7. Be not wise in thine own eyes fear the Lord and depart from evil 8. It shall be health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones Paraphrase 7 8. A third quality of the same form is humility as that contains a very lowly opinion and conceit of ones self Rom. 12.16 and withall a tender awe and reverence to God and fear of displeasing him a readiness to obey him in all he shall require of us a conscientious abstaining from all sin a conquest over the temptations of the world or flesh an uniform obedience in opposition to that pride and contumacy and despising of God which the Psalmist notes in the wicked Psal 10.4 And nothing can more contribute to thy prosperity bodily and ghostly than this Confident overweening persons run themselves into strange inconveniencies but humility keeps men safe makes them seek aid and help from others and call constantly to God for that direction and assistance they stand in need of and the rejecting and averting of all wicked proposals secures us from them and neither the most sovereign medicines nor the most plentifull provisions of all things conducible to the body tending and cherishing it as the Gardner doth his ground with continual watering can contribute more to the acquiring of health and strength and agility and an athletick habit of body than this one advantage of humility and conscientious exact walking contributes to all worldly good successes As for ghostly health and strength which come wholly from the grace and spirit of God that is in especial manner promised to the humble and obedient and withdrawn from the proud or else repell'd by them 9. Honour the Lord with thy substance and with the first-fruits of all thine encrease 10. So shall thy barns be filled with plenty and thy presses shall burst out with new wine Paraphrase 9 10. A fourth duty that will tend extremely to the same end of advancing not onely thy eternal but even thy secular interests is a carefull constant paying to God all that he hath by any law required of thee and even by voluntary oblations exceeding that proportion which is strictly required hereby acknowledging that all thou hast cometh to thee merely from his bounty and is no way owing to thine own labour or subtlety but merely to his blessing Of this sort are the tithes and first-fruits and all other payments among the Jews due to the Temple and the Priests and other Officers of the Temple and in proportion all that hath ever been consecrated to God or his service in the Christian Church And of this sort also is the second tithing part whereof was spent at the feasts part assigned to the refreshing of the poor fatherless c. so was the second tithing every third year and so the gleanings of their harvest c. and being given to them is acceptable as given to God and so is much to the honour of God and an act of acknowledgment and thanksgiving to him answerable to which is setting apart some constant considerable proportion out of our revenues or gains for a stock of charity to our poor Christian brethren And if this duty be carefully and liberally and chearfully performed merely on design to bless and praise God and to provide for those whom he hath appointed his proxies upon earth to receive our works of piety and mercy it shall be so far from lessening thy store that it shall generally be a means of encreasing it exceedingly Nothing shall more tend to the bringing down a blessing upon all thy undertakings and so to the enriching thee than this see Mal. 3.10 Whereas they that withhold what is thus due much more they that sacrilegiously invade what is by others consecrated unto God or that oppress the poor are to expect nothing but blasts and improsperities and beggery It being ordinary for great estates and whole families to be utterly wasted by these means which yet according to wordly measures might expect to be most enriched and raised thereby 11. My Son despise not the chastening of the Lord neither be weary of his correction 12. For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth even as a father the son in whom he delighteth Paraphrase 11 12. It is true that every of these Aphorisms premised must be understood with a limitation or condition leaving place for some mixtures of the cross which all men in this valley of tears as the punishment of sin must sometimes expect and pious men have no exemption from them their greatest temporal felicities come with some allay or dash of afflictions and persecutions Mar. 10.40 When these come then is the season of another sort of Christian vertues patience meekness submission not onely to God's will which may not be resisted but also to his wisedom who can and doth choose for us that which is absolutely best and most wholesome though at the present dolorous and unwelcome and from that consideration ariseth also matter of refreshment and chearfulness so far at least as that we be not discouraged in our course of piety or any way tempted to slacken our zeal or to discover the least weariness or despondency of mind on this occasion but rather to rejoyce and be exceeding glad Matth. 5.12 And this thou wilt find no difficulty to doe if thou but consider that as all afflictions come from God so they are not acts of hatred in him but preparatives to his favour and reconciliation punishments indeed for sin but such as God in mercy inflicts here that he may not condemn with the world the very same that the corrections of a Father to a Son designed onely to his good and are therefore generally most frequent to those Children when they offend whom the Parents love most tenderly In them whatsoever is amiss or any way improveable the Parents excessive love makes
Mahomet to be a talking with God whil'st he lies foaming in an Epileptick fit but is content to be judged and discerned by the old plain Doctrines of the Gospel a regular authorized ordinary sober Spirit 3. The Zelotick Spirit was a thing peculiar among the Jews introduced and settled by the example of Phineas and Elias by way of precedent and standing Law to that Nation whereby 't was lawful when a man was taken in some notorious facts specifi'd by their Law Idolatry c. to run him through to kill him in the place without expecting any Legal process against him This was expresly commanded by Moses Numb 25.5 Slay ye every one the men that are joyned to Baal-peor and accordingly practised by Phineas upon incitation from God and when 't was done so by a Jew in the cases provided by the Jewish Law and by divine impulsion and the person assured that it was so there was then no harm in it but when that incitation from God was but pretended only not true when in any case but that prescribed by the Law then 't was perfect butchery and villany even among those Jews and unless in those few precedents of Phineas and Elias and the Maccabees i. e. Zelots for so the word Maccabee signifies in the Syriack 't will be hard to find either in Scripture or Josephus where there were whole multitudes of such men any one example of this practice justifiable even in a Jew And in opposition to and not compliance with that is the Gospel-spirit quite contrary to the heights of the Jewish practice never sheds bloud upon any but regular commissions an obedient orderly temperate cool Spirit 4. The Cursing spirit that may be of two sorts either in passing judgments on mens future spiritual estates a censorious damning spirit such as hath been usual in all kind of Hereticks almost that ever came into the Church nos spirituales we the spiritual and in the King of China's style filii coeli sons of heaven and all others animales psychici animal carnal men or 2. in wishing praying calling for curses either on God's or our enemies And you may know the Gospel-spirit by the opposition to these a hoping charitable merciful deprecating blessing Spirit Lastly the Fiery spirit is a vehement violent untractable unreconcileable spirit sets all where ever it comes into a flame and combustion and will never have peace with any thing which it can possibly consume nay farther it infuseth warmths and distempers and turbulencies into all that come within any reach of it communicates and diffuses its violencies to all others And the Gospel-spirit is direct antipodes to that an allaying quenching quieting cooling Spirit And so you see this new Spirit the Spirit of the Gospel of what a temper it is in all these respects a Spirit more fit than Lightning to melt the swords in our scabbards to new forge these hostile weapons into those that are more civil and profitable and that was the second course by which Christianity was to work this metamorphosis to beat these swords c. 3. And lastly our Saviour hath contributed toward this great work by the exemplariness of his own practice in this kind Not only in the first place in refusing to have the fire from heaven that the Boanerges would have help'd him to against the Samaritans profest enemies of Christ and of all that had any kind looks toward Jerusalem and besides notorious Hereticks and Schismaticks and yet pretenders to the only purity and antiquity against all sense and reason and so most arrogant Hypocrites also and yet all this not enough to inflame Christ's Spirit into that of Elias's or to change his temper into any thing of zeal or anger against these Nor only in the second place in reprehending and trashing of St. Peter's zeal when it drew the sword in his Master's defence against the high Priest's servants and indeed against the very Crucifiers of Christ Nor only in the third place in refusing the aid even of Angels from Heaven when they were ready upon his summons against the Heathens that attach'd him But fourthly and above all by that answer of his to Pilate John 18.36 If my Kingdom were of this world then should my servants fight c. which was certainly part of that good confession before Pilate mentioned with such honour 1 Tim. 6.13 inferring that because his Kingdom was not of this world because he was not a worldly or an earthly King therefore his servants were not to fight for him against a legal power of Heathens though 't were but to save him from Crucifying 'T is clear 't was one of his Accusers main hopes to find him in Judas Gaulonita's Doctrine That 't was unlawful for God's people and so for him that undertook to be God's Son to be subject to Idolaters making advantage of Piety as the Gnosticks after did toward their secular ends the freeing themselves from subjection in this world But our Saviour every where disclaims that Doctrine both Matth. 22.21 vindicating Caesar's Prerogative by his Coin and in that good confession to Pilate From which 't is demonstrable that what was not to be done in defence of Christ when he was in that danger and under that persecution is no more to be attempted in that case for Religion for Christianity it self I shall shut up this by leaving in your hands that most glorious lively Image of his whole Soul and Life delivered to us in one Medal that Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your Souls To which if you add the sealing and the practising of this in the giving up his Soul laying down his Life an Offering of Charity even for enemies and yet farther for those enemies Souls this one Amulet hung about your necks one would think were sufficient to charm all the weapons of our warfare that are so unmercifully carnal to exorcize and conjure all the swords and spears out of the world to work new transfigurations and metamorphoses among us to return the Bears and Vultures into their old humane shapes again and proclaim an universal truce to all the military affections we carry about us to our wraths our covetings our aspirings a Sabbath a Jubilee of rest and peace like that which Jamblichus talks of in the Sphears a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a catholick constant harmony and accord a present pacification of all our intestine broils and so a quiet and rest unto our souls and till this be done till this Advent Prophecy be fulfilled in your ears you must know there is little of Christianity among us little of Evangelical graces or Evangelical Spirit nothing but Legal at the best That in God's good time there may be more not in the brain or tongue to elevate the one or adorn the other but in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depth and sincerity of the heart more of the work and power the spirit and
our selves we should go near to find imputable to the want in us of one or both these ascending Angels either that the things we would have we dare not justifie the asking or expecting them from God because they are such only as we desire to spend on our lusts and then we have not because we ask amiss or else we are so over-hasty in pursuit of them that we utterly forget the dependance and waiting upon God the Stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. If he be not ready with his Auxiliaries on our first call deliverance shall come in some other way the Witch must prevent and supply the Samuel's place the first creature that will look a little kindly upon us shall get away all the applications from Heaven as in some Countries whatsoever they chanced to see first every morning they solemnly worshipp'd all the day after the most aiery appearances of relief from the improbablest Coast shall be able to attract our hopes and trusts and unbottom us utterly from God as Socrates is brought in by the Comedian with his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a making his addresses to the air or clouds when he had turn'd out all other worships out of his heart The thing that makes a worldling such a piteous creature such a Meteor in Christ's such an unstable wave of the Sea in St. James's style toss'd perpetually betwixt ebbs and floats of hopes even without the association of any wind to drive him while the only poor patient waiting Christian that hath sent out his good genius on his message up the Ladder and waits contentedly and calmly for his return again is the only fix'd Star in this lower Firmament his feet stand fast be the pavement never so slippery he believeth in the Lord. That Orpheus that in his life-time had made his applications to as many gods as there be days in the year and thence perhaps it was that Mexico had so many Temples grew wiser by more observation and left in his Will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there was but one 'T were well if we might do so too profit by his experience devest our selves of all our aiery poetick dependances betimes and roll our selves wholly upon God 't were the only probable thriving policy in the world I have detained you too long in the first Isle of this Bethel that which gives you a view of God's promises there made I hasten to the second the atrium interius to consider God in relation to this dreadful this consecrated place as Bethel literally signifies Beth El the House the Temple of God and so God hath a peculiarity of respect to that I am the God of Bethel in the second sense i. e. the God of God's house And here were a copious Theme indeed should we take a view of the material Bethel and in it observe 1. The voluntary institution and dedication of Temples even before the Law was given to the Jews as after it the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Feast of dedication being of a mere humane original instituted as the Feast of Purim and the Fast of the fifth and seventh month in Zachary by the Jews themselves 1 Mac. 4. and not by God's immediate appointment was yet celebrated and consequently approved by Christ in the 10. of John and after the Jewish Law was laid asleep yet the building and setting apart of Synagogues and Oratories and Upper-rooms and since Basilicae and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the parallels of the Bethel here the Palaces of the great King and Lord appropriate to his publick worship whenever Persecution did not drive it thence 2. The vow'd dedication and paiment of Tithes toward the endowing of Bethel before there was any such thing as Judaism in the world which therefore 't were strange that God's subsequent command to the Jews his own people should make unlawful to a Christian which otherwise had he not commanded it must have been as commendable now as it was in Jacob. These I say with divers others are the so many Branches of this second Consideration of these words of the relation of God to Bethel But I have not that unkindness to my Auditory as to pursue them with such a shole of unseasonable subjects There is another Bethel the flesh of man wherein God himself was pleased to inhabit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. John to pitch his Tent or Tabernacle there to consecrate it into a very Temple our bodies are the Temples of that holy Ghost by which Christ was so long ago conceived among us and thence it is that his eyes and his heart are set so particularly upon this flesh of ours to cleanse and to drain and to spiritualize it to expostulate with us whenever we put it to any common profane uses as if we violated and ravished Christ himself and forcibly joyned him to an Harlot and at last if it prove capable of such dignity to array it in all holiness and glory to cloath it upon with beauty and with bliss immortal And so God is the God of this Bethel also Beside this there is yet one more invisible House of God wherein he delights to be inthron'd and by God's own confession Isa 66. more than either in the Temple of his own building or the Heaven of his own exalting even the poor contemptible this man for whom no body else hath any kind looks He that is poor and of a contrite spirit and that trembleth at his word this is that lovely dress that is so ravishing in God's eyes that sets out every Cottage into a Temple the poorest Peasant into the consecrated delight of Christ the most abject stones in Luz once anointed with this grace into an awful royal Bethel the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit which is in the sight of God of great price 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God is content to be at a great deal of charge in the purchase of it to pardon the absence of a great many other excellencies which may possibly exalt us above measure so he may acquire but this one desired beloved meekness instead of all Let us but possess our selves of this one Jewel the meek in opposition to the proud the quiet in opposition to the tragical or turbulent murmuring impatient Atheistical spirit and the God of Bethel hath a peculiar propriety to us he that owns and defends his Temples that is the refuge of the very Sanctuary it self and never but for the pride and insolencies and provocations of his Church suffers the Philistins to seise on the Ark of his glory will be a refuge and sanctuary to us the Angels at Bethel shall become thy guardians the Cherubim-wings thy over-shadowing until this tempest this tyranny be over-past I have done with the second view also as the Bethel here is the dreadful House of God though it be not the dread of it that hath made our stay so short there but only my desire to hasten to my last as
beloved wallowing again 2. Our daily minutely recourse to that digitus Dei finger of God which alone say the Jews can cleanse Lepers with a Lord if thou wilt thou canst make us clean thou canst prepare new Jordans of Grace beyond all our Rivers of Damascus new banks new treasures of Purity And then 3. taking the seasonable advice of the Syrian servants going down and washing in that Jordan acting upon our selves by the power of this grace thus fitly co-operating with God to the utmost of our derivative strength not lying like Creeples on the bank when we have a Bethesda before us which yet will cleanse none but those that go into it And that brings me to the former of the two circumstances belonging to this duty denoted by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cleanse our selves That it is the Christian's task upon himself this of purifying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let us cleanse our selves 'T is the prerogative of the grace of Christ that he that is vouchsafed his portion of that is thereby thus enabled to mortifie sin and advance toward purity and it is the duty of all that are thus vouchsafed and dignified to make use of that strength to that end to purifie themselves For as Aquinas observes out of Aristotle that those things are possible for us which are possible by our friends so what we are enabled to do by the grace of Christ we are able to do He that is born of God is born an Athleta and Victor the whole world is but a Pygmy before him this is the privilege of that high descent that be he the impotentest creature in the world considered in his natural carnal or moral principles either as born of bloud or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man he hath yet an acquisition of a kind of omnipotence from the derived communicated strength of Christ as he is born of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he can do all things through Christ that strengthens him God by his preventing and subsequent grace works in the Christian to will and to do merely of his good pleasure of bounty and then the exhortation belongs to that Christian to work and work out his own Salvation And were but the care and pains employed in the using and improving those Talents which God hath given us and calling to Heaven for supplies which is mis-spent and paultred away in pleading our impotencies and disabilities and wants of grace that is in acusing in the old Heathen style God's illiberal dealing with his children charging Heaven with all our failings we might certainly reap better fruit of our time be fairer proficients in this art of purging and in the mean may spend our spirits most profitably in calling and hastening one another to this so possible and withal so necessary task and that is the last particular That it ought to be the united design of all Christians the Apostle and people together to aid and assist one another in this work of purifying by entreaties by exhortations by all the engagements of love and duty 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us cleanse our selves The work 't is acknowledg'd though possible to be gone through with in such a measure as shall be sure of acceptance is yet of some more than ordinary difficulty How long hath this poor Nation been about it so many years in the Refiners fire in God's fornace for purifying worn out and rent to pieces under the Fuller's sope and yet God knows as full of dross and spots as ever the poor Leper-kingdom thrust out of the camp the Temple banish'd from the old priviledges of the Israelite the Oracle and the service of God God spitting in the face of it in Moses's style a kind of excommunicate state all on that charitable purpose that it might be ashamed and apply it self to the Priest to God for his purgatives I shall add look'd upon pray'd over by that Priest so many years together and that cure still as far from being perfected as ever the leprosie spreading in the skin the sins multiplying under the Priests inspection under God's rod at the end of a seven years rinsing not with sope but nitre a thousand times more odious spots more provoking sins more hellish impurities than before I remember what poor Porphyry was fain to do in pursuit of purgatives the same that Saul after the commission of his sin that rent the Kingdom from him betake himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to magick and conjuring make friends to the Devil to help purifie him O that we having met with luckier prescriptions recipe's from Heaven that would be sure to prove successful would not betray all for want of applying them that while it is called to day while a poor spotted Kingdom lies a gasping the benefit of the last plunge the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 might not be quite let slip that this of purifying the only true expedient yet untried whilst all others are experimented to be but mere Empirical state-mountebankery might at length be thought on prosecuted with some vigour every man entring into the retirement of his own breast there to search and view the spotted patient the plague the leprosie of his own heart and again every man making his arts of cure as communicative and diffusive as charitable and Catholick as he can that as David was ravish'd with joy when they said unto him Let us go into the house of the Lord that pleasant news and spectacle a conspiration for Piety so we for that only errand that sends us all to that house the beginning and advancing of Purity every man like an Israelite in his flight from Aegypt not only going out in haste a passeover toward purity but also despoiling his Aegyptian neighbours robbing one of his lusts another of his detractions one of his Atheistical oaths another of his swinish excesses one of his Infidel tremblings and basenesses another of his covetings and ambitions his jewels of silver and jewels of gold and raiments his most valued precious sins the curses with which he hath cloathed himself as with a garment and which would one day if they were not snatch'd from him come like scalding water into his bowels and oyl into his bones and so yet if it be possible come out a troop a legion of naked Wrastlers a whole shole of candidates toward Purity Till somewhat be done this way more than hitherto hath been done Peace may hover over our heads express its willingness to light upon us but ad candida tecta columbae that dove will not enter or dwell where Purity hath not prepared for her or if she should so unlearn her own humour 't were danger she would turn Vultur that most desirable blessing prove our fatal'st curse leave us in and to a state of all impurities to deprecate and curse those mercies that had betrayed us to such irreversible miseries Lord purge Lord cleanse us do thou break those vessels of ours
estate such are our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our weaknesses ignorances and the like and some that are not the spots of sons they which do them shall not without actual reformation and victory and forsaking enter or inherit the kingdom of God after all that Christ hath done and suffered for them such our deliberate acts and habits against light against grace the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text and let me tell you the not pondering these differences not observing the grains and scruples of sin how far the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extend and when they are overgrown into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the ground that I say no more of a deal of desperate profaneness We cannot keep from all sin and therefore count it lost labour to endeavour to abstain from any having demonstrated our selves men by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we make no scruple to evidence our selves Devils too by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the desperation of perfect sinlessness makes us secure in all vileness and being engaged in weakness we advance to madness either hope to be saved with our greatest sins or fear to be damned for our least and having resolv'd it impossible to do all resolve securely to do none our infirmities may damn us and our rebellions can do no more our prayers our almes have sin in them and our murthers and sacriledges can be but sinful and so if the Devil or our interests will take the pains to solicite it the deadliest sin shall pass for as innocent a creature as tame a stingless Serpent as the fairest Christian vertue and all this upon the not observing the weight of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here which Christ rose from the grave on purpose to turn us from and from which whosoever is not turned shall never rise unto life Add unto this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the his iniquities as it refers to the author of them and this is the bill of challenge and claim to those accursed possessions of ours nothing is so truly so peculiarly ours as our sins and of those as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our frailties our lapses our ignorances the diseases and infelicities of our nature which may insensibly fall from us vix ea nostra voco but our wasting wilful acts and indulg'd habits those great Vultures and Tygres of the soul they are most perfectly our own the natural'st brats and truest progeny that ever came from our loins nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Agamemnons phrase nor God nor Fate nor Fiend are any way chargeable with them The first were blasphemy the second Stoicism and folly to boot the third a bearing false witness against the devil himself robbing him of his great fundamental title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calumniator and proving those that thus charge him the greatest Devils of the twain and all this is but one part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the his c. as it refers to the Author And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again the his as it is a note of eminence his peculiar prime reigning sins that all others like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or commonalty are fain to be subject to sometimes a monarch-dictator-single sin a the plague in his own heart a principality of ambition of pride of lust of covetousness that all others at their distance administer unto sometimes an optimacy of a few all prime coequal in their power and sometimes a democracy or popular state a whole Aegypt full of locusts in one breast a Gad a troop or shole of sins all leading us captive to their shambles and thus our Soveraign sins as different as our tempers and every oâ—e the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here every man from his iniquities The summ of this first prospect is briefly this Thâ—â—urning every one from his iniquities wherein Christs blessing us consists is his giving of grace sufficient to work an universal sincere impartial thorough-change of every sinner from all his reigning wilful sins The sincerity though not perfection of the new creature And the dependence betwixt this and the resurrection of Christ is the second or next enquiry The resurrection of Christ in the Scripture-stile signifies not always the act of rising from the dead but the consequent state after that rising by the same proportion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new creation and the being regenerate or born of God signifie the state of Sonship and not the act of begetting only So that in brief the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the raising up of Jesus signifies the new state to which Christ was inaugurate at his resurrection and contains under it all the severals of ascension of sitting at the right hand of power of the mission of the Holy Ghost and his powerful intercession for us in Heaven ever since and to the end of the world And this is the notion of the resurrection of Christ which is the blesser which hath that influence on our turning 't will not be amiss to shew you how And here I shall not mention that moral influence of his resurrection upon ours by the example of his powerful rising out of the grave to preach to us the necessity of our shaking off the grave-cloths that cadaverous chill noisome estate of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to rise again with him This is the blessing in the Text but this the example of Christ might preach long enough to dead souls before it would be hearkened unto although the truth is the antient Church by their setting apart these Holy-days for the baptizing of all that were baptized and the whole space betwixt this and Pentecost and every Dominical in the year for the gesture of standing in all their services that no man might come near the earth at the time that Christ rose from it did certainly desire to enforce this moral on us that our souls might now turn and be blessed rise and be conformed to the image of Christs resurrection Blessed Lord that it might be thus exemplary to us at this time But to omit this the special particulars wherein the resurrection of Christ as our blesser hath its influence on our turning are briefly these three 1. The bestowing on us some part of that Spirit by which Christ was raised out of the grave Consider Rom. 8. verse 11. and 't is all that I shall say to you of that first particular If the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you that Spirit of power by which Christ was raised out of the grave is the very efficient of our turning our new birth the Author of our present blessedness and the pledge of our future immortality God having raised his Son by his Spirit anointed him with that Spirit to work the like miracles
the Devils works but from his attachments only as a protection to secure our misdemeanors not to defend our innocence for a man thus appointed to venture on a Precipice as the Turks saith Busbequius are wont to try the goodness of an horse by riding him post down the steepest hill to outdare the Devil in his own territories as Christ is said to descend thither to triumph over him to besiege and set upon Hell presuming of our interest in Heaven as of a Magical Charm and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep us safe from death or maims in the midst of enemies nay of friends this is a piece of spiritual pride of Lucifer's own inscribing an imperious majestick garb of impiety a triumphant or processionary pomp an affected stately gate in sin that nothing but a violent rending power of the Spirit or a boisterous tempestuous judgment can force us out of Such a prophane Fiduciary as this which hath even defiled Heaven by possessing it such an Hellish Saint is like to be torn out of the third Heaven into which his speculation hath wrapt him and after a long dream of Paradise find himself awake in Hell And from this degree of religious prophaneness this confidence in sinning on presumption that we are under grace from this premature resolution that no sin no Devil can endanger us from this imperious whoredom as from the danger of Hell Good Lord deliver us 3. Imperious signifies more distinctly a tyrannical Lording behaviour usurping and exercising authority over all And this the Apostate Jew and Christian Libertine doth 1. By tyrannizing over himself i. e. his faculties and estate 2. Over all that come near him Over himself by urging and driving on in a carnal course not patient of any regrets and resistances that a tender disposition motions of Gods Spirit or gripes of Conscience can make against it goading and spurring on any of his faculties as being too dull and unactive and slothful in the ways of death even forcing them if they be any time foreslowed and trashed by either outward or inward restraints to sin even in sight of them and hastening them to a kind of unvoluntary disobedience Thus will a stone when 't is kept violently from the ground being held in a mans hand or the like press and weigh towards the Earth incessantly as if it were naturally resolved to be revenged on any one to tire him out that thus detained it from its place nay when it is let down you may see it yet press lower make its print in the Earth as if it would never be satisfied till it could rest in Hell The sinner is never at quiet with himself Instat imperat He is urgent and importunate upon himself to satisfie every craving lust Not the beggarliest affection or laziest unworthiest desire of the flesh but shall have its alms and dole rather than starve though it be an atome of his very soul to the utter undoing and bankrupting of him that gives it And for his tyranny over his estate whether Temporal or Spiritual his goods of Fortune or gifts of Grace they must all do homage to this carnal Idol All his treasures on Earth are richly sold if they can but yield him the fruition of one beloved sin And for Spiritual Illuminations or any Seeds of Grace he will lose them all and even shut himself for ever into the darkness of Hell rather than ever be directed by their light out of those pleasing paths of death A restraining grace was but a burthensome needless incumbrance and a gleam of the Spirit but a means to set Conscience a working to actuate her malice and execution on sin and it were an happy exchange to get but one loving delight or companion for them both Let but a sin be coy and stanch not to he gain'd at the first wooing and all these together like Jacob's Present out of all his goods shall be all little enough for a sacrifice or bribe to sollicite or hire it And this the Prophet notes here distinctly Vers 33. and 34. Thou art contrary to all the Whores in the World In other places Men give gifts to all Whores but thou givest gifts to all thy lovers None follow or bribe thee to commit whoredoms Thou givest a reward and no reward is given to thee therefore thou art contrary The sinner in my Text scorns to set so low a value on sin as that profit or advantage should ingratiate it to him it is so amiable in his eyes of it self he will prize it so high that any other treasure shall not be considerable in respect of it It is part of his loyalty and expression of his special service to the Devil to become a bankrupt in his cause to sell all that he hath both God and fortunes to follow him It is the art and Cunning of common Whores to raise mens desires of them by being coy Difficultate augere libidinis pretium to hold off that they may be followed Vers 34. But this sin is not so artificial her affections are boysterous and impatient of delay she is not at so much leisure as to windlace or use craft to satisfie them she goes downright a wooing and if there be any difficulty in compassing all that she hath is ready for a dowry and prostitute before her Idol Lust Lastly Imperious over all that come near him either men or sins every man must serve him either as his pander or companion to further or associate him I told you he sinned in Cathedra Psal 1.1 that is also doctorally and magisterially every spectator must learn of him it is his profession he sets up school for it his practices are so commandingly exemplary that they do even force and ravish the most maidenly tender conscience And then for all inferiors they are required to provide him means and opportunities of sinning to find him out some game and no such injury can be done as to rouze or spring a sin that would otherwise have lodged in his walk It was part of the Heathenish Romans quarrel against the Primitive Christians saith Tertullian that they drove away their Devils These Exorcist-Christians had banished all their old familiars out of the Kingdom which they were impatient to be deprived of And thus careful and chary are men of their helps of opportunities to sin it is all the joy they have in the world sometimes to have a temptation and to be able to make use of it to have the Devil continue strong with them in an old Courtier 's phrase It is their very life and he that deprives them of it is a murtherer And for the sins themselves Lord how they tyrannize over them how they will rack and torture and stretch every limb of a sin that they may multiply it into infinites and sin as often at once as is possible Adam in the bare eating of an Apple committed a multitude of sins Leo in his 86 Epist
a logical possibility but a moral necessity of the performing of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or else no possibility of Salvation And then that reason of disanulling the old and establishing the new Covenant because there was no justification to be had by the old rendred Gal. iii. 21 would easily be retorted upon the Apostle thus why neither is any life or justification to be had by this second the absurdity of which sequel being considered may serve for one proof of the Proposition The second thing to be premised of this Condition is that it is an immutable unalterable undispensable Condition The 2 d. Covenant standing this must also stand that hath been proved already because a condition adequate and of the same latitude with the Covenant But now secondly this second both Covenant and Condition must needs stand an Everlasting Covenant Ezek. xvi 60 No possibility of a change unless upon an impossible supposition there should remain some other fourth Person of the Deity to come into the world The Tragick Poets saith Tully when they had over shot themselves in a desperate Plot that would never come about ad Deum confugiunt they were fain to flie to a God to lay that unruly spirit that their phansie had raised Upon Adam's sin and breach of the Condition of the First Covenant there was no possibility in the wit of man in the sphere of the most Poetical phansie Fabulae exitum explicare to come off with a fair conclusion had not the Second Person of the Trinity that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 come down in his tire and personation of flesh not in the stage Cloaths or Livery but substantial form of a servant upon the stage And he again having brought things into some possibility of an happy conclusion though it cost him his life in the negotiation leaves it at his departure in the trust of his vicegerent the Spirit of his power to go thorow with his beginnings to see that performed which only he left unperfected as being our task not his the Condition of the Second Covenant The Spirit then enters upon the work dispatches Officers Ambassadors to all Nations in the World 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to every creature Mark xvi 15 And himself to the end of the World goes along to back them in their Ministry And then the next thing the Scripture tells us of is the coming to Harvest after this Seeds time and he that believeth not shall be damned and so that Sacred Canon is shut up The Issue of this second Praecognitum is this That if there still remain any difficulties any impossibilities to be overcome so they are like to remain for ever unless there be some other Person in the Godhead to be sent to make up Pythagoras his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is no new way imaginable to be found out and that perhaps is the reason of those peremptory denuntiations of Christ against them that sin against the Holy Ghost against that administration of grace entrusted to him that there shall be never any remission for them in this world or in another i. e. Either by way of Justification here or Glorification at that grand Manumission hereafter And that may serve for a second proof of the Proposition that if for all the duty of a Christian is not feasible it must remain so for ever an adumbration thereof you may see set down Heb. x. comparing the 16. with the 26. verse In the 16. you have the Second Covenant described and the condition of it in the Verses following and then Vers 26. if after this we sin wilfully then our estate becomes desperate There remains no more sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation and he that takes not then quarter accounted an adversary for ever the Apostate whether he renounce his faith in fact or profession must be a Cast away The third thing to be premised is Wherein this condition of the second Covenant consists and that is not in any rigor of legal performance that was the bloody purport of that old obligation that soon concluded us all under death irreversibly not in any Egyptian Pharaoh's task a full tale of Bricks without Straw without any materials to make them no Pharisaical burthen laid on heavy and no finger to help to bear it but an easie yoke a light burthen Mat. xi 30 and not only light but alleviating he that was laden before is the lighter for this yoke Vers 29. Take my yoke and you shall find rest And therefore Christ thinks reasonable not to lay the yoke upon them as an injunction as the worldly fashion is but to commend it to them as a thing that any prudent man would be glad to take up in the beginning of the Verse Take my yoke upon you In a word it consists in the embracing of Christ in all his Offices the whole Person of Christ but especially as he is typically described in Zachary a crowned Jesus a Priest upon a Throne his Scepter joyned to his Ephod to rule and receive tribute as well as sacrifice and satisfie and reconcile Consilium pacis inter ambo ea those two Offices of his reconciled in the same our Priest become our King That being delivered we may serve him in the other Zacharie's phrase Delivered without fear serve him in holiness and righteousness the performance of that duty that Christ enables to perform the sincerity of the honest heart the doing what our Christian strength will reach to and humbly setting the rest on Christs score And then when that which can be done is sure to be accepted there is no room left for pretended impossibilities Nay because those things which there is a Logical possibility for us to do and strength sufficient suppeditated it is not yet morally possible to do all our lives long without any default because as Parisiensis saith even the habit of Grace in the regenerate heart is as long as a man carries flesh about him as an armed man positus in lubrico set to fight in a slippery place all his armor and valor will not secure him from a fall or again as the General of a Factious or false-hearted Army a party of insidious flesh at home which will betray to the weaker enemy that comes unanimous or as a Warriour on a tender mouthed horse impatient of Discipline or check is fetcht over sometimes for all his strength and armor because I say there is none but offend sometimes even against his power there is therefore bound up in this new Volume of Ordinances an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a New Testament a Codicil of Repentance added to the Testament that Plank for Shripwrackt souls that City of Refuge that Sanctuary for the Man-slayer after sin committed And then if sincere obedience be all that is required and that exclude no Christian living be he never so weak but the false faithless Hypocrite
the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18 And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have ingaged themselves in the courses of actual hainous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1 And such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carkass or violence of the Body of sin The restored purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul Psal li. 10 a wound cured up by repentance and differs only from the former purity as a scar from a skin never cut wanting somewhat of the beauty and outward clearness but nothing of either the strength or health of it Optandum esset ut in simplici Virginitate servaretur navis c. It were to be wished that the Ship our Souls could be kept in its simple Virginity and never be in danger of either leak or shipwrack but this perpetual integrity being a desperate impossible wish there is one only remedy which though it cannot prevent a leak can stop it And this is repentance after sin committed Post naufragium tabula a means to secure one after a shipwrack and to deliver him even in the deep Waters And this we call a restored Virginity of the Soul which Christ also vouchsafes to be conceived and born in The first degree of Innocence being not to have sinned the second to have repented In the second place the Mother of Christ in the flesh was a Virgin not only till the time of Christ's conception but also till the time of his birth Matth. i. 25 He knew her not till she had brought forth c. And farther as we may probably believe remained a Virgin all the days of her life after for to her is applied by the Learned that which is typically spoken of the East-gate of the Sanctuary Ezek. xliv 2 This gate shall be shut it shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut A place if appliable very apposite for the expression Hence is she called by the Fathers and Counsels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin against the Heresie of Helvidius The probability of this might be farther proved if it were needful And ought not upon all principles of nature and of justice the Virgin Soul after Christ once conceived in it remain pure and stanch till Christ be born in it nay be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin never indulge to sensual pleasures or cast away that purity which Christ either found or wrought in it If it were a respective purity then ought it not perpetually retain and increase it and never fall off to those disorders that other men supinely live in If it were a recovered purity hold it fast and never turn again As a Dog to his vomit or a Sow to her wallowing in the mire For this conception and birth of Christ in the Soul would not only wash away the filth that the Swine was formerly mired in but also take away the Swinish nature that she shall never have any strong propension to return again to her former inordinate delights Now this continuance of the Soul in this its recovered Virginity is not from the firm constant stable nature of the Soul but as Eusebius saith in another case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From a more strong able Band the Vnion of Christ to the Soul his Spiritual Incarnation in it Because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut Ezek. xliv 2 i. e. it shall not be opened either in consent or practice to the lusts and pollutions of the World or Flesh because Christ by being born in it hath cleansed it because he the Word of God said the Word therefore the leprosie is cured in whom he enters he dwells and on whom he makes his real impression he seals them up to the day of redemption unless we unbuild our selves and change our shape we must be his In the third place if we look on the agent in this conception we shall find it both in Mary and in the Soul of Man to be the Holy Ghost that which is conceived in either of them is of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 20 Nothing in this business of Christs birth with us to be imputed to natural power or causes the whole contrivance and final production of it the preparations to and labouring of it is all the workmanship of the Spirit So that as Mary was called by an ancient so may the Soul without an Hyperbole by us be styled The Shop of Miracles and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost in which every operation is a miracle to nature and no tools are used but what the Spirit forged and moves Mary conceived Christ but it was above her own reach to apprehend the manner how for so she questions the Angel Luke i. 34 How shall this be c. So doth the Soul of Man conceive and grow big and bring forth Christ and yet not it self fully perceives how this work is wrought Christ being for the most part insensibly begotten in us and to be discerned only spiritually not at his entrance but in his fruits In the fourth place that Mary was chosen and appointed among all the Families of the Earth to be the Mother of the Christ was no manner of desert of hers but Gods special favour and dignation whence the
make up the Gospel-spirit Bonum ex essentiâ integra And what these branches are I cannot better direct you than by putting you in mind of these few severals First Christ's badg or cognizance By this shall all men know that you are my Disciples if you love one another Not if one opinion but of love Add Nunquam laeti sitis c. as Jews rend Garments at Blasphemy so we at Vncharitableness Secondly Christ's legacy Peace I leave with you my peace I give unto you Thirdly Christ's copy Learn of me what 's beyond all his other perfections I am meek Fourthly The Nature of that Wisdom which cometh from above Jam. iii. First pure then peaceable Fifthly The quality of the fruits of the Spirit in St. Paul Gal. v. Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness c. Sixthly The gallantry of meekness in St. Peter Ornament of a meek and quiet spirit Seventhly Titus's charge that all Christians are to be put in mind of Tit. iii. 1 To be subject to Principalities to obey Magistrates to be ready to every good work to speak evil of no man to be no brawlers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no fighters but gentle shewing all meekness to all men Things that it seems nothing but Christianity could infuse For we our selves were sometimes fools disobedient c. But after the kindness and love of God our Saviour appeared then room for this Spirit I cannot give you a readier Landskip to present them all to your view together than that excellent Sermon of Christ upon the Mount that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Chrysostom calls it That top-pitch of Divine Philosophy worthy to be imprinted in every mans heart and of which he that hath not been a pondering student and resolved to regulate his practice by it as much as his Faith by the Apostles Creed yea and to lay down his life a Martyr of that Doctrine though he hath all Faith I cannot promise my self much of his Christianity If you will have the Brachygraphy of that the Manual picture that may be sure either in words or sense never to depart from your bosom but remain your constant Phylactery or Preservative from the danger of all ungospel spirits then take the Beatitudes in the front of it And among them that I may if it be possible bring the whole Iliads into a Nutshel those that import immediately our duty towards men for in that the Gospel-spirit especially consists encreasing our love to Brethren whose flesh Christ now assumed and in whose interests he hath a most immediate concern And if you mark in the Chapter following all the improvements mentioned except only that of swearing belong to the commands of the Second Table And then the integral parts of this Gospel-spirit will be these four constantly Humility meekness mercifulness peaceableness and if need be suffering too Every of these four brought in to us with a checker or lay of duty towards God of mourning betwixt humility and meekness hungring and thirsting after Righteousness betwixt meekness and mercifulness purity of heart betwixt mercifulness and peaceableness and persecution and reproaches and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every Rabshakeh Topick of railing Rhetorick vomited out upon us Blessed persecution blessed reproaches when our holding to Christ is that which brings them all upon us the consummation and crown of all Having but named you these severals Humility meekness mercifulness peaceableness and if need be patience of all stripes both of hand and tongue the sparkling gems in this Jewel blessed ingredients in this Gospel-spirit you will certainly resolve it full time for me to descend to my second particular at first proposed That some Disciples there were some prime Professors do not know the kind of that spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You know not what kind of spirit you are of James and John it appears were such Disciples and that after they had been for some competent time followers and auditors of his Sermons so far an easier thing it is to leave their worldly condition and follow Christ than to leave their carnal prejudices and ignorances and obey him especially those that had such hold in their passions as revenge they say is the pleasingest piece of carnality in the heap cheaper to hear his Gospel-Sermons than to practise them And you will less wonder at these two when you see that St. Peter himself after a longer space of proficiency in that school even at the time of Christs attachment had not yet put off that ignorance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 say the Fathers Peter was of an hot Constitution and Christs Doctrine had not yet got down deep enough into his heart to allay or cool him Nondum concipiens in se Evangelicam patientiam illam traditam sibi à Christo c. saith Origen that Gospel-patience and peaceableness that Christ had commended to him he had not it seems yet received into an honest heart so he makes no scruple to cut off Malchus's ear when he was provoked to it I have heard of a Fryar that could confess that Malchus signified a King and yet after made no scruple to acknowledg him in that notion to be the High-Priests Servant And secondly to justifie St. Peters act and avoid Christs reprehension by saying that he was chid not for doing so much but for doing no more not for cutting off his Ear but for not directing the blow better to the cutting off his Head And how far this Fryar's barbarous Divinity hath been justified of late by the Writings of some who will yet perswade us that Christ did not reprehend St. Peter for that act and by the actions of others I have little joy to represent unto you God knows I love not to widen breaches only I am sure the Fathers are clear that though formerly St. Peter were ignorant and from that ignorance and zeal together ran into that fury yet Christ 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desirous to tune him to that sweet harmoniacal Gospel temper tells him he must not use the sword he having no Commission especially against those that have it though they use it never so ill 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 though it were to avenge even God himself And having given you these proofs of this ignorance in three Disciples I think 't is possible I might extend it to the rest of them that they were in this particular ignorant too as it seems they were in many other things till the Holy Ghost came according to promise to teach them all things and to bring to their remembrance to thaw their memories that the words of Christs like the voice in Plutarch that had been frozen might at length become audible or as Plato's Precepts were learned by his Scholars when they were young but never understood till they were Men of full age and tamer passions I say to bring to their remembrance whatsoever Christ had in Person said unto them And I wish to God it were
uncharitable to charge this ignorance still upon Disciples after so many solemn Embassies of the Holy Ghost unto us to teach us and remember us of this Duty Nay I wish that now after he hath varied the way of appearing after he hath sat upon us in somewhat a more direful shape not of a Dove but Vultur tearing even the flesh from us on purpose that when we have less of that carnal Principle left there might be some heed taken to this gospel-Gospel-Spirit there were yet some proficiency observable among us some heavings of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that hath so long been a working in the World I am confident there were no such way of designing a prosperous flourishing durable Kingdom as to found its policy upon Gospel-Principles and maintain it by the Gospel-Spirit I have authority to think that was the meaning of that Prophecy of Christs turning swords into plough-shares not that he should actually bring peace he tells you that it would prove quite contrary but because the fabrick of the Gospel is such that would all men live by it all wars and disquiets would be banished out of the World It was a madness in Machiavel to think otherwise and yet the unhappiness of the World that Sir Thomas Moor's Book that designed it thus should be then called Vtopia and that title to this hour remain perfect Prophecy no place to be found where this Dove may rest her foot where this Gospel-Spirit can find reception No not among Disciples themselves those that profess to adventure their lives to set up Christs Kingdom in its purity none so void of this knowledg as they Whether we mean a speculative or practical knowledg of it few arrived to that height or vacancy of considering whether there be such a Spirit or no. Some so in love with nature that old Pelagian Idol resolve that sufficient to bring them to Heaven if they but allow their brethren what they can claim by that grand Character love of Friends those of the same perswasion those that have obliged them they have Natures leave and so are resolved to have Christs to hate pursue to death whom they can phansie their Enemies And I wish some were but thus of Agrippa's Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so near being Christians as nature it self would advance them that gratitude honour to Parents natural affection were not become malignant qualities disclaim'd as conscientiously as obedience and justice and honouring of betters Others again so devouted to Moses's Law the Old Testament Spirit that whatever they find practised there they have sufficient authority to transcribe And 't is observable that they which think themselves little concerned in Old Testament Duties which have a long time past for unregenerate morality that faith hath perfectly out-dated are yet zealous Assertors of the Old Testament Spirit all their pleas for the present resistance fetch'd from them yea and confest by some that this liberty was hidden by God in the first ages of the Christian Church but now revealed we cannot hear where yet but in the Old Testament and from thence a whole CIX Psalm full of Curses against God's Enemies and theirs and generally those pass for synonymous terms the special devotion they are exercised in and if ever they come within their reach no more mercy for them than for so many of the seven nations in rooting out of which a great part of their Religion consists I wish there were not another Prodigy also abroad under the name of the Old Testament Spirit the opinion of the necessity of Sacrifice real bloody Sacrifice even such as was but seldom heard of among Indians and Scythians themselves such Sacrifices of which the Canibal Cyclops Feasts may seem to have been but attendants furnished with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that come from such savage Altars sacrificing of Men of Christians of Protestants as good as any in the World to expiate for the blood shed by Papists in Queen Mary's days and some Prophets ready to avow that without such Sacrifice there is no remission no averting of judgments from the Land What is this but like the Pharisees To build and garnish the Sepulchres of the Prophets and say That if they had lived in their Fathers days they would never have partaken of the blood of the Prophets and yet go on to fill up the measure of their Fathers the very men to whom Christ directs thee O Jerusalem Jerusalem thou that killest in the present tense a happy turn if but the Progeny of those Murtherers and what can then remain but the Behold your house is left unto you desolate irreversible destruction upon the Land A third sort there is again that have so confined the Gospel to Promises and a fourth so perswaded that the Vnum necessarium is to be of right perswasions in Religion i. e. of those that every such man is of for he that did not think his own the truest would sure be of them no longer that betwixt those two popular deceits that of the Fiduciary and this of the Solisidian the Gospel-spirit is not conceived to consist in doing any thing and so still those practical Graces Humility Meekness Mercifulness Peaceableness and Christian Patience are very handsomly superseded that one Moses's Rod called Faith is turned Serpent and hath devoured all these for rods of the Magicians and so still you see men sufficiently armed and fortified against the Gospel-spirit All that is now left us is not to exhort but weep in secret not to dispute but pray for it that God will at last give us eyes to discern this treasure put into our hands by Christ which would yet like a whole Navy and Fleet of Plate be able to recover the fortune and reputation of this bankrupt Island fix this floating Delos to restore this broken shipwrakt Vessel to harbour and safety this whole Kingdom to peace again Peace seasonable instant peace the only remedy on earth to keep this whole Land from being perfect Vastation perfect Africk of nothing but wild and Monster and the Gospel-spirit that Christ came to preach and exemplifie and plant among men the only way imaginable to restore that peace Lord that it might at length break forth among us the want of it is certainly the Authour of all the miseries we suffer under and that brings me to the third and last particular That this ignorance of the Gospel-spirit is apt to betray Christians to unsafe unjustifiable enterprizes You that would have fire from Heaven do it upon this one ignorance You know not c. It were too sad and too long a task to trace every of our evils home to the original every of the fiends amongst us to the mansion in the place of darkness peculiar to it If I should it would be found too true what Du Plesse is affirmed to have said to Languet as the reason why he would not write the story of the Civil
them upon condition of performance of moral precepts for all things being indifferently moved to the obtaining of their summum bonum all I say not only rational agents 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Andronicus saith on the Ethicks which have nothing but nature to incite them to it the natural man may upon a sight and liking of an happiness proposed on severe conditions call himself into some degrees of moral temper as best suiting to the performance of the means and obtaining of the end he looks for and by this temper be said to be morally better than another who hath not taken this course to subdue his passions And this was evident enough among the Philosophers who were as far beyond the ordinary sort in severity of conversation as depth of learning and read them as profitable precepts in the example of their lives as ever the Schools breathed forth in their Lectures Their profession was incompatible with many vices and would not suffer them to be so rich in variety of sins as the vulgar and then whatsoever they thus did an unregenerate Christian may surely perform in a far higher measure as having more choice of ordinary restrainment from sin than ever had any heathen for it will be much to our purpose to take notice of those ordinary restraints by which unregenerate men may be and are curbed and kept back from sinning and these saith Austin God affords to the very reprobates Non continens in ira suas misericordias Much to this same purpose hath holy Maximus in those admirable Sections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 where most of the restraints he speaks of are competible to the unregenerate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. 1. Fear of men 2. Denunciation of judgments from Heaven 3. Temperance and moral vertues nay sometimes other moral vices as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vain glory or ostentation of integrity 4. Natural impressions to do to others as we would be done to 5. Clearness of judgment in discerning good from evil 6. An expectation of a reward for any thing well done Lastly some gripes and twinges of the conscience to all add a tender disposition a good Christian education common custom of the Country where one lives where some vices are out of fashion nay at last the word of God daily preached not a love but servile fear of it These I say and the like may outwardly restrain unregenerate men from riots may curb and keep them in and consequently preserve the soul from that weight of the multitude of sins which press down other men to a desperation of mercy Thus is one unregenerate man less ingaged in sin than another and consequently his soul less polluted and so in all likelihood more capable of the ordinary means of salvation than the more stubborn habituate sinner when every aversion every commission of every sin doth more harden against grace more alien and set at a greater distance from Heaven and this briefly we call a moral preparation of the soul and a purging of it though not absolutely from sin yet from some measure of reigning sin and disposing of it to a spiritual estate and this is no more than I learn from Bradwardine in his 16. de causa Dei. ch 37. A servile fear a sight of some inconvenience and moral habit of vertue and the like Multum retrahunt à peccato inclinant ad opera bona sic ad charitatem gratiam opera verè grata praeparant disponunt And so I come to my last part to shew of what use this preparation of the soul is in order to Christs birth in us the ways of the Lord. I take no great joy in presenting controversies to your ears out of this place yet seeing I am already fallen upon a piece of one I must now go through it and to quit it as soon as I can present the whole business unto you in some few propositions of which some I shall only recite as conceiving them evident enough by their own light the rest I shall a little insist on and then apply and drive home the profit of all to your affections And in this pardon me for certainly I should never have medled with it had not I resolved it a Theory that most nearly concerned your practice and a speculation that would instruct your wills as well as your understandings The propositions which contain the summ of the business are these 1. No preparation in the world can deserve or challenge Gods sanctifying grace the spirit bloweth where it listeth and cannot by any thing in us be predetermin'd to its object or its work 2. The Spirit is of power to work the conversation of any the greatest sinner at one minute to strike the most obdurate heart and soften it and out of the unnatural womb of stones infinitely more unfruitful than barrenness and age had made the womb of Sarah to raise up children unto Abraham According to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Aristotle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 diseases are sometimes cur'd when the patient is at the extremity or height of danger in an ecstasie and almost quite gone 3. 'T is an ill Consequence that because God can and sometimes doth call unprepared sinners therefore 't is probable he will deal so with thee in particular or with unprepared men in general God doth not work in conversion as a physical agent to the extent of his power but according to the sweet disposition and counsel of his Will 4. In unprepared hearts there be many profest enemies to grace ill dispositions ambition Atheism pride of spirit and in chief an habit in a voluptuous setled course of sinning an indefatigable resolute walking after their own lusts And therefore there is very little hope that Christ will ever vouchsafe to be born in such polluted hardned souls For 't is Basil's observation that that speech of the fools heart there is no God was the cause that the Gentiles were given over to a reprobate sense and fell headlong 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into all manner of abominations Hence it is that Jobius in Photius observes that in Scripture some are called Dogs Mat. xv 26 some unworthy to receive the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven Mat. xiii 11 that some hated the light and came not to it John iii. 20 as if all those had taken a course to make themselves uncapable of mercy and by a perfect hostility frighted Christ out of their coasts In the liberal dispensation of miracles in the Gospel you would wonder to see Christ a niggard in his own Country yet so in respect of other places he was and did not many miracles there because of their unbelief Mat. xiii 58 not that their incredulity had manacled him had shortned his hand or straitned his power but that miracles which when they met with a passive willingness a contentedness in the patient to receive and believe them were then the ordinary instruments of faith
and conversion would have been but cast away upon obdurate hearts so that for Christ to have numbred miracles among his unbelieving Country men no way prepared to receive them had been an injurious liberality and added only to their unexcusableness which contradicts not the Axiom of St. Paul 1 Cor. xiv 22 That some signs are only for unbelievers for even those unbelievers must have within them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proneness or readiness to receive them with belief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. in Jobius to open to the spirit knocking by those miracles and improve them to their best profit 5. Though God needs not yet he requires moral preparation of us as an ordinary means to make us more capable of grace for although according to Saint Austin Ne ipsâ quidem justitiâ nostrâ indiget Deus yet according to Salvian's limitation Eget juxta praceptionem suam licet non juxta potentiam eget secundum legem suam non eget secundum Majestatem We are to think that God hath use of any thing which he commands and therefore must perform whatever he requires and not dare to be confident of the end without the observation of the means prescribed 'T is too much boldness if not presumption to leave all to his omnipotent working when he hath prescribed us means to do somewhat our selves 6. Integrity and Honesty of heart a sober moral life and chiefly humility and tenderness of spirit in summ whatever degree of Innocence either study or fear or love or natural disposition can work in us some or all of which may in some measure be found in some men not yet regenerate are good preparations for Christs birth in us so saith Clement of Philosophy that it doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. make ready and prepare the way against Christs coming 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate with other helps that God hath given us all with this caution that it doth only prepare not perfect facilitate the pursuit of wisdom to us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which God may bestow on us without this means To this purpose hath Basil a notable Homily to exhort Scholars to the study of Foreign humane especially Graecian Learning and to this end saith he that we prepare our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the Heavenly spiritual Philosophy In the like kind the Fathers prescribe good works of Charity observing out of the xix of St. Matthew that the distribution of all their substance to the poor was a praeludium in the Primitive believers to the following of Christ Prius vendant omnia quà m sequantur from whence he calls Alms-deeds exordia quasi incunabula conversionis nostrae The like may be said though not in the same degree of all other courses quibus carnalium sarcinarum impedimenta projicimus for if these forementioned preparations be meer works of nature in us as some would have them then do they naturally incline the subject for the receiving of grace when it comes and by sitting as it were and organizing the subject facilitate its entrance or if they be works of Gods restraining preventing grace as 't is most orthodoxly agreed on then are they good harbingers for the sanctifying spirit good comfortable symptoms that God will perfect and crown the work which he hath begun in us 7. Gods ordinary course as far as by events we can judge of it is to call and save such as are thus prepared Thus to instance in a few of the first and chiefest 'T was appointed by God that she only should be vouchsafed the blessed office of dignity of being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Christ's Mother who was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he in Photius fuller of vertues than any else of her sex could brag off In like manner that the rest of the family Christs Father and Brethren in account on earth should be such whose vertues had bestowed a more eminent opinion though not place upon them amongst men so was Joseph and his Sons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 famous for very just men James the brother of the Lord 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 holy from the womb as Eusebius cites it called by the Jews 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith he out of Hegesippus which he interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the stay of the people and justice it self In brief if a Cornelius be to be called from Gentilism to Christianity ye shall find him in the beginning of his character Acts x. 1 to be a devout man and one that feared God with all his house gave much Alms to the people and prayed to God alway one cut out as it were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be the first-fruit of the Gentiles Now though none of these vertues can be imputed to nature in the substance of them but acknowledge a more supernatural spiritual agent in them yet are they to be reckoned as preparations to Christs birth in them because they did precede it for so in respect of his real Incarnation in the world the type of his spiritual in the soul Mary was a vertuous pure virgin before the Holy Ghost over shadowed her Joseph a just man before the Holy Ghost appeared to him Mat. i. 19 James holy from the womb and Cornelius capable of all that commendation for Devotion and Alms-deeds Acts x. 1 before either Christ was preach't to him in the 37. or the Holy Ghost fell on him in the 44. verse 8. The Conversion of unprepared hardned blasphemous sinners is to be accounted as a most rare and extraordinary work of Gods power and mercy not an every days work like to be beâ—towed on every habituate sinner and therefore 't is commonly accompanied with some evident note of difference to point it out for a miracle Thus was Paul called from the chief of sinners 1 Tim. i. 15 to the chief of Saints but with this mark that Christ Jesus might shew forth all long-suffering c. which was in him first and perhaps last in that degree that others in his pitch of blasphemies might not presume of the like miracle of mercy And indeed he that is thus called must expect what Paul found a mighty tempest throughout him three days at least without sight oâ— nourishment if not a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a swoon a kind of ecstacy of the whole man at this tumultuary driving out of this high rank insolent habituate body of sin 'T is observed that when the news of Christs birth was brought by the wise men the City was straight in an uproar Herod was much troubled and all Jerusalem with him Mat. ii 3 for it seems they expected no such matter and therefore so strange and sudden news produced nothing but astonishment and tumult whilst Simeon who waited for the consolation of Israel makes no such strange business of it takes him presently into his embraces and familiarly hugs him in his arms having been before acquainted with him by
so being formerly a breach of morality For that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 belonging to the understanding which is not to think more highly on ones own worth than he ought 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. xii 3 Do we not find it commended and dilated on by Aristotle 4. Eth. 3. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not to overprize his own worth or to expect an higher reward than it in proportion deserves So that he that trusts in his morality for Heaven doth eo nomine offend against morality according to that of Salvian Hoc ipsum genus maximae injustitiae est si quis se justum praesumat and indeed Aristotle and Seneca could say as much and so then the accusation is unjust and contumelious for to a moral man if he be truly so this pride or confidence is incompatible for do we not find that treble humility 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the tongue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the actions Ephes iv 2 handled also and prescribed by the Philosophers In summ that which in all moral precepts comes nearest pride or high-mindedness is that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eth. 4.3 part of which is setting value on ones self But if you observe this goes no farther than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 honour or worldly pomp as for the immortal blessedness of the soul 't was a thing infinitely above the pitch of their hope or confidence the most perfect among them never pretended any jus meriti to it and if they did they had by so much the less hopes to attain to it Now if it be supposed as I fear is too true that our moral men fall far short of the antient Philosophers if they be now adays confident and trust in their works for salvation then they do not make good their name they are only so 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abusively and notionally And yet even these equivocal moral men seem to me in as good if not better case than the other term of comparison the careless negligent debauch't men For upon their grounds is it not as easie for the Converting spirit to enter and subdue one Lucifer one proud Devil in the heart otherwise pretty well qualified as to deal with a whole Legion of blasphemous violent riotous railing ignorant Devils I have done all with the confutation of this loose groundless opinion which if 't were true would yet prove of dangerous consequence to be Preached in abating and turning our edge which is of it self blunt and dull enough toward goodness nay certainly it hath proved scandalous to those without as may appear by that boast and exultancy of Campian in his Eighth Reason where he upbraids us English-men of our abominable Lutheran licentious Doctrine as he calls it Quanto sceleratior es tanto vicinior gratiae and therefore I do not repent that I have been somewhat large in the refuting of it as also because it doth much import to the clearing of my discourse for if the meer moral men be farthest from Heaven then have I all this while busied my self and tormented you with an unprofitable nay injurious preparation whereas I should have prescribed you a shorter easier call by being extreamly sinful according to these two Aphorisms of Hippocrates 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. the strongest bodies are in greatest danger and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and height of a disease is the fittest opportunity for a miraculous cure But beloved let us more considerately bethink our selves let us study and learn and walk a more secure probable way to Heaven and for those of us which are yet unregenerate though we obtained no grace of God but that of nature and reason and our Christianity to govern us yet let us not contemn those ordinary restraints which these will afford us let us attend in patience sobriety and humility and prayers the good time and leisures of the spirit let us not make our reasonable soul our profession of men of Christians ashamed of us let not the heathen and beasts have cause to blush at us let us remain men till it may please him to call us into Saints lest being plunged in habitual confident sinning that Hell and Tophet on Earth the very omnipotent mercy of God be in a manner foiled to hale us out again let us improve rack and stretch our natural abilities to the highest that although according to our thirteenth Article we cannnot please God yet we may not mightily provoke him Let every man be in some proportion to his gifts Christs Baptist and forerunner and harbinger in himself that whensoever he shall appear or knock he may enter lodge and dwell without resistance Lastly after all thy preparations be not secure if the Bridegroom will not vouchsafe to rest with you all your provision is in vain all the morality and learning and gifts and common graces unless Christ at last be born in us are but embryo's nay abortives rude imperfect horrid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that Philosopher dies in his nonage in whom Christ was never born the highest reach of years and learning is but infancy without the virility and manhood of the spirit by which we are made perfect men in Christ Jesus Wherefore above all things in the world let us labour for this perfection let us melt and dissolve every faculty and spirit about us in pursuit of it and at last seal and bless and crown our endeavours with our Prayers and with all the Rhetorick and means and humility and violence of our souls importune and lay hold on the sanctifying spirit and never leave till he hath blessed and breathed on us O thou mighty controuling holy hallowing Ghost be pleased with thine effectual working to suppress in us all resistance of the pride of nature and prepare us for thy Kingdom of Grace here and Glory hereafter Now to him which hath elected us hath Created and Redeemed us c. SERMON X. JOHN VII 48 Have any of the Pharisees believed on him IT is observable from History with what difficulty Religion attempts to propagate and establish it self with the many what Countenance and encouragement it hath required from those things which are most specious and pompous in the World how it hath been fain to keep its dependencies and correspondencies and submit to the poor condition of sustaining it self by those beggarly helps which the World and the flesh will afford it Two main Pillars which it relies on are Power and Learning the Camp and the Schools or in a word authority of great ones and countenance of Scholars the one to force and extort obedience the other to insinuate belief and assent the first to ravish the second to perswade One instance for all if we would plant Christianity in Turky we must first invade and conquer them and then convince them of their follies which about an hundred years ago
pray God to encrease his graces In matters of spiritual joy and sorrow I will if I can be counselled by an heart which once was broken that I may see how he recovered and repair my breaches by a pattern and yet even these things may be learnt from him which never had them but in his speculation as the Physician may cure a Disease though himself was never sick of it But for the ordinary Theories of Religion I will have patience to receive instructions from any one and not examine his practices but in modesty and in submission and humility receive the Law at his mouth But all this with caution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as to a guide not a Monarch of my Faith rule he shall my belief but not tyrannize over it I will assent to my teacher till I can disprove him but adhere and anchor and fix my self on the Scripture 7. In matters of superstruction where Scripture lays the foundation but interpreters i. e. private spirits build upon it some gold some stubble c. and I cannot judge or discern which is firmliest rooted on the foundation I will take the Philosophers Counsel in the first of his Rhetor. and observe either 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be guided either by the ancientest if they have shewed themselves in the cause or else men alive which be best reputed of for integrity and judgment I shall scarce trust the honestest man you can commend to me unless I have some knowledge of his parts nor the learned'st you can cry up unless I can believe somewhat in his sincerity 8. All the contradictions and new ways of my own brain opposite or wide from the current of the learned I must suspect for a work of my own phansie not entitle them to Gods spirit in me Verebar omnia opera mea saith Job whatever a man can call his own he must be very cautious and jealous over it For 't is no less than atheism which the scorners of the last age are to fall upon by walking after their own lusts 2 Pet. iii. 3 And thus was the Pharisees practice here who makes use of his own authority to deny Christ 't was the Pharisees that said Have any of the Pharisees believed on him There is not a more dangerous Mother of Heresies in the midst of Piety than this one that our phansy first assures us that we have the spirit and then that every phansie of ours is Theopneust the work of the spirit There are a multitude of deceits got altogether here 1. We make every idle perswasion of our own the evidence of Gods Spirit then we join infallibility to the person being confident of the gift then we make every breath of our Nostrils and flame that can break out of our hearts an immediate effect of the spirit and fire which hath spiritually enlivened us and then we are sure it is authentical and all this while we never examine either the ground or deductions from it but take all upon trust from that everlasting deceiver our own heart which we ought to sit upon and judge of by proofs and witnesses by comparing it with other mens dictates probably as godly perhaps more learned but certainly more impartial Judges of thee than thou canst be of thy self Lastly If the word of God speak distinctly and clearly enforce as here by miracles done before all men to their astonishment and redargution then will I not stay my belief to wait on or follow the learnedst man in the world when Christ himself speaks to my Eyes the proudest eminentest Pharisee in Earth or Hell nay if any of their Sect have crowded into Heaven shall not be able to charm my Ear or lay any clog upon my understanding So that you see the Pharisees argument in that case was sophistical the matter being so plain to them that they needed no advice His works bore witness of him John v. 36 yet in the general it holds probable and learning remains a good guide still though an ill Master in matters of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first thing we undertook to demonstrate And this we should draw down yet lower to our practice and that variously but that almost every Proposition insisted on hath in part spoken to your affections and so prevented store of uses This only must not be omitted For Scholars to learn to set a value on their precious blessing which God hath vouchsafed them above all the World beside to bless God infinitely that they understand and conceive what they are commanded to believe this I am sure of there is not a greater and more blessed priviledge besides Gods spirit which our humane condition is capable of than this of learning and specially divine knowledge of which Aristotle himself witnesseth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 none i◠better than it As long as we have no evidence or demonstration from that which yet it most nearly concerns us to rely upon we cannot enjoy without an immediate supernatural irradiation a tranquillity and consistency of spirit we cannot peremptorily have resolved our selves that we have built upon the rock every temptation proves a discouragement to us many horrours take hold of us and sometimes we must needs fall to that low ebb not far from despair which the Apostles were in Luke xxiv 22 We had trusted but now we know not what to think of it that this was he that should have redeemed Israel But to see all the Articles of my Faith ratified and confirmed to my understanding to see the greatest treasure and inheritance in the World sealed and delivered to me in my hand written in a Character and Language that I am perfectly skilled in O what a comfort is this to a Christian Soul O what a fulness of joy to have all the mysteries of my Salvation transcribed out of the Book of the Lord and written in my heart where I can turn and survey and make use of them as much and as often as I will Nay where I have them without Book though there were neither Father nor Bible in the World able out of my own stock to give an account nay a reason of my faith before the perversest Papist Heathen or Devil This serves me instead of having lived and conversed and been acquainted with Christ By this I have my fingers put into the print of the nails and my hands thrust into his side and am as sure as ever Thomas was I see him as palpably as he that handled him that he is my Lord and my God 'T was observed by the Philosopher as an act generally practised among Tyrants to prohibit all Schools and means of learning and education in the Commonwealth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to suffer neither learning nor Schools nor common meetings that men being kept blind might be sure to obey and tyrannical commands through ignorance be mistaken for fair Government And thus did Julian interdict the Christians all manner
of the Anvil which by many strokes is somewhat smoothed but no whit softned all they got by one days preaching was to inable them the better to resist the second Every Sermon of a Paul or Peter was but an alarum to set them on their guard of defence to warn them to cast up some more Trenches and Bulwarks to fortify themselves stronger against any possible invasion of Gods spirit according to that of the Aegyptian Hermes speaking 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is in a Christian phrase the power of the Scripture they have saith he this property in them that when they meet with evil men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they do more sharpen and egg them on to evil Thus was the preaching of the word to all men every where attended with some effects or other according to the materials it met with never returned unprofitably but either was the power of God to salvation unto all that believed or the witness of God to condemnation to those which were hardned Now if this precious receipt administred to all find not in all the like effect of recovering yet from hence is neither the Physick to be under-prized nor the Prescriber the matter is to be imputed sometimes to the weakness and peevishness of the Patient 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he cannot or will not perform the prescriptions sometimes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fault is to be laid on the stubbornness and stoutness of the disease which turns every Medicine into its nourishment and so is not abated but elevated by that which was intended to asswage it as Hippocrates defines it medicinally in his Book 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So then by way of use If we desire that these commands this Covenant offered to all men every where may evidence it self to our particular Souls in its spiritual efficacy we must with all the industry of our spirits endeavour to remove those hindrances which may any way perturb or disorder or weaken it in its working in us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. saith Hippocrates you must furnish your self before-hand with a Shop of several softning Plasters and take some one of them as a preparative before every Sermon you come to that coming to Church with a tender mollified waxy heart you may be sure to receive every holy character and impression which that days exercise hath provided for thee lest otherwise if thou should'st come to Church with an heart of Ice that Ice be congealed into Crystal and by an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the warmth of Gods word not abate but increase the coldness of a chill frozen spirit and finding it hard and stubborn return it obdurate O what a horrid thing is it that the greatest mercy under Heaven should by our unpreparedness be turned into the most exquisite curse that Hell or malice hath in store for us That the most precious Balm of Gilead should by the malignity of some tempers be turned into poyson that the leaves which are appointed for the healing of the Nations should meet with some such sores which prove worse by any remedy that the most soveraign 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or lenitive in the World should only work to our obduration and the preaching of the word of mercy adde to the measure of our condemnation This is enough to perswade you by an horror into some kind of sollicitude to prepare your Souls to a capability of this Cure to keep your selves in a Christian temper that it may be possible for a Sermon to work upon you that that breath which never returns in vain may be truly Gospel happy in its Message may convert not harden you to which purpose you must have such tools in store which the Physician speaks of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 instruments of spiritual surgery to cut and prune off all luxuriant cumbersom excrescences all rankness and dead flesh which so oppress the Soul that the vertue of Medicine cannot search to it And for this purpose there is no one more necessary of more continual use for every man every where than that which here closeth my Text Repentance And so I come to the second respect the universality of the persons as it refers to the matter of the command repentance every man every where to repent And here I should shew you that repentance both generally taken for a sorrow for sin containing in it virtually faith also so the Baptism of repentance is interpreted Acts xix 4 John baptized with the Baptism of Repentance saying unto the people that they should believe c. and more specially in this place taken for the directing of our knowledge to practice and both to Gods glory as hath been shewn is and always was necessary to every man that will be saved For according to Aristotles rule 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 noting both an universality of subject and circumstance is a degree of necessity and therefore repentance being here commanded 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be judged a condition necessary to every man who answers at the command i. e. who expects his part in the Covenant of Salvation this I say I might prove at large and to that purpose vindicate the Writings of some of the Fathers especially of Clemens who I am almost confident is groundlesly cited for bestowing Salvation on the Heathen without exacting the condition of Faith and Repentance which now 't were superfluous to insist on 2. Urge it both to your brains and hearts and by the necessity of the duty rouse and enforce and pursue you to the practice of it But seeing this Catholick duty is more the inspiration of the Holy Ghost than the acquisition of our labours seeing this fundamental Cardinal Gift comes from the supreme Donor seeing nature is no more able spiritually to re-inliven a Soul than to animate a Carcass our best endeavour will be our humiliation our most profitable directions will prove our Prayers and what our frailty cannot reach to our devotions shall obtain And let us labour and pray and be confident that God which hath honoured us with his commands will inable us to a performance of them and having made his Covenant with us will fulfil in us the condition of it that the thundering of his word being accompanied with the still voice of his Spirit may suffer neither repulse nor resistance that our hearts being first softned then stamped with the Spirit may be the Images of that God that made them that all of us every where endeavouring to glorify God in our knowledge in our lives in our faith in our repentance may for ever be glorified by him and through him and with him hereafter Now to him that hath elected us hath created redeemed c. SERMON XIV ROM I. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections IN this most accurate Epistle that ever the Pen of man could lay title to in which all the counsels and proceedings and methods
Mistress of their actions 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as a creature sent on purpose to preserve them and these saith he deserve not to be chid but pitied for nature at first appointed them this condition of life 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 't is their birthright and inheritance and therefore no body will be angry with them for living on it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But for them who were made Creatures of light and had it not been for their wilfulness had still continued light in the Lord who are altogether encompast and environed with light light of nature light of reason light of religion nay the most glorious asterism or conjunction of lights in the World the light of the Gospel to walk in for these men meerly out of perverseness of wilful hearts to hate and abjure and defy this light to run out of the World almost for fear of it to be for ever a solliciting and worshipping of darkness as Socrates was said to adore the Clouds this is such a sottishness that the stupidst Element under Heaven would naturally scorn to be guilty of for never was the earth so peevish as to forbid the Sun when it would shine on it or to sâ—ink away or subduce it self from its rayes And yet this is our case beloved who do more amorously and flatteringly court and woo and sollicite darkness than ever the Heathens adored the Sun Not to wander out of the sphere my Text hath placed me in to shew how the light of the Gospel and Christianity is neglected by us our guilt will ly heavy enough on us if we keep us to the light only of natural reason within us How many sins do we daily commit which both nature and reason abhor and loath How many times do we not only unman but even uncreature our selves Aristotle observes that that by which any thing is known first that which doth distinguish one thing from another à priore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is to be called the beginning or cause of that thing and that the light of reason distinguishing one action from another being the first thing that teaches me that this is good that otherwise may from thence be termed the beginning of every reasonable action in us and then where ever this cause or beginning is left out and wanting there the thing produced is not so called a positive act or proper effect but a defect an abortion or still-born frustrate issue and of this condition indeed is every sin in us Every action where this Law within us is neglected is not truly an action but a passion a suffering or a torment of the Creature Thus do we not so much live and walk which note some action as ly entranced asleep nay dead in sin by this perverseness 't is perpetual night with us nay we even dy daily our whole life is but a multiplyed swoon or lethargy in which we remain stupid breathless senseless till the day of Death or Judgment with a hideous Voice affrights and rouses us and we find our selves awake in Hell and so our dark Souls having a long while groped wilfully in the Sun are at last lead to an Everlasting inevitable darkness whither the mercy or rays of the Sun can never pierce where it will be no small accession to our torment to remember and tremble at that light which before we scorn'd Thus I say do we in a manner uncreature our selves and by the contempt of this Law of our Creation even frustrate and bring to nothing our Creation it self and this is chiefly by sins of sloth and stupid sluggish unactive Vices which as I said make our whole life a continued passion never daring or venturing or attempting to act or do any thing in Church or Commonwealth either toward God or our Neighbour and of such a condition'd man no body will be so charitable as to guess he hath any Soul or light of reason in him because he is so far from making use of it unless it be such a Soul as Tully saith a Swine hath which serves it only instead of Salt to keep it from stinking For 't is Aristotles observation that every one of the Elements besides the Earth was by some Philosopher or other defin'd to be the Soul Some said the Soul was fire some that 't was air some water but never any man was so mad as to maintain the earth to be it because 't was so heavy and unweildy So then this heavy motionless unactive Christian this clod of Earth hath as I said uncreatured himself and by contemning this active reason within him even deprived himself of his Soul Again how ordinary a thing is it to unman our selves by this contempt of the directions of reason by doing things that no man in his right mind would ever have patience to think of Beloved to pass by those which we call unnatural sins i. e. so in the highest degree as too horrid for our nature set down in the latter end of this Chapter for all Christian Ears to glow and tingle at and I had hoped for all English spirits to abhor and loath To pass these I say our whole life almost affords minutely sins which would not argue us men but some other Creatures There be few things we do in our age which are proper peculiar acts of men one man gives himself to eating and drinking and bestows his whole care on that one faculty which they call the vegetative growing faculty and then what difference is there betwixt him and a Tree whose whole nature it is to feed and grow Certainly unless he hath some better imployment he is at best but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a plant-animal whose shape would perhaps perswade you that it hath some sense or Soul in it but its actions betray it to be a mere plant little better than an Artichoak or Cabbage another goes a little higher yet not far doth all that his sense presents to him suffers all that his sensitive faculties lust and rage to exercise at freedom is as fierce as the Tyger as lustful as the Goat as ravenous as the Wolf and the like and all the Beasts of the Field and Fowls of the air be but several Emblemes and Hieroglyphicks concurring to make up his character carries a Wilderness about him as many sins as the nature of a sensitive Creature is capable of and then who will stick to compare this man to the beasts that perish For 't is Theophilus his note that the Cattle and Beasts of the Field were created the same day with man Gen. i. 25 to note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the brutish condition of some men and that therefore the blessing was not bestowed on them but reserved for the man which should have the dominion over them Verse 26 28. In summ every action which reason or Scripture or Gods spirit guides not in us is to be called the work of some other Creature
is in its working not at its entring I may know that now I have the spirit better than at what time I came to it Vndiscernibly Gods supernatural agency interposes sometimes in the Mothers Womb as in John Baptist springing in Elizabeth at Maryes salutation Luke i. 41 and perhaps in Jeremy Jer. i. 5 Before thou camest out of the womb I sanctifyed thee and in Isaiah Isa xlix 5 The Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant But this divine address attends most ordinarily till the time of our Baptism when the spirit accompanying the outward sign infuses it self into their hearts and there seats and plants it self and grows up with the reasonable Soul keeping even their most luxuriant years within bounds and as they come to an use of their reason to a more and more multiplying this habit of grace into holy spiritual acts of Faith and Obedience from which 't is ordinarily said that Infants baptized have habitual Faith as they may be also said to have habitual repentance and the habits of all other graces because they have the root and seed of those beauteous healthful Flowers which will actually flourish then when they come to years And this I say is so frequent to be performed at Baptism that ordinarily 't is not wrought without that means and in those means we may expect it as our Church doth in our Liturgy where she presumes at every Baptism that it hath pleased God to regenerate the infant by his holy Spirit And this may prove a solemn piece of comfort to some who suspect their state more than they need and think 't is impossible that they should be in a regenerate condition because they have not as yet found any such notable change in themselves as they see and observe in others These men may as well be jealous they are not men because they cannot remember when their Soul came to them if they can find the effects of spiritual life in themselves let them call it what they will a religious Education or a custom of well doing or an unacquaintedness with sin let them comfort themselves in their estate and be thankful to God who visited them thus betimes let it never trouble them that they were not once as bad as other men but rather acknowledge Gods mercy who hath prevented such a change and by uniting them to him in the Cradle hath educated and nursed them up in familiarity with the Spirit Lastly The spirit sometimes enters into our hearts upon occasional emergencies the sense of Gods judgments on our selves or others the reflexion on his mercies the reading good books falling into virtuous acquaintance but most eminently at and with the preaching of the Word and this by degrees as it seems to us but indeed at some one especial season or other which yet perhaps we are not able to discern and here indeed are we ordinarily to expect this guest if we have not yet found him here doth it love to be cherished and refreshed and warm'd within us if we have it for even it is the power of God unto salvation Rom. i. 16 The third condition in which this spirit comes into our hearts is as an inhabitant or House-Keeper The spirit saith Austin first is in us then dwells in us before it dwells it helps us to believe when it dwells it helps and perfects and improves our faith and accomplishes it with all other concomitant graces So I say here the Spirit is then said to inhabit and keep House in us not as soon as it is entertained and received but when it breaks forth into acts and declares it self before all men When men see our good works and glorify our Father Matth. v. 16 Before we were said to live in the spirit now to walk as you shall see the phrases used distinctly Gal. v. 25 To walk that is to go about conspicuously in the sight of all men breaking forth into works as the Sun after the dispersions of a mist or Cloud whereby all men see and acknowledge his Faith and Obedience and find their own evil ways reprehended and made manifest by his good as is noted in 13. verse All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light Semblable to which is that of the Atheists repining at the godly man Wisd ii 14 He is made to reprove our thoughts Thus is the third Quaere resolved also when this inward principle enters 1. It comes as an Harbenger in every outward restraint by which God keeps us from sinning 2. It enters as a guest in some season or other once for all In the Womb at Baptism at some Sermon sometimes at a notable tempest shaking and stirring us violently ordinarily and for the most part not to be discerned by us and lastly it comes and dwells with us and shews it self in its works yet that not at any set time after his Entrance not constantly without ever covering his Face but when and as often as it pleases and the flesh resisteth not To the last Quaere What works it performs the answer shall be brief every thing that may be called spiritual Faith Repentance Charity Hope Self-denial and the rest but these not promiscuously or in an heap altogether but by a wise dispensation in time and by degrees The Soul being enabled by this inward principle is equally disposed to the producing of all these and as occasions do occur doth actually perform and produce them so that in my conceit that question concerning the priority of Repentance or Faith is not either of such moment or difficulty as is by some Disputers pretended The Seeds of them both are at one time planted in the Soul and then there is no Faith in any Subject but there is Repentance also nor Repentance without Faith So that where it is said Without Faith 't is impossible to please God in any thing else 't is true but argues no necessary precedence of it before other graces for the habits of them all are of the same age in us and then also will it be as true that without Repentance or without Love Faith it self cannot please God for if it be truly acceptable â—aith there is both Repentance and Love in the same Womb to keep it Company Thus are we wont to say that only Faith justifieth but not Faith alone and the reason these promises in Scripture are made sometimes to one grace precisely sometimes to another is because they are all at once rooted in the man and in their habits chain'd together inseparably Faith saves every man that hath it and yet the believing'st man under Heaven shall not be saved without Charity Charity hides a multitude of sins and yet the charitablest man in the World shall never have his score cross't without Repentance A Catalogue of these fruits of the spirit you may at your leisure make up to your selves for your tryal out of the fifth to the Gal.
where else they dwell there So wallowing in the mire being a condition natural to the swine can never be extorted from them wash them rinse them purge them with Hyssop as soon as ever they meet with mire again they will into it Their Swinish nature hath such an influence on them that all care or art cannot forbid or hinder this effect of it So that a customary Sinner who hath as it were made lust a part of his nature hath incorporated prophaneness and grafted it into his affections can as hardly be rid of it as a subject of his property 't is possible for fear or want of opportunity sometime to keep him in and make him abstain the load-stone mayâ—ly quiet whilst no iron is within ken or it may be held by force in its presence but give it materials and leave to work and it draws incontinently So for all his temporary forbearance upon some either policy or necessity the habituate sinner hath not yet given over his habit Leave him to himself give him room and opportunity and he will hold no longer If he be once advanced to this pitch of sin to be walking after his own lusts he may possibly be driven back with a storm or thunder but he will hardly give over his walk hee 'l forward again as soon as ever the tempest is over Nay farther even when he wants objects and opportunities he will yet shew his condition he will betray the desire and good affection he bears to his old lusts his discourse or fashions argue him incontinently bent even when he is at the stanchest As Aristotle observes of the fearful man that even when no formidable object is near he falls into many frights so the voluptuous mans phancy is perpetually possest with the meditation of his own wayes when some disease or necessity will not let him walk In brief unless this second nature be quite taken out of him and another holy spiritual nature created in its room unless a stronger come and bind this Devil and dispossess him of it he hath small hopes of getting himself out of his Dominion and Tyranny there is a great deal more stir in the converting of one customary Sinner than of a thousand others 't is not to be accomplished without a kind of Death and Resurrection without a new Creation of another nature So that if we should judge of Gods actions by our own the spirit should seem to be put to more pains and trouble with this one habituate than in the ordinary business of converting many a tamer Sinner This is enough by the desperateness of the cure to move you to study some art some physick of prevention lest when it is grown upon you it be too late to enquire for remedies How should we dare to entertain and naturalize such an evil spirit within us which if ever he be ravisht out of us again cannot without tearing and torturing and rending even our whole nature in pieces If we must needs be sinful yet let us keep within a moderation let us not so follow the Devils works as to transubstantiate our selves into his nature let us not put off our manhood with our integrity and though we cannot be Saints let us keep our selves men 'T is a degree of innocence not to be extremely wicked and a piece of godliness not to be Atheists Our lust is an infinite thing said a Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jambl. and he that walks after it hath an endless journey there is no hope that he that hath so far to go will ever have leisure to sit still And therefore I say if we must needs sin yet let us not engage our selves to sin for ever if our being men lays a necessity of sinning on us let our care to stay whilst it is possible for us prove that we do not sin like â—evils whose sin is their glory and their resolution peremptory never to give over sinning and so may ours seem and in all likelihood prove to be if we give our selves liberty to walk after our own lusts Secondly If our lusts be such dangerous paths to walk in and this in that very respect as they are our own in opposition to Gods commands if they are the straight direct way to Atheism nay Atheism it self then what care and circumspection is required at every setting down of our feet at every entrance on any action lest there be a Serpent in the way some piece of prophaneness in every enterprize we enter on of our selves How ought we to fear to suspect and balk any way that is our own For where it is Atheism to walk there surely 't is a sin to tread and where we have once ventured to tread we shall be shrewdly tempted to walk every step we have safely taken being an encouragement to a second Verebar omnia opera mea saith Job I feared all my works whatever action I could entitle my self to methought there was some danger in it I was afraid it was not right as it should be I should never be able to justify it This is an excellent tryal of all our serious deliberate actions to mark whether they are our own or no whether we went about them on our own heads without our warrant or directions from God if we did 't is much to be doubted there is some poyson some guilt in them some thing that deserves to be feared and fled from This very suspecting of our own wayes will aliene us from our own lusts will bend us nearer to God and never suffer us to dare to venture where he hath not secured us will join us as it were in an Engine to God himself where the lower Wheels never begin to move without the example and government of the higher If you can but perswade your self to fear your own wayes 't will be a good stop of your progress to Atheism I am confident the Devil will never get you to walk in your own lusts Thirdly If walking in our own lusts be direct Atheism what shall we think of them who make it a piece of Religion and holy policy to do so Beloved there be some learned Catechised Atheists who upon confidence of an absolute eternal predestination of every man in the World that shall ever possibly be saved set up their rest there and expect what God will do with them 'T is to no purpose to hope God will alter the decree they are resolved to leave all to God and if they perish they perish Mark with me is not this a Religious Atheism to attribute so much to God as to become careless of him so to depend as never to think on him and by granting his Decree in our understanding to deny his Godhead in our conversation He that lives negligently on confidence that his care may be spared that if there be any salvation for him God will work it out without his fear or trembling he that believes Gods election so absolute that himself
is esteemed unnecessary and burthensom You need not the application Again the husbandman can mend a dry stubborn wayward fruitless earth by overflowing of it and on such indeed is his ordinary requisite discipline to punish it for its amendment But there is a ground otherwise well tempered which they call a weeping ground whence continually water soaks out and this proves seldom fruitful if our learned Husbandmen observe aright wherefore there is sometime need of draining as well as watering The application is that your Soul which either hath been naturally dry and barren or else over-wrought in the business of the World needs a flood of tears to soften and purge it But the well temper'd Soul which hath never been out of heart but hath always had some inward life some fatness of and nourishment from the spirit is rather opprest than improved by such an overslow The Christian is thereby much hindred in his progress of good works and cannot serve the Lord with alacrity that so perpetually hangs down his head like a Bulrush Wherefore the Country rule is that that ground is best which is mellow which being crusht will break but not crumble dissolve but not excessively Hence I say the habituate believer need not suspect his estate if he find not in himself such an extremity of violent grief and humiliation as he observes in others knowing that in him such a measure of tears would both soil the face of his devotion and clog the exercise of it His best mediocrity will be to be habitually humbled but actually lively and alacrious in the ways of godliness not to be too rigid and severe a Tyrant over his Soul but to keep it in a temper of Christian softness tender under the hand of God and yet man-like and able both in the performance of Gods worship and his own calling And whensoever we shall find our selves in either extreme either too much hardned or too much melted too much elevated or too much dejected then to pray to that Holy Spirit so to fashion the temper of our Souls that we neither fail in humbling our selves in some measure for our sins nor yet too cowardly deject and cast down our selves below the courage and comfort and spiritual rejoycing which he hath prescribed us O Holy Lord we are the greatest of Sinners and therefore we humble our selves before thee but thou hast sent thy Christ into the World to save Sinners and therefore we raise up our spirits again and praise and magnifie thy name And thus much of this point and in brief of the first consideration of these words to wit as they are absolutely a profession of Paul himself to which end we beheld him in his double estate converted and unconverted In his unconverted state we found though a very great Sinner yet not absolutely greater than those times brought forth and therefore we were to think of him relatively to his future estate and so we found him the greatest Sinner that ever was called in the New Testament into so glorious a Saint Whence we observe the rarity of such conversions that though Saul were yet every blasphemous Sinner could not expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and salvation and this we proved both against the ancient Romans and modern Censors of morality and applied it to the care which we ought to have of keeping our unregeneracy spotless from any reigning sin Afterward we came to Paul converted where we balk't the Discourse of the condition of sin in the regenerate and rather observed the effect of it and in it that the greatness of his sin made as Paul so every regenerate man more eagerly to fasten on Christ Which being proved by a double ground we applied first by way of caution how that proposition was to be understood 2. By way of character how a great Sinner may judge of his sincere certain Conversion 3. By way of comfort to others who find not the effects of humiliation and the like in themselves in such measure as they see in others and so we have past through the first consideration of these words being conceived absolutely as St. Pauls profession of himself we should come to the other consideration as they are set down to us as a pattern or form of confessing the estate and applying the Salvation of Sinners to our selves which business requiring the pains and being worthy the expence of an entire hour we must defer to a second exercise Now the God which hath created us hath elected redeemed called justified us will sanctifie us in his time will prosper this his ordinance will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and Lamb for evermore Pars Secunda SERMON XIX 1 TIM I. 15 Of whom I am the chief IN all Humane Writings and Learning there is a kind of poverty and emptiness which makes them when they are beheld by a Judicious Reader look starved and Crest-faln their Speeches are rather puft up than fill'd they have a kind of boasting and ostentation in them and promise more substance and matter to the Ear than they are able to perform really to the understanding whence it falls out that we are more affected with them at the first hearing and if the Orator be clear in his expression we understand as much at the first recital as we are able to do at the hundredth repetition But there is a kind of Excellency in the Scripture a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or sublimity above all other Writings in the World The reading of every Section of it leaves a sting in the mind and a perpetual conceit of a still imperfect understanding of it An intelligent man at every view finds in it a fresh mystery and still perceives that there is somewhat beyond not yet attain'd to like men digging in Mines the deeper he dives he finds the greatest treasure and meets with that under ground which looking on the outward turf or surface he never imagined to have been there This I observe unto you to shew you the riches both of all and especially of this Scripture whereinto the deeper I dig the more Ore I find and having already bestowed one hour in the discussing of it without any violence or wresting or wire-drawing find plenty of new materials We have already handled the Words at large in one consideration as they are a profession of Paul himself I will not repeat you the particular occurrents We now without any more delay of Preface come to the second consideration of them as they are spoken by Paul respectively to us i. e. as they are prescribed us for a form of confessing the estate and applying the Salvation of Sinners unto our selves teaching each of us for a close of our Faith and Devotion to confess