several manner and among all these families there is no external uniformity and yet they all agree well enough in the unity of a City Nay further to bring but one man to an uniformity of life and practice by an outward Law would be the most absolute tyranny in the world and make his life worse then death To compel every man by a Law every day in the week or every Munday Tuseday c. in the week to an uniformity of life that he shall rise at the same time use the same postures speak the same words eat the same food receive the same physick sit and stand and walk and lie down at the same set times who ever heard of such a cruel bondage What an absurd and intolerable thing then is uniformity in the life of a man taking away all freedom of the soul But how much more evil and intolerable is uniformity in the life of a Christian or of the true Churches of Christ taking away all freedom of the Spirit of God who being one with God works in the freedom of God and is not to be bound with any authoritative or coercive power of poor dark ignorant vain foolish proud and sinful men What now then do the Presbyters mean by uniformity Would they have the word preached and the Sacraments administred and the name of God called on and all this done in Spirit and truth in the Churches of Christ this truly is unity and not uniformity and such an unity as no man can compel But would they have the Word preached the name of God called on Sacraments administred the spiritual Discipline of the spiritual Church mannaged the vertues of Christ and graces of the Spirit in the Saints exercised and all this in one and the same outward form or uniformity This is the burthen of the Saints the bondage of the Church the straitning of the Spirit the limiting of Christ and the eclipsing the glory of the Father And how wise so ever these men may be in natural and carnal things yet their wisdom is but foolishness in spiritual things in which there is no more uniformity then in the workings of the Spirit who works severally in several Saints and severally in the same Saints at several times And therefore they that would tye the Church to an uniformity which works not of it self but as the Spirit works in it let them first tye the Spirit to an uniformity and we are contented But these men seem to run a sad hazard who would thus reduce the workings of the Spirit in Christians and Churches to an outward uniformity according to their own mind and fancy and so would rule and order and enlarge and straiten the Spirit of God by the spirit of man seeing it is worse to sin against Christ in the Spirit then against Christ in the flesh And therefore till I be otherwise taught by the word I cannot conceive that there ought to be or is possible to be any such external uniformity in the Churches of Christ as these men strive wrastle sweat contend for I will not say are ready to fight for but that several Churches of Christ having unity of doctrine faith the Spirit ordinances c. may have divers forms of outward administrations as God and Christ by the Spirit shall lead them and that every Church is in these things to be left free and no Church forced by any outward power to follow or imitate another Church against its Will not being freely led unto it by the Spirit of God Neither do I think that God hath set up any company of men or Synod in the world to shine to a whole Nation so that all People shall be constrained to follow their judgement and to walk by their light seeing other Ministers and Christians may have more light and spirit then they Neither hath Christ promised his presence and spirit to Ministers more then to believers nor more to an hundred then two or three And if two or three Christians in the Country being met together in the name of Christ have Christ himself with his word and Spirit among them they need not ride many miles to the Assembly at London to know what to do or how to carry and behave themselves in the things of God And therefore for any company of men of what repute soever to set up their own judgement in a Kingdom for a peremptory rule from which no man must vary and to compel all the faithful people of God who are the very members of Jesus Christ himself to fall down before it upon pain of being cast into the burning fiery furnace of their indignation heated seven times more hot then ordinary through the desired access of secular power to their power is a far worse work in my eyes then that of King Nebuchadnezzars setting up a golden Image and forcing all to fall down before it seeing spiritual Idolatry is so much worse then corporal as the spirit is better then the flesh And therefore I do think let them teach me better by the word that can that uniformity the great Diana of the Presbyterians and the Image that falls down from the brain and fancy of man hath no footing in the Scriptures or in the practise of the Churches of Christ And that the Presbyterian uniformity is neer a kin to Prelatical conformity and is no other then the same thing under another word after the manner of Prelacy and Presbytery and do conclude that unity is Christian uniformity Antichristian And this I have only hinted and that briefly among many occasions to discover to the faithfull that some of the very dregs of Antichristianisme still prevail and domineer under the very name of Reformation And also to give occasion to men of more spirit and abilities and leisure to discourse more fully to this point that the Serpents head of Formality which is so carefully nourished by humane reason may be crushed in pieces by the power of the word 1 JOHN 2. 27. The annointing which ye have received of him abideth in you and ye need not that any man should teach you but as the same anointing teacheth you all things and is truth and is no lye and even as it hath taught you you shall abide in him The spiritual Church is taught by the anointing the carnal Church by Councels FINIS The Building Beauty Teaching and Establishment of the truly Christian and Spiritual CHURCH Represented in an EXPOSITION On Isai 54 from Vers 11. to the 17. PREACHED To His Excellency Sir Tho. Fairfax and the general Officers of the Army with divers other Officers and Souldiers and People At Marston being the Head-quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford June 7. 1646. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel attending on His Excellency Sir Thomas Fairfax in the Army Together with a faithful Testimony touching that valiant and victorious Army in the Epistle to the Reader Matth. 5. 11. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you
underneath them they fall sadly and desperately to the great scandal of the ways of God However if men be not called forth to such eminent doings and sufferings and so scape such manifest discoveries and downfals yet the form of godliness hath this evil in it That it brings a man onely to the troublesome part of Religion but not to the comfortable it engages a man in the same duties with the godly but supplies him not with the same strength it involves him in the same bitterness of flesh but doth not furnish him with the same joy of Spirit For as such a mans Religion doth not reach above flesh and blood no more doth his strength and comforts And so he performs duties at a low rate yea and his bare and empty form casts a black vail upon Religion and utterly obscures its beauty and glory and makes the world judge meanly of it and to think it a matter only of singularity and humour and not of power Whereas when a Christian walks in the strength of the Spirit doing and suffering the will of God beyond all strength and abilities of flesh and blood the world often times wonders and gazes at him and many are provoked to glorifie God who hath given such power to men For this power of godliness among other things hath these three advantages 1. It makes a man do every duty strongly and mightily And whatever might take a man off from duty or distract and disturbe him in it all fals to nothing before this power There is that strength in each duty performed by the power of the anoynting which declares it to be the operation of God himself in man and nothing else but the very power of God that is Jesus Christ himself in action in us 2. It makes a man inflexible in the ways of God that he shall neither turn to the right hand nor to the left but take straight steps towards the mark set before him No fear nor favours nor frowns nor flatteries nor temptations nor insinuations nor designs of others nor ends of his own can turn him aside He carries such strength in his Spirit as he can never be bended and so far forth as he partakes of the power of God is as unmoveable and unchangeable as God him self 3. It makes a man invincible by all evils and enemies Because all the power against him is but the power of the creature but the power in him is the power of God And the power of God easily overcomes the mightiest power of the creature but is never overcome by it And if this power in a Christian should be prevailed against God himself who is that power should be conquered which is impossible To conclude the power of godliness is the doer of every duty in Gods Kingdom the subduer of every sin the conquerour of each tribulation and temptation the life of every performance the glory of each grace the beauty of a Christians life the stability of his conversation the lustre of his Religion his great Honour and excellency both in doing and suffering yea it is the very glory of God himself in the Church of God for by faith the Lord arises on us and by this power of godliness his glory is seen upon us These considerations right honourable moved me to discourse of the power of the Holy Spirit coming on all Christians Ministers and People And besides the importunity of some other friends your Honours earnest desires of these notes hath especially prevailed with me to publish them Not that I am worthy to publish any thing but that the truth of God is worthy to be published be the instrument never so mean and unworthy And although I well know the doubtful success of such undertakings as these yet in this matter I am not at all carefull being most willing to be bound up in one condition with the truth of God and to have with it the same common friends and enemies Besides if Christ dwell in my heart by faith I carry in my bosome already my reward out of whom I neither regard praise or dispraise good or evil Now I was bold to prefix your Honours name to these Notes because your desire of them hath made them yours and also your many noble favors are a strong and continual engagement for me to serve you according to what God hath made me Especially I remember your extraordinary compassion and bowels towards me in the day of my deepest distress when my soul drew near to the Pit and the shadow of death sate upon my eye lids and I had not the least drop of comfort either from earth or heaven Your Honor then shewed me the kindness of the Lord and encompassed me both with your pitty and goodness though then through bitterness of spirit I tasted it not Wherefore when I remember the wonderful goodness of God to me after so great sorrow and darkness I cannot forget that part of his goodness which he was pleased to administer to me by your Honours hands And the remembrance of this causes me to pray that God would double the same goodness on you and that he would pour forth upon my Lord your Honour your noble off-spring and family this power of the holy Spirit here treated of which shall render you a thousand times more precious and excellent before God and his Saints then all worldly Honour aud Nobility whatsoever And by this means shall Religion shine in your Family in its native beauty and lustre and the Kingdom of God which stands not in word but in power shall appear in its bright glory among you till the Kingdom of the Son first fit you and then after deliver you up to the Kingdom of the Father and God be all in all immediately Which is the earnest prayer of your most humble and faithful servant WILLIAM DELL The Contents THe Context The Explication of the Words Three General Doctrines 1. That Christ gives his own people sufficient strength for their imployments his own strength for his own Works 2. That when Christ leaves his people in regard of sense he never leaves them without a promise and in that promise his Spiritual presence 3. That the pouring forth of the spirit is the means whereby God both increases and governs his Church The more special Doctrine from the words is That the receiving of the Spirit is the receiving of power For the Spirit it self is power 1. Essentially in it self 2. Operatively in us By being in us 1. A Spirit of Knowledge 2. Of Truth 3. Of Wisdom 4. of Faith which inables us To do Indure the same things with Christ himself 5. Of Righteousness in Destroying sin Imparting Grace 6. Of the fear of the Lord. 7. Of Love and Vnity The Use twofold 1. Exhortation to inforce this the necessity of having this power is urged in reference 1. To Ministers 2. To all Christians 1. Ministers stand in need of the power of the Spirit to come upon them 1.
their imployments for their sufferings and for their doings And as Souldiers that are under a wise and carefull Commander when they are neer an ingagement are not suffered to run rashly upon the enemy nor permitted to go forth to battle till they are armed and mounted so Christ would not suffer his Disciples to go forth in his warfare to incounter so many evils and oppositions and persecutions and the whole power of the world and of the Devil till first he had armed them with the power of Holy Spirit Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you c. Christ alwayes gives unto all those whom he sends forth and imployes of his own power for his own works heavenly power for heavenly works spiritual power for spiritual works the power of God to do the works of God Indeed Christ gives unto some a greater measure of power and to some a lesser according as he intends to use some in greater works and difficulties and some in lesser but still they have of Christs power whether more or lesse who are imployed by Christ and a little of that power that is communicated by Christ will inable a man to do great things far greater then the world suspects or imagines So that we may judge of our calling to any business and of our imployment in it by the power we have received from Christ for it If we have none of the power of Christ we were never set on work by Christ for Christ never sets any on his work with out communicating unto them of his power And hereby we may certainly know and conclude that those in the Ministery that are loose and vitious and idle and negligent and insufficient for that work were never called to it nor imployed in it by Christ but they run of their own heads when they were not sent and minister in the Church for the gain of money and preach onely that they might live Whereas if Christ had imployed them in that calling he would have furnished them with abilities for it and they being destitute of such abilities it is most evident they were not sent by Christ Judge then what a kinde of Reformation this church were like to have if some men might have their minds who would have ignorant and insufficient men yea loose and prophane men tolerated in the Ministry under pretence of keeping up ordinances when yet such men were never imployed by Christ nor supplyed with any power from him Yea and what ordinances I pray are those like to be which are kept up by men that are carnal not having the Spirit But you see here that Christs way and wisdom was different from this for he first gives the Apostles the power of the Spirit and then sent them to preach when he had first inabled them to preach 2. You see here that Christ being to leave his Disciples in regard of his bodily presence yet leaves behind him the promise of the Spirit of power and this was some establishment to them yea this gave great joy and comfort to them who before had their hearts filled with sorrow Christ though sometime he leave his people in regard of sense yet he never leaves them without a promise The soul sometimes in the hours of temptation and desertion may want the sense and feeling of Christ but it never wants a promise from Christ and the promise makes Christ present in his absence For Christ himself is spiritually present in the promise and not Christ onely but the Holy Spirit also for Christ and the Spirit are never asunder but as the Father and the Son are one so is Christ and the Spirit one and all are in the promise And so the promise is able to uphold the soul in any condition not because of its own nature but because God and Christ and the Spirit are present in the Promise and they are infinitely able to support the soul through the Promise under the greatest evils either of earth or hell Now this injoyment of God in the Promise is the injoyment of faith and not of sense and this injoyment of faith is the most excellent and intimate injoyment of Christ And thus may the soul injoy Christs presence in his absence his presence according to faith in his absence according to sence And therefore Christ departing from his Disciples in regard of his bodily presence leaves with them the promise of the Holy Spirit and in that promise his spiritual presence And this is the worst condition that Christ ever leaves his true Church in he leaves them his presence in a Promise when in regard of sense he forsakes them 3. Note that Luke being to speak in this Book of the Acts of the Apostles of the propagating and inlarging and governing the Christian Church doth first make mention of the pouring forth of the Spirit and that both upon the Apostles and afterwards upon the Disciples Signifying hereby that there is nothing so necessary for the increase and well ordering of the true Church of Christ as the pouring forth of the Spirit And therefore they are altogether deceived and walk in the light of Nature and not of God who think the increase and propagation and preservation and establishment and order and ordering of the Church of God depend especially upon the Councels and Decrees and Constitutions of men and that without these the Church of God would soon come to woful disorder yea to utter ruine and confusion as if Christ and his Spirit sate idle in heaven and had left the whole business of his Church to men and the sacred power confirmed with the secular were abundantly sufficient for the increase and well ordering of the Church In the mean time not regarding the promise of the Father or the pouring out of the Spirit by the Son And this is the very mystery of the mystery of iniquity among us and the very head of Antichrist which is yet to be broken And therefore let us know that as the Psalmist saith Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it and except the Lord keep the City the watchman watcheth but in vain so also except the Lord through his Word pour forth the promise of the Spirit and by that Spirit of his in and through the Word inlarge and govern the Church they labor in vain that undertake these things of themselves For it is the Spirit alone that through the faithful ministry of the Word makes the increase of the Church and layes hold on all the elect and brings them through faith into the unity of the Son and of the Father and teaches them and orders them and governs them and preserves them And therefore you see here that the promise of the Spirit is first performed before the Church of God hath any inlargement or government And now from these general things we proceed to the words more particularly Ye shall receive power when the
power of the Spirit coming on them then they are stronger then all opposition and Persecution whatsoever otherwise when these evils encounter them they with Demas leave the Work and imbrace the World And thus you see what necessity all the faithful Ministers of the Gospel have of the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon them and without this power though they be called Ministers yet they are none For without this power they are unable to preach the Word to preach it powerfully and to persevere and hold out in the course of the Ministery they are unable to reprove the World to wrestle with and overcome the. Devil and to suffer that Persecution which necessarily attends that calling And so without this power they may Minister to themselves but cannot Minister to others the manifold graces of God they may do their own work but they cannot do Gods work they may seed themselves but not the Flock of Christ they may domineer over the sheep but cannot drive away the Wolf they may build up their own houses but cannot build up God house Secondly as the Holy Spirit and the power of it is necessary for Ministers so also for all other Christians whatsoever But some here will be ready to say yea but do all believers receive the Spirit of God and the power of the Spirit as Ministers do Yes Equally and alike with them without any difference This is evident Act. 11. 15. where Peter tels the Jews who contended with him for conversing and eating with the Gentiles that when he began to speak the Word to them the Holy Spirit fell on them saith he as on us at the beginning And again ver 17. Forasmuch then as God gave unto them the like gift as he did unto us who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ what was I that I could withstand God So that God gave the Holy Spirit to as many Gentiles as believed in like manner as he did unto the Apostles themselves and they received the same power of the Holy Spirit coming on them as the Apostles did Whereby you may perceive that not Ministers only are Spiritual men and all others temporal as the Papists have taught and many Ignorant people among our selves are still perswaded but all true Believers are spiritual as well as they being born of the Spirit and Baptized with the Spirit equally as they are And so all true Believers as well as Ministers being indued with the Spirit are also indued with the power of the Spirit and so have more then an Earthly power in them They have all of them power of another nature then the power of the World they partake of spiritual heavenly and divine power even of the very power of Christ himself which infinitely transcends all the power of the creature You see then clearly that all faithful Christians have the Spirit of power and the power of the Spirit coming on them aswel as Ministers And they stand in need of both these for these causes 1. They stand in need of the Spirit of power first to difference and distinguish them from Reprobates and Devils for without the gift of the Spirit there is no difference between us and them For Michael doth not differ from the Devil nor Gabriel from Belzebub but only by the Spirit And Moses differs not from Pharoah nor Abel from Cain not Jacob from Esau nor Peter from Judas in regard of their substance but in regard of the Spirit which the one received and the other were counted unworthy of 2. To advance them above the condition of flesh and blood and above all those in whom is none of Gods Spirit The excellency of each creature is according to its Spirit for the more excellent the spirit of the creature is the more excellent is the creature it self and each creature is valued and rated according to the Spirit of it How excellent then must they be above all the World who have received the Spirit that is of God Surely these are people of the most excellent spirit And hence it is that the righteous is more excellent then his neighbour because his spirit is more excellent then his neighbours 3. To unite them unto Christ The Spirit is the bond of Vnion between the Father and the Son in the Godhead and the Father and the Son are one in the Spirit as we spake before And now the same spirit is our bond of Vnion with Christ and makes us one with Christ as Christ is one with God and unites us unto Christ in the unity of God for as Christ is one with the Father in the Spirit so are we one with Christ in the Spirit For he that is joyned to the Lord is one Spirit and he that is not one Spirit with the Lord is not joyned to him 4. All faithful Christians stand in need of the power of the Spirit as well as of the Spirit of power 1. To change their nature which is impossible to all power but the power of the Spirit It would be a great power to change clay into Gold and a pibble into a Diamond but it is a greater change that is wrought in a Christian and requires a greater power For the power of the Spirit when it comes into our flesh changes the nature of it For it finds a man carnal it makes him spiritual it finds him earthly it makes him heavenly it finds him a drunkard it makes him sober an adulterer it makes him chast a swearer it makes him fear an oath proud it makes him humble it finds him darkness makes him light in the Lord in a word it finds him nothing but a lump of sin and makes him the righteousness of God in Christ Thus the power of the Spirit changes our whole corrupt nature and makes it conformable to the divine nature as fire makes the Iron in which it prevails like unto it self communicating its own nature to it After this sort the power of the Spirit changes our nature and our nature cannot be changed without it But without this power of the Spirit we shall always remain the same we were born without any change at all Yea our corruption will by daily use and exercise encrease in us till at last it quite eat out that common natural good which God hath given to every one of us for the common benefit of mankind 2. All Christians have need of the power of the Spirit to work grace in them For our natures are wholly carnal and corrupt and nothing can implant grace in them but the mighty power of Gods Spirit And it is as great a Miracle to see the Grace of God dwelling in the corrupt nature of man as to see the Stars grow upon the Earth And yet the power of the Spirit doth this as it is written truth shall spring out of the earth and again great and precious promises are made to us that we should be partakers of the
Divine nature and again he hath predestinated us that we should be conformable to the Image of his Son That is as in other things so also in all his vertues So that the power of the Spirit implants grace in our nature and each grace is so much of the power of the Spirit in our flesh as was said before Wherefore we must needs learn to know whose power the power of grace is For though grace be a power in our flesh it is not the power of our flesh for Paul saith in me that is in my flesh dwels no good thing but and if any good be in my flesh it dwels not in my flesh but in Gods Spirit which dwels in me As light is in the ayr but dwels in the Sun so when men are regenerate good is in the flesh but dwels in the spirit For grace in the soul is nothing but so much of the power of the Spirit immediately dwelling and working in us and when the Spirit is gone all grace goes along with him as all light with the Sun but it dwels in him and is inseparable from him 3. All Christians stand in need of the power of the spirit to enable them to mortifie and destroy sin There is no power in our flesh against sin but all the power of our flesh is for it and therefore it must be another power then the power of our flesh that must destroy sin and that can be no other then the power of Gods Spirit And the power of the Spirit destroys the whole body of sin and each particular strong corruption 1. The whole body of sin in all the parts and members and branches of it each several influence and operation of the Spirit being a several destruction of some sin or other For as the spirit that is in us lusts after envie or pride or vain-glory or covetousness or uncleanness or the like so the Spirit we have of God according to its mighty power destroys all those sinful works of our corrupt spirit and mortifies all the deeds of our flesh according to that of Paul if ye mortifie the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit ye shall live The flesh will never mortifie its own deeds but the spirit must mortifie the deeds of the flesh and this will mortifie them according to the whole Latitude of them 2. Again as the power of the Spirit sudues the whole body of sin so also it over powers each particular strong corruption and keeps a Christian straight and upright in the ways of God Every man hath some one corruption to which by nature he is more inclined then to another and this is the byas of a man but the strength of the Spirit will over-power this A boul if it be thrown with strength knows not its byas but is carryed on strait as if it had no byas at all So the Godly have still some flesh in them which is their byas and carries them from God to themselves and the World but the strength of the spirit takes away this byas and makes us take straight steps to God 4. All Christians-stand in need of the power of the Spirit to inable them to perform duties to perform them aright that is spiritually For spiritual duties may be performed for the outward work carnally and in such duties there is no strength but weakness because there is none of the Spirit in them For there is no power in any duty except there be something of the spirit in the duty There is no more power in praying nor in preaching nor in hearing nor in meditation nor in reading nor in resisting evil nor in doing good nor in any duty of sanctification or of mortification then there is of the Spirit in them And according to the measure of the spirit in each duty is the measure of power in the duty If there be none of the Spirit in a mans duties there is no power at all in them but onely weakness and deadness and coldness and unpofitableness If a little of the spirit there is a little power if abundance of the Spirit there is great power and that duty that is most spiritual is the most powerful And therefore saith Paul I will pray with the Spirit and I will sing with the spirit and all the worship of the faithful is in the spirit Philip. 3. 3. We are the Circumcision which worship God in the Spirit and have no confidence in the flesh So that there is no more power in any duty then there is of the Spirit in it and there is no more acceptance of any duty with God then there is of power in it Fifthly all Christians stand in need of the Power of the Spirit to inable them to the use of the Word and that both in private and in publique as occasion serves 1. In private for no man can say that Jesus is the Christ but by the Holy Spirit No man can speak of Christ spiritually but by the Spirit and without this spirit which searches the deep things of God and reveals them to us Christians are unable to give the Sense of the Word of God in their families and among their friends and acquaintance and are also ashamed to do it Whereas the Spirit of God gives both ability and boldness as Aquila and Priscilla his wife did not onely speak the word in their family but also took Apollos a Minister home when they perceived him somewhat ignorant in the mystery of Christ and instructed him in the way of God more perfectly 2. They have need of the power of the spirit to inable them to speak the word of God in publike as every Christian may do if he come where people are ignorant of Gods Word and there be no Minister to do it This I say in such a case he may do by vertue of his anointing with the spirit And for this you may see the practise of Stephen and Philip who were but Deacons and not Elders or Ministers and yet published the Word where the people were ignorant yea you may see Act. 8. how all the Disciples except the Apostles were by reason of a great persecution scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria and they that were so scattered went everywhere preaching the Word because the people among which they were were ignorant and there was no body else to do it And God having made known Christ unto them they could not but declare him unto others the love both of Christ and of their brethren constraining them But this is in case of necessity and where other fuithful Christians are absent otherwise when Christians are present no man can take that to himself without the consent of all which belongs to all Sixthly all Christians stand in need of this power of the spirit to inable them to confess the word before Kings and Rulers and Magistrates when they are called thereunto Whereas without this power they
would tremble and bite in the truth In the 10. Chap. of Mat. Christ tells his Disciples that they should be brought before Governours and Kings for his names sake But saith he vers 19. When they shall deliver you up take no thought how or what ye shall speak for it shall be given you in that same hour what ye shall speak For it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you Here Christ tels his Disciples that they should be brought before great men yea before the greatest in the world to give testimony to his truth And surely it is a very hard thing for a man not to be daunted then but to be unmoveable before all worldly power and glory and all the terrible frowns and threats of mighty men Now saith Christ at such a time when you are to speak before the armed power of the world be not troubled beforehand how or what to say For if you have Christ and his Spirit in your hearts you cannot want words in your mouths And the truth which you profess is most glorious when it is most naked and destitute of the garnishings of humane eloquence and wisdom And therefore be not fearful before hand no nor yet careful touching what you shall say for it shall be given to you in that same hour in that same moment you shall have most present help How so for it is not ye that speak but the Spirit of your Father that dwels in you The spirit of truth that dwels in you shall inable you to speak the words of truth when you are called to it And though you it may be are plain and mean men and your lips would tremble and be quite closed up before such an Assembly of power and Majesty yet Gods spirit shall give you a mouth to speak even then And because if you were only supplied with a mouth to speak at such a time you would be ready to speak rashly and foolishly to the great prejudice and disadvantage of the truth therefore he will give you not only a mouth but wisdom too and he himself will manage his own cause with your mouths And you shall so speak as all your adversaries shall not be able to resist the truth that you speak but shall be so convinced in their consciences that their tongues shall not know what to say You shall have a mouth and wisdom and they shall want both And thus have many poor mean simple Christians when brought before Rulers and Magistrates been able to carry out the truth in that strength that all their adversaries have been put to silence and shame as you may see in a multitude of examples in the Book of Martyrs And all this they did by the power of the Spirit coming upon them Seventhly and lastly all Christians stand in need of the power of the Spirit to overcome afflictions and persecutions from which it is impossible they should be free in this world they being contrary to the world and the whole world to them A natural man who hath no strength in himself but his own strength faints and fails under affliction and persecution but the faithful have in them strength above natural strength strength above the strength of men even the strength of the Spirit coming on them and so they indure and overcome Our spirits are weak spirits and are conquered by every evil but when they are strenghtned by the power of Gods Spirit they are over all evils more then Conquerors And this is one thing observable between natural and spiritual strength in the overcoming of evil Natural strength seeks alwayes to throw off the evil and so it prevailes but spiritual strength neever seeks the removing of the evil but let the evil be what it will it stands to it and overcomes it For the strength of the Spirit is easily able to overcome all evils that can happen to flesh and bloud whether they arise from earth or hell And thus those blessed Martyrs mentioned Hebr. 11. and thousands and ten thousands of their consorts since have overcome cruel mockings and scourgings and bonds and imprisonment and stoning and sawing in sunder and slaying with the sword and all the woes of poverty and want and banishment and of living in wildernesses and caves and dens of the earth these and all other evils they have mightily overcome by this only power of the Spirit comming upon them Thus we stand in need of the power of the Spirit to overcome affliction and persecution and how much power we have in affliction and persecution to indure them and overcome them just so much of the power of the Spirit we have and no more And thus also have I declared unto you what necessity all Christians have of the power of the Spirit coming on them as well as Ministers And this was to strengthen the Vse of exhortation The second Use is for information and instruction after this manner If the receiving of the Spirit be the receiving of power then it clearly informs us that the way to partake of this power is to obtain this Spirit and the way to increase this power is to increase this Spirit I shall endeavour to speak to both these things and so shall conclude 1. The way to obtain this power is to obtain the Spirit And that we may obtain the Spirit we must first prepare our selves to receive the Spirit Now this Preparation doth not stand as Papists teach and many ignorant persons among our selves think in sweeping the soul from sin and then strewing it with graces that so we may be fit to receive the Spirit For first the sweeping of the soul from sin is not a work of our own before the coming of the Spirit but a work of the Spirit it self after it is come For no flesh can clear the soul of one sin it is the Spirit must do that And secondly for the strewing of the soul with grace neither is this a work of our own but a work of the Spirit it self after it is come For the Spirit it self brings all grace with it and before the comming of the Spirit there is no grace at all So that we cannot by any acts of our own prepare our selves to receive the Spirit but only by the Spirit we prepare our selves to receive the Spirit For it is not any work of our own upon our selves but the immediate work of the Holy Spirit upon us that can make us fit to receive himself It lies wholly in his own power and goodness first to prepare in us a place for himself and then after to receive and entertain himself in that place he hath so prepared Now the workes of the Spirit whereby he first prepares us for himself and then entertaines himself in us are these two especially 1. He empties us and 2. he fills us with himself whom he hath made empty 1. He empties us And this emptying is the
Christ and the more we receive of Christ the more we receive of the spirit in Christ For faith doth not apprehend bare Christ but Christ with his Spirit because these are inseparable Now alwayes according to the measure of Christ in us is the measure of the spirit and according to the measure of faith is the measure of Christ in us 3. To be much in prayer For the prayer of the spirit increases the spirit The more we have the spirit the more we pray and the more we pray the more we receive the spirit So that when we have the spirit in truth we shall have daily a greater and greater increase of it till we be filled with the spirit For the spirit comes from Christ in whom is the fulness of the spirit and carries us back again to Christ that we may receive still more of the spirit And so by the spirit that is in our hearts we lay hold on the spirit that is in Christ and receive more and more of it 4. To turn our selves daily from the creature to God For the more we inlarge our hearts towards the creature the less capable are we of the Spirit of God For to live much upon the creature is to live much according to the flesh and this quenches and straitens the spirit in us And therefore we must live abstractedly from the creatures and so use them as if we did not use them and so minde them as if we did not minde them and abandon the contents and satisfactions of flesh and blood and wean our selves from all things but the necessities of nature And the more free and loose we are from the creature the more capable are we of Gods spirit and the operations of it He that lives at greatest distance from the world and hath least communion with the things of it hath alwayes the greatest proportion of Gods spirit For as the Apostle saith If any man love the world the love of the Father that is the Holy Spirit is not in him so if any man love the Father the love of the world is not in him now the more any one loves the Father the less he loves the world and the less he loves the world the more the spirit dwels in him 5. To cease daily from our own works The more we act our selves the less doth the Spirit act in us And therefore we must must from day to day cease from our own works from the operations of our own minds and understandings and wils and affections and must not be the Authors of our own actions For we being flesh our selves what ever we do is fleshly seeing the effect cannot be better then the cause And if we mingle the works of our flesh with the works of Gods Spirit he will cease from working in us But the less we act in our selves according to the principles of our corrupt nature the more will the spirit act in us according to the principles of the divine nature But our own works are alwayes a mighty impediment to the operations of the Spirit 6. To encrease the spirit in us we must give up our selves to the Spirit that he only may work in us without the least opposition and resistance from us That as the soul acts all in the body and the body doth nothing of it self but is subject to the soul in all things so the spirit may do all in us and we may do nothing of our selves without the Spirit but be subject to the Spirit in all its operations For the Spirit of God cannot work excellently in us except it work all in all in us And in such a man in whom the Spirit hath full power the Spirit works many wonderful things that he according to humane sense is ignorant of For as the soul doth secretly nourish and cherish and refresh the body and disperses life and spirits through it even when the body is asleep and neither feels it nor knows it so the Holy Spirit dwelling in the soul by a secret kinde of operation works many things in it for the quickning and renewing it whilst it oftentimes for the present is not so much as sensible of it 7. The seventh means to encrease the spirit is to attribute the works of the spirit to the spirit and not to our selves For if we attribute to the flesh the works of the Spirit and take from the Spirit the glory of his own works he will work no longer in us Wherefore we must ascribe unto the Spirit the whole glory of his own works and acknowledge that we our selves are nothing and can do nothing and that it is he only that is all in all and works all in all and we our selves among all the excellent works of the Spirit in us must so remain as if we were and wrought nothing at all that so all that is of flesh and blood may be laid low in us and the Spirit alone may be exalted first to do all in us and then to have all the glory of all that is done And thus you see the means to encrease the Spirit and so consequently strength as well as to get it And by the daily use and improvement of these means we may attain to a great degree of spiritual strength that we may walk and not be weary and may run and not faint and may mount up as Eagles yea and may walk as Angels among men and as the powers of heaven upon earth to his praise and honour who first communicates to us his own strength and then by that strength of his own works all our works in us And thus is he glorified in his Saints and admired in all them that believe FINIS Uniformity Examined Whether it be found in the GOSPEL OR In the PRACTICE of the Churches OF CHRIST By WIL. DELL Minister of the Gospel 2 Cor. 4. 13. We having the same spirit of Faith according as it is written I believed and therefore have I spoken we also believe and therefore speak Published according to Order London Printed 1651. Vniformity Examined OBserving that our Brethren of Scotland together with the Assembly of Divines and the rest of the Presbyterian judgement do often both in their Discourse and writings exceedingly press for Vniformity I have been urged in my spirit to think upon the matter and to consider whether there could be any such thing found in the Word of the New Testament or in the practice of the Churches of Christ And for my part I ingenuously profess I cannot yet discover it and would be glad if any would instruct me further in this particular so he do it from the Word Now Vniformity what is it but an unity of form and the form they mean no doubt is outward for the inward form as it cannot be known by the outward senses so neither can it be accomplished by outward power And therefore till I know their meaning better I conceive that by uniformity they understand an unity
and persecute you and shall say all manner of evil against you falsly for my sake Vers 12. Rejoyce and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted they the Prophets which were before you Psal 69 9. The reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me Published according to Order London Printed for G. Calvert at the Black Spread Eagle at the West-end of Pauls 1651. To the Reader HAving obtained this grace from God to be called into some friendship and familiarity with Jesus Christ among the rest of his poor Saints so as to to hear and receive from him something of the minde and bosome of the Father according to his Free-grace who hath mercy on whom he will and having after many tears and temptations not-unknown to many yet in the body obtained this further grace to speak the Word of God with boldness I have also though most unworthy been counted worthy to be taken into some fellowship with Christ in his sufferings and to endure the contradiction of sinners and oft-times to encounter the rage and madness of men yea and to fight with men after the manner of beasts altogether brutish and furious And thus it hath fared with me often especially at two remarkable times The one at Lincoln upon occasion of two Sermons preached there on these words of the Prophet Isaiah 9. 7. Of the enâ—crease of his Government peace there shall be no end Wherein giving unto Christ his own proper due many were angry I had taken too much from men to whom yet nothing belongs but iniquiry shame and confusion they could not bear this that the Lord alone should be exalted But that Doctrine of Truth being the Lords and not mine the Lord himself hath strongly upheld with the right hand of his righteousness and the glory of it hath since shone into many hearts in this Kingdom much contrary to their desire The other time wherein I met with remarkable opposition was lately at Marston the Head quarter at the Leaguer before Oxford whither some coming out of the City of London in all probability out of some special design seeing the old malignity now acts in a new form and is daily coming forth in a second and more plausible cunning and deceiving edition became exceeding angry and heady against the plain and clear Truth of the Gospel delivered in this following Exposition wherein the whole truth and substance of what was then delivered is exactly set down and nothing abated but rather some things farther pressed adding as Jeremiah in the second role many like words to the former Now some of these men seeing themselves and their new designs cleerly discovered by the light of the Word and made altogether naked suddenly they grew fierce and furious contradicting and blaspheming yea some of them speaking the language of Hell upon earth of which there are some witnesses as became men of such a generation These men according to the operation of that spirit which works mightily in the children of disobedience come and fill the whole City with lyes and slanders laying to my charge things that I knew not the falshood and untruths whereof there are some hundreds and some of them of great and eminent worth and piety ready to witness Wherefore of meer necessity I was constrained to publish this Exposition as a witness to this present and the following generations of these mens resisting the Spirit and acting against Christ himself in the Word And though the Discourse be very plain not favouring of any accurateness of humane wisdom and learning yet they that are themselves spiritual will acknowledge something of the Spirit in it and for that cause will rellish and love it though others will therefore be at the greater enmity against it But for my part I have set down my resolution in the Lord in this Cause of Jesus Christ not to weigh all the power of earth or Hell one feather but to put it to the utmost tryal whether the truth of the Gospel or the slanders and lyes of men shall prevail whether the smoak of the bottomless Pit that comes forth out of the mouth of these and many others shall be able to blot out or darken the brightness of Christs coming in the Ministery of the Gospel yea and whether the power and malice of the Devil and the World shall be stronger then the love and protection of Jesus Christ And I doubt not but the more the World acts in the spirit of the Devil the more will Christ enable us to act in his own Spirit till all at last shall be forced to acknowledge that the Spirit that is in us is stronger then the spirit that is in the World And what now have all these men obtained by all their malice and fury but a greater and more open discovery of the truth and to cause that that light of the Gospel that only stone in one Congregation should through the printing of it have its beams scattered in many pars of the Kingdom and where ever the truth comes the children of the truth will entertain it and ask no body leave And thus through the over-ruling power of Gods wisdom do these men betray their own and their fellows cause and overthrow their own and their ends and whilst they think to oppress the truth propagate it the more and thus shall truths enemies perish and the truth it self flourish yea flourish through slanders oppositions contradictions blasphemies and all the vileness and villany in the world And all this confidence in us arises hence because Christ is not as a dead man but is risen and ascended and sits at the right hand of God and fils all things and doth all things in heaven and in earth in the World and in the Church among his friends and among his enemies till these be made his foot-stool which is the very thing we are now in expectation of Now one thing more which I think fit to acquaint the world withall in this Epistle is this That none of these thorny hearers durst after come to Discourse with me or to look me in the face but one among them that seemed of a better temper then the rest upon the urging of a godly Citizen then present did speak with me and the question he asked of me was this Whether I thought that all Presbyterians were carnal Gospellers I told him I was far from thinking any such thing for I knew some of them very godly Christians and did acknowledge the grace of God in them and that for mine own part I did not allow any such distinction of Christians as Presbyterians and Independents this being onely a distinction of mans making tending to the division of Church and added that as in Christs Kingdom neither circumcision availeth any thing nor uncircumcision but a new creature so in this same kingdom of Christ neither Presbytery availeth any thing nor Independency but a new creature and that
the Kingdom of God stands not in Presbytery or Independency but in righteousness and peace and joy in holy the Spirit and that if I saw any thing of God or Christ or the Spirit in any one I reckoned him as a brother not taking any such opinion into consideration and that the unity of Spirit and not of opinion is the bond of Peace in Christs Kingdom The man then pretended to be satisfied and to rejoyce in his satisfaction but since as is related hath shewed his stomach again but because he seems to be a Christian the Lord lay it it not to his charge And truly Reader it is a sad thing that ever these names of Presbyterians and Independents grew up to this height in the Church and that these Opinions should be reckoned more in a man then the presence and dwelling of God himself and the Spirit in him For my part I utterly disclaim all such distinctions of mans making and will allow of no distinction of men but what God himself hath made and that is this The world and they that are taken out of the world or The Church and they that are without and in the Church the children that are born after the flesh and the children that are born after the Spirit or which is all one carnal and spiritual Christians This distinction of men God hath made and this I do and must needs use though the world as it appears likes this worse then the other For the distinction of seeds in the Church is the true distinction and the more this is brought about by the Word and Spirit the more glorious will the Church be Now some spiritual Christians may be among those that are called Presbyterians and some among those that are called Independents and all these though called by different names are of one spiritual Church And again some carnal Christians may be among those that are called Independents and some among those that are called Presbyterians and all these though called by different names are of one carnal Church And therefore I could wish we had obtained such wisdom from God as to let the distinction and division of men lie onely there where God hath made it and not where flesh and blood hath made it and so shall the true spriritual Church be delivered from these distinctions of flesh and blood and be separated from the world and be gathered together in it self and be at unity with it self which will be Gods great glory and its own great strength comfort and happiness and the great terror and dread of all profane men and formalists Another thing which I finde my heart stirred up within me to do is to testifie to the world what I know in mine own experience touching the Army under the command of that most faithful and worthy General Sir Tho. Fairfax and that because I am not ignorant of the great undervaluing and despising and reproaching of it by many even of those whose blood runs warm in their veins and who enjoy all the comforts they have in the world through the faithfulness diligence activity labors hunger thirst cold weariness watchings marchings engagements stormings wounds and blood of these men instruments in the hand of God for the subduing that malignant power that rose up against the State and Saints of God yea instruments of Gods own chusing and calling forth to his foot for this great and glorious service which after-ages will wonder and stand amazed at as well as at the vile ingratitude of this age to such instruments as these for which God will not hold it guiltless This then for mine own part I am most confident on that there are as many gracious and godly Christians in it as in any gathering together of men in all the world again men full of faith and the Spirit and the admirable endowments of it More particularly there are these six things most remarkable in this despised Army 1. Their Unity which is admirable it being more the Unity of Christians then of men more a Unity in the Spirit then in the flesh in the Father and Son then in themselves And this hath been one great means of their great success they being all both in Counsel and Action but as one man The Lord hath taken them and knit them up in one bundle and so their Enemies could not break them but have been broken by them Many of their matters of greatest moment have been carried in Councel with that Unity that sometimes not so much as one hath contradicted 2. Their humility which hath been admirable as well as the former For after great and glorious Victories to the wonder of the Kingdom and of the World when Kings of the Army did flee apace and the men of might ran away as women I have never heard any of the worthy and godly Commanders or Officers ever to say I did this or that or to boast of his own counsel or his own strength or to attribute any thing to himself or any body else of what God had done but every one to say This was the Lords own doing and it is marvellous in our eyes and it was not our own sword or bowe but the Lords right hand and his arm and light of his countenance And they have been most willing to be nothing themselves that God might be all And this hath been one means to keep them humble because though God hath been much with them yet the world hath been much against them not for their own sakes who have done the work of the Kingdom faithfully and honestly but for Gods sake in them because there is more of God among these men then among other men therefore are they so maligned by many men For the world always most hates where there is most of God and you may have a shrewd guess wherethere is most of God by observing where the greatest hatred of the world lies 3. Their faith There are many in the Army men of great and precious faith through which they have wrought righteonsness obtained promises stopped the mouths of Lyons quenced the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in fight turned to flight the Armies of the Aliens Through this faith they have pursued their Enemies and overtaken them and turned not again till they had consumed them they have beaten them small as the dust before the winde and cast them out as dirt in the Streets Through faith they have entered strong Cities and I can truly and particularly say let them that will needs be offended stumble and fall at it that Bristol among other places was conquered by faith more then by force it was conquered in the hearts of the godly by faith before ever they stretched forth a hand against it and they went not so much to storm it as to take it in the assurance of faith Through faith one of them hath chased ten and ten put an hundred
to flight and an hundred a thousand And this was performed in the very letter of it at that famous and memorable battel at Naseby Many more instances I could relate of the power of faith in this Army but that I should thereby grieve and afflict many too much 4. The spirit of Prayer and this the Lord hath poured forth upon many of them in great measure not only upon many of the chief Commanders but on very many of the inferiour Officers and common Troopers some of whom I have by accident heard praying with that faith and familiarity with God that I have stood wondering at the grace We never undertook any thing of weight but God was always sought to of us again and again and we have found God near to us in all things we have called upon him for Yea God hath been found of us whilst yet we have been seeking him and hath given us the answer of our prayers into our bosoms 5. The special presence of God with them I have seen more of the presence of God in that Army then amongst any people that ever I conversed with in my life There hath been a very sensible presence of God with us we have seen his goings and observed his very foot-stepts for he hath dwelt amoug us and marched in the head of us and counsel'd us and led us and hath gone along with us step by step from Naseby to Leicester and from thence to Langport and Bridgewater and Bath and Sherborn and Bristol and the Devises and Winchester and Bazing and Dartmouth and Exceter and into Cornwal and back again to Oxford and all along his presence hath gone along with us and he hath been our strength and glory How often hath fearfulness and trembling taken hold upon the enemy and the stout men been at a loss for their courage and the men of might for their hands because of the presence of God with us yea because of this they have melted away in their strong Holds and delivered up their fenced Cities into our hands and every place we have come against we have taken in and every battel wherein we have fought we have prevailed And because God hath been in the midst of us we have not been moved our selves and our Enemies have perished not by our valour and weapons and strength but at the rebuke of his countenance This shall be writen for the generation to come seeing so many of this present generation so little regard it and the people that are to be born shall praise the Lord. 6. The sixth remarkable thing in the Army is their faithfulness to the state How have they gone up and down in weariness and labors and dangers and deaths to do the Kingdoms work when was it that they sate idle have they not as soon as one field was fought prepared to another as soon as one City was taken advanced to another and so gone on from one strong hold of the enemies to another till all have been reduced that peace might be hastned to this Kingdom if it were the will of God and not come as a snaile but as on Eagles wings yea have they not been active even all the winter long in a most cold and frosty season that continued so for two months together beating the enemy on t of the field and taking their Strong Holds when other Armies use to lie still Have they taken the pay of idleness or lived the life of luxury upon the State-maintenance Have they sought to lengthen the Wars for their own advantages Have they not made even a short work I challenge all the former Generations of the world to stand forth and to shew so much work of this kinde done in so little time And farther by all this success have they ever been lifted up so much as to petition the Parliament in any thing or to remonstrate any thing proudly and undutifully to them as some people surfeited with peace and plenty have done Or though the Kingdom next under God and the Parliament owes its protection and deliverance and freedom from Tyranny and Popery to this worthy Army have they for all this ever appeared to contest against the Kingdom for any thing or to stand with their swords in their hands to make demands Nay I declare this to all the Kingdom that as God hath made them glorious in doing so he hath made them contented to be perfected by suffering if it be the will of God And most confident I am that though some men for private ends and interests are murmuring and others speaking out against this Army as the perverse Israelites against Moses and Aaron yet the Lord in his due time will take away the reproach of all his people therein and that we shall hear songs from all the ends of the kingdom even glory to the righteous This I have spoken in truth and sincerity to the Kingdom And to that Army I shall say Who is like unto thee O people saved by the Lord who is the shield of thy help and the sword of thine excellency and thine enemies shall be found lyars unto thee and thou shalt tread upon their high places I have been longer in this Epistle then I intended but seeing there was such a cause at this no ingenuous man will blame me Christian Reader I am Thine to serve thee in the Lord and in the Gospel of his Son W. D. AN EXPOSITION Of the 54. Chapter of Isaiah from Vers 11. to the end The words are thus Vers 11. Oh thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones c. THis place of Scripture is very useful to the Church of God in these times wherein we live yea verily this Prophet did not so much Prophesie to his own age as to ours nor to the Jewish Church as to the Christian For unto them it was revealed that not unto themselves but unto us they did minister the things which are now reported unto you The Prophet Isaiah prophesied in the Spirit touching the Kingdom of Christ which stands not in the flesh but in the Spirit and delivers from the Father by the Spirit many excellent promises to be fulfilled in the Son Incarnate head and members The first promise in this Chapter is touching the great increase of the Church in the days of the New-Testament that whereas before the Church was to be found but in one kinred and tongue and people and nation now it should be gathered out of every kinred and tongue and people and nation And this is so desirable and comfortable a thing that in the beginning of the Chapter he calls upon all to rejoyce at this vers 1. Sing O barren thou that didst not bear break forth into singing and shout aloud thou that didst
Christ Joh 16. The world shall hate you and persecute you and shall put you out of their synagogues and shall kill you and in doing all this shall think they do God good service But saith he I will send you the comforter Christ knew well enough that among all these evils they should have no Comforter on earth and therefore promises to send them one from heaven And therefore when thy soul is placed in affliction never look after any earthly or sensual or creature comforts for they will prove poison to thy soul but only look for heavenly comforts such as the Spirit brings such as flow immediately from God for these are pure and sweet and unmixed and refreshing and supporting and satisfying and enduring comforts comforts that are able to make thee rejoyce not only in fulness but in wants not only among friends but in the midst of enemies not only in good report but in evil report not only in prosperity but in tribulations not only in life but in death they will make thee go singing to prison to the Cross to the grave they are mighty comforts infinitely stronger then all the sorrows of the flesh and hence it is that many Saints and Martyrs have gone cheerfully to the stake and sung in the very flames the comforts of God in their souls have strengthned them to this Thou that art a beleever and in union with Christ never doubt of this comfort in thy greatest sorrows When Christ had none to stand by him and comfort him God sent an Angel from heaven to do it And so when we are left alone in the world rather then we shall want comfort God will send us an Angel from heaven to comfort us yea the Spirit it self which is greater then all the Angels in heaven and we shall certainly be comforted by God when we are afflicted and tossed with tempest and not comforted by men Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours c. The Lord seeth the Church in its affliction without all comfort in the world and then the Lord comes and comforts it himself and this he doth by a promise They are the sweetest comforts that are brought to us in the promises The promises are the swadling-clothes of Christ they carry Christ wrapt up in them and Christ represented to the Church hath been the comfort of it in all its evils outward or inward And therefore whatever affliction takes hold on thee have recourse to the promises to draw thy comforts from Christ through them Oh how sweet is that life that is led in the promises a life led in the promises is the best life in the world Men that have estates in money or land depend on those things for their maintenance but a Christian may have little or nothing of these in the world but he hath a promise which is a thousand times better and makes his life more comfortable I am God All-sufficient and I will not fail thee nor forsake thee whereupon he comes to this resolution The Lord is my portion saith my soul I will trust in him Oh how sweet a life is this life that knows no cares nor fears nor troubles nor disquietments here saith a believer lies my estate and living and the lot of mine inheritance and this is a thousand times better and more certain estate then all the Mannors and Lordships in the Kingdom for my bread shall be given me my waters shall be sure The Lord is my shepheard and I shall not want no not then when the Lions the great men of the Kingdom to whom every poor man is a prey shall lack and sufferâ—hunger He that hath given me his own Nature and Spirit will not leave me destitute of food and clothing Take another instance A man feeling the bitterness of affliction to flesh and blood is ready to think Oh how shall I ever be able to suffer this or that or to part with my relations with my estate with my life and all that is near and dear unto me Why when a Christian lays hold on the promise God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able O saith a Christian God will never bring me to any temptation or trial but he will give me strength proportionable to it or above it and so lives satisfied with the truth and goodness and power of God And thus you see in these instances that a life led in the promises is the sweetest and best life when a man can draw all from God himself through a promise And this in general That God comforts his Church by a promise But to come more particularly to the words Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires Vers 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones The promise relates to the Spiritual Church of the New Testament and this you shall observe is oft in Scripture compared to a building and that to a most stately sumptuous magnificent and glorious building as being all built of precious stones and so more glorious then the first Temple which was built up of common stones and it was prophesied that the glory of the second Temple should far exceed the glory of the first The first Temple was Solomons which was indeed filled with the outward presence of God but the second Temple is the humanity of Jesus Christ or the flesh of Christ both head and members this is the living Temple of the living God the Temple that God hath built by his Spirit for his own habitation wherein God dwels truly really spiritually and most neerly by the way of the most neer union whereby God and the creature are knit together and this spiritual Temple is more glorious then the first material one either according to the first edition of it by Solomon or the second edition of it by the Fathers in the dayes of Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes Here then you see that the Lord promiseth to build up the Church of the New Testament with stones of fair colours with precious stones I will not stand to enquire particularly into the natures of the several stones here named for the Jews themselves do not fully agree about them It shall be sufficient for us to attain to the meaning of the Spirit in this place and that is this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament is not to be built with common but with pretious stones Now the full sense of these words I shall give you forth in several particulars 1. You see here the matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is not of common but of precious stones elect and precious stones and such are the faithful For 1. They have a more excellent nature then other men have for they are born of God and so partake of the nature of God and so in
this sense may be said to come forth from God as the child from the father and the Lord Jesus did not more truly partake of the nature of man then these do partake of the nature of God and therefore saith Peter Great and precious promises are made to us that we should be partakers of the divine nature Others have only the nature of men in them or which is worse the nature of the devil but the faithful have in them the nature of God communicated to them through a new birth 2. They have a more excellent spirit then others have as it was said of Daniel that there was a more excellent spirit found with him then with all the other wise men Now the excellency of each creature is according to the spirit of it but the Saints have the Spirit of God even the Spirit of the Father and the Son dwelling in them they have the same spirit of God dwelling in their flesh as Christ had dwelling in his flesh so that the very Spirit of God is found in the faithful and therefore they are more glorious then the rest of the world 3. They have a more excellent lustre then other men One thing that appertaines to the excellency of precious stones is the lustre of them Now this lustre in the faithfull is the glory of God upon them The Lord shall arise upon thee and his glory shall bee seen upon thee saith Isaiah Chap. 60. And Paul saith We all beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory even as by the Spirit of the Lord. So that as Christ was taken into the glory of the Father so are we taken into the glory of Christ as he saith Joh. 17. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them for the head and members are taken into the same glory acccording to their proportion 4. They have more excellent operations for the faithful are not such precious stones that are onely for shew but they also have some vertue in them even the very vertues of Jesus Christ for they having the same Nature and Spirit of God as he had are able according to the measure of the gift of Christ to do the same works that he did and so the Saints are excellent in the operations of faith hope love humility meekness patience temperance heavenly mindedness c. And in this regard also are more precious then the rest of the world And therfore the Lord cals them his Jewels In the day whrein I make up my jewels and elswhere they are called the precious Sons of Sion The people of God are a most precious people men and women of a precious anointing though some wicked and scurrilous Libellers against the spiritual Church will not allow them this name but according to the anointing they have received from Sathan reproach it And yet still it is a truth that the gates of hell shall not prevail against That the truly faithful are precious stones in the building of the Church partaking of the Nature and Spirit of God and of the lustre and operation of both Whereas on the contrary other people are the vile of the earth the true filth and off-scouring of all things Psal 15. In whose eyes a vile person is contemned a man that is a natural man a sinful and unregerate man who hath no other nature in him but that corrupt nature he brought into the world though in this present world he may be a Gentleman or a Knight or a Noble man or a King yet in the eys of God and his Saints he is but a vile person and a poor mean Christian that earns his bread by hard labour is a thousand times more precious and excellent then he according to the judgement of God and his Word And thus much for the first thing The matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made that is of precious stones 2. Now the next thing observable is the variety of these precious stones For the spiritual Church is not built up of precious stones of one sort onely not all of Saphires or all of Agates or all of Carbuncles but of all these both Saphires Agates Carbuncles and many other precious stones of fair colours And this notes the diversity of gifts in the Saints of God For though all of them are precious stones yet they are of diversity of colours and lustre and operations And this also makes for the greater glory of the Church for the variety of lustre adds to the beauty and ornament of it In the body of a man there is not one member but many If the body were all but one member it would be but a lump of flesh but the variety of members with their several gifts and operations are the glory of the body And so it is in the Church the Body of Jesus Christ wherein are divers members with diversity of gifts and operations excellently set forth by Paul 1 Cor. 12. 4. c. Now there are diversities of gifts but the same Spirit And there are differences of administrations but the same Lord and there are diversities of operations but it is the same God that worketh all in all But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withall For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisedom to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit to another faith by the same Spirit to another the gift of healing by the same Spirit to another the working of miracles to another prophecie to another discerning of spirits to another divers kinds of tongues to another interpretation of tongues but all these worketh that one and the same Spirit dividing to every man severally as he will Here you see are diversities of gifts and administrations and operations in the faithful but all proceed from one and the same Spirit and whatsoever gift proceeds from the Spirit there is an excellent beauty a heavenly lustre in it And therefore labour to distinguish between those gifts that are connatural to thee and flow from thy own spirit and those gifts that are supernatural and flow from Gods Spirit In all the operations of thine own spirit in all thy natural abilities parts wisdom learning actings there is nothing but ungloriousness deformity darkness death how specious soever they may appear to the world but in the gifts and operations that flow from Gods Spirit there is a heavenly beauty and lustre and glory yea even in weak Christians that are true Christians you shall oft see and discern an excellent beauty in some gift or other which they have received from the Spirit which shines not forth so clearly in some stronger Christians And therefore let us not expect all gifts in all men and that every man should excell in every gift for then one would be saying to another I have no need of thee But God hath given diversity of gifts to
you are taught and shall be so taught of God that no man or Angel shall be able to unteach you again 2. It is an inward teaching though by the outward Word reaching to the inward soul and spirit to the hidden man of the heart 3. It is a successeful teaching he so teaches as men learn he that hath heard and learned of my Father hearing and learning go together he teaches faith and we beleeve humility and we are humble patience and we endure c. But I cannot enlarge any farther in this point It followes And great shall be the peace of thy children That is when men are taught of God then there is nothing but peace among them when God comes and teacheth thee and me and another and many then we all agree because we are all taught of God and see all things by the same light and apprehend all things by the same knowledge and perceive all things by the same spirit because all have the same teaching And so they that are taught of God though one come out of the East and another out of the West and another out of the South and never had any former communion together yet they all agree in the same truth and think and speak the same things and so there is love and amity and peace and unity among them because they are all taught of God and have learned the truth not as it is in this or that man or assembly of men but as it is in Jesus And truly this is the true ground of all the differences and dissentions and heats that are in the Kingdom at this time to wit because some are taught of God and some are not taught of God but men onely the carnal Church is onely taught of men and goes no higher but the spiritual Church is truely taught of God Now they that are taught of God and they that are taught of men see the same truths with a great deal of difference and hereupon arises the Controversie and Quarrel for one will have the truth as he sees it in the light of God another will have it as he apprehends it in his own fancy and the carnal man will not yeeld to the spiritual and the spiritual man cannot yeeld to the carnal Saith one this is the minde of God and I have learned it from his own teaching saith another this is not the mind of God for such a learned Minister or Ministers taught me otherwise and so I apprehend it and thus as the flesh and spirit are contrary so are their teachings and hence our divisions and troubles But when men are all taught of God then they are all at peace one with another and all do agree in the substance of the truth of the Gospel and if some do not know the same things they do they can wait with patience till God also reveal that unto them for they know with all their hearts that they themselves could never have known those things except God had taught them and so they cannot be angry at others whom the Lord as yet hath not vouchsafed to teach and so they are meek and gentle towards all as beseems the spirit as well as at peace among themselves All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children For they know that no man is higher or lower then another in the Kingdom of God but all are equall in Jesus Christ they know that no man can challenge Christ more to himself then another but all have equal interest in him and Christ is alike neer to all in whom he dwels yea they all as willingly communicate their own things to the brethren as they themselves do partake of Christs things and so there is nothing but peace When men know that no man is any thing in himself but every one is all that he is in Christ and when men love Christ meerly for himself and where they see most of Christ there love most and if Christ be more in another then himself can love such a one more then himself not for his own sake but for Christs sake then there is nothing but peace Great shall be the peace of thy children Vers 14. In righteousness shalt thou be established c. This spiritual Church had need of establishment for when God hath done all this for it when he hath built it and taught it himself it shall not want trouble and opposition and contradiction and persecution in the world and therefore it stands in great need of establishment But how shall this be done Why saith he In righteousness shalt thou be established That is not by any outward power or force or armies or fortifications or factions or confederacies all these are but a staffe of reed but in righteousness and that is both in the righteousness of Christ received by us and working in us the first is the righteousness of justification the second is the righteousness of sanctification and our establishment lies in both 1. In the righteousness of Justification which is called the righteousness of faith or Christs own righteousness received into us and in this sence it is said Except ye believe ye shall never be established for by faith we partake of the righteousness of God through Christ and this is an infinite and everlasting righteousness that hath neither spot nor blemish in it this is able to establish us for ever and ever so that the Church hath no more establishment then it hath of the righteousness of Christ by faith and as the Church goes from faith to faith so it goes from establishment to establishment 2. Our establishment lies in the righteousness of our sanctification which is nothing but Christ working in us as the former was Christ dwelling in us for the same Christ that is the righteousness of our justification is the righteousness of our sanctification Now the establishment of the Church is when we let the righteousness of Christ worke all in us and we work all in the righteousness of Christ then are we established mightily and invincibly indeed and how much Christians swerve from this Rule so much they become weak and unsetled sometimes Christians will be living out of Christ in themselves and they will be moving and acting and working according to humane wisdom and prudence and the counsels and devices of flesh and blood but in all this they have no establishment at all And therefore ye that are faithful see to it that ye turn aside neither to the right hand nor to the left through any worldly hopes or fears but do ye live and act in the righteousness of Christ and as the Lord lives though you have Kingdoms and Nations for your enemies you shall not be moved but shall be established more firmly then the earth And therefore I pray consider your establishment where it lies and that is in righteousness and in righteousness only Some trust to this strength and some
to do it to the great prejudice and disturbance of both 2. That you would be pleased to think that Christ Kingdom which is not of this world hath sufficient power in it self to mannage all the affairs of it without standing in need of any ayd or help from the world Seeing the power of man is of no place or use in the Kingdom of God which is not a Temporal or an Ecclesiastical Dominion but a Spiritual 3. That you would suffer the little stone of Christs Kingdom to be hewen out of the Mountain of the Roman Monarchy whereof this Kingdom is a part without hands even by the power and efficacy of the word and spirit seeing the hands of men cannot help but hinder this work which is to be done without hands And that your might and your power would please to let God do this work of his without might and without power and by his Spirit only 4. That you would be pleased to suffer the assemblings of the Saints both publikely and privately as occasion serves seeing this can be no prejudice to the State but a great advantage in as much as they meet peaceably and make no tumulâ—s and in their assembling pray for the peace and welfare of this divided and distracted Kingdom And also that you take heed of scattering those Churches that meet in the Name and Spirit of Jesus Christ which are Christs own gatherings together least Christ so scatter you abroad that you never be gathered together again 5. That you take heed you do nothing to the prejudice of the faithful Gods own people as he hath warned you by the Spirit saying Touch not mine anoynted and do my Prophets no harm This place hath been miserably mistaken for the Kings of the Earth and the Clergy have shared it between themselves whereas indeed it belongs to neither for Gods anoynted are the faithful that are anoynted with the Spirit the oyl of God and so are anoynted as Christ was anoynted And these anoynted ones are the Lords Prophets and the Lord hath no Prophets but such as are anoynted with the Spirit Thus Christ was made the Lords Prophet The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath anoynted me to preach the Gospel and thus are all his Brethren made Prophets being fellows with him in his Unction And therefore take heed how you meddle with the Lords anoynted ones and with the Lords Prophets for as it is said He suffered no man to do them wrong yea he even reproved Kings for their sakes saying Touch not c. So the Lord hath still the same care of the same people and will suffer no man to do them wrong but will reprove Kings and Parliaments and Kingdoms and Cities and Counties and Committees he will reprove them all for their sakes and say Touch not mine anoynted and do my Prophets no harm for they that are anoynted with the Spirit are the flesh of Christ and the Prophets of God therefore touch them and harm at them your own peril It grieves me to see the rest of the Kingdom touching these anoynted ones of God and doing harm to these his Prophets abusing and spoyling and imprisoning them It would grieve me much more if I should see you doing the same for this would bring you as well as the Kingdom under Gods own reproof and the reproof of God who can indure Sixthly and lastly Take heed you do not hinder the free passage of the Gospel When God hath put his Spirit into the hearts of men take heed how you resist the Word in those mens mouths for the Word of God in the meanest instrument can never be resisted but will carry all before it The Honour Power Dignity Authority Nobility Magistracy of the Kingdom if they should once stand up to hinder the Word of God the Word of God would carry them all before it And therefore it grieves me to see how the City Countrey Counties Towns Villages do all rise up for the most part against the ministration of the Spirit for this is a certain sign of the undoing of them all God will suffer and endure any sin long but onely the contempt and opposition of the Gospel but when men once rise up against the Gospel in the Spirit and Power of it they are sure to be undone by it and to be shattered all in pieces for this brings swift Vengeance And therefore when I see the generality of the people of all sorts rise up against the Ministration of the Spirit which God hath now in these dayes of ours set up even in every County for salvation to his people but for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to the rest I am then exceedingly distressed and pained at the very heart for thee O England and for all thy Cities and Towns and Inhabitants for thou that dashest against the Spirit in the Gospel how shalt thou be dashed in pieces thy self and there shall be no healing for thee I could hope for Peace again and good dayes suddenly in this Kingdom but for this sin of the contempt and opposing the Gospel and this makes my hopes even at an end and the day of my fear is come forth upon me But oh you honourable and beloved Christians let not your soul enter into those mens secrets neither yet walk in their open and publike wayes for ruin and destruction are in their pathes and the way of peace they shall never know seeing God is about to enter into controversie with all flesh for their rising up against the Ministration of the Spirit And therefore be Wise here I beseech you that in the shattering of the Nation if there be no remedy you may be kept together as a blessed remnant and a hopeful seed of the following generation To conclude Honourable and Worthy we will be willingly contented to do and suffer all things with you we will chearfully run through honour and dishonour with you fame and infamy gain and loss trouble and quietness War and Peace Life and Death and do desire to reserve nothing to our selves Nisi unicum verbum domini but onely the Word of God in its own purity and liberty to preach it and to publish it and to profess it and to practise it for the glory of God and his only begotten Son and for the good of his Kingdom and this Kingdom And thus much unto you from the Lord. A REPLY To Mr. LOVE'S Contradictions SIR BEcause I would not wrong you in any measure in what you said I went to one who took your Notes in short-hand and he gave me what I here set down for yours which I well remember are the things you then spake for the substance of them To which I give you this following Reply Mr. LOVE Cast your eyes upon the begun Reformation though peradventure cryed down with Confidence No such thing as the Reformation of the Church c. Reply I taught indeed That the Kingdom of Christ is
with him But I am perswaded better things of you though I thus speak and even such things as are suitable to the light of the Gospel and to the vertues and graces of Christ and his Spirit which have been hitherto and I hope will yet still be very manifest not only in You Honorable Ones who have the chief Conduct but also in very many of the Councel and Army besides And upon such a gathering together of Gods people and Saints let the world if it please still laugh at that word who can but think he hath some choice and singular work in hand for his own glory The Lord God Almighty hath already done great and wonderful works by you and is yet doing greater if you will continue to beleeve and obey and in all these things he only is to be exalted and not You. For hath not that Day of the Lord of Hosts dawned yea the morning of it is already gone forth Which is upon every one that is proud and lofty and upon every one that is lifted up and he is to be brought low and the Lord alone is and must be exalted in this day Now the Lord cause you to dwell and continue in that Church which is the body of Christ and habitation of God and give you peace with those that are reconciled to God by Christ and to one another in Christ by the Spirit in which union and communion I remain Your assured Servant W. D. TO THE READER SUCH are the noises of waters and thundrings and earthquakes among us and so great and continued are our shakings and confusious through hatred and love hopes and fears joyes and sorrows triumphs and indignations that there is no silence in heaven for so much as half an hour Wherefore though I discourse here touching so sweet and glorious a thing as PEACE and do declare from the very word or else I had said nothing wherein the true peace of the true Church consists and also how the faithful and Churches may preserve that peace in their Communion with one another which they have in the Son and in the Father yet mens heads and hearts are now so full that it is to be doubted but few will regard it Notwithstanding considering that there is among us an election of grace and a flock of Christ who both know and will hear his voyce at any time I thought good to speak this in their behalf for whose profit all the creatures of God were made in the world and all the gifts of Christ are given in the Church And though I am very conscious of my rudeness of speech in this Discourse as also of my weakness and infirmity in many things having not yet attained to a perfect man and to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ and so dare not say that every jot and tittle here is of the pure river of water of life without any humane mixture yet they that are spiritual and able to judge will own all in it that is of the word and spirit of truth and will not reject silver tryed four or five times because it is not tryed seven times And what is weak and imperfect in it the true Church of Christ for whose dear sake and love I have spoken all this seeing it is as Luther speaks The Queen of Mercy whose very bowels are meer compassions and forgivenesses of sins will easily pass it by and forgive it And as for men haughty and high in their own spirit contemning and disdaining any thing that agrees not to their palate I do as easily despise their censure as they lightly pass it It is enough that I seek the glory of Jesus Christ the Son of the living God and the welfare of that Church that is his body and for the rest let me become as vile as the Apostles were made to the world who were counted the filth and offsouring of all things or as Mr Baily Rutherford Bastwick Pryn Love or any other of my old enemies in Parliament and City not worth the naming have sought to make me All whom unless God give them repentance to life I cite as once Hierom of Prague did his enemies in the like cause To appear within a few years before the most high and righteous Judge Jesus Christ to answer all that they have done wickedly if not maliciously against his Name Truth Gospel Spirit People and that under the form and pretence of godliness And now well knowing that the more any thing is of Christ the more enmity and opposition it will meet with from the world and from the worldly Church I commit Christs own word and cause to his own care and protection who lives and reigns for this very purpose to uphold his own despised truth against the glorious but deceitful doctrines of men and to make all his enemies his foot-stool And so waiting in this assured hope if thou love Christ I remain Thine in him VVilliam Dell. The Contents THE Introduction pag. 149 The Gospel propounded is neither 1. Between the Church and the world p. 150 2. Nor between the Spiritual and Carnal children of the Church ibid. 3. But between the faithful or true children of the true Church p. 151 The true Church described p. 152 The true Church of God differs from the Churches of men in 13. particulars from p. 153 to p. 157 How this Church may be known p. 158 How we may be joyned to it p. 159 The Church a great mystery as well as Christ p. 160 Seven bonds of this Churches Vnity viz. ibid. 1. One body p. 161 2. One Spirit p. 165 3. One Hope of our calling p. 167 4. One Lord. p. 169 5. One Faith p. 172 6. One Baptisme p. 175 7. One God and Father of all who is above all through all and in all p. 176 These seven bonds are sufficient for the Vnity and Peace of the Church without any additions of mans devising 178. How the true Church of believers thus made one by God may be preserved one in their communion among themselves p. 180 To this end 1 They must know some things otherwise then yet they do ibid. Particularly they must be instructed touching the government of the church ibid. This Government is twofold 1. Immediate And this also is twofold 1. The Government of Gods speciall Providence p. 181 2. The government of his spiritual presence p 182 These two Governments the true church never wanted in any age nor in this p. 184 2. Mediate This also is Christs Government and not mans p. 185 And it is Christs ordering all things by the faithful among the faithful in reference to the communion of Saints ibid. This is drawn forth into several particulars which are these 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church 186 2. What kinde of power it is which the true Church hath set down in 6. particulars 188 And here
and not in the light of the Word which shows us clearly that it is as possible to reconcile Michael and the Devil as the Angels of both 2. Neither secondly do I finde any way in the World to reconcile all those together who are commonly called The visible Church seeing even among these there are two distinct sorts of children as Paul teacheth us one sort of those that are born after the flesh as Ishmael and Esau and another of those who are born after the spirit as Isaac and Jacob and there is as great enmity between these in the Church as between the former in the world for they that are born after the flesh are always persecuting them that are born after the spirit but never agreeing with them Now of these two sorts of Christians one makes up the body of Christ the other the body of Antichrist The spiritual children make up Christs true body as it is written He gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his body for these being born of the Spirit do also partake of the Spirit and so are the true flesh of Christ as all that flesh is in which the Spirit dwels and these all worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh that is in no fleshly Forms Ceremonies or Worship The carnal children of the Church make up Antichrists true body For as Christs body consists of spiritual Christians so Antichrists of carnal For Antichrist sets up in the temple of God as well as Christ and as Christ get his body together of spiritual Christians so Antichrist gets his body together of carnal Christians and these have a form of Religion or godliness but they have no spirit or power in that form yea under the form of godliness they exercise the greater power of ungodliness And Christ and his Spirit and all their things are nowhere more opposed then by those in the Church who have the letter of the word but want the spirit of it being taught of men only and not of God So that all that part of Christianity that is destitute of the Spirit and hath the name only and not the anointing of Christians this makes up the body of Antichrist And now there can be no more agreement between these two bodies of Christ and of Antichrist that is between spiritual and carnal Christians then between Christ and Antichrist themselves the heads of these bodies And as I finde nothing in the word so neither do I propound any thing for an agreement here for to go about to reconcile there where the Father never intended nor the Son never undertook any reconciliation would not be a work of wisedom but of weakness So then the way of peace I shall speak of is between the children of peace touching whom God hath promised That he will give them one heart and one way and for whom Christ hath prayed That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in theâ— that they also may be one in us And these are the elect made faithful called to be Saints and sanctified through their calling and these are the true Church of God The peace then I seek by this Discourse is the peace of the true Church Wherefore I shall first declare the Church it self whose peace I seek and then after declare wherein this Churches true peace and unity lies and also how it may be preserved among themselves it being first wrought by Jesus Christ For the Church it self what I have learned touching it I shall speak plainly and something largely because the right understanding hereof is so absolutely necessary to our present business and yet there are very many and very great mistakes and mis apprehensions touching it even among the faithfull The right Church then is not the whole multitude of the people whether good or bad that joyn together in an outward form or way of worship for in this Church there are Whoremongers Idolaters Thieves Murderers and all sorts of wicked and unbelieving persons which are so far from being the Church of Christ that they are the very Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and therefore I shall not speak of this Church But the Church I shall speak of is the true Church of the New Testament which I say is not any outward or visible society gathered together into the consent or use of outward things forms ceremonies worship as the Churches of men are neither is it known by seeing or feeling or the help of any outward sense as the Society of Mercers or Drapers or the like but it is a Spiritual and Invisible Fellowship gathered together in the unity of faith hope and love and so into the unity of the Son and of the Father by the Spirit wherefore it is wholly hid from carnal eyes neither hath the world any knowledge or judgement of it This true Church is the Communion of Saints which is the communion believers have with one another not in the things of the world or in the things of men but in the things of God for as believers have their union in the Son and in the Father so in them also they have their communion and the communion they have with one another in God cannot be in their own things but in Gods things even in his light life righteousness wisdom truth love power peace joy c. This is the true Communion of Saints and this Communion of Saints is the true Church of God Now this true Church of God differs from the Churches of men in very many particulars as follows 1. Members come unto the Churches of men either of their own minds or else by the perswasion or by the forcing of others and so but after the will of man but none come to this true Church but from the drawing of God the Father and his own calling according to his own purpose 2. In the Churches of men members are admitted through an outward confession of doctrine but none are admitted into this true Church but through a new birth from God and his Spirit Joh. 3. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God which is the right Church of the New Testament For that which is born of the flesh is flesh and so remains without in the world but that which is born of the spirit is spirit and so hath entrance into the true Church 3. In the Churches of men there are more wicked then righteous but in this true Church of Christ the people are all righteous not one excepted as it is written Thy people shall be all righteous Isa 60. For they all have their iniquities forgiven them and they are all redeemed and washed with the blood of the Lamb. 4. In the Churches of men the people for the most part are onely taught of men who are their heads and leaders and whose judgements they depend on
forth as the Spirit is manifested in each Now if any shall say How may I know Christs Spirit in these acts and duties from a mans own I answer That as by the Word of God we can judge of all other Words and Doctrines and as by the Faith of Christ we can judge of all other beliefs so by the Spirit of Christ we can judge of all other spirits and can know where is the same spirit and where is a different or a contrary spirit as the members of the body can judge of the one-ness of Spirit that is among themselves The third bond of the true Churches unity is ONE HOPE OF OUR CALLING Even as ye are called in one hope of your calling As all Believers are called by one calling which is the inward and effectual voyce of God to the soul by his Spirit through the Gospel so they are all called into one blessed hope of obtaining the Kingdom and glory of God And no one is called to this hope more then another or hath more interest or share in it then another Fishes that live in the Sea though some be greater and some less yet none hath more interest or share in it then another but all being alike produced in it enjoy it alike and creatures that live on the earth though some be greater and some less yet all enjoy the Sun and Ayr alike and yet nearer the members of the body though of different quantity form and office yet all have alike interest in the head and all its senses and in the soul and all its faculties So all the faithful enjoy Christ alike and in him the Spirit and the Father and no Believer hath more interest in Christ and God then another So that all the faithful are called to the same things and God gives not more nor better things to one then to another but he gives immortality glory eternal life the Kingdom of Heaven which is the inheritance of the Saints or which is all one himself alike to all and makes all to sit alike in heavenly places in Christ and in the Father All the faithful then are equally called to an Vnity of hope and none can hope for greater or better things then another It was a very carnal thing in the Mother of Zebedee's children to desire of Christ That one of her Sons might sit at his right hand and another at his left hand in his Kingdom where all alike sit at his right hand and none at all at his left Indeed in the Kingdoms of men some have greater estates then others and are in higher Honour and Authority and this breeds envie and emulation and strife and distances c. but in the Sons Kingdom and in the Fathers all that are counted worthy to dwell therein do alike inherit all things All things are yours saith Paul And he that overcomes shall inherit all things saith John And the least believer hath no less and the greatest hath no more and this causes unity and peace among them We see what a strong bond of peace and agreement unity of hope is in them that travel together that fight together that labour together and so much more in them who are equally called by God to the Kingdom of God And this is the third bond of the true Churches Vnity Vnity of Hope Now they break this bond of the Churches Vnity that live out of this hope of the Church whose hope is in earthly carnal base things who pretending to be Christians yet live onely in the hopes of men in hopes of worldly profit honour preferment and the attaining and enjoyment of the things of this life which they according to the eagerness of their hopes prosecute mightily by all ways and means These men I say break the Vnity of the Church for what true Vnity can they have with the true Church that live not in unity of hope with it Seeing worldly hopes carry men one way and the hopes of Believers carry them another carnal hopes make men leave God for the world and the hope of Saints make them leave the world for God Wherefore they that differ in their hopes which are their ends must needs differ in their ways and works and so he that lives out of the hope of the Church lives also out of the unity of it The fourth bond of the true Churches unity is ONE LORD The right Church hath not many Lords but One and this one and only Lord is the Lord Jesus Christ And so all the subjects of this Kingdom are fellow servants to one Lord to whom they do owe equal obedience and this also is a strong bond of Vnity For when there are divers Lords there are divers minds and wils and ends and so divers laws and these breed divisions and dissentions and wars among men but where there is but one Lord there is also but one Law and where people live by one Law under one Lord unto whom all are equally subject this breeds peace and union Now the Lordship of the Church is the Royal Prerogative of Christ and no creature must presume to arrogate this honour to himself seeing unto the very Angels he hath not put in subjection this world to come whereof we speak And for men Christ hath charged his own Apostles who if there were any difference among Believers might undoubtedly challenge the preheminence I say Christ hath charged even them on this sort Matth. 23. 10. Be not ye called Masters for one is your Master even Christ but he that is greatest among you shall be your servant That is you may and ought to be servants to one another but not masters and this same doctrine the Apostle James preacheth Jam. 3. 1. My brethren saith he be not many Masters knowing that we shall receive the greater condemnation it is not fit for brethren who are equal among themselves to make themselves masters over one another Christ also hath spoken again so plainly to this matter Math. 20. that one would wonder that ever the Beast or his image should dare to arrogate to themselves Lordship over the People of God in so clear a light Ye know saith Christ to the twelve that the Princes of the Gentiles exercise Dominion over them and they that are great exercise authority over them but it shall not be so amongst you he speaks it peremptorily that some Believers should not exercise dominion and authority over Believers no not the greatest over the least all being fellow servants alike under one Lord. Wherefore they that are puffed up in their hearts against their fellow servants might better think thus with themselves why Christ is our Lord as well as theirs and is as much over us as over them and we are not over our fellow servants nor they under us but both of us are equally under Christ and Christ is equally over us both and so Christ hath given us the same laws he hath given them to
ALL WHO IS ABOVE ALL AND THROUGH ALL AND IN YOU ALL. And this though it be last named yet it is the first fountain and original of the Churches unity even One God and Father of all The true Church is a Kingdom of brethren who have all one God and Father from whom all receive alike the divine nature which being one and the same in all without any difference makes them all one and equal that are born of God For among these none have a better Father then another nor none hath a more excellent nature then another but all receive the same nature from the same God and Father and so are brethren in the Lord and this also is another strong bond of unity For they having all one God an Father First all are alike dear to him because all are alike born of him and so he loves not one more or less then another but comprehends all in one and the same love with Jesus Christ And this truly known will restrain believers from wronging one another when they know that such are every whit as dear to God as themselves and that God hath as great and tender love to them and care over them Secondly All are alike near to us because of this one God and Father and so among true Christians there can be no such divisions and factions and sidings as among worldly people because one Christian is not nearer to us then another and so we do not take part with one against another but all are alike near to us and so without any respect of persons we embrace all that are born of God with an equal love and seek the good of each one yea of every one as well as any one Now this God and Father of the Church he farther describes that he is 1. ABOVE ALL The Father is above the children and they are not above one another but he is above them all ruling and over-ruling them and so they are not to live in their own wills which might cause difference but in their Fathers will which causes unity and thus his being above them all keeps them in peace Whereas we see where children live without due subjection having no body above them as it falls out sometimes among Orphans there they are often unquiet and grievous to one another But God is above all his children and so keeps them in due subjection to him and in quietness and love with one another daily composing their differences through his unity 2. He is THROUGH ALL as having communicated to all his own nature and so according to this nature of his which he hath communicated to all alike and all alike possess he is through them all And hereupon they all must needs be one because God never differs from himself but his nature is at unity with it self in all in whom it dwels and brings them all out of the differences of their natures into the unity of Gods 3. He is IN THEM ALL. God is such a Father as hath his presence in all his Children he hath a special presence in them dwelling in them after the maner he dwelt in Christ though not in that measure for God dwels in Christ and Christians otherwise then in the rest of the creatures to wit by communicating his nature to them through his union with them And wherever God communicates his nature there he is present most truly powerfully and gloriously indeed And such a presence of God in his Church as this keeps it in constant and unchangeable unity For how can they who have God thus dwelling in them and who again thus dwell in God be at odds among themselves And this is the seventh bond of the true Churches unity ONE GOD AND FATHER c. Now they break this bond of the Churches unity who have not this one God and Father of the Church to be their God and their Father who will needs call God Father and yet are none of his children who will be of the Church of God and yet are not born of God and so live according to their own natures and not according to Gods all these I say break the unity of the Church seeing we can no longer live in peace then this one God and Father is above us and through us and in us All they then that will needs be members of the Church through outward profession and yet are none of this spiritual brother hood as having no descent from this heavenly Father they break this unity of the Church even all the children that are onely born after the flesh and so still live according to the natures of men and are not born of the Spirit to live after the nature of God These now are the seven bonds of the true Churches true unity and peace and there is no other bond of unity necessary for the Church besides these For if there had the Apostle being guided by the Spirit would never have omitted it And therefore the more are they to blame who making a great noise and lifting up their voyce on high for unity peace and agreement in the Church yet do wholly neglect these seven bonds of the true Churches unity and cry up one instead of them all and that is External Vniformity So that now among them one body and one Spirit and one hope of our calling and one Lord and one Faith and one Baptism and one God and Father of all are nothing at all to the Churches unity but their uniformity is all in all and whoever breaks that which yet they have no Scripture of God to enjoyn no nor once to name he is the man with them that breaks the Churches peace and so Antichrist-like they have exalted their single uniformity above this seven-fold unity of the Church and so have as much as in them lies made the word of the Spirit void through their carnal that I say no more traditions For a man may break all these seven bonds of the Churches unity and yet be a very good member of their Church if he onely observe their uniformity but if he break this he is a Schismatike and an Heretike and not worthy to live in their account though he live in all the bonds of this true and spiritual unity Wherefore to escape these snares let all believers know assuredly that these seven bonds named by the Apostle which are all spiritual and of God and not one of them carnal or of man are the onely bonds of the true Churches true unity and that whoever of their own minds presume to add to these are guilty of adding to the word of God themselves being but wretched creatures and so involve themselves in all the curses written in his Book among which death and hell have their place And let us further know that whoever do combine together to make themselves one out of the fore-named unity though they call themselves the Church never so
to enquire after variety of errors Wherefore letting alone their darkness I shall onely endeavour that the light of the word may shine unto us in this matter that herein also we may be taught of God if it be the will of God This mediate Government then of Christ in the true Church I conceive to be nothing but this Christs ordering all things by the faithful among the faithful in reference to the communion of Saints Now because many Christians desire instruction and light in this matter I shall be willing to hold forth to them that measure of knowledge which I have received herein being desirous also to learn my self of them that can teach me better by the Word And that I may proceed the more distinctly I shall propound several things to which I shall speak in order and they be these 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church in reference to the communion of Saints 2. What kinde of power this is which the true Church hath 3. What is the extent of this power 4. What is the outward instrument of it 5. What the true Church can do by vertue of it And this comprehends these particulars 1. It can gather it self together 2. It can appoint its own order 3. It can choose its own officers and if need be reform them or depose them 4. It can call its own councels 5. It can judge of all Doctrines both of its Officers and Councels And all these things I reckon needful for the true Church to know for the preserving among themselves that peace and unity they have in Christ They first thing then is 1. To whom Christ hath committed the power of ordering and managing all things in the true Church in reference to the communion of Saints I Answer He hath given it to the true Church it self as formerly described even to each and all the members of it for as natural power belongs to all natural men alike so spiritual power which is the true Church power to all spiritual men alike Christ in a Believer is the root of true Church-power and because Christ dwels in all Believers alike through unity of faith therefore all Believers partake alike of spiritual and super-natural power and no one partakes of this power more then another any more then he partakes of Christ more then another but Christ in them all is the self same power of God to do all things that are to be done in the Kingdom of God And according this sense that place in Math. 16. 19. is to be understood where Christ saith to Peter And I will give unto thee the keys of the Kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven The Pope and Papal Church under colour of this place have made great merchandise and have exceedingly abused and cheated the Nations for many hundred years together but the light of the Gospel hath shined forth and the days of their traffique are at end And yet since others have been trucking with the world by their false interpretations of this place and have thought to use it to their great advantage but the day hath so far dawned that their shadows also are flying away But not to keep you longer from the words themselves Peter had said to Christ Thou art Christ the Son of the living God And Christ replyed to Peter Blessed art thou for flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee but my Father which is heaven and then adds Vnto thee will I give the keys of the Kingdom of heaven c. that is not to Peter as an Apostle or Minister but as a Believer who had the Revelation of the Father touching the Son and so also they are given equally to each faithful Christian who hath the same Revelation with Peter as also to the whole communion of Saints And so these Keys are not given to any particular person or persons consisting of flesh and blood or imployed in such or such an Office but that man whoever he be that hath the Revelation of the Father he it is to whom these Keys are given and to none else and so they are given to each Believer in particular and to the whole Church of Believers in general But what are these Keys about which there hath been so great a do in the Church I answer They are not any outward Ecclesiastical power whatever that men have devised to serve their own turns withal but to pass by the many false conceits wherewith many former and present Writers have and do still trouble the Church John doth tell us plainly Joh. 20. 22. what Matthew means by the Keys of the Church Christ saith he appearing to his Disciples after his Resurrection breathing on them said Receive the holy Spirit here are the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven and then adds Whose sins ye remit they are remitted and whose sins ye retain they are retained that is when ye have received the Spirit then you have received the Keys to binde and loose to remit and retain sin and that not according to your wils but wholly according to the minde and will and direction of the Spirit And so Christ then before his ascention gave these Keys truly to his Disciples but more solemnly and fully at the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was given by Christ glorified and after the Gentiles who by the preaching of Peter received the Spirit even as the Apostles did they also received these Keys and so all that have received the Spirit have the Keys of the Kingdom equally committed to them and the power of binding and loosing by the ministration of the Spirit And so these Keys appertain not only to greater Congregations of Christians but to the very least communion of Saints as Christ hath promised Where two or three are met together in my name there am I present in the midst of them Where we see that two or three gathered together in Christs name have as much power as Peter and all the Apostles because Christ is equally present with these as with those Again Christ hath commanded that if the offending brother will not hear the admonition of two or three other brethren the offended brother should tell the Church Mat. 18. 17. Now the Church is not the Officers but the Congregation of the faithful seeing men are not of the Church through any Office but only through faith And by all these things it is evident That the power of Church-government that is the power of acting and ordering all things among the faithful belongs to every faithful man alike in the Congregation of the faithful 2. What kinde of power this is which the true Church hath I answer in general that it is a power sutable to the Church or Kingdom whereof it is the power
is a mistake among some brethren to call the Congregations of Christ by the names of men though godly and eminent and to say Mr. such an ones Church or Mr. such an ones Church and so to put the Church under several Heads which works distinction and division whereas they should rather say the Church of Christ in such or such a place it being wherever it is one Church under one Head and Governor Jesus Christ And therefore let us know that it is part of the mystery of iniquity for the Church or faithful to have one or moe visible Heads to go to not being contented with Christ alone And though this hath been and will be the practice of the carnal Church yet the spiritual Church and people do only own and have recourse to Christ their true and spiritual Head And so they all living as one body and members one of another under one onely Head live all in invincible peace and unity whereas difference of outward Heads and Ringleaders alwayes breeds difference and divisions among Christians The eighth Rule is For the true Church to keep out all error in Doctrine seeing this breeds not onely division but confusion and ruine also in the Church Wherefore the Congregations of Christ must be the more careful and watchful in this matter When some false Apostles taught at Antioch that Except Christians were circumcised after the manner of Moses they could not be saved which was a most dangerous error against Christ and the Gospel the whole Church first at Antioch and presently after at Jerusalem met together to keep it out which accordingly through God they did So that what ever Doctrines are evidently against the Word of truth and Gospel of our salvation the Church is to take care to keep them out as it loves its own peace and unity Now if any say By what means may the Church be able to keep out error I Answer It may certainly keep out Error by these means 1. Let the Church suffer none to teach among them that are not themselves taught of God though they have never so great natural parts and never so much humane learning For when they are the Teachers that are taught of God they will only teach the truth which they have heard and learned from God And the line of every mans teaching must extend no further But when they teach that are not so taught they will in many things vary from the truth as it is in Jesus yea and under a form of sound doctrine will give forth an unsound and false sense to the deceiving of many that are weak and simple and so under pretence of Christ will utter the voice of a stranger and endanger the mis-leading of some sheep for a time 2 Let the faithful examine every thing that is taught by the Word of God and not receive doctrines upon trust from their Teachers who through the reputation of their learning and holiness may easily lead them unawares into error And therefore let the Church compare the present Doctrine Preached and Printed and generally received with the Doctrine of the Prophets and Apostles which without doubt is sure and certain seeing those holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit And whatever Doctrine shall be found contrary to or different from that Doctrine let them reject it as reprobate silver seeing the Church is to be built upon no other foundation of Doctrine then that of the Prophets and Apostles And though through Gods especial goodness the Doctrine of the Gospel be again revived among us at this present time yet ought we not to sit down content with the present state of things but to search and see if our present Doctrine do not yet err from the Primitive purity and brightness of the Gospel and that in many considerable points and whether some or many corruptions do not yet remain among us to be purged out by the light and truth of the Apostles Doctrine Wherefore to conclude this thing let us know that the Church cannot possibly keep out Error longer then it precisely keeps it self to the bare and naked Word of God and tries all Doctrines of their Teachers by it 3. The Church that it may be able to keep out Errors must desire of God the Spirit which he hath promised that this Spirit of Truth may lead them into the true and spiritual knowledge of the word and understanding of the minde of Christ For no man can make any right Judgement of the word he hears or reads without the teaching of the Spirit And by this Anointing as we shall be certainly taught which is Truth so also we shall discern which is Error and that by so clear and true a light that we shall not mistake Wherefore Christians must take heed that they do not think with carnal people that the ability to judge of divine truths and humane and Antichristian errors depends upon humane learning Arts and Sciences for thus it will come to pass that they judging themselves unable to judge of matters of Religion will wholly leave the judgement of them to those whom they conceive after this manner learned whereby they leave open a wide door through which the Teachers may bring in all sorts of Errors upon them But Believers must know that the gift of the Spirit onely without all humane learning is sufficient to teach us perfectly which is Truth and which Error and to make us able to judge of all doctrines of men and Angels and that all humane learning in the world without the Spirit is not able to do this And so a poor plain Country man by the Spirit which he hath received is better able to judge of Truth and Error touching the things of God then the greatest Philosopher Scholar or Doctor in the world that is destitute of it 4 Another notable means to keep Error out of the Church is to restore in it that most antient Gospel-Ordinance of Prophesying which how much soever it have been out of use during the reign of Antichrist yet is no other then the very commandment of the Lord as Paul witnesseth 1 Cor. 14. 31. where he saith When the whole Church is met together ye may all prophesie one by one that all may learn and all may be comforted and adds vers 3â— If any man think himself to be a Prophet or spiritual let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord Wherefore brethren labour that ye may prophesie So that prophesying in the Church is Gods own Commandment as every Prophet and spiritual man must acknowledge Now this divine Ordinance of prophesying is three wayes helpful to keep out Error 1. For first When one man only speaks in the Church and no man is suffered to speak besides him as he is very subject to be puffed up and to conceit that wisdom onely dwels with him so he iâ— more ready to vent the
thoughts of his own heart to speak the Dreams and Visions of his own head But when he knows the Word of God is not come to him only but to others also and that they have wisdom and spirit to speak in the Church as well as he this will both keep down his pride and make him careful what he speaks when he knows there are those present in the Congregation that are able to reprove his darkness by light And this prophesying is a strong bit and bridle in the jaws of Error that it cannot run that race in the Church it doth desire 2. When one man only speaks and the doctrine he preaches proves to be erroneous as it is ordinarily in the common Ministry of the Kingdom it comes to pass that Error is not onely preached but also goes away uncontrouled and no way is left for the restraining Error proportionable to that of propagating it no body being permitted to speak to keep the people from the poison of it And thus whilst the liberty of publike speaking is permitted onely to one man in a Congregation and to onesort of men in the Kingdom any Error may suddenly be spread over the whole Kingdom as we see by daily experience without any sufficient and proportionable remedy to prevent it But now when the right or power of prophesying is allowed to the whole Church the Minister can no sooner vent any Error but there is some believer or other whose heart God shall move ready to convince it by the word of God And so Error is as soon discovered and detected as it is published and as soon destroyed as it is detected the word of God though from a private Christian being more mighty to destroy Error then Error can be to uphold it self against the word 3. Prophesying is a most useful means to keep out Error in this regard because it gives the Church light how to chuse faithful Teachers out of its own children when it stands in need of any supply in this kinde Seeing through the exercise of prophesying the Church knows and discerns which of its members are most spiritual and most clearly taught of God in divine things and who have received the most excellent gifts from Christ and so are most fit and able to hold forth the word of life in most evidence and power of the Spirit that so the Church may be supplied with Pastors of her own Sons and not seek oâ— after unknown persons nor be constrained to use mercenary men who have been brought up to preaching as their trade to live by whereupon but few of them can be expected to be other then hirelings who will make their Ministry serve their own advantage and frame the Scripture to sound such doctrine as may best serve their own turns And in these three regards the use of prophesying helps the Church to keep out Error Now if any shall object against this That it may seem very rash and absurd after an able learned man hath spoken in the Church for an unlearned Mechanick presenly to rise up and speak I return this answer That the true people of God are all taught of God and the true Church is a Kingdom of Prophets through the anointing of the Spirit and so they esteem not that to be learning in the Church which is from man but onely that which is heard and learned from the Father and so they neither reckon him that hath humane learning to be learned here nor him that is destitute of it to be ignorant Yea farther in this society God will have him who is most unlearned according to humane literature to speak that the vertues of Christ may the more evidently appear in the Saints and the knowledge of heavenly and divine truths may not be attributed to gifts parts learning or studies but onely to his Spirit which can even in a moment teach the ignorant and make the simple wise and open the mouthes of babes and sucklings yea and of the very dumb to perfect his praise by Whereas when a man of great parts and learning speaks with wisdom and knowledge in the Church this is commonly attributed to his wit and study and so God loses all or most of his praise but if a plain ignorant man shall speak spiritually and divinely and hold forth the mystery of the Gospel in a clear light then men must needs acknowledge God to be the Author of such grace and say God is in him of a truth and so God is acknowledged the Author of his own giâ—ts and he himself is admired in his Saints It will be again objected Yea but if every one have liberty to speak in the Church will not this breed great confusion and disturbance I answer no not in the true Church which are a people met in the name of Christ and who have Christ himself present in the midst of them and so every one demeans himself answerably to the presence of Christ that is in the wisdom meekness and modesty of the Spirit And there also every one speaks not after the rashness of his own brain but according to the revelation of Gâ—d as it is written If any thing be revealed to another let the first hold his peace So that no man is to speak here but by Revelation or an inward teaching and discovery of God And where men speak thus as the true Church is to speak there can be no confusion but most excellent order and decency Yea God himself who is not the Author of confusion but of peace in all the Churches of the Saints he hath appointed and commanded Prophesying as the way of peace and therefore do not thou dare to say it is the way of confusion seeing God knows better how to order the affairs of his own Church then thou doest Wherefore seeing Prophesying is Gods Ordinance in the Churh for the peace of it if any sort of men shall notwithstanding what hath been said still attribute to themselves a proper and incommunicable Ministry or the onely power to speak in the Church I shall but use the Apostles words to them and so pass on from this thing What came the word of God onely unto you and is it to come out onely from you Nay it is come to every believer as well as to you and it is also to come forth from all them unto whom it is come seeing they cannot but speak what they do believe 5. The last means I shall name whereby the true Church may keep errour out of it self is To exercise its power in judging Doctrines as Paul commandeth 1 Cor. 14. 29. Let the Prophets speak two or three and let the rest judge If they that publish Doctrine should also be judges of it and the people be bound to subscribe to their judgement error would not only by this means have opportunity to be vented but would also be established and confirmed without the least contradiction But now God hath appointed it
say any thing but what likes us or what is indeed agreeable to the word as if error should have now gotten more power to make void the word then the word power to make void error Wherefore if the word be suffered to have free passage I dare rest on that alone and so dare all that have felt the power of it in their own hearts for the conquering and destroying all errors and Heresies whatsoever in the true Church of God And now it would be profitable to hear what some other men who have walked in the same light and Spirit have said in this matter Zuinglius in his book quoted in the margent speaks thus Haec unica eaque sola via est qua ad concordiam proxime perveniri potest c. that is This is the one and only way whereby we may most suddenly attain to concord if whatsoever things may be or are commonly said for any opinion or against it be freely propounded in the Churches so that the people be allowed free judgement in all these things For God who is not the God of discord but of peace nevers suffers those who are gathered together in his spirit to erre or be deceived And if this way were observed we should shortly see the Churches of Christ enjoying sweet peace and concord But now as often as there are some Princes and Cities that would have the doctrine of the Gospel free to all presently there are others that would stop and hinder the course of it and so long there must needs arise great discords and dissentions And hence I would have you judge whether you or we are departed from the Church of God and the doctrine of it For we suffer those writings that proceed as well from you as from the Papists to be openly and freely read and read again and the evils which are taught in them we slay by the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God but you think all this business may be dispatched with PUBLICK EDICTS AND COMMANDS And therefore do you be judge whose cause is most to be suspected ours who suffer the doctrine of our adversaries to be published in our Churches and overthrow them by the word or yours who reproach our doctrine before the simple people as heretical in the mean time by your good will neither suffering them to read it nor understand it Thus far he Luther also in his Epistle to Frederick and John Dukes of Saxony speaking against that Spirit which he cals Spiritus Alstetinus a proud haughty enthusiastical spirit that despised faith and love and the cross and the whole Scriptures as low things not worth their minding and gloried in strange Revelations and superlative holiness which they had above other believers And these enemies of the Gospel especially were gathered together in Alsteta and Luther writes to the Dukes in whose Province this Town was to this purpose touching them Quod vero praesentis interest negotii nolim ab illustrissimis D. V. praedicandi officium praecludi cuiquam c. That is But for what pertains to our present business I would not that the office of preaching should be denyed to any by your most illustrious Lordships but let there be granted to them free Liberty to preach and let them exhibite the best proof of their learning For I said by the Testimony of Paul It must needs be that there must be sects and the word of God must strive and wage war in camps And therefore it is evident in Psa 67. that the Evangelists are called Armies and that Christ in the Psalms is called more then once the King of Armies Now if their spirit be a right and approved spirit it will easily subsist before us without all fear and so if our spirit be right as we hope it is it will fear neither them nor any body else But if they transgress the bounds of the Gospel and will not contain their hands but will do their work with violence it is the duty of your most Illustrious Lordships when they 〈◊〉 fierce and seditious to repress them or to banish them out of your Dominions saying we will easily grant to you to fight with the word for the proving and examining which is true Doctrine but we will restrain the fierceness of your spirits and contain your hands for these things belong to our Magistracie And therefore they that will not herein obey let them depart the Country For saith he we who are Ministers of the word may preach but we must do no violence and Daniel hath witnessed that Antichrist shall be destroyed without hands And Isaiah saith that Christ shall fight in his Kingdom with the spirit of his mouth and the rod of his lips c. Also Albertus Duke of Borussia when the great controversieâ—ell â—ell out between Andreas Osiander and Morlinus and other Ministers touching the Righteousness whereby a Christian is made righteous before God he would not forbid either side either the Pulpit or Press but left them free to both alike and desired them to forbear reproaches one against another and to debate the business quietly by the word of God Likewise the Bohemians in a certain exhortation of theirs to Kings and Princes to stir them up to the zeal of the Gospel subscribed by Procopius and Conradus and other Captains of the Bohemians have these words They say that is the Papists it ought not to be suffered that we should be heard in confessing our faith Now how may that be proved by the holy Scripture since Christ heard the devil as is written Mat 4 And they are not better then Christ nor we worse then the devil If they be righteous and have the truth with them as they say they have and we be unrighteous why do they fear since the truth ought not to be afraid of falshood and Zorobabel declared That truth is of all things the most mighty and overcometh all things For Christ is the truth John 14. I am the way the truth and the devil is the father of lyes John 8. Therefore if the Pope and his Priests have the truth let them overcome us with the word of God but if they have lyes then they cannot long abide in all their presumption Wherefore we exhort and beseech all the Imperial Cities all Kings Princes Noble-men rich poor for Gods sake and for his Righteousness that one of them write hereof to another and that there may be some means made how we may commune with you safely and friendly at some such place as shall be fit both for you and us and bring with you your Bishops and Teachers and let them and our Teachers fight together with the word of God and let us hear them and let not one overcome the other by violence or false subtilty but only by the word of God c. By all which it appears That let mens Doctrine be what it will they ought to be
of God that will exercise a Judicature in Heaven and determine of things of the Kingdom of God which the Spirit hath kept in his own hands you may break one the other earthen potsheards But if you joyn against the Spirit and be one as Jew and Gentile Herod and Pilate against Christ it will be your everlasting breaking so that a man cannot gather a Sherd of you to take fire from the hearth or water out of the Pit for God hath set his King upon his holy Hill and you are but sheaves against a hearth of fire The Power of Christ is coming forth happy they that wait for it The Lord shall send the rod of his power out of Sion be thou Ruler in the midst of thine enemies Psal 110. All Forms and Shadows shall flie away and the new creature only abide and they that walk after this Rule peace be on them and mercy and upon the Israel of God The spiritual Church shall rise and be established in the beauty of holiness These are the tidings of this Book And I heard a voyce saying Hallelujah Praise the Lord from the Heavens prayse him all ye heights prayse him all ye Angels of his all the wisdom of man Prayse him Sun and Moon all worldly Magistrates praise him all the Stars of light all Ministers Pastors Teachers prayse him ye Heavens of Heavens all Forms and Churches and what ever of you excel and are lifted up above others exalt the Lord not your selves for his name only is excellent his glory is above the Earth and Heavens he also exalteth the Horns of his people the prayse of all his Saints even of the children of Israel a people neer to him Thy part be among these who ever art the Reader it is the desires and prayer of him who knows no greater no other happiness Who is thine as to it Christop Goad CHRIST'S SPIRIT A Christians Strength OR A plain discovery of the mighty and invincible power that all Believers receive through the gift of the SPIRIT First held forth in two Sermons on Act. 1. 8. and after published for the instruction and use of those that are spiritual Anno 1645. By WILLIAM DELL Minister of the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST at Yelden in the County of Bedford 1 Cor. 4. 19. 20 I will come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them that are puffed up but the power For the Kingdom of God is not in word but in power 2 Tim. 3. 5. Having a form of Godliness but denying the power of it from such turn away London Printed for Hen. Cripps and Lod. Lloyd 1651. To the Right Honorable the Lady ELIZABETH Countess of BULLINGBROOK Right Honourable THe form of Godliness is very common in these dayes of ours but the power of it is very rare How few persons shall we finde in the visible Church who live and act in the strength of God But generally men do what ever they do in their own strength and that not onely in humane things but in divine How seldom do we see either in Ministers or Christians in the discharge of their duties in their several places more then the power of men The greatest part by far not onely of those who are called Christians but also of forward Professors being ignorant what it is to be strengthened with might in the inner man according to the glorious power of the great God How little is there among all our plenty of that preaching which is not in the plausible words of mans wisdom but in the demonstration of the Spirit and Power How few Congregations among the many that are in the Kingdom are gathered together in the Spirit and Power of our Lord Jesus Christ How few of those Christians are there in whom is the exceeding greatness of Gods power together with the effectual working of it But the form of Godliness is now become almost the covering of all flesh and in these dayes of light and knowledge it is accounted by all that are not down-right Atheists a great shame not to seem to be religious And when men and families and Congregations are gotten into this form they think themselves both safe and happy as being near the suburbs of the Kingdom of God and close Neighbours to the Saints And this form of godliness as it is of very easie compliance with flesh and blood in this particular in that according to this men onely make their actions new retaining still their old natures so it is also of great credit and esteem with carnal Gospellers But the spiritual man judgeth all things and yet he himself is judged of no man and he being partaker of the power of God himself can in some measure discern both the presence and want of it in others both which he knows in his own experience Now this form of godliness is when men are godly without God and anoynted without Christ and regenerate not having the Spirit that is when they have a semblance of holiness but not the thing it self a semblance of grace retaining their old natures And such Christians as these perform spiritual duties with natural strength heavenly duties with earthly strength the works of God with the power of men In the Religion of these men there is the outward duty done and it may be very speciously and plausibly but there is none of Christ nor the Spirit in the duty There is their own working towards God which is faint and faithless and not Gods own working in them towards himself which is lively and mighty and all the religious acts they do are onely their own operations and not the operations of God in them This form of godliness how pleasing soever it be to a mans self and of what reckoning soever with others who are like himself yet is indeed of very evil and woful consequence whether we regard the doings or sufferings unto which this form necessarily engages For first when men by occasion of this form are called forth to do the great works of God and yet are destitute of the power of God their duties are above their strength and their strength bears no proportion to their duties And so sooner or later meeting with difficulties they faint and languish as a Snail their works being too high for their faculties For nature being strained above its power and offering at that which is beyond its abilities by degrees grows weary and returns to its old temper again And he that sought that glory which was not his own at last lies down in his own shame Again the form of godliness exposes a man to those evils that are incident to the faithful because of godliness Now when a man hath the same evils with the faithful and not the same power to support him under those evils when men have the same evils in the flesh but not the same power in the Spirit the same burthens on their shoulders but not the same everlasting arms
Christ sent them only as his Father sent him and so Christ never gave unto them any earthly or humane or secular power no power of words or prisons no power of outward constraint and violence Christ gave them no such outward and worldly power for the inlargement of his Kingdom as not being at all sutable to it For his Kingdom is spiritual and what can carnal power do in a Spiritual Kingdom His Kingdom is heavenly and what can earthly power do in a heavenly Kingdom His Kingdom is not of this world and what can worldly power do in a Kingdom that is not of the World And though Antichrist and his Ministers have arrogated and usurped such a carnal and earthly and worldly power to themselves in their pretended managing the Kingdom of Christ yet the faithful Ministers of Christ cannot And therefore seeing the Ministers of the Gospel have no power from beneath they must needs have power from on high seeing they have no fleshly power they must needs have Spiritual power seeing they have no power from earth and from men they must needs have power from heaven and from God that is the power of the Holy Spirit coming on them or else they have no power at all 2. The Ministers of the Gospel must needs have this power of the Holy Spirit because otherwise they are not sufficient for the Ministery For no man is sufficient for the work of the Ministery by any natural parts and abilities of his own nor yet by any acquisite parts of humane learning and knowledge but onely by this power of the Holy Spirit and till he be indowed with this notwithstanding all his other accomplishments he is altogether insufficient And therefore the very Apostles were to keep silence till they were induced with this power they were to wait at Jerusalem till they had received the promise of the spirit and not to preach till then Yea Christ himself did not betake himself to the work of the Ministery till first the spirit of God came upon him and anointed him to preach And therefore for thirty years together he did not preach publikely and ordinarily till at Johns Baptism he received this power of the spirit coming on him Now if Christ himself and his Apostles were not sufficient for the Ministery till they had received this power from on high no more are any other Ministers whatsoever For as I said it is not natural parts and abilities and gifts and learning and eloquence and accomplishments that make any man sufficient for the Ministery but only the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon him So that who ever is destitute of the spirit of power is insufficient for the work of the Ministery and that in these regards 1. Without this power of the spirit Ministers are utterly unable to preach the Word that is the true spiritual and living Word of God For to preach this Word of God requires the Power of God One may speak the word of man by the power of man but he cannot speak the Word of God but by the power of God And Christ himself in all his Ministery spake nothing of himself in the strength of his humane nature but he spake all he spake by the power of God and without this power of God he could not have spoken one word of God And so in like manner no man is able to preach Christ but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For Christ is the power of God and can never be represented but by the Holy Spirit which is the power of God For as we see light in his light that is the Father who is light in the Son who is light or else the Son who is light in the Holy Spirit who is light So we know power in his power that is the Son who is power in the Holy Spirit who is power And Christ who is the power of God can never be made known to the Church but by the ministration of the spirit which is the power of God So that it is not an easie thing to preach Christ the power of God yea none can do it aright but by the power of the Holy Spirit comming upon him 2. Without this power of the Spirit Ministers are unable to preach the word powerfully They may it may be happen upon the outward word yet there is no power in their Ministry till they have received this power of the spirit comming upon them Otherwise their Ministery is cold and there is no heat in it it is weak and there is no strength in it 1. It is cold and there is no heat in it Without men have received the power of the spirit there is no fire in their preaching Their ministery is unlike the ministery of Elias whose ministery was as fire and unlike John Baptists who in his ministery was a burning and shining light and unlike Christs whose ministery made the Disciples hearts burn within them and unlike the Apostles who having received this spirit were as men made all of fire running through the world and burning it up Without this spirit a mans ministery is cold it warms the hearts of none it inflames the spirit of none but leaves men still frozen in their sins 2. It is weak and hath no might in it There is no strength in a Ministery where there is no spirit Whereas when men have received the spirit then their ministery is a powerful ministery as Paul 1 Thess 1. 5. The Gospel came to you not in word onely but in power and in the Holy Ghost and therefore in povver because in the Holy Spirit And again 1 Cor. 2. 4. My speech and preaching was not with the entising words of mans wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power Where you see the spirit and power in the work of the Ministery are alwayes conjoyned as the Sun and light are And that Ministery that is in the spirit is alway in power And being in power it is alwayes effectual either to convert men or to inrage them And the inraging of men is as evident a sign of the spirit of power in a mans ministery as the conversion of men Whereas a cold and dead ministry that is destitute of this power doth as we use to say neither good nor harm neither converts nor inrages neither brings in righteousness nor destroyes sin neither kils nor quickens any but leaves men in their old temper for many years together and never stirs them But the ministration of the spirit and power is operative and mighty and carries all before it And though evil and carnal men will ever be murmuring and wrangling and opposing and contending against such a ministry yet they are never able to resist the wisdom and spirit of it as the Libertines Cyrenians and Alexandrians were not able to resist the wisdom and spirit by which Stephen spake And therefore let them that will needs be striving
against such a ministery know that they strive against more then a meer man they strive against power from on high against the greatest power that ever God put forth against the power of Christ himself and his eternal spirit and so they shall never be able to prevail against this power but shall surely sinke under it But to return from whence we have a little digressed 3. Without this power of the spirit as Ministers are not able to preach the Word nor to preach it powerfully so neither are they able to hold out in their ministry and to carry it on strongly against all opposition and contradiction Peter and John preached the Gospel but presently the Rulers and Elders and Scribes convented them and straightly threatned them and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus And now if the Apostles had wanted this power of the spirit they would presently have been snibd and awed and would have sneaked away and you should have heard no more of them But they having received this power all the threatnings and scornings of the Rulers and Magistrates could not deterr them from the discharge of their office and that ministery they had received from Christ But though before they were fearful and trembling and daunted at the apprehension of the least danger yet now having received this power they are altogether undaunted and said to the Rulers and Elders whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more then unto God judge ye As if they should have said O ye Rulers and Elders of the people our case is a plain case wherein we are most willing that even your own selves should be Judges For we have received a command from God to preach the Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ and you forbid us to do that which God hath commanded us Now do you your selves be Judges who is fittest to be obeyed God or you the great and glorious God of heaven and earth or poor wretched men such as your selves Nay what God hath commanded us we must and will obey against all your threatnings and punishments and what ever you can say or do We cannot conceal but must publish what we have seen and known of our Lord Jesus Christ of his incarnation life death resurrection ascension kingdom glory and of that great redemption and salvation which he hath wrought and purchased for all the Elect of God Now I would to God that the unjust commands of all Magistrates and secular Powers whatsoever might be no otherwise obeyed then this unjust command of the Rulers was by Peter and John and that no man would dare to yield more obedience to the creature then to the Lord of all For no Princes or Magistrates in the world have any power to forbid the preaching of the everlasting Gospel which God hath commanded should be published to all Nations for the obedience of Faith I say they have no power at all to forbid the preaching of this Gospel or of any one truth of it though never so cross to their designs And if they should yet herein ought we to know no more obedience then Peter and John did here We ought to obey God and not them and to make known the whole minde of God though it be never so contrary to their minde After the example of Peter and John who having received this power of the Holy Spirit held on their Ministery against all the countermands and threatnings and punishments of the Magistrates Whereas without this power they had soon fainted and failed and had never been able to have gone through with it 4. Without this power of the Holy Spirit Ministers are not able to reprove the world For every man by nature seeks the amity of the world and no man by his good will would provoke the enmity of it against himself And therefore flesh and blood will never reprove the world of sin but allows it and countenances it in sin But now the Spirit when he is come he will reprove the world of sin When a man hath this power of the Spirit in him then presently he reproves and argues the world of sin and so by his ministery bids defiance to the whole world and provokes the whole world against himself And this no man either can do or dares do except he be first indued with this power of the Spirit coming on him And therefore saith Micah Cha. 3. vers 8. I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin The world of all other things cannot indure the reproof of sin and the declaration of its evil wayes And therefore it is exceedingly offended yea and extreamly rages against the faithful teachers of the Word with all sorts of punishments and persecutions as the examples of all the Prophets Apostles and faithful teachers of the Word of God in all ages do declare Yea and Christ himself testifies touching himself therefore the world hates me because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evil But now they that will connive at sin and flatter the world in its own wayes these are the onely men of reckoning and live in all worldly Honour and prosperity And all ages can witness that all Teachers are not of that strength and resolution to contemn the hatred and fury of the world Nay the most are quite overcome with the prosperity of this present life and with the desire of friends and riches and preferment and so wink at the sins of the world and are Ministers in whose mouths are no reproofs though the whole world lye in wickedness For thus they escape the rage and violence and obtain the favour and love of the men of this world And thus weak and unworthy are those men who are onely indued with their own Spirits But now saith Micah I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin As if he should have said the power of the Spirit of the Lord dwelling in me puts forth its self two wayes in judgement and in fortitude 1. In judgement and this signifies the reproving and the condemning sin and wickedness as the Prophet himself explicates saying that I might declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin But seeing their being full of judgement doth not want danger but exposes a man to a thousand evils in as much as the world can indure nothing less then the reproof of sin therefore I am by the power of the Spirit not onely full of judgement but also Secondly full of Might and as the Spirit of judgement exposes me to danger so the Spirit of might inables me to contemn those dangers So that though the world because of the Spirit of judgement threatens never so many evils yet the
it doth not belong Being in the mean time really against Magistracy further then it is serviceable to their own ends Whereas we reckon Magistracy not less Magistracy no less the Ordinance of GOD though we suffer under it and by it This Clergy-Antichristian power where ever it is will still sit upon the power of the Nation the power of Anti-christ so domineering over the powers of the World that none but the power of CHRIST can cast it off That will still be uppermost what power soever is supream Besides all the experience of former Ages which is the greatest wonder in the World that men consider not GOD gives you sparklings enough of it in this Age some preaching That the government of the Church which they make outward and visible and over mens estates bodies and lives belongs not to King nor Parliament but to the Ministers and their Elders and better it is there should be no government at all say they then not in their hands by whom it should be And here lies the Mystery of Iniquity in this That they make the whole Kingdom a Church then require a power authority and jurisdiction in their Church-Kingdom which the Magistrate is not to deal withal but themselves Whereas we acknowledge the whole power of the Kingdom to belong to the Magistrate and onely give unto CHRIST the power of his own Kingdom which is not of the World but spiritual and heavenly And here also fully to deliver my self from misapprehensions I understand not by the Church of CHRIST any company of men whatsoever who under the notion of a Church or Saints or any other title may plead priviledge or exemption of their lives liberties or estates from the power of the Civil Magistrate for that were to justifie the Papal Prelatical or any other government of a newer name which under pretence of Jus Divinum shall set up and exercise an outward and visible power and jurisdiction free and exempted from the authority and power of the civil Magistrate which I utterly both deny and detest as Antichristian And therefore I humbly represent how prejudicial this may prove to you in the end to suffer a Generation of men in the Kingdom under the name either of Church or Clergy whose power preferment interest is different and excentrical from the power welfare and interest of the Kingdom and what a ballance they may prove against the State where they live in turning and tumultuous times as they themselves know so I hope you clearly perceive it as well as they How they already dare lift up the Head against you who sees not How do they manifest their discontents against you in Pamphlets and Pulpits in their Sermons and Prayers because you have not setled the Government they have studied out for you as Jus Divinum and the certain and unchangeable minde of GOD though they can neither make it out to your selves nor to any body else by the Word that it is so And how do they labour to instill into the people their own discontents perswading them you have done nothing at all because you have not done all that ever they would have you do though you can see neither Scripture nor reason for it And for this cause rendring you every where odious to the people Many other things besides do they scramble up and use against you which they conceive may make for your disadvantage and dis-interest in the people because they think they shall never get much higher except they make you a little lower for they must according to the law of Antichrist set their feet on your power to get up to their own Some discoveries of this spirit you might see in Mr. Loves Sermon telling you before your faces and before the people That some call'd you a Mungrel Parliament Indeed the King as I understand call'd the Parliament at Oxford so but Mr. Love was the first for ought I can learn that ever named you so and I wish he may be the last but any Doctrine is orthodox out of a mans mouth of his Order farther threatning you with a discerning people to look into your actions and to spy out your boundless priviledges as if you must do justice not out of the love of Righteousness but out of fear of Mr. Loves discerning people Telling you also The Clergy had done as much service for you in their Pulpits as your Regiments in the Field that by this means he might minde you what they can do against you as well as for you if you be not servants to their designes for they that have heretofore been for you can if they please turn to others against you who shall be more for themselves And in many other things flying out against your worthy Commanders in the Army upon suspitions of his own and against the Articles at Oxford c. For it is no proper Presbyterial Doctrine that does not at least meddle with the affairs of the State which in time they may hopefully come to order In these and divers other things he took his full swing all of them no doubt deeply appertaining to the mystery of the Gospel The other things he spake to the disadvantage of the ignorant and weak and neither to the Truths disadvantage nor mine I shall clear in a short Reply set after the Discourse and so shall trouble you no farther with any such stuffe but only with a smart expression from one it seems of some note in the Assembly who said If the Parliament approved Mr. Dells Sermon it were no blasphemy to say They were no Parliament So that it seems you shall be no longer a Parliament then you approve what the Assembly approves but the Kingdom hopes you are built upon a better foundation And to him who hath been so bold with you I shall only crave leave to Reply in your presence If the Assembly which I hope they will not should condemn that Doctrine of the Gospel for the substance of it delivered then by Mr. Dell it will be no blasphemy to say They are the enemies of the truth of Christ And I hope the last prop of Antichrist in the Kingdom For your selves Honourable and Worthy I beseech you consider that GOD is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working that all power is given to CHRIST in Heaven and in Earth that he might give free passage to the Gospel And therefore take heed after GOD hath blest your Power and Forces in the field and subdued that Malignant power that was against you and hath given you a little peace quietness in the Kingdom you do not now begin your affaires with discountenancing disrelishing much less condemning the faithful and true Word of GOD witnessed in the Scriptures and confest to by the faithful and Martyrs of Christ in all Ages and with the setting off from you that Ministery that hath most of the Spirit in it lest the Lord withdraw his presence from you and your
latter end be not answerable to your beginnings It might be easily shewed unto you how many great and wise Kings and Magistrates acting according to humane wisdom and prudence despising or neglecting the wisdom of the Word have with all their own wisdom prudence and designes destroyed themselves and their Kingdoms For it is written He takes the wise in their own craftiness And again The Lord knows the thoughts of men that they are but vain And therefore renounce the wisdom of the world with all its fleshly Counsels and cleave close to the true faithful and sincere Doctrine of the Gospel and then though you have many enemies and Kingdoms against you you shall not be moved but GOD will yet establish you in all the shakings of the World and your Enemies shall be as a thing of nought I shall no longer detain you but only desire this in the behalf of the faithful GODS peculiar portion in the Kingdom That you would not suffer us to be oppressed by our Adversaries who would use your power against us not for you but for themselves neither would suffer them thus publickly and shamelessely to call us Sectaries and Hereticks who do believe and profess the truth of the Gospel in sincerity and simplicity of heart according to what we have received from GOD but that you would suffer yea procure us to live quietly and safely under you in the faith and practice of the Gospel we in all things obeying you as becomes Christians The Remainder is to assure you That there is no man shall serve the State more sincerely according to his place and calling nor in more faithfulness and humility tender the Truth of GOD either to your selves or the Kingdom as occasion serves according to the measure of the gift of CHRIST Then Your Servant in the Gospel W. DELL To the Reader Christian Reader THE Times we live in are dangerous times it is dangerous to conceal the truth and dangerous to publish the truth if we publish the truth God hath taught us and we have heard and learn'd from the Father we fall into the hands of men if we conceal it we fall into the hands of God And therefore in this case in a contrary choice to David I reckon it much better to fall into the hands of men then into the hands of God seeing the wrath of men can but reach the body but the wrath of God body and soul I shall therefore willingly confess Christ amidst an adulterous and sinful generation not doubting but Christ will confess me before his Father and before his Angels And for the reproaches of men it is best conquering them as Luther was wont to say Silendo contemnendo by silence and contempt of them seeing a man may as easily restrain Satan himself in his various workings as stop the mouthes of his instruments And therefore it is good for us Christians to do the work of God without so much as taking notice of such men and if sometimes we are sensible of these things because we are flesh yet as we are Christians we are above them in the Spirit and see already in certain faith and hope all evils and enemies under our feet And therefore for Mr. Love and other men of the same mold and mettal I am resolved neither now nor hereafter to take them into any more consideration then the business it self necessarily requires and where they may be omitted without prejudice to the truth to let them quite alone being every day through the use of affliction enabled to patience and through patience brought to experience and so to a proportionable measure of hope And this carries me above the shame of the world in the strength of the love of God For the Doctrine contained in this Discourse thou shalt not finde it New light as some men slanderously affirm but the ancient light that sprang forth in the first morning of the Gospel but was since obscured by the New darkness of Antichrist which these men love better then that old light and will by no means exchange the one for the other But this light that now after a long night breaks forth again in some of its first glory let these men set their hearts at rest for they shall never be able to obscure it again and the fire of the Spirit that GOD hath kindled in the Kingdom they shall never be able to quench with any fire either of Earth or Hell And therefore we fear them not though they breath forth threatnings now and ere long are like to breath forth blood For by all their subtile and industrious actings in the end they shall not work the truths ruine but their own And these as well as their forefathers of the same race and lineage in whose stead they are now risen up shall in due time become a reproach and a shame and their name shall be for a curse to all Gods chosen Reader It is my earnest desire that the Lord would deliver thee from this new form of the Mystery of Iniquity which in every Age puts on a several form when the old one is discovered by the light of the Word And in this present Age it is become so Exceeding cunning and so furnished with all deceiveableness of unrighteousness under the form of Righteousness that it seems to be the last and subtilest work of Antichrist that is now in hand and he that prevails in this encounter hath Antichrist under his feet for ever but none are like to prevail here but the Faithful and Elect alone And therefore hold fast that which thou hast that no man take thy Crown and consider Christs encouragement to this work in the following verse Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the Temple of my God and he shall go no more out and I will write upon him the name of my God and the name of the City of my God which is New Jerusalem which commeth down out of Heaven from my God and I will write upon him my New Name Christian Reader I commit thee and the Word now offered to thee in this Discourse to God and his powerful blessing and wonderful working Remaining Thine in the Difficult and Despised Service of Jesus Christ in the Gospel W. DELL Right Reformation OR The Reformation of the Church of the New Testament represented in Gospel-Light Heb. 9. 10. Vntill the time of Reformation THe natural man saith Paul 1 Cor. 2. knows not the things of the Spirit neither can he for they are spiritually discerned Now a man that is not born of God and his Spirit with all his parts abilities reason wisdom prudence learning is but a natural man still and so hath no right knowledg of the things of God and his Spirit And hence it hath come to pass that the things of God and his spirit have been so grosly and dangerously mistaken by the World and the carnal Church For all the spiritual things of God they have
reed nor quench the smoaking flax When he is reforming the sins and corruptions of the faithfull he deals with them in the very love and goodness of God and will not put them to more sorrow then needs must and when he must needs put them to sorrow in the flesh for flesh cannot chuse but mourn to part with it self utterly in this reformation yet he is present with the comforts of his Spirit and when he hath smitten them is ready to heal them and to bind them up as soon as he hath broken them He deals with every Christian in this reformation as tenderly as a man doth with one of his own members that is in grief and anguish he regards and handles him as his own body as his own flesh And so the reformation of Christ is altogether for edification and not at all for destruction for it is his own body he reforms and so doth it with the love of the Head But when strangers whose the Church is not set upon reforming it what havock do they make of the Church of God how do they wound and threaten and punish and destroy it and have no regard at all to the weak infirm sorrowful Saints that are wrestling with many doubts fears agonies corruptions temptations till they are overtaken with the very shadow of death how do they persecute them that are already smitten and grieve them more that are already wounded And so you see that he only that hath an interest in the Church as being the Head of the Church is onely fit to reform it whereas the reformation of strangers hath more cruelty in it then love and more destruction then edification Fourthly Christ is onely able for this work for the Reformation of the Church is as great a work as the Redemption of it and he only that could do the one can do the other Christ must die to redeem the Church and he must live to reform it and so as the Government of the Church only lies upon his shoulders who is the Head so the Reformation of it onely lies upon his hands and his hands onely are sufficient for it If all the Angels of heaven should undertake the work of Reformation they would sink under it how much more the powers of the world For the taking away transgression for us and from us which is the only Reformation of the New Testament is a work agreeable to none but the Son of God as it is written His name shall be called Jesus for he shall save his people from their sins where you have both the Reformer Christ and the Reformation shall save his people from their sins now he must needs be the Righteousness of God that must save people from sin And he must need be God in the flesh that must reform the flesh none else can do it To conclude this None but the Power of God and Wisdom of God and the Righteousness of God which is Jesus Christ can reform the Church which is the Kingdom of God and the power wisdom and righteousness of men have no place at all here except they will turn the Power Wisdom and Righteousness of God out of his office for so speaks the Spirit by the Prophet Isaiah Chap. 2. 17. The loftiness of men shall be bowed down and the haughtiness of men shall be made low and the Lord alone shall be exalted Now what is the loftiness and haughtinâ—ss of men but the power wisdom and righteousness of men and all this saith the Lord shall be bowed down and laid low and the Lord alone shall be exalted that is Christ alone who is the Power Wisdom and Righteousness of God and that in the day of the Churches Reformation as well as in the day of the Churches Redemption And thus you see that Christ is the Reformer of the Church his Body which is the City and Kingdom of God And therefore the Reformation of the Church is certain for Christ will a surely reform it as he hath redeemed it and all that the Father hath given him he hath redeemed and all that hath redeemed he will reform that he may make them fit to present to God That so all that the Son hath received from the Father having redeemed and reformed them he may give them back to the Father again So that I doubt not of the Churches Reformation because it is Christs own work and he hath undertaken the doing of it And as none of the powers of the earth could help him to reform the Church so none of the powers of hell shall be able to hinder him but as many as he hath redeemed unto God by his blood in his due time he will reform them all by his Spirit as belonging to his care and charge And therefore let us look to Christ for the reformation of his Church that is of his faithful people the rest of the world that lies in wickedness he lets remain in wickedness as not belonging to his care and charge This Reformation is the work of Christs care and love and he being faithful in this business I am at rest and quiet seeing Christ is as able for the reformation of the Church as for the redemption of it And therefore Honourable and Beloved I say to you touching this work of the reformation of the spiritual temple of the New Testament as God once said to David touching the building of the material Temple of the Old Testament 1 King 8. 18. Whereas it was in thine heart said God to build an house to my Name thou didst well it was in thy heart Nevertheless thou shalt not build the house but thy Son that shall come out of thy loyns he shall build an house unto my Name And elswhere he renders the reason of it why David should not and Solomon should build this house because saith he thou hast been a man of war and hast shed much blood but Solomon he shall live and florish in peace and he shall do it So say I to you touching this work of Reformation You did well in that it was in your hearts to reform the Kingdom of God and the spiritual Church which is Christs own dear body Nevertheless you shall not reform it for you have been men of war that is you have managed a great and mighty war against great and mighty enemies and have shed much blood for the Lord hath given you the necks of your enemies and hath subdued them under you that rose up against you and you have trod them down as mire in the streets And therefore you shall not do this work having been men of war but Christ the Prince of Peace he shall reform the Chruch of God For this is not a work of men of war but of the Prince of peace seeing this is not a work of humane might or strength but of the Spirit So that you did well that you thought to reform the Church but when you shall understand that the Reformation
of the Church is as great a work as the Redemption of it you will acknowledge the work is too great for you and that it belongs only unto Christ seeing the Father hath committed the care of this work only to him and he hath taken this care and charge upon himself and it is onely sutable to him as being the Head of the Church and he only is able for it as being the Son of God and equall to God The third General By what means Christ brings this Reformation about And that is by these two and them onely to wit the Word and the Spirit The first means whereby Christ reforms the Church is the Word By this Christ doth all that ever he doth in his Kingdom by this he cals and rejects by this he binds and looseth by this he comforts and terrifies by this he enlightens and makes blind by this he kils and quickens by this he saves and damns and all that ever he doth in this Kingdom he doth by his word and without this he doth nothing of all that he doth Christ doth all in his Kingdom by the word only but Antichrist doth all things without the word even by the Decrees and Constitutions of men Now as Christ doth all other things in the Church by the word so he reforms too Now are ye clean through the word that I have spoken to you All the powers in the world cannot reform the Church as the word of God can do for this is quick and powerful and sharper then a two-edged sword piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart and doth change and renew and reform all And therefore Christ when he comes to reform the Church comes with no worldly power or weapons but onely with the word in his mouth yea though God set him King upon his holy hill of Sion yet he reforms not by outward power but by preaching saying I will publish the decree whereof the Lord hath said unto me Thou art my Son this day have I begotten thee And again The Spirit of the Lord is upon me for he hath annointed me to preach the Gospel And again The Redeemer shall come to Sion and then follows the Covenant of God with the Redeemer My word shall never depart out of thy mouth Isa 59. 10. and in Psal 45. the Church saith by the Spirit to Christ Ride on prosperously in the word of truth meekness and righteousness which is the word of the Gospel And so Christ when the time of Reformation was come went up and down preaching the word And thus he brought to pass the glorious Reformation of the New Testament by preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom and nothing else And when he was to eave the world he sent his Disciples to carry on the work of Reformation as he himself had begun it as he saith As my Father sent me so send I you not with the power of the world but with the power of the word and so he bid them go teach all Nations and preach the Gospel to every creature and by teaching and preaching to the world to reform the world and so accordingly they did Mark 16. ver 20. They went forth and preached everywhere the Lord working with them So that Christ sent them not forth with any power of swords or guns or prisons to reform the world or with any power of States or Armies but sent forth poor illiterate mechanick men and only armed them with the power of the word and behold what wonders they wrought by that power alone They turned the world upside down they changed the manners customes religion worship lives and natures of men they carryed all oppositions and difficulties before them they won many in most Kingdoms unto Christ and brought them into willing subjection and obedience to him and all this they did I say not with any earthly or secular power but by the ministery of the Gospel alone Christs great and onely Instrument for the conquering subduing and reforming of the Nations And so the power appeared to be Gods onely and not the creatures And thus you see how the word is one means Christ useth for Reformation And this word only works a right Reformation For this reforms truly and indeed all other power reforms but in appearance So that there is no true reformation of any thing but what is wrought by the word but what ever evill is reformed and not by the power of the word it is not truly reformed it is onely reformed in the flesh and not in the spirit it is only suspended in the outward operation of it but the seed and nature of it still remains in the heart to grow up and work again as opportunity serves And therefore what ever evil or corruption is reformed in thee see it be reformed by the power of the word if the word hath killed it in thee it is killed indeed if not it is alive in thee though it seem to be dead The outward power of the world may set up an image of Reformation but it is the word onely can work true Reformation And therefore let us learn to rely on the word for the Reformation of the Church For this is much for the honour of the word which God hath magnified above all his Name when we can neglect the power of the world and leave the whole work of Reformation to the power working and efficacy of the word alone which is Almighty and able to bring off the heart from all things to God As on the contrary it is a great dishonour to God and his word when men dare not relie on the word alone to reform the Church though it be stronger then men and Angels and all the creatures but will needs be calling in the power of the world and rest and rely on that for this work as if the power of the word were not sufficient But let such men know that if the power of the word will not reform men all the power of the world will never do it And therefore well said Luther Praedicare annuntiare scribere volo neminem autem vi adigam I will Preach and Teach and Write but I will constrain no body Oh therefore that our Civil and Ecclesiastical powers would so much honour Christs Word as to trust the reformation of his Kingdom with it and that as it is sufficient to reform the Church so you would be pleased to think it sufficient and thus shall you give Christ and his Word due honour as well as declare your own faith And if you would commit this work to the power of the word to which onely it belongs you should soon see what the Word would do There is no such glorious sight under heaven as to see the Word in the spirit and power of it come in to an unreformed world and to observe the changes and