Elias Redivivus A SERMON PREACHED Before the Honorable House OF COMMONS In the Parish of Saint Margarets West minster at the publike Fast March 29 1643. By JOHN LIGHTFOOTE Preacher of the Gospel at Bartholomew Exchange London LONDON Printed by R. Cotes for Andrew Crooke and are to be sold at his shop at the signe of the Greene Dragon in Pauls Church-yard 1643. TO THE HONORABLE the House of COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT Right Honourable THE great Councell of Ierusalem sate neare the Temple and the greatest managings of the Councell were the matters of Religion Such hath been the posture of your desires and such the bent of your indeavours in all your sitting And as it is ingratitude in any degrees of men not to serve you who strive so much to preserve the State so especially is it in the Ministers of the Temple since you labour so much also to serve the Temple Obedience to your commands is the lowest expression of such a service because it is so naturally due yet is it the highest that my meannesse can reach unto Readinesse being joyned to that obedience These are the two mites that I can tender unto your Corban and the two Turtles that I have to offer at your Altar not having a better or more valuable gift and offering to bring your Noblenesse will please to accept of the gift because of the heart of the giver given with it and like him whom yee represent to account To obey to be better then Sacrifice and to hearken better then the fat of Rams What in obedience to your command was humbly presented to your eares and hearing not long agoe is now upon the like command in the same obedience and humility presented to your eyes and reading If it shall finde acceptance with you it secureth me against al thought or care of inferiors displeasure or exceptions I most humbly and submissively cast it my selfe and all that I am or can at the feete and disposall of your honourable House and because short discourse best fitteth your great occasions cease to trouble you with more words but shall never cease to solicite the Throne of grace for continued defence and blessing upon your persons and indeavours that the Law-giver may never faile till Shiloh come as we desire amongst us And so ever prayeth Your most unworthy but truly devoted Servant John Lightfoote A SERMON Preached before the Honorable House of Commons at the Publike Fast holden March 29. 1643. In the Parish Church of S. Margarets Westminster LUKE 1. 17. And he shall goe before him in the Spirit and power of Elias to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisedome of the just IF ever the Hearts of the Fathers had need to be turned to the children that need is now and if ever the Disobedient had need to be reduced to the wisedome of the just that need is now also but where is the Spirit and where the power where an Elias or where a Baptist to do the worke For if ever those searching and trying times which were spoken of so long agoe by our Saviour in the twelfth of Luk. and the three and fiftieth have overtaken any Nation they have overtaken this of ours Five in one house and they divided three against two and two against three The Father divided against the Sonne and the Sonne against the Father the Mother against the Daughter and the Daughter against the Mother the Mother in law against her Daughter in law and the Daughter in law against her Mother in law And a mans enemies are they of his owne houshold And if ever those irregular and exorbitant behaviours which were spoken of so long agoe by the Prophet Esay in the third of Esay and the fifth have over-runne and forraged any people they have done so by this of ours The people oppressed every one by another and every one by his neighbour the child behaving himselfe proudly against the ancient and the base against the honourable These are our sorrows but where our remedy this our misery but where our redresse For the divisions of Reuben there are great thoughts of heart but who can helpe them for the divisions in the Church for divisions in the State divisions in families divisions in opinions divisions in affections the Lord keepe them out of your two Houses divisions in every division but who can heale them As the Hoste at Nola in the story who when hee was commanded by the Romane Censor to go call the good men of the City to appeare before him went to the Church-yard and there called at the graves of the dead Oh yee good men of Nola come away for the Romane Censor cals for your appearance for hee knew not where to finde a good man alive So in these distractions and distempers of this our Land if we would finde out a joyner of hearts and a moulder of humours that could peece againe the disunited affections and forme againe the unfashioned demeanours of men towards men we might goe and looke for the mansion of Elias or go and knocke at the grave of John the Baptist and call them to come to such a cure as this for they once have wrought so great a cure but who can doe it that is now alive Oh how happy were the case with us if the Spirit and power of Elias were as ready to be found in your two Houses as they were once to be found in John the Baptist and as they are to be seene in the words of the text But as the Arke and the Ephod at the sacking of Nob they which should alwayes have remained together were by that dolefull accident parted asunder and kept at distance even so these two which God once joyned together in Elias and in the Baptist and which the holy Ghost hath joyned together in the words of the text some evill Counsell hath put asunder so that the Spirit is with you but the Power removed a great way off What our Saviour saith concerning offences It cannot be but offences will come but woe to him by whom the offence commeth so may wee dolefully concerning this It is our misery that this divorce is come among us but woe to that Counsell by whom the divorce first came it had beene good for that Counsellour had he never beene borne How happy are those dayes which are spoken of by the Psalmist when mercy and truth are met together and Righteousnesse and Peace doe kisse each other And how happily should we hope to see those dayes and those things in this Land to meet if we could but see these two to meete againe that are now so unhappily removed to distance Well all that we can doe is to seeke to drive them together with our prayers and as Moses for the Vrim and Thummim upon Levi so we for these united upon you to pray in publike and to pray in private to
pray on the Lords day and to pray on other dayes and it is to be a maine petition on this solemne day of humiliation that as the Lord hath put the Spirit of Elias into your hearts so that he would put the Power of Elias into your hands that as he hath made you willing so would he also make you able to turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisedome of the Righteous The words of the text are the last words of the old Testament there uttered by a Prophet here expounded by an Angell there concluding the Law and here beginning the Gospell Behold saith Malachi Mal. 4. 5. I will send you Eliah the Prophet And hee saith the Angell shall goe before him in the Spirit and power of Elias And hee shall turne the hearts of the Fathers to the children saith the one And to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children saith the other Thus sweetly and neerely should the two Testaments joyne together and thus divinely would they kisse each other but that the wretched Apocrypha doth thrust in betweene Like the two * Cherubims in the Temple Oracle as with their outer-wings they touch the two sides of the house from In the beginning to Come Lord Jesus so with their inner they would touch each other the end of the law with the beginning of the Gospell did not this patchery of humane invention divorce them a funder It is a thing not a little to be admired how this Apocrypha could ever get such place in the hearts and in the Bibles of the Primitive times as to come to sit in the very Center of them both But to this wonderment there may be some satisfaction given namely because that these bookes came to them from among the Jewes as well as the old Testament and the new And because that the Jewes alone and alone so long had had the knowledge of Divinity and Religion among them the converted Gentiles could not but give their writings extraordinary esteeme And because the Talmud not being yet written the world was not acquainted with the vanity and straine of Jewish learning those insuspecting times did swallow these bookes as not tasting as yet how unsavoury that was nor distinguishing these to be of the same tast It is therefore more to be admired that when the Talmud was written and the impious and ridiculous doctrines and fables of the Jewish schooles laid open to the world that then these bookes which shew themselves to be of the very same stampe in many things should not onely not be refused out the Bibles and out mens good conceit but also get better and further footing in the same but to this wonderment some satisfaction also may be given namely that superstition begun then to grow in the Church every day more and more and it became a Religion to doe as their forefathers had done before and to retaine what they had retained be it whatsoever it would and of what ungroundlesnesse soever But it is a wonder to which I could never yet receive satisfaction that in Churches that are reformed that have shaken off the yoke of superstition and unpinned themselves from off the sleeve of former customes or doing as their ancestors have done yet in such a thing as this and of so great import should doe as first ignorance and then superstition hath done before them It is true indeed that they have refused these bookes out of the Canon but they have reserved them still in the Bible as if God should have cast Adam out of the state of happinesse and yet have continued him in the place of happinesse Not to insist upon this which is some digression you know the Counsell of Sarah concerning Ismael and in that she outstripped Abraham in the Spirit of Prophecy Cast out the bond-woman and her sonne for the sonne of the bond-woman may not be heire with the sonne of the free In the words of the text you may see your owne worke and taske and those two things that you have so long laboured under and that we have so long longed after Reconciliation and Reformation You may behold in a part of the text Reconciliation in these words To turne the hearts of the fathers to the Children and Reformation in the other and the disobedient to the wisedome of the just These are the two hands of our master which is in heaven or rather the two good things in his hands after which we his servants have looked so long and doe looke this day and cannot be taken off till he give them to us These are the hands of your two Houses or rather the two great gifts which we wait till God put into your hands to conveigh them towards us These are the two pillars Jachin Boaz Firmenesse and Strength that we long to see set up at the doore of that Temple that you are in building And these are the two twins for which the Tamar of our England is in travaile and is pained to be delivered if there be but strength to bring them forth These two things contained in the latter part of the text are set forth and illustrated by two circumstances in the former First by the party and the function of that party that must performe so great a worke those included in these words He shall goe before him Secondly the qualifications and indowments of that party for the function and for the worke that expressed in these In the Spirit and power of Elias The party rare the function honourable his indowments singular his worke divine He shall goe before him c. We will take up the words according to this Division but not according to this order for as in nature the agent is before the action and as in the text the workeman is named before the worke so are they fit to be considered and so will we take them into our handling and so shall we take them as they lie in the text and first of the first He shall goe before him Who are meant by the He and the him in this part of the text the dimmest eye that is will easily judge and discerne upon its owne reading namely John the Baptist and our Saviour Christ Two that were in a very neere relation one to another by nature for they were kinsmen according to the flesh but of a neerer and of a higher relation in regard of their function for they were they that began the Gospell or the one begun the other perfected they were they that were the two great Prophets of the new Testament or the one greater then a Prophet and the other greater then a man I cannot omit that which is not nor cannot be omitted by any expositor it is so plaine upon the him in this part namely that in the verse next before he is called the God of Israel He shall turne many of the Children to
the best reason she can give for that her zeale is but this because her Fathers worshipped in that Mountaine Joh. 4. 20. Laban in the marriage of his daughter Leah will rather follow custome then either conscience or his owne promise and covenant He had agreed with Jacob for Rachel and for Rachel had Jacob served but when it commeth to the point of performance he suborneth Leah and deceives him with her and what is his reason Why it was not the custome of the Countrey to give the younger before the elder Gen. 29. 26. How the predominancy of this humour in the diseased body of this Church doth cause us to cast up againe the wholesome Physicke of a Reformation it is knowne too well The confession of the Prophet may be taken up concerning us and with addition We have sinned with our forefathers nay we are resolved so to doe still The errours that the ignorance and dulnesse of former times did admit into the worship of God and profession of Religion we are resolved to retaine because they were the Customes of former times 3. And thirdly a maine obstacle in the way of Christs powerfull comming among a people and in the way of your worke that seekes thus to bring him is a corruption of opinion that men have concerning Christ or Religion it selfe Religion to carnall men must be a little gawdy or else it cannot be a pleasing Religion as the Virgin Mary must be a Lady or she is not thought fit to be a Saint The simplicity and plainenesse of the Gospel spoiles its intertainment with sensuall minds And Antichrist by putting his Religion in so gorgeous clothes hath gained so much upon them and stollen mens hearts thorough their eyes God did once indeed comply with the grosse dulnesse of the Jewes that he might winne them and because they could not goe further in Religion then they were led by the eyes he gave them such a one as suited to them and because it was so with them once carnall men would have it so still These are the three sonnes of Anak with whom you have had so long to wrestle and with whom you have to combate still before you can bring our Israel to the desired Canaan I may say againe that it is no wonder that this worke in your hands goes so slowly on when three such Giants doe seeke to hinder it You have to fight not with flesh and bloud but with principalities and powers with the strong holds of Satan in the hearts of men Oh that we could finde out some such powerfull forerunners to goe before you as might cleare the way for your readier passage Where might we get so skilfull a Mustian as could calme these evill spirits that thus disturbe all It is farre from my skill to advise you what to doe in these respects But to you others that sit by and are spectators how these Worthies labour under these opposals this may shew what need you have to drive on the great and weighty workes that they have in hand with the earnestnesse of your prayers Their hands like those of Moses it is no wonder if they be weary with holding up so long in so great imployments these must be the Aaron and Hur that must support them that they fall not quite Me thinke we may even see written in the very things that they are in managing they are so weighty what Paul inserts to so many of his Epistles Brethren pray for us And Brethren pray for them I will conclude all in the words of the Psalmist Let my tongue cleave to the roofe of my mouth nay let me change the number for I know you will joyne with me in the saying Let our tongues cleave to the roofes of our mouthes if we forget the Parliament in our best devotions And so have I done with the first part that I named the Person and his function that must doe the worke now I come to the qualification of that person for that worke and for his function He shall goe before him in the spirit and power of Elias We meete in this part with two severall parties Elias and John men exceedingly renowned in their generations and exceeding great reformers in their times Elias in the middle of the times of the Law and John in the beginning of the times of the Gospel We might deale with them as the Prophet Ezekiel doth with his two sticks with the names written upon them Judah and Joseph First we might take in either hand one and treat of them severally then might we take them both into one hand and in our handling they might become one but we will take up such things concerning them onely as shall be most materiall to be considered and most sutable to the present times And first we may lay this position and the text will warrant it That Elias shall never come to live and continue upon earth againe The Prophet Malachi indeed delivereth it in such termes as if he should come once againe Behold I will send you Eliah the Prophet And the Septuagint have driven the naile to the head to make this sense the surer for they have added Behold I send you Elias the Tishbite yet the Angel Gabriel in the text doth tell us that Elias himselfe is not to come in his owne soule but another in his spirit nor he in his owne person but it was John Baptist was to come in his power And so our Saviour Matth. 11. 14. And if you will receive it this is Elias which was to come and Matth. 17. 12. Elias saith he is already come which his Disciples doe truely understand of John the Baptist The Jewes as they do erroniously hold that the Messiah is not yet come so doe they hold also that Elias shall personally come before his comming And it is no wonder that they erre that errour mistaking the meaning of Malachi when so many Christians doe erre the same error with them though they have an exposition by an Angel and by our Saviour upon that Prophecie Jansenius Maldonate and others of the same nest Jesuites and Papists explaining these words that we have in hand doe resolve that they are more fitly to be applied to Elias his second comming which is yet to be then to his comming in the dayes of Ahab and they glosse them thus He shall goe before Christ at his first comming in the spirit and power that Elias shall goe before him in at his second A glosse much like that senselesse one of the Sect in Epiphanius upon these words in Gen. 1. 27. God created man in his owne image whereon they seemed to hold that the body of man was made after the Image of God and that Christs humane shape was the copy for the shape of Adam whereas Adam was not made a man after the likenesse of Christ but Christ was made man after the likenesse of Adam Even so is it with these expositors They
them that came to hinder it For he answered saying Who is my mother and who are my brethren Marke 3. 33. 2. The power of Elias in Reformation was exceeding much and he did wondrous things in what he did but yet he left exceeding much undone which he could not helpe and abundance of corruption which he could not remove He tooke away Baalim but he could not take away the golden Calves he destroyed the Prophets of the one but he could not destroy the Prophets of the other Foure hundred and fifty Prophets of Baal perished by his meanes at Carmel and yet are there foure hundred false Prophets left that seduce Ahab to goe to Ramoth Thus impossible is an utter extipation of all corruption out of a State and Church that is corrupt Lay these two now together in the two scales of an unprejudicate judgement and they will helpe very well to ballance and to poize a right your thoughts and censures concerning these Worthies that are toyling in our worke Some thinke they have beene too forward others thinke they have beene too slow some that they have done too much others that they have done too little some complaine of too much zeale and some of too little reformation To the former may be answered that Elias must be zealous if he will reforme to the latter that Elias cannot utterly purge out all corruption though he be Elias and to both together that in stead of murmuring against them it were farre fitter to be thankfull to God for them for that he hath put so much zeale into their hearts and so much reformation already into their hands as that we see more already then we expected ever to have seene The same Lord continue the same Spirit unto them and increase the Power that their hearts and their hands may hold up and grow strong that we may see the salvation of the Lord exerted by them for the reconciling of the disaffected and the reducing of the disobedient And so I passe to the third part of the text the worke of the Baptist to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children c. The case was wofull when father and sonne had need of a reconciler to make them friends yet was it theirs then and so is it ours now It was a very hard taske surely to John the Baptist to turne the hearts of the fathers to the children or to doe this worke for I finde it a very hard taske and trouble to expositors to finde out and to resolve who these fathers and children were Some by the fathers understand the Jewes and by the children Christ and his Apostles as Luke 11. 19. and that John turned the hearts of the fathers to the children when he brought the Jewes to imbrace their Doctrine but how can the other part be made good with this glosse that he turned the heart of Christ and his Apostles to the Jewes Some render it thus He shall turne the heart of the fathers to the Children by the right understanding of the Scriptures and the disobedient to the wisdome of the righteous by the obedience of faith An exposition that leaveth us as farre to seek who were the fathers and who the children as we were before Others therefore come nearer the letter and expound it from the difference that was at that time in opinions among the Jewes the father it may be a Pharisee and one sonne a Sadducee and another an Essaean and John by bringing them all to the entertainment of the Gospel extinguished that division which opinions had set betweene them It is true indeed that these three Sects were among the Jewes at the Baptists comming the three Shepheards which were to be destroyed in one moneth Zach. 11. 8. but for any such division in Sect betwixt father and sonnes it is but a conjecture and it cannot be so certainly averred But furthest off of all other glosses and the most improper is that of Jansenius and others of his feather which yet they hold to be the nearest and the properest of all and that is this That John turned the hearts of the children to the fathers when he brought the Jewes to whom he preached or those of his owne time to imbrace the faith and doctrine of the Patriarchs that had beene before and the hearts of the fathers to the children when by reducing them thus to that faith he occasioned that those holy men in Limbo did beginne to affect them and take them to heart which they had not done before I will not stand to examine or convince this exposition for it is not worth the labour you your selves have confuted it in thought I know as soone as heard it The most genuine and reall meaning of the words that we have in hand I conceive to be this That by the Fathers are to be understood the Jewes and by the Children the Gentiles and by Johns turning each others heart unto others his winning them both joyntly and unanimously to the knowledge and profession of Christ and of the Gospel and by the tie of that to the joynt communion one with another And I am made confident and imboldened to entertaine this exposition as the very meaning of the place upon these reasons 1. Because the Church of the Gentiles is stiled by the name of the children of the Jews cōmonly and constantly in the Prophets as Esay 54. 13. All thy children shall be taught of the Lord and 60. 4. Thy sonnes shall come from farre and thy daughters shall be turned at thy sight and 62. 5. As a young man marrieth a Virgin so shall thy sonnes marry thee And in very many other places 2. Because it was a speciall and peculiar worke and office of the Gospel to unite and tie the Jew and Gentile into one so saith the Apostle Ephes. 2. 14. Christ is our peace who hath made both one and the Gospel the meanes And then must it be the worke and office of the Baptist who began the Gospel 3. Experience and the History it selfe confirmeth this our exposition for as the Gospel in its owne nature and promulgation belonged to the Gentiles as well as the Jewes and as John came for a witnesse that all through him might beleeve the one Nation as well as the other so did he baptize and convert some of the one as well as the other Romane Souldiers as well as Jewish Pharisees and make them both according to the phrase which Josephus useth of him {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} {non-Roman} to convent or knit together in his Baptisme 4. This exposition maketh John the more fully to resemble Elias who was a Preacher and a Prophet to the Gentiles as well as to Israel nay the first Prophet of the Gentiles This our Saviour toucheth Luke 4. 25. Many widowes were in Israel in the dayes of Elias but to none was he sent saving to one in Sarepta a City of Zidon and the
the great thing in Religion As his Counsell was to agree to Gregories Austen if he were humble so be it our holy policy to tie to that man in friendship that is religious and as Jehu to Jonadab 2 King 10. 15. If we light on a man whose heart is right towards the Lord as we desire a friends heart should be to us let us fixe on that friend and give him the hand Secondly this also may shew us who cannot be our friend and with whom it is impossible to have unity and amity namely with the Church of Rome which is cleane Antipodes to us in Religion Is there peace Jehu saith Joram to him No there is no peace where whoredomes and witchcrafts are so many No communion can be betwixt Christ and Belial or betwixt Religion and Idolatry for so I conceive the word Belial signifieth throughout the Scripture The enmity that God himselfe fixed at the very beginning betwixt the seed of the Serpent and the seed of the Woman must continue unreconciled to the very end and as quos Deus conjunxit whom God hath joyned together no man whatsoever must put asunder so what God hath parted and put asunder no man must offer to joyne together Who are the seed of the Woman and the seed of the Serpent so plaine to be seene as Christ and Antichrist and he that will seeke to make conjunction of Rome and us will marry light and darknesse God and the Devill Christ and Antichrist together and make a friendship betwixt those betwixt whom God himselfe hath doomed an enmity while the world endureth We blesse God that hath brought us out of her familiarity and friendship to be now her haters and hated of her and we blesse the time when we first fell from the society and converse of Egypt to be her enemies and at distance with her And we blesse you and your endeavours that strive so much and so constantly to keepe us cleare of re-ingagements And may the worke prosper in your hands and you in the worke to hold us still at our proper distance to the feed of the Serpent and to keepe us at enmity where God hath set it but for turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the reducing of the disobedient to the wisedome of the just it is our prayer still and still as it was before that you may have the power of Elias or the Baptist as you have the spirit and so I come to the last part of the text and the second part of Johns worke in his Ministration To turne the disobedient to the wisdome of the just These words as they lie in our English Translation doe shew no great difficulties but being examined in the Originall they are not so very easie A man scruple that appears in both is this That the Angel undertaking to quote the Prophet should so far now decline from his text In the former part that we have newly handled he followeth him punctually and verbatim He shall turne the hearts of the fathers to the children so saith the Prophet and so the Angel but now that he should have taken up the other part in these words And the hearts of the children to the fathers he changeth them into this clause And the disobedient to the wisdome of the just But to this may be answered 1. That the Angel is not so punctuall to cite the very letter of the Prophet as to give the sense And so we may observe it to be usuall in the new Testament in its allegations from the old And that he giveth the same sense or a true interpretation of the Prophet we shall see as we goe 2. It was not very long after the Baptizing and Preaching of John that the Jews ceased to be a Church and Nation nay even in the time of him himselfe they shewed themselves enemies to the Gospel and to the Professors of the same for the generall or greatest part of them therefore he saith not that the hearts of the children the Gentiles should be turned to their fathers the Jewes which should cease to be fathers and to be a people but to the wisedome of the just And thus in the first part of his speech about turning the hearts of the fathers to the children he intimateth the Jewes that should be reconciled and united to the Gentiles in imbracing the Gospel and in this latter by omitting to call them Fathers he giveth a touch of the hostility and evill minde that the others of the Jewes should beare both to it and to the Gentiles that imbraced it And now that we see the reason and difference in the allegation let us take up the words that thus differ every one single and one after another as they lie in order and would the time permit every word would afford us matter profitably to insist upon but I will onely hint it as we goe along for I feare to offend in transgressing the time 1. As in this clause he refuseth to use the terme of fathers for the reason mentioned so doth he also of the correlative children because of his refusing of that And yet he coucheth the sense of that title under the word disobedient which in its most proper and naturall signification reflecteth upon untowardly children disobedient to their parents For though there be a disobedience to any Superiour whatsoever as to Kings Magistrates Masters and the like yet is the obedience of children to Parents the Originall from whence it receiveth denomination and that appeareth in that those Superiours are called Fathers As therefore the Angel omitting to call the Jewes Fathers insinuateth their opposition against the Gospel so by terming the Gentiles Disobedient in stead of Children he sheweth what they were before they imbraced it The vulgar Latine in stead of Disobedient readeth Incredulous or unbeleeving which though the Greek word doth sometime signifie as might be evidenced in divers instances yet that it doth not so in this place may be collected from these considerations First that the speech is concerning children and fathers as is apparent in the clause preceding and betweene them disobedience is a more proper terme and notion then Inoredulity Secondly that he saith not He shall turne them to the faith which were the most proper if he spake of the unbeleeving but to the wisdom of the righteous And thirdly that the preaching of the Baptist was more especially the doctrine of repentance as his Baptisme was the Baptisme of repentance but the preaching of Christ was the doctrine of faith Therefore John saith onely Repent Matth. 3. 2. but our Saviour Repent and beleeve Mar. 1. 15. Now from this double signification of the Originall word and indeed also from the proper cause of the Heathens disobedience we might observe that a chiefe and maine cause of disobedience is unbeliefe It is a saying of the Jewes in their Talmud in the Treatise Maccoth
And how farre were they from intertaining such a Christ as this when they expected one of a quality so infinitely different Who could beleeve that the title over our Saviours head upon his Crosse should be a stumbling blocke unto the Jewes feete And yet was it so at that very time when they fixt it there and so it hath beene ever since and so it is at this very day Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jewes They looked for the Messiah to come from Bethlehem and they knew him but for Jesus of Nazareth And they expected a pompous King of the Jewes and how farre was he from such a King And thus they knew not him when he came from Galilee nor the voices of the Prophets what they meant by his Kingdome and thus were they very farre unlikely to receive him when he came These three things then being thus considered and notice taken how farre this people of the Jewes were gone away both in life and doctrine what corruption they had contracted in their manners what doting upon their ancient Customes and what misprision concerning Christ it is no wonder if he that came to reforme these things that were so farre amisse had need of a spirited and a powerfull forerunner to make some way for him against he came And as it was at our Saviours comming in the flesh so also is it at his comming in the spirit Whensoever Christ is to be brought in among a corrupt and irregular people in the power and purity of his Word Gospel great hinderances doe ever offer themselves to stop the way and they had need of great forerunners to cleare them thence A Jerusalem is never built street and wall but those times are troublous a Reformation in a corrupted State is never wrought but with these opposals The very same things doe make the waies rough and unpassable for Christs comming now in his worke and power that made it then when he came in the flesh These three are as the net upon Mispah and the snare upon Tabor Hos. 5. 1. as the ambushes that the Idolatrous Priests laid upon those Mountaines to catch up all the passengers that should go to Jerusalem to worship the true God these catch up men that they come not at Christ These are the Korah Dathan and Abiram that are ever ready to oppose the Moses and Aaron that seeke to work good in the Congregation and the Jannes Jambres and Egyptians that affront them in the worke of the Lord And hence is it no wonder that that worke of the same nature that you have had so long in hand hath gone so slowly and so heavily on For 1. How truly is the morall of that Story concerning Anomon in 2 Sam. 12. come to passe in these dayes of ours First he was sicke for love of his sister Tamar and having used her at his pleasure he was then as sicke for hate So hath it beene with us of this Land we were sicke but a while agoe for a Parliament and nothing would cure us if we had not that like David we longed and longed againe for this water of Bethlehem that is beside the gate and could not rest till we had got it and yet when we have obtained it and that not without the hazard of your lives we now cast it upon the ground and care not for it We are now as weary of this Manna which God hath sent us as we were desirous of it before it came What should be the reason of mens such crossenesse and contrariety in their affections as to will and to loath to desire and to detest the same thing with the same earnestnesse in so short a time Why that in the Prophet You would have healed Babel and she will not be healed Men are affrighted I know not how at the rumor of a Reformation because they are afraid to be stripped off their carnalities and corruptions Like a simple Patient that in an eating and corroding sore if the Surgeon can abate his paine he likes it well but to cut out any proud dangerous and corrupting flesh that he will not endure Just so hath it been with us Whilest you eased us of the paines of those pressures that did pinch and took off the yoke from off our neck that glad so sore it pleas'd us well and you had our liking but to be restrained any whit from our former beloved sensualities to be straitned any thing of the extravagancies of our former wayes by the reines of a Reformation oh this goes to the quicke and we cannot indure it Durus sermo a hard businesse who can abide it Our Saviour hath told us long agoe that parting with an old acquaintance bosome sinne is as pinching to flesh and blouds as to pluck out an eye and to cut off a hand and we see it true by too wofull experience by mens unseparablenesse from their delights they carrying them and they them and will not be parted to perdition The Vine Olive and Figtree in Jothams Parable will not leave their wine fatnesse and sweetnesse to gaine a Kingdome Herod his Herodias to save his soule nor men of corrupt manners the corruption of their manners for a blessed Reformation This is the first adversary that you have in your way that seeketh to crosse the glorious work that you have in hand And there is a second which is like to this as a twinne of the same wombe and as bad as it and that is corruption in opinion concerning ancient Customes and a fixednesse to what our forefathers have used before 2. Custome as it is commonly said is a second nature and men cannot easily leave that which they have long used themselves and they will not easily leave that which they have seene and knowne to be used by their Predecessors The Ephraimites in the booke of Judges that had beene brought up to say Sibboleth all their life cannot say Shibboleth to save their life but they perish two and forty thousand Famous and fearfull is the story of Rabodus some call him by another name who when he was so farre perswaded from his Heathenisme into Christianity that he had one foote in the water towards being baptized and there asking whither his forefathers were gone that were not Christians nor baptized whether to Heaven or Hell and it being answered to Hell he puls his foote back againe out of the water with words to this purpose That he would goe whither his ancestors were gone and so he resolved to be what his Ancestors had beene This the more is the pity is the ultima Analysis of the Religion of too many thousands in this Land and time men and women are too commonly and generally pinned in opinion and in practice of religious things upon the customes and usage of ancient times and they are loth to be parted from them The woman of Sychar was zealous for the Temple upon Mount Gerizim but
was a man as may be guessed by his writings of a very shallow wit Yet was he the Author of the like error to most Ecclesiasticall men who cited this mans antiquity for the defence of their part as Irenaeus and whosoever else is of the same opinion with him I will not censure nor condemne the opinion but referre it to superiour examination onely this I cannot but say of it that I doe not remember that ever I heard or read of an opinion of so extreame and monstrous strangenesse that in so short a time hath gotten so great a beliefe and so large an entertainment and neither tongue or pen hath stirred against it It is our hope and prayer that once you may have liberty and leisure from the great rent in the whole peece of the State to looke upon the rippings in the seames of the Church that such opinions as this and others may be taken either by you or by your authority into examination before like Joab and Abishai the sons of Zerviah they grow too strong and defie a tryall The Spirit and power of Elias is held by some to meane but one and the same thing his powerfull Spirit So indeed sometime runneth the sense of the Hebrew stile As in that answer of our Saviour Joh. 14. 6. I am the way the truth and the life the scope of the question that occasioned it seemeth to call it to such a sense I am the true and the living way Others distinguish the meaning with the words and by the Spirit of Elias understand patience and tolerancy of persecution and by the power the prevalent and efficacious virtue of his ministration But we need not to goe farre for interpretations when either the words are of no great difficulty or what they be of will easily be explained by the Scripture it selfe By Elias his Spirit then are we to understand not his owne within him but the Spirit of the Lord or of Prophecy upon him And so his spirit is said to be upon John as Moses his spirit was upon the Elders and the spirit of the same Elias upon Elisha By the power of Elias upon the Baptist is not meant the power of miracles for John wrought none wheras Elias did many but his power of preaching for the conversion of many unto God So that whereas the ancient Prophets of the Law and among them Elias had a double power of the Spirit upon them To foretell things to come and to worke miracles so had John the first Prophet of the Gospell a double power but of another nature and a better He foretold not things to come but he explained those that had him foretold and he wrought not miracles upon bodies but he was miraculously powerfull upon soules Now should we come to compare Elias the Baptist ther we should finde them agree in many parallels as that they both came in very corrupt times that they both restored religion very much in that corruption that they were both persecuted exceedingly for that restoring Elias by Ahab and Jezabell and John by Herod and Herodias and divers other agreements upon which not to insist because they bee obvious to every eye this collection may we take up from the words in hand That Elias is a proper and pregnant patterne for Reformers As when Moses was making the Sanctuary and the appurtenances God often cals upon him to make all things according to the patterne which was shewed him in the mount So in this like worke of yours which you have in hand can you platforme out a reformation by a better patterne then by Elias since you will not doe it but by some patterne from the Mount A man that in the text is a copy to John the Baptist in his reforming And a man that in his owne time restored all things as our Saviour saith of him Mat. 17. 11. And fitly then may he be a patterne for these times of ours He restored perishing religion the decaying law he restored forgotten Prophecy and as the Jews hold forsaken Circumcision for of Circumcision doe they understand those words of Elias himselfe They have forsaken thy Covenant 1 King 19. 14. And of Elias the restorer of Circumcision they misunderstand those words of the Prophet The Angell or Messenger of the Covenant Mal. 3. 1. But I stand not here as a Surgeon over his Anatomy to reade unto you a Lecture of reforming upon the Sceleton of Elias it were beyond good manners as it is beyond my skill Let me addresse my selfe to you that sit by and are spectators of these Worthies as they labour in their worke in a word or two of application and that according to the two words that are before us the Spirit of Elias and his power 1. By the Spirit of Elias I told you is understood the Spirit of God that was upon him Now as the Apostle saith x Cor. 12. 4. the Spirit was but one but the gifts were diverse For looke in the fourth of the Acts and the thirty first it is said of the Apostles there that when they had prayed the place was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Ghost And so they had beene some dayes before namely on Pentecost day Act. 2. 4. Now they having beene filled then how can they be said to be filled againe Why then with the gift of tongues and now with the gift of holy boldnesse for for that it was they prayed ver. 29. Among the diverse gifts then of the holy Spirit that Elias had this is not the last nor the least that made him renowned His extraordinary zeale for the Lord of Hostes So much expresseth he concerning himselfe 1 King 19. 10. 14. And so much seemeth our Saviour to aime at in his answer to his two disciples that would have fire fetched from heaven as Elias had done Ye know not saith he what manner of spirit ye are of Luk. 9. 55. of a zeale beyond your warrant and you would be forward you know not how The thing that you may take notice of from hence is this That no true reformation can be expected which is not carried on with a spirit of zeale The workes of God must be wrought with his Spirit they that desire to forward his glory must do it with a holy forwardnesse It is the honour of Levi Deut. 33. 9. that when he was about the imployment of the Lord he was so zealous in it that he forgot all civill relations and said unto his father and to his mother I have not seene him neither did he acknowledge his brethren nor knew his owne children And so our Saviour in the third of Marke when his mother and kindred would have taken him off from preaching for they said he will faint or he is beside himselfe be it whether it will for the originall word will beare both he was so zealous in the worke in hand that he would not owne