a Sacrament or Holy Communion which I must desire may for the present be a concession till the explication of the several parts do evince it and in it 1. The Service or Office at the Sacrament Bless 2. The Minister or Mystes thou 3. The manner an extraordinary adjunct concomitant with the Spirit 4. The Eucharist or Banquet it self exprest in the words at thy giving of Thanks And 5. The Communicants who are described 1. by their Name the unlearned 2. Their Room or station occupies the room of the unlearned 3. Their Duty at the Celebration to say Amen at the giving of Thanks Of which clause I shall say nothing because the Idiot and so his duty is excluded this day from this Society With the first of which the Holy Communion or Sacrament I should begin but that the first word of the Text is a part of it likewise and a string by which some sap will climb to it from the main Roots of the Context Thence I shall therefore commence my Observations Else Is the method of establishing a Principle by that Metaphysical way of probation call'd Ductu ad incommodum the Principle in this Chapter laid is That the Gift of Tongues like Foreign Ambassadors ought not to go without their Interpreters The incommodum will be Else how shallthe unlearned sing his part in this Divine Quire give up his assent or Amen to a Prayer which he understands not Besides which the Apostle seems to press another Absurdity from the speaker 1 Cor. 14 14. If I Pray in an unknown Tongue my Spirit prayeth but my Understanding is unfruitfull A Prayer in an unknown Tongue though that Tongue dispenc'd miraculously eludes all the benefit that should redound from it both to the speaker and hearer the Priest and the People Onely to this there will lie something cross from 1 Cor. 14 4. He that speaketh in an unknown Tongue edfies himself One of the Ancients labours to solve this by a partition of those that were gifted with Tongues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And what if some understood not saith he what themselves said As if he should say Of those in the first times that had the gift of Tongues some understood what themselves said and these as vers 4 expresses edified themselves but others did not and to such as it is vers 14. their Understanding was unfruitfull But the Knot may be another way untied by making this not a several but the same Absurdity which is mentioned in the Text and then the importance of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 14. My understanding is unfruitfull will be My understanding will be unfruitfull to others And this acception of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 besides that it seems so comented on in vers 15. of this Chapter so 't is derived from Antiquity like the former Use Which Principle and the attending Incommodum I shall enforce no other sequel from then that the Palm seem to be put into the hand of the Protestant against the Papist in that great question about Prayer in an unknown Tongue by the determination of this Chapter And when the Doctors of the Romish Confession do not onely reconcile but wring Arguments out of this Chapter against Prayer in a known Language they seem to me to shew us that little pretty device taught out of Opticks that is On some sheets of Paper through the light that their Glasses conveys to those Novices that must remain all the while within the Chambers of darkness they give an umbrage of all the radiant Truths that shine in this Chapter but so transposed that their Elocations are quite contrary to their natural site the head set where the heels should be and the left-hand marches into the room of the right The same Orders the Jews prescribe for Prayer In a known Tongue amongst themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. If one come to you ignorant of Hebrew yet fearing God bid them learn to pray in that Tongue which they understand c. Thus did Gods first People begin the Copy for us to write after 2. As Else therefore redargues this practise in some persons so it must some persons for this practise the practise was the abuse of the miraculous gift of Tongues and therefore the persons must be such as were endowed with this miraculous Largess from whence this other sequel will gently be drawn out That even those that were immediately inspired and gifted from God both to and by a miracle were subject to the Governours and Church Reiglement of those times and places where in they lived I shall enlarge this position onely from a double process 1. Their institution or the apertures of the doors of the Church to them 2. Their acts and doctrine after their reception into office 1. Primitive Doctors and Prophets were accountable to their Superintendants or Governours of the Church for their calling or ordination into it Saint Chrisostome sayes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that when the Divel had minted a great deal of false coin with the currant gifts of the Spirits in the first times so that men wanted a touchstone to discern the true prophet from the false God gave the Church likewise a miraculous gift to seperate between the impostor and the true which is alluded to Revel 2.2 Thou hast tried them which say they are Apostles and are not and bast found them lyars the thing and manner too is plainly confirmed by that expression of Clemens concerning St. John that he used to go abroad into the Country from his aboad at Ephesus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To ordain such into the Clergy as the Spirit would give him secret indications of yet besides this they had it seems some establisht publick Canons to be a standard to measure such by The onely or a chief and grand one was that which 2. Apostles mention in words tantamount 1 Cor. 12.3 1 John 4.1 The confessing of Jesus Christs Divinity and Humanity This seems to be a rule of a wide extension but we must understand it 1. either negatively that the denying these Capitals in Religion shewed a false Prophet though the affirmation demonstrated not a true or 2 which fals in neerer with the words of those Scriptures and the sence of antiquity that God in those time would not suffer any fallacious Spirit to be able to preach those foundation Truths not onely to discover those persons that belonged to Satan but to evidence that those truths did onely proceed from God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was said long agoe by Policarpus Socrates would have this place antiently to have been read he that dissolves Jesus which if true would make up another Reason 2. For their Carriage and Doctrine Sentiments and Actions It shines cleer from the rays lent it in this Chapter v. 26. The Apostle corrects the confusions exorbitances of such How is it then brethren when ye come together
will be presenred me in the next words of the Text actings by the Spirit Else when thou shalt bless with the Spirit with the sprit that 's the manner of this Office or Service The context speaks it to be a miraculous gift of the Spirit 1. By speaking by a suddain elocution 2. in a strange language and antiquity stamps that image upon it too 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of old there were many that prayed in the Persian Roman and other languages nay they could tell the secrets of the heart all this is not an ordinary work of the Spirit From whence I shall but ventilate this onely probleme Whether this do not justifie extemporary prayer to be the praying by the Spirit and thence condemn all fet forms I answer no For first Praying in a tongue miraculously given is here the chief note of praying by the Spirit not a volubility and affluence of expresson let those that would bind us to this bind themselves to that 2. If any man now pray by the immediate Inspiration of the Holy Ghost than that written is Scripture and then we may have new Bibles but if men pretend not to such actions why are the people deluded with the quoting these examples 3. The mediate acts of the Spirit are no less the Spirits acts than his miraculous as Christs going in a Ship was as truly his passing on the water though not so wonderfull as his walking on the Sea Now thus he may pray by the Spirit that prayes by a Form if he pray for such things as the Spirit hath told us in the Scripture are pleasing to God and for such ends and with such conditions and such words many patterns of which we have dictated difusedly up and down in the Word either as prayers for us or model to us And all this is praying by the Spirit objectively But besides when he does enlighten us and enliven us not extatically but rationally and in the way of men not Spirits then we pray by the Spirit enabling us subjectively 4. This way is better for us For first afflations were not by way of habit to be used when the person but when the Spirit pleased which must be sometimes prepared for not excited as I suppose by Musick in Elisha and sometimes waited for as by Jeremy 10. dayes cap. 42.7 Who would be content to abstain ftom a voyage to Heaven so long waiting till this Miraculous wind should blow T is 2. more honourable for the people for such gifts pretended supposes them Infidels 1 Cor. 14.22 And so indeed they have been made for else what needs the making new Churches By a just judgment God has suffered those to debase the people whom he honoured because they honoured whom he would have debased T is 3. more sure for us than even an inspiration or voyce from Heaven to another 2 Pet. 1.19 That which is Inspiration to him is but Tradition to me and if it were true I am not bound to believe it unless it were delivered to him to be communicated to me and it may be the suggestion of a black Angel who is ship-wrackt already and therefore is kept a while from sinking with the joy of seeing others swimming But man teaching has the venture of his soul in our Boat and he cannot wilfully ruine us without damning himself by compartnership 4. T is more orderly as appears by the confusion in using those truly miraculous gifts in strange tongues and those again had like to have rebuilt old Babel The first ages after the true gifts vanishe were so pestred with the putative ones that they were feign to reduce things to a common standard rather than let every man measure according to his private bushel from whence proceeded these cause of new prayers and Psalms that every day flyes from the furnace of private brains therefore the Church appoints that the same Prayers be made at Morning and Evening And in arother Councel Placuit ut preces qua probatae fuerint a concilio celebrentur such prayers were onely to be used publickly by the Church which were ratified by the Councel So in a 3. Quicunqite sibi preces alicunde describ t eis non utatur nisi prius cum instructioribus fratribus contulerit let no other prayers be used unless upon collation first had with our more learned brethren But there is a better subject awaits me than this altercation and that 's communion God send us a good and more of it I shall fly toward it as fast as I may that 's the fouth particular I observed in the Text the Service the Priest the manner of Celebration and fourthly the Communion to that I come now and desire you to bear with my ordering this for that you will be sure to be invited to a better anon The Communion I found that on the word giving of thanks not singly but with the aspects that the other parts of the Text have onit we give thanks t is true or ought to do for all benefits for our Refections particularly the jewes had then a large one though many in late dayes have neglected it on the pretence of wanting Scripture warrant but their Cos Hillol Cup of Praise after the Pasch our Saviour endenizond into the tribe of Christian Ceremonies making the cup half the dividend of our Sacrament the Apostle without doubt aimes at this 1 Cor. 10.16 The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion c. But besides this Eucharistia not onely in Scripture but Church language is put for this Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let that be counted sayes a Father a sound Sacrament which is under the Bishop or to whom he gives leave And another 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having done their Prayer and Thanksgiving i. e the Sacrament 3. Eulogia which is in the front of the Text when thou that Bless signifie in antiquity those parcels which were sent by the Deacon or Acoluthor of this Communion to the absent 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sayes Justin and the reason of it is given Ut se a nostra communione non judicent separatos that they might not suspect themselves aliend from our Communion And therefore because this was a thansgiving neither did they use to celebrate on fasting dayes or in lent except Sundayes because mournings and thanks givings were opposite but in some places the contrary custome did obtain Use 1. The true use of the Sacrament first breaks out from the very word that it is to be a blessing and lauding God because he blesles us with it therefore we do him in it and that not onely for that great and inestimable benefit of the redemption of the world by his Son whereof this is not onely the scene but seal But there was another sort of blessing God commemorated in this Ordinance by antiquity which Pancirotius might have recorded among his deperdita And that was the blessing of God for
every one of you hath a Psalm a Doctrine v. 29. Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the other judg This was not a mixt preaching of divers at one time as some persons of a separate profession have of late thought and copied But an excercise for the tryal of probationers in the Schools how far their proficencies answered either their own ambitions or their friends expectations The Pseudo St. Ambrose runs it up to a Jewish Original whose candidates for degrees and their novices too were by an Assembly of their Doctors posed and sometimes for their clearer understanding they asked them questions vicissim and their Seniors naturelly putting all together passed their grave judgments on them This account seems to untie that knot of our Saviours sitting among the Doctors and interrogating them at 12. years old Luke 2.46 which expounded for a Scholastical exercise will not seem very insolent these Jewish posers were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 inquirere and by analogy to this the judging of the Prophets in the verse may be without constraint interpreted But farther ver 32. the Apostle saith The spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets i.e. not onely to the Prophets that possessed them so that they might command their own Spirit to stop when they pleased that place might be given to another Prophet to take his turn in speaking and not after the wild fury of the heathen affllations whose spirit was a storm within them forcing them with impetuous hurricans beyond the conduct of their natural bent and not conducting them by silent and pleasing gales like the waftings of the holy Spirit But it signifies a subjection of their Spirits ie their prophecies the effect of their Spirit to the judgment and discussion of other Prophets First to enquire into the verity of them or secondly to add improvements or elucidations to them sometimes a thing being revealed to one but the full extension of this in its use or latitude was to be interpreted by another As in this Chapter it appears that many of them abounded with miraculous gifts but the true Uses and Limits of them they received from the Apostles ministration who subdues them here to a true and orderly use of them And this practise reached down to Tertullians days who tells us That the pretensions to all Inspirations and his age abounded and himself was not free of such were opened before and submitted to the Censure of the Church-Rulers and according to their palate for them accepted or totally cast out And this is more then was in the Principle laid down For we see extraordinary Gifts were subject for tryal not onely to extraordinary persons as the Apostles were which slints the wonder but even to ordinary and stationary Presidents for so it was in the Prototype of the Jewish Church where their great Sanhedrim had the judgment of Prophets reserved to the discussion of their Chairs Which was the meaning of that saying not prophesie as it is vulgarly thought That a Prophet could not perish out of Jerusalem that is notlegally or judicially for violently he might Which saying of Christs has its strength founded on the soveraignty which the Sanhedrim had over the Prophets Use I. Me thinks when persons immediately inspired were so humble and free in their Regulations by Superiours those who have no claims to such an elevated sphere should not withdraw their necks from the easie and profitable yoke Christ has put upon them but be accountable to their present Ecclesiasticks for either of the Heads of Ordination and Instruction Let me freely speak a word of each before this Reverend and Learn'd Assembly not that I hope any of you need incentives to draw to this Duty but because the times we have lived in needed and perhaps the present have not had a perfect deletory of this Error 1. For Ordination However some persons may look upon it but as a perfunctory Ceremony yet the Right is of hoary Veneration and necessary Institution The Jews derive it as high as Moses's laying his hands on the 70 Elders and make it so necessary that they admitted no person into their Sanhedrim greater or less without it Which I urge in this instance because some persons thereby think they wound us with our own weapon Ordination say they being proper not to Ecclesiasticks among the Jews but to Senators of the Long Robe nay indeed to all Officers But now it is thought impertinent to the last and why then with so much acrimony and fixtness to be required from the first To which I say That as the Priesthood was an Office so it was contempered to the condition of other Offices but as it was a Divine Office so it was distinguished from the common ordination both in the substance and shadow for first the learned know that there was a different form of words in the Jews Rituals for those several kinds of Ordinations and a divers latitude expressing their power The Church Ordination was called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A Faculty of discerning about things bound or free And secondly the Priest had an appropriate Ceremony by the filling of his hand which we never find received into any Laick Ordination This Rite the Symbole of Office the Jews Church set at so high a rate that when in the Emperor Adrians time an Edict on forfeiture of life came for repressing Jewish Ordinations that is the continuation and succession of their Church R. Jududa for ordaining Five Presbyters and so keeping their coal alive gain'd the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Ordainer and is loaded with the titles of Most holy c. and all appellation proclaiming an honorable estimation I cannot insist here upon the several requisites they exacted from the Ordinand their questions forms of approbation or rejection their garments and expressions of joy or mourning by their white or black raiment All this is alluded to and was plainly understood by those who were contemporaries to those Solemnities Rev. 3 4 They shall walk with me in white for they are worthy i. e. approved as the Jewish Candidate was who when approved remaind walking in his white garment in the Parlour for tryal but the reprobated went out with mourning and clad in Sables nay when many of the Jewish train were discarded by our Saviour as of pomp rather than use yet this was adopted into his Family required of those that were called immediately from Heaven Acts 9.17 thought a Prophetick Trumpet had sounded his Excellency 2 Tim. 1.6 And the primitive severity was such that a temerarious intrusion into the Church without Ordination was a perpetual exclusion from the Ordination of the Church Nay the very Heathens would not ape Gods Priests and leave their Ordinations behind but retaind it in a very solemn and grave way and called it Dies Natalis the birth day of their Minister 2. For Doctrine there
punisht with a Cherith Exod. 12.15 which the best Criticks stretch to its utmost capacity of civil spritual and eternal excision without Repentance and when in their dispersions they could not have a formal Passeover their writers tell us they upheld the memorial in a commemorative one that hindred from doing what they would they might shew their affections to it by doing what they could This Practice has kept for us the Annals of Christs Ministry St. John reckoning them by Pasches and our blessed Saviour himself traveld once that we read of 56. miles to observe one John 2.12 The Suspiria Epoptarum or breathings towards the Communion was a Proverb among the Primitives so flagrant was their zeal for it Nay the Heathens had and communicated frequently in a Sacrament much of the same species with ours with great purifications for it rejoycing in it The great wickedness and especially uncharitableness of our people calls loud for this Catholicon that feast of love to combine us together of which sin it may go for no light suspition that those breaches have been the judgment Some person it may be now might fear that from this whetting them to the Sacrament I should pass to some more minute considerations by way of preparing you for it but I am not so vain to think that you either do need that any more than I am fit to perform this Such a project might well suit the occonomy of a Country charge not a Convocation of Clergy whose duty it is habitually and whose care it was actually to possess themselves of time on purpose to secure the interest of so great a design I am like the Apostle discoursing before Prophets men of great gifts and therefore waving this I must consider that for it is the next and third circumstance that was propounded in unfolding the text The Minister or the Priest performing the mysterious celebration and he is expressed in the word thou Else when thou shalt bless Thou Now the sence of the Text like the rising morning begins to open its eyes wider on uâ— this is the word as in Italian locks that will help us possess the treasure for as the person is here found to be so will the whole action be denominated he will prove that to be an Eucharist and that will lend us something too to assert him a Priest But for the present so I assert him to be from 3. apparent arguments lodged fairly in the bosome of the words first of all he is opposed to the sayer of Amen here which being the duty of the people the opposite to it must be the Priest 2. The learned must confront the Idiot or unlearned in the Text and 3. His place proves him so for if the Unlearned Idiot the sayer of Amen take up all the people and possess but one place or Room in the Assembly then the vacant chair must be left for the Minister to omit the force of the context that the Apostle is speking of spiritual exercises of Prophets and of Blessing the Priests Act Supposing then this assertion redeemed from some obscurity I shall pass but this one observation upon it That in the time of dispensing extraordinary and Miraculous Gifts yet God was pleased ordinarily to make the Ministry the seat of these For of such gifts the whole chapter speaks and in such persons the text incircles those gifts the wind of the spirit is free but here it was pleased to become a trade wind and to blow commonly I say from one corner for besides what the text seems to favour this in there are two circumstances more to help conclude it First the Scripture is clear that these gifts were ordinarily distributed by imposition of hands Gods hands never coming empty And it will be as easily yielded that though laying of hands was sometime on other persons for their significations yet on no whole tribe of men else and upon all those hands were laid Secondly But the Prophets Disciples had a particular cultivation into which fallow the seed of the Spirit did ordinarily inject it self their breeding in Universities Schools was an ambush as it were laid to catch this spiritual wind Instructions and Tutorage and Prayer and a sedate Spirit lead to it which are the effects of those fraternities Thus when Saul came within the air of Caâ—mel he was inspired 1 Sam. 10 1â— But the wonder was who was his Father that is his Master or how he came to be so without one 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for the Disciple is the Spiritual son of his Master and therefore I suppose Acts 3.34 The Prophets are numbred form Samuel not because he was the first Prophet but the first Provost of a prophetical Colledg under whose tutorage they became such and so might well be said the Prophets from Samuel Nay the Prophets Jeremy Haggai Zachary Malachy c. that go onely for immediate Prophets among us are by the Jewish writers enrold as members of their great Assembly and made such by Imposition of hands Vse From whence that common Argument will be much invalidated that men preach now by vertue of their gifts who are no Ministers because we do not read all were Ministers whom we find in the first age to have preacht from their gifts For if God was pleased to Center his Gifts ordinarily in the Ministry then the supposing them to have such gifts will bid somewhat fairly though not demonstrate that they were of the Ministry Besides the people are said to do many things representatively in Scripture as they do in Parliament by such Members as among them are capacitated and not that every one is fit for every thing So I conceive they try Spirits prove all things which are other popular arguments in the former plea that is by their guides whom God has enabled so to do for them The common voice of late ran that the People were the Church let that be made good when it can I am sure the Governours of the Church and Ministers do pass for the whole Church in Scripture and primitive language What God commanded Moses to tell the congregation of Israel Exod. 12.3 he report onely to the Elders vers 21. And it is to be supposed that Mases understood and disobeyed not Gods command So St. Chrys expounding that Speech of Christs Tell the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That is saith he those that are the Presidents of it A number of those trivial reasonings might find their answer here but that the Topick is large and right Logick would first state the question before it determine all which I have not time for All I assert is the unconclusiveness of their Argument especially when persons shalter themselves under extraordinary gifts who have not been guilty of so much as ordinary whom as a mean Subject I shall take my leave of and think my time better spent in conversing with those of a higher illumination which