very place where God himself enjoyn'd the Law and all the Blessings of it to be publish'd to the People on Mount Gerizim which therefore seem to have pretences to vye with Mount Zion for there also the Lord commanded the Blessing An Altar too saith Benjamin in his Itinerary made of the same stones that God commanded to be taken out of Jordan and set up for a memorial of his Peoples passage through it And besides all this having the Law of Moses too when they had all these pretensions to the God of Israel they clave to him alone and wholly threw off their Idolatry So Epiphanius does affirm expresly And their Countrey being as Josephus says the receptacle of all discontented fugitive Jews a great part of it too planted with them by Alexander they espoused the Worship of the Jews and came to differ very little either in the Doctrine or the practice of Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having all things as it were the very same the only distance seems to be betwixt their Temples 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 just as the Woman states it to our Saviour Joh. iv Our Fathers Worshipped in this Mountain but ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to Worship So that if we audit the account of the Samaritan guilt they separated from the place of Worship which God had appointed and set up another in a word they were Schismaticks Whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent He is a Samaritan and hath a Devil I shall not say but it is such as makes our Saviour say somewhat exclusively Salvation is of the Jews All the Blessings and Salvations of the Law did indeed hover on Mount Gerizim were given thence that was the place of them but they were cut away when Schism came The Church is not a place of blessing when 't is built against the Church The Altar hath no Horns to lay hold on for refuge but to push and gore onely when it is set up against the Altar And Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Zion Well this onely thing does breed the greatest distances imaginable in the Nations nothing more divides than Separation and Schism and then these Samaritans as all Separatists do grew such Opiniastres and so violent in their way as to deny humanity to those that would not join with them they would not grant the Civilities of Passage to one that intended for Jerusalem to Worship They refuse it to our Saviour here because his Face was thitherward ver 53. A Schismatick will reject a Christ if his Face be fromward their new Establishment if he but look towards the Antient Worship At this the Sons of Zebedee are offended zealous for their Master as being most particularly concern'd in him two of his nearest intimates and their zeal would needs break out into flame And why not a rudeness to Elijah was reveng'd by him with Fire from Heaven which consumed twice fifty Soldiers and their Captains though they came to do the King's Command And shall these hated Schismaticks be rude to Thee and reject the Messiah and yet go unpunished Lord shall we command fire to come down from Heaven to consume them even as Elias did Which our Saviour answers with this sharp rebuke Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Not to divide but to explain my Text and so instead of parts present you with some Subjects of Discourse By Spirit here is meant that disposition and complexure of Christian Piety and Vertues that course and Method of Religion which the Spirit does prescribe to Christ's Disciples and does guide them in or in a word the temper of the Gospel is so called And this in opposition to the Law the difference of these being express'd by a diverse manner of Spirit the one is called Spirit of Bondage the other Spirit of Adoption so here Ye know not of what Spirit ye are ye do not judg aright if you believe the temper of the Gospel is like that of the Law The course that I prescribe to my Disciples differs much from that of Prophets under the Old Testament you must be guided by another Spirit than Elijah's was in calling for Fire if my Spirit dwell in you For I came not to destroy mens lives on any such account In this sense it affords these Propositions First To destroy Mens lives or other temporal rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel This is that which Christ reproves here telling them that would do so Ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of Secondly Because the Spirit of Elias which the Gospel Christian Spirit here is set in opposition to oppos'd the Magistrate destroy'd those that came commission'd from the Prince and Christ designedly does say ye must not do now what Elias did therefore to attempt upon or against the Magistrate on the account of Christ or of Religion is inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel First Of the first that to destroy mens lives c. But here I must observe that since these fiery Disciples that did give occasion for our Saviours rebuke here were no Magistrates nor did Christ himself that gave the rebuke assume but renounce openly all such Authority therefore no observation grounded on these words can controul the Magistrates just Power in punishing Offences done against his Laws although pretences of Religion and Conscience give colour to those offences the Gospel does diminish no rights of the secular Powers Now Supreme Magistrates though as such they have no right to judg in Articles of Faith to define what is true Religion what not for then the Pagan Princes who had never heard of Christ and yet are as much Magistrates as any would have right to judg what Doctrines Christ delivered down to be believed But certainly when Christ Commission'd his Faith to run through all the World not onely independently from all the Powers of it but in perfect opposition to them they can have no right to judg in that which whatsoever they shall Judg we are alike bound to receive the Faith of Christ without any the least difference to their judgment But though they have no right to judg of this they have Authority to determine what Faith shall have the priviledges of their State and what shall not which shall be publiquely profess'd and which they will inhibit with Penalties For sure the Priviledges of the State and power of Penalties are the proper rights of the Supreme Power and therefore none but that can judg and determine of them In a word since it is most evident that the tranquillity of a State does depend upon nothing more than the profession and priviledging of Religion it follows that those Powers to whose Judgment and Decrees the care and
account of Christ or of Religion is most inconsistent with the Spirit of the Gospel For it was the Spirit of Elias who destroyed those whom the Magistrate did send that Christ opposes here the Spirit of the Gospel to in this severe rebuke ye know not what manner of Spirit ye are of The other warm Apostle meets a greater check in the like case S. Peter's zeal that they say made him chief of the Apostles as it made him promptest to confess the Lord so it did heat him to be readiest to defend him as fiery to use his Sword as his Tongue for his Master But his Master will not let a Sword be drawn in his own cause put up again thy Sword into his place The God of our Religion will not be defended by Treason and from Murder by the wounding of another nor will his Religion suffer a Sword out of the sheath against the Power of the Magistrate no not in behalf of Christ himself but goes beyond its proper bounds to threaten things that are not Gospel punishments even excision in this life to them that do attempt it They that take the Sword shall perish with the Sword Here the Gospel becomes Law and turns zealot for the Magistrate though persecuting Christ himself Our Saviour does not think it sharp enough to tell S. Peter that he did not know what Spirit he was of for when this Disciple would have kept these sufferings from his Master onely by his counsel he replies to him get thee behind me Satan He was then of that manner of Spirit therefore now that he does so much worse when he attempts to keep them from him with a Sword and drawn against the Power as if Christ did not know how to word what Spirit such attempts did savour of he does not check and rebuke now but threaten and denounce And 't is obvious to observe that this same Peter who would needs be fighting for his Master in few hours with most cursed imprecations forswears him And so irregular illegal violences for Religion usually flame out into direct opposition to that they are so zealous for fly in the face of that Religion they pretend to strive for to let us see they do not rise from Divine Zeal and from true Piety but from Hypocrisie Ambition Revenge or Interest and that warm shine that kindles there pretended Angels of Light is but a flash of Hell a glory about a fiend Therefore afterwards none was more forward than S. Peter was to press submission to the Magistrate though most unjustly persecuting for Religion talks of no Fire but the fiery trial then in Epist. 1. Cap. iv and If ye suffer for the Name of Christ the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you he knows what manner of Spirit such are of When they are in the place of Dragons then the Holy Ghost and God is with them when the darkness of the shadow of death is on their Souls even then the Spirit of glory resteth on them Accordingly the after-Fathers urge the same not onely towards Heathen Emperours but relaps'd Hereticks and Apostates As Julian and Constantius Valens Valentinian and upon the same account S. Ambrose says Spiritus Sanctus id locutus est in vobis Rogamus Auguste non Pugnamus The Holy Spirit spake these words in you we beg O Valentinian we oppose not And S. Greg. Nazianzen says to do so was the Christian Law most excellently ordained by the Spirit of God who knew best to temper his Law with the mixture of what is profitable to us and honest in it self They knew what manner of Spirit that of Christianity was It does assume no power to inflict it self 'T is not commission'd to plant it self with violence or destroy those that refuse or oppose it It wages War indeed with Vices not with men And in the Camp of our Religion as once in Israel there is no Sword found but with Saul and Jonathan his Son onely the Princes Sword Our Spirit is the Dove no Bird of prey that nor indeed of gall or passion If Christian Religion be to be writ in Blood 't is in that of its own confessors onely if mens false Opinions make no parties nor mischiefs in the State we are not to make them Martyrs to their false Opinions and if they be not so happy as to be Orthodox send them down to Hell directly tear out one anothers Souls to tear out that which we think an Errour Sure they must not root out smutted Corn that must not root out Poppy we may let that which is a little blasted grow if we must let the Tares and Darnel grow The Soldiers would not crucifie Christ's Coat nor make a rent there where they could find no seam But now men strive so for the Coat that they do rent his Flesh to catch it and to gain an inclosure of the name of Christians tear all other members from the Body of Christ care not to sacrifice a Nation to a supposed Errour will attempt to purge away what they call dross in a Furnace of consuming flame The Christian Spirit 's fiery Tongues must kindle no such heats but his effusions call'd Rivers came to quench such fires Effusions that were mistaken sor new wine indeed but never look'd like Blood Nor are they that retain to this Spirit those that have him call'd down on them in their Consecration impowered for such uses When Christ sent his Disciples to convert the World Behold saith he I send you forth as Lambs among Wolves And sure that does not sound like giving a Commission to tear and worry those that would not come into the Flock The Sheep were not by that impowered to devour the Wolves Our Lords directions to his Apostles when a City would not receive their Doctrine was shake off the dust of your feet let nothing of theirs cleave to you have no more to do with them cast off the very dust that setled on your Sandals as you pass'd their Streets And surely then we must be far from animating to give ruin to and seize the Sword the Scepter and the Thrones of Kings if they refuse to receive Christ or his Kingdom or his Reformation or his Vicar If I must not have the dust of any such upon my feet I must not have their Land in my possession their Crowns on my head their Wealth in my Coffers their Blood upon my hands nor their Souls upon my Sword It will be ill appearing so when we come to give an account how we have executed our Commission and shall be ask'd did I send you to inflict the Cross or preach it to save mens Souls or to destroy their lives yea and Souls too And when in those Myriads of Souls that have perish'd in the desolations which such occasions have wrought their Blood shall cry from under the Altar as being sacrific'd to that Duty and Religion which was the
9. 4. They shall not be pleasing unto him but their Sacrifices shall be as the bread of Mourners and as the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those Sacrifices for their carcases shall not come into the house of the Lord. Yea he would not let those Melancholly people keep others company in his service but there was porta lugentium a gate for Mourners to enter by themselves into the Temple-service as if the mirth were among their precepts and to be sad were to be defil'd and unclean But it is not so with us in the Gospel where the onely Sacrifice of God is a troubled spirit a broken and contrite heart he will not despise but the bread of Mourners shall be the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from which he will never turn away his face and a few penitent tears are the scope and the fulfilling of all the Jewish purifyings and the Spirit of the Lord moveth upon the face of these waters 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he flutters and hovers over them and as he did out of the first waters so out of those tears he hatches a new creation they being the very first effects and signs of life in the new creature and the new birth also natural to both Infants and the Child of God also are born weeping and crying this being the very first throw in regeneration Yea so far is this sorrow from displeasing God that it is the great engagement to him to give us comfort both here and hereafter and it is put amongst Christs first beatitudes here Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted The words present either a bare description of persons or withall involve a duty the being Mourners Secondly import a designation of their condition that they are Blessed Thirdly they give the reason and the manner of that condition For they shall be comforted so that mourning may be doubly understood either as a duty or as an aphorisme in the later case mourning is taken not to be prescrib'd at all but onely Christ looking upon his Disciples who were in the worlds esteem in a sad low condition he does encourage them that notwithstanding their unequal estimate yet they are in a blessed condition for they shall be sure to be comforted And thus first it may be as an appendage to the former aphorisme in that he had by the assurance of a reward encourag'd them in the entertainment of poverty and calamities had advanc't the lowly into heaven and enrich't the patient poor with the inheritance of a Kingdom those that were poor in Spirit content with their condition and then this follows blessed are those that mourn for they shall be comforted as if it were after this manner but what if our calamities do grow upon us and we are not able to bear them with an even mind and a serene countenance but they cast us down we greive and mourn under them and cannot be comforted yet even for this condition there is promise Christ is so far from breaking this bruised reed that he confirms and strengthens it the greivousness of our calamities shall not exclude all hope of ease neither shall our weakness and infirmity exclude us from the number of the blessed he will neither impute our want of courage that groans and faints under the burthen provided that we be not heated by it into impatience at his dispensations nor chaft into wrath against them that lay it on us tho we do mourn if we do not vexe we are blessed neither will he suffer our calamities when he hath tried and purg'd us by them quite to oppress us but how greivous soever they be they shall find multitudes of comfort even the comfort of mitigation for to that Gods faithfulness is engag'd 1 Cor. 10. 13. God is faithful who will not suffer you to be temted above that ye are able but will with the temtation make a way also to escape that ye may be able to bear it Secondly the internal comforts of Gods grace 2 Cor. 1. 3 4. God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulations Thirdly the comfort of a joyful recompence even here for the most part John 16. 20 21. I say unto you ye shall weep and lament but the world shall rejoyce and ye shall be sorrowful but your sorrow shall be turned into joy A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come but as soon as she is deliver'd of the child she remembreth no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the world Our afflictions may be throws but they shall end in birth and have the ease and joy of a delivery and therefore our Savior said of himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Luke 12. 50. how am I straitned as a woman in child to accomplish his Baptism that Baptism of agony sweat and bloud or certainly however an eternal recompence of joy hereafter everlasting consolations as St Paul saith 2 Thess. 2. 16. When instead of this hunger and thirst and tears the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death neither sorrow nor crying neither shall there be any more pain Rev. 7. 17. and 21. 4. And first we learn hence the compassion of our Savior who hath indulg'd us the infirmities of our nature he hath not made our weak affections to be sins but hath shew'd us a way to make them advantages towards blessedness God that was made flesh remembers that we are but flesh and does not require of us to be insensible it is not a vice not to be a stock such as the Stoicks requir'd their wise man should be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no greif nor no sense of any external calamity tho you thrust his hand into the fire it must be no more to him than if you burn his staff for his body is but his organ his instrument no part at all of him but Christ requires no such hard tasks of us Had he deni'd us our tears and forbid us the ease of mourning in afflictions and made weeping to be cowardise and sin it had bin a hard saying we had had reason to have thought ourselves severely dealt withal but he gives us leave as it were to love the dear things of this world a little to weep when they leave us if we do not love them so as not to love our brother and our God leaving them if the world leave us and when by calamities our comforts are taken from us by frettings and vexations throwing off our God from us repining at him and casting his commands away of not envying not returning provided in our tears we have humble perfect submissions and resignations of our selves throwing our selves down at his feet and from our very souls
guards that are set about them to preserve them and break thro the strengths of grace and conquer all the strivings of Almighty God's compassion and goodness to them and beat off the very victory that Christ hath gain'd for them refuse all the kind offers of the Law of grace and chuse sin with damnation they are safe There is now as St Paul saith by the Law no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus to them who walk not after the Flesh but after the Spirit Rom. 8. 1. in which words we have both an assurance that the strengths of Sin are broken and the persons too are partakers of the Victory that are in Christ Jesus for as it is by him the Victory is gotten so it is in him that we must get an interest in it Now to be in Christ if as most certainly it doth it mean here as in other places where 't is said of Churches housholds and of single persons then it means the Christians so in Gal. 1. 22 the Churches of Judea that are in Christ i. e. that have received the Gospel and the Faith of Christ Rom. 16. 11. greet them that be of the houshold of Narcissus that are in the Lord i. e. that are Christians and the seventh verse who were in Christ before me i. e. were converted e're I was But it means Christians not in judgment and opinion onely but in life and practice such as are in Christ by St Pauls character and description of it in the 2 Cor. 5. 17. If any man be in Christ he is a new creature he lives the life of Christ as a member does the life of that of which it is a member and so he walks not after the Flesh but after the Spirit For as members live by the vertue of the influence of spirits from the head into them and walk after its directions so those that are in Christ his members they must walk live act and practise by the Spirit of Christ guided not by carnal appetite the lusts and the desires of the Flesh but by Christ's directions Such they are who have this Victory to whom there is no condemnation For as he adds Rom. 8. 2. The law of the Spirit of life that is in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death and so there is thro him a Victory over the third last enimy Death in which freedom from Sin and Death two things are intimated 1. That Sin the sting of Death is taken away which being once removed Death is the softest thing that can be 't is but falling asleep so it is call'd v. 18. of this chapter faln asleep in Christ it is so far from being hurtful that it is the first great happiness that does befall us 2. That Death it self also shall be swallowed up in Victory that we shall be recovered from its powers and triumph over it in Immortality of blessed life For if we be in Christ his members and so live the life of Christ and consequently when we die die in the Lord then tho the body be dead and corruptible yet if the Spirit of life that is in Jesus be in us he that rais'd up Jesus from the dead shall also quicken our mortal bodies by his Spirit Rom. 8. 11. It is this life in him that verifies the saying of St Paul Eph. 2. 6. He hath raised us up and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ as sure as if we were already there for there we are already as his members in our head And to the full and personal enjoyment of the blessings of those heavenly places it is death that lets us in that vale of Achor is the door of hope and Canaan the grave the avenue to God's right hand that death 't is but the Pascha in St Bernard 't is our Passover a repast of bitter herbs indeed but at the going out of Egypt from the house of bondage And tho the body seem in death a piteous despicable thing sown in corruption dishonor as St Paul expresses yet death gives that a relation too to Christ the Prophet Isaiah brings in the Lord calling His dead 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cadaver they my dead body shall aris◠saith he c. 26. 19. So that the corps of a good person is so far a member that 't is call'd the very body of his Savior into such a title Death translates it to such not to live onely but to die is Christ. And sure if they that die in him did live in him as none can die there where they did not live at all that is live as his members they that die in Christ must die his members But in the expression of the Prophet they do also die himself and are Christ's own dead body Death to such is as it were transfiguration and do's not so much strip and make them naked as cloath them and that with glory the shrowd may seem but their white wedding linnen and their dress for the marriage of the Lamb. Whoever is a faithfull sincere Christian if Death seem to make approaches to him arm'd with all his instruments of cruelty and terror charge him as assuredly as a Prophet could to set his house in order for he must die if he can say with Hezekiah in Isaiah 38. 3. Remember now O Lord how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have don that which is good in thy sight then if he have not fifty years yet he shall have a numberless Eternity added to his life and notwithstanding the dark solitude of the Grave to which he is retiring he shall have that which will accompany him to his infinite joy when he is torn from friends and all his dearest things do leave him yet he shall not be alone his faith and piety his vertues all go along with him and appear for him at that tribunal on the Judgment day All his relations even his bosom-guest the other half of his own soul forsake him bring him it may be to the grave and tho they carry blacks upon them to refresh and keep alive the memory of him yet in a while take comfort and forget yet the true conjugal affections of an untainted undefiled bed shall go along present the Soul white as a Virgin that 's unspotted And after this 't is in vain to say his riches will forsake him they go not so far as the grave afford nothing of themselves but the price of a sheet and coffin But then Charities will mount Alms will ascend as fast as the Spirit the wealth one piously bestow'd will meet him he shall eternally possess that which he gave away and tho his place know him no more they shall receive him into everlasting habitations Wherefore my beloved Brethren be ye stedfast unmovable always abounding in the work of the Lord which is the real way of giving thanks to God who giveth us the Victory SERMON XI
such as yet leave all to him to do so far that he were a Fanatic as to worldly interests who without endeavoring in the use of means should look that God would work out his ends for him give bread without sowing nourish without eating notwithstanding that Scripture dos ascribe to God the intire efficacy shall the like expressions in the order of grace leave nothing for the Christian to do especially when the same endeavors are commanded him too I know not whether these expressions made to us to turn our felves c. do make more Pelagians that deny all need of grace or else ascrib'd to God make more deny all need of our endeavors even of our praiers or of any thing but more dependance waiting for his season Whereas indeed we are to work because he works and gives means to enable us and not to use the means he gives us is to temt him 't is to refuse Salvation by the ordinary methods of his workings expect new miracle 't is to be that fanatic that dos look to live without food 'T is gospel truth to say it is not the direction of Gods laws can rule us nor his promises allure us nor his threats affright us but his Holy spirit must direct and rule our hearts Coll. 19. Sun aft Trin. and he must write his laws there Heb. 8. 10. and he must give us a heart to love and dread him To affirm the other is heresy and to say that a sinner can dispose himself for his conversion or that the outward means can by their own moral efficacy turn a sinner is an heresy against grace but grace where it hath not been too far resisted still accompanies the means Gods word is the ministration of the Spirit and of rightousness and his word and Spirit go together Acts 7. 51. for to resist one is to resist the other And if the heart be not by evil education bad converse and example great advancers these of reprobation deprav'd either hardened or made dissolute or overgrown with principles that choak all God's good seed that can be sown in it those means so assisted call attention work some disposition to regard them The ordinariest means are blest to that end Prov. 23. 14. thou shalt heal him with the rod and deliver his soul from hell Yea they do it tho the force of good education have been broken when these gracious means find congruous soft seasons lay hold on occasions of calamity or such like and they move the inclinations and so make soile prepar'd for God's husbandry And since experience shews us mere Gentile breeding and converse if there be but care and parts can temper take off at least moderate all insolence and passion make men generous and meek and humble decent as to all behavior towards God and man not one ill vicious habit in their practise but an universal probity upon the face of their whole life why therefore may not those beginnings of God's workings which he never fails to carry on for his part do as much And if they but keep off ill habits and by constant practise weaken inclinations to them here 't is plain that God's means of grace find not so much resistance and that which in another state of mind would not have been sufficient there becomes effectual especially when with them that work he works and as S. James says gives more grace to them that use it and diverts temtations enables to do all things thro Christ that strengthens O that the Christian would but try and strive to use his means as heartily as the Child of this world It is because men are not so industrious for salvation answer not the motions of God's Spirit but neglect grace given when the worldly man is indefatigable in and therefore is wiser in order to his end Yet in relation to their proper means in order to their several ends I must confess the worldling does observe the rules of prudence better the true child of this world for the most part chuseth the prescribed known waies to his end and do's use the general means and methods of the world gets into a profession or a place in which if he use false arts they are trades now mysteries well taught and known there are few adventure on untrodden paths Projectors seldom thrive But the generality of Christians who would gladly reconcile God and this world life hereafter with the being well here do not therefore acquiesce in Gods means only but make Principles by-Rules of Conscience which they guide themselves by on occasions and have taught themselves to think they are safe waies and such as do not lead them from salvation It is too well known what one sort of men have attemted in this case how by new-rais'd principles of Probability and directing the intention they have reconcil'd all villany with Christian life made it safe yea meritorious to lye forswear and bear malice to defame revenge by either force or treachery rebel massacre drown whole Nations in their own bloud depose or murder Kings But passing these as monsters in Religion honest heathen humanity there are pretenders to some tolerable regard of God and vertue who on occasions fit their conscience to their convenience Besides S. Pauls good Conscience void of offence to God and man there is one of gentility of Politics of Honour of friendship and a conscience for persons times and places one of compliance and one of the mode one for the interests of a Profession and the like I might have nam'd some quite the other way the Conscience that is rul'd by rouling changeable Principles which play fast and loose now strains at Gnats and now can swallow camels or a Conscience of caprice that sets it self strong suddain heats of nice observances somtimes in little things somtimes in greater but is firm in nothing But waving these and that for Politics too which is govern'd wholly by reasons of State which is too nice and high for my consideration the man of honor makes himself a Principle which will allow him to require reparations for the least affront so call'd for otherwise what Gentleman would be of Christ's Religion he can right himself with sword and pistol and with a good Conscience The conscience for friendship is like that of Chilon whom I mention'd to you hath a by-rule And indeed who is there almost that hath the same sentiments or laws for equity and justice in his own cause or the cause of those he is most concern'd for as in others They mesure not by the same standard do not think in conscience the same case is like when it makes against as when it serves a turn As for persons so for times We have one conscience for the time of health and one for sickness Things do not equally seem good or evil in their different seasons And as for places ut vestitum sic sententiam aliam domesticam aliam forensem saith the
utmost that they understood if so be that there were no Treason to discolour it and they that did inflict all this appear but Christian Dioclesians and stand at that sad Day in the train of the Persecutions on the same hand O then those Fires which these Boutefeus called for and kindled shall blaze out into everlasting burnings And now it may seem strange that they who most of all pretend the Spirit of Christ are yet of the most distant temper in the World from that of Gospel always endeavouring to do that which our Saviour here checks his Disciples for proposing and did threaten Peter for attempting There are among our selves that seem to live by Inspiration that look and speak as in the frame of the Gospel as if every motion were impulse from Heaven and yet as if Christ had fulfilled his promise to them without Metaphor baptized them with the Holy Ghost and fire onely that they might kindle fire and the unction of the Spirit did but add Oyl to those flames as if the cloven Tongues of fire in which the Spirit did descend were made to be the Emblems of Division and to call for fire these mens life their garb their very piety is faction they pray rebel and murder and all by the Spirit 'T is true indeed they plead now what we seem to say that they should not be persecuted for not being satisfied in their Conscience so they mince their breaking of the Laws for which they suffer But do these know themselves what manner of Spirit they are of or are we bound not to remember when they had the Power how they persecuted all that would not do at once against their King their Conscience and the Law And we do thus far know what Spirit they are of and if they have not yet repented of all that then it is plain if they can get an opportunity they will do it again nay they must by their Spirit think themselves obliged to do it But these are not all those that above all the World pretend to the Infallible assistance of the Spirit our Church is bold in her Offices of this day to say do turn Religion into Rebellion she said it more severely heretofore and the attempts of this day warrant the saying when not like our Disciples that would call for fire from Heaven on the Village that rejected Christ these will raise up fire from Hell to consume their own Prince and his Progeny the whole line of Royalty the Church and Nation also in their Representative and all this onely for refusing him that calls himself Christ's Vicar There are I must confess among them that renounce the practice and say 't was the device onely of some few desperate male-contents wicked Catholiques and design'd by the Devil And they will allow their Father Garnett to have had no other guilt but that he did not discover it having received it in Confession And this gives me occasion to propose a story to your patience and conjectures Not long before the time of this Attempt a Priest of the Society of Jesus in a Book he publish'd does propose this case of Conscience Whether a Priest may make use of what he hath learn'd in Confession to avert great impendent mischiefs to the Government as for Example One confesses that himself or some other had laid Gunpowder and other things under such an House and if they be not taken thence the House will be burnt the Prince must perish all that pass throughout the City will be either certainly destroy'd or in great peril and resolves it thus 'T is the most probable and safe Opinion and the more suitable to Religion and to that reverence which is due to the Sacrament of Confession that it is not lawful to make use of this his knowledg to that end That his Holiness Clement the 8. had just before by a Bull sent to the Superiours of the Regulars commanded most studiously to beware they make not use of any thing which they come to know by Confession to the benefit of the secular Government He adds that in cases of Confession the Priest must not reveal though death be threatned to him but may say he knows it not nor ever heard it quia reverà non scit nec audivit ut homo seu pars reipub Yea he may swear all this if he but mentally reserve so as to tell you 'T is Del Rio in 6th Book of his Mag. dis 1. Cap. Sec. 2. It seems 't is safer to break all the Obligations to Allegiance and to truth his duty and his Oaths the Princes and Gods bonds than the Seal of Confession But I did not mention this to let you see the kindness these men have to Princes and their Government I shall avoid producing any the Opinions of particular persons howsoever horrid in my arguments this day but I onely ask whether it be not very probable this instance was the thing to be attempted on this day Whether the resolution was not publish'd the Pope's Bull if not made yet produc'd at least to caution any Priest that should receive it in Confession and should be so honest as to abhor the Fact yet from betraying it and hindring the Execution of it If it were the case this was not then any rash attempt of some few desperate malecontents but a long contrivance and of many heads and its taking its effect was the great care of their Church Well they are even with us yet and lay as horrid Projects to the charge of Protestants Among our other Controversies this is one whether are the worse Subjects bloody sayings are produc'd from Authors on both sides yea there is the Image of both Churches Babel and Jerusalem drawn by a Catholique Pen and then you may be sure all Babel's divisions and confusions make the draught of ours and are said to be the issue of the Protestant Doctrines Whereas such things are countenanc'd by some particular Authors of their Church were never own'd by any publique Act or Doctrine of a general Council to which they provoke us I must confess our Calendar can shew a thirtieth of January as well as a fifth of November There are indeed that say the Romanists hatch'd that days guilt and challenge any man to call them to account for saying so But whether so or not which Churches Doctrines such things are more suited to I will now put to trial that we may know what Spirit each is of And I will try it by the publique Acts and most establish'd Doctrines of the Churches and here undertake to shew the Church of England most expresly does declare against all practices against the Prince for the cause of Religion But the Romish in those acts wherein she hath most reason to expect infallibility of Spirit also in the publique Acts of the Church representative in General Councils does abett the doing them not onely for Religion but for the cause of Holy
the advice and by Will dispos'd of such Legacies as he thought fit to leave to the poor and to his friends and gave the remainder among his sisters and their children Tho he hung thus loose from the world he neither was negligent in secular affairs nor unskilful in the managery of them which was made manifest by his dextrous discharge of the private trusts committed to him in behalf of his dead friends and the administration of his public emploiments He was for several years Tresurer of Christ-Church in a busy time of their repairing of the ruins made by the entruding Vsurpers and amidst the necessary avocations of study found leisure for a full discharge of that troublesom emploiment The College of Eton as I intimated before he found in a very ill condition as to its revenue and fabric and what was no less a mischief unstatutable and unreasonable grants of Leases to all which excepting one whose reduction must be the work of time he applied effectual remedies The Schole he found in a low condition but by his prudence in the choice of a learned discreet and diligent Master by his interest in bringing young Gentlemen and Persons of Quality thither and by his great kindness to them when there and taking care for the building fit accommodation for their reception within the precincts of the College in few years the Schole grew into that great reputation and credit which it yet maintains And here we may not pass by another considerable service don in behalf of the said Schole and also King's College in Cambridge whose Seminary it is that whereas both those Societies were formerly under the discouragement that the Fellowships of Eton were generally dispos'd of to persons of foreign education by the vigorous interposition of Dr. Allestree added to the petition of the Provost and Fellows of King's College his sacred Majesty was pleas'd to pass a grant under the broad Seal that in all future times five of the seven Fellows should be such as had bin bred in Eton Schole and were Fellows of King's College which has ever since took place and will be a perpetual incitement to diligent study and vertuous endeavor in both those roial foundations In the managery of the business of the Chair of Divinity as he performed the Scholastic part with great sufficiency in exact and dextrous untying the knots of argument and solid determination of controverted points so that he was not opprest by the fame of any of his most eminent Predecessors his prudence was very remarkable in the choice of subjects to be treated on for he wasted not time and opportunity in the barren insignificant parts of Schole Divinity but insisted on the fundamental grounds of controversy between the Church of England and the most formidable Enemies thereof With an equal steddiness he asserted the Gospel truth against the usurpations of Rome the innovations of Geneva the blasphemies of Cracow and the monsters of our own Malmsbury never intermedling with the unâ—athomable abyss of God's decrees the indeterminable five points which in all times and in all countries wherever they have happen'd to be debated past from the Scholes to the State and shock'd the government and public peace By his judicious care herein tho he found the Vniversity in a ferment and a great part of its growing hopes sufficiently season'd with ill prepossessions he so brought it to pass that during the whole tract of seventeen years that he held the Chair there was no factious bandying of opinions nor petulant sidings on the account of them which thing disturb'd the peace of the last age and help'd forward to inflame those animosities which ended in the execrable mischeifs of the civil war There is nothing at this day which learned men more desire or call for than the publishing of those Lectures which were heard when first read with the greatest satisfaction of the Auditory it may therefore be fit to give some account of the reason why those expectations are defeated which in short is this Dr. Allestree a little before his death having communicated to the Bishop of Oxford several particulars concerning his intentions for the disposal of his goods and papers the Bishop observ'd that there was no mention made of his Lectures and knowing how his modesty had during his life resisted all importunities for the publishing of them suspected that the same motive might be more prevalent at his death therefore he wrote to him thereupon desiring him that his Lectures might be preserv'd which had cost him so much study and labor and would be useful proportionably to others His answer by letter bearing date Jan. 19. 1680. was that having not had opportunity to revise what he had writen which was not every where consistent with his present imaginations tho in nothing material yet in some particulars which he should have better examin'd especially diverse of the Act Lectures which being upon the same head the thred of them was not right nor didactical and Nectarius 's Penitentiary not expounded the same way in one place as in another and the first blundring and not true therefore he adds that if the Bishop had not writ and for that he himself would not go out of the world without satisfying him in every thing he had resolv'd to have sent for his papers and burnt them but now he gave them up all to the Bishop upon this inviolable trust that nothing of them should be publish'd as a Scheme of his but to be made use of to serve any other design the Bishop should think fit Dr. Allestree's words are here transcrib'd for that the plainest account of things is alwaies the most satisfactory His Sermons not lying under the same interdict so many of them as were thought needful to make up a Volume are here publish'd The variety of Auditors for whom they were first design'd makes them not to be all of the same finess of spinning and closeness of texture but in them all there will appear the same spirit of perswasive Rhetoric and ardent piety whereby tho dead he yet speaketh Vpon the 28th day of January in the year 1680. this excellent person after a life spent in indefatigable studies and faithful endeavors for his Religion his King and Country and after the patient sufferance of a long and painful sickness with Christian resignation and full assurance render'd his soul into the hands of God and on the first of February was decently interr'd in the Chore of the Collegiat Church at Eton where his Executors erected to his memory a Monument of white Marble with the following inscription H. S. I. RICARDUS ALLESTREE Cathedrae Theologicae in Universitate Oxoniensi Professor Regius Ecclesiae Christi ibidem Praebendarius Collegii hujus Aetonensis Praepositus Muniis istis singulis ita par ut omnibus major In Disputationibus irrefragabilis Concionibus flexanimus Negotiis solers Vita integer Pietate sanctus Episcopales infulas eadem industria
Hope of a Christian is this Hope Fourthly how that Hope does set a man on purifying He that hath this Hope purifies himself For the first what it is to purify I shall onely name it is to cleanse from all mixture of pollution and how far it is to extend is set down by St Paul upon the very same grounds with those in the Text Having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of the Flesh and Spirit and St James Cleanse your hands you sinners and purify your hearts you double-minded and they both mean thus much that for external actions Christian purity tho it will admit of slips and failings yet it is not consistent with continuance in any known sin And therefore David tho he were said to be a man after Gods own heart and that he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord the very description of pure yet it is added save in the matter of Vriah For first it never does admit any filthiness of Flesh but must be universal and it is in this true what St James saith c. 2. v. 10. Whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point he is guilty of all God had before affirm'd the same expresly Ezek. 18. 10 11 12 13. If he beget a son that is a robber and that doth the like to any one of these things and hath defil'd his neighbours wife hath oppressed the poor and needy c. shall he then live he shall not live he hath don all these abominations he shall surely die So that in Gods sight he that hath don any one of these things he hath don all these abominations for it is plain that those he had not don he abstain'd not from because God had forbidden them for then he had abstain'd from that which he had don God had forbidden that so that his abstinences are not innocence but squeamishness or fear Either he does not like them or he dares not do them for some worldly reason and he does not onely let God see he can abstain for such considerations as these but will not for his Promises or his autority He values these below the mode or fashion of the world or his respect to some other person or any little interest or humor 2. Neither does this purity admit any filthiness of the Spirit we must purify our hearts and for internal purity the rule is that to abstain from outward actions of sin is not enough but the heart must be cleansed also this is proved already And indeed to deny my flesh the pleasures of the flesh and yet to let my mind dwell upon them and enjoy them not to commit them and yet suffer my soul to do it is to transplant the sin to make my soul act the deeds of the flesh and my very spirit become carnal This is at the best to give God the worst part of my services and the Devil the best my heart and soul the Devil enjoies God hath nothing but a few outward abstinences What a mixture is here how far from purity God and the Devil join'd together and the Devil having the upper hand the better portion Thus in general but to tell you what kind of purity we are to strive after I shall touch at some few Scripture wordings of it 1. Holiness For pure and holy are often join'd 2 Cor. 7. 1. Having these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse our selves from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. Now the true notion of holiness consists in a setting apart or discrimination from other things or persons And therefore holiness of life is the observing that peculiar different form of life which God hath commanded those whom he hath call'd not being conform'd to the fashion of the world As St James saith pure Religion not to live after the common manner of men common and holy being every where oppos'd so that when God is said to call us to holiness he requires us to consecrate our lives to his service to look upon our selves as things sacred Hence Christians are call'd living Sacrifices holy to God Rom. 12. 1. Temples of the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 6. 19. and all names of Holiness are set upon them to shew how strict a necessity lies upon us to separate our selves from all carnal wordly uses and defilements 2. The Pure are exprest by Virgins 2 Cor. 11. 2. For I am jealous over you with a Godly jealousy that is as a strict careful Parent over his beloved maiden daughter so that I may present you as a chast Virgin to Christ. Every gross impurity deflowers the soul and when it sins it plays the strumpet And if a bride that on her wedding day should play the harlot and give away that Virginity which she had but then promised to her Husband would certainly not dare to stand the wrath of her furious Bridegroom that should catch her in her villany how wilt thou meet the jealousy of thy Spouse when as thou spread'st thy self to every temtation committest perpetual whoredoms with the World and flesh and doest continually act disloialty in the very eyes of his glory Certainly the same jealous care and earnest desires that are emploi'd in seeking a wife that is not vitiated this very expression of Virgin does direct us to make use of in watchfulness over our selves that sin do not devirginate us that we do not present a strumpet to Christ for his Spouse but that he may find us Virgins at the Marriage of the Lamb. Yea that we may see what kind of ones also St Paul expresseth their Purity Ephes. 5. 27. not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but holy and without blemish For as every gross Sin does deflowr the Soul and make it no Virgin so every lighter fault is a spot upon the cheek a wrinkle in the forehead in Christs eyes And if chastity shall be severely guarded out of a respect to future hopes of marriages which there is no hopes to be successful in if that be blasted if to please a Suiter the glass shall be consulted with every stain shall be adorn'd cover'd made a beauty-spot and all methods sometimes more then honest us'd to keep the forehead smooth the cheek full and plain not content with the Lords workmanship upon them they will outdo their Maker and create to themselves beauties that God and Nature never did intend them if men do avoid wrinkles in a Bride as they would do a Deaths-head or memento mori in their bridal bed can we then think our selves whom every day bespots and stains every hour adds such wrinkles to whose souls have more of those furrows than our lives have minutes who are indeed onely bundles of deformities besides our gross whoredoms can we I say think our selves a fit Spouse for Christ Is he the onely Bridegroom to be thus provided for Can we have
the disturbance of his Faith as I declar'd convincing it that conscience is not to accuse or else excuse but by the measures of sincerity or insincerity in known real duty not from the events or dispensations of God's providence on one side nor on the other in little things wherein there is no Law to guide us and which onely prejudice or seduction can make doubtful assuring us the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink indifferent rites but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost Rom. 14. 17. Thus as St Paul says Heb. 6. 4. they that have tasted of the heavenly gift the comfort of the pardon of their sins and consequent to that the peace of Conscience and v. 5. tasted of the good word of God and of the powers of the world to come have intimate experimental relish of the Gospel-promises those powers of heaven those omnipotent forces God hath prepar'd to cast down every reasoning or imagination that should rise against the Christian Doctrine and bring every thought to the obedience of it 2 Cor. 10. 5. All which are said to be effected there in them who had bin made partakers of the Holy Ghost By these means therefore he enflames the Will sets it all on fire with ardent love to God and his rewards and consequently to his service in all the works of Piety and Virtue and endued with firm and setled resolutions of adhering to him in faithful constant practice of all this And thus Christ by his Spirit as he was the Author the Beginner of the faith by which he is stil'd Heb. 12. 2. so by the same he is the Finisher and the completer of it He was the Author as that Testimony which the Spirit gave by miracles did evince the infallible certainty and the Divinity of the doctrine to the world for the Spirit is said to bear witness to it by those signs and wonders Heb. 2. 3. and those signs are called the demonstration of the Spirit 1 Cor. 2. 4. that which did irrefragably prove and demonstrate all the Doctrine of the Gospel and make certain Faith of it and in this sense it is that Faith is truly said to be resolv'd into the testimony of the Spirit So also by the same he is the Finisher by the graces the preventings and excitings overshadowings and assistings of that Spirit working in us as we shew'd a firm sincere adherence to that Faith and the obedience of it which when it is wrought Faith hath attain'd that height and in that degree that is to make us capable of those benefits which Christ hath promis'd to bestow on true believers The last thing I was to shew and withal whether such Believers in that true degree can say with our man here Lord I believe yet say too help my unbelief Faith as the Son of Syrach does define it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the principle of cleaving to God that which knits joints us to him and St Paul saith as much when he makes the formality of an evil heart of unbelief to consist in departing from the living God and to Faith by which the just must live opposes drawing back slinking away for fear of danger or affliction Heb. 10. 38. So that according as that cleaving and adherency must be firm and indissoluble so we are to judge of Faith But secondly 't is certain this adherency must be without waverings James 1. 6 7. But let him ask in faith nothing wavering for let not that man him that wavers think that he shall receive any thing at the hands of God A firm and infallible assurance of God's promises a confident expectation of a grant to his petitions tho the power of Praier be almost omnipotent on that account What things soever ye desire when ye pray believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them Mark 11. 24. yet those are not meant by Faith here for the person that is bid not to expect a grant is here suppos'd to think and to be confident he shall receive it but the Praier here spoken to is for wisdom how to behave ones self in times of chance and danger or affliction for the truth's sake in these trials of his Faith v. 3. Now that he may obtain that wisdom he is bid to ask for it of God but he is also bid to ask it in faith nothing wavering i. e. he must come to God for it with firm adherence to him with dependance on him onely and a mind resolv'd whatever happens to stick fast to him and his commands and methods not to labor or accept deliverance on terms not allow'd by God and a good Conscience must not waver betwixt duty and security nor be double minded so as to apply now to Christ and Religion now to worldly carnal politics Such double minded men that have a mind to God and their duty but a mind also to safety interest or some other satisfaction are unstable are divided betwixt two not knowing which to turn to now taking one now the other do not stick to God they are not faithful It is not sound Faith where there is not a resolv'd and setled cleaving such false-hearted wavering ulcerates and gangrenes all But then thirdly where there is that firm sincere adherency to God and duty with such a dependance on him there is Faith that is effectual to the ends of Faith for this is true Faith that works and is consummated by love and that begets an efficacious Hope by that hope works out the purifying of our selves as God is pure and consequently does entitle us to see God i. e. to the beatifick Vision I know there are some who besides this certainty of adherence do require an absolute certainty of evidence affirming there is no true Faith but such as stands on a clear resolution into Principles more evident and certain than those Propositions are which are made out to us by Demonstration than any Principles of Sciences which Principles since they are more necessary than that first one that which is is and the contrary to them more impossible than for the same thing that is to be and not to be at the same time while it is by consequence they cannot but infuse greater necessity and certainty into our Faith than there is in the knowledg of those Propositions so that 't is impossible for him that is a true Believer to say Lord I believe help thou my unbelief I shall not put it to the question whether the Rule of Faith be firm and immovable or the Principle which true Belief must be resolved into is most infallible and necessary for all those which resolve their Faith into God's Revelation and that make his Word the Rule must needs assert all that and where it is affirm'd that the motives laid in second Causes by God's Providence to perswade men to embrace the faith must be such as of their own nature cannot fail to conclude points true if they mean
those few that allow it not Sardanapalus and yet place the Prophet Jonah not long after him must be put hard to it to find out then so great a City as he tells you Niniveh then was and so great a King of it But he altho as men of his vice possibly are apt to be somtimes a little tender hearted easily affected on some sudden passionate occasion yet that being as it mostly is a fit of penitence returning to his old abominable practices after a short Reign his Kingdom was quite rent in pieces and the City utterly destroied himself beginning it He had before inflam'd it with his lust then he set fire to it and left nothing after him besides his Epitaph a greater and more lively character of sensuality than his whole life had bin and so that City tho it did lay hold upon the time of acceptance seize the day of salvation yet it quickly let it go again And as for persons I shall need to give one onely instance since 't is of more than six hundred thousand men and each in their personal capacity All whom Males able to go out to war God brought from Egypt with a mighty hand on purpose to conduct them to the Land of Canaan and possess them of it every one of whom saw more of God's immediat presence and his Glory had more express miracle of grace and favor and forbearance also than yet ever any People in the world had yet these had their time of favor limited had their day for God's performance which time while it lasted he endur'd their provocations of the highest measure even when they made another God to lead them But when that day came and they were at the point to enter and he bid them go in and possess it and they would not make use of it being scar'd with news of Enimies taller than they and so distrusting God's help they repin'd they had not staid in Egypt rather then as I live saith God because all these men have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have temted me now these ten times surely they shall not come into the Land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein neither shall any of them that provoked me see it Num. 14. 22 23 30. And of all that number but two onely who provoked him not Joshua and Caleb enter'd it This very instance and the Prophe Davids application of it also Psalm 95. to the Jews of his time that they would not be as their Forefathers stubborn and untractable to all God's methods standing out against them till it was too late but that to day if they would hear his voice they should be flexible and plaint this I say St Paul in the third chapter to the Hebrews urges to the Christians that they should also be so while 't is called to day while that their â—odie their day that was allow'd them lasted least they should outstand it and they also be excluded from the everlasting rest in the Heavenly Canaan And he presses further in the sixth how God do's finally withdraw his grace from those who in the day of it resist it and makes no more tender of it to them and illustrates this in the twelfth chapter with the history of Esau who to satisfy a present appetite did sell his Birth-right and the Privileges and the Blessing that of course attended it and altho he sought it afterwards he was rejected and â—ound no place of Repentance nothing that could make his Father change his mind altho he sought it carefully with tears and with the Parable of ground which if when 't is long water'd with the dew of Heaven and hath drank that fatness which the clouds drop down it shall bring forth onely briars or continue barren 't is no longer cultivated but rejected reprobated no more fit to be water'd with the shours of Heaven but burnt up with scorching heat Our Savior's Parable about the Fig-tree too hath the same Apologue which if with three years husbandry it bear no fruit and in the fourth too being manur'd more expresly it fail also cut it down then least it cumber the ground Whether the term that limits this accepted time be meted out by years and months so much time I will bear with them and expect as the instance of the old world gives some color for or whether it be not set to days and hours but measured by their reckonings of iniquity when they have made up and filled the Epha their time shall be out as the Amorites example and the Israelites in the wilderness would evince or whether both ways as Jerusalems and Ninivehs seem plain for 't is not for me to determin Each or any of them does assure us that the time is bounded beyond which there is no term no day left if we do outstand that O that thou hadst known in this day saith he but that being expir'd then is the hour of darkness now they are hidden from thine eyes nor are they onely hidden from their eyes but God also shuts their eyes sends them the spirit of slumber on them that they may not see not perceive not understand nor be converted least he heal them The Predeterminations that do limit out the Age of mens Repentance seem much more unalterable than those are that bound the Age of Life Good Hezekiahs tears and praiers got him fifteen years accession to his days time did go back for him and he liv'd part of his Age over again But when the life that is allotted for the possibilities of Repentance is spun out when the day of God's expectation is once gon we have no instance to produce that he will call back or protract it to us death may let go its hold but obstinacy in sin does not marble Monuments have heard and bin obedient yielded up but the stony hard heart will not And indeed to be innexible arises from the very nature of that course and progress in sin that does weary out God's forbearances outstands all his offers wasts the whole day of salvation For to pass by the instances of the old World and of the Amorites of which we have no more account but that these Amorites were given up so to unnatural sin and uncleanesses that the Land spued them out in the other that the Daughters of men had effac'd all the thoughts and knowledg of God out of the very Sons of God that the wickedness of man was so great that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was onely evil continually But in Israel whom St Paul represents to us for caution thus their state was they had set their hearts on present satisfactions so eagerly and impotently that whenever there was the least want of any they repin'd that God had brought them out of Egypt that their Jehovah should be at that distance from them as in Heaven and their sustenance
not our age in any wise to dissemble whereby many young persons might think that Eleazar were now gon to a strange Religion and so they thro my hypocrisy and desire to live a little time should be deceived by me 'T is said the Prince of Conde gave this answer to King Charles the IX of France who told him he must make his option either of going to Mass or death or to perpetual prison for the first by God's help he would never chuse it in the other he submitted to his pleasure but that God would certainly dispose of them as it seem'd good to him On the other side we have an instance Chilon one of the wise men of Greece who whatsoever his last aim was here his end was to live justly and according to right reason who upon his death-bed told his friends it was not then a time for him to flatter deceive himself his thoughts did not suggest unto him any thing he had don in his whole life that troubled him but one that when he with two others was to sit in judgement on a man that was his great friend who had broke the Law so heinously that it was necessary to condemn him looking out for some means that might save his virtue and his friend too he resolv'd on this that since the suffrages were given so that none could know what sentence any one Judg in particular pronounc'd he perswaded his Companions to absolve him and himself condemn'd him thinking thus he salv'd his duty both as Judg and Friend but when he came to die he thought 't was wicked and perfidious to draw others in to do that which he held not just for him to do he was not true to his own end but was diverted by the calls of friendship to serve other and in that he found his Wisdom fail'd him and his Conscience condemn'd him So that we have seen the Rule exemplified in all kinds Now by this Rule we may make experiment both of the truth of what our Savior here pronounces and mens wisdom also of what kind it is what the aim is whether of this World or of the other and which of the pursuers are the truer to their end and so wiser There is scarce any one profession dignity or place of power nor indeed condition or state of life but is adapted so that it may serve ends either of the Child of this World or the Child of Light and contribute either to the advantages of this life or of that which is to come To take a view of one or two of them the man that gets into authority and place may have for his end to serve God and his Country if he intend it for an opportunity truly and indifferently to administer justice to the punishment of wickedness and vice and to the maintenance of God's true Religion and virtue by such Sons of restraint as the Scripture calls them vice may be discountenanc'd goodness cherish'd till judgement run down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream and the Nation be taught to live in peace and honesty or he may intend to serve himself to gratify his pride or his ambition by getting into place and power that so he may be over others and his person more regarded and his will observ'd and himself be more uncontrolable in his words and actions may be vices or to gratify his covetous desires if in the perquisites of his place he find an opportunity for bribes a power to sell justice or what 's worse impunity of wickedness an office where men may buy off their duties yea their crimes and punishments at least a place of doing something like this as they find occasion Now whereas Authority finds good men often modest in the use of it as to its true ends of Religion and Justice power will scarce give them countenance and courage for its executions 't is uneasy or they are sollicited or aw'd and they look off at least they seldom put themselves upon it as upon the prosecution of a thing they mainly aim at or they seldom persevere so on the other side in order to the other ends men struggle for them buy the opportunities of selling give bribes that they may have power to receive them use all arts to compass offices to serve their worldly end with This is more notorious if the Office be Ecclesiastical the true end of whose Ministry is to gather Christ's Sheep that yet go astray to carry on the Salvation of those Souls which God hath purchas'd with his own bloud to preserve his Children from Eternal Hell to be applying to the wounds and the distempers of the body of Christ to prepare his Spouse for the marriage of the Lamb to be Dispensers and Stewards of his means of Grace and Glory in fine Fellow-workers with him to the Everlasting blessedness of those that are committed to their charge and who is sufficient for and does not tremble at these things to all which yet they do solemnly in express words dedicate themselves and their faithful endeavors and are consecrated to it by the Holy Spirit Or the end of this Ministry may be to advance themselves to reap the profits to receive the fleece enjoy the honors no great care appearing of those other dreadful obligations or concern that looks proportionable to them and if men will purchase this charge too as some say we may be sure they do not buy the duty or those fearful obligations and much less the Holy Spirit or his graces but 't is somwhat else they bargain for which they break thro oaths to come at some other end they aim at 2. As for states of life I must be endless should I enter into them to name but that which God himself did institute and first before all others which he made to be the complement of the felicities of Paradise to be mutual support in every state of life give all the comforts of society with innocence to preserve from vice in the most dangerous and fatal instances and so assist in the recovery of lost Paradise to fill earth so as by their good education it might people Heaven and repair its loss of faln Angels But some also may intend no more by it than dowry or to serve the needs or interests of families and to raise them for as for other satisfactions they intend to make them to themselves much otherwise and design not this at all a bar to any do not look upon it as God meant it for a remedy because they would not be preserv'd from the transgression onely they purpose to have such posterity it may be as the Law will suffer to inherit what their vices leave and their arts can secure from Creditors Yet truly since men learnt to disbelieve or not regard their own immortality and then learn not to care for living after they are gon hence in a good name it is not strange if they esteem not living
in reflecting how to set their paces to the cadences of an aire so much more considerable 't is to dance well then to live and dye well No guide in that science that must teach them how to be for ever blessed they march forwards in the way they fall into in which provided all their appetites be entertain'd well and themselves diverted the good company submissive and complaisant and let them have their will and rule it then they go on pleasantly not ever thinking what way they are in or whither going Much less are they circumspect and wary watching both their wayes and steps but rather love to walk amongst break into snares and so walking so entangled their last fatal minute overtakes them never till then sensible but then made so by despair when as the wise man words it they repenting and groaning for anguish of spirit shall say within themselvs The Righteous we had in derision and a proverb of reproch we fools accounted his life madness how is he numbred among the Children of God and his lot is among the Saints Therefore have we erred from the way of truth we have wearied our selves in the way of wickedness yea we have gon thro deserts Where there lay no way but as for the way of the Lord we have not known it What hath pride profited us or what good hath riches with our vaunting brought us All those things are pass'd away like a shadow For the hope of the ungodly is like a thin froth that is driven away with the storm but the Righteous live for evermore the reward of them is with the Lord and the care of them is with the most High Therefore shall they receive a glorious kingdom and a beautiful Crown from the Lords hand Which Crown God of his infinite mercy grant c. SERMON XVIII THE LIGHT OF THE BODY is the Eye Matt. 6. 22 23. The light of the body is the eye if therefore thy eye be single thy whole body shall be full of light But if thine eye be evill thy whole body shall be full of darkness If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness how great is that darkness IN daies that above all others so pretend to light yet then in which the Church was scarcely ever more involv'd in darkness wholly overspread with error and confusion and these new lights prove but like those fires that do mislead them that are overtaken by the night guide them only out of their way into dangers and precipices and make them loose themselvs in many wandrings only Religious meteors It cannot be unseasonable or needless to try what kind of light it is that Christ would have us follow if all were true those others do pretend 't would give them but enlightned brains but Christs light here will give us shining lives make our whole bodies full of light and which light if men want notwithstanding all their wild illuminations they are still in the most amazing darkness For the light of the body is the eye c. The words are clearly the former part of a comparison only hinting at and leaving us to guess and to draw out the latter which hath by divers been assign'd diversly In their direct view they say thus much The Eye is the candle of the body that is as in the body of man the Eye is the director do's that office to it that a lamp dos in the dark shews it which way it should walk what it should do and by its guidance the body can discerningly set about its offices and perform its functions and if the Eye be as it ought pure and right it directeth well but if not the body not being able to discern not only cannot exercise its functions as it ought but also may walk on in dangerous errors and stumble upon precipices into ruin So also it fares in our spiritual estate But the particulars thereof are not by all agreed upon and are very variously rendred The single and the evil eye being exprest by such words as do assure us that a spiritual eye is here intended yet leaves place for enquiry into what it is and tho several meanings have been pitch't upon and but one was meant yet each having either large authority or reasons I know not why I may not apply it too and treat of every one seeing each way afford's us true and good instructions And first that which hath most generally been adhered to is that the singleness of the Eye should mean the singleness or simplicity of heart purity of intention So Abimelech Gen. xx 5 6. when he had taken Sarah to him pleads for himself he did it in the simplicity of his heart and God acknowledges he did so with an honest intention meaning to make her his wife not knowing that she was so to another man And then the second part of the comparison says thus So also if thy heart be single and sincere thy intentions right to God if in all thy actions thou intend his service and Glory that thy good meaning will derive a goodness into all thy doings thy whole body will be full of light all thy actions holy but if thy intentions be vitiated if in the duties I named before alms praier fasts thou aime not at my service but the praise of men if thy heart be impure mudded with the desire of earthly things which I did last forbid thee thy actions must needs be dark and foul yea indeed how great a spiritual darkness how much unholiness must needs dwell upon thy doings if the only thing that should give light and shed an holiness into them thy intentions be dark and evil To this sense I shall first speak and divide my text into subjects rather then parts 1. The first shall be this the lamp of the body is the eye a good intention a well meaning must enlighten direct every action to make it not reprovable 2. I shall lay before you a single eye shew you what is required to make a Religious intention singly and purely so 3. That from such a single eye the body shall be light that such good hearty meanings do either break out into holy actions or are accepted as such 4. That such a single eye makes the whole body light that by such pure religious intentions a man may sanctify all the actions of his life 5. The remaining part of the text but if thine eye be evil c. being but the affirming all the contraries to these of the evil eye the bad meaning the intention that is not honest and pure must needs be prov'd and press'd in pressing of the former part and therefore that shall only furnish me with application First of the first the candle of the body is the eye a good intention a well meaning must enlighten and direct every action to make it not reprovable I mean in actions that are any way matter of duty I know only an innocent harmless
by except we will walk on in darkness unto the land of utter darkness But as a lanthorn is no guidance to the blind and a light is of use only where there is an eye so Gods commandments can have no influence upon nor give direction or assistance to our waies except this eye of the mind be enlightned by them for it is Conscience that is the conveiance to all duty to the heart of man that cannot set up obedience but as the Conscience do's press it on it that conveys the immediate obligation My Conscience tells me this I must forbear that I must practise Yea where there was no law to give direction the eye of Conscience looking o're the frame of man a creature reasonable in his making could strait see a necessity of doing things agreable to right reason and viewing the materials of the pile saw he was built of Soul as well as body of of an immortal Spirit as well as a carnal part knew that his life was to be order'd to the uses of the Spirit as well as of the flesh and more indeed that being the better part and easily could gather hence that man was not to serve his lower brutish part the body so as to discompose his soul and when it did so did condemn him for the doing of it And upon this S. Paul affirms Rom. 2. 14 15. When the Gentiles that have not the Law do by nature the things contained in the Law they having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written on their hearts their Conscience bearing them witness Which says that tho the rest of the world had not the Revelation of Gods will and Law as the Jews had yet from the dictats of their reason and the notions of good and evil implanted in them their conscience did oblige them unto the performance of such things as the Law required and upon such performance or omission without any other Law did either excuse them as men that did not culpably wander out of those paths which the light and Eye that God had planted in them did direct them in or else accuse them as transgressors and render them obnoxious to punishment And so it did before the Law So Rom. 5. 13 14. For until the Law sin was in the world but sin is not imputed where there is no Law Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adams transgressions First after Adams time till Moses before the giving of the Law men fin'd and tho it be true that sin is not charg'd to punishment but where there is a Law to forbid it under that penalty and therefore it might be thought that sin without the Law would not have brought death into the world yet from Adam till Moses death reign'd men died that had not sinn'd as Adam did against an express actual precept promulgated as his was and establish't with a positive threat of death but died because they had sinn'd against the laws of their nature the principles of duty that were put into their making which Conscience prest upon their practise and whose guidance they would not follow they pull'd death upon themselvs in the errors of their waies 'T was by the equity of this that when the wickedness of men grew great in the earth the floud grew so too an inundation of waters overspread it when sin had once don so and iniquity against the dictates of conscience struck all the world at once with death except eight persons Conscience therefore where there is law and also where there is none is the great director of our actions and to this I shall apply our Saviors discourse dividing not the Text but Conscience and in the several members verifying what our Savior he reaffirms 1. Conscience either respecteth actions to be don or actions already don First as it respecteth actions to be don telling us this we must do that we must forbear so first as it answers to the single Eye it denotes the pure Conscience the enlightned Eye of the mind as S. Paul calls it that is a truly well inform'd Conscience a Conscience that judges according to its rule and to this I shall first tell you what is the entire rule of conscience and consequently when it s dictates are right when it informs me truly this I must do that I must forbear 2. Prove to you that all our actions that are regulated by such a well inform'd conscience are good and honest so that if this eye be single the whole body shall be full of light If the conscience be pure the man's holy and so the first part of the text is proved 2. As it answers to the evil eye so it denotes an evil conscience a conscience that do's not give true judgment of duty ill inform'd And this either First wholly so and then 't is reprobate sense such as that of them that call good evil and evil good from which men are stil'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 4. 2. or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Phavorinus Rom. 1. 31. Or secondly but in part and then 't is either first an erring conscience or secondly a doubtful conscience or thirdly a scrupulous conscience to which also several others will fall in And I shall shew you how every of these do's mislead a man into the dark The scrupulous raiseth clouds and mists about him dark errors and discomforts too the doubtful do's instead of guiding leave him so puzl'd that he knows not which way to be-take himself and the erring conscience lights him into the pit takes him by the hand to thrust him down guides him into a necessity of sin and the no conscience the reprobate sense it is a darkness somwhat worse then that the blackness of Hell here All this I shall do in order Upon the other part conscience as it relates to actions already don so it do's testify and in so doing either excuse or accuse Rom. 2. 15. Now tho conscience in the other former respect hath indeed the greater influence upon our practise and so to it the text do's more directly answer yet this latter having some also in order to the making future actions holy by repentance for when once the soul hath shipwrack't on a sin and she is ready to sink and perish there is no plank on which she can escape but repentance Now 't is this Eye that must look out for that 't is an accusing conscience that must set him upon Repentance this hurry's him about and will not let him rest 'till he get upon the plank that 's fastned to the Anchor even the Anchor of hope by which until it be secur'd a good conscience never is at quiet Because I intend to say but little to this I shall dispatch it now And that in order to its actions excusing and accusing And first if conscience be the
the eie is that the chief seat of those qualities is not the heart much rather 'T is true indeed that discontent and envy shed themselves into the eie they dwell there in a cloud the eie flags and is dull and do's so certainly betray a niggard envious heart that we may see it grudges spirits to its own eies and do's restrain that current that is to feed them with a vigorous life when bounty on the other side flows into the eies in a chearful stream of spirits that make them full and bright But this is not all the reason 't is not only the sign of these same inclinations that hangs out in the eie but the lust it self do's lodge and dwell there S. John calls covetousness the lust of the eie 1 John 2. 16. and that not only because the eie of the covetous is never satisfied with wealth but lusts still more and more but there is reason why it should be the lust of the eie for when goods increase they are increas'd that eat them and what good is there to the owners thereof saving the beholding them with their eies Ecclesiasticus 5. 11. When plenty do's stream in upon us with a torrent while we do lay it by and do not use it then it is clear that nothing but the eie enjoies it when we do lay it out if we dispose it to comply with fashions or to serve pomp and ostentation or to feed emulation because I will not be without what any other hath or else to entertain sports and delights it is clear that nothing but the eie is treated with the expence and with the magnificence of these neither the back nor belly hath the least relish of them nor hath the soul any other organ to imploy about them but the organ of seeing But if thy riches be expended in great provisions for the appetite unless a man can stretch his belly as he do's his barns and his demesnes and make all bigger enlarge his stomach as he do's his table pull out new sides of appetite and multiply his hungers as he do's his dishes the wealthy man himself devours but little more than when he had not such abundance only he sees more meat and sees more eaters of it so that muchness of wealth what is beyond sufficient competency nothing but the eie enjoies and it is therefore said that that lusts after it 't is the eie desires riches and with them we serve no other part And then my Brethren this expression of single eie or bountiful eie do s let us see that liberality is no great pressure to a man it do's require no inconveniences from him it do's retrench from nothing but his eie if we can but get this to be moderate in its objects get but a single eie an eie that is not covetous of every thing it likes and that delights it an eie that will be satisfied with competencies and then a man will have no other uses for much wealth but only those of doing good with it for if thine eie be not alwaies gaping after superfluities and daily novelties of entertainments pursuing every thing it fancies or any other man possesses and still ambitioning the heights of whatsoever it beholds that pleases it if he can keep it from thirsting after every thing that feeds its own pride or anothers envy keep I say but the eie in bounds of moderation and there is nothing else in man that do's require much for its satisfaction 'T is nothing else but the unlimited unwearied eie that looks thro all the world for entertainments and must have services from every part of the whole universe the Indians must dive into the depths of the Abyss and digg the rocks to get a Jewel that shall dash a little light into thine eie the Mariner must pass throughout all the variety of climes must cross the frozen and the torrid Zones to pick up those diversities of things that are to please thy sight with a new garment for thy self or for thy chamber or rather are to make a dress not for thy back indeed or for thy room but for thy eie which is not well except it see fine things that must have furniture out of the bowels of the worms and out of the bowels of the earth have gold and silver utensils and silken ornaments and have I know not what so also several nations must conspire to make up almost any one in the whole variety of sports which yet do but pass by and please the eie and move away as quick as sight it self It is the eie indeed that endears every excessive sin to us The Scripture do's most properly express it when it saies the Adulteries of the eie for its delights those of variety I mean for that too hath no other serve nothing but the eie So it is in the sin of pride and covetousness and pleasure it is that part spends almost all the riots and intemperances that drinks in objects minutely and thirsts for all diversities these consume Do but teach that to be content and there will be enough for charity If God had bid us rob our bowels for to feed the hungry divide necessity betwixt us and deny nature's cravings to hear those of the poor it had bin hard and tho the Lord emtied himself for us yet sure the croaking of our emty bowels would have sounded much like murmurings at such a precept but when he bids us only spare a little of the provisions of our eie which wants nothing at all of them do but deny thy sight some little portion of its excesses and lay out some of its unnecessary objects on the Poor and I will ask no more for charity This sure is no hard duty Get but a single eie an eie that is not niggardly and covetous that catches at and grasps at every thing that likes it do but moderate its desires and lusts and all the rest of thee thy back and belly will be easily contented will spare enough for liberality 't is nothing but an evil eie that hinders The pinching Miser he can deny all other appetites to gorge his eie he crucifies his flesh and almost starves his body to provide for his sight 't is this alone he cares for to have wealth to behold not use Could he cure this Wolf this canine appetite in his eie that is so greedy to look on wealth he might afford to give his heaps for he do's nothing else with them but see them And 't is the very same with them who are as covetous of pleasures for their sight or things to furnish out the pomps of pride or ostentation of vanity if their eie would abate in these bounty would have provisions And sure my Brethren among the lovely changes that the eie delights in this might come in for one handsom variety to see such and so many souls live cheerfully thro the help of thy liberality to see thy wealth not only feed the
to me rather than use a violence upon my self I must find out some salve now to quiet Conscience and yet keep the Vice And truly if it be but one thing that a man transgresses in he is apt to be gentle to himself and finds plump grounds to be so The best man hath his fault and this is his only in this the Good Lord pardon him in other things he will be strict but this is his particular infirmity to which his very making did dispose him having been poysoned by its Principles without his fault or conspiration 'T is true indeed men have some one or other sinful inclination which is a weight and violence upon them and which they did derive from Adam whose sin like an infection taken in by divers men breaks out in several Diseases according to variety of Constitutions But truly Adam gave them no ill Customs and they have no Original habits themselves did educate their inclinations into Vices and for those inclinations that are derived into them the water of their Baptism was therefore poured upon them to cool those inbred heats and quench those flashings out of Nature wash away those foul innate tendencies in that Laver of Regeneration which therefore they who spare and are tender to because they are original and natural they spare them for that very reason for which they there engaged to ruin them and do renounce their Baptism as to the aims and uses of it There thou didst list thy self a Soldier to fight against the Devil World and Flesh now whichsoere of these gets most into thee wilt thou think fit to spare thy Enemy because he is thy bosom one the Risque is greatest when the Foe is Rebel and Traytor too is got in thy own Quarters shuffled with thy own Forces entred thy Holds and thy Defences and mixes in thy Counsels does counterfeit thy Guard so that thou but command'st and leadst on thy own ruin Sure here is need of strictest care to rid thy self of so much treacherous danger so far is it from a defence to say this is the single force and bent of Nature in me that if I no not therefore most resist it I am perjuriously confederate with my Destruction and howsoever pure I keep my self from other Vices I am not clean David will tell me when I am Psalm xviii 23. I was uncorrupt before him and eschewed my own wickedness God hath not given us Authority to pick and choose our duties observe him where we like and leave the rest and when in the severe contritions of Repentance we come to judg our Lives we have no leave to spare a Vice because custom hath made it our Companion and Intimate or 't is as near to us as the close inclinations of our hearts He that does so although he live a careful life in other things yet all his Innocence is only this he hath a mind to but one sin and those he does not care for he forbears but that which pleaseth him that he commits And sure God is beholden to him that there is but one way of provoking which does take him and therefore must allow him what he hath an inclination to and pardon him because he does abstain from those he does not like I shall now only add that in this case St James's Aphorism holds that Whosoever shall keep the whole Law and yet offend in one point only he is guilty of all he that allows himself to break one Precept does keep none but shall be reckoned guilty of those things which he does not commit For whosoever keepeth the whole Law and yet thus offendeth in one point is guilty of all And then I need not prove such have no Title to the goodness of the Text but may conclude if God be good to Israel it is to such as are of a Clean Heart And so I fall upon the subject Heart And here I must first caution not to think the Heart is set as if it were the entire and only Principle by which a judgment might be past upon our doings as if our Actions so wholly deriv'd denomination from it that they were pure which came from a clean upright heart In opposition to which I shall not doubt to put That the external actions may have guilts peculiar to themselves such as are truly their own not shed into them by an evil mind and a man may be wicked in the uprightness of his heart when he does not intend any such thing but rather the clean contrary Our Saviour tells his Apostles The time will come that whosoever killeth you will think he doth God service John xvi 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he does offer an Oblation or Worship shall think his Murder Sacrifice that that would propitiate for other faults his Crime should seem Religion and attonement to him We have seen guilts put on such colours too and yet by these same actions which their hearts pursued with Holy aims out of a Zeal to God as S. Paul says Rom. x. 2. they sacrificed themselves and their Nation to Gods Vengeance Once more St. Paul does find reason to call himself the chief of Sinners 1 Tim. i. 15. for the commissions of that time of which he says that he served God with a pure Conscience ver 3. did what he was persuaded in his heart he ought to do pursued sincere intentions and after says he had lived in all good conscience before God until that day Acts xxiii 1. So that here was enough of the clean heart a good and a pure conscience and could his fiery persecutions by vertue of that flame within be Christned Holy Zeal Could his Pure Conscience make his Bloody hands undefil'd Oh no! 't was blasphemy and persecution and injury for all 't was Conscience for all his heart was clean from such intentions I was before a Blasphemer and a Persecuter and Injurious ver 13. We may not think to shroud foul actions under handsom Meanings and an Innocent Mind a Conscientious man may yet be chief of Sinners St. Paul was so he says and a clean Heart will not suffice alone Therefore Heart is put here accumulatively as that whose cleanness must be added to the purity of Conversation to compleat it and it implies what elsewhere he does set down more expresly Clean Hands and a Pure Heart all which a clean Heart may be set to signifie because under Gods Holy Spirit it is the principal and only safe agent in the effecting of the rest as that which only can make the other real valuable and lasting When a Disease hath once insinuated it self into the Vitals spread through the Marrow and seised the garrisons of Life the Souls strong holds and after fallies out into the outer parts in little pustles and unhandsome Ulcers they who make application only to those outward Ulcers may perchance smooth and cure the skin make the unhandsomness remove and shift its seat but all that while the man decays
Miracles but to assist our Worldliness Ambitions and Lusts to be our opportunities of Vice and provocation of him And being thus affronted and refused his Enemy preferr'd not this God but Barrabas any the vilest thing for Friend rather than Christ must he not needs be more our Enemy than heretofore And if he be that question will concern us Are we stronger than God It should behove us not to fall out with him till we are See how he does prepare himself for the Encounter Wisd. v. Taking his Jealousie for Armour putting on Justice severe and vindicative Justice as a Breastplate and his Wrath sharpening as a Sword and arming all the Creatures for Auxiliaries Alas when Omnipotence does express it self as scarcely strong enough for Execution but Almightiness will be armed also for Vengeance will assume Weapons call in Aids for fury who shall stand it Will our Friends think you keep it off us and secure us did we consider how uneasie God accounts himself till he begin the Storm while he keeps off his Plagues from overrunning such a Land we would expect them every moment and they must come Ah says he I will ease me of mine Adversaries and avenge me of mine Enemies and then in what condition are we if God can have no ease but in our ruine if he does hunger and thirst after it go to his Vengeance as to a Feast And if you read the 25th Chapter of Isaiah you will find there a rich Bill of Fare which his Revenge upon his Enemies does make view the sixth Verse He that enjoys his morsels that lays out his Contrivances and studies on his Dishes so as if he meant to cram his Soul let him know what delight soever he finds when he hath spoiled the Elements of their Inhabitants to furnish his own Belly and not content with Natures Delicacies neither hath given them forc'd Fatnesses changing the very flesh into a marrow suppling the Bones almost into that Oyl that they were made to keep all â—his delight the Lord by his expressions does seem to take in his dread Executions on his Enemies a sinful People And if the vicious Friendships of the World have so much more attractive than Christ's love and favour and the happy consequences of it as to counterpoise all the danger of such enmity you may joyn hands with them But if His be the safer and more advantageous then hearken to his Propositions and beseechings for He does beg it of you As he treated this reconciliation in his Blood so he does in Petitions too For saith S. Paul We are Ambassadours for Christ as if God did beseech you by us we pray you in Christ's stead Be you reconciled and then be Generous towards your GOD and Saviour and having brought him as it were upon his knees reduc'd him to entreaties be friends and condescend to him and your own Happiness If He be for you take no care then who can be against you His Friendship will secure you not onely from your Enemies but from Hostility it self for when a man's ways please the Lord he will make even his Enemies to be at peace with him Prov. xvi 7. He will reconcile all but Vices And afterwards see what a blessed throng of Friends we shall be all initiated into Heb. xii 23. To an innumerable company of Angels to the general Assembly and Church of the First-born that are written in Heaven to God the Judg of all and to the Spirits of Just men made perfect and to Jesus the Mediatour of the new Covenant c. And of this blest Corona we our selves shall be a noble and a glorious part inflamed all with that mutual love that kindles Seraphims and that streams out into an heavenly glory filling that Region of immortal love and blessedness and being Friends that is made one with Father Son and Holy Ghost that Trinity of Love we shall enjoy what we do now desire to ascribe to them All Honour Glory Power Majesty and Dominion for evermore Amen The Fifth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Third Wednesday in LENT EZECH XXXIII 11. Why will ye Dye THE Words are part of a Debate which God had with the sinful House of Israel in which there are three things offer themselves to be considered First The Sinners Fate and Choice He will Die That 's his End yea 't is his Resolution he will die Secondly Gods inquiry for the Ground of this he seems astonished at the Resolution and therefore reasons with them about this their so mad choice and questions Why will ye dye Which words are also Thirdly The debate of his Affections the reasoning of his Bowels and a most passionate Expostulation with them on account of that their Resolution Why will ye dye which as it is addrest by God directly to the House of Israel so it would fit a Nation perverse as that which mutinies against Miracles and Mercies is false to God Religion and their own Interests led by a Spirit of giddiness and frenzy unsteddy in all things but resolutions of Ruine that would tear open their old Wounds to let out Life and they will dye And though the Lord be pleased to work new prodigies of mercy for us and to say unto us in despite of all our Enemies both Forein and Domestick Live The use we make of all is onely to debauch the Miracles and make Gods Mercies help to fill the measure of our Judgments live as if we would try all the ways to Ruine and since God will thus deliver us from dangers we would call for them some other way But to prescribe to these is above the attempt of my endeavours May the blessed Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding the Spirit of Holiness and Peace and Order breath on their Counsels whom this is committed to I shall bend my Discourse to the Conviction of Sinners in particular and treat upon the words as if they had been spoke to us under the Gospel The first thing which my Text and God supposeth is the Sinners Fate and Choice He will dye Even the second Death for it is appointed for all men once to dye and then cometh the Judgment which shall sentence him to another death that is immortal in which he and his misery must live for ever that is he must die everlastingly Such is first his Fate That Sin and Death are of so near so complicated a relation as that though they were Twins the birth and Issue of one Womb and moment yet they are also one anothers Off-spring and beget each other while Sin bringeth forth Death as S. James saith and is the Parent of Perdition and yet the Man of Sin is the Son of Perdition as S. Paul saith and Iniquity is but destruction's birth onely itself derived And that this Death and Perdition is Eternal in the most sad sense of the word there are a thousand Texts that say This is the Message of God in the mouth and Blood
coersively as a King with his Iron Rod to execute his threats on the rebellious those that will not have him reign over them This coming also was considered in my Text for in the parallel place of S. Matth. it is said Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand for this is he of whom it was spoken by the Prophet Isaias saying the Voice of one crying in the Wilderness prepare yet the way of the Lord. For each of these in order I shall shew you what prepares his way beginning with the first His coming as a Prophet appearing in the World to reveal his Fathers ' Will the Gospel Now the Preparative for this Appearance is discovered easily we find both in this Chapter and the parallel places that John came to make way for it by the Baptism and Preaching of Repentance and it was Prophecied of him that he should go before him in the Spirit and power of Elias to turn the hearts of the Fathers with the Children and the Disobedient to the Wisdom of the Just to the minding of just things so to make ready a people prepared for the Lord Luke i. 17. And this is a preparative so necessary that the Nation of the Jews affirm it is meerly for the want of this that he does yet defer his coming And though the appointed time for it be past yet because of their sinfulness and impenitence he does not appear adding If Israel Repent but one day presently the Messias cometh And it is thus far true that though it hindred not his coming yet it hindred his receiving although it did not make him stay it made him be refus'd I may lay all down in this Proposition Where there is not the preparation of Repentance where there are not inclinations and desires for Virtue if Christ come with the glad tidings of the Gospel He is sure to be rejected his Religion disbeliev'd If the Word of the Son of God might be taken in his own case this would be soon evinc'd for when He came unto his own they were so far from preparing his way that they received him not but did reject and would not entertain him as one sent from God of all this he onely gives this account that he found no other opposition but from vicious humours John viii 43 44 45. Why do ye not understand my speech even because ye cannot hear my Word Ye are of your father the Devil and the lusts of your father ye will do and because I tell you the truth ye believe me not As if he should have said the reason why you do not regard me or my Doctrine but reject us both is not because my Doctrine hath not means to convince your understandings but 't is not agreeable to your inclinations The Works that I have done to make my person be received and my Words credible are such as no heart how hard or blind soever can withstand but the Doctrine I bring along is most unwelcome ye cannot abide to hear it Now as he that shuts his Eyes or turns away his Face because he hates to look upon an object may not see it though it be all cloath'd with day as visible as Sunshine so your blindness proceeds hence that ye hate the light because your deeds are evil Neither do you love to hear that which you have no mind to practise and you will not be persuaded to believe that is your necessary duty which you are not willing to perform but will rather choose to think I do my Works by a confederacy with Belzebub the Prince of Devils although it be apparent that those Lusts which you will do and which my Works and Doctrine come to drive out of the World they are Lusts of the Devil and I because I tell you the truth truth I confess somewhat severe and not so agreeable therefore you will not believe me And is it not strange when nothing can be acceptable to the Understanding but as it hath appearance of Truth and when Truth comes with evidence and demonstration though it be but speculative useless truth yet it does seize and force aslent that yet Christ's truths which did not want conviction for they came to them with that infallibility which Miracles can give should be therefore not believ'd because they were truths not strange at all for his truths were not for their turns nor humours And therefore he says to them Mat. xxi 32. Ye repented not that ye might believe them As if they assented not with their Understandings but their Appetites And we our selves have seen too much unhappy evidence of men whom Libertinism hath made Antimonians whom a desire of being loose from duty hath made Solifidians of them whom sensuality hath made Atheists men that become Proselytes to their Lusts the converts of their base affections And we cannot expect it should be otherwise For certainly that men who are averse to the duties of Christianity and cannot bend their minds to the observance of that which Christs commands should not care to believe they are his Precepts or their duty is but very natural they were unwise should they do otherwise it being far more reasonable to deny the duty and obligation than granting both to trample on that obligation which they do acknowledg and to renounce that Duty which they do confess Is it not far more prudent to believe that there is not a God that does regard our foolish actions here below which are not more worthy or more likely to enter into his considerations than the buzzings of flies into the notices and observations of a Statesman than if we do believe one does severely mark will take a strict account of execute a vengeance for them yet not incline our minds to leave them if we did suffer this belief to creep into our minds to lie close unto our hearts sure it would fret off our aversness to Piety and inclinations to sin we durst not entertain them both together these thoughts would prove very ill company they would distract and tear the mind our Souls would tremble and disjoint and we be sure to put one of them off Covetous and Adulterous Felix when he began to think that S. Paul's Sermon of a Judgment to come might be true straight be began to shake and then immediately to turn the Sermon off bid S. Paul depart till another time Nor can there any other reason be assigned for this for in the Systeme of Christs Religion there is not any thing but is so suited to the very Constitution of a natural being that the Soul would instantly imbrace and suck in if the prepossessions of Vices which the mind will not resolve to part with and repent of did not infect taint the Palate with prejudices did not keep out the belief For the morality which it injoyns did long before the birth of this Religion make its way into the Tenents and the Faith of every Sect of whole
own Indictment yea and his own Sentence too for our own heart condemns us saith S. John And when ever it does so Oh that we would follow it through all the gradations that brought Christ to Death and use our wickedness as he was us'd strip it from its Cloaths bare it from its fair pretexts it useth to be dress'd in Lay our anger naked from all those excuses which our provocations that either wrath or humour will be sure to think intolerable do make for it strip our Pride and Vanity from those paints and dresses which the Custom of the Age that does require and warrant strange things dawbs the sin with use our Luxuries and Intemperances so and the other greater and more thirsty dropsie that of Wealth and of unjust unworthy gains which there are richer Luxuries in too And there are none of these but have their pleas their colours which they set themselves out in to please the Appetite and to deceive the Mind all which we must strip off and then when we have laid them naked spit upon them vomit all our spleen and contumelious despite at that which hath made us so ugly in Gods sight scourge it with Austerities and buffet it as they did Christ and S. Paul did himself 1 Cor. xvi 27. And when the Body of Sin is thus tamed and weakened it will be easie then to lead it out and crucifie it A Crucifiction this that does make our Good-Friday be a day of Expiation and Atonement to us A sight which next to that of his own Son upon the Cross is the most acceptable to the Lord when he does see us execute his Enemies although they be our selves and Crucifie the dear Affections of our bosom as God did This is indeed to be conform'd unto the death of Christ. If I might have leave to go before you and to let you into the Example draw the Curtain from before the Passion I would call my Sins out drag them to behold that Prospect hale them into the Garden shew them how he was us'd there You my Extravagancies of my youth my mad follies and wild jollities come see my Saviour yonder how he swoons when guilt began to make approaches towards him and can I make my self merry with nothing else but that which made him die tickle chear and heighten my self with Agonies You my intemperate Draughts my full Bowls and the riotous Evenings I have past look yonder what a sad night do these make Christ pass look what a Cup he holds which makes him fall lower to deprecate than ever my Excesses made me lie You my lazy Luxuries Fulness of Bread and Idleness whereby I have controul'd Gods Curse and onely in the Sweat of others Faces eat my Bread and in that dew drank up the Spirits of those multitudes that toil to faintings to maintain my dissolute life see how he is forc'd to bear the whole Curse for me how the Thorns grow on his head and how he Sweats all over You my supine Devotions which do scarce afford my God a knee and less an heart not when I am deprecating an Eternity of all those Torments which kill'd Christ look yonder how he prays behold him on his Face petitioning see there how he sweats and begs You my little Malices and my vexatious Anger 's that are hot and quick as Fire it self and that do fly as high too that are up at Heaven strait for the least wrong on Earth look how he bears his how his patience seems wounded onely in a wound that fell upon his Persecutors and when one that came to apprehend him wrongfully was hurt as if the Sword of his defence had injur'd him he threatned and for ever curs'd the black deeds of that angry Weapon and made restitution of what he had not taken made his Adversary whole whom he had not hurt See how with his cruel Judges he is as a Sheep that not before his shearers onely but before his Butcher too is dumb You my Scorns and my high Stomach that will take no satisfaction but Blood and Soul for the faults of inadvertency for such as not the wrong but humour makes offences lookhow they use him they buffet and revile and spit upon him Ye my dreadful Oaths and bitter imprecations which I use to lace my speeches with or belch out against any one that does offend me in the least making the Wounds and Blood of God and other such sad words either my foolish modes of speaking or the spittings of my peevishness There you may see what 't is I play with so you may behold the Life of Christ pouring out at those Wounds which I speak so idly of and what I mingle with my sportive talk is Agony such as they that beheld afar off struck their breasts at and to see them onely was a Passion Ye my Atheisms and my Irreligion but alas you have no prospect yonder it 's but faint before you who out-do the Example whatsoever Judas and the rest did to the Man Christ Jesus you attempt on God you invade Heaven Sentence Cruicifie Divinity it self And now having shewed my Sins this Copy of themselves what they are in their own demerits when my bowels do begin to turn within me at that miserable usage which Christ underwent it will be a time to execute an act of Indignation at my self who have resetted in my bosom all these Traytors to my Saviour made those things the joy and entertainment of my life which had their hands in the Blood of my God and what a stupid sensless Soul have I that was never troubled heartily at that which did make him almost out of hope and if this be the effect of sin then it is time for me to throw it off O my Jesu sure I am I am not able to support the weight of that thou didst sink under Thou didst come to bear our sins in thy own Body on the Tree therefore in thy Body they were nailed to the Cross and then certainly I will not force and tear them thence No there I leave them and will never re-assume them more which resolution is the effect of that vertue and efficacy which is in the Cross of Christ to the crucifying of sin which is the second sense in which the Christian does profess with S. Paul I am Crucified with Christ. There are some Learned Men that when they would assign reasons sufficient to move God to lay the punishment of our iniquities upon his Son and execute that Indignation that was due to us on the most innocent most Holy Jesus give this onely that this was the highest and most signal way imaginable to discover Gods most infinite displeasure against Sin and by consequence to terrifie men from the practice of it For if any thing in Heaven or in Earth could make us fear and from henceforth commit no such evil it was surely this to see Sin sporting in the Agonies of Christ Iniquity
Tranquillity of the State is committed must have the power to judg and to determine what Faith shall be publiquely profess'd and priviledg'd by the State In which Judgment and administration if they err and priviledg a false Faith and inhibit the true they use their Power ill and are responsible to God for doing so but they do not invade or usurp a Power that is not their own Rather 't is most certain if the Principles of any Sect or else if not they yet the pursuance of any Principles do tend directly towards or are found to work Commotions and Treasonable enterprises the Supreme Power hath as much right to restrain yea and Punish them although with Death according to their several merits as he hath to punish those effects in any other instances wherein they do express themselves Nor must Religion secure those practices which it cannot sanctifie but does envenome For by putting an everlasting concern into mens Opinions and actions their undertakings are made by it more desperate and unreclaimable What Wounds and what Massacres must the State expect from them that stab and murder it with the same Zeal that the Priest kills a Sacrifice that go to act their Villanies with Devotion and go to their own Execution as to Martyrdom 'T were easie for me to deduce the practice of this Power from the best Magistrates in the best times if that were my business who had onely this temptation to say thus much that I might not seem to clash with the Magistrates Power of coercion in Religious causes when I did affirm that to destroy mens Lives or other temporal Rights on this account meerly because they are Apostates Schismaticks or otherwise reject the true Religion or Christ himself is inconsistent with the temper of the Gospel If you would discover what the temper of the Gospel is you may see it in its Prophecy and Picture in the Prophet Isay The Wolf shall dwell with the Lamb and the Leopard shall lye down with the Kid the sucking Child shall play on the hole of the Asp and the weaned Child shall put his hand on the Cockatrice den and the Serpent shall eat the dust Whatever mischief these have in themselves there 's nothing of devouring or of hurt to one another in this state 't is like Paradise restor'd the prospect of the Garden of the Lord. Rather whereas there these Creatures onely met here they lye down and dwell together And the Asp and Serpent that could poyson Paradise it self have now no venomous tooth to bite no not the heel nor spiteful tongue to hiss But to speak out of Figure the Gospel in it self requires not the Life of any for transgression against it self it calls all into it and waits their coming those that sin against it it useth methods to reform hath its Spiritual Penalties indeed whereby it would inflict amendment and Salvation on Offenders But because final impenitence and unbelief are the onely breaches of the Covenant of this Religion therefore it does wait till life and possibilities of Repentance are run out and then its Punishments indeed come home with interest but not till then The Law 't is true was of another temper it required the life of an Apostate to Idolatry whether 't were a single Person or a City Deut. xiii To the Jew that was a Child as S. Paul says and so not to be kept in awe by threats of future abdication things beyond the prospect of his care but must have present punishments the Rod still in his eye and was a refractory Child that seem'd to have the Amorite and Hivite derived into him a tincture of Idolatry in his Constitution that was as ready to run back into the superstitions as the Land of Egypt as eager for their Deities as their Onions and had the same appetite to the Calf and to the fleshpots to make the one a God the other a Meal to such a People Death that was the onely probable restraint was put into the Law by God who was himself Supream Magistrate in that Theocraty against whom 't was exact Rebellion and Treason to take another God and therefore was by him punish'd with Death But the Spirit whom Christ sends breaths no such threats for he can come on no Designs but such as Christ can join in but saith Christ I came not to destroy mens lives Secondly The temper of the Gospel is discovered in its Precepts I shall name but one Matth. v. 43 44. Ye have heard that it hath been said Thou shalt love thy Neighbour and hate thine Enemy But I say unto you love your Enemies c. Where if Enemy did not mean the man whom private quarrel had made such and Him it could not mean it being said to them that they must love that Enemy Exod. xxiii 4 5. But as the Jews neighbour was every one of his Religion and he liv'd near him that lived in the same Covenant with him so enemy being oppos'd to that must signifie one not of his Religion An Alien an Idolater with any of which they were indeed to have no exercise of love or friendship no commerce and to some Enemies the Canaanites no mercy but they were to hate them to destruction Deut. vii If so then our Saviours addition here But I say unto you love your Enemies does say that we must love even these the Christian hath no Canaanites but the most prosligated adversaries of his Religion he must love and pray for them although they persecute him Which makes appear it does at least include Enemies of Religion for Persecutions seldom were on any other ground and Religion which should have nothing else but Heaven in it as if it had the malice and the Flames of Hell breaths nothing else but Fire and Faggot to all those that differ in it But whether it be an addition and mean thus or no since it is sure that both they and we are bound to love the Neighbour and Christ hath prov'd Luke x. that the Samaritan he whom our two Disciples would consume that Schismatick and rejecter of Christ is yet a Neighbour therefore him also we must love and pray for Now 't is a strange way of affection to destroy them to love them thus to the death to get admission to their hearts with a Swords point to pray for them by calling for Fire down from Heaven to consume them S. Greg. Nazian calls the founder of that Faction that began this practice in the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and if so we know well of what Spirit he is that does call for fire to devour those that differ from him in Religion 't is sure one of this Legion or it rather is the leader of them that did dwell in Tombs and does in flames things which he loves so to inflict one that was the first Rebel too which leads me to my second Observation That Secondly To attempt upon or against the Prince on the
encourage it sure Witches have no spirit but the Devil for familiar But the Church of England on the other side in her publique Doctrine set down in the Book of Homilies establish'd in the 39. Articles of her Religion says in express words that it is not lawful for Inferiours and Subjects in any case to resist and stand against the Superiour Powers that we must indeed believe undoubtedly that we may not obey Kings Magistrates or any other if they would command us to do any thing contrary to Gods Commands In such a case we ought to say with the Apostle we must rather obey God than Man But nevertheless in that case we may not in any wise withstand violently or Rebel against Rulers or make any Insurrection Sedition or Tumults either by force of Arms or otherwise against the Anointed of the Lord or any of his Officers 1 Book of Hom. 2 part of the Serm. of Obed. Not for Reformation of Religion for what a Religion 't is that such men by such means would restore may easily be judged even as good a Religion surely as Rebels be good men and obedient Subjects 2 Book of Hom. 4 part of the Serm. against wilful Rebellion The very same thing is defined in the first of the Constitutions and Canons Ecclesiastical of the year 1640. for Subjects to bear Arms against their King offensive or defensive upon any pretence whatever is at least to resist the Powers which are ordain'd of God and though they do not invade but onely resist S. Paul tells them plainly he that resists receives unto himself damnation This was the Doctrine of the Church in those her Constitutions and although there was no Parliament then sitting to enact these Canons into Laws yet since that time the Law of England is declar'd to say the same and we obliged by it to acknowledg that it is not Lawful upon any pretence whatsoever to take up Arms against the King by this Parliament whose memory shall be for ever blessed And now it is not hard to know what manner of Spirit our Church is of even that Spirit that anoints the Lords Anointed that is which Commissions them Gods Spirit as we find it phras'd in Scripture And 't is obvious to each eye that there is much more resemblance betwixt present Rome and the Image of Babylon as S. John hath drawn it in the Revelations than there is of Babel and the Church of England as to those Confusions which seditious Doctrines make as the Romanists pourtrai'd her But far be it from me to conclude hence that all of their Communion do allow their Doctrines Though they stand on the same bottom that their Faith of half-Communion and Transubstantiation do even Acts of the same Councils yet I doubt not multitudes of loyal Souls of this our Nation do abhor the Tenents by what Rule of theirs I know not I confess Nor shall I enquire what Security a Prince can have of the Allegiance of those who by the most infallible Rules of their Religion can be loyal onely on Condition by the leave of those who are his Enemies on whose will and power all their Oaths and duty are depending If the most essential interest of Princes will not move them to consider this sure I am I shall not undertake it But I shall take the confidence out of the premises to infer that no Religion in the World does more provide for the security of Kings than the Christian as it is profess'd in our Church does And when we see the Interest of the Crown and Church were twisted by God in the preservations of this day nor could be separated in the late dismal Confusions but died and reviv'd together in the Resurrection they that hate the execrable mischiefs of those times or love the Crown or do not come to mock God when they come to give him thanks for his great glories of this day cannot choose but have good will for our Sion cannot have an unconcernedness for this Religion a cold indifference to it or any other which where-ere it is alas I fear betrays too openly indifference and unconcernedness for Religion it self For if I should appeal to our most Sceptick Statists and not beg one Principle of a Religion but take their own Religion was contriv'd they say by pretending to engage a God to uphold his Vicegerent and by putting after everlasting punishments before mens fears for they saw present ones restrained not Treason was contriv'd I say to uphold States Then that must be the best with them that best upholds and then I have evinc'd the Christian is secure as 't is prosess'd by our Church But then shame to those who to gratifie their lusts meerly labour to perswade themselves and others there is no such thing in earnest as a Resurrection to punishments who by publique raillery in sacred things and turning all to merriment endeavour to take off the sense of all Religion and have done it in great measure and so thrown down the best-Basis on which Government subsists which they themselves confess was necessary to be fram'd on purpose for it For if there be no after fears he that is stronger than to need to fear the present may rebel kill Kings These Atheists are Fanaticks I am sure in Politicks more traiterous than our mad Enthusiasts or than the Canons of the Popish Councils To these Sadduces in Christianity we may say ye know not what spirit ye are of who know not whether there be any Spirit But it is indeed because they are all flesh themselves But then if the works of the flesh be manifest Adultery Fornication Seditions Heresies Murders Drunkenness c. we know what manner of Spirit they are of even the spirit that did enter into the Swine the Legion indeed of Spirits one Spirit is not Devil enough to animate the flesh into so many of those works But the fruits of the Spirit that Gospel Spirit which we Christians are of are love peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance joy in the Holy Ghost and they that do bring forth such fruits are baptised indeed with the Holy Ghost and if with fire fire that came down from Heaven too 't was onely to consume their dross that they may be pure mettal fit as for the King's Inscription meek Christians good Subjects so for Gods Image to be stamp'd upon that is renewed in Righteousness and true Holiness Fire this that will sublime our very flesh into spiritual body that we may begin here that incorruptible which our corruptible must put on when our vile Bodies shall be made like to the glorious Body of our Saviour To which state that Spirit which rais'd up Jesus from the dead bring us by quickning our mortal Bodies To whom c. The Eleventh SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH IN OXFORD Novemb. 8. 1665. Being the Monthly Fast-day for the Plague LUKE XVI 30 31. Nay Father Abraham but if one went unto
interpose to hinder it and hide the possibilities of mercy from their eyes that they may never see them nor recover What can then become of those for whom God does contrive that they shall not escape when instead of those bowels that did make him swear he would not have the sinner die but would have him return and live he puts on so much indignation at such Sinners as to take an order they shall not repent and take an order that they shall be damn'd And yet all this is onely to those men who being dull of hearing the suggestions of the Spirit and not willing to give entertainment to his holy motions grieve him so that they repell and drive him quite away and so by consequence onely make way for the Devil Whereas there are others that directly call him force him to them ravish and invade occasions to serve him Some there are that study how to disbelieve and with great labour and contrivance work out arguments and motives to persuade themselves to Atheism Others practise discipline and exercise themselves to be engag'd in Vice Some dress so as to lay baiâ—s snares to entrap Temptation that they may be sure it may not pass them Others feed high to invite and entertain the Tempter do all that is possible to make him come and to assure him that he must prevail when they have made it most impossible for themselves to stand and to resist Some there are indeed whom he does not overcome so easily but is put to compound with them takes them upon Articles for when he would ingage them to a sin to which he sees they have great inclinations with some fears he is fain to persuade them to repent when they have done to lay hold upon the present opportunity and not let the satisfaction escape them but be sorry after and amend For where these resolutions of Repentance usher in transgression there we may be sure it is the Devil that suggests those resolutions But if he can get admittance once thus by prevailing with a person to receive him upon purposes of after-Penitence he is sure to prosper still in his attempts upon the same condition For Repentance will wash out another sin if he commit it and so on And it is evident that by this very train he does draw most men on through the whole course of sin and life For never do they till they see themselves at the last stage begin repenting When they are to grapple with Death's forces then they are to set upon resisting of the Devil And when they are grown so weak that their whole Soul must be imployed to muster all its spirits all their strength but to beat off one little spot of phlegm that does besiege the avenues of breath the ports of life and sally at it and assault it once again and a third many times and yet with all the sury of its might cannot break through nor beat off that little clot of spittle when it is thus yet then are they to wrestle with and Conquer Principalities and Powers all the Rulers of the utter darkness pull down the strong holds of sin within cast down imaginations and every high thing that did exalt it self against the knowledg of God and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ and with those feeble hands that they are scarcely able to lift up in a short wish or prayer they must do all this resist the Devil and take Heaven by force Now sure to put it off to such a fatal season is a purpose of a desperate concern In God's Name let us set upon the doing it while there is something left of Principle and vigor in us ere we have so griev'd Gods Spirit that he do resolve to leave us utterly and before the Devil have so broke us to his yoke that we become content and pleas'd to do his drudgery We deceive our selves if we think to do it with more ease when Constitution is grown weaker as if then Temptations would not be so â—rong For the Habits will be then confirm'd Vice grown Heroical and we wholly in the power of Satan dead and sensless under it not so much as stirring to get out But if we strive before he have us in his clutches we have an Enemy that can vanquish none but those who consent to and comply and confederate with him those that will be overcome So that if we resist he must be Conquer'd and Temptation must be conquer'd too for he will flie and then by consequence must cease to trouble and molest us This is the sure way to be rid of Temptations to put to flight the great Artificer and Prince of them subdue and overcome him and our selves And to him that overcometh thus Christ will grant to sit with him on his Throne as He also overcame and sate down with his Father on his Throne To which c. The Fourteenth SERMON Preached at WHITE-HALL Last Wednesday in LENT 1667 8. PHILIPP III. 18. For many walk of whom I have told you often and now tell you even weeping that they are the Enemies of the Cross of Christ. THough many by the Cross of Christ here understand any sort of Suffering for the sake of Christ or Religion it being usual with the Scripture to entitle Christ to every evil that befals a man for doing of his duty yet others looking on it properly as that on which Christ himself suffered by the Enemies of the Cross understand those that set themselves against the whole design and influence of Christ's death upon it Now to name that in few words the Cross of Christ not onely is one of the greatest Props on which our Faith of the whole Gospel leans which it establisheth the truth of as Christs Bloud shed upon it was the sanction of the Covenant on Gods part who by that federal Rite of shedding Bloud engag'd himself and we may certainly assure our selves he cannot fail to make good whatsoever he hath promised in that Covenant who would give the Bloud of his own only Son who was so holy and who was himself to Seal that Covenant and his Bloud is therefore called the Bloud of the Everlasting Covenant But besides this extrinsick influence of it all the blessed Mercies also of the Gospel are the Purchase of this Cross and all the main essential duties of the Gospel are not onely Doctrines of the Cross such as it directs and does inforce but the Cross also hath an immediate efficacy in the working of them in us For S. Paul saith by the Cross of Christ the World is Crucified to me and I unto the World On it the Flesh is also crucified with the Affections and Lusts And to say all that comprehensive Duty of the Gospel Self-denial is but another word for taking up the Cross And then as for the Mercies of the Gospel on the Cross the satisfaction for our sins was made the Price of
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that mind earthly things the fourth sort in whicâ— all their wisdom lies Which two last sorts of Enemies I shall attaque together The Cross of Christ amongst its other ends was set to be an instrument whereby the World is to be Crucified to us and we unto the World to be the means whereby we are enabled to prevail upon and overcome our worldly lusts and inclinations and to sleight yea and detest all the temptations of its Wealth Delights and Heights when they attempt to draw us into sin or take us off from Duty Now to this it works by these three steps First shewing us the Author and the finisher of our Faith nailed himself to that Cross his joints rack'd on it his whole Body strip'd and nothing else but Vinegar and bitter potions allow'd his thirst and thus convincing us that if we will be his Disciples we must take up his Cross and follow him at leastwise we must have preparedness of mind to take it up when ever it is fix'd to Duty to renounce all profits honours and delights of this World that are not consistent with our Christian profession This is the Doctrine of the Cross of Christ it being otherwise impossible to to be the Disciples of a Crucified Master And when this great Captain of our Salvation was himself consecrated by his sufferings and had for his Standard his own Body lifted up upon the Cross we that are listed under him and with that very badg the Cross too crucis Consecranei Votaries and fellow Soldiers of that Order if we shall avoid our Duty when it is attended with a Cross or straitned any ways and the provisions of this World are cut off from it and betake our selves rather to the contents of Earth we do not onely shamefully fly from our Colours Fugitive and Cowards Poltrons in the Spiritual Warfare but are Renegadoes false and traytours to our selves too such as basely ran away not onely from our Officer but from Salvation which he is the Captain of and which we cannot possibly attain except we be resolv'd to follow him and charge through whatsoever disadvantages to attend Religion vanquishing all those temptations with which the World assaults us in our course to Duty Thus the Cross of Christ first shews us the necessity we have to renounce and Crucifie the World But to encourage and enable us to do so it does also shew us Secondly The certainty of a good issue in the doing it assures us that those who deny themselves forbidden satisfactions here that will be vertuous maugre all the baits and threats of Earth will embrace Duty when it is laden with a Cross although so heavy as to crush out life and kill the body assures us that those lose not but exchange their lives shall save their Souls and that there is another World wherein their losses shall be made up to them and repaired with all advantage To the truth of this the Cross of Christ is a most pregnant and infallible testimony For as by multitudes of Miracles Christ sought to satisfie the World that he was sent from God to promise all this and justified his Power to perform it by experiment raising some up from the dead so when they said he did his Miracles by Beelzebub he justified it â—urther with his Life affirming that he was the Son of God no 't is impossible but he must know whether he were or no and consequently sent and able to do all he promised and resolv'd to do it also for our more assurance in himself that he would raise himself up from the dead within three days and saying this when he was sure he should be Crucified for saying so and sure that if he did not do according to his words he must within three days appear a meer Impostor to the world and his Religion never be receiv'd Now 't is impossible for him that must needs know whether all this were true or no to give a greater testimony to it than his Life For this that Bloud and Water that flowed from his wounded side upon Cross which did assure his Death is justly said to bear witness to his being the Son of God and consequently to the truth of all this equal to the testimony of the Spirit whether that which the Spirit gave when he came from Heaven down upon him in his Baptism or the testimony which he gave by Miracle for there are three that bear witness upon Earth the Spirit the Water and the Blood Thus by his Death Christ did bring Life and Immortality to light his choosing to lay down his own life for asserting of the truth of all this was as great an argument to prove it as his raising others from the dead and Lazarus's empty Monument and walking Grave-cloaths were not better evidence than this Cross of Christ. 4. Once more this Cross not onely proves the certainty of a future state but does demonstrate the advantage of it and assures us that it is infinitely much more eligible to have our portion in the life to come than in this life That to part with every thing that is desireable in this World rather than to fail of those joys that are laid up in the other that to be poor here or to be a spoyl to renounce or to disperse my wealth that so I may lay up treasures for my self in Heaven and may be rich to God never to taste any one of these puddle transient delights rather than to be put from that right hand where there are pleasures for evermore to be thrown down from every height on Earth if so I may ascent those everlasting Hills and Mount Sion that is above that this is beyond all proportion the wisest course it does demonstrate since it shews us him who is the Son of God who did create all these advantages of Earth and prepare those in Heaven and does therefore know them both Who also is the Wisdom of the Father and does therefore know to value them yet for the joys that were set before him choosing to endure the Cross and despising the shame On that Beam he weigh'd them and by that his choice declar'd the Pomps of this World far too light for that exceeding and eternal weight of Glory that the whole earth was but as the dust upon the Ballance and despis'd it and to make us do so is both the Design and direct influence of the Cross of Christ. But as at first the Wise men of this World did count the Preaching of the Cross meer folly to give up themselves to the belief and the obedience of a man that was most infamously Crucified and for the sake of such an one to renounce all the satisfactions suffer all the dire things of this Life and in lieu of all this onely expect some after Blessednesses and Salvations from a man that they thought could not save himself seemed to them most ridiculous So truly
and throwing great stones from his knâ—e as from an Engine say his followers which yet could not scare the Souldiers neither did the Roman Eagles which were true-bred fear those flames he spate but destroyed some millions of them Now 't is evident by the comparison of the several signs that Christ and this Barchocab wrought the onely reasons that gave efficacy to that sleight imposture and did make it over-power Christs mighty works was their earthly desires and affections which Christs severe Doctrines could not gratifie and therefore they receiving not the love of the truth but having pleasure in unrighteousness gave themselves up to delusions to believe a lie yet still those delusions went for reason with them Once more Tertullian challenging the Heathen says Produce before your judgment-seats some whom you will of those who are inspired by any of your Gods when gaping ore the Altar they have in its fumes according to their custom taken in the Deity 'till they are great with it ructando conantur while they are in travel with him as it were have belching throws that they burst almost 'till they are delivered of the inspiration while it is thus let but any Christian adjure them by the name of Christ and if the spirits that they are possest with do not presently confess that they are Devils ibidem illius Christiani procacissimi sanguinem fundite let the sawcy petulant Christian lose his life He speaks of this as a known frequent trial And Minutius Felix says their chiefest Gods have been forced out of their Votaries and acknowledged they were evil spirits Now here was reason and experience the miracle was so evident that Tertullian braging says do not believe it if your eyes and ears can suffer you and the reason was more pressing then the fact Nec enim Divinitas deputanda est quae fubdita esthomini it being most impossible that that should be a God which a man could rule and triumph over so imperiously manage him as with a bare command to force him from his hold and make him shame himself so villainously before both his adorers and his enemies as to say He was a Devil Yet the Heathens still found colours to do out all this conviction and their old acquaintance with their Gods together with the Custom of their vicious Worships had more force with them then miracle and reason And while the Christian dispossest their Deities he was himself turned out of all his own possessions and although he made their God confess himself a Devil yet still poor he was made to suffer as a malefactour And 't is not strange if men now stick as closely to their vices as those did to the Gods that patronized them and it be as hard to exorcise the Devil out of their affections and practices as it was then out of Heathen Votaries or Temples They are as fierce against the Christian Religion for their lusts sake as those for their Venus and the very same account that made those Heathen Customs or the lying wonders of false Christs or Pharaoh's Magicians sings be more persuasive then the other more real miracles namely because they sided with their inclinations and interests This very account makes little difficulties which Almighty God hath left in our Religion as he suffered signs and lying wonders heretofore for trials yea makes cavils mere exceptions pass for reasons most invincible be disputed urg'd with great concern and passion against all those methods of conviction which God hath afforded Christianity Now if this be to receive Religion as a little Child 't is with the frowardness of Children when they are displeas'd or ill at ease who resist and quarrel with the thing that is to make them well or please them and return the Parents cares to ease and quiet them with little outrages and vexing And do ye thus requite the Lord O foolish people and unwise Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee Hath he not made thee and established thee Ask thy Father and he will shew thee thy Elders and they will tell thee Deut. 32. 6 7. Now have Children any other way to know their Parents then to let their Father shew them and their Elders tell them Or should we cast off the relation and renounce all the obedience due to it because we are not sure of it our selves For ought we know those may not be our Parents we have only testimony for it Thus we serve our God on that account and yet Hath he not made thee and established thee As he began us so did he not nurse and bear us in his arms and carry us in all our weakness and difficulties 'till he brought us up to a full strength 'Till by a miraculous and signal providence he had establisht settled us and after all these cares bestowed upon us do we prove a generation of vipers onely such as do requite the bowels that did bear and nourish them by preying on them and consuming them Or like the of-spring of a Spider who when he hath spent himself with weaving nets and working of them into labyrinths to be the granaries and the defences of his brood to catch them prey and to secure them then the strongest of his young ones when he is by these his cares establisht and grown ripe to destroy makes those threads fatal to his parent which he spun out of his bowels to be thread of life to him And shall we be such Children to our Father that establisht us Make all his plenties turn to poison in us and invenome us against himself make his miraculous mercies furnish us for the abuse and provocation of him His blest Providence serve only to afford us arguments against it self help to confute it self because it hath so prospered doth still suffer us but after all this is he not thy Father that hath bought thee who to all his titles to us his endearing obligations notwithstanding our despites and provocations of them yet did give the life of his own Son to purchase o're again the same relation to us that we might have right to the inheritance of his Kingdom And then however we have hitherto affronted let us be content now to be bought and hir'd to receive that Kingdom of God as his Children for if Children then heirs heirs of God and joynt heirs with Christ who died to make us Kings and Priests to God and his Father To whom be glory c. A SERMON PREACH'D IN St PETER's WESTMINSTER ON SUNDAY January vi 1660. AT THE CONSECRATION OF THE Right Reverend Fathers in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of Bristol EDWARD Lord Bishop of Norwich NICHOLAS Lord Bishop of Hereford WILLIAM Lord Bishop of Glocester By RICHARD ALLESTRY D. D. Canon of Christ-Church in Oxford and one of His Majesties Chaplains LONDON Printed by John Playford in the Year 1683. Right Reverend Father in God GILBERT Lord Bishop of London and Dean of His Majesties Chappel
the Gospel Luke 4. 18. And when he comes to ordain succession he says as my Father sent me so send I you And he breathed upon them and said Receive the Holy Ghost Joh. 20. 21. And after bids them tarry at Jerusalem 'till they should be endued with power from above Luk. 24. 47. That is endued with the Holy Spirit Act. 1. The present Barnabas and Saul were sent by his Commission in the Text and v. 4. And Saint Paul tells the Elders of the Churches of Asia the Holy Ghost made them overseers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Act. 20. 28. Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by immediate designation of the Holy Ghost 1 Tim. 4. 14. Clemens Rhomanus saith the Apostles out of those they had converted did ordain Bishops and Deacons 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 having first try'd them by the Holy Ghost and so taught by his revelation who should be the men And Clemens Alexandrinus says John after his return to Asia ordain'd throughout all the regions about 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as were signified and design'd by the Holy Ghost So that Oeâ—â—menius pronounces in the general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishops that were made they made not inconsiderately on their own heads but such whom the Spirit did command Chrysostom said as much before and Theoplylact Nor can we doubt that he maintains his interest in this affair even at this day But that our Veni Creator Spiritus come Holy Ghost eternal God does call him to preside in these so concerning Solemnities For Christ when he commission'd his Apostles assuring them behold I am with you even to the end of the World which promise he performs only vicriâ Spiritûs prasentiâ by the presence of the Holy Ghost who is his Vicar as Tertullian expresses nor can the Spirit be with them till then but by making them be till then which being done by Ordination that Ecclesiastical procreation for so they derive themselves to the Worlds end upon the strength of that promise we may assure our selves he does assist as truly though not so visibly as when he said here separate The Ghost's concernment being thus secured I have this one thing only to suggest that they who set themselves against all separation to these Offices and Orders in and for which the Holy Ghost hath so appear'd what they be I dispute not now they â—ight against the Holy Ghost and thrust him out of that in which he hath almost signally interessed himself And they that do intitle the Spirit to this opposition do not onely make Gods Kingdom divided against it self or raise a faction in the Trinity and stir up division betwixt those Three One Persons but they set the same Person against himself and make the Holy Spirit resist the Holy Ghost You know the inference prest upon them that did this but interpretatively in the Devils Kingdom and did make Satan cast out Satan And is 't not here of force And they who make the Spirit cast out the Holy Ghost contrive as much as in them lies Gods Kingdom shall not stand I will not parallel the guilts Those Pharisees blasphemed the Holy Spirit in his Miracles ascribing that to Beelzebub which was the immediate work of the Holy Ghost and such indeed do sin unpardonably because they sin irrecoverably for Miracles being the utmost and most manifest express wherein the Holy Ghost exerts himself they who can harden their understandings against them have left themselves no means of conviction and cannot be forgiven because they cannot be rectified or reclaimed These others do blaspheme the Spirit in his immediate inspirations and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ascribing to the spirit of Antichrist all those Offices and Orders which these gifts of the Holy Ghost were power'd from Heaven immediately to qualifie for and separate to things in which he hath as signally appeared as in his Miracles and as he made these means to convince the World so he made those the Officers of doing it and set them to out last the other Now in the same nearness that these two guilts come up one towards the other just to the same degree these sin the sin against the Holy Ghost For the Holy Ghost said separate So I pass to the second to those whom this Injunction is directed to And thence I do observe in general that Notwithstanding all the interest and office that the Holy Ghost assumes in these same separations yet there is something left besides for Man to do Although he superintend they have a work in it He is the Vnction but it must be apply'd by laying on of hands I have call'd them saith he in the Text and yet to them that ministred the Holy Ghost said do ye separate I do not now examin what degree and order of men they were whom the Holy Ghost here commissions for this Office The Judgement of the Antient Church in this affair is enough known by the condemnation of Aerius and by the Fate of Ischyras and Colluthus and for the present instance in which they are call'd Doctors that are bid to do it there hath enough been said to prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Title of a Bishop to which I shall only add that it was a variation of Name that stuck by them untill Bede's age in which what Bishops signified does come under no question for he does say that Austin call'd together to the Conference Episcopos sive Doctores the Bishops or the Doctors of the Province Besides that there was then in Antioch a Bishop 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the time of Claudius Emperour of Rome and of Euodius whom the Apostle Peter had ordain'd at Antioch those that before were call'd Nazarenes and Galileans were call'd Christians A thing which happen'd a little before this separation in the Text as you find Chap. 11. 26. But who they were that us'd to separate for every Execution of these holy Offices will appear from the Instances that I shall make to prove the present Observation that besides that of the Holy Ghost there was an outward call And whom soever the Spirit sent he commanded that they should have Commission from Men. And all my former Testimonies for the Holy Ghost bear witness for this too The Text is positive here was a Congè d'estire for Barnabas and Saul Timothy had his Office 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be designation of the Spirit 1 Tim. 4. 14. yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with laying on of hands ibid. yea 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the laying on of my hands 2 Tim. 1. 6. And Timothy was plac'd at Ephesus as Titus also left at Creet to ordain others in the same manner St. Paul providing for the succession of the Rite and Ceremony as well as of the Office And in St. Clement's Testimony 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Spirit try'd but the Apostles constituted And down as low as
Trajan's time when St. John's date was almost out his life and his Commission expiring and the Churches of Asia to be provided with succession the Men were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signified by the Holy Ghost But the Chron. Alex. saith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that he went clean throughout Asia and the adjacent Regions constituting not only Bishops but others of inferiour Clergie And even in the lowest thus it was when the first Deacons were to be made Men full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom were to be look'd out Act. 6. 3. But yet that did not authorize them the Holy Ghost and Wisdom did not make a Deacon For besides that the Apostles will appoint them over their business ibid. and they are brought to them and they do lay their hands upon them v. 6. Thus it was in those times of full effusion of the Holy Ghost Men always had to do in giving that Commission so that whoever pleads an Order of the Spirit for his Office although such a Commission of the Spirit if he had it would evidence it self and if it were it would appear for 't was the manifestation of the Spirit that was given to every man to profit withall yet if we yield him his pretensions and let his own incitations pass for inspirements and his strong fancie for the Holy Ghost if the Holy Ghost did call him who did separate him Whom the Holy Ghost calls he sends to his Officers to empower they both work He says do ye separate And here a Consideration offers it self unto those holy Fathers whom the Spirit makes his Associates in separating men to sacred Offices that when they set apart even to the lowest stalls of the Church they labour to perform it so that the Holy Ghost may be engag'd and act along with them in the performance Separate such as they may presume the Spirit hath call'd and will own He does not call the ignorant or appoint blind eyes for the Body of Christ or make men Seers to lead into the pit The Holy Spirit calls not the unclean or the intemperate we know it was another fort of Spirit that went into the swine nor does he ever say Separate me those who separate themselves the Schismaticks the Spirit calls not such as break the unity of the Spirit nor sets into the rank of higher members in Christs body those who tear that body and themselves from it the factious those that will not be bound neither in bonds of peace nor of obedience but break all holy tyes that make commotions and rave and foam sure 't is the Legion that sends them and not the Holy Ghost He whom the spirit will call must not be under the reputation of a Vice but should be of a good report lest he fall into reproach and so into the snare of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 7. i. e. lest he fall into reproach and then his teaching do so too and men learn to slight or not heed the doctrines of such a one as is under scandal for his life and so the Devil get advantage over them and do ensnare them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For to be to any an occasion of falling is to be the Devils snare Now Christ's Fishers of men those whom the Holy Ghost appoints to spread nets for the catching Souls to God their lives must not lay snares for the Devil and entangle Souls in the toyls of perdition Those also that come to you out of Ambition or of greediness of gain the spirit calls not neither He calls we see 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to a work so that they who seek more then they can well attend the labour of or are qualified for the work of they are not of his sending But of all men the Holy Ghost will least deal with the Simoniacal that come not to a work but to a market that contract with Patrons for the spirits call or worse than their master Simon would hire the Holy Spirit himself to say Separate me them The Successors of the Apostles have a Canonical return to these Your money perish with you They whom the Holy Ghost does call must have his gifts and temper St. Paul hath set all down to Timothy and Titus and those who minister in this employment if they will be what he hath made them joynt Commissioners with him and his Co-workers they must order it so that he may work and act which he does not but where he calls nor does he call but those whom he hath qualified And 't is of those only whom he hath call'd that he says 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Separate The Third particular the thing enjoyn'd And the Holy Ghost said Separate The separateness of the Functions of the Clergy the incommunicableness of their Offices to persons not separated for them is so express a doctrine both of the Letter of the Text and of the Holy Ghost that sure I need not to say more though several heads of Probation offer themselves As first the condition of the Callings which does divide from the Community and sets them up above it And here I might tell you of bearing rule of thrones of stars and Angels and other words of as high sence and yet not go out of the Scripture bounds although the dignity did not die with the Scripture Age or expire with the Apostles the age as low as Photius words it thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That Apostolical and Divine Dignity which the chief Priests are acknowledged to be possest of by right of Succession Styles which I could derive yet lower and they are of a prouder sound than those the humble ears of this our age are so offended with But these heights it may be would give Ombrages although 't is strange that men should envy them to those who are only exalted to them that they may with the more advantage take them by the hands to lift them up to Heaven Those nearnesses to things above do but more qualifie them to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Theoph. and to draw near to God on your behalf that those your Angels also may see the face of your Father which is in Heaven and those stars are therefore set in Christ's right hand that they may shed a blessed influence on you from thence The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Work and labour of the work the one is the 〈◊〉 and the other Saint Paul's word require a whole man and therefore a man separate and if St. Paul one of our separated persons here who had the fulness of the Spirit and the fulness of Learning too that was brought up in the Schools and brought up in Paradise taught by the Doctors and taught by the mouth of the Lord in the third heaven snatcht from the feet of Gaâ—aliel to the presence of God to have a beatifical Vision of the Gospel if after