bad They both grow alike 5 The Time and Term of the flourishing estate of the wicked It is but until the Harvest And this until is both a Note of Determination and Termination Till then It doth not end before Till then it doth not continue after 6. The true and proper reason of the being growth and continuance of the Wicked And that is Christ's sufferance and toleration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suffer both to grow together until the harvest I shall take them up as they lay in order And first of the first 1. The first Proposition The different nature of good and bad resembled by Wheat and Tares The purblind world judgeth all things amisse and observes no inequality or disparity among the sons of men Homo homini quid praestat stulto intelligens quid interest say they with him in the comedie What difference in point of excellency betwixt one man and another But if we consult with the Oracle of God that resolves us to the contrary The righteous is more Excellent then his neighbour Prov. 12.26 And iâ— there be any creature of greater transcendency then the rest it seems to illustrate their dignity by way of similitude and comparison As being the Lillie among Flower The Dove among Fowls Gold among Meâ—tals And wheat among grain both for the worth and weight of it A fit Emblem of the Faithful who are the chief and choice of men even as Wheat beareth the greatest price and value among grain And the worth of the faithful appears in their weight in in regard of their stedfastness and stability their constancy and continuance which are no way moved much less removed with the gusts and blasts of temptation Even as Wheat which is a ponderous and a heavy substance is not carried away with the force and violence of the wind (d) Cyprian de unit Eccles Sect. 8. Nemo putet bonos de Ecclesia posse discedere Triticum non rap t ventus saith St. Cyprian But as for the ungodly they are as Tares or blasted Ears Tares for their emptiness whose heart is utterly destitute of grace and goodness even as blasted Eares have no inward pith nor substance no food nor foison in them and Tares be for their lightness (e) Avoleâ—t quantum volent Paleae levis fidei quocunque afflatu tentationum eo purior massa frumenti in horrea domini reponetur Tertul. de Praeser adver Haeret. Inanes Paleae Cypr. ibid. Paleae levis fidei as Tertullian stileth them and so subject to fly away being hurried to and fro with every puff of wind The Southern wind of favour and preferment which blowes upon them with a gentle and pleasing blast and though in it self it be but an evil wind yet in their opinion it blows them to good The blustering and boisterous North winds of trial and persecution Each of these winds whether it blows from the North or South doth easily carry away these light and empty Tares out of the Church And those our Saviour he sets forth under the similitude of Tares or blasted Eares in the Parable of the Text. And that in opposition to the Wheat thereby importing their unprofitable and worthless nature Such is the difference betwixt good and bad as betwixt Wheat and Tares 2. The impurity and imperfection of the visible Church The second Proposition consisting of good and bad even as the same field contains both Wheat and Tares The name of the Church is no univocal word wherein there is an agreement both of Name and Nature but an aequivocal voice where things of a most different nature communicate in the same name I speak not this of the Jesuites who in respect of their execrable doctrine of their mental reservations and aequivocations are fitly stiled aequivocal Christians But of the external members of the visible Church the greater part whereof are only commended by the titular profession of Christianity as an empty sign and shadow and yet want the thing signified and are utterly destitute of the substance And as the name of the Church is no univocal but aequivocal voice so the Church it self is no Homogeneal but an Heterogeneal body not like unto the similar parts of men Blood Spirits or the like each portion whereof is suitable and agreeable to the whole But resembling the organical parts as a Leg or Arm which consists of Skin Flesh Bones and Marrow And these far different from each other There are three several places in the world Heaven Hell and Earth In Heaven above there are none but perfectly good the blessed society of Saints and Angels In Hell beneath none but irrecoverably wicked the cursed crue of damned spirits But the visible Church upon Earth is a middle place and state betwixt both a confused mixture and medley both of good and bad like unto Noahs Ark wherein were cooped up both clean and unclean beasts A wide drag-net that closes not only profitable fish but worthless weeds and beggery A common Inne 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a receptacle for all commers A great House which affords vessels of gold and silver and some other of wood and earth 2 Tim. 2.20 A Barn or threshing Floor where corn and chaff lie covered in the same heap Mot. 3.12 And here in the Text A vast and open Field that brings forth Wheat and Tares And as it was said of Hantbals Army Colluvies omnium gentium So is the visible Church a promiscuous Company and Congregation a rabble and a rapsody of all sorts corrupt Hereticks who deprave the verity of the faith supercilious and factious Schismaticks that deprive and destrâ—y the unity of the Church disguised and masked Hypocrits meer Scepticks in their opinion Hybrides in their profession Amphibia in their conversation like unto those flying fishes in America that live sometimes in the water and sometimes in the air and are ill accepted in both places the ravenous fishes being ready to devour them below and the Sea fowls continually beating them above And last of all men openly profane and vicious (f) 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat Epist ad Magnes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ignat ibid. Ignatius reduces the several sorts of men in the visible Church to two Heads and observes the same difference among men that is to be found in coyn 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereof some is true and sound such as can endure the Touch the other is false and counterfeit Holy men are God's coyn that bear his image and superscrip ion But as for proâ—â—ne and wicked men they are adulterate deceitful and corrupt â—oyn that are minted and stamped by the Divel It is St. Chrysoâ—â—omes observation upon the 23. of Saint Matthâ—w that there is somewhat bred and born in every creature that wasts and consumes the substance The soundest Timber engenders worms the finest Garments give life to Moths The most wholesome Herbs bring forth small flies that fret them in pieces Neither fares it otherwise
gape and thrust out their Tongues against profession and purity it self And because all is not gold that glisters they from hence take occasion to reject and condemn the most orient and shining colour of the purest gold Needs must it be as a racking pain and torture yea as the torments of Hell to God's faithful Servants The word signifies no less and so it proved unto just Lot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Pet. 2 8 He racked and tortured and tormented his righteous soul in Sodome as if he had been in Hell it self in seeing and hearing their unlawful deeds And where shall we find a Lot either without his Sodome or without racking the joynts of his soul with inward grief and sorrow To hear the blasphemy of the common multitude in every street which makes their ears to tingle who by their cursed oaths in each Fair and Market crucifie the Lord of life the second time open his wounds cause his blood to stream forth a fresh yea rend and tear asunder his sacred Body Like unto a company of Blood-hounds or Hellhounds rather having seized upon a poor Hare which they soon dispatch and pull one joynt from another That the lascivious and lustful livers should defile the Temples of the Holy Spirit and make the members of Christ the members of an Harlot That the voluptuous and sensual Glutton the swinish Drunkard should ordinarily abuse the good creatures of God to riot and excesse making their bodies no other then (n) Cribra ciborum potuum Senec. Colanders and strainers for meats and drinks meer graves to bury both the creatures and themselves alive and even dig their Graves with their Teeth And who is there among the people of God that doth seriously consider and lay to heart their calamity that they are even constrained not onely to breath in the same open air but to abide in the same Church with such men or beasts rather and renews not this sad and mournful complaint of David Woe is me that I remain in Meshech and have my habitation in the Tents of Kedar How should this inflame the hearts of the faithful with an uncessant and unsatisfied desire of removing out of this world of exchanging the company of wicked and ungodly for the Spirits of just and perfect men the Society of Saints and Angels How should this provoke and excite them to a vehement and earnest longing of being Members in the Church Triumphant and of sharing in the accomplishment of that promise Cant 4.8 Come with me from Lebanon my spouse even with me from Lebanon and look from the Top of Amana from the Top of Shenir and Hermon from the Dens of the Lyons and from the mountains of the Leopards A threefold promise that Christ passes unto his Church 1. Of Delivery 2. Of Victory 3. Of Safety 1. A promise of delivery out of the world Lebanon which is a part of it being put for the whole 2. A promise of victory whereby the Church shall be exalted upon the Tops of the highest Hills and shall triumphantly look upon her vanquisht enemies that shall be trodden under feet 3. A promise of safety from Lyons and Leopards cruel and blood-thirsty men and from dissembling and coloured Hypocrites that have as many contrary forms and guises as a Leopards skin hath spots Saint Austin reports of his mother Monica that having discoursed and reasoned together of the joys of Heaven she being ravished with the consideration of them sent forth this ejaculation as a Harbinger to Heaven before her (o) August Conf. lib. 9. cap. 10. Fili quantum ad me attinet nuliâ jam re delector in hac vitâ Quid hic faciam adhuc cur hîc sim nescio I am delighted with nothing of this life And what do I and why am I here Hieron Epist And Saint Hierom relates of the Monks in Egypt that when they heard any mention of the Kingdom of Christ and of the glory of the life to come they all stole a secret sigh and lifting up their eyes to Heaven repeated the words of the Psalmist Psal 55.6 Quis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbae O that I had the wings of a Dove then would I flee away and be at rest And why should not the meditation of this worlds misery in regard of the association of the godly with the wicked beget in us the same desire that the apprehension of the glory of Heaven wrought in them why should it not move us to flie to Heaven not with the wings of a Dove but with our ardent wishes and devout affections which are the wings of the Soul Why should we not long after the end of the world when Christ will gather out of his Kingdome all things that offend and them that doe iniquity When he will pluck up these Tares by the roots which till then must of necessity grow together And this is the fourth point that falls in course 4. The Temporal prosperity and felicity of good and bad They both grow alike The Fourth Proposition The things of this life are neither morally good nor evil but of an indifferent and middle nature and indifferently dispensed to all sorts of men Vt nec mala turpiter evitentur That neither the crosses thereof should be abhorred as sins wherein thebest of God's Servants have their greatest share and portion Nec bona cupâ—dius appetantur Nor the comforts thereof too too eagerly desired and coveted whereof the most profane wicked are proprietaries and possessors Sometimes God pours forth with a liberal hand and heaps those external blessings in an abundant incasure upon the heads of the righteous as he did upon (p) Constantinum Imperatorem tantis teirenis implevit muneribus quanta optare nullus auderet August de Civ Dei lib. 5. c. 25. Constantine the great so that it is the height of boldness and presumption for any man to pray for the like It is the expression of St. Austin And yet for the most part the men of the world who have their portion in this life as the Psalmist describes them surpass and outstrip the godly in this respect The Tares stand boult-upright with an high and a lofty Top when as the good corn hangs down the head and is bowed to the ground I have seen the wicked strong and spreading himself like a green Bay Tree It is David's observation Psal 37.35 Tanquam arbor indigena virens as Junius renders it out of the original As a Tree that grows out of the soyl of the earth of its own accord whereof the earth is the natural mother and so more indulgent in affording it plenty of juyce and moisture Then unto those whereof she is an hard or unkind stepmother and planted by the hand of another This resemblance we find in nature and we need not seek far for the like in the course of the world even as in the structure of a house the chimney is designed to
prodigious blasphemie open profanation of the Sabbath the filthiness of whoredom or any other these are the Tares which they principally endeavour with all their might not only to top or crop as the Heathen King stroke off the tops of the Poppies but pluck them up by th roots What though they meet with difficulties and discouragements of all sorts and reap no other guerdon of assiduity and faithfulness in their calling but enmity and opposition yet must they make their face hard against their faces and their forehead hard against their foreheads Cry aloud and spare not lift up their voice like a Trumpet Preach the word be instant in season and out of season improve rebuke exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine I will close up the Point with a story of Luther who when he began first to appear in publick against Popish indulgences a friend of his rounded him in the ear with more safe then sound advise As good hold your tongue the custome is so strong you will do no good go into your study and pray Domine miserere nostri And get you no anger This is the distressed and intangled condition of poor Ministers in the Gospel If they plead for their due maintenance they are bar'd with legal customes and prescriptions If they preach in the Name of the Lord against the crying abominations of the time they are affronted in the same manner with customary and common practices So that one way or other the custome is always too hard for us And though it be a matter of as great difficulty and slender hopes to cry down the customes of sin as of Tythes and payments in the vulgar being armed and fenced with prescription in both Yet this must not daunt or damp our spirits nor quell or quail our courage no more then it dismayed the Heroical resolution of stout-spirited Luther much less must it move us to grow feeble and faint-hearted and utterly to desist with disconsolate Jeremiah Then I said I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name Jer. 20.9 But notwithstanding the strength of custome the publick Minister must do his best to weed out these Tares of wickedness by the religious ministration of the Word and Sacraments Fourthly The private Christian must bend his strength Fourthly the private Christian and bâ—ckle to the task of gathering out of Tares by devout prayers and Tears Acts of authority and jurisdiction are confined and limited to publick offices But duties of common piety pity fall within the verge compass of the meanest Christian It were presumption and usurpation for every one to lay hands upon the civil sword To arrogate and assume the power of the keys to sit in Moses chair and teach authoritatively in the Church yet is there none no not of the lowest rank but may pour forth his soul unto God in prayer and pour out his inward grief in sad and mournful tears Arma ecclesiae sunt preces lachrymae Prayers and tears are the spiritual weapons of the Church and the offensive defensive arms of the private Christian How much better do these become them then to repine and whine in a malecontented humour which is the natural language of the multitude to defame the persons censure the actions of superiours to look upon Government with an oblique eye and cast dirt in the face of authority How may we solace and recreate our selves in the most exulcerate and calamitous times even in a holy Soliloquy with God and a pathetical lamentation of our own miseries And memorable is that example of Gerson in this kind that famous Chancellour of Paris who being exulsed the university by the Sorbonists and in his old age deprived of all his dignities he betook himself to the profession of a School-Master and caused all his Schollers being but little children to joyn with him daily in this short prayer (k) Illyric Cat. Test Tom. 2. pag. 805. My God my Maker have mercy upon thy miserable servant Gerson Thus may every Christian address himself unto God in sending up a pithy ejaculation unto Heaven My God my Maker have mercy upon thy miserable Servant for the redress of particular grievances the pardon of Epidemical evils and the prevention of universal vengeance when as impiety and iniquity domineers and overrules with an high hand the judgements of God hang over our heads and threaten us with destruction when as the times are most intricate and perplexed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and there are fightings without and fears within This this is the fittest season for each private Christian to call upon the Name of God and to stir up themselves to take hold on him The supine neglect whereof God severely faults and taxes Isa 64.7 This necessity should be their opportunity that when they are at their wits end driven to the straitest pinch and exigent and find neither hope nor help in the sons of men To appeal unto God for succour and after holy David's example to excite and awaken him by their prayers up Lord let not man prevail Psal 9.19 Help Lord for there is not a godly man left Psal 12.1 Tunc votorum locus praecipuus quum spei nullus Then is the chiefest place for request up Lord and help Lord when there is no place left for hope but if ever Christians mourned and cryed in the bitterness of their spirits for the abominations of the Time If ever they cryed mightily unto the Lord now now is the time to pluck up and root out these Tares of wickedness by their devout Prayers and Tears The End of the first Sermon Lapis Lydius OR THE TRYAL OF SPIRITS A SERMON Preached at the Cathedral in the City of Norwich Prove all things hold fast that which is good 1 Thess cap. 5. ver 21. LONDON Printed by T. C. for Will. Rands at Fleet-bridge 1659. THE TRIALL OF SPIRITS 1 JOHN 4.1 Dearly Beloved believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they are of God for many false Prophets are gone out into the World THis Text is the Watch-word The Preface or Warn-word of the great Apostle Saint John and that not bound up with any particularities of time place or person but of universal extent and concernment applyable and applyed by him to all ages and may well be conceived as the Prophesie of the latter times This was the peculiar priviledge and preheminence of Saint John that he was an Evangelist Prophet and Apostle An Evangelist in the penning of his Gospel A Prophet in his revelation A. Apostle in his Epistles A Divine Trismegistus or thrice excellent yea he shews himself a Prophet in his Epistles and that in these words of the Text wherein he foretels the Epidemical disease of the latter times and withal prescribes and applies the remedy We This Sermon was preached during the distraction of the late Civil Wars are now fallen upon times of war and bloodshed haec fundi
a full and foul mouth as Solifidians and Nullifidians and to brand our Religion with that odious nickname Calva Calvini sides The bald faith of Calvin This they affirm 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with a bare and â—ald head and therein shew that they have not so much as one hair of honest men An impudent and shameless calumny purposely devised by him who is a lyar and the Father of it and most opprobriously and injuriously obtruded upon the Protestant party and reformed Churches The sounder part whereof (*) Sicut substantia sundamentum est omnium accidentium sic fides omnium virtutum donorum Bâ—navent Serm. de Sanclis Ex fide crumpurt â—â—ra opâ— a. Luther reverences Faith as a spiritual Dorcas that is full of good works with which it is evermore attended and accompanied as individual and inseparable companions And in case works be wanting they make no other account and reckoning of such a kind of Faith then a bare name without a thing a sign without a thing signified a shadow without a substance a body without a soul A dead faith as St. James makes out the comparison Jam. 2.26 For as the Body without the Spirit is dead so faith without works is dead also A meer Sceleton and carkass of it Faith indeed is a more inward and radical grace of a spiritual nature without flesh and bones as our Saviour concludes of every spirit But good works are Fides incarnata as Luther stiles them Faith manifested in the flesh which may be seen and felt of others And in this sense though somewhat beside it divers of the Ancients expound those words of the Apostle 1 Cor. 15.46 That is not first which is spiritual but that which is carnal referring it to faith and works and preferring works before it Not to enter the list of a comparison which of them should be the greater a question that sometimes happened amongst Christ's Disciples and yet a little to illustrate the matter by a similitude Faith is as the inward wheels of a Clock that move it and make it go Works are as the Hand or Fingen of the Dial which though it be no cause of motion yet is it an evident sign how the Clock goes within and outwardly points forth the hour of the day to the Traveller in the streets Thus is Faith discerned and descried by our Works Secondly To improve and encrease grace working is necessary for the improvement of grace received which though free y given yet must it be encreased by our pains and industry in renewing and repeating the several acts of it Even as the sire that came down from Heaven upon the Altar yet being once kindled it was maintained by the addition of new wood and fuel (k) Concil Nicen 1 part 2. cap. 31. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though we receive grace without labour at the first yet can we not preserve it without labour say the blessed Fathers of the first Nicene Councel Thirdly To attain and gain salvation working is necessary for the attaining of salvation as a condition of an obligation as motion unto rest as the way to the end of the journey and the means unto the end For as in nature there can be no passage from one entream to another but by a middle that intervenes and comes between and so unites and joins them together No more can we be translated from a state of corruption to a state of happiness but by working as the means We must not look to commence in Heaven per saltâ—â—m to skip and leap into it neither nature nor grace allow it The greater part of the world would have glory without grace and happiness without holiness like to the Roman Dictator Sylla that had rather be sirnamed Foelix then Pius Fain would men receive the wages and yet not do the work but in vain and to no end For life eternal is resembled by a Crown which they alone wear that run yea so run that they may obtain And as the old Romans gave the obsidional Crown to him that had delivered a City from the siege of the enemy and that made of the grass and flowers of the besieged City Even so doth God reward men according to their works and sets them as a Crown upon their head Let this be granted as an undoubted truth that salvation is a reward yet such a reward as issues out of meer bounty and liberality no wages or due debt Nor is it given Propter factum sed pacium not for the worthiness of the deed done but by a (k) Bona opera non sunt causa rogni sed via regnandi Bernard de Liber Arbit promissory obligation and engagement by way of covenant working is the means whereby not the cause why we come to salvation and though it be stiled our salvation yet is it as Faith and Repentance are termed ours being in us but not of us and actions and passions denominate the subject and not the cause God only is the efficient cause and author and man the proper subject or object of it For though works be never so necessary in themselves both in regard of their presence and instrumental efficiency as a condition means and way ordained by God that we should walk in yet must we not set so high a rate upon them as if they were a suficient price for Heaven any way adaquate and equivalent in proportion to the recompence of reward This alone is fitly compared to the penny in the Gospel and money as the wise man speaks answers all things and is the measure and rule of all but is not to be bought and sold at all It was the sacrilegious errour of Simon Magus to conceive that the gift of God might be purchased with money and it hath a spice of his sin and may so pass for a kind of spiritual Simony to think that salvation which is the gift of God may be procured with our labour The Papists indeed have coined a counterfeit and base money of merit to buy Heaven withall and though it hath none of Gods image and superscription yet would they give that unto God which is none of Gods as if they were to truck and chaffer and barter with him by way of merchandise and to deal with him upon the strictest terms of commutative justice Hear them speak in their own language Opera bona mercatura regni coelestis saith Bellarmine Heaven is as due to good works as Hell to bad So Andradius Coster the Rhemists on the New Testament Let Andrew Vega that proud Jesuite as the foreman of the Jury give in the Verdict for all the rest Gratis non accipiam He will rather lose it then take it as a free gift Nor do the Papists offend more on the right hand then the * Canisius lib. 1. de corrupt verbi Dei cap. 10. Flaccians and the rigid Lutherans on the left who decree them as unnecessary as hurtful as