author and fountain of all blessings and so upon the receiving thereof ascribe the praise to God 2. That it may appear we understand our own desires and have sense of the thing we want 3. That others may mutually joyne with us in prayer 4. That our affections may be the more enlarged for as desires help us to words so words inflame our desires 5. To prevent distraction and interruption in our thoughts 3. Psal 38.9 Mat. 4.10 Prayer is made to God onely It is a principal point of divine service 1. God onely is religiously to be worshipt and served 2. God onely knowes whether we pray or no Jer. 23.23 i. e. from the heart 3. God onely is every where present to hear the suits of all 4. God onely is almighty and able to grant whatsoever we ask 4. In prayer as the desires must be made known to God so after a due manner but of that in the next part In the holy Ghost The manner of performing this duty is in the holy ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There is in scriptures sometime mention made of praying in the spirit of man as 1 Cor. 14.15 I will pray 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the spirit or in the spirit i. e. say some may understanding and my heart or soule so as I may both understand and also be affected with what I pray And Eph. 6.18 The Apostle injoynes praying in the spirit which may be understood either of Gods spirit or mans but in this place particular and express mention is made of the holy spirit or the spirit of God in which we are to pray whereby is meant by the assistance motion inspiration strength help and guiding of the Spirit for as this sense agrees with the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here translated in which is in scripture oft of the same signification with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by as Matth. 5.34 35. swear c. neither 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by heaven nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the earth nor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by the head and 2 Cor. 6.6 7. it is eight times thus taken so is it most sutable to other places of scripture where the spirit of God is mentioned with prayer as Zec. 12.13 where is promised the spirit of supplication that is the spirit as giving bestowing and working the gift and grace of prayer as 2 Cor. 4.13 we read of the spirit of faith i.e. the spirit working faith and Rom 8.15 we read of the spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by which we cry Abba Father Jam. 5.16 we find mentioned 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which properly signifieth a prayer wrought in us and excited and so imports the efficacy and influence of the holy Ghost in enabling us to pray And the Apostle Rom. 8.26 most fully expresseth this truth 1. Affirmatively the spirit helpeth our infirmities and maketh intercession for us 2. Negatively saying we know not what to pray Whence it is cleare not that the spirit of God doth truly and properly pray for us as our high Priest and Mediator or as one of us for another the attributing of the office of Mediatour to the holy Ghost was one of Arius his heresies for then should there bee more than one Mediatour 1 Tim. 2.5 and God should request to God the holy Ghost being God but not man also as was Christ but that the spirit of God stirreth us up to pray quickneth and putteth life into our dead and dull spirits yea and infuseth into us such desires sighs and grones and suggesteth unto us such words as are acceptable to God which for their truth and sincerity for their vehemency and ardency for their power and efficcacy are unutterable they pierce through the heavens and enter un to the throne of grace and there make a loud cry in the ears of God More particularly from these expressions of both these Apostles Paul Jude we may consider wherein this assistance of the holy Ghost or this praying by the holy Ghost stands and consists And that is 1. In respect of the matter 2. Of the manner of our prayer 1. In respect of the matter of our prayer We pray in the holy Ghost as he instructs and teaches us to ask such things as are according to the will of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 8.27 1 Job 5.14 lawfull and good things The Spirit of God stirs us not up to desire what his word forbids us to desire We know not what is good for our selves and God hath oft heard us by denying us Though when we ask bread our Father he gives us not a stone yet when we ask a stone God hath oft given us bread The thing asked if by the Spirit is warrantable the Spirit put us upon asking especially spiritual blessings as our lusts upon craving things which are their fuel The spirit of wisedome desires not its owne poyson 2. We pray in the holy Ghost in respect of the manner of our praying And that 1. As it enables us to pray sincerely and heartily Gods Spirit is a spirit of truth And whensoever wee pray in his spirit wee pray likewise in our owne and his stirs up ours to pray The prayer of a Saint goeth not out of fained lips The spirit lifts up the hand and the heart together Psal 25.1.86.4 Lam. 3.41 2. As it enables us to pray with fervency The motions of the Spirit as they are regular in regard of the object so vehement in regard of the manner Rom. 8.26 Its groanes are such as cannot be uttered The symboles of the spirit were fiery tongues Act. 2.2.3 and a mighty rushing wind As a bullet flyeth no further then the force of the powder carryeth it so prayer goeth no further then the fervour of the Spirit driveth it Prayer is called a knocking a seeking and figured by wrestling Gen. 32.26 Hos 12.4 Nay call'd a wrestling Rom. 15.30 The importunity required in prayer is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impudence Luke 11.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cognationem habet cum verbo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 quod significat attendere intendere animumque advertere Oratio attentè fundi debet sluggish prayers are no spiritual prayers The device of shooting a letter at the end of a dart used as I have sometimes heard in sieges is a fit embleme of a soul sending its Epistle to heaven As the Spirit wrought vehemently in those holy men who were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 moved by the holy Ghost to speak the word of God to men so it works fervently in those who are to speak in prayer to God David mentions the setting forth of his prayer as incense and incense burnt before it ascended there must be fired affections before out prayers will go up The Tribes Acts 26.27 are said to serve God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifieth a stretching forth themselves with
all their might 3. As it enables us to pray in faith 2 Cor. 3.14 Spiritus vicarius Christi the spirit is called the spirit of faith and the spirit of Christ as it s sent from him so it sends us to him The spirit so intercedes in us on earth for the operation and framing of our prayers that it sends us to him who intercedes for us in heaven for the acceptation of our prayers through Christ we have accesse by one Spirit unto the Father Eph. 2.18 And hence the Spirit enables us to pray in faith nothing wavering Jam. 1.6 in confidence that through the faith of him our prayers shall bee successefull in such a way as our gracious father in Christ sees best for us This is called the full assurance of faith Heb. 10 22. and a praying without doubting 1 Tim. 2.8 faith applying the promise Joh. 14.13 16.23 whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name he will give it you 4. As it enables us to pray in holinesse with pure hearts and hands He is a Spirit of holinesse his office is to make us holy wheresoever he witnesseth he washeth If he be a spirit of faith to strengthen our confidence in Christ hee is a spirit of holinesse to cause our conformity to Christ hence the spirit of grace is mentioned with the spirit of supplication As the spirit makes us come boldly before the throne of grace So he makes us come purely before it too as being a throne of glory If I regard iniquity in my heart saith David the Lord will not hear my prayer Psal 66.18 I will wash my hands in innocency so will I compasse thine altar This legall washing is Evangelically improved 1 Tim. 2.8 Lifting up holy hands and Heb. 10 22. 5. Lastly as it is enables to pray in love The spirit of love for so he is called 2 Tim. 1.17 never in prayer witnesseth Gods love to us unlesse hee drawes ours to him nay for his sake to others He never makes us lift up hands without doubting unlesse also without wrath 1 Tim. 2.8 and when hee makes us at peace with our selves Matth 5.24 hee makes us peaceable to others OBSERVATIONS 1. Obs 1. Without the spirit there 's no praying They who are totally destitute of the spirit in their natural condition can no more pray in faith then a dead man can crave help of another They may have the gift of prayer not in that state the grace of prayer All naturall men are in this respect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 brute and mute we are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves The wicked call not upon God There 's no naturall man but is spiritually deaf and dumb If a man have not the spirit of grace hee must needs be destitute of the spirit of supplication He is a meer stranger to those prayer-graces faith fervency holinesse love c. Hee derides at prayer I mean prayer by the spirit the wicked they howl upon their beds not pray in the spirit they may say a prayer not pray a prayer as it said of Elijah who prayed in prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jam. 5.16 they doe but make a lowd noyse like a wind-instrument They are but like Balaam into whose mouth God put a word without any heat of love or zeal in his soul But why speak I of natural men when as without the acting of the spirit in our very regenerate estate all our abilities to pray are presently gone as a wheel which is turned about with an hand if the hand be taken away the wheele will soon stand still It s necessary that unto the first grace following grace be added man after he is regenerate still needeth the present effectuall conetinuall work of the spirit Preventing grace is not effectuall unlesse helped with a supply of second grace 'T is true even of the regenerate without me ye can doe nothing God giveth first the will and then the deed and continuance of doing that which is truly good Grace must be every way grace else it will be no grace at all He that hath begun a good work in us must also perfect it Phil. 1.6 Oh how heavily do even saints draw and drive when they have sin'd away the spirit of prayer When saints have yielded to sin they are like a bird whose wings are besmear'd with birdlime they cannot flye up to heaven How lamely and miserably I have sometime thought did David pray upon his murder and adultery The fire which consumed the burnt-offering came out from the Lord. Lev. 9.24 2. 2. Obs How excellent and honourable a worke is that of prayer The whole Trinity hath a worke in this holy exercise the holy ghost frameth our requests The Son offereth them up to his Father Rev. 8.3 with his incense the prayers of the Saints are offered he prayes them as it were over againe and the Father accepteth these prayers thus framed and offered up 3. As without the Spirit there is no prayer 3. Obs so without prayer a man evidently shewes himselfe to have nothing of the spirit Wherever the Spirit is there will be praying in the spirit if the Spirit live in us 't will breath in us God never yet had nor ever will have a dumb Child They who are the Lords will name him 1 Tim. 2.19 They who are saints call upon Christ 1 Cor. 1.2 Breathing is a true property of life As soon as ever Paul was converted he prayed Act. 9.11 4. Obs 4. Needs must the prayers of the saints be acceptable They are by the holy Ghost his very grones and by him our spirits are made to grone Oratio longius vulnerat quam sagitta Exod. 17.11 Prayer prevaileth not onely over Creatures but even the very Creator himselfe One faithfull mans prayer is more forcible then a whole army There is a shadow of omnipotency in prayer It was said of Luther he could do what he would Needs must that petition be granted which the framer receives The Lord cannot more be out of love with prayer then with his own will Prayer is but a kinde of Counterpane or reflexion of Gods own pleasure 5. Obs 5. How good is God to his poore saints He not onely grants their prayers but makes their prayers God doth not onely provide a gift but an hand also to take it with not a feast onely but a stomack both grace for the desire and the very grace of desire Oh how sweet also are the Conditions of the Covenant of grace God bids us pray and helps us to pray Commands us duty and enables to performe it gives worke wages and strength 6. Obs 6. It s our greatest wisdome to get and keep the Spirit If either we never had it or lose it we cannot pray 1. 'T is gotten in the ministery of the gospel The Spirit is peculiar to the Gospel and not belonging to the law if
though not so swiftly yet according to the proportion of its motion in the heavens and so though our love to God be more swift and intense then that to the saints yet this is proportion'd to that without love to a brother we can have no assurance of Gods love to us nor any continuance of our love to God He who hath not the love of a brother toward saints cannot have the love of a son toward God OBSERVATIONS 1. 1. Obs We are very ready to decay and grow remisse in our love to God Keep your selves saith Jude The word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep notes such a keeping as wherewith we keep a prisoner our gadding hearts should be kept with all diligence It s hard to get and not easie to keep up our spirituall fervour The love of most growes cold water growes cold of it selfe but it gets heat from the fire we grow remisse of our selves fervent from the Spirit When we goe from prayer Sacraments hearing though our hearts have been warmed yet upon our going into our worldly employments we are ready soon to fall into a spirituall chilnesse as those whose heat having come outward going into the sharp aire are very ready to catch cold A tender person had need to take heed of leaving off any cloathes and our hearts upon leaving off of duty are subject to abate in the heat of their affections God complaines of those who had lost their first love Our hearts are like green wood wherein fire cannot be kept without continuall blowing Grace of it selfe is desectible Rev. 2.4 and without constant supplies of the Spirit it would soon come to nothing It is onely kept by the power of God Parents will not trust their little children to have their money in their own keeping How had we need beg of God to keep this Jewell of love for us and to preserve it from being stolne from us 2. The lest things should be most carefully kept Obs 2. Spiritualls are onely worth the keeping and indeed onely can be kept Men cannot alwayes either keep the world or their love to it Judas threw away his 30. pieces and his love to them at the same time There wil come a time when as we shal say Eccles 12.1 we have no pleasure in these things 'T is good sometimes in a way of duty to part with these things for to be sure wee shall part with them in a way of necessity How poore is that man who hath no better a treasure then that which is at the courtesie of the theif and moth Oh how great is their folly who will keep every thing but that which deserves their care to lay up trash and pibbles under lock and key and to lay their gold and Jewels abroad in the streets If thou canst keep thy God thy love be not troubled though thou partest with thy gold 3. Further How great how full a good is God! Obs 3. Even when we have him and have had him never so long he hath enough within him to draw forth fresh and fresh loves toward him The more we love him the more we should love him The glorious saints in heaven sing a new song because it is a song of love It is new to them and sweet though they have been singing it so many thousands of years We soon grow weary of our worldly toys after we have had them a while As they are withering objects so our delight in them is a withering delight they are fulsome rather then delightfull and filling 'T is true prophane Esau said I have enough and a saint saith I have enough but with as much difference are both these enoughs as when one man saith I have enough by taking a little fulsome Physick and a thirsty man saith I have enough by drinking a sufficient draught of thirst-satisfying water Before worldly enjoyments are had they seeme beautifull but when they are once obtain'd they soone clog the soule Here is the excellency of spiritualls they sweetly fill and satisfie and yet at the same time we ever desire and hunger for more 4. Obs Vlt. The preserving of our love to God is an excellent preservative against Sectaries and false teachers He who loves God will feare to break the unity and peace of the Church Eph. 4.15 also he will 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 follow the truth in love Errour comes from mens affection a cold corrupt suming vapouring stomack makes an aking head A corrupt cold heart which wants the heat of love to God makes an erroneous head And besides God hath bound himselfe to keep them from errour and folly who love him If a man love and keep the commands and will of God he shall know his will God never leaves them that will not leave him first A man will not forsake a friend a lover Sweet and sutable is that expression Psal 91.14 Because he hath set his love upon me therefore will I deliver him and Psal 145.20 Psal 119.132 The Lord preserveth all them that love him Be mercifull unto me saith David as thou usest to doe to them that love thee Though heresies and false teachers come yet these as Paul speaks 1 Cor. 11.19 shall but make those which are approved to be manifest They shall discover true love to God not destroy it And fidelity will be the more apparent like that of loyall subjects in times of sedition in the treachery of others To conclude this love is a brest-plate as the Apostle calls it 1 Thes 5.8 to repell all the darts of errour Oh then what need have we to goe abroad with this brest-plate in these times wherein these deadly arrows flye so thick And consider here the true cause that so many are wounded with them Christians want their brest-plate their hearts are not kept nor their love preserved for God The last direction which our Apostle prescribes is conteined in these words Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life An excellent and sutable direction The expectation of a reward in heaven countervails and sweetens all their labour and faithfulnesse in opposing the enemies of truth upon earth and withall keeps up their love to God who commands their resisting of errour and seduction Two things are here principally contained 1. A duty The looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ where he sets down 1. What was to be regarded the mercy of Christ 2. How it was to be regarded by looking for it 2 An enducement encouraging to the performance of that duty Eternal life EXPLICATION In the first branch two things are to bee explained 1. What the Apostle means 1. By mercy 2. The mercy of Christ 2. What by Looking for it For the first mercy Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I have very largely discoursed thereof Part. 1. pag. 92. on those words Mercy to you To avoid needlesse repetition I only say that mercy as attributed to man is
AN EXPOSITION Of the EPISTLE of JUDE Together With many large and usefull DEDUCTIONS Formerly Delivered In sundry LECTURES in Christ-Church LONDON May 24th BY WILLIAM JENKYN Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ AND PASTOR of the Church at Black-friars LONDON The SECOND PART LONDON Printed by Tho. Maxey for SAMUEL GELLIBRAND at the golden BALL in Paul's Church-yard 1654. TO My Dear FLOCK and much honoured Friends The CHURCH of GOD In the Precinct of BLACK-FRYARS LONDON Christian and respected Friends IT cannot seeme strange that I who have lately given my selfe to the service of your soules should now dedicate my Booke to you for that purpose Nor can any wonder since you have lately imitated your Predecessors in the loving and unanimous Call of your though now unworthy Pastor that he should endeavour to follow the steps of those excellent servants of Christ your former Ministers who in their times both by Preaching and Printing bestowed their labours upon you for your spirituall benefit I have frequently heard that Black-fryars is one of those places in London commonly accounted and called by the name of Priviledged in respect of sundry civil Immunities bestowed upon it But what are all those Political in comparison of the Spiritual priviledges which God hath afforded to you of this place in regard whereof I much question whether any Congregation in London I think I may take a far larger compass hath been equal to you in the priviledg of enjoying so long a continuance of an Able Orthodox Soul-saving Ministry Those two excellent and eminently faithful Servants of Christ Mr. Egerton and Doctor Gouge lately deceased spent as I am informed about seventy years in their Ministerial Labors among the people of Black-fryars The Gospel in your Congregation hath continued I think beyond the remembrance of the oldest the Lord grant that it may outlive the youngest now living among you God hath as it were made his Sun to stand still upon your Gibeah and his Moon upon your Ajalon to give you light to overcome your spirituall Enemies How many learned and pithy expositions savoury discourses and excellent tractates have had their conception in your Parish and their birth in your pulpit You have enjoyed the monthly administration of the Lords Supper as your late reverend Pastor informed me these five and forty yeares without any interruption I mention not these things to occasion your glorying in men or any outward priviledges but onely to put you upon self-reflexion and holy examination how you have thriven in holinesse under all these enjoyments Church priviledges I grant are excellent mercies in their kinde Without the Ordinances places are commonly as void of Civility as Christianity They are but magna latrocinia dens of robbers and places of prey darke places of the Earth fill'd with violence Church-priviledges so far forth as they are visibly owned make men visible saints in opposition to the world yea and in their due and holy use real and true saints in opposition to hypocrites But notwithstanding all these the meanes of grace without grace by those meanes leave those who injoy them in the same condition in respect of any saving benefit with those who want them Jer. 9.25 26. Is 29.1 2 Hag. 12.14 Rom. 2.25.28 29. The Arke at Shiloh the sacrifices devoured by Ariel Circumcision in the flesh The temple of the Lord The Rock and Mannah The Lords Supper at Corinth c. 1 Cor. 11.20 Jer. 7.12 were priviledges which did not savingly profit the enjoyers who were not holy by their holy things but their holy things rather were made unholy by them Nay bare outward priviledges increase condemnation The valley of vision hath the heavyest burden The Israelites who had not monthly but daily sacraments eating and drinking them every meal were most severely destroyâ—d These were but as Uriahs letters which they carryed to their owne destruction The higher Corazin and Bethsaida's elevation was the greater was their downfall Justice will pluck the unreformed from the Altar of priviledges Sermons do but heat hell and Sacraments are but oyl and pitch to make its flame scald and consume the more painfully The barren oak was not so near cursing as the barren fig-tree Nor are weeds on the dunghill so near plucking up as those in the Garden by none is the name of God so much dishonoured mercy so much abused hypocrisie so odiously veiled the power of godlinesse so bitterly hated Joh. 8.33 Rom. 1.27 as by many who have most enjoyed Church priviledges Put not off your souls therefore dear Christians with outward Priviledges without inward grace by those Priviledges What is it more to have a name to live and to be spiritually dead to have titular sanctity and real impiety then for a starving man to be vâ—iced up for a plentiful house-keeper When God had bestowed upon Abram a new name and changed it to Abraham he gave him also a new blessing The unprofitable under the means of grace are therfore worse then those who want those means because they are not better the more aship is laden with gold the deeper she sinks the more you are laden with golden priviledges the deeper if you miscarry wil be your destruction Though the Ministers industry without succeâ—ss acquits him yet it condemns his people He may be sincere yet unsuccessfull but then the people in the mean time if unprofitable shew themselvs hypocritical You never commend your Ministers but by getting the saving impressions of what they preach upon your hearts Christ reproved the young man for calling him good Master because saith Calvin he had never received any saving good from Christ The sheep onely prayse the care of the carefull shepherd by their wool milk fruitfulnesse and fatness Let it never be said that God gives the food of life to you as a rich man gives a nurse good dyet for the benefit of his child onely for the thriving of strangers Be not as Indians who go naked and beggarly in the midst of all their heaps of gold Let not sermons be as jewels onely to hang in your ears but let them be lockt up in the cabinets of your hearts Consider ordinances are never yours till you get the savour of them upon your spirits Meat upon the table may be taken away but not when by eating 't is turned into a mans substance Books may be stoln out of a Scholars study but a thousand theeves can never take away the learning which he hath gotten into his head by studying those Books The grace of priviledges is onely safe You shall be stript of these when you come to dye but the grace of them will stick by you for ever Christ may say to those at the last day depart who have eat and drunk with him and cast out devils but never will he say so to those who having eat and drunk with him have also eat and drunk himself who have cast lust out of their souls and gotten a broken
is the father and furtherer of War and revenge It divesteth God of his Office God alone knowes how to punish our enemies without passion and inequality It makes him in stead of a Judge only an Executioner It takes the sword out of Gods hand and drives him from his dominion What difference makes it between the party prâ—voking and provoked save that the last is last in the offence against God both are equally displeasing to him whose Law is by both broken and supposing that our enemy hath deserved to be hated why hath God deserved to be disobeyed Nor doth revenge less oppose our own welfare then Gods pleasure The Divel by this sin bereaves a man of his reason and like a bird of prey which seizing upon a dead Carkass first pecks out its eyes he blinds his understanding and then leads him into what wickedness he pleaseth By revenge we lose all that good which we might get even by injuries Holy patience turnes every injury thrown at us into a precious stone and makes it an addition to our Crown Qui injuriam patitur magis dolere debet de peccato injuriantis quam de injuriâ sibi allatâ He who hath received an injury if wise to improve it hath received a fauour a reward and it s against the rule of Justice to return evil for good What madness is it because our enemy hath done us wrong to do our selves more because he hath hurt our bodies to damn our souls that we may kill our enemies Ass his body to kill our selves that we may tear his garmentâ— to lose our own lives What unmanly folly is it to hate those in their sickness or madness whom we love in their health to hate those wronging us whom we would love when they do us good When our enemies are most unkind they shew more distemper in themselves then they do hatred to us and therefore deserve more pity then opposition What greater cruelty then to cut and wound one who is dead I mean Spiritually What more ridiculous then because one hath taken a way something from us therefore to throw away all that is left behind because he hath stoln away our Cloak or twenty Pounds therefore to throw our coat or whole Inheritance into the sea When one hath taken from us the cloak of our good name Ridiculum est odio nocentis innocentiam perdere Senec. or a little of our worldly estate how wild a folly is it therefore to throw away by revenge the beautiful garment of our Innocency yea the inheritance of Heaven It s ridiculous for the hatred of him that hurt us to cast away that which never hurt will alwayes be helpful to us and because we are bereaved of something which we had our goods therefore to throw away all we are our souls What madness comparable to that whereby in our prayers we daily powre forth curses against in stead of requests for our selves Who would not think him weary of his life who being struck by one whom he knowes to be full of Leprosie and Plague sores will spend his time in grapling and contending with him again None can avenge himself upon another without Spiritual defilement and Infection and which is most inexcusable that malice for which he is so much enraged against another he loves in himself The empty transitory though reproachful expression of his brother he layes to heart but the sword of revenge with which the Divel endeavours to kill him he contemns and disregards In a word what temper is more childish then that of revenge whereby like children men desire and delight to strike that thing which hurt them It s folly to beat the Instrument which wounded us our wisdome it is to labour that the wound which is given us may be healed and sanctified Yea there is more of brutishness then manliness when we are kick'd to kick again Nothing more honours a man then the overcoming of revenge He who can master his own revengeful heart hath a spirit truly noble and fit to govern others Upon Davids sparing of Saul wisely did Saul say thus to David The Lord hath delivered me into thy hands 1 Sam. 24.18 20 and thou killedst me not And now behold I know well that thou shalt be King He only hath something supernatural in Charity who requites evil with good who loves his enemies doth good to them that hate him wearyeth them with patience and writes after a heavenly Copy Matth. 5.14 More of this Part 1. pag. 131 132. 6. Observ ult The consideration of our having a God to whom we may commit our cause is the best meanes to make us patient under wrongs Michael was a servant to a great Lord and to him he appeals and layes the controversie before him The Lord rebuke thee There would be more bearing in the world were there more believing Did we look more upon him that is Invisible we should less regard the evils which we see and feel Walk before me saith God to Abraham and be perfect Nothing either of pleasure or pain will seem great to him in whose eye there is this great Lord. The greatest prop in opposition is to have a God to fly unto The greatest loss for him shall be made up again by him When David considered that God was his portion Psal 16.4 5. he abhorred to go to other Subterfuges They who believe they have a God to right them will not wrong themselves so much as to revenge their own wrongs God they know will do it as more equally so more beneficially And the true reason why there is no more willingness either to forbear any sin or to bear any sorrow is because we think not of this great Lord so as either to fear or trust him They who can call God Father may with Christ pray concerning their enemies Forgive them They who can see heaven opened and Christ at the right hand pleading for them may with Steven â—ead for their enemies and pray Lord lay not this sin to their charge VER 10. But these speak evil of those things which they know not but what they know naturally as brute beasts in those things they corrupt themselves IN this verse our Apostle accommodates and applies the comparison of Michael the Archangel or further shewes wherein the holy and humble carriage of Michael did make the sin of these Seducers appear more sinful and abomnable The Angel was a Creature not only of the greatest created Might and Power but also of Wisdom and Understanding and knew what the Divel was nameâ—y a wicked Creature and destined by God to eternal perdition accurately also he understood that the cause wherein he contended with the Divel was Just and righteous he knowing the pleasure and will of God concerning the hiding of Moses his Sepulcher but these saith he speak evil of what persons and things they know not are outragious though ignorant active though blind And this want of due
There is not a drop of true woe in a deluge of outward troubles which befal a Saint 2 Wickedness ends in wo. Observ 2 Sinners may see nothing but wealth in the commission but they shall find nothing but wo in the conclusion of sin Every Lust though it kisseth yet betrayes Rom. 6.21 The end as the Apostle speaks is death It s the truest wisdom to consider whether when we find it difficult to overcome the present tentation it be not more difficult to undergo the following woe Oh could we but look upon the blackness of the back of sin how little should we be allured with the fairness of its face How far from wisdom will it be for the deluded sinner hereafter to say I did not think it would have been thus with me that hell was so hot that Gods wrath was so heavy The mirth of every secure sinner that goes dancing to hell Amara sint omnia gaudia quibus respondent aeterna supplicia is no better then madness How bitter should that drop of pleasure be to us which is answered and overtaken with a sea of pains There 's no judging of our future either wo or happiness by what appears at present The portion of Gods peoples cup is to have the best and of the wickeds to have the bitterest at the bottom and yet the top of the cup seemeth to promise the contrary to both 3. Scripture imprecations and cursings Observ 3. must not be drawn to be our examples We may indeed pray against the wicked practices of others that God would stop and hinder them with David that God would turn the wisdom of Achitophel into foolishness 2. It s lawful for us to pray for temporal afflictions to befal the wicked to the end that they being sensible of Gods anger against sin may be brought to repentance and so to salvation But 3. Prayers for the eternal confusion of others are not absolutely to be put up to God They who wil imitate the Scripture in imprecations against others must be sure they imitate those holy men who uttered them in being led by the same Spirit both of infallibility in discerning of mens persons and Estates and also of purity or freedom from those corrupt affections wherewith our zeal for Gods glory is ever too much mixed and therefore to be suspected This counsel Christ gave his Disciples Luke 9.55 Matth. 5.44 who asking whether after the example of Elijah they should pray that fire might come down from heaven to consume the Samaritanes * q.d. Yours is motion not of zeal but revenge Ideo Deum à se expellit qui illum à proximo avertit facit Deo injuriam quia seipsum judicem constituit et Deum tortorem Aug. Ser. 4. de Sanc. were answered by Christ that they knew not what spirit they were of Our Masters precept was Bless them that curse you yea bless and curse not and his pattern left us is 1 Pet. 2.23 set down in these words When he was reviled he reviled not again The time of Prayer saith Chrysostom is the time of meekness And he saith Augustine drives away God from himself who would turn him away from others he being injurious to God in making him the Executioner and himself the Judg. 4. Observ 4. God warnes of wo before he sends wo. He takes not sinners at the advantage as he might in the act of sin but he foretels the woe before he inflicts it He usually cutteth men down by the mouth of his Ministers Gen. 15.16 Matth. 23.37 before he cuts them off by the hand of Executioners by the sword of his mouth before he doth it by the mouth of the sword Gods method is to give premonition before he inflicts punishment The two destructions of Jerusalem by the Caldeans and Romans came not till foretold by the Prophets and Christ Of the two general destructions of the world Geâ— 6.3 2 Pet. 3. the past by water and the suture by fire sufficient warning hath been given God hereby speaks himself gracious and the wicked inexcusable He threatneth that he may not smite and he smiteth that he may not slay and he slayeth some sometimes temporally Râ—v 2.21 that they may not be destroyed eternally God foretels ruin that it may be prevented Jonah's prophecying of Niniveh's overthrow Venturum se praedicat ut cum venerit quos damnet non inveniat Greg was as Chrysostom saith a kind of overthrow of the Prophecy And hereby the wicked are proclaimed inexcusable They cannot say in their greatest suffering but that they had premonition Even the enemies of God shall justifie him when he condemns them They cannot but excuse God from desire of revenge the desirers whereof are not wont to give warning Professa perdu tâ—dia vindictae locum Sen. Medea Christians take heed of turning the denunciations of woe into wantonness It s neither for want of sin in man nor strength in God that in stead of wounding he only warns His hand is not weakened that it cannot strike nor his arm shortned that it cannot reach us He hath not lost his power but he execiseth his patience and he exerciseth his patience in expecting our repentance Non ille potentiam perdidit sed patientiam exercet Patientiam exercet suam dum poenitentiam expectat tuam Aug. Let us prepare to meet our God even when he is coming toward us before he come at us Let us dispatch the Messengers of Prayer and Reformation to meet him and make peace with him while he is vet in the way and afar off Though Gods patience lasts long it will not last ever If we will sin notwithstanding a wo threatned we shall be punish'd notwithstanding a mercy promis'd He who is long a striking strikes heavy The longer the child is in the womb the bigger it is when it comes forth The longer it is ere wo comes the bigger will it be when it comes No mettal so cold as Lead before it is melted but none more scalding afterward 5. Ministers must denounce woes against the wicked Observ 5. Jude describes the fierceness of Seducers and exhorts the Christians to compassion and yet his meekness abolisheth not his zeal The regard of Gods glory and the souls of the Saints drawes forth this severe denunciation against the Enemies of both He is as bold to foretel their woe as they to proclaim their wickedness The like spirit we may behold in the holy men before him Causam populi apud Deum precibus causam Dei apud populum gladiis allegavit Greg. Exod. 32.27 Moses so meek that when he was with God though he pleaded the cause of the people with prayers yet when he was with the people he pleaded the cause of God with the sword The Prophets after him Samuel Elijah Isaiah Jeremiah were cold and calm in their own but full of heavenly heat in Gods cause Their denunciations
Psal 1.1 They make a trade of sin A sinner falls into sin as the fish the Saint as a child doth into the water In the latter sin is but the former is in sin 4. In respect of its period and term The longest way hath an end The longest course of sin though of a thousand years continuance terminates in destruction The full point of every sinful way is damnation the end though not of the worker yet of the work is death that is the wages of sin The way of sin is broad in the enterance but its narrow in the conclusion Prov. 5.5.7.25 It s the way to hell going down to the chambers of death Foolish sinners in good duties separate the means from the end accounting exactness needless in sinful ways they separate the end from the means thinking torments fabulous although Scripture equally prescribes the former and foretels the latter Gods method is first to bring into a Wilderness and then to Canaan Satan contrarily leads from Canaan into a Wilderness Gods way is right and may seem rugged Satans smooth but false Cain never left travelling in his way of Hyprocrisie Envy Murder till it ended in Despair 4. Branch 4 of Explicat Fourthly By way of Explication we are to enquire How these Seducers went in this way of Cain 1. They went in this way of Cain's formality and hypocrisie They sacrificed I mean partook of the same Ordinances and Priviledges with true Saints in name in the skin they were Christians in the heart at the core they were unholy they pretended to the highest pitch of Religion but all this while as the Apostle calls them they were but ungodly men While they sacrificed outwardly with Cain they had inwardly the spirits of Cains like those of whom Saint John speaks who went out from but never were truly of us Their impure life was a practical confutation of their verbal profession In words they professed Christ but in their deeds they denyed him though the only Lord. 2. They went in the way of Cain in respect of their hatred and malice against the faithful None so much envyed and opposed faithful Pastors and Teachers as they did False Teachers were Pauls standing Antagonists they were like Jannes and Jambres who withstood Moses The Scribes and Pharisees of all others most hated Christ Pilate knew that for envy they had delivered him Seducers hate those most who hurt them most The faithful Minister that shines with the light of pure Doctrine these Theeves most strike at The Leaders of Gods Army they principally fight against The Magistrate whom God appointed for the restraining of sin they bitterly hated and envyed and it was not for want of poyson but power that they did not destroy and pluck up Magistracy by the very roots These Seducers were likewise murderers with Cain the worst of Murderers soul-murderers Their work was to draw men into perdition They were deceived and deceiving blindly leading their blind followers into the ditch of destruction They denyed him who is the Way the Truth the Life Their sacrificing was with a murderous intent and though with Cain who spake most kindly to his brother when he was inwardly most cruel they utter fair and sweet expressions yet all was but to deceive the hearts of the simple Under every bait of good words there lay the hook of Error and Heresie They gave their poyson in a gilded cup and ever came with an hammer and a nail when they presented butter in a Lordly dish nor ever were they so much the Ministers of Satan as when they transformed themselves into Angels of light 3 They went in the way of Cain in regard of his complaint and despair They who walk'd in Cains wickedness could not escape Cains woe Jude here denounceth it against them and tells us they were before of old ordained to this condemnation they were beasts made to be taken they corrupted themselves they languish'd and pin'd away in their filthiness There was a ditch followed their blind-leading and though the grace of God was turned into lasciviousness by them and abused as an occasion to sin yet how glad would they have been in the end for one drop of those streames of grace which once they padled in trampled under feet They who formerly taught that by reason of Grace men might sin afteward felt that for want of Grace they and their seduced followers were sure to smart They who once preach'd nothing but grace afterward felt nothing but wrath a just recompence since with Cain they account the greatest sin in the coÌ„mission so smal Obser 1. Abeli nomen inditum fuit a vanitate ut significaretur humanam conditionem meram esse vanitatem ideoque Hebraei Hebel appellant or is haâ—tâ—um qui cito evanesâ—it Riv. in Gen. Exerc. 42. Qui clarus erat nativitate carnis charus existimatione Parentum respuitur a Deo qui habebatur abâ—eâ—tus nul lius momenti re spicâ—tur probatur Respait igitur Deus primogenitos omnes eos qui chari sunt parentibus non colligimus istam consequentiam sod id annotamus non morari Deum hasce carnis praerogativas vel quamcunque aliam excellentiam secularem mag is quam spiritulem Musc in Gen. that they need not to fear it in their after-despairing confession to finde it so great that they are not able to undergo it and besides all this with Cain to be marked with infamy and dishonour to all posterity OBSERVATIONS 1. Priviledges of nature commend us not to God We find not seldom in Scripture that the eldest child proves the unholiest Abel the younger was a Saint Cain the elder was a Murderer Cain excelled Abel in the dignity of Primogeniture and further in the expectation of his Parents Cain if he were not as some think deemed by them to be the promised seed of the woman and their Saviour is yet called a possession obtained of God as one by whom they expected to reap much good and comfort Abel according to his name is deemed unprofitable and vai And yet he who was so eminent both for his Birth and his Parents estimation is rejected and he who was saith Musculus accounted as vain and nothing worth and unprofitable is accepted by God who though he refuseth not yet neither receiveth any for outward Prerogatives he is no respecter of persons Jacob the younger was a godly man and beloved Esau the elder a prophane person and hated of God David the youngest of Jesses sons was he who of them all we find to be according to Gods own heart Ruben the eldest son of Jacob was incestuous Simeon and Levi cruel and bloody Judah adulterous Joseph one of the youngest onely eminent for sanctity among them all If the priviledges of nature had been any thing worth the first-born of the sons of men had not been a Reprobate but God will have his grace known to be free he neither sees nor
eyes of unbeleeving sinners Isai 53.2 Holiness is an inward a hidden beauty Psa 45. a carnall eye cannot either see it or esteem it If grace be as with sinners it is a scar 't is a scar of honour not uncomliness riches and worldly dignities like glow-worms onely shine in the dark night of the world but there 's nothing will have a lustre at the day of judgement but holiness The poorest saint is a Prince and the most glorious sinner a beggar both in a disguise Holiness though veiled with the most contemptible outside carries with it a silent Majesty and sin even in highest dignity bewrays a secret vileness That which is to be desired of a man is his goodness The righteous is more excellent then his neighbour Prov. 12.26 2 Cor. 8.23 The poor Saints are called the glory of Christ who presents them without spot or wrinkle or any such thing Sinners are spots Saints are stars and Jewels as Jewels the stars of the earth and as Stars the Jewels of heaven Though Saints have not an Herald to emblazon their arms yet the Scripture sufficiently sets forth their dignity the rottenest stuffs are oftnest watred and among men sinners most glorious but yet in Scripture they are but spots 2. Sinners are filthy and defiling They are spots for defilement as well as deformity sin and uncleanness are put together The filthiest of beasts are scarce filthy enough to set forth the filthy nature of sinners Swine the Dog the Serpent the Goat the neighing Horse the filthiest things are used in Scripture to set forth sin as dung vomit mire menstruosities leprosie scum pitch Deut. 32.5 plague-sores issues ulcers dead carcasses the blood and pollution of a new-born child the noysom exhalations breathing from a Sepulcher Rom. 3.13 spots Rev. 21.27 a sinner is called that which defileth Sinful gain is filthy lucre Unholy speech is filthy and rotten communication whordome is called uncleanness gluttony turns the Temple of the Holy Ghost into a Kitchin an Hogstie it makes men dunghils and drunkenness common shores and sinks of filthinesse the drunkard is a walking quagmire The covetous wretch that loads himself with thick clay is but a moving muck-heap a speaking dunghil his riches are but dung good as one well when they are spread abroad by charity but stinking and useless when heaped Pride is but a swelling botch Sinners are the children of the filthy and unclean spirit they are of their father the Divel like Joabs posterity therefore all filthy and leprous their natural Parents were naturally all unclean and who did ever bring a clean thing out of filthiness Job 14.4 John 3.6 that which is born of the flesh is flesh Their greatest hatred and enmity is set upon purity and and holinesse clean and sweet objects are death to them as they say that Roses kill the Horsefly the Gospel is to them a savour of death And this filthiness and pollution of sin hath two properties which may render it very hateful Isai 1.13 14 Tit. 1.15 1. It s a spreading pollution 1. Over all of a man flesh and spirit soul body understanding thoughts conscience memory will affections eyes hands tongue 2. All done by a man even the best things the prayers of polluted sinners are abominations their incense stinks their sacrifices are unclean their mercies cruel their profession of godlinesse a form their plausiblest performances no better then embalmed carkases 3. It spreads even unto others and infects them by incouraging teaching seducing constraining them to sin It oft is diffused from the wicked even to the godly themselves nothing more difficult then to be familiar with and not to be infected by sinners the error of the wicked sometimes cleavs to them and the example of sinners entiseth them Spirituale gelicidium Ames Cas Consc The sons of God saw the daughters of men and were polluted What an insensible deadness of spirit and decay of grace doth conversing with sinners bring upon Saints 4. Yea this contagion of sin spreads even to the good creatures of God about us even into them it puts as the Apostle speaks vanity Num. 8.20 21 2 Pet. 3.10 11. Isai 1.18 Jer. 17.1 groaning bondage consumption mourning and at length it will bring combustion and dissolution upon the whole frame of nature 2. It s a deep and indelible pollution of a skarlet and crimson dye compared also to an Ethiopians blackness a Leopards spots not to be washed away with nitre and much sope Hell fire shall not be able to eternity to fetch away the stains of the smallest sins from mans nature yea the greatest measure of grace received in this life by the best of men doth not totally abolish this defilement the best have their sores and stand in need of a curing and a daily cleansing Who can say I have made my heart clean All the Legal washings purifyings and cleansings of the filthiness of the flesh were but faint representations of our need of and purity by being washt in the blood of Christ And oh that sinners would be as unquiet as they are unclean till they wash in that fountain which is set open for sin and for uncleanness Jer. 4.14 Rev. 7.14 2 Cor. 6.11 Psal 150. It s only the blood of God which can wash away the filthiness of sin no other Laver can take away that spot Not onely look but go into it wash thy self all over Cry out O sinner unclean unclean See thy spots in the glass of the Law Be weary of thy defilement as well as thy deformity Being washed keep thy self pure take heed of spotting places and persons Though upon a conscience uncleansed like an old spotted garment a sinner cares not what filth he suffers to drop yet O Saint keep thy new cloaths white clean and pure sin like a mired dog when it fawns upon thee fouls thee A spot will easily be seen upon thee trifles in thee are accounted blasphemies Be not troubled at the spots upon thy name so as thou keepest a pure conscience not that wicked men make them so long as they do not finde them Wash thy self in thine own tears be troubled that thy Justification is so complete and thy Sanctification so imperfect that thou art at once both without spot or wrinckle and yet so full of both In short Labour to be spotless in a spotting and spotted Generation in foul streets to walk with clean garments Let not the Error of the wicked cleave to thee If thou canst not cleanse them which is most desirable let not them defile thee In your Feasts of Charity 3. The Lords Supper is a Love-Feast Observ 3. The Reason why these Feasts of Charity whereof Jude here speaks were annexed to the Lords Supper 1 Cor. 11.21 22. and also why those ancient Christians did in these Feasts express so much love one to another was because they were about to celebrate that Sacrament which expressed so great a token
which men compared to trees are said to yeild 1. The fruits of the Sanctifying Spirit of God Graces and Works brought forth in the hearts and lives of the Saints called fruits because they come from the Spirit of God as fruit from the tree and are as pleasing to him as the pleasantest fruit is to us Thus we read of the fruits of the Spirit Gal. 5.22 and Fruits of Righteousness Phil. 1.11 Fruits meet for Repentance Matth. 3.8 All comprehended by Paul Ephes 5.9 where he saith The fruit of the Spirit is in all Goodness Righteousness Truth Goodness being that quality contrary to Malice or naughtiness whereby a sinner is evil in himself Righteousness opposed to Injustice whereby one is hurtful and injurious to others Truth opposed to Errors Heresies Hypocrisie c. 3 There are fruits which in themselves and their own nature are bitter corrupt poysonful put forth not only by a corrupt tree but by it as such evil propter fieri in themselves and their own nature such fruits by which the false Prophets were known and whereby men may be known to be wicked men Grapes of Gall and bitter clusters Deut. 32.32 Such works of the flesh as Paul mentions Gal. 5.19 Adultery Fornication Vncleanness Laesciviousness Idolatry Witcheraft Hatred c. 3 There are other fruits which are not evil in themselvs unlawful or intrinsecally evil in their own substance and nature propter esse and fieri because they are or are done but because they grow upon such trees by reason whereof something which should make the production of them good is omitted and sundry deffects cleave unto them and they have evil cast upon them by the agent And sundry fruits of this sort and rank there may be upon such trees as Jude speaks of As 1 The Fruits of gifts parts and abilities in matters of Religion as preaching praying utterance of these speaks Christ Matth. 7.22 Many shall say in that day Lord have we not Prophesied c. And 1 Cor. 12.1 they are called Spiritual Gifts wrought by the Spirit but are not Sanctificantia but Ministrantia not so sanctifying him in whom but helping those for whom they are as a rich man may bestow good and dainty dyet upon a poor woman that nurseth his child not for her own sake but that his child may suck good milk from her such fruits as these indeed may beautifie Grace but yet Grace must sanctifie them These may make us profitable to men not acceptable to God 2 The second sort of these fruits which these trees might bear is a temporary faith Oâ—thodox or sound judgment assent to that which is the very Truth of Gods Word that there is a God infinite in all his glorious Perfections that there are three Persons that Christ was God and man c. and that all who believe in him shall be saved Thus some unconverted are said to beleeve for a while Luke 8.13 thus Simon Magus and Demas believed these fruits are good in their kind and without them there can be no holinesse of life nor happinesse after death and yet they are not good enough they not purifying the heart but only perfecting the understanding they being poured only on the head not running down like Aarons oyntment to the heart and other parts though making a man Protestant in doctrin yet leaving him to be a recusant in his life carrying him out to believe the word as faithful but not to embrace it as worthy of all acceptation to shine with light but not to burn with or work by love 3. A third sort of these fruits might be some heated affections sweet motions receiving the word with joy a finding some sweetnesse in the ordinances Matth. 13.20 John 5.35 Matth. 27.3 1 Kings 21. Ezek. 33.32 Ezekiel was to his hearers as a lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice They who shall be cast into utter darknesse may for a season rejoyce in the light and may have sorrow and grief about sin The Israelites were oft deep in their humiliations Psal 78.4 7. they sought God and returned enquired early after God Ahab humbled himself And yet these fruits are not the best they may spring up from a root not good the pleasantnesse or sadnesse of the matter of any doctrine may cause sutable affections of joy or sorrow the novelty or rarity of a doctrine may much delight or the dexterity and ability of the deliverer the sutablenesss of a clearly discovered truth to a hearers understanding the apprehension of the goodnesse of spiritual things may stir up some flashing desires thus they cried out Lord give us ever more this bread thus Balaam desires to die the death of the righteous yea as some have observed corrupt lusts in men such as pride and self-seeking may produce great affections in holy duties The desire of applause may make men in publick administrations enlarged in their affections The more excellent a Prayer or Sermon is the more carnal the heart of the performer may be the stronger the invention is the weaker the grace may be and as ground full of mines of Gold is oft barren of grasse so a heart ful of grace may it may be barren of the ornaments of words and expressions 4. A fourth sort of fruits born even by these afterward apostates might be external appearances of conformity to the Law of God in avoiding of all open and scandalous courses and in performing the visible and outside acts of obedience Thus the Pharisee was not an Extortioner unjust an Adulterer Paul Matth 18.11 Phil. 3. touching the law was blameless the young man professed he had kept the Law in the letter of it from his youth The Pharisees paid Tithes exactly abhorred idolatry made long prayers and frequent were strict in the outward observation of the Sabboth professed chastity temperance c. Thus it 's said of these very Apostates that they had escap'd the pollutions of the world 2 Pet. 2.20 and 22. that they had been washed And these fruits of outward conformity to the Law of God are highly commendable sincerity of grace can neither be nor be known without them by them it resolves as Elijah said to shew it self they are commanded by God 1 King 18.15 who though he commands not the godly to fulfill the Law perfectly yet permits them not to break it wilfully and though by the presence of external obedience we cannot conclude salvation yet by the absence thereof we may conclude damnation to follow these honour God benefit others Though our righteousnesse satisfies not justice yet in our unrighteousnesse we cannot be saved without injustice nor is any man called a good man for the good which he hath but the good which he doth outward obedience strengthens true grace where it is and is necessary to preserve a justified estate though not as deserving it yet as removing that which would destroy it And yet all these fruits the acts of externall obedience
comparison of mans soul now then how great must his resolution needs be the second time both to assail and hold his former possession If ever the Jaylor catch the Prisoner who through indulgence shewed him broke prison he will be sure to lay him fast enough he that before had no shackle shall be bound with two chains for failing before he was in liberâ custodia had the liberty of the prison now he is in arctâ custodia cast into the Dungeon before he had but one keeper now he hath seven worse to captivate and enthral him They who have escap'd in profession the servitude of Satan and seem to cleave to a new a better master should they again revolt from Christ and be reapprehended by their old Jaylor how irrecoverably will he make them his own how watchful will he be to keep them in hold and his hold in them by hardning their hearts searing their consciences following them with temptations and even hindring them from all the very appearances of holinesse And that brings me to the last Branch of explication This for the explication of the third gradation of these seducers misery they were twice dead The fourth and last follows pluck'd up by the roots It was bad for these trees to wither to be without fruit to be dead twice dead though having still the place and appearance of trees but to be without growth fruit life and place also makes the losse and woe compleat Pluck'd up by the roots Gr. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 rooted up as plants they might be said to be in two respects 1. In respect of removal from their former place wherein they stood 2. In respect of the discovery of the rottennesse and unsoundnesse of the root by that removal the manifesting what was at the bottome of the tree the turning of the inside outward 1. In the former sense the Apostle must speak by way of prediction for according to it they were pluck'd up by the roots either 1. out of the soyl of the Church by being removed at first out of the affections and prayers of the Church and afterward by excommunication quite cast out of the Church it being denied to such unsound trees any longer to stand in such a garden Or 2. Pluck'd up by the roots out of the soyl of the world and out of the land of the living and this plucking up was by death which plucks up not only the withered dead but even the most greene flourishing deeply and strongly rooted tree in the world But I understand the Apostle to speak of a plucking up in point of discovery of all that unsoundness or secret rottennâ—ss which was at the root of these trees and the manifestation of them by their abominable errors and prophaneness to be such as never had any vital influence from Christ Trees may have withered fruit be without fruit and quite twice dead and yet he who passeth by them and beholds them among the rest of trees may possibly be ignorant especially at that time of the year when other trees also are without leaves and fruits that these trees are utterly and irrecoverably dead but when he sees them pluckt up by the roots then their voidness and privation of life is made evident and manifest to every one haply most thought they were dead before but now all know they are dead Other trees which yet stand perhaps they may suspect to be dead but these which are pluckt up by the roots they evidently and certainly behold to be so Nor is it any wonder that these dead trees should also lose their place and plainly appear to be altogether dead if we consider 1. How unable dead roots were long to bear and hold up the trees and 2. How just it was with the owner to pluck up those trees For the first How could that tree stand constantly which wanted a living root to supply and feed it a dead root bears not a steady tree as without a vigorous and living root the tree cannot be kept from withering in its fruit so neither from its ceasing to stand out of Christ there can be no perseverance He who sets us up onely keeps us up he who laboured to make his Picture stand alone quickly saw the vanity of his endeavour when he considered as he said that somthing life he meant was wanting within As the hope so the holinesse of the Hypocrite is like the Spiders web Union by proâ—â—ssion will not serve the turn to make us persevere Nâ— to that there must be added union by real implantation If the heart be not set right the Spirit will not be stedfast with God Psal 78.8 They who stand loose from Christ will never stand long an Hypocrite and his very profession will part in a temptation He who beleeves not will never be establisht For the second Most jâ—st was it wâ—â—h God to pluck up these trees by the roots for the punishing of their hypocrisie These Seducers of whom Jude speakâ— who would never endure to be more than are now suffered not to be so much as Hypocrites In corde funus occultè prius suo putore sentitur quà m moribus nostra cogitationc prospicitur Aug. Ep. 227. they never cared to be better then visible and now they are not so good as visible Professors they who would not have the life of trees shall not now have the room and place of trees they who were inwardly corrupt are now openly prophane they regarded not the reality and they retain not the appearances of sanctity they who formerly feared not to appear unholy in the sight of God are afterward discovered justly to be unholy in the sight of man Heretofore they disdained to be Scholers of Truth and they now are left to be Masters of Error In a word they who once were deemed to be something when they were nothing now neither are nor appear to be any thing and as Christ said From them who had not even that which they seemed to have is taken away 2. Justly doth God pluck up these trees by the root to punish them for their unfruitfulnesse as a fruitless soil so a fruitless tree is nigh to cursing Hebr. 6. If Solomon a Type of Christ have a vineyard he must have a thousand peeces of silver Cant. 8. and the keepers thereof but two hundred the chief gain was to come to Solomon he that planteth a vineyard should eat of the fruit of it and there is no plant in Gods vineyard but God will either have gloty from it by its bearing fruit or glory on it by its burning in the fire OBSERVATIONS 1. Observ 1. Even corrupt trees bear some fruit These trees had fruit though it were but withered fruit most men go to Hell in the way of religious appearances they who shall be excluded out of heaven will pretend many good works prophecying miracles Mat. 7.23 Outside services are cheap and cost but little good words we say are good cheap
witherings and decays are opposite to the honour and worship of God None can honour God who divides his service between him and other things He accounts himself not served at all unless always served Who will think that employment vast and large which a man takes up and lays down at his pleasure What proportion bears slight and short obedience to the Majesty of him who is the best and the greatest how can that work be deemed by any beholder sweet and delightful of which men are as soon weary as of some grievous burden who wil account that service profitable and advantagious or its wages to eternity any other than a notion when they who have entred into it think an hour long enough to continue in it or will any think that God gives strength to his servants to perform it who give it over before they have well begun or that he delights in that holinesse which his seeming friends take such frequent libertie to forsake at their pleasure 2. The sinfulnesse of witherings and decayes appear in respect of our selves Prov. 17.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Arist Rhet. l. 2 c. 11. 1. Whatever professions have been made is's certain there never was sincerity Vnstedfastness is a sure note of unsoundness he never was who ever ceaseth to be a friend for a friend loveth at all times He who leaves Christ never loved him They set not their heart aright and their spirit was not stedfast with God Psal 78.8 2. Spiritual withering renders all former profession unprofitable and in vain He who continues not in had as good never have entred into the waies of God nothing is held done as long as ought thereof remaineth to be done we shall be judged according to what we are not have been Judas not according to his Apostleship whrein he lived John 2.8 Gal. 3 4. but according to his treachery and despair wherein he died our beginning in the spirit followed with ending in the spirit advantageth not that is only wel which ends well 't is not the contention but the conquest which crowns they win the prize not who set out first but continue last 3. Spiritual withering makes our former profession and progress therein to do us hurt It had not only been as wel but better never to have known the way of righteousnesse He who licks up his vomit never casts it up again the house re-entred by Satan is more delightfully and strongly possessed by the impure spirit the water cool'd after heating is now colder then ever the seeming breach betweene sin and the soul being made up again is like a dis-joynted bone well set the union is stronger then ever and it is more easie once to go on then often to begin And as there was nothing Satan did so much endeavour as thy leaving of God so nothing wil he so much hinder as thy returning again to God yea and it may be by this time God is justly provoked to leave that person to Satan who would needs leave God for Satan To conclude none will be so inexcusable before God as they who leave the wayes of holinesse for if those waies were bad why did they enter into them if good why did they not continue in them 3. The sinfulnesse of spiritual withering appears in respect of others 1. They who remain strong and stable do not yet remain joyful but are much sadded by the decayes of any though they fall not with them yet they are cast down for them yea they should sin if they should not be sad and how great a sin is it to make it necessary for them to mourn whom to rejoyce is thy duty Now we live saith Paul 1 Thes 3.8 if ye stand fast in the Lord. Their apostacy then would have been his death 2. The weak are much endangered to be carried away with others for company seldome doth any leave God singly the worst yea the weakest shall have too many followers Although these seducers were carried away by reason of their emptinesse yet all that Jude could do all the diligence he could use was little enough to keep the Christians from being carried away with them It is easier for a weak seducer to carry souls away then for a strong Christian to keep them back 3. The wicked are both confirmed in that their sin into which the decayed Christian is faln and also much deride and reproach that way of truth and holinesse which the unstedfast have forsaken they are confirmed in their sin because their own way hath now the addition of a proselite and the commendation of an Enemy now numbers are a great encouragement and a strong argument to a sinner in any wickednesse and the commendation of an enemy is equivâ—lent to an universal good report sinners will deride likewise and blaspheme the way of truth as if either Christians had formerly embraced it for by-ends or else as if it had not worth and excellency in it to deserve a stedfast persevering in it and the dispraising of holiness by the seeming friends thereof will appear to its enemies to be equivalent to an universall ill report 3. Obs 3. It is the duty of Christians to endeavour after spiritual fruitfulness The Apostle mentions unfruitfulness likewise Luk. 3.8 Canâ— 6.11 as the sin and wo of these corrupt trees seducers This duty of bearing and bringing forth much fruit is frequently noted in Scripture Mat 3.8 bring forth fruit meet for repentance 2 Cor. 9.10 Now he that ministreth seed to the sower c increase the fruits of your righteousness Phil. 1.11 Being filled with the fruits of righteousness Col. 1.6 Matth. 21.34.41.44 John 3.8 which are by Jesus Christ c. Jam. 3.17 The wisdome from above is full of good fruits Every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth that it may bring forth more fruit John 15.2 He that abideth in me and I in him bringeth forth much fruit I have chosen you that ye should bring forth fruit ver 16. Being fruitfull in every good work Col. 1.10 As touching the nature and cordition of these fruits Phil. 1.27 Eph. 5.3 4. 1 Cor. 12 ult 1. They must be fruits of a right kind good and piritual fruits of the same nature with the good seâ—d that hath been sown in us when wheat is sown tares must not come up nor cockle when baily is cast into the ground Our fruit must be such as becomes the Gospel not fruits of the flesh Nor 2. fruits meerly of gifts parts abilities of utterance knowledge nor only of civil righteousness just dealing toward men freedomâ— from scandal not fruits only of external profession of religion in prayer hearing c. but such as are sutable and proper to a supernatural root and principle fruits worthy of amendment of life Mat. 3. Love out of a pure heart 1 Tim. 1.5 Spiritual fruits fruits brought forth to a spirituall end they must give a sweet and delightful relish though possibly
by Jannes and Jambres Jacobs worshipping upon the top of his staffe Moses his saying that the sight upon the mount was so terrible that I exceedingly fear and quake Thus it is said that Josephs feet were hurt with fetters and that he was laid in irons all which passages being no where mentioned in their proper stories were received by tradition from generation to generation the Spirit of God nevertheless sanctifying them and giving them the stamp of divine authority to be most certain and infallible by putting the penmen of holy writ to insert them into the Scripture And by this which hath been said we answer those who argue against the canonicalness of this Epistle from Judes alledging as they conceive an apocriphal Author or his bringing in a tradition no where recorded in Scripture the * If be did cite it out of any Author citing of these by our Apostle being so far from making him apocryphal that he makes them so far as he useth them canonical as also we hereby answer the Papists who because the Apostles have sometimes transferred some things from humane writings and tradition into holy Scripture take the boldness to doe the like also and to joyn traditions with the holy Scripture they not considering that they want that spirit of discerning which the Apostles had who by making use of traditions gave them divine authority They were immediately acted by the holy Ghost in all their writings but we are not endowed with the same measure of the Spirit and therefore neither are able nor ought to imitate them herein The third thing to be explained is why the Apostle alledged and instanced in this particular prophesie of Enoch The reasons why Jude made choice of this prophesie may be reduced to these two heads 1. The first taken from the prophet 2. The second from the prophesie it self And the consideration of the prophet Enoch induced Jude to use the prophesie because the Prophet was 1. Eminent for his antiquity he was the seventh from Adam This seems to put great respect upon the prophesie as if Jude had said The sins of these seducers which had judgment threatned against them almost from the very beginning of the world so many thousands of years before they were committed must needs be hainous and odious now when these sinners are acting them and those sins which God hath so anciently threatned wil at length be most severely punished 2. This prophet was famous both for his piety and priviledges of the former of which before he was not only eminent for his piety in walking with God which was his own benefit and for his publick usefulnesse in warning and instructing that corrupt age in which he lived keeping up the name of God in the world opposing the profaneness of his times but also for that glorious and before unheard of priviledg of being taken to God who thereby proclaimed him to be fit for no company but his own and one for whom no place was good enough but heaven a child though sent abroad into the world as the rest yet whom his father so tenderly loved that he would not suffer him to stay halfe so long from home as his other children One who had done much work in a little time and who having made a proficiency in that heavenly art of holines above all his fellows had that high degree of heavenly glory conferd upon him long before the ordinary time 2. Prophetia est mentis illuminatio ad res futuras cognoscendas reveiante Dco In respect of the sutableness of the Prophesie it selfe to Judes present occasion And 1. it was most sutable in respect of its certainty it was a Prophesie Enoch prophesied he spake from God not uttering his own inventions but Gods inspirations the foretelling of things to come being a divine prerogative and such which without revelation from God the creature cannot attain Luc. 1.70 And the scripture assures us that it was God who spake by the mouth of his holy Prophet which have been since the world began How sutable was it to produce a prophesie sure to be sulfild coming from God by the mouth of an holy prophet against these fearlesse scorneful sinners who mockt at the last judgment 2. Of its severity what prophesie more fit for the secure scorners then a prophesie of judgment the last universall undvoidable unsupportable eternall judgment They might possibly slight the particular examples of Gods judgments upon the Angels the Sodomites the Israelites but the arrow of the generall judgment prophecyed of by Enoch against all the ungodly would not perhaps be so easily shaken out of their sides If any denunciation could affect them surely it would be that which was propheticall and if any propheticall denunciation that of the last judgment If the last judgement hath made heathens tremble Qui male vivit judicandum se diffidit Chrysol s 5.59 when but discourst of before them how should it dismay those who profess to know God when threatned against them How bold in sin are they who will not fear the judgment Si unicum timendum scire quae in illo sunt punienda non ageret Greg. in Job 19. How can he who beleeves judgment to be dreadful but dread to do that which shall be punisht in that judgment Even the devils at thel â—ight of their Judg trembled to think of their judgment Mat. 8.29 OBSERVATIONS 1. Obs 1. Honorandi propter imitationem non adâ—randi propter religionem Aug. de ver rel cap. 55. 1 Cor. 11.1 Adorantur Crucem et vendunt Crucifixum The greatest honour to departed Saints is to imbrance their holy instructions Enochs person was not to be worshipt but his prophecye to be believed Saints are to be honourd by following of their doctrines by imitation of their practices not by religious adoration It s easie to commend their memories by our words and to reverence their reliques but the art of Christianity appears in praising them with the Language of our Conversations The bark of a tree may be carryed upon a mans shoulder without any paine or difficulty but it requires strength and labour to carry away the body of the tree the outside or shell of superstitious Popish adorations men easily performe the heart and life of religion which is that of the heart and life men cannot away with The Pharisees who painted the sepulchers of the deceased Prophets opposed their piety as also those holy ones in their times who were acted by the same spirit of holiness which shew'd it self in those Prophets of old The Jewes who boasted that they had Abraham for their father did not the works of their father Abraham but of their father the Devil Many are like Samson that took honey out of the dead lion voice dead ancient saints to be sweet and holy men who were they alive to roare upon them for their lusts would oppose and hate them the right way then to
the flesh are opposed Gal. 6.4 The opposition also is remarkable be not drunk with wine c. but be fill'd with the spirit Eph. 5.18 when sense is gratified the spirit is opposed Marke the like opposition also Rom. 8.13 If ye live after the flesh ye shall dye but if ye through the spirit doe mortifie the deeds of the body ye shall live Rom. 13.14 But put ye on the Lord Jesus and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill it in the lusts thereof and Gal. 5.17 The flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh these have contrary originalls the one is from earth the other from heaven The motions of sensuall lusts and the spirit are contrary one downward another upward a man cannot look those contrary wayes at once Lust like the womans disease in the Gospel bowes us down to the earth the spirit moves to the things above Like two ballances if one goe up the other goes down they put upon contrary practises Gal. 5.17 walk in the spirit and ye shall not fulfill the deeds of the flesh Gal. 5.16 They both endeavour to take up and each to ingrosse and monopolize the whole man soul and body they will neither endure to have their dominion over man parted They can admit of no accommodation what ever means or helps advance the one suppresse and expell the other The fuel of lust worldly excesse extinguisheth the spirit the preservatives of the spirit prayer word fasting meditation are the poysons of lusts Oh the madnesse then of those who thin◠to serve these contrary masters Matth. 6.4 If one be loved the other must be forsaken The allowance of any inordinate lust is inconsistent with the spirit How great should our care be hence to take the spirits part against the flesh 1. by a through hearty inward work of mortification the plucking up of lust by the roots not only by snibbing the blade of it 2. By a holy and watchful moderation in worldly enjoyments behind which Satan like the Philistines ever lies in ambush when the lust like Delilah is tempting 3. By diverting thy joyes and pleasure upon heavenly objects and 4. By labouring for a sanctified improvement of all the stoppages in the way of lust and Gods breaking down thy bridges in thy march They who want the spirit are easily brought over to sensuality Obs ult Vide Part. 2. ver 10. They had not the spirit and no wonder if sensual Natural light is not enough to overcome natural lusts He who is but a meer man may soon become a prey to sensuality Vae soli woe to him that hath not this spirit to renew him nay constantly to reside in him and to act him Even Saints themselves when the spirit withdraws and leaves them to themselvs how sensual have they proved David Lot Samson are proofs Let thy great care be then to keep the spirit from departing Psal 51. 'T was Davids prayer take not thy holy spirit from me Take heed of giving way to sinnes of pleasure or to sins of deliberation or to repeated sinnes or to sins against conscience or to the sin of pride and presumption of thine own strength delight not in sinful company Beware of worldly mindedness follow the dictates of the spirit and listen to its first motions Fruitfully improve the ordinances wherein the spiritdelights to breath VER 20. But ye Beloved building up your selves on your most holy faith praying in the holy Ghost THe second direction to teach the Christians how to observ the former exhortation to contend for the truth and to oppose seducers is building up themselves on their most holy faith yet so as this and the next direction are set down as dispositions and meanes to keep themselves in the love of God mentioned in the next verse In this the Apostle shews and we ought to explain thre things EXPLICATION 1. The Builders or the parties directed Beloved 2. Their Foundation their most holy faith 3. Their building thereon in these words building up your selves on c. 1. Of the parties here called Beloved Part. 1. I have largely spoken before 2. The Foundation Their most holy faith In this I might inquire 1. What is meant by faith 2. How it s call'd your faith 3. How it s call'd most holy 1. Concerning the several acceptations of faith I have largely spoken Par. 1. p. 117.118 c. when I handled the Apostolical exhortation of contending for the faith And here by faithh as in the forementioned place I understand the doctrine of faith For enlargement upon which Vid. ver 3. and wha◠about delivering of the faith I have there said and reasons why the word is called faith I refer the Reader to what I have spoken on the forenamed place 2. This faith is called your faith and the doctrine of faith was theirs 1. Because of Ministration it was delivered to the Saints and by God given to them and to others for their sakes 2. Because they received it were moulded into it it was so delivered to them that they as the Apostle speaks were delivered into it as it was ministred to them so it was accepted by them It was not scorned rejected but received embraced yea contended for by them It was effectually theirs as well as ministerially 3. Theirs it was in regard of the fruit and benefit of it It was for theirs the salvation of their souls 1 Pet. 1.9 It was to them a savour of life not a sentence of condemnation 3. 3 Vid. Lorin in loc It s called most holy faith 1. To put a difference between those unholy and fabulous dreames of these seducers the most impure inventions of the Gnosticks Jewish fables c. 2. Considered in it selfe and that 1. In its supream auhtor and efficient cause the holy Ghost It was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by divne inspiration 2 Tim. 3.16 2. In the Instruments of conveying it who were holy men of God who spake as they were moved by the holy Ghost 2 Pet. 1.21 3. Quanam Paul◠Epistol◠non melle dulcior non lacte candidior Hierom. In the matter of it which is altogether holy every word of God is pure The threatnings holy denounced against sin the precepts holy and such as put us onely upon holinesse the comforts and promises holy parts of a holy covenant and such as onely comfort in the practice of holinesse and encourage to holinesse and are made to holy ones 4. In the effects of it It works and exciteth holinesse in nature heart life It s that which being believingly lookt into makes the beholders holy like it selfe as the rods of Jacob which layd before the sheep made them bring forth young ones of the same colour with those rods 3. Their building on this foundation is contained in these words building up your selves Two things are in this branch comprehended 1. How we are to understand this building up 2. This building up of
considered alone by it selfe as a distinct Covenant for so it gendereth onely to bondage Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing of faith q d. ye receved the spirit by hearing the gospel 2 Cor. 3.8 The gospel is call'd the ministration of the Spirit 2. 'T is kept by following his motions and suggestions Make much of his presence the Spirit is a delicate thing grieve him not by negligence in using his gifts pride Eph. 4.30 eagernesse after the world sensualitie ungodly company premeditated repeated sins c. If the Spirit be gone thy best friend is gone 'T was Davids prayer Take not thy holy spirit from me Without the spirit thou art like lockless Samson as another man poor weak Samson when the Lord was departed thou art like a ship winde-bound No stirring without the spirits gales Lord what were my life if I could not pray it would even be my burden and how can I pray without thy spirit As a man cannot preach without externall mission so not pray without internall motion 7. How happy are saints in all straits Obs Vlt. they have the spirit to help them pray Ther 's nothing but sin can drive or keep away the spirit Sufferings prisons banishments c. cannot and hast thou the spirit 't is better like Jonah to be praying in a Whales belly then without the Spirit to be devout in a gilded chappel Suppose thy friends cannot will not visit thee the Spirit is a guest that cannot be excluded Like Joseph he delights to manifest himselfe to his when all are gone out Holy Mr. Dod was wont to say never despair of him who can but pray Suppose men cut out thy tongue or stop thy mouth they cannot hinder thee from praying in the Spirit because not the Spirit from praying in thee Ver. 21. Keep your selves in the Love of God looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to Eternall life THe fourth direction whereby the Apostle guides them to observe his exhortion to contend for the Faith against seducers and seduction is contain'd in these words Keep your selves in the Love of God A very apt and sutable mean and course for the foresaid end and purpose for he that will be a friend to God can never be in love with errour which drawes the soul away from God and his truth Two particulars are here in this direction contained 1. That thing about which the Christians were to be employed or the object The love of God 2. How they were to be imploy'd about it viz. By keeping themselves therein Ther 's the act EXPLICATION So that by way of Explication two things may be enquired after 1. What the Apostle intends by the love of God 2. What by keeping themselves therein 1. For the first by the love of God I here understand not that love whereby God loveth man but that whereby man loveth God resteth in him and cleaveth to him as the most absolute good of this both in respect of its severall kindes and properties as also in severall Observations I have very largely spoken in my first part Page 124.136 148. c. To avoid tediousnesse and repetition I shall refer to that place 2. For the second by keeping themselves in this Love I understand perseverance in the loving of God or a preserving of the love of God in their hearts from all those things whereby they might be enticed to let it goe and part with it and this preservation or keeping thereof stands in using those meanes which God hath ordained to preserve in us our Love toward him which is done by sundry 1. Considerations 2. Pactises 1. Considerations 1. Of Gods Lovelinesse and soule-ravishing perfections and his blessed sutablenesse to our soules exigencies Part 1. pag. 152. when we know him to be a full good as having all the scattered Excellencies of all the world and all the persons and things therein in himselfe and infinitely more a filling good and able to satisfie our desires to the brim 2. By considering that he loves us loved us first and perseveres and rests in his love The more we walke in this sun the hotter we shall be nay were our hearts as cold as stones Zeph. 3 17. the sunshine of his love upon us should heat us with love toward him againe Of this at large before part 1. pag. 152.153 3. That every one of us keeps up a love to something the poorest of us hath a love and if not for God for that which is infinitely below him yea which is unworthy of us 4. That we have nothing besides love to give him 5. That he accepts of it in stead of all other things seeks it bespeaks it Deut. 10.40 6. That we alway professe we love him and have chosen him Josh 24.12 7. That its a greater dishonour to him to cease to love him then never to have begun to love him at all 8. That the keeping of our selves in his love is the true keeping of love to our selves Deut. 5.19 We are the gainers by loving him we forsaking his love and our own mercy at once 2. By practises As 1. By keeping our selves in a constant hatred of all sin As love to sin growes love to God will decay These are as two buckets as the one comes up the other goes down 2. By keeping our selves in the delight of Gods friends and favourers who will ever be speaking well of him and by taking heed of those misrepresentations that sinners make of him and his wayes 3. By keeping our selves in the delight of the ordinances wherein his glory and beauty are display'd and Communion with himselfe is enjoyed and our love is increas'd by these in exercising it 4. By endeavouring for an holy remissenesse in loving other things when we love the world as alwayes about to leave and loath it A soul weaned from these brests will onely feed upon Communion with and the enjoyments of God 1 Joh. 2.15 If any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him No outward object should be further beloved then as it is either a pledge of Gods love to us or an incitement of ours to him in short nothing should be loved much but onely he whom we cannot love too much 5. Lastly by keeping up and increasing of Brotherly love among our selves for though the love of God be the cause which makes us love our brethren yet the love of our brethren is not onely a signe but an excellent preservative of our loving of God In every saint we may see Gods image he is Gods best picture now though the love of a man makes us love his picture yet the often delightfull looking upon his picture continues and inflames our love toward him the fire of love to God will be extinguisht in an heart cold and frozen to the saints our love to God and the godly grow and decay together the Sun on the dyal moves
Exhorting one another Salvation is large enough for our selves and others If Gods eye be good ours should not be evill The doing good to others soules is encouraged Jam. 5.20 And rewarded Dan. 12.3 It s the nature of grace to propagate it selfe The Spirit appeared in the likenesse of fiery tongues and both fire and tongues are very communicative the one of it selfe and heat the other of sound and voice Our relations of Brethren fellow members c. call for this expression of love Yea the contrary practice of sinners who damne and defile one anothers soules may put us upon this duty How great then is their sin who destroy the soules of others by error and seduction and ungodly example c. who watch over others for evill and to make proselites for hell who are factors for Satan and agents for that Prince of darknesse If their own sin and damnation will be so heavie a burden what will other mens sinnes and damnations also be to them in hell O what a holy covetousnesse should be in every Saint to propagate holinesse and leven others with grace in the world Oh pray Lord let hell never be the fuller for me or mine but heaven for both In respect of the priviledge of saving of soules it s by some said that saints on earth excell the very glorified in heaven 2. Obs 2. Others Necessity should be the mother of severity Others i. e. they who will be by no other means reclaimed upon whom compassion will not worke must be saved by feare First gentle meanes must be used severe afterwards Severity though good is but accidentally good not in it selfe but onely because of mans stubbornenesse Medicines were only brought in and kept up by sicknesse The Bee gives its honey naturally its sting onely when provok't We should run to Compassion but be driven to rigor If the birds will be driven away its needlesse to shoot them our will must bring forth peace necessity war Paul was much more willing to come to the Corinthians with the Spirit of meeknesse then with the rod of severity Even when we are most deeply engaged in rigor let all see that in afflicting others we more afflict our selves 3. Obs 3. Others Severity is to be regulated not by outward respects but by the merit of the offence Others that is they who are more obdurate not who are further from us in relation or poorer c. should be affrighted Though the nature of the offence should should make us put a difference in our rigours yet other considerations forraigne to the cause should not Some are fiery hot in terrifying the poorer sort whereas the rich are like the mount that might not be toucht Having mens persons in admiration An ungodly base respecting of persons Of it see at large before pag. 536 537. Part. 2. 4. Save Even a man may be a saviour of soules Obs 4. See the proofs in the Explication Paul speaks of labouring by all meanes to gaine some And we read of those who catch men and win soules and Christ mentions the gaining of thy brother How great an honour doth God cast upon weak wormes 1. If the supreme Cause be pleas'd to attribute salvation to men because of ministry should not men attribute salvation to God in regard of efficacy How carefull should we be to honour that God who so dignifies dust and ashes Lay that Crown at his feet which he sets on thy head How industrious should this likewise make us in doing good to others The Lord reckons it as our own Though he guided thy hand every letter yet he saith thou hast written the faire copie whereas indeed onely the blots and blurs were thine Though thou didst but lay on the plaister yet he attributes the cure to thee who couldst never put vertue into the salve To conclude this how fearfull should any be of despising the ministry of man Though salvation sometime be attributed to our selves that we may not be negligent and properly to God that we may not idolize man yet it s often ascribed to others that we may not contemn their help 5. Save with fear Obs 5. Severity should be exercised to this end to save The scope of using the sharpest rebukes by spirituall Physicians should be cure Mercifull intentions must be lodged under severest performances The end of Excommunication must be the saving of the Spirit Tit. 1.13 The most cutting reproofs must be given to others that they may be sound in the faith Even the dreadfullest Censures of the Church are not mortall but medicinable In the body of the Church members are wounded and cut that themselves and the whole body may be saved And herein Ecclesiasticall censures excell civill punishments the latter being to preserve the publick peace and for warning to others the former being principally to save the offenders soule How sharply did Peter reprove Simon Magus when he said Thy mony perish with thee and thou art in the gall of bitternesse and yet he addeth repent and pray c. We must not reprove men to disgrace their persons but to shame their sins and neither insulting over mens falls nor despairing of their risings And therefore let not people sume and rage against the constrained rigour of the faithfull especially Ministers for 't is not butchery but Surgerie As reprehension faithfully ministred shewes the strength of zeale so meekly received the sincerity of grace A godly heart would not one threatning lesse to be in the Bible 'T is a bloodlesse martyrdome humbly to embrace the strokes of a reprover To conclude how ridiculously prophane are the Papists whose loudest thunderings out of excommunication are against the holiest persons But Christs Spirit is not in their counsells nor will he refuse graciously to meet thee unjustly ejected as he did the blinde man sinfully cast out by the Jewes 6. Save with feare Obs 6. Severity to sin is mercy to the soule This affrighting made way for saving Holy severity is a wholsome thing even rending Mastiffes are very usefull to kill woolves The nipping frosts of winter though not so pleasant as summer Sunshine yet are as needfull for the earth they killing the wormes and vermin Jacob is said to * Every one according to his blessing Gen. 49.28 Nonnul lis bene dixit maledicendo blesse his sons and yet he sharply censured three The smitings of the righteous are desirable to a saint They are precious ointment They slay sin and save the soule How wilde a madnesse is it then to be angry with them who by telling thee truth love thy peace There 's none but fools that oppose faithfull reprovers and who are such that if the truth be told them will not be pleased and if they be pleased the truth is not told them Such a disposition as this is an evident token that God hath a purpose to destroy them 2 Chron. 25.16 How much is this cruelty to their
mistaken who account Spiritual showres their greatest plague and complain of these dewes of Grace as if they were a deluge of woe to whom the word of the Lord is the greatest burthen who cry out the Land cannot bear it A Church without a Preacher is as a Ship sayling in a dark night on a rough Sea without a Pilot. Never was Christ more moved in compassion toward the people then when he saw them scattered as sheep without a Shepherd They who would be rid of the Word would also be without pardon peace holinesse happinesse it being the Word of Faith the Word which sanctifies the Gospel of Peace the Word of life the Power of God to salvation Ministers are Saviours Watch-mâ—n Labourers in the Harvest Nurses Guides Builders Sowers Seers Light Salt Clouds c. VVhat then aâ—e places destitute of saving instruction but unsafe spoiled starved waste blind wandering unsavoury barren and yet how commonly do many curse the preaching of the word as the people who live under the torrid Zone do the rising of the Sun To conclude what apparent enemies are they to the souls of people who hinder the preaching of the Gospel who will not suffer it to run and be glorifiâ—d who revile and abuse the faithful Dispensers thereof an act no doubt of greater unthankfulness then to wrong and abuse a man who in a time of Famine should open his Garners for the relief of a whole Country 2 The greatest commendation of a Minister Observ 2 is industry for and usefulness to the souls of others Clouds are not appointed for themselves but to water the earth and in doing so they consume themselves like Silk-worms Ministers wear and weave out their own boweis 'T is a sin for any much more for a Minister to be an unprofitable servant He must not go to Sea in his Mâ—nisterial Calling for Pleasure but Employment He must say with Pompey who being to sayl over the Seas with Corn to relieve distressed Rome and being told by the Pilot that it would prove a dangerous Voyage answered 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not necessary we should live but that we should sayl The Excellency of the Sun is not so much in respect of its glory and splendor as its influences and beneficialness and he who expects hereafter to shine like the Sun must here run like the Sun They who preach the Sun of Righteousness must be like the Sun who cometh forth of his chamber like a Bridegroom and rejoiceth to run his race The clods of the earth may be of a more dull and sad temper rest and lye still but the clouds of Heaven must be in a perpetual motion Ministers must like the Cherubims which give attendance in the presence of God have wings for expedition in the execution of his will They are called Labourers and workmen they labour in the Word and Doctrine Pauls glory was not that he was more advanced but that he laboured more abundantly then they all As much as in me is saith he I am ready to preach the Gospel He made Preaching his business therein he was glad to spend and to be spent 2 Cor. 12.15 Knowledg without industry speaks no man Excellent None is accounted good for the good he hath but the good he doth A wooden key that opens the door is a better one then a Golden one that cannot do it Greatest industry is alway to be used about the salvation of souls Impudent importunity is in no case so commendable as in this Paul was an excellent Orator and all his Oratory was to perswade men to be saved Never did Malefactor so plead to obtain his own life as did Paul beg of men to accept of life He was an importunate woer of souls and he would take no denyal Ministers must rather be worn with using then rusting The sweat of a Minister as it is reported of Alexanders casts a sweet smell his Talents are not for the Napkin but Occupation not to be laid up but to be laid out They who are full Clouds should be free in pouring out returning as they have received How unworthily do they deal with God who are all for taking in and nothing for laying out How liitle is the age and place wherein they live beholding to them How just is it with God that they who will not give him the interest of their abilities by improving and acting them should lose the principal by ceasing to have and retain them 1 Cor. 12.7 The manifestation of the Spirit is given to every one to profit withal Standing water soon putrifies Musical Instruments which are most used sound most melodiously Eccles 5.17 If Solomon observed it to be a great vanity that some men had Riches who had not power to use them how much greater is the vanity of having great intellectual abilities and yet to have no power to make use of them for the good of others In short therefore Ministers must remember that they are not appointed for sight but service and usefulness We account not a Pillar to be good because it is sightly but strong We should fear to sit under that Structure the Pillars whereof are though curiously gilded and painted outwardly yet crazy and rotten within It s better to be under a disgraced persecuted Paul then under a silken Diotrephes who is altogether for worldly glory and preheminence nothing for duty and performance 3 Ministers of the Gospel must be full and watery clouds Observ 3 Able and apt to teach gifted and enabled to their Ministry As Ambassadors they must be sure to have their instructions with them 2 Cor. 3.6 Ephes 4.2 and to be able Ministers of the New Testament for the perfecting of the Saints for the work of the Ministry Able to impart Spiritual gifts Match 13.52 2 Tim. 2.15 bringing forth out of his treasure things new and old being Workmen that need not be shamed rightly dividing the Word of Truth 1. Able they must be to open the Scriptures They must have the water of Knowledg and be able to unlock the Cabinet of the Word fit to feed the people with understanding to role away the stone from the mouth of the well for the watering of the flocks of Christ He who calls for a reasonable Sacrifice will not be content with an unreasonable Sacrificer Ministers must teach every one in all wisdom Col. 1.28 2. They must have ability to convince gainsayers by sound Doctrine Tit. 1.9 A Ministers brest should be a Spiritual Armory furnished with Spiritual Weapons for overcoming of opposers Apollos mightily convinced the Jewes so Paul disputed against the adversaries of the Truth Act. 9.29 and 17.17 3 The Gift of working upon the affections and quickning to duty Ability not only to enlighten the understanding but to warm the heart I think it meet c. 2 Pet. 1.13 saith Peter to stir you up Paul knowing the terror of the Lord perswaded men The Ministers
lips like Isaiahs Isai 6.6 must be touched with a live coal and he must partake of that Spirit which came down in the likeness of fiery tongues to fire the affections of his Hearers and to make their hearts burn within them with love to holy duties It was said of Basil that he breathed as much fire as eloquence 4. The gift of comforting the distressed conscience of speaking a word in season to him that is weary Isai 50.4 of declaring to man his uprightness of binding up the broken heart and of pouring oyl into its wounds of dropping the refreshing dewes of the Promises upon the parched Conscience In a word of giving every one his Portion like a Faithful and wise Steward 5. Lastly They must have the water of Grace and Sanctification Of this their hearts and life should both be full If a Beast was not to come to the Mount where the Law was delivered much less may he who is a beast deliver the Law The Doctrine of a Minister must credit his life and his life adorn his Doctrine Dead Doctrine not quickned with a holy life like dead Amasa lying in the way stops people that they will not go on cheerfully in their Spiritual warfare Doth God require that the Beast which is offered to him should be without blemishes and can he take it well that the Priest who offers it should be full of blemishes He then who will win souls we see must be able and wise A Minister must be throughly furnished as Paul speaks There is some wisdom required to catch Birds 2 Tim. 3.17 Fish and Vermine how much more to catch souls The best Minister may blush to consider how unfit he is for his Calling and when he hath gotten the greatest abilities he should beg pardon for his unableness and pray and study for a further increase of his gifts They are none of Christs Ministers who are not in some measure gifted for their work He that sendeth saith Solomon a Message by the hand of a fool cutteth off the feet Prov. 26.6 and drinketh damage he is sure to suffer for it it being all one as if he should cut off a mans legs and then bid him go on his Errand To conclude how unworthy and profane are they who bestow such of their children upon the Ministry as are the dullest and most unfit of all their number who say that when a child is good for nothing be is good enough to make a Preacher whose children as Doctor Stoughton speaks in allusion to his speech who called Basil the Gift of an Ague he being preserved from the violence of an Arian Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he recovered his son of a dangerous Ague may be called the gift of some lameness infirmity deformity Offer it now to thy Governor will he be pleased with theâ— 4. Ministers are sustained and upheld in their work by the mighty power of God It is much to be wondred Mal. 1.8 that the Natural Observ 4. but more that the Spiritual clouds are kept from falling It s God who bindeth up the waters in the cloud so that it is not rent under them Job 26.8 He that established and made a decree which shall not pass for the waters above the Heavens Psal 148.4 6. It was God who preserved Elijah when Jezabel had vowed his death God delivered Paul out of the mouth of the Lion he kept Isaiah in his Ministry during the Reign of four and Hosea during the Reign of five Kings he continued Noah an hundred and twenty years against the opposition of the old world Jeremy notwithstanding all his enemies was upheld in his work till the Captivity God promiseth the Church that their Teachers should not be removed into corners but that their eyes should behold them Isai 30.20 Luke 13.32 A Minister of Christ may say as Christ of his working of miracles I preach the Word to day and to morrow and do the world what they can they shall not hinder me till that day be come that Christ hath appointed The Ministers are stars in Christs hand So long as there 's any one soul which these Lights are to guide to Heaven all the blasts of Hell can never extinguish them God sets them and God keeps them up he erects he upholds he gave and he continues their commission Durante beneplacito they are Ambassadours 2 Cor. 5.20 whom he calls home when he pleaseth Let not then the servants of Christ fear man in the doing of the work of their Lord. He who hangs the earth upon nothing and keeps the clouds from being rent under the burthen of the waters can uphold them under all their pressures Their times are in Gods hand they are neither in their own nor in their enemies They shall fight against thee said God to Jeremy but they shall not prevail against thee Jer. 1.19 for I am with thee Let faithful Ministers fear none but their Master and nothing but sin and unfaithfulness Not outward evils because he sleeps not who preserves them but inward evils because he sleeps not who observes them Let Ministers undauntedly make their faces hard against the faces of the wicked In their own cause let them be as flexible as a reed in Gods as hard as an Adamant who can powerfully say to the strongest enemies of his Ministers Do my Prophet no harm and who will turn the greatest harm which they receive for his sake into good and make even a fiery chariot to carry his zealous Elijahs into heaven Hence likewise people are taught how to have their faithfull Ministers continued namely by making God their friend who at His pleasure removes and continues them How carefull were they of Tyre and Sidon to be at peace with Herod because their Country was nourished by the Kings Country Acts 10. â—0 T is doubtlesse greater wisdom to make God our friend by whose Care and Providence our Country is nourished spiritually and supplied with those who should break the Bread of Life unto us If People would keep their Ministers let them keep and love no sin Upon the repentance of the Jews God promised them that his sanctuary should be in the midst of them for evermore Ezek. 37.26 Let them bring forth likewise the fruits of the Gospel The Husbandman layes his ground fallow when he perceives it will not quit Charges The Kingdom of heaven saith Christ shall be taken from you and given to a Nation which will bring forth the fruits thereof Mat. 21.43 Lastly let them be importunate with God in Prayer to uphold his Ministers Importunity held Christ with the Disciples when he was going away Luk. 24.29 Say Lord Thou shalt not go till thou hast blessea me with more spirituall blessings and grace by the means of grace Oh! lay hold upon God as Galeacius's children hung about his legs when their Father was going from them to live at Geneva The Prophet complains Isa