is no easie task and especially of those Poetick and Prophetick Writings which have had one immediate Sense and Completion in some other and because there is but one Infallible Clue to this Labyrinth the Applications of such places made by Divine Writers in the New Testament I have therefore made use of that as oft as it was to be met with and then advanced with confidence beyond what the Letter in its first or immediate sense suggested But for all other Passages which by some kind of Accommodation or Anagogy or Figure or Moral or Spiritual Sense were capable of being thus applied either to Christ or his Church I have not frequently chosen to be thus adventuruous both because I knew this was for the most part the Product of Phansy wherein all Men are willing to reserve their Liberty and neither needed to be directed nor liked to be anticipated and because I was unwilling to affix any Sense to Scripture which I had not some degree of assurance that the Holy Ghost in the inspired Writer had respect unto who though he may have designed whatever the Words are capable of and so may have intended more Senses than one yet cannot be proved to have done whatsoever he might have done And therefore though I blame not the Inlargements of their Spirits who extend themselves to Allegorical and Tropological Descants so they be founded in the Literal Sense first secured yet this latter was it which I had in my Aim and I both found and foresaw a Competent Weight and Number of Difficulties in that which as I was intent by Gods Help to overcome so I was not willing to weaken by diverting any part of my Forces to what was more easie but less necessary considering especially that this Book of Psalms brought home thus plainly and without any descant to every Mans Understanding would be able to yield him an intire Body of necessary Theology in Directions of Life Fundamentals of Faith and Incentives and Helps of Devotion and copious and various Matter of Divine Meditation which are sufficient to recommend it to the Readers most diligent revolving to which then those Anagogies are likely to be consequent of their own accord as the result of a more passionate Delight hovering over the more solid Intellectual Joy of conversing with God and inriching his own Soul 19. For the fetching out of this Primary or Literal Sense oft veiled in Poetick Colours sometimes more intricated whether by Ellipses or Trajections but most frequently made doubtful by the variety of Notions of which the same Hebrew Words are capable my first resort hath been to the Antient Learned Literal Interpreters in many Languages as they are lately published with most advantage by the great Diligence and unwearied Industry of my very worthy and learned Friend Dr. Walton 20. Of these I must acknowledge the most advantageous Directions to have been afforded me by the Chaldee Greek and Syriack for as to the Latine Arabick and Aethiopick they do so closely follow and in a manner render the Greek that the chief use of them hath been to secure us of the antient Reading of the Greek which being sometimes corrupted in the Autograph is to be recovered by help of these Transcripts 21. Of these three the Chaldee which is not so literal as the others pretend to be but owns the liberty of a Paraphrast is yet as commodious as any to direct to the literal sense the very design of a Paraphrast being truly this to render that fully in more words which an equal number could not sufficiently express Yet hath not this made so full a provision for us but that all others Aids have sometimes been little enough to stear us through the difficulty 22. For the Greek whether it be truly what the Title assumes the translation of the LXXII i. e. those so many Jews in Ptolemaeus Philadelphus his time who were sent him by the High Priest competently instructed to perform that Work I shall not take upon me to determine For as I am no way convinced with the Arguments of those who affirm that those LXXII translated no more than the Law of Moses as that strictly signifies but the Pentateuch when yet the Title is inlarg'd in Christs style John 12.34 and 15.25 and S. Pauls Rom. 3.19 to this Book of Psalms peculiarly and to the Prophets also 1 Cor. 14.21 and when the Antientest Fathers of the Church Justin Martyr in his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew Irenaeus Clemens Alexandrinus and so forward till S. Hierome all uniformly produced their Testimonies out of the Prophets and Psalms as well as out of the Pentateuch upon the Authority of these LXXII Jews which had thus rendred them or that what they translated was by the burning of Ptolemies Library in Julius Cesar's time irrecoverably lost when certeinly many Copies of it had been transcribed before that time which met not with that Conflagration so neither am I obliged by the relation of the Cells and other Circumstances which Justin was told in Egypt over and above what we find in Aristeas or Josephus to conclude their Interpretation a work of Gods peculiar Conduct and so to ascribe as some great Lights of the Church have done their Variations from the Hebrew to the same Spirit by which the Originals were first indited 23. I shall only remember on this occasion what is observed by Jesus the Son of Sirach in his Prologue to Ecclesiasticus where taking notice of the Interpretation not only of the Law but of the Prophets and other Books also and in the next words setting down the time of his coming into Aegypt in the eight and thirtieth year under King Euergetes the immediate Successor of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus and so may probably be understood to speak of the LXXII not long after the compiling their Interpretation he tells us withall that there was great Differenec betwixt the Original and the Translation And allowing it to have place in this of the Psalms as well as other Books though I think as little in this as in most other 't is yet certain that great use is to be made of it toward the present Design of interpreting the Original And in gratitude for the many Benefits thus received but especially because this Translation was the means of conveying the Word of God unto the Heathen was in many Synagogues used by the Jews in and before Christ's time as Justine and Tertullian and the Jews themselves assure us was constantly cited and resorted to by Philo Judaeus in his writings and frequently honoured by the Writers of the New Testament who retein their Rendrings even where they differ from the Hebrew and lastly hath reteined that honour in the whole antient Church which universally used and followed this Translation which we now have and that without any question but the LXXII were the Authors of it I have payed them a more peculiar Respect and Consideration very often examined their
vital energy of the Gospel God of his infinite mercy grant us all even for the sake and through the operation of his Son Jesus Christ that wonderful Counsellor that mighty God that Father of this Evangelical state that Prince and that God of peace to whom with the Father and the holy Ghost be ascribed as is most due the honour the glory the power praise might majesty and dominion which through all ages of the world hath been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and to the Lamb for evermore Amen The II. SERMON MATTH 11.30 My yoke is easie and my burthen is light THat the Christian's Heaven should be acknowledged his only blissful state and yet they which pant for bliss never think fit to enquire after it That Christ the way to that heaven should be truly styled by one Prophet the desire of all Nations and yet they that look on him be affirm'd by another Prophet to see nothing in him that they should desire him That a rational creature should be made up of such contradictions as to desire life most importunately and yet as passionately to make love to death to profess such kindness to immaterial joyes and yet immerse and douz himself in carnal to groan and languish for Salvation i. e. an eternal state of purity and yet to disclaim and flie it whensoever any impure delight is to be parted with might have leave to exercise and pose a considering man were there not one clear account to be given of this prodigy one reason of this fury the many evil reports that are brought up of the way to this good land the prejudices fatal prejudices infused into us the vehement dislikes and quarrels to all Christian practice that only passage to our only bliss We have heard of an Angel with a flaming Sword at the gate of Paradise which our poetick fears and fancies have transformed into a Serpent at the door of the Hesperides garden that Angel fallen and turned into a Devil we have heard of the Cannibal Anakims in the confines of the promised Land that devour all that travel toward that Region and our cowardly sluggish aguish fancies have transplanted all these into Christendom made them but emblems of Christ's duri sermones the hard tasks unmerciful burthens that he laies on his Disciples yea and conjured up a many spirits and Fairies more sad direful apparitions and sent them out all a commanded Party to repel or to trash us to intercept or incumber our passage toward Canaan to pillage and despoil the Soul of all Christian practice of all that 's duty in Discipleship Three of these prejudices our Saviour seems to have foreseen and prevented in the words of this Text. 1. That there is no need of doing any thing in Discipleship Christ came to free from yokes to release from burthens the Gospel's made all of promises Obedience to precepts is a mere unnecessary And for the preventing of that prejudice you have here as a yoke and a burthen so both of Christ's owning 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my yoke and my burthen A second prejudice of them that being forc'd to confess the necessity of Christian obedience do yet resolve it impossible to be perform'd discerning the burthens in my Text must have them unsupportable burthens no hope no possibility for us to move under them and then studium cum spe senescit their industry is as faint as their hope Desperation stands them in as much stead as Libertinism did t'other they are beholden to the weight of their burthens for a supersedeas for taking them up And for the preventing of that prejudice you have here this character of Christ's burthen not only supportable but light my burthen is a light burthen A third prejudice there is yet behind of those that having yielded the both necessity and possibility of Christian obedience are yet possest of the unpleasingness and bitterness of it like those in the Prophet cry out The burthen of the Lord the burthen of the Lord the yoke a joyless melancholick yoke the burthen a galling pinching burthen and to them hath our Saviour designed the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here as the most significative epithet to express the nature of the Christian yoke We have rendred it but imperfectly my yoke is easie it signifies more richly my yoke is a benign yoke all pleasure and profit made up in the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord is gracious 1 Pet. 2.3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 2.4 signifies the bounty we render it the goodness of God that which immediately before is the riches of his bounty and proportionably the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a gracious bountiful yoke a mine a treasure of bounty a good a joyous and a gainful yoke And he that is thus answered in all his objections confuted in all his fears and prejudices and excuses for Libertinism if he do not acknowledge the reasonableness of Christ's advice take my yoke upon you take it for its own sake though it were not laid upon you by Christ my necessary my light my gracious yoke he that will not accept of some office in the house of so good a Master I know not what kind of address to make to him I must leave him to Pythagoras's Sponde's that could cure a Mad man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rectifie the errours of his appetite first and then his mind first of his spleen and then his brain before any portion of this bread of life will be diet for him I have drawn you the lines which lie folded up in this Text the filling each up with colours in the shortest manner I could devise would prove a work of more time than is now my portion The expedient I have resolved on is to leap over the two former and only fasten on my last particular as that which includes and supposes the two former as that which will bring its reward with it invite and feed your patience and in all probability obtain your belief because there is never an interest never a passion about you that it contradicts Your patience being thus armed with a fight of the guesses but one stage and that the smoothest you ever pass'd I shall presume you ready to set out with me and it is to consider that anticipation of the third prejudice in the Epithet affixt to Christ's yoke in the fulness of its significancy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 my yoke is a benign a gracious a pleasant a good and a gainful yoke Yea and that in this life at the taking the yoke upon you a present gooodness in it here though there were never a treasure of rewards never a heaven after it at least as the present paradise of a true Disciple is considered apart abstracted from that future expectation my yoke is a good yoke is for the present the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Is hath an influence on the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
Soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the Body and Soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the Body without the Soul Set a man to remove a Mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it than a stone in the street could do but now let an Omnipotent Power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joined to this Soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the Primitive Church of a grain of Faith removing Mountains and believe me all Miracles are not yet out-dated The work of Regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual Life on one dead in trespasses and sins the making of a Carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the Soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a Spring or Fountain of Life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this Soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a Soul to the Soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by Prison or Banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the Spirit as before a living reasonable man from the Soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those Creatures that have no Soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a Soul animals or living Creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the Soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his Soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a Soul and so call him an animal or hath not a Soul and so call him a mere natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more than a Soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth 〈◊〉 him Gal. ii 20 This being premised that now you know what this new Creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions first whence it comes secondly where it lodges thirdly when it enters fourthly what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17 but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way than any thing else Since Christs Ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26 The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our Bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19 God sends then his spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an Arrow sent out of a Bow which loses its union which it had with the Bow and is now fastned in the Butt or White nor properly by way of infusion as the Soul is in the Body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a Javelin or Spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psalm xviii 14 But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my Spear and fasten in it but still hold the Spear in my hand and having pierc't it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this Bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39 And this God does by way of emanation as a Loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the Iron to
daily on our souls in blessing in turning every one c. and that is the first thing 2. Christs resurrection hath a hand in blessing in turning from iniquity in respect to that solemn mission of the Holy Ghost promised before and performed immediately after his ascension This not person I mean but office of the Holy Ghost in setling a Pastorage in the Church and to it the consequent power and necessity of preaching administring Sacraments governing censuring all which were the effects of the Holy Ghosts descending and the direct interpretation of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 then and ever since then To which if you please to add the promise of the annexion of the Spirit and the invisible grace of God to the orderly use of these so far that the preaching of the Gospel not only that manner of preaching among us that hath gotten the monopoly of all the service of God into its Patent the only thing that many of us pay all our devotion to but any other way of making known the Gospel of Christ the doctrine of the second Covenant is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.8 the adminstration or means of dispensing the Spirit to us and the Sacrament 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the communication of the bloud of Christ yea and the censures no carnal weak blunt weapons of our warfare 2 Cor. 10.4 but mighty through God c. you have then a second energy of his resurrection toward our turning so great that he that holds out against this method of power and grace and will not turn nor understand after all this shall never be capable of any other means of blessing of working that great work for him and so you see the second ground of dependence between the resurrection and blessing or turning O that it might work its design upon us that to day we would hear the voice that cries so loud to us out of heaven the last perhaps numerically I am sure the last in specie or kind the last artifice this of the Word and Sacraments that is ever to be hoped for to this end to bless us to turn us every one from our c. 3. The Resurrection hath to do in blessing and turning in respect of Christs Intercession that prime act of his Melchisedech-priesthood his powerful intercession i. e. in effect conferring of grace on us thus Rom. 8 34. where that weighty business of justifying is laid more on the Resurrection than Death of Christ It is Christ that died yea rather that is risen again 'T is thus enlarged in the next words who is even at the right hand of God who also maketh intercession for us his intercession powerful intercession at the right hand of God a consequent of Gods raising up his Son Jesus hath a main influence on turning first and then justifying the ungodly and so Heb. 7.25 Wherefore he is able to save them to the uttermost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to save them for good and all deliver them from all kind of assailants from sin from themselves from wrath from hell though not absolutely all yet those that come unto God by him those that turn when he will have them turn seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them Will you see this more clearly Why then thus There are three degrees of grace preventing exciting assisting the first for conversion the second for sanctifying the third for perseverance And two acts of turning being already premised for the beginning of that blessing work 1. By the power of that Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead Then 2. By the descent of the holy Ghost the first as the seed sown the second as the rain and Sun-shine to bring it up there is yet a third required for the earing and hardning of the corn that of Gods giving increase for the consummating this weighty affair for the confirming and establishing those that are initially blest and turned into a kind of Angelical state of perseverance And to this it is that Christs continual intercession belongs for that is peculiarly for Disciples for those that are Believers Christians already that they may be preserved and kept in that state as for Saint Peter in the time of shock of tempest when Satan is at his expetivit that if we be permitted to be tempted yet our faith may not fail Luke 22.32 Another copy of this intercession you have John 17. the whole chapter is a prescript form of it a platform of what he now daily performs in heaven Look in the 11. verse Holy Father keep through thine own name own power those whom thou hast given me those that are believers already and in the 15. I pray not that thou shouldst take them out of the world but that thou shouldst keep them from the evil one not for immunity from temptations for an impeccable state but for a sufficiency of grace to keep to sustain them in time of temptation that they may be able to stand So that this Intercession of Christ is apportion'd and adequate to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 proficients those that are Believers already Disciples or others to come that shall be such and when they are pray'd for are considered under that notion as 't is clear ver 20. Neither pray I for these alone but for them also that shall believe on me through their word a direct notation who they are that this daily intercession for keeping for perseverance belongs to the believers faithful disciples and none others I pray for them I pray not for the world ver 9. Other prayers he can allow for the world the veriest incarnate devils in it the very crucifiers Father forgive them but this prayer for perseverance for keeping is only for the them the believers there The impenitent unbeliever cannot have his portion in that unless he would have Christ pray to damn him irreversibly to keep him in his impenitence to seal him up unto the day of perdition You see from hence by way of result or corollary what 't is that our perseverance in the faith and favour of God is imputable to not any fatal contrivance for some special confidents that their sins shall not be able to separate them not any such 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Marcus his Scholars in Irenaeus pretended to that by it they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 naturally spiritual that all the debaucheries in the world could no more vitiate them than the â—un-beams are profan'd by the dunghill which they shine on or the gold by the â—luttery it may be mixt with that by the shield of the mother of heaven what ever they did they were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible to the Judge No such comforts and hopes as these of perseverance in sin and favour with God at once of making good our union with God when we are in the gall of bitterness of being justified when we are not sanctified that magical spell that fastens us in a circle
your selves to a pretty large task and it were a notable Christmas employment I should bless God for any one that would be so piously valiant as to undertake it you must read over the whole Book of Scripture and Nature to this purpose For when you find in the Psalmist the news of Christs coming Then said I loe I come you find your directions how to tract him In the volume of thy book it is written of me c. i. e. either in the whole book or in every folding every leaf of this Book Thou shalt not find a Story a Riddle a Prophecy a Ceremony a down-right legal Constitution but hath some manner of aspect on this glass some way drives at this mystery God manifest in flesh For example perhaps you have not noted whereever you read Seth's Genealogies more insisted on than Cain's Sem's than his elder brother Ham's Abraham's than the whole World besides Jacob's than Esau's Judah's than the whole twelve Patriarchs and the like passages which directly drive down the line of Christ and make that the whole business of the Scripture Whensoever I say you read any of these then are you to note that Shiloh was to come that he which was sent was on his journey that from the Creation till the fulness of time the Scriptur◠was in travel with him and by his leaping ever now and then and as it were springing in the Womb gave manifest tokens that it had conceived and would at last bring forth the Messias So that the whole Old Testament is a Mystical Virgin Mary a kind of Mother of Christ which by the Holy Ghost conceived him in Genesis Chap. iii. 15 And throughout Moses and the Prophets carried him in the Womb and was very big of him And at last in Malachi Chap. iii. 4 was in a manner delivered of him For there you shall find mention of John Baptist who was as it were the Midwife of the Old Testament to open its Womb and bring the Messias into the World Howsoever at the least it is plain that the Old Testament brought him to his birth though it had not strength to bring forth and the Prophets as Moses from Mount Nebo came to a view of this Land of Canaan For the very first words of the New Testament being as it were to fill up what only was wanting in the Old are the Book and History of his generations and birth Matth. i. You would yet be better able to prize the excellency of this Work and reach the pitch of this days rejoycing if you would learn how the very Heathen fluttered about this light what shift they made to get some inkling of this Incarnation before-hand how the Sibyls Heathen Women and Virgil and other Heathen Poets in their writings before Christ's time let fall many passages which plainly referred and belonged to this Incarnation of God It is fine sport to see in our Authors how the Devil with his famous Oracles and Prophets foreseeing by his skill in the Scripture that Christ was near his birth did droop upon it and hang the wing did sensibly decay in his courage began to breath thick and speak imperfectly and sometimes as men in the extremity of a Fever distractedly wildly without any coherence and scarce sense and how at last about the birth of Christ he plainly gave up the ghost and left his Oracular Prophets as speechless as the Caves they dwelt in their last voice being that their great god Pan i. e. the Devil was dead and so both his Kingdom and their Prophecies at an end as if Christ's coming had chased Lucifer out of the World and the powers of Hell were buried that minute when a Saviour was born And now by way of Vse can ye see the Devil put out of heart and ye not put forward to get the Field can you delay to make use of such an advantage as this can ye be so cruel to your selves as to shew any mercy on that now disarmed enemy will ye see God send his Son down into the Field to enter the Lists and lead up a Forlorn Troop against the Prince of this World and ye not follow at his Allarm will ye not accept of a conquest which Christ so lovingly offers you It is a most terrible exprobration in Hosea Chap. xi 3 look on it where God objects to Ephraim her not taking notice of his mercies her not seconding and making use of his loving deliverances which plainly adumbrates this deliverance by Christ's death as may appear by the first Verse of the Chapter compared with the second of Matth. 15. Well saith God I taught Ephraim to go taking them by their arms but they knew not that I healed them I drew them with the cords of a man an admirable phrase with all those means that use to oblige one man to another with bands of love c. i. e. I used all means for the sustaining and strengthning of my people I put them in a course to be able to go and fight and overcome all the powers of darkness and put off the Devils yoke I sent my Son amongst them for this purpose Verse 1. And all this I did by way of love as one friend is wont to do for another and yet they would not take notice of either the benefit or the donor nor think themselves beholding to me for this mercy And this is our case beloved If we do not second these and the like mercies of God bestowed on us if we do not improve them to our Souls health if we do not fasten on this Christ incarnate if we do not follow him with an expression of gratitude and reverence and stick close to him as both our Friend and Captain finally if we do not endeavour and pray that this his Incarnation may be seconded with annother that as once he was born in our flesh to justifie us so he may be also born spiritually in our Souls to sanctifie us for there is a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Mystical Incarnation of Christ in every regenerate man where the Soul of Man is the Womb wherein Christ is conceived by the Holy Ghost The proof of which Doctrine shall entertain the remainder of this hour for this is the Emmanuel that most nearly concerns us God with us i. e. with our Spirits or Christ begotten and brought forth in our hearts Of which briefly And that Christ is thus born in a regenerate mans soul if it were denied might directly appear by these two places of Scripture Gal. ii 20 I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me Again Ephes iii. 17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith c. Now that you may understand this Spiritual Incarnatien of Christ the better we will compare it with his Real Incarnation in the Womb of the Virgin that so we may keep close to the business of the day and at once observe both his birth to
the World and ours to Grace and so even possess Christ whilst we speak of him And first if we look on his Mother Mary we shall find her an entire pure Virgin only espoused to Joseph but before they came together she was found with Child of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 18 And then the Soul of Man must be this Virgin Now there is a threefold Purity or Virginity of the Soul First An absolute one such as was found in Adam before his fall Secondly A respective of a Soul which like Mary hath not yet joyned or committed with the World to whom it is espoused which though it have its part of natural corruptions yet either for want of ability of age or occasion hath not yet broke forth into the common outrages of sin Thirdly A restored purity of a Soul formerly polluted but now cleansed by repentance The former kind of natural and absolute purity as it were to be wished for so is it not to be hoped and therefore is not to be imagined in the Virgin Mother or expected in the Virgin Soul The second purity we find in all regenerate infants who are at the same time outwardly initiated to the Church and inwardly to Christ or in those whom God hath called before they have ingaged themselves in the courses of actual hainous sins such are well disposed well brought up and to use our Saviours words Have so lived as not to be far from the Kingdom of God Such happily as Cornelius Acts x. 1 And such a Soul as this is the fittest Womb in which our Saviour delights to be incarnate where he may enter and dwell without either resistance or annoyance where he shall be received at the first knock and never be disordered or repulsed by any stench of the carkass or violence of the Body of sin The restored purity is a right Spirit renewed in the Soul Psal li. 10 a wound cured up by repentance and differs only from the former purity as a scar from a skin never cut wanting somewhat of the beauty and outward clearness but nothing of either the strength or health of it Optandum esset ut in simplici Virginitate servaretur navis c. It were to be wished that the Ship our Souls could be kept in its simple Virginity and never be in danger of either leak or shipwrack but this perpetual integrity being a desperate impossible wish there is one only remedy which though it cannot prevent a leak can stop it And this is repentance after sin committed Post naufragium tabula a means to secure one after a shipwrack and to deliver him even in the deep Waters And this we call a restored Virginity of the Soul which Christ also vouchsafes to be conceived and born in The first degree of Innocence being not to have sinned the second to have repented In the second place the Mother of Christ in the flesh was a Virgin not only till the time of Christ's conception but also till the time of his birth Matth. i. 25 He knew her not till she had brought forth c. And farther as we may probably believe remained a Virgin all the days of her life after for to her is applied by the Learned that which is typically spoken of the East-gate of the Sanctuary Ezek. xliv 2 This gate shall be shut it shall not be opened and no man shall enter in by it because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut A place if appliable very apposite for the expression Hence is she called by the Fathers and Counsels 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin against the Heresie of Helvidius The probability of this might be farther proved if it were needful And ought not upon all principles of nature and of justice the Virgin Soul after Christ once conceived in it remain pure and stanch till Christ be born in it nay be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Perpetual Virgin never indulge to sensual pleasures or cast away that purity which Christ either found or wrought in it If it were a respective purity then ought it not perpetually retain and increase it and never fall off to those disorders that other men supinely live in If it were a recovered purity hold it fast and never turn again As a Dog to his vomit or a Sow to her wallowing in the mire For this conception and birth of Christ in the Soul would not only wash away the filth that the Swine was formerly mired in but also take away the Swinish nature that she shall never have any strong propension to return again to her former inordinate delights Now this continuance of the Soul in this its recovered Virginity is not from the firm constant stable nature of the Soul but as Eusebius saith in another case 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 From a more strong able Band the Vnion of Christ to the Soul his Spiritual Incarnation in it Because the Lord the God of Israel hath entred in by it therefore it shall be shut Ezek. xliv 2 i. e. it shall not be opened either in consent or practice to the lusts and pollutions of the World or Flesh because Christ by being born in it hath cleansed it because he the Word of God said the Word therefore the leprosie is cured in whom he enters he dwells and on whom he makes his real impression he seals them up to the day of redemption unless we unbuild our selves and change our shape we must be his In the third place if we look on the agent in this conception we shall find it both in Mary and in the Soul of Man to be the Holy Ghost that which is conceived in either of them is of the Holy Ghost Matth. i. 20 Nothing in this business of Christs birth with us to be imputed to natural power or causes the whole contrivance and final production of it the preparations to and labouring of it is all the workmanship of the Spirit So that as Mary was called by an ancient so may the Soul without an Hyperbole by us be styled The Shop of Miracles and The Work-house of the Holy Ghost in which every operation is a miracle to nature and no tools are used but what the Spirit forged and moves Mary conceived Christ but it was above her own reach to apprehend the manner how for so she questions the Angel Luke i. 34 How shall this be c. So doth the Soul of Man conceive and grow big and bring forth Christ and yet not it self fully perceives how this work is wrought Christ being for the most part insensibly begotten in us and to be discerned only spiritually not at his entrance but in his fruits In the fourth place that Mary was chosen and appointed among all the Families of the Earth to be the Mother of the Christ was no manner of desert of hers but Gods special favour and dignation whence the
abroad in Tents we have seen or heard of him but have not yet brought him home into our hearts there to possess and rectify and instruct our wills as well as our understandings Thirdly The whole mystery of Christ articulately set down in our Creed we as punctually believe and to make good our names that we are Christians in earnest we will challenge and defie the Fire and Faggot to perswade us out of it and these are good resolutions if our practices did not give our Faith the lye and utterly renounce at the Church Door whatsoever we profest in our Pews This very one thing that he which is our Saviour shall be our Judge that he which was crucified dead and buried sits now at the right hand of God and from thence shall come to judge the world this main part yea summ of our belief we deny and bandy against all our lives long If the story of Christ coming to judgment set down in the xxv of Matthew after the 30. Verse had ever entred through the doors of our Ears to the inward Closets of our hearts 't is impossible but we should observe and practise that one single duty there required of us Christ there as a Judge exacts and calls us to account for nothing in the World but only works of mercy and according to the satisfaction which we are able to give him in that one point he either entertains or repels us and therefore our care and negligence in this one business will prove us either Christians or Infidels But alas 't is too plain that in our actions we never dream either of the Judgment or the Arraignment our stupid neglect of this one duty argues us not only unchristian but unnatural Besides our Alms-deeds which concern only the outside of our neighbour and are but a kind of worldly mercy there are many more important but cheaper works of mercy as good counsel spiritual instructions holy education of them that are come out of our loyns or are committed to our care seasonable reproof according to that excellent place Lev. xix 17 Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thine heart but in any wise reprove him a care of carrying our selves that we may not scandal or injure or offer violence to the Soul and tender Conscience of him that is flexible to follow us into any riot These and many other works of mercy in the highest degree as concerning the welfare of other mens Souls and the chief thing required of us at the day of Judgment are yet so out-dated in our thoughts so utterly defaced and blotted out in the whole course of our lives that it seems we never expect that Christ in his Majesty as a Judge whom we apprehend and embrace and hug in his humility as a Saviour Beloved till by some severe hand held over our lives and particularly by the daily study and exercise of some work of mercy or other we demonstrate the sincerity of our belief the Saints on Earth and Angels in Heaven will shrewdly suspect that we do only say over that part of our Creed that we believe only that which is for our turn the sufferings and satisfactions of Christ which cost us nothing but do not proceed to his office of a Judge do not either fear his Judgments or desire to make our selves capable of his mercies Briefly whosoever neglects or takes no notice of this duty of exercising works of mercy whatsoever he brags of in his theory or speculation in his heart either denies or contemns Christ as Judge and so destroys the summ of his Faith and this is another kind of secret Atheism Fourthly Our Creed leads us on to a belief and acknowledgment of the Holy Ghost and 't is well we have all conn'd his name there for otherwise I should much fear that it would be said of many nominal Christians what is reported of the Ephesian Disciples Acts xix 2 They have not so much as heard whether there be an Holy Ghost or no. But not to suspect so much ignorance in any Christian we will suppose indeed men to know whatsoever they profess and enquire only whether our lives second our professions or whether indeed they are mere Infidels and Atheistical in this business concerning the Holy Ghost How many of the ignorant sort which have learnt this name in their Catechism or Creed have not yet any further use to put it to but only to make up the number of the Trinity have no special office to appoint for him no special mercy or gift or ability to beg of him in the business of their Salvation but mention him only for fashion sake not that they ever think of preparing their Bodies or Souls to be Temples worthy to entertain him not that they ever look after the earnest of the spirit in their hearts 2 Cor. i. 22 Further yet how many better learned amongst us do not yet in our lives acknowledge him in that Epithet annext to his title the Holy Ghost i. e. not only eminently in himself holy but causally producing the same quality in us from thence called the sanctifying and renewing spirit How do we for the most part fly from and abandon and resist and so violently deny him when he once appears to us in this Attribute When he comes to sanctifie us we are not patient of so much sowreness so much humility so much non-conformity with the world as he begins to exact of us we shake off many blessed motions of the spirit and keep our selves within garrison as far as we can out of his reach lest at any turn he should meet with and we should be converted Lastly The most ordinary morally qualified tame Christians amongst us who are not so violent as to profess open arms against this Spirit how do they yet reject him out of all their thoughts How seldom do many peaceable orderly men amongst us ever observe their wants or importune the assistance of this Spirit In summ 't was a shrewd Speech of the Fathers which will cast many fair out-sides at the bar for Atheists That the life of an unregenerate man is but the life of an Heathen and that 't is our Regeneration only that raises us up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles He that believes in his Creed the Person nay understands in the Schools the Attributes and gifts of the Holy Ghost and yet sees them only in the fountain neither finds nor seeks for any effects of them in his own Soul he that is still unregenerate and continues still gaping and yawning stupid and senseless in this his condition is still for all his Creed and Learning in effect an Atheist And the Lord of Heaven give him to see and endeavours to work and an heart to pray and his spirit to draw and force him out of this condition Fifthly Not to cramp in every Article of our Creed into this Discourse we will only insist on two
accomplish't defer all our happiness to be performed to us at the Resurrection and though God kill us yet trust in him and be able to see through Death in a trust That our Redeemer lives and that with these eyes we shall behold him then may we chear up and perswade our selves on good grounds that our hearts and lives do assent to the Resurrection which our tongues brag of Take no heaviness to heart but drive it away and remember the end But if this consideration cannot digest the least oppression of this life cannot give us patience for the lightest encumbrance but for all our Creed we still fly out into all outrages of passion and ecstacies of impatience we plainly betray our selves men of this present World whose happiness or misery is only that which is temporary and before our Eyes are not able by the perspective of faith to behold that which easily we might all our wants relieved all our injuries revenged all our wounds bound up in the day of the Resurrection but all our life long we repine and grumble and are discontented as men without hope and whilst we do thus what do we but act the part of these Atheists here in my Text scoffing and saying Where is the promise â—f his coming in the next Verse to my Text. This very impatience and want of skill in bearing the brunts of this our warfare is but a piece of cowardly Atheism either a denying or mocking at the Resurrection Every sigh is a scoff every groan a gibe every fear a sly art of laughing at the stupidity of those who depend upon the fulfilling of the promise of his coming Lastly say we what we will we live as if there were no Resurrection as Sadduces if not as Atheists all our designs look no further than this life all our contrivances are defeated and frustrate in the Grave we mannage our selves with so little understanding that any Spectator would judge by our actions that 't is no injury to compare us to the beasts that perish and never return again Certainly if we had any design upon Heaven or another life we would here make some provision for it Make our selves friends of our unrighteous Mammon that when we fail they may receive us into everlasting habitations i. e. use those good things that God hath given us with some kind of providence that they may stand us in stead when we have need of them i. e. not only as instruments to sin for that is to get us more Enemies but as harbingers to be sent before us to Heaven 'T was a bitter sarcasm of the fool to the Abbot on his Death-Bed that the Abbot deserved his staff as being the verier Fool of the two that being straight to die to remove his Tent to another World he had sent none of his houshold-stuff before him The truth is we live generally as men that would be very angry much displeased if any should perswade us there were a Resurrection the very mentioning of it to us might seem to upbraid our ordinary practices which have nothing but the darkness of death and silence of the Grave to countenance them I may justly say that many ignorant Heathens which were confident there was nothing beyond this life expected certainly with death to be annihilated and turn again into a perpetual nothing yet either for the awe they bore to vertue or fear of disgrace after death kept themselves more regularly lived more carefully than many of us Christians And this is an horrid accusation that will lie very heavy upon us that against so many illuminated understandings the ignorance of the Gentiles should rise up in judgment and the learned Christian be found the most desperate Atheist I have been too large upon so rigid a Doctrine as this and I love and pray God I may always have occasion to come up to this place upon a more merciful subject but I told you even now out of Lev. xix 17 that 't was no small work of mercy 't was the most friendly office that could be performed any man to reprehend and as the Text saith Not to suffer sin upon thy neighbour especially so sly a covert lurking sin as this of Atheism which few can discern in themselves I shall now come to Application which because the whole Doctrine spoke morally to your affections and so in a manner prevented Vses shall be only a recapitulation and brief knitting up of what hitherto hath been scattered at large Seeing that the Devils policy of deluding and bewitching and distorting our Vnderstandings either with variety of false gods or Heresies raised upon the true is now almost clearly out-dated and his skill is all bent to the deforming of the Will and defacing the character of God and the expression of the sincerity of our Faith in our lives we must deal with this Enemy at his own Weapon learn to order our munition according to the assault and fortify that part most impregnably toward which the tempest binds and threatens There is not now so much danger to be feared from the inrode of Hereticks in opinion as in practice not so much Atheism to be dreaded from the infidelity of our brains as the Heathenism and Gentilism of our Lusts which even in the midst of a Christian profession deny God even to his Face And therefore our chiefest Frontiers and Fortifications must be set up before that part of the Soul our most careful Watch and Sentinel placed upon our affections lest the Devil enter there and depopulate the whole Christian and plant the Atheist in his room To this purpose we must examine what Seeds are already sown what treachery is a working within and no doubt most of us at the first cast of the Eye shall find great store unless we be partial to our selves and bring in a verdict of mercy and construe that weakness which indeed signifies Atheism When upon examination we find our lives undermining our belief our practices denying the authority of Scripture and no whit forwarder to any Christian duty upon its commands When we find God's Essence and Attributes reviled and scoffed at in our conversation his omnipresence contemned by our confidence in sinning and argued against by our banishing God out of all our thoughts his all-sufficiency doubted of by our distrusts and our scorn to depend upon it When we perceive that our carriages do fall off at this part of our belief in Christ that he shall come again to be our Judge and by our neglect of those works especially of mercy which he shall then require of us shew that indeed we expect him not or think of him as a Judge but only as a Saviour When we observe our Wills resisting the gifts and falsifying the Attribute whilst our Creed confesses the Person of the Holy Ghost and see how little how nothing of the sanctifying spirit of the earnest of our Regeneration is in our hearts and we still
signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I am the first i. e. Paul was the chief of all Converts and Paul was the first that from so great a Persecutor of Christ was changed into so great so glorious an Apostle For so it follows in the Verses next after my Text For this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Christ Jesus might shew forth all long suffering c. The issue of all is this that Saul unconverted was a very great Sinner yet not the greatest of Sinners absolutely but for ought we read in the New Testament the greatest and first that was called from such a degree of infidelity a Blasphemer a Persecuter to so high a pitch of Salvation a Saint an Apostle yea and greater than an Apostle whence the observation is that though Saul were yet every blasphemous Sinner cannot expect to be called from the depth of sin to regeneracy and Salvation Although Saul being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the chief of sinners was called and saved yet Saul was also in another sense for ought we read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and perhaps the last that from so great a riot of sin obtained so great Salvation Wherefore O Sinner be not presumptuous from Pauls Example but from Pauls single Example begin to suspect thy state and fear that such a miracle of Salvation shall not be afforded thee There hath been an opinion of late reviv'd perhaps original among the Romans that the greatest Sinner is the more likely object of Gods mercy or subject of his grace than the mere moral man whom either natural fear or the like not spiritual respects hath restrained from those outrages of sin The being of this opinion in the primitive Romans and the falseness of it is sufficientâ—y prov'd by that expoâ—â—ulation of St. Paul Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid In answer to some who hearing that Christ came into the world to save sinners thought that the excess of sin was the best qualification and only motive to provoke and deserve a more abundant grace and certain salvation As if that spirit which once to manifest its power called Saul in the midst of his madness breathing out threatnings and slaughters against the Church would not call any but those who had prepared themselves by the same degree of madness but required that men should make themselves almost Devils that they might be called into Christians as if that God which could out of stones could not also out of men raise up Children unto Abraham as if that Christ which raised up Lazarus being dead four dayes and as they thought stinking in his grave could not as easily have heal'd him whilst he was yet alive whereas we read that Christ dealt more on the cures of the impotent than resurrections of the dead that is in a spiritual application heal'd more from the Bed of languishment of their weaknesses and diseases than he raised out of the graves of trespasses and sins though some also hath he out of death quickned to exalt the power and miracle of his mercy Yet hath not this doctrine too been most confidently maintained among some of our times That there is more hope of the debauch'd man that he shall be called or saved than of the mere moral honest man who yâ—â— is in the state of unregeneracy Have not some men defining this moral man by the formal hypocrite set him in the greatest opposition to Heaven As if that degree of innocence or rather not being extremely sinful which a moral care of our ways may bestow on us were a greater hindrance than promotion toward the state of grace and the natural man were so much the further from God the nearer he were to goodness and no man could hope to come to Heaven but he that had knockt at Hell-gates I confess indeed that the Holy Ghost where he means to inhabit hath no need of pains to prepare him a room but can at his first knock open and cleanse adorn and beautify the most uncouth ugly and unsavory heart in the World That omnipotent convincing spirit can at the same instant strike the most obdurate heart and soften it and where it once enters cannot be repuls'd by the most sturdy habituate sin or Devil I confess likewise that some have been thus rather snatch'd than call'd like the fire-brands out of the fire and by an ecstasy of the spirit inwardly in a minute chang'd from incarnate Devils into incarnate Saints So was Mary dispossest of seven Devils who was after so highly promoted in Christs favour that she had the honour to be the first witness of the Resurrection So that Gadarene who had intrencht and fortified himself among the Tombs and was garrison'd with an Army of Devils so that he brake Fetters and Chains and could not be tam'd or kept in any compass yet in a minute at Christs word sent forth a Legion of Fiends sufficient to people and destroy a Colony of Swine And so was Paul in my Text in a minute at Christs Call delivered of a multitude of blasphemous malicious spirits and straight became the joy of Angels the Apostle of the Gentiles Yet mean time these miraculous but rarer Examples must not prescribe and set up must not become a rule and encourage any one to Sauls madness on confidence of Pauls Conversion to a more impetuous course of sinning that he may become a more glorious Saint 'T is a wrong way to Heaven to dig into the deep and a brutish arrogance to hope that God will the more eagerly woo us the further our sins have divorc't us from him If some as hath been said have been caught or strucken in the height of their Rebellions or in the fulness of the evil spirit called to a wane as Diseases in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or top-pitch are wont to decay and weaken into health again if there have been some of these as my Apostle rais'd from the depth of sin as Lazarus from the stench of the grave yet these in respect of others more softly and ordinarily called are found few in number and such as were appointed for the Miracles as well as the objects of Gods mercy Hence it is that a strange disorder hath most times accompanied this extraordinary conversion of more violent outragious Sinners Our Apostle to go no farther was to be cast into a trance and his regeneration not to be accomplisht without a kind of Death and Resurrection whereas others who are better morally qualified or rather are less hardned in the sins of unregeneracy do answer at the softest knock or whispering'st call of the Spirit and at his becken will come after him More might be said of this point how St. Paul was most notably converted that he had the alleviation of ignorance for which cause as he says himself he found mercy and that others are not probably to expect the like miracle who have not those insuperable prepossessions from custom
when Jesus had cried with a loud voice which belongs to the former passage he said Father into thy hands I commend my spirit and having said this he gave up the Ghost 9. Here we see our Blessed Saviour that had not the Spirit by measure that spake as never man spake chose yet to conclude his life to entertain himself in his greatest Agony and at last to breath out his Soul in this Psalmist's form of words rather than in his own No tongue of Men or Angels can invent a greater 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to set out the honour of any Writing or give us more reason to lay up in our minds the words of the Martyr Hippolitus that in the dayes of Antichrist 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Liturgy shall be extinguisht Psalmody shall cease Reading of the Scriptures shall not be heard In which three as the Publick Service of God was by the Antients thought to consist so the destroying of all and each of them must needs be a branch if not the whole body of Antichristianisme a direct contradiction to Christ who by his own prescription or practice of each of these imprest a Sacred Character on each 10. The use which the Apostles of Christ are recorded to have made of this Book bears proportion with these precedents 11. In St. Peter's Speech about Judas and his Successor the directions are taken from hence Act 1.16 20. In his first Sermon to his Countreymen his proofs are from hence Act. 11.25 31 34. So again chap. 4.11 And upon the delivery of him and John out of the Rulers hands the whole company celebrate the news of it chap. 4.24 first in the words of Psal 146.6 then of Psal 2.1 2. so St. Paul in his Preaching Act. 13.22 33 35. in his Writings Rom. 3.4 10 c. 8.36 10.18.11.9.15.3 9 11 and oft elsewhere and so in his Sufferings also Act. 16.25 At midnight one of the Solemn hours of Prayer and Psalmody in the Antient Church Paul and Silas 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in their office of Prayer used an Hymn or Psalm one or more also and recited so loud that the prisoners heard and this again signally accepted and rewarded by God with the earth-quake and opening of the doors and loosing of their bands v. 26. 12. The use of these in the Publick Assemblies as early as the Apostles times is intimated 1 Cor. 14 26. but distinctly set down 1 Cor. 2.4 under the style of Prophesying every Man praying or prophesying according to the importance of that phrase 1 Chron. 25. Heman and Jeduthun should prophesy with harps with psalteries and with cymbals v. 1. and the sons of Asaph prophesied according to the order of the King v. 2. and the sons of Jeduthun prophesied with the harp to give thanks and praise the Lord v. 3. and in them as in praying all joyned the whole assembly in heart and voice had all their common inteterest women as well as men every woman that prayeth or prophesieth v. 5. though in other parts of the office they were not allowed to speak chap. 14.34 yet let us exalt his name together Psal 34.3 young men and maidens Psal 148.12 and so still 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Isidore Polusiote the Apostles of Christ wisely permitted that women should Sing Psalms in the Churches and he there mentions it as a most severe punishment to be inflicted on them for their misdemeanours 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be interdicted Singing in the Church with which he joyns 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the turning them out of the City 13. Then for the more private use of them St. Paul's prescriptions are authentick testimony Eph. v. 18 19. where in opposition to the heathen Orgia of Bacchus's Enthusiasts he directs to speaking to themselves in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in their hearts unto God and Col. 3 16. teaching and admonishing one another in Psalms and Hymns and spiritual Songs singing with grace in your hearts unto the Lord. And so St. James also chap. v. 13. Is any merry let him sing Psalms 14. How this Exercise was frequented in all after-Ages in the Church and made a very great part of the Christians devotions both in the publick assembly and more privately in the Family and yet in the greater retirement in the Closet and the waking Bed we need not seek in the Histories of the Ascetae and Recluse many of which spent their whole time in this imployment reciting the whole Psalter daily others weekly none past an hour of Prayer without a considerable portion of it The Fathers of the Church assure us that for those that lived in Seculo Psalmody was the constant attendant sometimes of their Meals generally of their Business in the shop and in the field that they learnt the whole Book by heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and through their whole age continued singing or saying Psalms that whereas the custome of the world had taught all to deceive the wearisomness or length of business by any kind of singing 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God had provided them Psalms for their pleasure and profit together that whilst they did in appearance but sing they should really be instructed and improved in their souls 15. The consideration of these things but especially of the common interest of all sorts and states Ages and Sexes in this one great treasury and magazine deposited with the Church for the inriching and securing of Souls together with one sadder reflection which I had rather the Reader should be told from St. Chrysostome than from me have oft suggested and at length perswaded me to make this attempt to cast in my Mite to this Treasury my Symbolum toward so charitable a work as is the indeavour that every man may be in some measure able to say with St Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I will sing or recite a Psalm with the spirit I will do it with the understanding also 16. In order to which what is here attempted to be performed together with the uses which every pious Christian may think fit to make of it I am in this place to advertise the Reader 17. For the first The maine if not only scope of the Paraphrase and Annotations hath been to extricate and clear the literal importance of each Psalm whether that were more general wherein all men indifferently were concerned or more particular and that again either such as concerned the Psalmist only in relation to some Matter of Fact in the Story of those Times or such as had a farther and more Divine Aspect on Christ the Messias of the World who without question is oft predicted in this Book of Psalms and either by Christ himself or by his inspired Apostles acknowledged and attested to have been signally meant and so to have given the World the most eminent Completion of those Predictions 18. Now because the Expounding of Prophecies
and ordering his affections which is the prime piece of moral prudence and also if need be for the governing of a Kingdom the precepts of this wise Prince extending to that also 6. To understand a Proverb and the interpretation the words of the wise and their dark sayings Paraphrase 6. And so likewise will his study of this book bring him acquainted with the most elegant acute and profound composures which are any where to be met with and teach him the understanding of them Thus various and manifold are the uses and advantages of the diligent studying of this book if we can attain to the full importance of the severals conteined in it 7. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge but fools despise wisedom and instruction Paraphrase 7. And the first lesson I shall commend to you is most worthy very great consideration being of a signal importance to our whole spiritual well-being and 't is this that all saving knowledge as that includes practice answerable to knowledge an uniform persevering obedience to all the commands of God is founded in true humility that fear signifies that see Annot. on Phil. 11. c. and piety and holy awe and reverence to God and a tender fear to displease him and a readiness to receive and embrace and lay up in an honest heart his word and his grace whensoever it shall be revealed and afforded him This is the onely kindly temper of soil where God's seed takes root and abundantly fructifies and is it self a work not of nature but of God's preparing and preventing graces when they are successfull and attain their desired effect in us whereas folly and pride contumacy and all manner of impiety go together Those that are not by God's preventing graces taking deep root in them moulded into this humble docible pious temper so as to be receptive of those good sober counsels which God commends to them and by his grace accompanies them and promises and never fails to cooperate with them in all that effectually receive them and traffick with them but on the contrary either resist or neglect either vex and grieve or by not receiving and imploying scatter and quench these graces of his spirit they never attain to true saving wisedom but remain in the dregs and on the lees of their corrupt natural state of folly and sin wherein they were born daily adding to and improving that original stock of wretchedness by actual and habitual sins wherein all impiety and at least practical Atheism consisteth 8. My Son hear the instruction of thy Father and forsake not the Law of thy Mother Paraphrase 8. To this purpose are the wholsome and early advices and rules of direction which parents give their children on purpose to infuse into them betimes these seeds of all vertue which benefit of a good education with the early graces of God accompanying it are the foresaid preventions of his spirit And therefore if I were as a Father to a dearest Son to give thee one fundamental counsel which should have a signal influence on all thy future weal it should be this that thou most humbly and obedientially receive and perform what thy parents thus direct or command thee and never forget or neglect or transgress their rules in any thing 9. For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head and chains about thy neck Paraphrase 9. And to engage thee thereto let me assure thee this constant chearfull uniform obedience shall be so far from proving an ungratefull weight or burthen to thee that it shall be to thy self as experience will teach thee the most pleasurable imployment a yoke but that a gracious one Matth. 11.30 and in the sight of all men most comely and ornamental above any other sort whether of natural or artificial beauty 1 Pet. 3.4 and over and above most acceptable and rewardable in the sight of God and so as far from being wearisome in any respect as a royal crown is from being a pressure or as a golden chain about the neck is from being a yoke or collar 10. My Son if sinners entice thee consent thou not Paraphrase 10. Of this sort of paternal advices or precepts a first is to beware and keep thy self from the seductions of wicked men Great store of such trials of thy constancy thou shalt be sure to meet with and there is but one armature can secure thee against them a standing steady and yielding no consent to any If thou doe thus thou art as safe from the temptations of men as he that resists the devil is from being polluted by him resist and they will fly from thee thy not consenting renders thee conquerour but if thou yield thou art ensnared and captivate 11. If they say come with us Let us lay wait for blood let us lurk privily for the innocent without cause 12. Let us swallow them up alive as the grave and whole as those that go down into the pit Paraphrase 11 12. These enticements are of many sorts and kinds I shall instance in one by which thou mayst estimate the rest Suppose a knot of bloody fellows which fear nothing but the eyes of men dread not the foulest commissions if they can hope to keep them undiscovered shall without any provocation design the slaughter of innocent persons and invite thee to take part with them in it promising to contrive it so secretly that it shall not be discerned either at the present so as to prevent it or afterwards so as to avenge or bring any peril on the actours assuring thee they have such ways to dispach them as shall leave no remainders or footsteps behind for discovery any more than when the earth opens on a sudden and swallows one up and all that belongs to him such therefore as shall prevent all possibility of so much as pursuit or enquiry after him and so secure thee both of success and of impunity That this was a prediction of the crucifying Christ is affirmed by St. Augustin de Civ Dei l. 17. c. 20. See Matth. 21.38 13. We shall find all precious substance we shall fill our houses with spoil 14. Cast in thy lot among us let us all have one purse Paraphrase 13 14. Adding to the promise of perfect safety assurance of rich spoils such as will maintain you plentifully all your life after and if you will but enter into the confederacy with them vowing to allow you as great a share in the prey as any of them 15. My Son walk not thou in the way with them refrain thy feet from their paths Paraphrase 15. When I say they shall thus have made their proposals to thee and set them off with all possible advantages to secure thy fears and allure thy hopes it still concerns thee most nearly to make good thy constancy not to enter so much as party with them to express thy utmost dislike and abhorrence of them to avoid
Mahomet to be a talking with God whil'st he lies foaming in an Epileptick fit but is content to be judged and discerned by the old plain Doctrines of the Gospel a regular authorized ordinary sober Spirit 3. The Zelotick Spirit was a thing peculiar among the Jews introduced and settled by the example of Phineas and Elias by way of precedent and standing Law to that Nation whereby 't was lawful when a man was taken in some notorious facts specifi'd by their Law Idolatry c. to run him through to kill him in the place without expecting any Legal process against him This was expresly commanded by Moses Numb 25.5 Slay ye every one the men that are joyned to Baal-peor and accordingly practised by Phineas upon incitation from God and when 't was done so by a Jew in the cases provided by the Jewish Law and by divine impulsion and the person assured that it was so there was then no harm in it but when that incitation from God was but pretended only not true when in any case but that prescribed by the Law then 't was perfect butchery and villany even among those Jews and unless in those few precedents of Phineas and Elias and the Maccabees i. e. Zelots for so the word Maccabee signifies in the Syriack 't will be hard to find either in Scripture or Josephus where there were whole multitudes of such men any one example of this practice justifiable even in a Jew And in opposition to and not compliance with that is the Gospel-spirit quite contrary to the heights of the Jewish practice never sheds bloud upon any but regular commissions an obedient orderly temperate cool Spirit 4. The Cursing spirit that may be of two sorts either in passing judgments on mens future spiritual estates a censorious damning spirit such as hath been usual in all kind of Hereticks almost that ever came into the Church nos spirituales we the spiritual and in the King of China's style filii coeli sons of heaven and all others animales psychici animal carnal men or 2. in wishing praying calling for curses either on God's or our enemies And you may know the Gospel-spirit by the opposition to these a hoping charitable merciful deprecating blessing Spirit Lastly the Fiery spirit is a vehement violent untractable unreconcileable spirit sets all where ever it comes into a flame and combustion and will never have peace with any thing which it can possibly consume nay farther it infuseth warmths and distempers and turbulencies into all that come within any reach of it communicates and diffuses its violencies to all others And the Gospel-spirit is direct antipodes to that an allaying quenching quieting cooling Spirit And so you see this new Spirit the Spirit of the Gospel of what a temper it is in all these respects a Spirit more fit than Lightning to melt the swords in our scabbards to new forge these hostile weapons into those that are more civil and profitable and that was the second course by which Christianity was to work this metamorphosis to beat these swords c. 3. And lastly our Saviour hath contributed toward this great work by the exemplariness of his own practice in this kind Not only in the first place in refusing to have the fire from heaven that the Boanerges would have help'd him to against the Samaritans profest enemies of Christ and of all that had any kind looks toward Jerusalem and besides notorious Hereticks and Schismaticks and yet pretenders to the only purity and antiquity against all sense and reason and so most arrogant Hypocrites also and yet all this not enough to inflame Christ's Spirit into that of Elias's or to change his temper into any thing of zeal or anger against these Nor only in the second place in reprehending and trashing of St. Peter's zeal when it drew the sword in his Master's defence against the high Priest's servants and indeed against the very Crucifiers of Christ Nor only in the third place in refusing the aid even of Angels from Heaven when they were ready upon his summons against the Heathens that attach'd him But fourthly and above all by that answer of his to Pilate John 18.36 If my Kingdom were of this world then should my servants fight c. which was certainly part of that good confession before Pilate mentioned with such honour 1 Tim. 6.13 inferring that because his Kingdom was not of this world because he was not a worldly or an earthly King therefore his servants were not to fight for him against a legal power of Heathens though 't were but to save him from Crucifying 'T is clear 't was one of his Accusers main hopes to find him in Judas Gaulonita's Doctrine That 't was unlawful for God's people and so for him that undertook to be God's Son to be subject to Idolaters making advantage of Piety as the Gnosticks after did toward their secular ends the freeing themselves from subjection in this world But our Saviour every where disclaims that Doctrine both Matth. 22.21 vindicating Caesar's Prerogative by his Coin and in that good confession to Pilate From which 't is demonstrable that what was not to be done in defence of Christ when he was in that danger and under that persecution is no more to be attempted in that case for Religion for Christianity it self I shall shut up this by leaving in your hands that most glorious lively Image of his whole Soul and Life delivered to us in one Medal that Learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your Souls To which if you add the sealing and the practising of this in the giving up his Soul laying down his Life an Offering of Charity even for enemies and yet farther for those enemies Souls this one Amulet hung about your necks one would think were sufficient to charm all the weapons of our warfare that are so unmercifully carnal to exorcize and conjure all the swords and spears out of the world to work new transfigurations and metamorphoses among us to return the Bears and Vultures into their old humane shapes again and proclaim an universal truce to all the military affections we carry about us to our wraths our covetings our aspirings a Sabbath a Jubilee of rest and peace like that which Jamblichus talks of in the Sphears a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a catholick constant harmony and accord a present pacification of all our intestine broils and so a quiet and rest unto our souls and till this be done till this Advent Prophecy be fulfilled in your ears you must know there is little of Christianity among us little of Evangelical graces or Evangelical Spirit nothing but Legal at the best That in God's good time there may be more not in the brain or tongue to elevate the one or adorn the other but in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the depth and sincerity of the heart more of the work and power the spirit and
estate such are our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our weaknesses ignorances and the like and some that are not the spots of sons they which do them shall not without actual reformation and victory and forsaking enter or inherit the kingdom of God after all that Christ hath done and suffered for them such our deliberate acts and habits against light against grace the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Text and let me tell you the not pondering these differences not observing the grains and scruples of sin how far the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 extend and when they are overgrown into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the ground that I say no more of a deal of desperate profaneness We cannot keep from all sin and therefore count it lost labour to endeavour to abstain from any having demonstrated our selves men by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we make no scruple to evidence our selves Devils too by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the desperation of perfect sinlessness makes us secure in all vileness and being engaged in weakness we advance to madness either hope to be saved with our greatest sins or fear to be damned for our least and having resolv'd it impossible to do all resolve securely to do none our infirmities may damn us and our rebellions can do no more our prayers our almes have sin in them and our murthers and sacriledges can be but sinful and so if the Devil or our interests will take the pains to solicite it the deadliest sin shall pass for as innocent a creature as tame a stingless Serpent as the fairest Christian vertue and all this upon the not observing the weight of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here which Christ rose from the grave on purpose to turn us from and from which whosoever is not turned shall never rise unto life Add unto this the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the his iniquities as it refers to the author of them and this is the bill of challenge and claim to those accursed possessions of ours nothing is so truly so peculiarly ours as our sins and of those as our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Our frailties our lapses our ignorances the diseases and infelicities of our nature which may insensibly fall from us vix ea nostra voco but our wasting wilful acts and indulg'd habits those great Vultures and Tygres of the soul they are most perfectly our own the natural'st brats and truest progeny that ever came from our loins nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Agamemnons phrase nor God nor Fate nor Fiend are any way chargeable with them The first were blasphemy the second Stoicism and folly to boot the third a bearing false witness against the devil himself robbing him of his great fundamental title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Calumniator and proving those that thus charge him the greatest Devils of the twain and all this is but one part of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the his c. as it refers to the Author And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 again the his as it is a note of eminence his peculiar prime reigning sins that all others like the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or commonalty are fain to be subject to sometimes a monarch-dictator-single sin a the plague in his own heart a principality of ambition of pride of lust of covetousness that all others at their distance administer unto sometimes an optimacy of a few all prime coequal in their power and sometimes a democracy or popular state a whole Aegypt full of locusts in one breast a Gad a troop or shole of sins all leading us captive to their shambles and thus our Soveraign sins as different as our tempers and every oâ—e the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here every man from his iniquities The summ of this first prospect is briefly this Thâ—â—urning every one from his iniquities wherein Christs blessing us consists is his giving of grace sufficient to work an universal sincere impartial thorough-change of every sinner from all his reigning wilful sins The sincerity though not perfection of the new creature And the dependence betwixt this and the resurrection of Christ is the second or next enquiry The resurrection of Christ in the Scripture-stile signifies not always the act of rising from the dead but the consequent state after that rising by the same proportion that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the new creation and the being regenerate or born of God signifie the state of Sonship and not the act of begetting only So that in brief the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here the raising up of Jesus signifies the new state to which Christ was inaugurate at his resurrection and contains under it all the severals of ascension of sitting at the right hand of power of the mission of the Holy Ghost and his powerful intercession for us in Heaven ever since and to the end of the world And this is the notion of the resurrection of Christ which is the blesser which hath that influence on our turning 't will not be amiss to shew you how And here I shall not mention that moral influence of his resurrection upon ours by the example of his powerful rising out of the grave to preach to us the necessity of our shaking off the grave-cloths that cadaverous chill noisome estate of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to rise again with him This is the blessing in the Text but this the example of Christ might preach long enough to dead souls before it would be hearkened unto although the truth is the antient Church by their setting apart these Holy-days for the baptizing of all that were baptized and the whole space betwixt this and Pentecost and every Dominical in the year for the gesture of standing in all their services that no man might come near the earth at the time that Christ rose from it did certainly desire to enforce this moral on us that our souls might now turn and be blessed rise and be conformed to the image of Christs resurrection Blessed Lord that it might be thus exemplary to us at this time But to omit this the special particulars wherein the resurrection of Christ as our blesser hath its influence on our turning are briefly these three 1. The bestowing on us some part of that Spirit by which Christ was raised out of the grave Consider Rom. 8. verse 11. and 't is all that I shall say to you of that first particular If the Spirit of him that raised up Christ from the dead dwell in you he that raised up Christ shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you that Spirit of power by which Christ was raised out of the grave is the very efficient of our turning our new birth the Author of our present blessedness and the pledge of our future immortality God having raised his Son by his Spirit anointed him with that Spirit to work the like miracles
words run truly interpreted Luke i. 28 Hail thou that art highly favoured not as the Vulgar read Gratiâ plena full of Grace And again verse 30. Thou hast found favour with God So is it in the case of Mans Soul there is no power of nature no preparation of Morality no art that all the Philosophy or Learning in the World can teach a man which can deserve this grace at Christs hands that can any way wooe or allure God to be born spiritually in us which can perswade or intice the Holy Ghost to conceive and beget Christ in us but only the meer favour and good pleasure of God which may be obtained by our prayers but can never be challenged by our merits may be comfortably expected and hoped for as a largess given to our necessities and wants but can never be required as a reward of our deserts for it was no high pitch of perfection which Mary observed in her self as the motive to this favour but only the meer mercy of God which regarded the lowliness of his hand-maid Luke i. 48 Whence in the fifth place this Soul in which Christ will vouchsafe to be born must be a lowly humble soul or else it will not perfectly answer Maries temper nor fully bear a part in her Magnificat where in the midst of her glory she humbly specifies the lowliness of his handmaid But this by the way In the sixth place if we consider here-with John the Baptist his forerunner coming to prepare his way and his Preaching repentance as a necessary requisite to Christs being born and received in the World then we shall drive the matter to a further issue and find repentance a necessary preparation for the birth of Christ in our hearts For so the Baptist's Message set down Isai xl 3 Prepare the ways c. is here interpreted by the event Matth. iii. 2 Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand as if this Harbinger had no other furniture and provision to bespeak in the heart that was to receive Christ but only repentance for sins I will not examine here the precedence of Repentance before Faith in Christ though I might seasonably here state the question and direct you to begin with John and proceed to Christ first repent then fasten on Christ only this for all the promises of Salvation in Christ are promised on condition of repentance and amendment they must be weary and heavy laden who ever come to Christ and expect rest Matth. xi 28 And therefore whosoever applies these benefits to himself and thereby conceives Christ in his heart must first resolve to undertake the condition required to wit Newness of life which yet he will not be able to perform till Christ be fully born and dwell in him by his enabling graces for you may mark that Christ and John being both about the same age as appears by the story Christ must needs be born before Johns Preaching so in the Soul there is supposed some kind of Incarnation of Christ before repentance or newness of life yet before Christ is born or at least come to his full stature and perfect growth in us this Baptist's Sermon that is this repentance and resolution to amendment must be presumed in our Souls And so repentance is both a preparation to Christs birth and an effect of it for so John preached Repent for c. Matth iii. 2 And so also in the same words Christ preaches Repent c. Matth. iv 17 And so these two together John and Christ repentance and Faith though one began before the other was perfected yet I say these two together in the fully regenerate man Fulfil all righteousness Matth. iii. 15 In the seventh place you may observe that when Christ was born in Bethlehem the whole Land was in an uproar Herod the King was troubled and all Jerusalem with him Matth. ii 3 which whether we apply to the lesser city the Soul of man in which or the adjoyning people amongst whom Christ is spiritually born in any man you shall for the most acknowledge the agreement for the man himself if he have been any inordinate sinner then at the birth of Christ in him all his natural sinful faculties are much displeased his reigning Herod sins and all the Jerusalem of habituate lusts and Passions are in great disorder as knowing that this new birth abodes their instant destruction and then they cry oft in the voice of the Devil Mark i. 24 What have we to do with thee Jesus thou Son of God Art thou come to torment and dispossess us before our time If it be applied to the Neighbour Worldlings which hear of this new convert then are they also in an uproar and consult how they shall deal with this turbulent spirit which is made to upbraid our ways and reprove our thoughts Wisd ii which is like to bring down all their trading and consenage to a low ebb like Diana's Silver-smith in the Acts Chap. xix 24 which made a solemn speech and the Text says there was a great stir against Paul because the attempt of his upstart doctrine was like to undo the Shrinemakers Sirs ye know that by this craft we have our wealth And no marvel that in both these respects there is a great uproar seeing the spiritual birth of Christ is most infinitely opposite to both the common people of the World and common affections of the Soul two the most turbulent tumultuous wayward violent Nations upon Earth In the eighth and last place because I will not tyre you above the time which is allotted for the trial of your patience you may observe the increase and growth of Christ and that either in himself in Wisdom and Stature c. Luke ii 52 or else in his troop and attendants and that either of Angels to minister unto him Matth. iv 11 or of Disciples to follow and obey him and then the harmony will still go currant Christ in the regenerate man is first conceived then born then by degrees of childhood and youth grows at last to the measure of the stature of this fulness and the Soul consequently from strength to strength from vertue to vertue is increased to a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus Then also where Christ is thus born he chuses and calls a Jury at least of Disciple-graces to judge and fit upon thee to give in evidence unto thy Spirit That thou art the Son of God Then is he also ministred unto and furnished by the Angels with a perpetual supply either to increase the lively or to recover decayed graces So that now Christ doth bestow a new life upon the man and the regenerate soul becomes the daughter as well as the Mother of Christ she conceives Christ and Christ her she lives and grows and moves in Christ and Christ in her So that at last she comes to that pitch and height and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that St. Paul speaks of Gal. ii
them was demonstrated to come from God also as much as the prediction of the Kings death which was confirm'd by this means It may very probably be guest by Mattathias his words in that place that there were no precedents of the zelotick spirit in the Old Testament but those two for among all the Catalogue of examples mentioned to his sons to enflame their zeal to the Law he produceth no other and 't is observable that though there be practices of this nature mentioned in the story of the New Testament the stoning of St. Stephen of St. Paul at Iconium c. yet all of them practised by the Jews and not one that can seem to be blameless but that of Christ who sure had extraordinary power upon the buyers and sellers in the Temple upon which the Apostles remembred the Psamists Prophecy 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the zeal of Gods house carried him to that act of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of indignation and punishment upon the transgressors And what mischief was done among the Jews by those of that sect in Josephus that call'd themselves by that name of Zelots and withal took upon them to be the saviours and preservers of the City but as it prov'd the hastners and precipitators of the destruction of that Kingdom by casting out and killing the High-Priests first and then the Nobles and chief men of the Nation and so embasing and intimidating and dejecting the hearts of all the people that all was at length given up to their fury Josephus and any of the learned that have conversed with the Jewish Writers will instruct the enquirer And ever since no very honourable notion had of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the New Testament one of the fruits of the flesh Gal. v. of the Wisdom that comes not from Heaven Jam. iii. and in the same 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a bitter zeal a gall that will imbitter all that come near it The short of it is the putting any man to death or inflicting other punishment upon any terms but that of legal perfectly legal process is the importance of a zelotick Spirit as I remember in Maimonides him that curses God in the name of an Idol the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that meet him kill him i. e. the zelots permitted it seems if not authorized to do so And this is the Spirit of Elias that is of all others most evidently reprehended and renounced by Christ. The Samaritans no very sacred persons added to their habitual constant guilts at that time to deny common civility of entertainment to Christ himself and the Disciples asked whether they might not do what Elias had done call for fire from Heaven upon them in that case and Christ tells them that the Gospel-Spirit was of another complexion from that of Elias 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 turn'd to them as he did to Peter when he said Get thee behind me Satan as to so many fiery Satanical-spirited men and checkt them for that their furious zeal with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The least I can conclude from hence is this that they that put any to death by any but perfectly legal process that draw the sword upon any but by the supream Magistrates command are far enough from the Gospel-Spirit whatever precedent they can produce to countenance them And so if they be really what they pretend Christians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they are in a prodigious mistake or ignorance They know not what Spirit they are of Yet farther it is observable of Elias that he did execrate and curse call for judgments from Heaven upon mens persons and that temper of mind in the parallel you may distribute into two sorts First in passing judgments upon mens future estates the censorious reprobating Spirit which though we find it not in Elias at this time yet is a consequent of the Prophetick Office and part of the burthen received from the Lord and layed upon those guilty persons concerning whom it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal that secret of his Cabinet but then this rigor cannot without sin be pretended to by any else for in the blackest instances charity believes all things and hopes all things and even in this sense covers the multitudes of sins Now this so culpable an insolent humour rashly to pass a condemning sentence was discernible in the Pharisees this Publican whose profession and trade is forbidden by that Law and this people that know not that Law is cursed so likewise in the Montanists nos spirituales and all others animales and Psychici so in the Romanists who condemn all but themselves and in all those generally whose pride and malice conjoined most directly contrary to the Gospel-Spirit of humility and charity doth prepare them one and the other inflame them to triumph and glut themselves in this spiritual assassinacy this deepest dye of blood the murthering of Souls which because they cannot do it really they endeavour in effigie anathematize and slaughter them here in this other Calvary the place for the crucifying of reputations turning them out of the Communion of their charity though not of bliss and I am confident reject many whom the Angels entertain more hospitably Another part of this cursing Spirit there is more peculiarly Elias's that of praying and so calling for curses on mens persons and that being upon the enemies of God and those appearing to Elias a Prophet to be such might be then lawful to him and others like him David perhaps c. in the Old Testament but is wholly disliked and renounced by Christ under this state of higher Discipline to which Christians are designed by him in the New I say not only for that which concerns our own enemies for that is clear When thine enemy hungreth feed him and somewhat like that in the Old Testament When thine enemies Ox c. But I extend it even to the enemies of God himself and that I need not do upon other evidence than is afforded from the Text the Samaritans were enemies of Christ himself and were barbarous and inhumane to his person and they must not be curst by Disciples And he that can now curse even wicked men who are more distantly the enemies of God can call for I say not discomfiture upon their devices for that is charity to them to keep them from being such unhappy Creatures as they would be contrivers of so much mischief to the world but Plagues and Ruine upon their persons which is absolutely the voice of Revenge that sulphur-vapor of Hell he that delighteth in the misery of any part of Gods Image and so usurps upon that wretched quality of which we had thought the Devil had gotten the Monopoly that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 joying in the Brother's misery but now see with horror is got loose out of that Pit to rave among us he that would mischief if it were in his power and now it is not by unprofitable
troubled about the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their prophaneness and uncleanness that they were not fit for an Apostle to defile himself about their Conversion And this was the general opinion of all the Jews they of the Circumcision were astonished at the news Act. x. 45 Nay this is it that the Angels wondred at so when they saw it wrought at the Church by Pauls Ministery never dreaming it possible till it was effected as may appear Eph. iii. 10 This was the Mystery which from the beginning of the World had been hid in God V. 9. One of God's Cabinet Counsels a Mercy decreed in secret that no Creature ever wish of till it was performed And in this behalf are we all being lineally descended from the Gentiles bound over to an infinite measure both of humiliation and gratitude for our deliverance from the guilt and reign of that second Original sin that Heathenism of our Ancestors and Catholick damnation that Sixteen hundred years ago we were all involv'd in Beloved we were long ago set right again and the obligation lies heavy upon us to shew this change to have been wrought in us to some purpose to prove our selves Christians in grain so fixed and established that all the Devils in Hell shall not be able to reduce us again to that abhorred condition If we that are thus called out shall fall back after so much Gospel to Heathen practices and set up Shrines and Altars in our hearts to every poor delight that our sottishness can call a God if we are not called out of their sins as well as out of their ignorance then have we advanced but the further toward Hell we are still but Heathen Gospellers our Christian Infidelity and practical Atheism will but help to charge their guilt upon us and damn us the deeper for being Christians Do but examine your selves on this one Interrogatory whether this calling the Gentiles hath found any effect in your hearts any influence on your lives whether your Conversations are not still as Heathenish as ever If you have no other grounds or motives to embrace the Gospel but only because you are borâ— within the pale of the Church no other evidences of your Discipleship but your livery then God is little beholding to you for your service The same motives would have served to have made you Turks if it had been your chance to have been born amongst them and now all that fair Christian outside is not thank-worthy 'T is but your good fortune that you are not now at the same work with the old Gentiles or present Indians a worshipping either Jupiter or the Sun 'T was a shrewd speech of Clemens that the life of every unregenerate Man is an Heathen-life and the sins of unsanctified Men are Heathen-sins and the estate of a Libertine Christian an Heathen-estate and unless our resolutions and practices are consonant to our profession of Christ we are all still Heathens and the Lord make us sensible of this our Condition The third and in summ the powerfullest Argument to prove God's willingness that we should live is that he hath bestowed his spirit upon us that as soon as he called up the Son he sent the Comforter This may seem to be the main business that Christ ascended to Heaven about so that a Man would guess from the xvi Chapter of St. John and Vers 7. that if it had not been for that Christ had tarried amongst us till this time but that it was more expedient to send the Spirit to speak those things powerfully to our hearts which often and in vain had been sounded in our ears 'T is a phancy of the Paracelsians that if we could suck out the lives and spirits of other Creatures as we feed on their flesh we should never die their lives would nourish and transubstantiate into our lives their spirit increase our spirits and so our lives grow with our years and the older we were by consequence the fuller of life and so no difficulty to become Immortal Thus hath God dealt with us first sent his Son his Incarnate Son his own Flesh to feed and nourish us and for all this we die daily he hath now given us his own very Life and incorporeous Essence a piece of pure God his very Spirit to feed upon and digest that if it be possible we might live There is not a vein in our Souls unless it be quite pin'd and shrivel'd up but hath some bloud produced in it by that holy nourishment every breath that ever we have breathed toward Heaven hath been thus inspired Besides those louder Voices of God either sounding in his Word or thundring in his Judgments there is his calm soft voice of Inspiration like the Night Vision of old which stole in upon the mind mingled with sleep and gentle slumber He draws not out into the Field or meets us as an Enemy but entraps us by surprize and disarms us in our quarters by a Spiritual Stratagem conquers at unawares and even betrays and circumvents and cheats us into Heaven That precept of Pythagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To worship at the noise and whistling of the wind had sense and divinity in it that Jamblichus that cites it never dreamt of that every sound and whispering of this Spirit which râ—stles either about our ears or in our hearts as the Philosopher saith Tecum est intus est when it breaths and blows within us the stoutest faculty of our Souls the proudest piece of flesh about us should bow down and worship Concerning the manner of the Spirits working I am not I need not to dispute Thus far it will be seasonable and profitable for you to know that many other Illuminations and holy Graces are to he imputed to Gods Spirit besides that by which we are effectually converted God speaks to us many times when we answer him not and shines about our eyes when we either wink or sleep Our many sudden shortwinded Ejaculations toward Heaven our frequent but weak inclinations to good our ephemerous wishes that no man can distinguish from true piety but by their sudden death our every day resolutions of obedience whilest we continue in sin are arguments that God's Spirit hath shined on us though the warmth that it produced be soon chill'd with the damp it meets within us For example there is no doubt beloved but the Spirit of God accompanies his Word as at this time to your ears if you will but open at its knock and receive and entertain it in your hearts it shall prove unto you according to its most glorious attribute Rom. i. The power of God unto salvation But if you will refuse it your stubbornness may repel and frustrate God's Work but not annihilate it though you will not be saved by it it is God's still and so shall continue to witness against you as the day of doom Every word that was ever darted from that Spirit as a beam or javelin of
that we again in the Gentilism of our Fathers were all deeply plunged in a double common damnation how are we to humble our selves infinitely above measure to stretch and rack and torture every power of our souls to its extent thereby to enlarge and aggravate the measure of this guilt against our selves which hitherto perhaps we have not taken notice of There is not a better 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the world no more powerful medicine for the softning of the soul and keeping it in a Christian tenderness than this lading it with all the burdens that its common or private condition can make it capable of this tiring of it out and bringing it down into the dust in the sense of its spiritual engagements For 't is impossible for him who hath fully valued the weight of his general guilts each of which hath lead enough to sink the most corky vain fluctuating proud stubborn heart in the world 't is impossible I say for him either wilfully to run into any actual sins or insolently to hold up his head in the pride of his integrity This very one meditation that we all hear might justly have been left in heathenism and that the sins of the Heathens shall be imputed to us their children if we do not repent is enough to loosen the toughest strongest spirit to melt the flintiest heart to humble the most elevated soul to habituate it with such a sense of its common miseries that it shall never have courage or confidence to venter on the danger of particular Rebellions 2. From the view of their ignorance or impiety which was of so hainous importance to examine our selves by their indictment 1. For our learning 2. For our lives 3. For the life of grace in us 1. For our learning Whether that be not mixed with a great deal of Atheistical ignorance with a delight and aquiescence and contentation in those lower Elements which have nothing of God in them whether we have not sacrificed the liveliest and spritefullest part of our age and souls in these Philological and Physical disquisitions which if they have not a perpetual aspect and aim at Divinity if they be not set upon in that respect and made use of to that purpose 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Clement their best friend they are very hurtful and of dangerous issue Whether out of our circle of humane heathen learning whence the Fathers produced precious antidotes we have not suckt the poyson of unhallowed vanity and been fed either to a pride and ostentation of our secular or a satiety or loathing of our Theological learning as being too coarse and homely for our quainter palates Whether our studies have not been guilty of those faults which cursed the Heathen knowledge as trusting to our selves or wit and good parts like the Philosophers in Athenagoras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. not vouchsafing to be taught by God even in matters of religion but every man consulting and believing and relying on his own reason Again in making our study an instrument only to satisfie our curiosity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only as speculators of some unknown truths not intending or desiring thereby either to promote vertue good works or the Kingdom of God in our selves or which is the ultimate end which only commends and blesses our study or knowledge the glory of God in others 2. In our lives to examine whether there are not also many relicks of heathenism altars erected to Baalim to Ceres to Venus and the like Whether there be not many amongst us whose God is their belly their back their lust their treasure or that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that earthly unknown God whom we have no one name for and therefore is called at large the God of the world Whether we do not with as much zeal and earnestness and cost serve and worship many earthy vanities which our own phansies deifie for us as ever the Heathen did their multitude and shole of gods And in brief whether we have not found in our selves the sins as well as the blood of the Gentiles and acted over some or all the abominations set down to judge our selves by Rom. i. from the 21 verse to the end Lastly for the life of grace in us Whether many of us are not as arrant heathens as mere strangers from spiritual illumination and so from the mystical Commonwealth of Israel as any of them Clem. Strom. 2. calls the life of your unregenerate man a Heathen life and the first life we have by which we live and move and grow and see but understand nothing and 't is our regeneration by which we raise our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from being still mere Gentiles and Tatianus farther that without the spirit we differ from beasts only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the articulation of our voice So that in fine neither our reason nor Christian profession distinguisheth us either from beasts or Gentiles only the spirit in the formalis ratio by which we excel and differ from the Heathen sons of darkness Wherefore I say to conclude we must in the clearest calm and serenity of our souls make a most earnest search and inquest on our selves whether we are yet raised out of this heathenism this ignorance this unregeneracy of nature and elevated any degree in the estate of grace and if we find our selves still Gentiles and which is worse than that still senseless of that our condition we must strive and work and pray our selves out of it and not suffer the temptations of the flesh the temptations of our nature the temptations of the world nay the temptations of our secular proud learning lull us one minute longer in that carnal security lest after a careless unregenerate natural life we die the death of those bold not vigilant but stupid Philosophers And for those of us who are yet any way Heathenish either in our learning or lives which have nothing but the name of Christians to exempt us from the judgment of their ignorance O Lord make us in time sensible of this our condition and whensoever we shall humble our selves before thee and confess unto thee the sinfulness of our nature the ignorance of our Ancestors and every man the plague of his own heart and repent and turn and pray toward thy house then hear thou in Heaven thy dwelling place and when thou hearest forgive remember not our offences nor the offences of our Heathen Fathers neither take thou vengeance of our sins but spare us O Lord spare thy people whom thy Son hath redeemed and thy spirit shall sanctifie from the guilt and practice of their rebellions Now to God who hath elected us hath c. Pars Secunda SERMON XIII ACTS XVII 30 And the times of this ignorance God winked at but now commandeth all men every where to repent THey which come from either mean or dishonoured Progenitors will desire to make up their Fathers defect by