Angel but as God himself For it is the power of God in the hand of a man and he that resists resists God's Ordinance And I pray remember that there is not only no power greater than God's but there is no other for all Power is his The consequent of this is plain enough I need say no more of it It is all one to us who commands God or God's Vicegerent This was the first thing to be observed Secondly there can be but two things in the world required to make Obedience necessary the greatness of the Authority and the worthiness of the Thing In the first you see the case can have no difference because the thing it self is but one There is but one Authority in the world and that is God's as there is but one Sun whose light is diffused into all Kingdoms But is there not great difference in the Thing commanded Yes certainly there is some but nothing to warrant disobedience for whatever the thing be it may be commanded by man if it be not countermanded by God For 1. It is not required that every thing commanded should of it self be necessary for God himself oftentimes commands things which have in them no other excellency than that of Obedience What made Abraham the friend of God and what made his offer to kill his Son to be so pleasing to God It had been naturally no very great good to cut the throat of a little child but only that it was Obedience What excellency was there in the journeys of the Patriarchs from Mesopotamia to Syria from the Land of Canaan into Aegypt and what thanks could the sons of Israel deserve that they sate still upon the seventh day of the week and how can a man be dearer unto God by keeping of a Feast or building of a Booth or going to Jerusalem or cutting off the foreskin of a Boy or washing their hands and garments in fair water There was nothing in these things but the Obedience And when our blessed Lord himself came to his Servant to take of him the Baptism of Repentance alas he could take nothing but the water and the ceremony for as Tertullian observes he was nullius poenitentiae debitor he was indeed a just person and needed no repentance but even so it became him to fulfil all righteousness but yet even then it was that the Holy Spirit did descend upon his holy head and crowned that Obedience though it were but a Ceremony Obedience you see may be necessary when the Law is not so For in these cases God's Son and God's Servants did obey in things which were made good only by the Commandment and if we do so in the Instances of humane Laws there is nothing to be said against it but that what was not of it self necessary is made so by the Authority of the Commander and the force of the Commandment But there is more in it than so For 2. We pretend to be willing to obey even in things naturally not necessary if a divine command does interpose but if it be only a commandment of man and the thing be not necessary of it self then we desire to be excused But will we do nothing else We our selves will do many things that God hath not commanded and may not our Superiors command us in many cases to do what we may lawfully do without a commandment Can we become a Law unto our selves and cannot the word and power of our Superiors also become a Law unto us hath God given more to a private than to a publick hand But consider the ill consequents of this fond opinion Are all the practices of Geneva or Scotland recorded in the word of God are the triffling Ceremonies of their publick Penance recorded in the four Gospels are all the rules of decency and all things that are of good report and all the measures of Prudence and the laws of peace and War and the Customs of the Churches of God and the lines of publick honesty are all these described to us by the Laws of God If they be let us see and read them that we may have an end to all questions and minute cases of Conscience but if they be not and yet by the Word of God these are bound upon us in general and no otherwise then it follows that the particulars of all these which may be infinite and are innumerable yet may be the matter of humane Laws and then are bound upon us by the power of God put into the hands of man The consequent is this that whatsoever is commanded by our Superiors according to the will of God or whatsoever is not against it is of necessity to be obeyed 3. But what if our Princes or our Prelates command things against the Word of God what then Why nothing then but that we must obey God and not man there 's no dispute of that But what then again Why therefore sayes the Papist I will not obey the Protestant Kings because against the Word of God they command me to come to Church where Heresie is preached and I will not acknowledge the Bishops saith the Presbyterian because they are against the Discipline and Scepter of Jesus Christ and the Independent hates Parochial meetings and is wholly for a gathered Church and supposes this to be the practice Apostolical and I will not bring my Child to Baptism saith the Anabaptist because God calls none but Believers to that Sacrament and I will acknowledge no Clergy no Lord no Master saith the Quaker because Christ commands us to call no man Master on the earth and be not called of men Rabbi And if you call upon these men to obey the Authority God had set over them they tell you with one voice with all their hearts as far as the Word of God will give them leave but God is to be obeyed and not man and therefore if you put the Laws in execution against them they will obey you passively because you are stronger and so long as they know it they will not stir against you but they in the mean time are little less than Martyrs and you no better than Persecutors What shall we do now for here is evidently a great heap of disorder they all confess that Authority must be obeyed but when you come to the tryal none of them all will do it and they think they are not bound but because their Opinions being contrary cannot all be right and it may be none of them are it is certain that all this while Authority is infinitely wronged and prejudiced amongst them when all phantastick Opinions shall be accounted a sufficient reason to despise it I hope the Presbyterian will join with the Protestant and say that the Papist and the Socinian and the Independent and the Anabaptist and the Quaker are guilty of Rebellion and Disobedience for all their pretence of the Word of God to be on their side and I am more sure that all these will join
it at all Remember that the Snail out-went the Eagle and won the goal because she set out betimes To sum up all every good man is a new Creature and Christianity is not so much a Divine institution as a Divine frame and temper of Spirit which if we heartily pray for and endeavour to obtain we shall find it as hard and as uneasie to sin against God as now we think it impossible to abstain from our most pleasing sins For as it is in the Spermatick vertue of the Heavens which diffuses it self Universally upon all sublunary bodies and subtilly insinuating it self into the most dull and unactive Element produces Gold and Pearls Life and motion and brisk activities in all things that can receive the influence and heavenly blessing so it is in the Holy Spirit of God and the word of God and the grace of God which S. John calls the seed of God it is a Law of Righteousness and it is a Law of the Spirit of Life and changes Nature into Grace and dulness into zeal and fear into love and sinful habits into innocence and passes on from grace to grace till we arrive at the full measures of the stature of Christ and into the perfect liberty of the sons of God so that we shall no more say The evil that I would not that I do but we shall hate what God hates and the evil that is forbidden we shall not do not because we are strong of our selves but because Christ is our strength and he is in us and Christs strength shall be perfected in our weakness and his grace will be sufficient for us and he will of his own good pleasure work in us not only to will but also to do velle perficere saith the Apostle to will and to do it throughly and fully being sanctified throughout to the glory of his Holy name and the eternal salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ our Lord To whom with the Father c. FIDES FORMATA OR Faith working by Love SERM. III. JAMES II. 24. You see then how that by Works a Man is justified and not by Faith only THat we are justified by Faith S. Paul tells us That we are also justified by Works we are told in my Text and both may be true But that this Justification is wrought by Faith without Works to him that worketh not but believeth saith S. Paul That this is not wrought without Works S. James is as express for his Negative as S. Paul was for his Affirmative and how both these should be true is something harder to unriddle But affirmanti incumbit probatio he that affirms must prove and therefore S. Paul proves his Doctrine by the example of Abraham to whom Faith was imputed for Righteousness and therefore not by Works And what can be answered to this Nothing but this That S. James uses the very same Argument to prove that our Justification is by Works also For our Father Abraham was justified by works when he offered up his Son Isaac Now which of these says true Certainly both of them but neither of them have been well understood insomuch that they have not only made divisions of heart among the faithful but one party relies on Faith to the disparagement of Good Life and the other makes Works to be the main ground of our hope and confidence and consequently to exclude the efficacy of Faith The one makes Christian Religion a lazy and unactive Institution and the other a bold presumption on our selves while the first tempts us to live like Heathens and the other recalls us to live the life of Jews while one says I am of Paul and another I am of S. James and both of them put it in danger of evacuating the institution and the death of Christ one looking on Christ only as a Law-giver and the other only as a Saviour The effects of these are very sad and by all means to be diverted by all the wise considerations of the Spirit My purpose is not with subtle Arts to reconcile them that never disagreed the two Apostles spake by the same Spirit and to the same last design though to differing intermedial purposes But because the great end of Faith the design the definition the state the oeconomy of it is that all Believers should not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit Before I fall to the close handling of the Text I shall premise some preliminary Considerations to prepare the way of holiness to explicate the differing sences of the Apostles to understand the Question and the Duty by removing the causes of the vulgar mistakes of most men in this Article and then proceed to the main Inquiry 1. That no man may abuse himself or others by mistaking of hard words spoken in mystery with alegorical expressions to secret senses wrapt up in a cloud such as are Faith and Justification and Imputation and Righteousness and Works be pleased to consider That the very word Faith is in Scripture infinitely ambiguous insomuch that in the Latine Concordances of S. Hierom's Bible published by Robert Stephens you may see no less then twenty two several senses and accceptations of of the word Faith set down with the several places of Scripture referring to them to which if out of my own own observation I could add no more yet these are an abundant demonstration That whatsoever is said of the efficacy of Faith for Justification is not to be taken in such a sence as will weaken the necessity and our carefulness of good life when the word may in so many other sences be taken to verifie the affirmation of S. Paul of Justification by Faith so as to reconcile it to the necessity of Obedience 2. As it is in the word Faith so it is in Works for by Works is meant sometimes the thing done sometimes the labour of doing sometimes the good will it is sometimes taken for a state of good life sometimes for the Covenant of Works it sometimes means the Works of the Law sometimes the Works of the Gospel sometimes it is taken for a perfect actual unsinning Obedience sometimes for a sincere endeavour to please God sometimes they are meant to be such which can challenge the Reward as of Debt sometimes they mean only a disposition of the person to receive the favour and the grace of God Now since our good Works can be but of one kind for ours cannot be meritorious ours cannot be without sin all our life they cannot be such as need no repentance it is no wonder if we must be justified without Works in this sence for by such Works no man living can be justified And these S. Paul calls the Works of the Law and sometimes he calls them our righteousness and these are the Covenant of Works But because we came into the World to serve God and God will be obeyed and Jesus Christ came into the World to save us from sin and
cannot know him And this is the particular I am now to speak to The way by which the Spirit of God teaches us in all the ways and secrets of God is Love and Holinesse Secreta Dei Deo nostro filiis domus ejus Gods secrets are to himself and the sons of his House saith the Jewish Proverb Love is the great instrument of Divine knowledge that is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the height of all that is to be taught or learned Love is Obedience and we learn his words best when we practise them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle those things which they that learn ought to practise even while they practise will best learn Quisquis non venit profectò nec didicit Ita enim Dominus docet per Spiritus gratiam ut quod quisque didicerit non tantum cognoscendo videat sed etiam volendo appetat agendo perficiat St. Austin De gratia Christi lib. 1. c. 14. Unlesse we come to Christ we shall never learn for so our Blessed Lord teaches us by the grace of his Spirit that what any one learns he not only sees it by knowledge but desires it by choice and perfects it by practice 4. When this is reduced to practice and experience we find not only in things of practice but even in deepest mysteries not only the choicest and most eminent Saints but even every good man can best tell what is true and best reprove an error He that goes about to speak of and to understand the mysterious Trinity and does it by words and names of mans invention or by such which signifie contingently if he reckons this mystery by the Mythology of Numbers by the Cabala of Letters by the distinctions of the School and by the weak inventions of disputing people if he only talks of Essences and existencies Hypostases and personalities distinctions without difference and priority in Coequalities and unity in Pluralities and of superior Praedicates of no larger extent then the inferior Subjects he may amuse himself and find his understanding will be like St. Peters upon the Mount of Tabor at the Transfiguration he may build three Tabernacles in his head and talk something but he knows not what But the good man that feels the power of the Father and he to whom the Son is become Wisdom Righteousnesse Sanctification and Redemption he in whose heart the love of the Spirit of God is spred to whom God hath communicated the Holy Ghost the Comforter this man though he understands nothing of that which is unintelligible yet he only understands the mysteriousnesse of the Holy Trinity No man can be convinced well and wisely of the Article of the Holy Blessed and Vndivided Trinity but he that feels the mightiness of the Father begetting him to a new life the wisdom of the Son building him up in a most holy Faith and the love of the Spirit of God making him to become like unto God He that hath passed from his Childhood in Grace under the spiritual generation of the Father and is gone forward to be a young man in Christ strong and vigorous in holy actions and holy undertakings and from thence is become an old Disciple and strong and grown old in Religion and the conversation of the Spirit this man best understands the secret and undiscernable oeconomy he feels this unintelligible Mystery and sees with his heart what his tongue can never express and his Metaphysicks can never prove In these cases Faith and Love are the best Knowledg and Jesus Christ is best known by the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and if the Kingdom of God be in us then we know God and are known of him and when we communicate of the Spirit of God when we pray for him and have received him and entertained him and dwelt with him and warmed our selves by his holy fires then we know him too But there is no other satisfactory knowledge of the Blessed Trinity but this And therefore whatever thing is spoken of God Metaphysically there is no knowing of God Theologically and as he ought to be known but by the measures of Holiness and the proper light of the Spirit of God But in this case Experience is the best Learning and Christianity is the best Institution and the Spirit of God is the best Teacher and Holiness is the greatest Wisdom and he that sins most is the most Ignorant and the humble and obedient man is the best Scholar For the Spirit of God is a loving Spirit and will not enter into a polluted Soul But he that keepeth the Law getteth the understanding thereof and the perfection of the fear of the Lord is Wisdom said the wise Ben-Sirach And now give me leave to apply the Doctrine to you and so I shall dismiss you from this attention Many ways have been attempted to reconcile the differences of the Church in matters of Religion and all the Counsels of man have yet prov'd ineffective Let us now try Gods method let us betake our selves to live holily and then the Spirit of God will lead us into all Truth And indeed it matters not what Religion any man is of if he be a Villain the Opinion of his Sect as it will not save his Soul so neither will it do good to the Publick But this is a sure Rule If the holy man best understands Wisdom and Religion then by the proportions of holiness we shall best measure the Doctrines that are obtruded to the disturbance of our Peace and the dishonour of the Gospel And therefore 1. That is no good Religion whose Principles destroy any duty of Religion He that shall maintain it to be lawful to make a War for the defence of his Opinion be it what it will his Doctrine is against Godliness Any thing that is proud any thing that is peevish and scornful any thing that is uncharitable is against the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that form of sound Doctrine which the Apostle speaks of And I remember that Ammianus Marcellinus telling of George a proud and factious Minister that he was an Informer against his Brethren he says he did it oblitus professionis suae quae nil nisi justum suadet lene he forgot his Profession which teaches nothing but justice and meekness kindnesses and charity And however Bellarmine and others are pleased to take but indirect and imperfect notice of it yet Goodness is the best note of the true Church 2. It is but an ill sign of Holiness when a man is busie in troubling himself and his Superiour in little Scruples and phantastick Opinions about things not concerning the life of Religion or the pleasure of God or the excellencies of the Spirit A good man knows how to please God how to converse with him how to advance the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus to set forward Holiness and the Love of God and of his Brother and he knows also that there is no Godliness in
Resurrection that is from sin to grace from the death of vitious habits to the vigour life and efficacy of an habitual righteousness For as it hapned to those persons in the New Testament now mentioned to them I say in the literal sense Blessed are they that have part in the first Resurrection upon them the second death shall have no power meaning that they who by the power of Christ and his holy Spirit were raised to life again were holy and blessed souls and such who were written in the book of God and that this grace hapned to no wicked and vitious person so it is most true in the spiritual and intended sense You only that serve God in a holy life you who are not dead in trespasses and sins you who serve God with an early diligence and an unwearied industry and a holy Religion you and you only shall come to life eternal you only shall be called from death to life the rest of mankind shall never live again but pass from death to death from one â—eath to another to a worse from the death of the body to the eterâ—al death of body and soul and therefore in the Apostles Creed there â—s no mention made of the Resurrection of wicked persons but of the Resurrection of the body to everlasting life The wicked indeed shall be haâ—eâ— forth from their graves from their everlasting prisons where in chains â—f â—arkness they are kept unto the judgment of the great day but this â—â—â—â—efore cannot be called in sensu favoris a Resurrection but the soâ—â—â—â—ities of the eternal death It is nothing but a new capacity of dying again such a dying as cannot signifie rest but where death means nothing but an intollerable and never ceasing calamity and therefore these words of my Text are otherwise to be understood of the wicked otherwise of the godly The wicked are spilt like water and shall never be gathered up again no not in the gatherings of eternity They shall be put into Vessels of wrath and set upon the flames of hell but that is not a gathering but a scattering from the face and presence of God But the godly also come under the sense of these words They descend into their Graves and shall no more be reckoned among the living they have no concernment in all that is done under the Sun Agamemnon hath no more to do with the Turks Armies invading and possessing that part of Greece where he reigned than had the Hippocentaur who never had a being and Cicero hath no more interest in the present evils of Christendom than we have to do with his boasted discovery of Catilines Conspiracy What is it to me that Rome was taken by the Gauls and what is it now to Camillus if different religions be tolerated amongst us These things that now happen concern the living and they are made the scenes of our duty or danger respectively and when our Wives are dead and sleep in charnel houses they are not troubled when we laugh loudly at the songs sung at the next marriage feast nor do they envy when another snatches away the gleanings of their husbands passion It is true they envy not and they lie in a bosom where there can be no murmur and they that are consigned to Kingdoms and to the feast of the marriage-supper of the Lamb the glorious and eternal Bridegroom of holy Souls they cannot think our Marriages here our lighter laughings and vain rejoicings considerable as to them And yet there is a relation continued still Aristotle said that to affirm the dead take no thought for the good of the living is a disparagement to the laws of that friendship which in their state of separation they cannot be tempted to rescind And the Church hath taught in general that they pray for us they recommend to God the state of all their Relatives in the union of the intercession that our blessed Lord makes for them and us and S. Ambrose gave some things in charge to his dying brother Satyrus that he should do for him in the other world he gave it him I say when he was dying not when he was dead And certain it is that though our dead friends affection to us is not to be estimated according to our low conceptions yet it is not less but much more than ever it was it is greater in degree and of another kind But then we should do well also to remember that in this world we are something besides flesh and bloud that we may not without violent necessities run into new relations but preserve the affections we bore to our dead when they were alive We must not so live as if they were perished but so as pressing forward to the most intimate participation of the communion of Saints And we also have some ways to express this relation and to bear a part in this communion by actions of intercourse with them aud yet proper to our state such as are strictly performing the will of the dead providing for and tenderly and wisely educating their children paying their debts imitating their good example preserving their memories privately and publickly keeping their memorials and desiring of God with hearty and constant prayer that God would give them a joyful Resurrection and a merciful Judgment for so S. Paul prayed in behalf of Onesiphorus that God would shew them mercy in that day that fearful and yet much to be desired day in which the most righteous person hath need of much mercy and pity and shall find it Now these instances of duty shew that the relation remains still and though the Relict of a man or woman hath liberty to contract new relations yet I do not find they have liberty to cast off the old as if there were no such thing as immortality of souls Remember that we shall converse together again let us therefore never do any thing of reference to them which we shall be ashamed of in the day when all secrets shall be discovered and that we shall meet again in the presence of God In the mean time God watcheth concerning all their interest and he will in his time both discover and recompense For though as to us they are like water spilt yet to God they are as water fallen in the Sea safe and united in his comprehension and inclosures But we are not yet passed the consideration of the sentence This descending to the grave is the lot of all men neither doth God respect the person of any man The rich is not protected for favour nor the poor for pity the old man is not reverenced for his age nor the Infant regarded for his tenderness youth and beauty learning and prudence wit and strength lie down equally in the dishonours of the Grave All men and all natures and all persons resist the addresses and solennities of death and strive to preserve a miserable and unpleasant life and yet they all sink down and die For so have
neither tempteth he any man God is true and every man a lyar rule LXIII Let no Preacher compare one Ordinance with another as Prayer with Preaching to the disparagement of either but use both in their proper seasons and according to appointed Order rule LXIV Let no man preach for the praise of men but if you meet it instantly watch and stand upon your guard and pray against your own vanity and by an express act of acknowledgment and adoration return the praise to God Remember that Herod was for the omission of this smitten by an Angel and do thou tremble fearing left the judgment of God be otherwise than the sentence of the people V. Rules and Advices concerning Catechism rule LXV EVery Minister is bound upon every Lords day before Evening Prayer to instruct all young people in the Creed the Lords Prayer the Ten Commandments and the Doctrine of the Sacraments as they are set down and explicated in the Church Catechism rule LXVI Let a Bell be tolled when the Catechising is to begin that all who desire it may be present but let all the more ignorant and uninstructed part of the people whether they be old or young be requir'd to be present that no person in your Parishes be ignorant in the foundations or Religion Ever remembring that if in these things they be unskilful whatever is taught besides is like a house built upon the sand rule LXVII Let every Minister teach his people the use practice methods and benefits of meditation or mental prayer Let them draw out for them helps and rules for their assistance in it and furnish them with materials concerning the life and death of the ever blessed Jesus the greatness of God our own meanness the dreadful sound of the last Trumpet the infinite event of the two last sentences at doomsday let them be taught to consider what they have been what they are and what they shall be and above all things what are the issues of eternity glories never to cease pains never to be ended rule LXVIII Let every Minister exhort his people to a frequent confession of their sins and a declaration of the state of their Souls to a conversation with their Minister in spiritual things to an enquiry concerning all the parts of their duty for by preaching and catechising and private entercourse all the needs of Souls can best be serv'd but by preaching alone they cannot rule LXIX Let the people be exhorted to keep Fasting days and the Feasts of the Church according to their respective capacities so it be done without burden to them and without becoming a snare that is that upon the account of Religion and holy desires to please God they spend some time in Religion besides the Lords-day but be very careful that the Lords-day be kept religiously according to the severest measures of the Church and the commands of Authority ever remembring that as they give but little Testimony of Repentance and Mortification who never fast so they give but small evidence of their joy in God and Religion who are unwilling solemnly to partake of the publick and Religious Joys of the Christian Church rule LXX Let every Minister be diligent in exhorting all Parents and Masters to send their Children and Servants to the Bishop at the Visitation or other solemn times of his coming to them that they may be confirm'd And let him also take care that all young persons may by understanding the Principles of Religion their vow of Baptism the excellency of Christian Religion the necessity and advantages of it and of living according to it be fitted and disposed and accordingly by them presented to the Bishop that he may pray over them and invocate the holy Spirit and minister the holy Rite of Confirmation VI. Rules and Advices concerning the Visitation of the Sick rule LXXI EVery Minister ought to be careful in visiting all the Sick and Afflicted persons of his Parish ever remembring that as the Priests lips are to preserve knowledge so it is his duty to minister a word of comfort in the time of need rule LXXII A Minister must not stay till he be sent for but of his own accord and care to go to them to examine them to exhort them to perfect their repentance to strengthen their faith to encourage their patience to perswade them to resignation to the renewing of their holy vows to the love of God to be reconcil'd to their neighbours to make restitution and amends to confess their sins to settle their estate to provide for their charges to do acts of piety and charity and above all things that they take care they do not sin towards the end of their lives For if repentance on our death-bed seem so very late for the sins of our life what time shall be left to repent us of the sins we commit on our death-bed rule LXXIII When you comfort the afflicted endeavour to bring them to the true love of God for he that serves God for Gods sake it is almost impossible he should be oppressed with sorrow rule LXXIV In answering the cases of conscience of the sick or afflicted people consider not who asks but what he asks and consult in your answers more with the estate of his soul than the conveniency of his estate for no flattery is so fatal as that of the Physician or the Divine rule LXXV If the sick person enquires concerning the final estate of his soul he is to be reprov'd rather than answer'd only he is to be called upon to finish his duty to do all the good he can in that season to pray for pardon and acceptance but you have nothing to do to meddle with passing final sentences neither cast him down in despair nor raise him up to vain and unreasonable confidences But take care that he be not carelesly dismiss'd rule LXXVI In order to these and many other good purposes every Minister ought frequently to converse with his Parishioners to go to their houses but always publickly with witness and with prudence left what is charitably intended be scandalously reported and in all your conversation be sure to give good example and upon all occasions to give good counsel VII Of ministring the Sacraments publick Prayers and other duties of Ministers rule LXXVII EVery Minister is oblig'd publickly or privately to read the Common Prayers every day in the week at Morning and Evening and iâ— great Towns and populous places conveniently inhabited it must be read in Churches that the daily sacrifice of Prayer and Thanksgiving may never cease rule LXXVIII The Minister is to instruct the people that the Baptism of their children ought not to be ordinarily deferr'd longer than till the next Sunday after the birth of the child left importune and unnecessary delay occasion that the child die before it is dedicated to the service of God and the Religion of the Lord Jesus before it be born again admitted to the Promises of the Gospel
testâque lutoque 〈…〉 quo pes ferat atque ex tempore vivit being â—â—â—ording to the Jewish proverbial reproof as so many Mephibosheths discipuli sapientum qui incessu pudefaciunt praeceptorem suum their Master teaches them to go uprightly but they still show their lame leg and shame their Master as if a man might be a Christian and yet be the vilest person in the world doing such things for which the Laws of men have provided smart and shame and the Laws of God have threatned the intolerable pains of an insufferable and never ending damnation Example here cannot be our rule unless men were much better and as long as men live at the rate they do it will be to little purpose to talk of exceeding the Righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees but because it must be much better with us all or it will be very much worse with us at the latter end I shall leave complaining and go to the Rule and describe the necessary and unavoidable measures of the Righteousness Evangelical without which we can never be saved 1. Therefore when it is said our Righteousness must exceed that of the Scribes and Pharisees let us first take notice by way of praecognition that it must at least be so much we must keep the Letter of the whole Moral Law we must do all that lies before us all that is in our hand and therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies to be Religious the Grammarians derive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from reaching forth the hand the outward work must be done and it is not enough to say My heart is right but my hand went aside Prudentius saith that St. Peter wept so bitterly because he did not confess Christ openly whom he lov'd secretly Flevit negator denique Ex ore prolapsum nefas Cum mens maneret innocens Animusque servârit fidem A right heart alone will not do it or rather the heart is not right when the hand is wrong If a man strikes his Neighbor and sayes Am not I in jest It is folly and shame to him said Solomon For once for all Let us remember this that Christianity is the most profitable the most useful and the most bountiful institution in the whole world and the best definition I can give of it is this It is the Wisdom of God brought down among us to do good to men and therefore we must not do less than the Pharisees who did the outward work at least let us be sure to do all the work that is laid before us in the Commandments And it is strange that this should be needful to be press'd amongst Christians whose Religion requires so very much more But so it is upon a pretence that we must serve God with the mind some are such fools as to think that it is enough to have a good meaning Iniquum perpol verbum est bene vult nisâ— qui bene facit And because we must serve God in the Spirit therefore they will not serve God with their Bodies and because they are called upon to have the power and the life of Godliness they abominate all external works as mere forms and 〈◊〉 the true fast is to abstain from Sin therefore they will not abstain 〈◊〉 meat and drink even when they are commanded which is 〈◊〉 if a Pharisee being taught the Circumcision of the heart shouâ—◠〈◊〉 to Circumcise his Flesh and as if a Christian being instructed in the Excellencies of Spiritual Communion should wholly neglect 〈◊〉 Sacramental that is because the Soul is the life of man therefore 〈◊〉 fitting to die in a humour and lay aside the Body * This is a taking away the Subject of the Question for our inquiry is How we should keep the Commandments how we are to do the work that lyes before us by what Principles with what Intention in what Degrees after what manner ut bonum bene fiat that the good thing be done well This therefore must be presupposed we must take care that even our Bodies bear a part in our Spiritual Services Our voice and tongue our hands and our Feet and our very bowels must be servants of God and do the work of the Commandments This being ever supposed our Question is how much more we must do and the first measure is this Whatsoever can be signified and ministred to by the Body the Heart and the Spirit of a man must be the principal Actor We must not give Alms without a charitable Soul nor suffer Martyrdom but in Love and in Obedience and when we say our Prayers we do but mispend our time unless our mind ascend up to God upon the wings of desire Desire is the life of prayer and if you indeed desire what you pray for you will also labour for what you desire and if you find it otherwise with your selves your coming to Church is but like the Pharisees going up to the Temple to pray If your heart be not present neither will God and then there is a sound of men and women between a pair of dead walls from whence because neither God nor your Souls are present you must needs go home without a Blessing But this measure of Evangelical Righteousness is of principal remark in all the rites and solemnities of Religion and intends to say this that Christian Religion is something that is not seen it is the hidden man of the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is God that dwels within and true Christians are men who as the Chaldee Oracle said are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clothed with a great deal of mind And therefore those words of the Prophet Hosea Et loquar ad cor ejus I will speak unto their heart is a proverbial expression signifying to speak spiritual comforts and in the mystical sence signifies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to preach the Gospel where the Spirit is the Preacher and the Heart is the Disciple and the Sermon is of Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost Our Service to God must not be in outward works and Scenes of Religion it must be something by which we become like to God the Divine Prerogative must extend beyond the outward man nay even beyond the mortification of Corporal vices the Spirit of God must go in trabis crassitudinem and mollify all our secret pride and ingenerate in us a true humility and a Christian meekness of Spirit and a Divine Charity For in the Gospel when God enjoyns any external Rite or Ceremony the outward work is always the less principal For there is a bodily and a carnal part an outside and a Cabinet of Religion in Christianity it self When we are baptized the purpose of God is that we cleanse our selves from all pollution of the Flesh and Spirit and then we are indeed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 clean all over And when we communicate the Commandment means that we should be made one Spirit with Christ and should live on him
thing it is a holy Conversation a God-like life an Universal Obedience a keeping nothing back from God a Sanctification of the whole man and keeps not the Body only but the Soul and the Spirit unblamable to the coming of the Lord Jesus 5. And lastly The Pharisaical Righteousness was the product of fear and therefore what they must needs do that they would do but no more But the Righteousness Evangelical is produced by Love it is managed by Choice and cherished by Delight and fair Experiences Christians are a willing people homines bonae voluntatis men of good will arbores Domini So they are mystically represented in Scripture the Trees of the Lord are full of Sap among the Hebrews the Trees of the Lord did signifie such trees as grew of themselves and all that are of Gods planting are such as have a vital principal within and grow without constraint 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one said it of Christians they obey the Laws and by the goodness of their lives exceed the Laws and certain it is no man hath the Righteousness Evangelical if he resolves alwayes to take all his liberty in every thing that is meerly lawful or if he purpose to do no more than he must needs that is no more than he is just commanded For the Reasons are plain 1. The Christian that resolves to do every thing that is Lawful will many times run into danger and inconvenience because the utmost extremity of Lawful is so near to that which is Unlawful that he will often pass into Unlawful undiscernably Vertues and Vices have not in all their instances a great Land-mark set between them like warlike Nations separate by prodigious Walls vast Seas and portentous Hills but they are oftentimes like the bounds of a Parish men are fain to cut a cross upon the turf and make little marks and annual perambulations for memorials so it is in Lawful and Unlawful by a little mistake a man may be greatly ruined He that drinks till his tongue is full as a spunge and his speech a little stammering and tripping hasty and disorderly though he be not gone as far as drunkenness yet he is gone beyond the severity of a Christian and when he is just past into Unlawful if he disputes too curiously he will certainly deceive himself for want of a wiser curiosity But 2. He that will do all that he thinks he may lawfully had need have an infallible guide always by him who should without error be able to answer all cases of Conscience which will happen every day in a life so careless and insecure for if he should be mistaken his error is his crime and not his excuse A man in this case had need be very sure of his Proposition which because he cannot be in charity to himself he will quickly find that he is bound to abstain from all things that are uncertainly good and from all disputable evils from things which although they may be in themselves lawful yet accidentally and that from a thousand causes may become unlawful Pavidus quippe formidolosus est Christianus saith Salvian atque in tantum peccare metuens ut interdum non timenda formidet A Christian is afraid of every little thing and he sometimes greatly fea◠that he hath sinned even then when he hath no other reason to be afraid but because he would not do so for all the world 3. He that resolves to use all his liberty cannot be innocent so long as there are in the world so many bold temptations and presumptuous actions so many scandals and so much ignorance in the things of God so many things that are suspicious and so many things that are of evil report so many ill customs and disguises in the world with which if we resolve to comply in all that is supposed lawful a man may be in the regions of death before he perceive his head to ake and instead of a staff in his hand may have a splinter in his Elbow 4. Besides all this he that thus stands on his terms with God and so carefully husbands his duty and thinks to make so good a market of obedience that he will quit nothing which he thinks he may lawfully keep shall never be exemplar in his life and shall never grow in grace and therefore shall never enter into glory He therefore that will be righteous by the measures Evangelical must consider not only what is lawful but what is expedient not only what is barely safe but what is worthy that which may secure and that which may do advantage to that concern that is the greatest in the world And 2. The case is very like with them that resolve to do no more good than is commanded them For 1. It is infinitely unprofitable as to our eternal interest because no man does do all that is commanded at all times and therefore he that will not sometimes do more besides that he hath no love no zeal of duty no holy fires in his soul besides this I say he can never make any amends towards the reparation of his Conscience Let him that stole steal no more that 's well but that 's not well enough for he must if he can make restitution of what he stole or he shall never be pardoned and so it is in all our entercourse with God To do what is commanded is the duty of the present we are tyed to this in every present in every period of our lives but therefore if we never do any more than just the present duty who shall supply the dificiencies and fill up the gaps and redeem what is past This is a material consideration in the Righteousness Evangelical But then 2. We must know that in keeping of Gods Commandments every degree of internal duty is under the Commandments and therefore whatever we do we must do it is as well as we can Now he that does his Duty with the biggest affection he can will also do all that he can and he can never know that he hath done what is commanded unless he does all that is in his power For God hath put no limit but love and possibility and therefore whoever says Hither will I go and no further This I will do and no more Thus much will I serve God but that shall be all he hath the affections of a Slave and the religion of a Pharisee the craft of a Merchant and the falseness of a Broker but he hath not the proper measures of the Righteousness Evangelical But so it happens in the mud and slime of the River Borborus when the eye of the Sun hath long dwelt upon it and produces Frogs and Mice which begin to move a little under a thin cover of its own parental matter and if they can get loose to live half a life that is all but the hinder parts which are not formed before the setting of the Sun stick fast in their beds of mud and the little
and it is a prodigious folly to think that he is a good man because though he does sin yet it was against his mind to do so A mans conscience can never condemn him if that be his excuse to say that his conscience check'd him ad that will be but a sad Apology at the day of Judgement Some men talk like Angels and pray with great fervor and meditate with deep recesses and speak to God with loving affections and words of union and adhere to him in silent devotion and when they go abroad are as passionate as ever peevish as a frighted Fly vexing themselves with their own reflections They are cruel in their Bargains unmerciful to their Tenants and proud as a Barbarian Prince They are for all their fine words impatient of reproof scornful to their Neighbours lovers of money supream in their own thoughts and submit to none all their spiritual life they talk of is nothing but spiritual fancy and illusion they are still under the power of their passions and their sin rules them imperiously and carries them away infallibly Let these men consider There are some men think it impossible to do as much as they do The common Swearer cannot leave that Vice and talk well and these men that talk thus well think they cannot do as well as they talk but both of them are equally under the power of their respective sins and are equally deceived and equally not the Servants of God * This is true but it is equally as true That there is no necessity for all this for it ought and it may be otherwise if we please For I pray be pleased to hear S. Paul Walk in the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lusts of the flesh There 's your remedy For the Spirit lusteth against the flesh and the flesh against the Spirit there 's the cause of it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that ye may not or cannot do the things ye would that 's the blessed consequent and product of that cause That is plainly As there is a state of carnality of which S. Paul speaks in my Text so that in that state a man cannot but obey the flesh so there is also a state of spirituality when sin is dead and righteousness is alive and in this state the flesh can no more prevail than the Spirit could do in the other * Some men cannot chuse but sin for the carnal mind is not subject to God neither indeed can be saith S. Paul but there are also some men that cannot endure any thing that is not good It is a great pain for a temperate man to suffer the disorders of Drunkenness and the shames of Lust are intolerable to a chaste and modest person This also is affirmed by S. John Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin for his seed remaineth in him So that you see it is possible for a good man not to commit the sin to which he is tempted but the Apostle says more He doth not commit sin neither indeed can he because he is born of God And this is agreeable to the words of our Blessed Saviour A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit and a good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit that is As the child of Hell is carried to Sin pleno impetu he does not check at it he does it and is not troubled so on the other side a child of God is as fully convinc'd of righteousness and that which is unrighteous is as hateful to him as Colocynths to the taste or the sharpest punctures to the pupil of the eye We may see something of this in common experiences What man of ordinary prudence and reputation can be tempted to steal or for what price would he be tempted to murder his friend If we did hate all sins as we hate these would it not be as easie to be as innocent in other instances as most men are in these and we should have as few Drunkards as we have Thieves In such as these we do not complain in the words of my Text What I would not that I do and what I would I do not Does not every good man overcome all the power of great sins And can he by the Spirit of God and right Reason by fear and hope conquer Goliath and beat the Sons of the Giant and can he not overcome the little children of Gath Or is it harder to overcome a little sin than a great one Are not the temptations to little sins very little and yet are they greater and stronger than a mighty Grace Could the poor Demoniack that liv'd in the Graves by the power of the Devil break his iron chains in pieces and cannot he who hath the Spirit of God dissolve the chains of sin Through Christ that strengthens me I can do all things saith S. Paul Satis sibi copiarum cum Publio Decio nunquam nimium hostium fore said one in Livie which is best rendred by S. Paul If God be with us who can be against us Nay there is an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in S. Paul We are more than Conquerors For even amongst an Army Conquerors there are degrees of exaltation and some serve God like the Centurion and some like S. Peter some like Martha and some like Mary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all good men conquer their temptation but some with more ease and some with a clearer Victory and more than thus Non solum viperam terimus sed ex ea antidotum conficimus We kill the Viper and make Treacle of him that is not only escape from but get advantages by temptations But we commonly are more afraid than hurt Let us therefore lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us so we read the words of the Apostle but S. Chrysostom's rendition of them is better for the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is a perfect passive and cannot signifie the strength and irresistibility of sin upon us but the quite contrary 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the sin that is so easily avoided as they that understand that language know very well And if we were so wise and valiant as not to affright our selves with our own terrours we should quickly find that by the help of the Spirit of God we can do more than we thought we could It was said of Alexander Bene ausus est vana contemnere he did no great matter in conquering the Persians because they were a pitiful and a soft people only he understood them to be so and was wise and bold enough not to fear such Images and men of clouts But men in the matter of great sins and little do as the Magicians of Aegypt when Moses turned his Rod into a Serpent it moved them not but when they saw the Lice and the Flies then they were afraid We see that by the Grace of God we can escape great sins but we start at Flies and a
therefore if you do believe this go to your prayers and go to your guards and go to your labour and try what God will do for you For whatsoever things ye desire when ye pray believe that ye shall receive them and ye shall have them Now consider Do not we every day pray in the Divine Hymn called Te Deum Vouchsafe O Lord to keep us this day without sin And in the Collect at morning prayer and grant that this day we fall into no sin neither run into any kind of danger but that all our doing may be ordered by thy governance to do alwayes that which is righteous in thy sight Have you any hope or any faith when you say that Prayer And if you do your duty as you can do you think the failure will be on Gods part Fear not that if you can trust in God and do accordingly though your sins were as scarlet yet they shall be as white as snow and pure as the feet of the holy Lamb. Only let us forsake all those weak propositions which cut the nerves of Faith and make it impossible for us to actuate all our good desires or to come out from the power of sin 2. He that would be free from the slavery of sin and the necessity of sinning must alwayes watch I that 's the point but who can watch alwayes Why every good man can watch alwayes and that we may not be deceived in this let us know that the running away from a temptation is a part of our watchfulness and every good employment is another great part of it and a laying in provisions of Reason and Religion before hand is yet a third part of this watchfulness and the conversation of a Christian is a perpetual watchfulness not a continual thinking of that one or those many things which may indanger us but it is a continual doing something directly or indirectly against sin He either prayes to God for his Spirit or relies upon the Promises or receives the Sacrament or goes to his Bishop for Counsel and a Blessing or to his Priest for Religious Offices or places himself at the feet of good Men to hear their wise sayings or calls for the Churches Prayers or does the duty of his calling or actually resists Temptation or frequently renews his holy Purposes or fortifies himself by Vows or searches into his danger by a daily examination so that in the whole he is for ever upon his guards * This duty and caution of a Christian is like watching lest a man cut his finger Wise men do not often cut their fingers and yet every day they use a knife and a mans eye is a tender thing and every thing can do it wrong and every thing can put it out yet because we love our eyes so well in the midst of so many dangers by Gods providence and a prudent natural care by winking when any thing comes against them and by turning aside when a blow is offered they are preserved so certainly that not one man in ten thousand does by a stroak lose one of his eyes in all his life time If we would transplant our natural care to a spiritual caution we might by Gods grace be kept from losing our souls as we are from losing our eyes and because a perpetual watchfulness is our great defence and the perpetual presence of Gods grace is our great security and that this Grace never leaves us unless we leave it and the precept of a dayly watchfulness is a thing not only so reasonable but so many easie wayes to be performed we see upon what terms we may be quit of our sins and more than Conquerors over all the Enemies and Impediments of Salvation 3. If you would be in the state of the Liberty of the Sons of God that is that you may not be servants of sin in any instance be sure in the mortifications of sin willingly or carelesly to leave no remains of it no nest-egg no principles of it no affections to it if any thing remains it will prove to us as Manna to the sons of Israel on the second day it will breed worms and stink Therefore labour against every part of it reject every proposition that gives it countenance pray to God against it all and what then Why then Ask and you shall have said Christ. Nay say some it is true you shall be heard but in part only for God will leave some remains of sin within us lest we should become proud by being innocent So vainly do men argue against Gods goodness and their own blessings and Salvation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Basil sayes they contrive witty arts to undo themselves being intangled in the periods of ignorant disputations But as to the thing it self if by the remains of sin they mean the propensities and natural inclinations to forbidden objects there is no question but they will remain in us so long as we bear our flesh about us and surely that is a great argument to make us humble But these are not the sins which God charges on his people But if by remains we mean any part of the habit of sin any affection any malice or perverseness of the Will then it is a contradiction to say that God leaves in us such remains of Sin lest by innocence we become Proud for how should Pride spring in a mans heart if there be no remains of Sin left And is it not the best the surest way to cure the Pride of our hearts by taking out every root of bitterness even the root of Pride it self Will a Physitian purposely leave the Reliques of a disease and pretend he does it to prevent a relapse And is it not more likely he will relapse if the sickness be not wholly cured * But besides this If God leaves any remains of Sin in us what remains are they and of what sins Does he leave the remains of Pride If so that were a strange cure to leave the remains of Pride in us to keep us from being proud But if not so but that all the remains of Pride be taken away by the grace of God blessing our endeavours what danger is there of being proud the remains of which Sin are by the grace of God wholly taken away But then if the Pride of the heart be cured which is the hardest to be removed and commonly is done last of all who can distrust the power of the Spirit of God or his goodness or his promises and say that God does not intend to cleanse his Sons and Servants from all unrighteousness and according to S. Pauls prayer keep their bodies and souls and spirits unblameable to the coming of the Lord Jesus But however let God leave what remains he please all will be well enough on that side but let us be careful as far as we can that we leave none lest it be severely imputed to us and the fire break out and consume us 4. Let
to redeem to himself a people zealous of good works and hath to this purpose reveal'd to us all his Fathers Will and destroyed the works of the Devil and gives us his holy Spirit and by him we shall be justified in this Obedience therefore when Works signifie a sincere hearty endeavour to keep all Gods Commands out of a belief in Christ that if we endeavour to do so we shall be helped by his grace and if we really do so we shall be pardoned for what is past and if we continue to do so we shall receive a Crown of Glory therefore it is no wonder that it is said we are to be justified by Works always meaning not the Works of the Law that is Works that are meritorious works that can challenge the reward works that need no mercy no repentance no humiliation and no appeal to grace and favour but always meaning works that are an obedience to God by the measures of good will and a sincere endeavour and the Faith of the Lord Jesus 3. But thus also it is in the word Justification For God is justified and Wisdom is justified and Man is justified and a sinner is not justified as long as he continues in sin and a sinner is justified when he repents and when he is pardoned and an innocent person is justified when he is declared to be no criminal and a righteous man is justified when he is saved and a weak Christian is justified when his imperfect Services are accepted for the present and himself thrust forward to more grace and he that is justified may be justified more and every man that is justified to one purpose is not so to all and Faith in divers sences gives Justification in as many and therefore though to every sence of Faith there is not always a degree of Justification in any yet when the Faith is such that Justification is the product and correspondent as that Faith may be imperfect so the Justification is but begun and either must proceed further or else as the Faith will dy so the Justification will come to nothing The like observation might be made concerning Imputation and all the words used in this Question but these may suffice till I pass to other particulars 4. Not only the word Faith but also Charity and Godliness and Religion signifie sometimes particular Graces and sometimes they suppose Universally and mean Conjugations and Unions of Graces as is evident to them that read the Scriptures with observation Now when Justification is attributed to Faith or Salvation to Godliness they are to be understood in the aggregate sence for that I may give but one instance of this when S. Paul speaks of Faith as it is a particular Grace and separate from the rest he also does separate it from all possibility of bringing us to Heaven Though I have all Faith so that I could remove Mountains and have no Charity I am nothing When Faith includes Charity it will bring us to Heaven when it is alone when it is without Charity it will do nothing at all 5. Neither can this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 be salved by saying That though Faith alone does justifie yet when she does justifie she is not alone but Good Works must follow for this is said to no purpose 1. Because if we be justified by Faith alone the work is done whether Charity does follow or no and therefore that want of Charity cannot hurt us 2. There can be no imaginable cause why Charity and Obedience should be at all necessary if the whole work can be done without it 3. If Obedience and Charity be not a condition of our Salvation then it is not necessary to follow Faith but if it be it does as much as Faith for that is but a part of the condition 4. If we can besaved without Charity and keeping the Commandments what need we trouble our selves for them if we cannot be saved without them then either Faith without them does not justifie or if it does we are never the better for we may be damned for all that Justification The Consequent of these Observations is briefly this 1. That no man should fool himself by disputing about the Philosophy of Justification and what causality Faith hath in it and whether it be the act of Faith that justifies or the habit Whether Faith as a Good Work or Faith as an Instrument Whether Faith as it is Obedience or Faith as it is an Access to Christ Whether as a Hand or as a Heart Whether by its own innate Vertue or by the efficacy of the Object Whether as a sign or as a thing signified Whether by introduction or by perfection Whether in the first beginnings or in its last and best productions Whether by inherent worthiness or adventitious imputation Vberiùs ista quaeso c. that I may use the words of Cicero haec enim spinosiora priùs ut confiteor me cogunt quam ut assentiar These things are knotty and too intricate to do any good they may amuse us but never instruct us and they have already made men careless and confident disputative and troublesome proud and uncharitable but neither wiser nor better Let us therefore leave these weak wayes of troubling our selves or others and directly look to the Theology of it the direct duty the end of Faith and the work of Faith the conditions and the instruments of our Salvation the just foundation of our hopes how our faith can destroy our sin and how it can unite us unto God how by it we can be made Partakers of Christs death and Imitators of his life For since it is evident by the premises that this article is not to be determined or relyed upon by arguing from words of many significations we must walk by a clearer light by such plain sayings and Dogmatical Propositions of Scripture which evidently teach us our duty and place our hopes upon that which cannot deceive us that is which require Obedience which call upon us to glorifie God and to do good to men and to keep all Gods Commandments with diligence and sincerity For since the end of our faith is that we may be Disciples and Servants of the Lord Jesus advancing his Kingdom here and partaking of it hereafter since we are commanded to believe what Christ taught that it may appear as reasonable as it is necessary to do what he hath commanded since Faith and works are in order one to the other it is impossible that Evangelical Faith and Evangelical works should be opposed one to the other in the effecting of our Salvation So that as it is to no purpose for Christians to dispute whether we are justified by Faith or the works of the Law that is the Covenant of works without the help of Faith and the auxiliaries and allowances of mercy on Gods part and repentance on ours because no Christian can pretend to this so it is perfectly foolish to dispute whether
and returns to it with passion and abides with pleasure This will not do it such a man cannot be justified for all his believing But therefore the Apostle shews us a more excellent way This is a true saying and I will that thou affirm constantly that they who have believed in God be careful to maintain good works The Apostle puts great force on this Doctrine he arms it with a double Preface the saying is true and it is to be constantly affirmed that is it is not only true but necessary it is like Pharaoh's dream doubled because it is bound upon us by the decree of God and it is unalterably certain that every Believer must do good works or his believing will signifie little nay more than so every man must be careful to do good works and more yet he must carefully maintain them that is not do them by fits and interrupted returns but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be incumbent upon them to dwell upon them to maintain good works that is to persevere in them But I am yet but in the general be pleased to go along with me in these particular considerations 1. No mans sins are pardoned but in the same measure in which they are mortified destroyed and taken away so that if Faith does not cure our sinful Natures it never can justifie it never can procure our pardon And therefore it is that as soon as ever Faith in the Lord Jesus was Preached at the same time also they preached Repentance from dead works in so much that S. Paul reckons it among the fundamentals and first principles of Christianity nay the Baptist preached repentance and amendment of life as a preparation to the Faith of Christ. And I pray consider can there be any forgiveness of sins without repentance But if an Apostle should preach forgiveness to all that believe and this belief did not also mean that they should repent and forsake their sin the Sermons of the Apostle would make Christianity nothing else but the Sanctuary of Romulus a device to get together all the wicked people of the world and to make them happy without any change of manners Christ came to other purposes he came to sanctifie us and to cleanse us by his Word the word of Faith was not for it self but was a design of holiness and the very grace of God did appear for this end that teaching us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live holily justly and soberly in this present world he came to gather a People together not like Davids Army when Saul pursued him but the Armies of the Lord a faithful people a chosen generation and what is that The Spirit of God adds a People zealous of good works Now as Christ proved his power to forgive sins by curing the poor mans Palsie because a man is never pardoned but when the punishment is removed so the great act of justification of a sinner the pardoning of his sins is then only effected when the spiritual evil is taken away that 's the best indication of a real and an eternal pardon when God takes away the hardness of the heart the love of sin the accursed habit the evil inclination the sin that doth so easily beset us and when that is gone what remains within us that God can hate Nothing stayes behind but Gods creation the work of his own hands the issues of his holy Spirit The Faith of a Christian is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it destroyes the whole body of sin and to suppose that Christ pardons a sinner whom he doth not also purge and rescue from the dominion of sin is to affirm that he justifies the wicked that he calls good evil and evil good that he delights in a wicked person that he makes a wicked man all one with himself that he makes the members of an harlot at the same time also the members of Christ but all this is impossible and therefore ought not to be pretended to by any Christian. Severe are those words of our Blessed Saviour Every plant in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away Faith ingrafts us into Christ by Faith we are inserted into the vine but the plant that is ingrafted must also be parturient and fruitful or else it shall be quite cut off from the root and thrown into the everlasting burning And this is the full and plain meaning of those words so often used in Scripture for the magnification of Faith The just shall live by Faith No man shall live by Faith but the just man he indeed is justified by Faith but no man else the unjust and the unrighteous man hath no portion in this matter That 's the first great consideration in this affair no man is justified in the least sense of justification that is when it means nothing but the pardon of sins but when his sin is mortified and destroyed 2. No man is actually justified but he that is in some measure sanctified For the understanding and clearing of which Proposition we must know that justification when it is attributed to any cause does not alwayes signifie justification actual Thus when it is said in Scripture We are justified by the death of Christ it is but the same thing as to say Christ dyed for us and he rose again for us too that we might indeed be justified in due time and by just measures and dispositions he dyed for our sins and rose again for our justification that is by his Death and Resurrection he hath obtained this power and effected this mercy that if we believe him and obey we shall be justified and made capable of all the blessings of the Kingdom But that this is no more but a capacity of pardon of grace and of salvation appears not only by Gods requiring Obedience as a condition on our parts but by his expresly attributing this mercy to us at such times and in such circumstances in which it is certain and evident that we could not actually be justified for so saith the Scripture We when we were enemies were reconciled to God by the death of his Son and while we were yet sinners Christ dyed for us that is then was our Justification wrought on Gods part that is then he intended this mercy to us then he resolved to shew us favour to give us Promises and Laws and Conditions and Hopes and an infallible Oeconomy of Salvation and when Faith layes hold on this Grace and this Justification then we are to do the other part of it that is as God made it potential by the Death and Resurrection of Christ so we laying hold on these things by Faith and working the Righteousness of Faith that is performing what is required on our parts we I say make it actual and for this very reason it is that the Apostle puts more Emphasis upon the Resurrection of Christ than upon his Death Who is he that condemneth It is Christ that
of our Lord have no Ecclesiastical and Derivative Communion with these fountains of our Saviour If ever Lirinensis's rule could be used in any question it is in this Quod semper quod ubique quod ab omnibus That Bishops are the Successors of the Apostles in this Stewardship and that they did always rule the Family was taught and acknowledged always and every where and by all men that were of the Church of God and if these evidences be not sufficient to convince modest and sober persons in this question we shall find our faith to fail in many other Articles of which we yet are very confident For the observation of the Lords day the consecration of the holy Eucharist by Priests the baptizing Infants the communicating of Women and the very Canon of the Scripture it self relye but upon the same probation and therefore the denying of Articles thus proved is a way I do not say to bring in all Sects and Heresies that 's but little but a plain path and inlet to Atheism and Irreligion for by this means it will not only be impossible to agree concerning the meaning of Scripture but the Scripture it self and all the Records of Religion will become useless and of no efficacy or perswasion I am entred into a Sea of matter but I will break it off abruptly and sum up this inquiry with the words of the Councel of Chalcedon which is one of the four Generals by our Laws made the measures of judging Heresies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is sacriledge to bring back a Bishop to the degree and order of a Presbyter It is indeed a rifling the order and intangling the gifts and confounding the method of the Holy Ghost it is a dishonouring them whom God would honour and a robbing them of those spiritual eminencies with which the Spirit of God does anoint the consecrated heads of Bishops And I shall say one thing more which indeed is a great truth that the diminution of Episcopacy was first introduced by Popery and the Popes of Rome by communicating to Abbots and other meer Priests special graces to exercise some essential Offices of Episcopacy have made this sacred Order to be cheap and apt to be invaded But then adde this If Simon Magus was in so damnable a condition for offering to buy the gifts and powers of the Apostolical Order what shall we think of them that snatch them away and pretend to wear them whether the Apostles and their Successors will or no This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to belye the Holy Ghost that is the least of it it is rapine and sacrilege besides the heresie and schism and the spiritual lye For the Government Episcopal as it was exemplified in the Synagogue and practised by the same measures in the Temple so it was transcribed by the eternal Son of God who translated it into a Gospel Ordinance it was sanctified by the Holy Spirit who named some of the persons and gave to them all power and graces from above it was subjected in the Apostles first and by them transmitted to a distinct Order of Ecclesiasticks it was received into all Churches consigned in the Records of the Holy Scriptures preached by the universal voice of all the Christian World delivered by notorious and uninterrupted practice and derived to further and unquestionable issue by perpetual succession I have done with the hardest part of the Text by finding out the persons intrusted the Stewards of Christs Family which though Christ only intimated in this place yet he plainly enough manifested in others The Apostles and their Successors the Bishops are the men intrusted with this great charge God grant they may all discharge it well And so I pass from the Officers to a consideration of the Office it self in the next words Whom the Lord shall make Ruler over his Houshold to give them their meat in due season 2. The Office it self is the Stewardship that is Episcopacy the Office of the Bishop The name signifies an Office of the Ruler indefinitely but the word was chosen and by the Church appropriated to those whom it now signifies both because the word it self is a monition of duty and also because the faithful were used to it in the dayes of Moses and the Prophets The word is in the Prophecy of the Church I will give to thee Princes in Peace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and Bishops in Righteousness upon which place S. Hierom sayes Principes Ecclesiae vocat futuros Episcopos The Spirit of God calls them who were to be Christian Bishops Principes or chief Rulers and this was no new thing for the chief of the Priests who were set over the rest are called Bishops by all the Hellenist Jews Thus Joel is called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop over the Priests and the son of Bani 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop and Visitor over the Levites and we find at the purging of the Land from Idolatry the High Priest placed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishops over the House of God Nay it was the appellative of the High Priest himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Bishop Eleazar the Son of Aaron the Priest to whom is committed the care of Lamps and the daily Sacrifice and the holy unction Now this word the Church retained choosing the same Name to her superior Ministers because of the likeness of the Ecclesiastical Government between the Old and New Testament For Christ made no change but what was necessary Baptism was a rite among the Jews and the Lords Supper was but the post-coenium of the Hebrews changed into a mystery from a type to a more real exhibition and the Lords Prayer was a collection of the most eminent devotions of the Prophets and Holy men before Christ who prayed by the same Spirit and the censures Ecclesiastical were but an imitation of the proceedings of the Judaical Tribunals and the whole Religion was but the Law of Moses drawn out of its vail into clarity and manifestation and to conclude in order to the present affair the Government which Christ left was the same as he found it for what Aaron and his Sons and the Levites were in the Temple that Bishops Priests and Deacons are in the Church it is affirmed by S. Hierom more than once and the use he makes of it is this Esto subjectus Pontifici tuo quasi animae parentem suscipe Obey your Bishop and receive him as the nursing Father of your Soul But above all this appellation is made honourable by being taken by our blessed Lord himself for he is called in Scripture the great Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls But our enquiry is not after the Name but the Office and the Dignity and Duty of it Ecclesiae gubernandae sublimis ac divina potestos so S. Cyprian calls it a High and a Divine power from God of governing the Church rem magnam preciosam in conspectu Domini so S.
Bishops laid the foundation their Successors must not only preserve whatsoever is fundamental but build up the Church in a most holy Faith taking care that no Heresie sap the foundation and that no hay or rotten wood be built upon it and above all things that a most holy life be superstructed upon a holy and unreproveable Faith So the Apostles laid the foundation and built the walls of the Church and their Successors must raise up the roof as high as Heaven For let us talk and dispute eternally we shall never compose the controversies in Religion and establish truth upon unalterable foundations as long as men handle the word of God deceitfully that is with designs and little artifices and secular partialities and they will for ever do so as long as they are proud or covetous It is not the difficulty of our questions or the subtlety of our Adversaries that makes disputes interminable but we shall never cure the itch of disputing or establish Unity unless we apply our selves to humility and contempt of riches If we will be contending let us contend like the Olive and the Vine who shall produce best and most fruit not like the Aspine and the Elm which shall make most noise in a wind And all other methods are a beginning at a wrong end And as for the people the way to make them conformable to the wise and holy rules of Faith and Government is by reducing them to live good lives When the children of Israel gave themselves to gluttony and drunkenness and filthy lusts they quickly fell into abominable idolatries and S. Paul says that men make shipwrack of their Faith by putting away a good conscience for the mystery of Faith is best preserved 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a pure conscience saith the same Apostle secure but that and we shall quickly end our disputes and have an obedient and conformable people but else never 2. As Bishops were the first Fathers of Churches and gave them being so they preserve them in being For without Sacraments there is no Church or it will be starved and dye and without Bishops there can be no Priests and consequently no Sacraments and that must needs be a supreme Order from whence Ordination it self proceeds For it is evident and notorious that in Scripture there is no Record of Ordination but an Apostolical hand was in it one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one of the chief one of the superior and ruling Clergy and it is as certain in the descending ages of the Church the Bishop always had that power it was never denyed to him and it was never imputed to Presbyters and S. Hierom himself when out of his anger against John Bishop of Jerusalem he endeavoured to equal the Presbyter with the Bishop though in very many places he spake otherwise yet even then also and in that heat he excepted Ordination acknowledging that to be the Bishops peculiar And therefore they who go about to extinguish Episcopacy do as Julian did they destroy the Presbytery and starve the Flock and take away their Shepheards and dispark their pastures and tempt Gods providence to extraordinaries and put the people to hard shifts and turn the channels of salvation quite another way and leave the Church to a perpetual uncertainty whether she be alive or dead and the people destitute of the life of their Souls and their daily bread and their spiritual comforts and holy blessings The consequent of this is If Sacraments depend upon Bishops then let us take care that we convey to the people holy and pure materials sanctified with a holy Ministry and ministred by holy persons For although it be true that the efficacy of the Sacraments does not depend wholly upon the worthiness of him that ministers yet it is as true that it does not wholly rely upon the worthiness of the Receiver but both together relying upon the goodness of God produce all those blessings which are designed The Minister hath an influence into the effect and does very much towards it and if there be a failure there it is a defect in one of the concurring causes and therefore an unholy Bishop is a great diminution to the peoples blessing S. Hierom presses this severely Impiè faciunt c. They do wickedly who affirm that the holy Eucharist is consecrated by the words alone and solemn prayer of the Consecrator and not also by his life and holiness And therefore S. Cyprian affirms that none but holy and upright men are to be chosen who offering their Sacrifices worthily to God may be heard in their prayers for the Lords people but for others Sacrificia eorum panis luctus saith the Prophet Hosea their Sacrifices are like the bread of sorrow whoever eats thereof shall be defiled This discourse is not mine but S. Cyprian's and although his words are not to be understood dogmatically but in the case of duty and caution yet we may lay our hands upon our hearts and consider how we shall give an account of our Stewardship if we shall offer to the people the bread of God with impure hands it is of it self a pure nourishment but if it passes through an unclean vessel it loses much of its excellency 3. The like also is to be said concerning Prayer For the Episcopal Order is appointed by God to be the great Ministers of Christs Priesthood that is to stand between Christ and the people in the entercourse of prayer and blessing We will give our selves continually to prayer said the Apostles that was the one half of their employment and indeed a Bishop should spend very much of his time in holy prayer and in diverting Gods judgments and procuring blessings to the people for in all times the chief of the Religion was ever the chief Minister of blessing Thus Abraham blessed Abimelech and Melchisedeck blessed Abraham and Aaron blessed the people and without all controversie saith the Apostle the less is blessed of the greater But then we know that God heareth not sinners and it must be the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man that shall prevail And therefore we may easily consider that a vitious Prelate is a great calamity to that Flock which he is appointed to bless and pray for How shall he reconcile the penitents who is himself at enmity with God How shall the Holy Spirit of God descend upon the Symbols at his Prayer who does perpetually grieve him and quench his holy fires and drive him quite away How shall he that hath not tasted of the Spirit by contemplation stir up others to earnest desires of Coelestial things Or what good shall the people receive when the Bishop layes upon their head a covetous or a cruel an unjust or an impure hand But therefore that I may use the words of S. Hierom Cum ab Episcopo gratia in populum transfundatur mundi totius Ecclesiae totius condimentum sit Episcopus
imploretur remedium run to the King for remedy for therefore God hath set the Imperial fortune over humane affairs ut possit omnia quae noviter contingunt emendare componere modis ac regulis competentibus tradere that the King may amend and rule and compose every new arising question And it is not to be despised but is a great indication of this Truth that the Answers of the Roman Princes and Judges recorded in the Civil Law are such that all Nations of the world do approve them and are a great testimony how the sentences of Kings ought to be valued even in matters of Religion and questions of greatest doubt Bona conscientia Scyphus est Josephi said the old Abbot of Kells a good Conscience is like Joseph's Cup in which our Lord the King divines And since God hath blessed us with so good so just so religious and so wise a Prince let the sentence of his Laws be our last resort and no questions be permitted after his judgment and legal determination For Wisdom saith By me Princes rule by me they decree justice and therefore the spirit of the King is a divine eminency and is as the spirit of the most High God 4. Let no man be too busie in disputing the laws of his Superiors for a man by that seldom gets good to himself but seldom misses to do mischief unto others 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said one in Laertius Will a Son contend with his Father that 's not decent though the son speak that which is right he may possibly say well enough but he does do very ill not only because he does not pay his duty and reverential fear but because it is in it self very often unreasonable to dispute concerning the command of our Superior whether it be good or no for the very commandment can make it not only good but a necessary good It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these necessary things said the Council of Jerusalem and yet these things were not necessary but as they were commanded to abstain from a strangled hen or a bloody pudding could not of themselves be necessary but the commandment came authority did interpose and then they were made so 5. But then besides the advantages both of the Spirit and the authority of Kings in matter of question the Laws and Decrees of a National Church ought upon the account of their own advantages be esteemed as a final sentence in all things disputed The thing is a plain command Hebrews 13. 7. Remember them which have the Rule over you who have spoken unto you the word of God this tells what Rulers he means Rulers Ecclesiastical and what of them whose faith follow they must praeire in articulis they are not Masters of your Faith but Guides of it and they that sit in Moses chair must be heard and obeyed said our blessed Saviour These words were not said for nothing and they were nothing if their authority were nothing For between the laws of a Church and the opinion of a Subject the comparison is the same as between a publick spirit and a private The publick is far the better the daughter of God and the mother of a blessing and alwayes dwels in light The publick spirit hath already passed the tryal it hath been subjected to the Prophets tryed and searched and approved the private is yet to be examined The publick spirit is uniform and apt to be followed the private is various and multiform as chance and no man can follow him that hath it for if he follows one he is reproved by a thousand and if he changes he may get a shame but no truth and he can never rest but in the arms and conduct of his Superior When Aaron and Miriam murmured against Moses God told them they were Prophets of an inferior rank than Moses was God communicated himself to them in dreams and visions but the Ruach hakkodesh the publick spirit of Moses their Prince that was higher and what then wherefore then God said were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses plainly teaching us that where there is a more excellent spirit they that have a spirit less excellent ought to be afraid to speak against it And this is the full case of the private and publick spirit that is of a Subject speaking against the Spirit and the Laws of the Church In Heaven and in the air and in all the regions of Spirits the Spirit of a lower Order dares not speak against the Spirit of an higher and therefore for a private Spirit to oppose the publick is a disorder greater than is in Hell it self To conclude this point Let us consider whether it were not an intolerable mischief if the Judges should give sentence in causes of instance by the measures of their own fancy and not by the Laws who would endure them and yet why may they not do that as well as any Ecclesiastick person preach Religion not which the Laws allow but what is taught him by his own private Opinion but he that hath the Laws on his side hath ever something of true Religion to warrant him and can never want a great measure of justification 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Laws and the Customs of the Country are the results of wise Counsels or long experience they ever comply with Peace and publick benefit and nothing of this can be said of private Religions for they break the Peace and trouble the Conscience and undoe Government and despise the Laws and offend Princes and dishonour the wisdom of Parliaments and destroy Obedience Well but in the last place but if we cannot do what the Laws command we will suffer what they impose and then all is well again But first who ever did so that could help it And secondly this talking of passive Obedience is but a mockery for what man did ever say the Laws were not good but he also said the Punishment was unjust And thirdly which of all the Recusants did not endeavour to get ground upon the Laws and secretly or openly asperse the Authority that put him to pain for doing that which he calls his duty and can any man boast of his passive Obedience that calls it Persecution he may think to please himself but he neither does or sayes any thing that is for the reputation of the Laws Such men are like them that sail in a storm they may possibly be thrown into a Harbour but they are very sick all the way But after all this I have one thing to observe to such persons That such a passive Obedience as this does not acquit a man before God and he that suffers what the Law inflicts is not discharged in the Court of Conscience but there is still a sinner and a debter For the Law is not made for the righteous but for sinners that is the punishment
good Divines But all this while we are but in the preparation to the Mysteries of Godliness When we have thrown off all affections to sin when we have stripp'd our selves from all fond adherences to the things of the world and have broken the chains and dominion of our Passions then we may say with David Ecce paratum est Cor meum Deus My heart is ready O God my heart is ready then we may say Speak Lord for thy Servant heareth But we are not yet instructed It remains therefore that we inquire what is that immediate Principle or Means by which we shall certainly and infallibly be led into all Truth and be taught the Mind of God and understand all his Secrets and this is worth our knowledge I cannot say that this will end your Labours and put a period to your Studies and make your Learning easie it may possibly increase your Labour but it will make it profitable it will not end your Studies but it will direct them it will not make Humane Learning easie but it will make it wise unto Salvation and conduct it into true notices and ways of Wisdom I am now to describe to you the right way of Knowledg Qui facit Voluntatem Patris mei saith Christ that 's the way do God's Will and you shall understand God's Word And it was an excellent saying of S. Peter Add to your Faith Virtue c. If these things be in you and abound ye shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in this case 't is not enough that all our hindrances of Knowledge are removed for that is but the opening of the covering of the Book of God but when it is opened it is written with a hand that every eye cannot read Though the windows of the East be open yet every eye cannot behold the glories of the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plotinus the eye that is not made Solar cannot see the Sun the eye must be fitted to the splendor and it is not the wit of the man but the spirit of the man not so much his head as his heart that learns the Divine Philosophy 1. Now in this Inquiry I must take one thing for a praecognitum that every good man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is taught of God and indeed unless he teach us we shall make but ill Scholars our selves and worse Guides to others Nemo potest Deum scire nisi à Deo doceatur said St. Irenaeus lib. 6. cap. 13. If God teaches us then all is well but if we do not learn Wisdom at his feet from whence should we have it it can come from no other Spring And therefore it naturally follows that by how much nearer we are to God by so much better we are like to be instructed But this being supposed as being most evident we can easily proceed by wonderful degrees and steps of progression in the Oeconomy of this Divine Philosophy For 2. There is in every righteous man a new vital Principle the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Wisdom and teaches us by secret Inspirations by proper Arguments by actual Perswasions by personal Applications by Effects and Energies and as the Soul of a man is the cause of all his vital Operations so is the Spirit of God the Life of that Life and the cause of all Actions and Productions Spiritual And the consequence of this is what St. John tells us of Ye have received the Vnction from above and that annointing teacheth you all things All things of some one kind that is certainly all things that pertain to life and godliness all that by which a man is wise and happy We see this by common experience Unless the Soul have a new Life put into it unless there be a vital Principle within unless the Spirit of Life be the Informer of the Spirit of the Man the Word of God will be as dead in the operation as the Body in its powers and possibilities Sol Homo generant hominem saith our Philosophy A Man alone does not beget a Man but a Man and the Sun for without the influence of the Celestial Bodies all natural Actions are ineffective and so it is in the operations of the Soul Which Principle divers Phanaticks both among us and in the Church of Rome misunderstanding look for new Revelations and expect to be conducted by Ecstasie and will not pray but in a transfiguration and live upon raptures and extravagant expectations and separate themselves from the conversation of men by affectations by new measures and singularities and destroy Order and despise Government and live upon illiterate Phantasms and ignorant Discourses These men do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they belie the Holy Ghost For the Spirit of God makes men wise it is an evil Spirit that makes them Fools The Spirit of God makes us Wise unto Salvation it does not spend its holy Influences in disguises and convulsions of the Understanding Gods Spirit does not destroy Reason but heightens it he never disorders the Beauties of Government but is a God of Order it is the Spirit of Humility and teaches no Pride he is to be found in Churches and Pulpits upon Altars and in the Doctors Chairs not in Conventicles and mutinous corners of a House he goes in company with his own Ordinances and makes progressions by the measures of life his infusions are just as our acquisitions and his Graces pursue the methods of Nature that which was imperfect he leads on to perfection and that which was weak he makes strong he opens the heart not to receive murmurs or to attend to secret whispers but to hear the word of God and then he opens the heart and creates a new one and without this new creation this new principle of life we may hear the word of God but we can never understand it we hear the sound but are never the better unless there be in our hearts a secret conviction by the Spirit of God the Gospel it self is a dead Letter and worketh not in us the light and righteousness of God Do not we see this by daily experience Even those things which a good man and an evil man know they do not know them both alike A wicked man does know that Good is lovely and Sin is of an evil and destructive nature and when he is reproved he is convinced and when he is observed he is ashamed and when he has done he is unsatisfied and when he pursues his sin he does it in the dark Tell him he shall die and he sighs deeply but he knows it as well as you Proceed and say that after death comes Judgment and the poor man believes and trembles he knows that God is angry with him and if you tell him that for ought he knows he may be in Hell to morrow he knows that it is an intolerable truth but it is also undeniable And yet after all this
he runs to commit his sin with as certain an event and resolution as if he knew no Argument against it These notices of things terrible and true pass through his Understanding as an Eagle through the Air as long as her flight lasted the air was shaken but there remains no path behind her Now since at the same time we see other persons not so learned it may be not so much versed in Scriptures yet they say a thing is good and lay hold of it they believe glorious things of Heaven and they live accordingly as men that believe themselves half a word is enough to make them understand a nod is a sufficient reproof the crowing of a Cock the singing of a Lark the dawning of the day and the washing their hands are to them competent memorials of Religion and warnings of their duty What is the reason of this difference They both read the Scriptures they read and hear the same Sermons they have capable Understandings they both believe what they hear and what they read and yet the event is vastly different The reason is that which I am now speaking of the one understands by one Principle the other by another the one understands by Nature and the other by Grace the one by Humane Learning and the other by Divine the one reads the Scriptures without and the other within the one understands as a Son of Man the other as a Son of God the one perceives by the proportions of the world and the other by the measures of the Spirit the one understands by Reason and the other by Love and therefore he does not only understand the Sermons of the Spirit and perceives their meaning but he pierces deeper and knows the meaning of that meaning that is the secret of the Spirit that which is spiritually discerned that which gives life to the Proposition and activity to the Soul And the reason is because he hath a Divine Principle within him and a new Understanding that is plainly he hath Love and that 's more than Knowledge as was rarely well observed by S. Paul Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth that is Charity makes the best Scholars No Sermons can edifie you no Scriptures can build you up a holy Building to God unless the Love of God be in your hearts and purifie your Souls from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit But so it is in the regions of Stars where a vast body of Fire is so divided by excentrick motions that it looks as if Nature had parted them into Orbs and round shells of plain and purest materials But where the cause is simple and the matter without variety the motions must be uniform and in Heaven we should either espy no motion or no variety But God who designed the Heavens to be the causes of all changes and motions here below hath placed his Angels in their houses of light and given to every one of his appointed Officers a portion of the fiery matter to circumagitate and roll and now the wonder ceases for if it be enquired why this part of the fire runs Eastward and the other to the South they being both indifferent to either it is because an Angel of God sits in the Centre and makes the same matter turn not by the bent of its own mobility and inclination but in order to the needs of Man and the great purposes of God And so it is in the Understandings of Men when they all receive the same Notions and are taught by the same Master and give full consent to all the Propositions and can of themselves have nothing to distinguish them in the events it is because God has sent his Divine Spirit and kindles a new fire and creates a braver capacity and applies the Actives to the Passives and blesses their operation For there is in the heart of man such a dead sea and an indisposition to holy flames like as in the cold Rivers in the North so as the fires will not burn them and the Sun it self will never warm them till Gods holy Spirit does from the Temple of the New Jerusalem bring a holy flame and make it shine and burn The Natural man saith the holy Apostle cannot preceive the things of the Spirit they are foolishness unto him for they are spiritually discerned For he that discourses of things by the measures of sense thinks nothing good but that which is delicious to the palate or pleases the brutish part of Man and therefore while he estimates the secrets of Religion by such measures they must needs seem as insipid as Cork or the uncondited Mushrom for they have nothing at all of that in their constitution A voluptuous person is like the Dogs of Sicily so fill'd with the deliciousness of Plants that grow in every furrow and hedge that they can never keep the scent of their Game 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Chrysostom The fire and water can never mingle so neither can sensuality and the watchfulness and wise discerning of the Spirit Pilato interroganti de veritate Christus non respondit When the wicked Governour asked of Christ concerning Truth Christ gave him no answer He was not fit to hear it He therefore who so understands the Words of God that he not only believes but loves the Proposition he who consents with all his heart and being convinc'd of the truth does also apprehend the necessity and obeys the precept and delights in the discovery and lays his hand upon his heart and reduces the notices of things to the practice of duty he who dares trust his proposition and drives it on to the utmost issue resolving to go after it whithersoever it can invite him this Man walks in the Spirit at least thus far he is gone towards it his Understanding is brought in obsequium Christi into the obedience of Christ. This is a loving God with all our mind and whatever goes less than this is but Memory and not Understanding or else such notice of things by which a man is neither the wiser nor the better 3. Sometimes God gives to his choicest his most elect and precious Servants a knowledge even of secret things which he communicates not to others We finde it greatly remark'd in the case of Abraham Gen. 18. 17. And the Lord said Shall I hide from Abraham that thing that I do Why not from Abraham God tells us ver 19. For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And though this be irregular and infrequent yet it is a reward of their piety and the proper increase also of the spiritual man We find this spoken by God to Daniel and promised to be the lot of the righteous man in the days of the Messias Dan. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tryed but the wicked shall do wickedly and what then None of
which true wisdom consists Holiness which is the best wisdom is the surest way of understanding them And this 1. Is effected by Holiness as a proper and natural instrument for naturally every thing is best discerned by its proper light and congenial instrument 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For as the eye sees visible objects and the understanding perceives the Intellectual so does the Spirit the things of the Spirit The natural man saith S. Paul knows not the things of God for they are Spiritually discerned that is they are discovered by a proper light and concerning these things an unsanctified man discourses pitifully with an imperfect Idea as a blind man does of Light and Colours which he never saw A good man though unlearned in secular notices is like the windows of the Temple narrow without and broad within he sees not so much of what profits not abroad but whatsoever is within and concerns Religion and the glorifications of God that he sees with a broad inspection But all humane learning without God is but blindness and ignorant folly But when it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 righteousness dipt in the wells of Truth it is like an eye of Gold in a rich Garment or like the light of Heaven it shews it self by its own splendor What Learning is it to discourse of the Philosophy of the Sacrament if you do not feel the vertue of it and the man that can with eloquence and subtlety discourse of the instrumental efficacy of Baptismal waters talks ignorantly in respect of him who hath the answer of a good Conscience within and is cleansed by the purifications of the Spirit If the Question concern any thing that can perfect a man and make him happy all that is the proper knowledge and notice of the good man How can a wicked man understand the purities of the heart and how can an evil and unworthy Communicant tell what it is to have received Christ by Faith to dwell with him to be united to him to receive him in his heart The good man only understands that the one sees the colour and the other feels the substance the one discourses of the Sacrament and the other receives Christ the one discourses for or against Transubstantiation but the good man feels himself to be changed and so joined to Christ that he only understands the true sense of Transubstantiation while he becomes to Christ bone of his bone flesh of his flesh and of the same Spirit with his Lord. We talk much of Reformation and blessed be God once we have felt the good of it But of late we have smarted under the name and pretension The Woman that lost her Groat everrit domum not evertit she swept the house she did not turn the house out of doors That was but an ill Reformation that untiled the Roof and broke the Walls and was digging down the Foundation Now among all the pretensions of Reformation who can tell better what is and what is not true Reformation than he that is truly Reformed himself He knows what pleases God and can best tell by what instruments he is reconciled The mouth of the just bringeth forth wisdom and the lips of the righteous know what is acceptable saith Solomon He cannot be cousened by names of things and feels that Reformation to be Imposture that is Sacrilegious himself is humble and obedient and therefore knows that is not Truth that perswades to Schism and Disobedience and most of the Questions of Christendom are such which either are good for nothing and therefore to be laid aside or if they be complicated with action and are ministeries of practice no man can judge them so well as the spiritual man That which best pleases God that which does good to our Neighbour that which teaches sobriety that which combines with Government that which speaks honour of God and does him honour that only is Truth Holiness therefore is a proper and natural instrument of Divine knowledge and must needs be the best way of instruction in the Questions of Christendom because in the most of them a Duty is complicated with the Proposition No man that intends to live holily can ever suffer any pretences of Religion to be made to teach him to fight against his King And when the men of Geneva turned their Bishop out of doors they might easily have considered that the same person was their Prince too and that must needs be a strange Religion that rose up against Moses and Aaron at the same time but that hath been the method ever since There was no Church till then was ever governed without an Apostle or a Bishop and since then they who go from their Bishop have said very often to their King too Nolumus hunc regnare and when we see men pretending Religion and yet refuse to own the Kings Supremacy they may upon the stock of holiness easily reprove their own folly by considering that such recusancy does introduce into our Churches the very worst the most intollerable parts of Popery For perfect submission to Kings is the glory of the Protestant Cause and really the reproveable Doctrines of the Church of Rome are by nothing so much confuted as that they destroy good life by consequent and evident deduction as by an Induction of particulars were easie to make apparent if this were the proper season for it 2. Holiness is not only an advantage to the learning all wisdom and holiness but for the discerning that which is wise and holy from what is trifling and useless and contentious and to one of these heads all Questions will return and therefore in all from Holiness we have the best Instructions And this brings me to the next Particle of the general Consideration For that which we are taught by the holy Spirit of God this new nature this vital principle within us it is that which is worth our learning not vain and empty idle and insignificant notions in which when you have laboured till your eyes are fixed in their Orbs and your flesh unfixed from its bones you are no better and no wiser If the Spirit of God be your Teacher he will teach you such truths as will make you know and love God and become like to him and enjoy him for ever by passing from similitude to union and eternal fruition But what are you the better if any man should pretend to teach you whether every Angel makes a species and what is the individuation of the Soul in the state of separation what are you the wiser if you should study and find out what place Adam should for ever have lived in if he had not fallen and what is any man the more learned if he hears the disputes whether Adam should have multiplyed Children in the state of Innocence and what would have been the event of things if one Child had been born before his Fathers sin Too many Scholars have lived upon Air and empty notions for many
ages past and troubled themselves with tying untying knots like Hypocondriacks in a fit of Melancholy thinking of nothing troubling themselves with nothing and falling out about nothings and being very wise very learned in things that are not and work not and were never planted in Paradise by the finger of God Mens notions are too often like the Mules begotten by aequivocal and unnatural Generations but they make no species they are begotten but they can beget nothing they are the effects of long study but they can do no good when they are produced they are not that which Solomon calls viam intelligentiae the way of understanding If the Spirit of God be our Teacher we shall learn to avoid evil and to do good to be wise and to be holy to be profitable and careful and they that walk in this way shall find more peace in their Consciences more skill in the Scriptures more satisfaction in their doubts than can be obtained by all the polemical and impertinent disputations of the world And if the holy Spirit can teach us how vain a thing it is to do foolish things he also will teach us how vain a thing it is to trouble the world with foolish Questions to disturb the Church for interest or pride to resist Government in things indifferent to spend the peoples zeal in things unprofitable to make Religion to consist in outsides and opposition to circumstances and trifling regards No no the Man that is wise he that is conducted by the Spirit of God knows better in what Christs Kingdom does consist than to throw away his time and interest and peace and safety for what for Religion no for the Body of Religion not so much for the Garment of the Body of Religion no not for so much but for the Fringes of the Garment of the Body of Religion for such and no better are the disputes that trouble our discontented Brethren they are things or rather Circumstances and manners of things in which the Soul and Spirit is not at all concerned 3. Holiness of life is the best way of finding out truth and understanding not only as a Natural medium nor only as a prudent medium but as a means by way of Divine blessing He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him Here we have a promise for it and upon that we may relye The old man that confuted the Arian Priest by a plain recital of his Creed found a mighty power of God effecting his own Work by a strange manner and by a very plain instrument it wrought a divine blessing just as Sacraments use to do and this Lightning sometimes comes in a strange manner as a peculiar blessing to good men For God kept the secrets of his Kingdom from the wise Heathens and the learned Jews revealing them to Babes not because they had less learning but because they had more love they were children and Babes in Malice they loved Christ and so he became to them a light and a glory St. Paul had more Learning then they all and Moses was instructed in all the Learning of the Egyptians yet because he was the meekest man upon Earth he was also the wisest and to his humane Learning in which he was excellent he had a divine light and excellent wisdom superadded to him by way of spiritual blessings And St. Paul though he went very far to the Knowledge of many great and excellent truths by the force of humane learning yet he was far short of perfective truth and true wisdom till he learned a new Lesson in a new School at the feet of one greater then his Gamaliel his learning grew much greater his notions brighter his skill deeper by the love of Christ and his desires his passionate desires after Jesus The force and use of humane learning and of this Divine learning I am now speaking of are both well expressed by the Prophet Isaiah 29. 11 12. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a Book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I cannot for it is seal'd And the Book is delivered to him that is not learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I am not learned He that is no learned man who is not bred up in the Schools of the Prophets cannot read Gods Book for want of learning For humane Learning is the gate and first entrance of Divine vision not the only one indeed but the common gate But beyond this there must be another learning for he that is learned bring the Book to him and you are not much the better as to the secret part of it if the Book be sealed if his eyes be closed if his heart be not opened if God does not speak to him in the secret way of discipline Humane learning is an excellent Foundation but the top-stone is laid by Love and Conformity to the will of God For we may further observe that blindnesse errour and Ignorance are the punishments which God sends upon wicked and ungodly men Etiamsi propter nostrae intelligentiae tarditatem vitae demeritum veritas nondum se apertissime ostenderit was St. Austin's expression The truth hath not yet been manifested fully to us by reason of our demerits our sins have hindred the brightness of the truth from shining upon us And St. Paul observes that when the Heathens gave themselves over to lusts God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a Lie But God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom and knowledge and joy said the wise Preacher But this is most expresly promised in the New Testament and particularly in that admirable Sermon which our blessed Saviour preach'd a little before his death The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things Well there 's our Teacher told of plainly But how shall we obtain this teacher and how shall we be taught v. 15 16 17. Christ will pray for us that we may have this Spirit That 's well but shall all Christians have the Spirit Yes all that will live like Christians for so said Christ If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter that may abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him Mark these things The Spirit of God is our teacher he will abide with us for ever to be our teacher he will teach us all things but how if ye love Christ if ye keep his Commandments but not else if ye be of the World that is of worldly affections ye cannot see him ye
spending our time and our talk our heart and our spirits about the Garments and Outsides of Religion And they can ill teach others that do not know that Religion does not consist in these things but Obedience may and reductively that is Religion and he that for that which is no part of Religion destroys Religion directly by neglecting that Duty that is adopted into Religion is a man of Phancy and of the World but he gives but an ill account that he is a man of God and a Son of the Spirit Spend not your time in that which profits not for your labour and your health your time and your Studies are very valuable and it is a thousand pities to see a diligent and a hopeful person spend himself in gathering Cockle-shells and little Pebbles in telling Sands upon the shores and making Garlands of useless Daisies Study that which is profitable that which will make you useful to Churches and Commonwealths that which will make you desirable and wise Only I shall add this to you That in Learning there are variety of things as well as in Religion there is Mint and Cummin and there are the weighty things of the Law so there are Studies more and less useful and every thing that is useful will be required in its time and I may in this also use the words of our Blessed Saviour These things ought you to look after and not to leave the other unregarded But your great care is to be in the things of God and of Religion in Holiness and true Wisdom remembring the saying of Origen That the Knowledge that arises from Goodness is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 something that is more certain and more divine than all demonstration than all other Learnings of the World 3. That 's no good Religion that disturbs Governments or shakes a foundation of publick Peace Kings and Bishops are the Foundations and the great Principles of Unity of Peace and Government like Rachel and Leah they build up the house of Israel and those blind Sampsons that shake these Pillars intend to pull the house down My Son fear God and the King saith Solomon and meddle not with them that are given to change That is not Truth that loves Changes and the new-nothings of Heretical and Schismatical Preachers are infinitely far from the blessings of Truth In the holy Language Truth hath a mysterious Name 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emet it consists of three Letters the first and the last and the middlemost of the Hebrew Letters implying to us that Truth is first and will be last and it is the same all the way and combines and unites all extreams it ties all ends together Truth is lasting and ever full of blessing For the Jews observe that those Letters which signifie Truth are both in the figure and the number Quadrate firm and cubical these signifie a Foundation and an abode for ever Whereas on the other side the word which in Hebrew signifies a lye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Secher is made of Letters whose numbers are imperfect and their figure pointed and voluble to signifie that a Lye hath no foundation And this very Observation will give good light in our Questions and Disputes And I give my instance in Episcopal Government which hath been of so lasting an abode of so long a blessing hath its firmament by the Principles of Christianity hath been blessed by the issues of that stabiliment it hath for sixteen hundred years combined with Monarchy and hath been taught by the Spirit which hath so long dwelt in Gods Church and hath now according to the promise of Jesus that says the gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Church been reâ—â—ored amongst us by a heap of Miracles and as it went away so now it is returned again in the hand of Monarchy and in the bosom of our fundamental Laws Now that Doctrine must needs be suspected of Error and an intolerable Lie that speaks against this Truth which hath had so long a testimony from God and from the Wisdom and Experience of so many Ages of all our Ancestors and all our Laws When the Spirit of God wrote in Greek Christ is call'd 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 if he had spoken Hebrew he had been called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emet he is Truth the same yesterday and to day and for ever and whoever opposes this holy Sanction which Christs Spirit hath sanctified his Word hath warranted his Blessings have endeared his Promises have ratified and his Church hath always kept he fights against this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Emet and Secher is his portion his lot is a Lie his portion is there where Holiness can never dwell And now to conclude to you Fathers and Brethren you who are or intend to be of the Clergy you see here the best Compendium of your Studies the best abbreviature of your Labours the truest Method of Wisdom and the infallible the only way of judging concerning the Disputes and Questions in Christendom It is not by reading multitudes of Books but by studying the Truth of God It is not by laborious Commentaries of the Doctors that you can finish your work but by the Expositions of the Spirit of God It is not by the Rules of Metaphysicks but by the proportions of Holiness And when all Books are read and all Arguments examined and all Authorities alledged nothing can be found to be true that is unholy Give your selves to reading to exhortation and to Doctrine saith St. Paul Read all good Books you can but exhortation unto good life is the best Instrument and the best Teacher of true Doctrine of that which is according to Godliness And let me tell you this The great Learning of the Fathers was more owing to their Piety than to their Skill more to God than to themselves and to this purpose is that excellent Ejaculation of St. Chrysostom with which I will conclude O blessed and happy men whose Names are in the Book of Life from whom the Devils fled and Hereticks did fear them who by Holiness have stopped the mouths of them that spake perverse things But I like David will cry out Where are thy loving-kindnesses which have been ever of old Where is the blessed Quire of Bishops and Doctors who shined like Lights in the World and contained the Word of Life Dulce est meminisse their very memory is pleasant Where is that Evodias the sweet savour of the Church the Successor and Imitator of the holy Apostles Where is Ignatius in whom God dwelt Where is S. Dionysius the Areopagite that Bird of Paradise that celestial Eagle Where is Hyppolitus that good man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that gentle sweet person Where is great St. Basil a man almost equal to the Apostles Where is Athanasius rich in vertue Where is Gregory Nyssen that great Divine and Ephrem
discourse that the pleasures of reading the Book would be the greatest if the profit to the Church of God were not greater Flumina tum lactis tum flumina nectaris ibant Flavaque de viridi stillabant ilice mella For so Sampson's Riddle was again expounded Out of the strong came meat and out of the eater came sweetness his Arguments were strong and the Eloquence was sweet and delectable and though there start up another combatant against him yet he had only the honour to fall by the hands of Hector still haeret lateri lethalis arundo the headed arrow went in so far that it could not be drawn out but the barbed steel stuck behind And whenever men will desire to be satisfied in those great questions the Bishop of Derry's Book shall be his Oracle I will not insist upon his other excellent writings but it is known every where with what Piety and acumen he wrote against the Manichean Doctrine of Fatal necessity which a late witty man had pretended to adorn with a new Vizor but this excellent Person washed off the Ceruse and the meritricious paintings rarely well asserted the oeconomy of the Divine Providence and having once more triumphed over his Adversary plenus victoriarum trophaeorum betook himself to the more agreeable attendance upon sacred Offices and having usefully and wisely discoursed of the sacred Rite of Confirmation imposed his hands upon the most Illustrious Princes the Dukes of York and Gloucester and the Princess Royal and ministred to them the Promise of the Holy Spirit and ministerially established them in the Religion and Service of the holy Jesus And one thing more I shall remark that at his leaving those Parts upon the Kings Return some of the Remonstrant Ministers of the Low Countries coming to take their leaves of this great man and desiring that by his means the Church of England would be kind to them he had reason to grant it because they were learned men and in many things of a most excellent belief yet he reproved them and gave them caution against it that they approached too near and gave too much countenance to the great and dangerous errors of the Socinians He thus having served God and the King abroad God was pleased to return to the King and to us all as in the days of old and we sung the song of David In convertendo captivitatem Sion When King David and all his Servants returned to Jerusalem this great person having trod in the Wine-press was called to drink of the Wine and as an honorary Reward of his great services and abilities was chosen Primate of this National Church In which time we are to look upon him as the King and the Kings great Vicegerent did as a person concerning whose abilities the World had too great testimony ever to make a doubt It is true he was in the declension of his age and health but his very Ruines were goodly and they who saw the broken heaps of Pompey's Theatre and the crushed Obelisks and the old face of beauteous Philaenium could not but admire the disordered glories of such magnificent structures which were venerable in their very dust He ever was used to overcome all difficulties only Mortality was too hard for him but still his Vertues and his Spirit was immortal he still took great care and still had new and noble designs and proposed to himself admirable things He governed his Province with great justice and sincerity Vnus amplo consulens pastor gregi Somnos tuetur omnium solus vigil And had this remark in all his Government that as he was a great hater of Sacriledge so he professed himself a publick Enemy to Non-residence and often would declare wisely and religiously against it allowing it in no case but of necessity or the greater good of the Church There are great things spoken of his Predecessor S. Patrick that he founded 700 Churches and Religious Convents that he ordained 5000 Priests and with his own hands consecrated 350 Bishops How true the story is I know not but we were all witnesses that the late Primate whose memory we now celebrate did by an extraordinary contingency of Providence in one day consecrate two Arch-Bishops and ten Bishops and did benefit to almost all the Churches in Ireland and was greatly instrumental to the Re-endowments of the whole Clergy and in the greatest abilities and incomparable industry was inferior to none of his most glorious Antecessours Since the Canonization of Saints came into the Church we find no Irish Bishop canonized except S. Laurence of Dublin and S. Malachias of Down indeed Richard of Armagh's Canonization was propounded but not effected but the Character which was given of that learned Primate by Trithemius does exactly fit this our late Father Vir in Divinis Scripturis eruditus secularis Philosophiae jurisque Canonici non ignarus clarus ingenio sermone scholasticus in declamandis sermonibus ad populum excellentis industriae He was learned in the Scriptures skill'd in secular Philosophy and not unknowing in the Civil and Canon Laws in which studies I wish the Clergy were with some carefulness and diligence still more conversant he was of an excellent spirit a Scholar in his discourses an early and industrious Preacher to the people And as if there were a more particular sympathy between their souls our Primate had so great a Veneration to his memory that he purposed if he had lived to have restored his Monument in Dundalke which Time or Impiety or Unthankfulness had either omitted or destroyed So great a lover he was of all true and inherent worth that he loved it in the very memory of the dead and to have such great Examples transmitted to the intuition and imitation of posterity At his coming to the Primacy he knew he should at first espie little besides the Ruines of Discipline a Harvest of thorns and Heresies prevailing in the hearts of the People the Churches possessed by Wolves and Intruders Mens hearts greatly estranged from true Religion and therefore he set himself to weed the fields of the Church he treated the Adversaries sometimes sweetly sometimes he confuted them learnedly sometimes he rebuked them sharply He visited his Charges diligently and in his own person not by Proxies and instrumental Deputations Quaerens non nostra sed nos quae sunt Jesu Christi he designed nothing that we knew of but the Redintegration of Religion the Honour of God and the King the Restoring of collapsed Discipline and the Renovation of Faith and the Service of God in the Churches And still he was indefatigable and even at the last scene of his life intended to undertake a Regal Visitation Quid enim vultis me otiosum à Domino comprehendi said one he was not willing that God should take him unimployed But good man he felt his Tabernacle ready to fall in pieces and could go no further for God would have no more work done by that
and it is a long time before Nature makes them capable of help for there are many deaths and very many diseases to which poor babes are exposed but they have but very few capacities of Physick to shew that infancy is as liable to death as old age and equally exposed to danger and equally uncapable of a remedy with this only difference that old age hath diseases incurable by nature and the diseases of childhood are incurable by art and both the states are the next heirs of death 3. But all the middle way the case is altered Nature is strong and Art is apt to give ease and remedy but still there is no security and there the case is not altered 1. For there are so many diseases in men that are not understood 2. So many new ones every year 3. The old ones are so changed in circumstances and intermingled with so many collateral complications 4. The Symptoms are oftentimes so alike 5. Sometimes so hidden and fallacious 6. Sometimes none at all as in the most sudden and most dangerous Imposthumations 7. And then the diseases in the inward parts of the body are oftentimes such to which no application can be made 8. They are so far off that the effects of all medicines can no otherwise come to them than the effect and juices of all meats that is not till after two or three alterations and decoctions which change the very species of the medicament 9. And after all this very many principles in the art of Physick are so uncertain that after they have been believed seven or eight Ages and that upon them much of the practice hath been established they come to be considered by a witty man and others established in their stead by which men must practise and by which three or four generations of men more as happens must live or die 10. And all this while the men are sick and they take things that certainly make them sicker for the present and very uncertainly restore health for the future that it may appear of what a large extent is humane calamity when Gods providence hath not only made it weak and miserable upon the certain stock of a various nature and upon the accidents of an infinite contingency but even from the remedies which are appointed our dangers and our troubles are certainly encreased so that we may well be likened to water our nature is no stronger our abode no more certain if the sluces be opened it falls away and runneth apace if its current be stopped it swells and grows troublesome and spills over with a greater diffusion if it be made to stand still it putrifies and all this we do For 4. In all the process of our health we are running to our grave we open our own sluces by viciousness and unworthy actions we pour in drink and let out life we increase diseases and know not how to bear them we strangle our selves with our own intemperance we suffer the fevers and the inflammations of lust and we quench our souls with drunkenness we bury our understandings in loads of meat and surfets and then we lie down upon our beds and roar with pain and disquietness of our souls Nay we kill one anothers souls and bodies with violence and folly with the effects of pride and uncharitableness we live and die like fools and bring a new mortality upon our selves wars and vexatious cares and private duells and publick disorders and every thing that is unreasonable and every thing that is violent so that now we may add this fourth gate to the Grave Besides Nature and Chance and the mistakes of Art men die with their own Sins and then enter into the Grave in haste and passion and pull the heavy stone of the Monument upon their own heads And thus we make our selves like water spilt on the ground we throw away our lives as if they were unprofitable and indeed most men make them so we let our years slip through our fingers like water and nothing is to be seen but like a showr of tears upon a spot of ground there is a Grave digged and a solemn mourning and a great talk in the Neighbourhood and when the daies are finished they shall be and they shall be remembred no more And that 's like water too when it is spilt it cannot be gathered up again There is no redemption from the Grave inter se mortales mutua vivunt Et quasi cursores vitäi lampada tradunt Men live in their course and by turns their light burns a while and then it burns blew and faint and men go to converse with Spirits and then they reach the taper to another and as the hours of yesterday can never return again so neither can the man whose hours they were and who lived them over once he shall never come to live them again and live them better When Lazarus and the widows Son of Naim and Tebitha and the Saints that appeared in Jerusalem at the Resurrection of our blessed Lord arose they came into this world some as strangers only to make a visit and all of them to manifest a glory but none came upon the stock of a new life or entred upon the stage as at first or to perform the course of a new nature and therefore it is observable that we never read of any wicked person that was raised from the dead Dives would fain have returned to his brothers house but neither he nor any from him could be sent but all the rest in the new Testament one only excepted were expressed to have been holy persons or else by their age were declared innocent Lazarus was beloved of Christ those souls that appeared at the Resurrection were the souls of Saints Tabitha raised by S. Peter was a charitable and a holy Christian and the maiden of twelve years old raised by our blessed Saviour had not entred into the regions of choice and sinfulness and the only exception of the widows son is indeed none at all for in it the Scripture is wholly silent and therefore it is very probable that the same process was used God in all other instances having chosen to exemplifie his miracles of nature to purposes of the Spirit and in spiritual capacities So that although the Lord of Nature did not break the bands of Nature in some instances to manifest his glory to succeeding great and never failing purposes yet besides that this shall be no more it was also instanced in such persons who were holy and innocent and within the verge and comprehensions of the Eternal mercy We never read that a wicked person felt such a miracle or was raised from the Grave to try the second time for a Crown but where he fell there he lay down dead and saw the light no more This consideration I intend to you as a severe Monitor and an advice of carefulness that you order your affairs so that you may be partakers of the first
that is from all affection to it is supposed in the Christians life denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and being cleansed from all filthiness of flesh and spirit and having escaped from all corruption that is in the world through lust this is not so much commanded as supposed without this nothing can be done nothing can be hoped this is but the foundation of the Christian who is intended to be a habitation of God a member of Christ a temple of the holy Spirit of God the building follows 2. All Christians must acquire all the graces of the holy Spirit of God S. Peter gives the Catalogue Faith and Vertue and Knowledge and Temperance and Patience and Godliness and Brotherly kindness and Charity and that you may see what is the spirit of a Christian what an activity and brisk principle is required to the acquisition of these things the Apostle gives this percept that for the acquiring these things we should give 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all diligence no lazy worker is a good Christian he must be diligent and not every diligence nor every degree of good diligence but it must be all omnem omniuo diligentiam give all diligence 3. There is yet another degree to be added here too It is not enough for a Christian to be free from corruption and to have these graces and g. to be diligent very diligent to obtain them but they must be in us and abound N. B. they must be in us these graces and this righteousness must be inherent it is not enough for us that Christ had them for us for it is true if he had not had them we should never have received those or any thing else that is good but he had them that we might have them and follow his steps who knew no sin and fulfilled all righteousness They must be in us saith S. Peter and not only so they must also abound in us that 's the end of Christ's death that 's the fruit of his Spirit they must be plentiful like a full Vintage or like Euphrates in the time of ripe Fruits they must swell over the banks for when they are but in gradu virtutis in the lowest step of sincerity they may fall from the tree like unripe fruit and be fit for nothing but for Prodigals and Swine they must be in their season and period great and excellent and eminent they must take up all our faculties fill up all our time spend all our powers satisfie the will and be adequate to all the powers of our choice that is as S. Peter adds they must be so that we make our calling and election sure so as that we shall never any more depart from God well thus far you see how severe and sacred a thing it is to be a Christian. 4. But there are yet three steps more beyond this God requires of us perseverance a thrusting all this forward even unto the end without peace and holiness no man shall see God saith the Author to the Hebrews but that 's not all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 follow after peace and holiness with all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which it is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which peace but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 without which following of peace and holiness that is unless we endure all contradiction of sinners and objections without following it close and home to the utmost issue to the end of all righteousness tending even to comprehension to consummation and perfection no man shall see God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is good and great to dwell in holiness but that 's not enough it must be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 too we must still pursue it and that unto the end for he that endureth unto the end shall be saved 5. And what more yes there is something yet For besides this extension of duration there must be intensio graduum for nondum comprehendimus nondum perfecti sumus we have not yet comprehended we are not yet made perfect but that must be aimed at Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect be ye meek as Christ is be ye holy as God is holy pure as your Father in Heaven is pure and who can be so no man can be so in degree but so in kind every man must desire and every man must contend to be and g. it is possible else it had never been required 6. And now after all this one thing more is to be done you must be so for your selves and you must be so for others you must be so as to please God and you must be so to edifie your Brethren Let your light so shine before men that they may glorifie your Father which is in Heaven let it be so eminent and conspicuous that all that see your conversation and all that come into your Congregations may be convinced and falling down and worshipping may say of a truth the Spirit of the Lord is in you And g. our Blessed Saviour in his Sermon upon the Mount which is the summary of a Christians life at the end of the eight beatitudes tells all his Followers and Disciples ye are the salt of the world ye are the light of the world and g. the Kingdom of Heaven or the Gospel is compared to a woman that hid in three measures of meal the Jews the Turks the Heathen Idolaters her Leaven till all was leavened our Light must be so shining our Conversation so exemplar as to draw all the world after us that they that will not may be ashamed and they that wil lmay be allured by the beauty of the flame These are the proportions and measures of every Christian for from the days of John the Baptist the Kingdom of Heaven suffers violence and the violent take it by force that although John the Baptist was the greatest that ever was born of woman yet he that is least in the Kingdom of Heaven the meanest of the Laity may be greater than he This is a great height and these things I have premised not only to describe the duty of all that are here present even of all Christians whatsoever that you may not depart without your portion of a blessing but also as a foundation of the ensuing periods which I shall address to you my Brethren of the Clergy the Fathers of the people for I speak in a School of the Prophets Prophets and Prophets Sons to you who are or intend to be so For God hath made a separation of you even beyond this separation he hath separated you yet again he hath put you anew into the Chrysoble he hath made you to pass through the fire seven times more For it is true that the whole community of the People is the Church Ecclesia sancta est communio sanctorum the holy Catholick Church is the communion of Saints but yet by the voice and consent of all Christendom you are the Church by way of propriety and
eminency and singularity Church-men that 's your appellative all are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual men all have received the Spirit and all walk in the Spirit and ye are all sealed by the Spirit unto the day of Redemption and yet there is a spirituality peculiar to the Clergy If any man be overtaken in a fault ye which are spiritual restore such a one in the spirit of meekness you who are spiritual by office and designation of a spiritual calling and spiritual employment you who have the Spirit of the Lord Jesus and minister the Spirit of God you are more eminently spiritual you have the Spirit in graces and in powers in sanctification and abilities in Office and in Person the Vnction from above hath descended upon your heads and upon your hearts you are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by way of eminency and praelation spiritual men All the people of God were holy Corah and his company were in the right so far but yet Moses and Aaron were more holy and stood neerer to God All the people are Prophets It is now more than Moses wish for the Spirit of Christ hath made them so If any man prayeth or prophesieth with his head covered or if any woman prophesieth with her head uncovered they are dishonoured but either man or woman may do that work in time and place for in the latter days I will pour out of my Spirit and your daughters shall prophesie and yet God hath appointed in his Church Prophets above these to whose Spirit all the other Prophets are subject and as God said to Aaron and Miriam concerning Moses to you I am known in a dream or a vision but to Moses I speak face to face so it is in the Church God gives of his Spirit to all men but you he hath made the Ministers of his Spirit Nay the people have their portion of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven so said S. Paul To whom ye forgive any thing to him I forgive also and to the whole Church of Corinth he gave a Commission in the Name of Christ and by his Spirit to deliver the incestuous person unto Satan and when the primitive Penitents stood in their penitential stations they did Chairs Dei adgeniculari toti populo legationem orationis suae commendare and yet the Keys were not only promised but given to the Apostles to be used then and transmitted to all Generations of the Church and we are Ministers of Christ and Stewards of the manifold Mysteries of God and to us is committed the word of reconciliation And thus in the Consecration of the mysterious Sacrament the people have their portion for the Bishop or the Priest blesses and the People by saying Amen to the mystick Prayer is partaker of the Power and the whole Church hath a share in the power of Spiritual Sacrifice Ye are a royal Priesthood Kings and Priests unto God that is so ye are Priests as ye are Kings but yet Kings and Priests have a glory conveyed to them of which the people partake but in minority and allegory and improper communication But you are and are to be respectively that considerable part of mankind by whom God intends to plant holiness in the World by you God means to reign in the hearts of men and g. you are to be the first in this kind and consequently the measure of all the rest To you g. I intend this and some following Discourses in order to this purpose I shall but now lay the first stone but it is the corner stone in this foundation But to you I say of the Clergy these things are spoken properly to you these Powers are conveyed really upon you God hath poured his Spirit plentifully you are the Choicest of his Choice the Elect of his Election a Church pick'd out of the Church Vessels of honour so your Masters use appointed to teach others authorised to bless in his Name you are the Ministers of Christ's Priesthood Under-labourers in the great Work of Mediation and Intercession Medii inter Deum Populum you are for the People towards God and convey Answers and Messages from God to the People These things I speak not only to magnifie your Office but to inforce and heighten your Duty you are holy by Office and Designation for your very Appointment is a Sanctification and a Consecration and g. whatever holiness God requires of the People who have some little portions in the Priesthood Evangelical he expects it of you and much greater to whom he hath conveyed so great Honours and admitted so neer unto himself and hath made to be the great Ministers of his Kingdom and his Spirit and now as Moses said to the Levitical Schismaticks Corah and his Company so I may say to you Seemeth it but a small thing unto you that the God of Israel hath separated you from the Congregation of Israel to bring you to himself to do the Service of the Tabernacle of the Lord and to stand before the Congregation to minister to them And he hath brought thee neer to him Certainly if of every one of the Christian Congregation God expects a holiness that mingles with no unclean thing if God will not suffer of them a luke-warm and an indifferent service but requires zeal of his Glory and that which St. Paul calls the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the labour of love if he will have them to be without spot or wrinkle or any such thing if he will not endure any pollution in their Flesh or Spirit if he requires that their Bodies and Souls and Spirits be kept blameless unto the coming of the Lord Jesus if he accepts of none of the people unless they have within them the conjugation of all Christian Graces if he calls on them to abound in every Grace and that in all the periods of their progression unto the ends of their lives and to the consummation and perfection of Grace if he hath made them Lights in the World and the Salt of the Earth to enlighten others by their good Example and to teach them and invite them by holy Discourses and wise Counsels and Speech seasoned with Salt what is it think ye or with what words is it possible to express what God requires of you They are to be Examples of Good life to one another but you are to be Examples even of the Examples themselves that 's your duty that 's the purpose of God and that 's the design of my Text That in all things ye shew your selves a pattern of good works in Doctrine shewing uncorruptness gravity sincerity sound speech that cannot be condemned that he that is of the contrary part may be ashamed having no evil thing to say of you Here then is 1. Your Duty 2. The degrees and excellency of your Duty The Duty is double 1. Holiness of Life 2. Integrity of Doctrine Both these have their heightnings in several degrees 1. For your Life and Conversation
for the People to bless the People to divert Judgments from them to deprecate the wrath of God to make an attonement for them and to reconcile them to the eternal mercy certain it is that though the Sermons of a wicked Minister may do some good not so much as they ought but some they can but the Prayer of a wicked Minister does no good at all it provokes God to anger it is an abomination in his righteous eyes Thirdly The Ecclesiastical Order is by Christ appointed to minister his holy Spirit to the People The Priests in Baptism and the holy Eucharist and Prayer and Intercession The Bishop in all these and in Ordination besides and in Confirmation and in Solemn Blessing Now then consider what will be the event of this without effect Can he minister the Spirit from whom the Spirit of God is departed And g. since all wickedness does grieve the Spirit of God and great wickedness defiles his Temples and destroys them unto the ground and extinguishes the Spirit that drives iniquity away these persons are no longer spiritual men they are carnal and sold under sin and walk not in the Spirit they are spiritual just as Simon Magus was a Christian or as Judas was an Apostle he had the name of it but what says the Scripture he fell from it by transgression only this as he that is Baptized has for ever a title to the Promises and a possibility of Repentance and a right to Restitution until he renounces all and never will or can repent so there is in all our holy Orders an indelible character and they can by a new life be restored to all their powers but in the mean time while they abide in sin and carnality the cloud is over the face of the Sun and the Spirit of God appears not in a fiery tongue that is not in material and active demonstrations and how far he will be ministred by the Offices of an unworthy man we know not only by all that is said in Scripture we are made to fear that things will not be so well with the people till the Minister be better only this we are sure of that though one man may be much the worse for another mans sin yet without his own fault no man shall perish and God will do his work alone and the Spirit of God though he be ordinarily conveyed by Ecclesiastical Ministries yet he also comes irregularly and in ways of his own and prevents the external Rites and prepossesses the hearts of his Servants and the people also have so much portion in the Evangelical Ministration that if they be holy they shall receive the holy Ghost in their hearts and will express him in their lives and themselves also become Kings and Priests unto God while they are zealous of good works And to this purpose may the proverb of the Rabbins be rightly understood Major est qui respondit Amen quam qui benedicit He that sayes Amen is greater than he that blesses or prays meaning if he heartily desires what the other perfunctorily and with his lips only utters not praying with his heart and with the acceptabilities of a good life the Amen shall be more than all the Prayer and the People shall prevail for themselves when the Priest could not according to the saying of Midrasich Tehillim Quicunque dicit Amen omnibus viribus suis ei aperiuntur portae paradisi sicut dictum est ingredietur gens justa He that says Amen with his whole power to him the gates of Paradise shall be open according to that which is said And the righteous Nation shall enter in And this is excellently discoursed of by S. Austin Sacramentum gratiae dat etiam Deus per malos ipsam vero gratim non nisi per seipsum vel per sanctos suos and g. he gives remission of sins by himself or by the members of the Dove so that good Men shall be supplied by God But as this is an infinite comfort to the people so it is an intolerable shame to all wicked Ministers the benefit which God intended to minister by them the people shall have without their help and whether they will or no but because the people get nothing by their ministration or but very little the Ministers shall never have their portion where the good people shall inhabit to eternal Ages And I beseech you to consider what an infinite confusion that will be at the day of Judgment when they to whom you have preach'd Righteousness shall enter into everlasting glory and you who have preached it shall have the curse of Hanameel and the reward of Balaam the wages of unrighteousness But thus it was when the Wise men asked the Doctors where Christ should be born they told them right but the Wise men went to Christ and found him and the Doctors sate still and went not Fourthly Consider That every sin which is committed by a Minister of Religion is more than one and it is as soon espied too for more men look upon the Sun in an Eclipse than when he is in his beauty but every spot I say is greater every mote is a beam it is not only made so but it is so it hath not the excuses of the people is not pitiable by the measures of their infirmity and g. 1. It is reckoned in the accounts of malice never of ignorance for ignorance it self in them is always a double sin and g. it is very remarkable that when God gave command to the Levitical Priests to make attonement for the sins of ignorance in the people there is no mention made of the Priests sin of ignorance God supposed no such thing in them and Moses did not mention it and there was no provision made in that case as you may see at large in Levit. 4. and Numb 15. But 2. because every Priest is a man also observe how his sin is described Levit. 4. 3. If the Priest that is anointed do sin according to the sin of the People that is if he be so degenerate and descend from the glory where God hath placed him and do sin after the manner of the people then he is to proceed to remedy intimating that it is infinitely besides expectation it is a strange thing it is like a monstrous production it is unnatural that a Priest should sin according as the People do however if he does it is not connived at which a sentence gentle as that finds which is a sin of ignorance or the sin of the people no it is not for it is always malice it is always uncharitableness for it brings mischief to their Congregations and contracts their blessings into little circuits and turns their bread into a stone and their Wine to Vinegar And then besides this 3. It is also scandalous and then it is infinitely against Charity such Ministers make the people of God to sin and that 's against the nature of their Office
there is no further certainty in them than what the one fancies and the other is pleas'd to allow But if the spiritual sense be prov'd evident and certain then it is of the same efficacy as the literal for it is according to that letter by which Gods Holy Spirit was pleas'd to signifie his meaning and it matters not how he is pleas'd to speak so we understand his meaning and in this sense that is true which is affirm'd by S. Gregory Allegoriam interdum aedificare fidem sometimes our faith is built up by the mystical words of the Spirit of God But because it seldom happens that they can be prov'd g. you are not to feed your flocks with such herbs whose virtue you know not of whose wholesomness or powers of nourishing you are wholly or for the most part ignorant we have seen and felt the mischief and sometimes derided the absurdity God created the Sun and the Moon said Moses that is said the extravagants of Pope Boniface the 8th the Pope and the Emperour And Behold here are two swords said S. Peter It is enough said Christ enough for S. Peter and so he got the two swords the temporal and spiritual said the gloss upon that Text. Of these things there is no beginning and no end no certain principles and no good conclusion These are the two ways of expounding all Scriptures these are as the two witnesses of God by the first of which he does most commonly and by the latter of which he does sometimes declare his meaning and in the discovery of these meanings the Measures which I have now given you are the general land-marks and are sufficient to guide us from destructive errours It follows in the next place that I give you some Rules that are more particular according to my undertaking that you in your duty and your charges in the provisions to be made for them may be more secure 1. Although you are to teach your people nothing but what is the Word of God yet by this Word I understand all that God spake expresly and all that by certain consequence can be deduced from it Thus Dionysius Alexandrinus argues 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he that in Scripture is called the Son and the Word of the Father I conclude he is no stranger to the essence of the Father And S. Ambrose derided them that called for express Scripture for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 since the Prophets and the Gospels acknowledge the unity of substance in the Father and the Son and we easily conclude the Holy Ghost to be God because we call upon him and we call upon him because we believe in him and we believe in him because we are baptized into the faith and profession of the Holy Ghost This way of teaching our Blessed Saviour us'd when he confuted the Sadduces in the Question of the Resurrection and thus he confuted the Pharisees in the Question of his being the Son of God The use I make of it is this that right reason is so far from being an exile from the inquiries of Religion that it is the great ensurance of many propositions of faith and we have seen the faith of men strangely alter but the reason of man can never alter every rational truth supposing its principles being eternal and unchangeable All that is to be done here is to see that you argue well that your deduction be evident that your reason be right for Scripture is to our understandings as the grace of God to our wills that instructs our reason and this helps our wills and we may as well chuse the things of God without our wills and delight in them without love as understand the Scriptures or make use of them without reason Quest. But how shall our reason be guided that it may be right that it be not a blind guide but direct us to the place where the star appears and point us to the very house where the babe lieth that we may indeed do as the wise men did To this I answer 2. In the making deductions the first great measure to direct our reason and our inquiries is the analogy of faith that is let the fundamentals of faith be your Cynosura your great light to walk by and whatever you derive from thence let it be agreeable to the principles from whence they come It is the rule of S. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him that prophesies do it according to the proportion of faith that is let him teach nothing but what is revealed or agreeable to the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the prime credibilities of Christianity that is by the plain words of Scripture let him expound the less plain and the superstructure by the measures of the foundation and doctrines be answerable to faith and speculations relating to practice and nothing taught as simply necessary to be believed but what is evidently and plainly set down in the holy Scriptures for he that calls a proposition necessary which the Apostles did not declare to be so or which they did not teach to all Christians learned and unlearned he is gone beyond his proportions For every thing is to be kept in that order where God hath plac'd it there is a classis of necessary Articles and that is the Apostles Creed which Tertullian calls regulam fidei the rule of faith and according to this we must teach necessities but what comes after this is not so necessary and he that puts upon his own doctrines a weight equal to this of the Apostles declaration either must have an Apostolical authority and an Apostolical infallibility or else he transgresses the proportion of faith and becomes a false Apostle 3. To this purpose it is necessary that you be very diligent in reading laborious and assiduous in the studies of Scripture not only lest ye be blind seers and blind guides but because without great skill and learning ye cannot do your duty A Minister may as well sin by his ignorance as by his negligence because when light springs from so many angles that may enlighten us unless we look round about us and be skill'd in all the angles of reflection we shall but turn our backs upon the Sun and see nothing but our own shadows Search the Scriptures said Christ Non dixit legite sed scrutamini said S. Chrysostome quia oportet profundius effodere ut quae altè delitescunt invenire possimus Christ did not say read but search the Scriptures turn over every page inquire narrowly look diligently converse with them perpetually be mighty in the Scriptures for that which is plain there is the best measures of our faith and of our doctrines The Jews have a saying Qui non advertit quod supra infra in Scriptoribus legitur is pervertit verba Dei viventis He that will understand Gods meaning must look above and below and round about for the meaning of the Spirit of God is not like the wind