from Fast to Fast from Feast to Fast from Christmas to Lent from Lent to Christmas from Christmas to Lent again from one Lent to another from one day to another begging and beseeching him not to refuse his own salvation Well may it deserve Ecce upon Ecce consideration upon consideration admiration too as well as consideration and admiration upon admiration Ecce may pass for a note of both to be beheld so long till our eyes and thoughts are not able to behold or think any longer And 3. to day to set upon it this nunc to begin it in Thou knowest not O man thou knowest not how short thy time is whether this day may not be thy last whether this Now this very moment may not at least be the last time that this salvation may be offered thee Many are the times I confess I told you that challeng'd right to be among the accepted ones but remember I told you the present was the only sure one The Apostle surely thought so when he was so earnest for it Heb iii that within the compass of nine verses he three several times at least puts them in mind to take care to day to hear Gods voice while to day it is as if to morrow would not serve the turn or the day of salvation were gone at night salvation gone or we gone and all gone with us Thousands there be in the world who now are who within a few minutes will be no more and why mayest not thou be one of them so much the sooner in that the so long contempt of Gods mercy may justly provoke him thus to fetch thee off and throw thee by 'T is not without reason that St. Paul doubles his files doubles the Nunc as well as the Ecce calls as it were in hast Now Now catch hold on 't Indeed nor I nor you can time it better There are three special points of time that meet here now all extreamly fit to perswade and move us to set upon the work and business of salvation to apply our selves seriously to our Repentance and Gods Service The particular time of Lent this special day of Confirmation the general and continued day of that latter great salvation and deliverance we still enjoy For that particular 1. of Lent you have heard already all the helps it has for the furtherance of salvation the fastings and watchings the severities and restraints the austerities and rigours it requires and brings towards it I only add 't is Palm-Sunday within a day or two a day fit to go out to meet your Saviour with Hosanna's and bring salvation home with Palms and Triumphs The holy week's at hand a Week formerly of greater devotion and strictness than any of the rest Good Friday and Easter are a coming the great Anniversaries of our salvation the fittest days the properest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to mind it in for all to do it But for some For some of you you who come to be confirmed this very day is a day of salvation in particular wherein I hope you shall have reason to return and say what our blessed Master said to Zacheus This day is salvation come unto your houses A day wherein by the Imposition of holy hands your Saviour seems sensibly to accept you to receive you signally now after your first straglings into his house and Church again to receive you into his acquaintance to receive you into his favour to receive you into his protection to receive you to his benediction and send you away with it with all the blessings of his Holy Spirit whch are by the outward ceremony of laying on the Bishops hands and pouring out his prayers poured down upon you only remember you come hither to be reconciled and beg a blessing that 's your business Remember that upon your knees you beg it and with your hearts desire it and then upon your heads be it Be it will I dare assure you wisdom and understanding and counsel and ghostly strength and knowledge and godliness and Gods holy fea◠all these gifts and blessings of the Holy Spirit as they are prayed for in it so will be upon you by it to confirm you in the Faith if you now resolve as it is required of you in the Preface to stand to those promises you have already made in holy Baptism and stedfastly determine to be Christians hereafter as you should be to live and die in the obedience of Christ to keep his Faith entire and his Commandments to the utmost of your power Do so to day and to day then will be your accepted time will be to you certainly a day of salvation But 3. the days of salvation we have now almost three years enjoyed may justly demand to be remembred too to spur us on to take a little more care how we spend our time I am afraid our late days have been as much consum'd in vanity as our former years were spent in trouble We have forgot our deliverance we live rather as if we had been deliver'd up as they in the Prophet excus'd themselves Ier. vii 10. to do all abominations we seem to have quite lost the memory of our temporal salvation and for our spiritual we go on daily as if we either cared not whether God would save us or no or at least we would venture it or as if we said in plain English let him save us if he will be it else at his own peril if he will not or in short as if we bid him damn us if he durst Yet never were there such days of salvation as we have seen never such deliverances as we have found never were such cast-aways never men so rejected so despis'd so trampled on so again accepted on a sudden Good God was it for our righteousness was it for our merits was it by our own strength or wit or power we were delivered alas Lord we had none of these was it for our Oaths or Perjuries or Blasphemies or Sacriledges or Rebellions or Schisms or Heresies or Thefts or Prophaneness or Wickedness or Villanies that thou didst deliver us to our Kingdom and our Church to our peace and plenty and prosperity to all the happy means of Piety and Religion to all the beauties of holiness and opportunities of salvation Enough indeed O Lord of these we could have shewed thee but these were reasons why thou shouldest not deliver us It was only O Lord because thou wouldest have the day and wouldest save us because thou wouldest But for all that my Brethren take heed we sin not so again God has set us here a time points it out to us with an ecce and an ecce that we can no longer plead ignorance to miss it we are already encompassed with the day of salvation and we are never like to see such a one again if we should lose this let us abuse it then no longer lest some horrible night e're long overtake us some terrible judgment
the Spirit appears but why the Spirit appears now now first and not before now first visibly to the world is worth enquiry And 't is to shew the preheminence of the Gospel above the Law That stood only in meats and drinks and divers washings and carnal ordinances says the Apostle Heb. ix 10. was but the Law of a carnal Commandment Heb. vii 16. The Gospel is a Law of spirit and life the Law of Moses a dead a killing Letter but the Gospel of Christ a quickning Spirit 2 Cor. iii. 6. the Law a course of shadows the Gospel only the true light It will appear so by the next Particular we are to handle the manner of his appearing In tongues in cloven tongues in tongues as it were of fire I shall invert the order for the fire it is that gives light unto the tongues to make them for to appear of the fire then first to shew them the better For the Spirit to appear as wind or breath is nothing strange It carries them in its name Spiritus à spirando every one can tell you But that this breath should not only blow up a fire but be it self also blown into it the Spirit here appear as fire that 's somewhat hard at first perhaps to understand Yet you shall see many good reasons for it Four great ones I shall give you which comprehend more under them 1. To shew the Analogy and correspondence of Gods dealings and dispensations how they agree both with themselves and with one another 2. To insinuate to us the nature and condition of the holy Spirit 3. To signifie the several gifts and graces of it 4. To declare its operations also and effects 1. The Holy Ghost here appear'd like fire that we might see it is the same God that gave both Law and Gospel the same Spirit in both Testaments The Law was promulgated by fire Exod. xix 18. the Lord descended on Mount Sinai then in fire The Gospel also here is first divulged by tongues as it were of fire in Mount Sion The difference only is that there were here no lightnings thunders clouds or smoke as there were there nothing terrible nothing dark or gloomy here all light and peace and glory 2. Under the Old Testament the Prophets oft were Commissionated by fire to their Offices the Angel takes a live coal from off the Altar and lays it upon Isaiah's mouth Isa. vi 7. Elijah the Prophet stood up as fire Ecclus. xlviii 1. Ezekiels first Vision was of appearances of fire Ezek. i. 4 13. The Commissions therefore of the Apostles were drawn here also as it were with pens of fire that they might the more lively answer and the better express the Spirit of the Prophets 3. That the nature of the Law they were to preach might be exprest too It was the Law of love and the holy fire of Charity was it they were sent to kindle in the World 4. It was to teach them what they were to expect in the World themselves fire and faggot affliction and tribulation the lot and portion both of them and of their followers ever since 5. It was to teach them what they were to be burning and shining lights to lead others into heaven Lastly That so all righteousness Law and Prophets might be fulfilled the types of the one and the promises of the other from the first of them to the last to St. Iohn Baptists that they should be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire that the fire that Christ came to send into the earth and was then already kindled might now burn out into the World And all this to shew the Almighty Wisdom who thus agreeably orders all his doings from the first unto the last that we might with the greater confidence embrace the Doctrine of the Gospel which so evenly consented with the Law and was added only to bring it to perfection to raise up the fire of devotion and charity to the height 2. But not only to manifest the wisdom of the Father and perform the promise of the Son but secondly to intimate the nature of the holy Spirit Fire is the purest Element The holy Spirit is pure and incorruptible thine incorruptible Spirit says the Wise man Wisd. xii 1. No evill can dwell with it It will not mingle with humane interests By this you may know it from all other Spirits They intermix with private humours and self-respects and great ones fancies The holy Spirit is a fire and will not mix it must dwell alone has not a tongue now for this and then for that to please men and ease it self but is always pure and incorrupt Fire 2. is the subtilest Element it pierces into every part And whither can I go then from thy Spirit says holy David Psal. cxxxix 6. If I climb up into heaven thou art there If I go down to hell thou art there also If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the Sea even there also will it find me out Darkness cannot cover me thick darkness cannot hide me night it self cannot conceal me from thee O thou divine Spirit O keep me therefore that I may do nothing that may make me ashamed and hide my self seeing thy eyes will quickly pierce into me 3. Fire is an active nature always stirring always moving Nothing can be found better to express the nature of the holy Spirit It mov'd from the beginning actuated the first matter into all the shapes we see breath'd an active principle into them all renew'd again the face of the Earth when the waters had defaced it blows and the waters flow blows again and dries them up guides the Patriarchs inspires the Prophets rests upon the Governours of the People from Moses to the seventy Elders gives spirit and courage to the Martyrs Non permanebit spiritus meus in vagina says God Gen. vi My Spirit will not endure to be always as in a rusty sheath it will be lightning the understanding it will be warming the affections it will be stirring of the passions it will be working in the heart it will be acting in the hand it will be moving in the feet it will be quickning all the powers to the service of the Almighty nothing so busie as this holy fire nothing so active as this Spirit Though the nature and essence of it cannot be full exprest it is thus very powerfully resembled 3. The gifts of it more easily by this fire Seven there are numbred of them out of Isa. xi 2. The Spirit of wisdom and understanding the Spirit of counsel and ghostly strength the Spirit of knowledge and true godliness and the Spirit of holy fear all very naturally represented to us by so many properties I shall observe to you of the fire Fire it ascends it penetrates it tries it hardens it enlightens it warms it melts You have all these again in the seven gifts of the Spirit For 1. the holy Spirit
Virgin and all the Saints and Angels we may sing praise and honour and glory to him Father Son and Holy Ghost for ever and ever A SERMON ON Palm Sunday St. MAT. XXi. 8. And a very great multitude spread their Garments in the way others cut down branches from the Trees and strewed them in the way THe branches in the Text point you out what day it is St. Iohn calls some of them at least Palm branches St. Ioh. xii 13. and the Church calls the day Palm Sunday Dominica Palmarum the day wherein our Blessed Lord riding as Lord and Bishop of our souls his Visitation to Hierusalem upon an Ass was met with a kind of solemn Procession by the people a very great multitude of them says our Evangelist and had his way strewed with boughts and bespread with cloths the best they had as is usual in Princely Entertainments and Triumphs and Processions And 't is both a day and business worth remembring wherein we see the triumph of humility whereby we are taught both humility and its reward Christs mercy and mans rejoycing in it Christs way of coming to us and our way of going out to him to meet and entertain him Things worthy consideration All that was this day done were so but they are many and though they all concern us much yet our own duty concerns us most to know with what dispositions which way and how to meet and receive our Lord come he never so meanly never so slowly to us upon Horse or Ass by Mountain or Valley gloriously or humbly to us though come he how he will it will be humbly the greatest imaginable condescension even to come unto us I shall stir out neither of the Text nor time to mind us of our duty in the way of receiving Christ nor desire more matter to spend the hour than the words will give me Only I must take both the Letter and Spirit of them If we look to the History and Letter many remarkables we shall meet with If to the Mystery and Spirit more and more punctually to our purposes By both we shall be abundantly fitted against Christs coming to us and for our due receiving him the Sacramental within few days now at hand not excepted nay the Spirit of the words may be as fitly applied to that to the Sacramental receiving him as any other to teach us how to receive and meet him there as well as any where else Consider we the words then under both Notions what they did as to the Letter what we are taught to do by the Mystery and Spirit In each these three Particulars I. The Persons that go out to meet Christ and entertain him The multitude A very great multitude II. The Ceremony and respect they meet him and entertain him with Some spread their Garments in the way others cut down branches from the trees and strewd them in the way III. The Way and Place they meet and entertain him in both the one and the other in the way There they met him so they there entertained him so many hundred years ago in the literal sense in the same way and manner in the spiritual sense are we to entertain him every year and all our years and days to come And by thus canvasing the Text and taking both senses of it we shall plainly see we have good reason to remember a Palm Sunday the Church so to entitle it so to prepare us both to the Passion and the Resurrection by spreading still before us these branches of Palms and Olives by insinuating this way unto us as the properest to entertain our Saviour in to usher in the thoughts of both the Passion and Resurrection both his and ours and fit us for them both I begin with the Persons of the day and them I find the multitude A multitude for their quality a very great multitude for their number The multitude for their quality are the common people And Interdum vulgus rectum videt says the Poet Sometimes it seems the Common People see what is right No people of so low or mean understanding but may come to the knowledge of Christ and understand the ways of Salvation The Rabbins had a Proverb that Non requiescit Spiritus Domini super pauperem The Spirit of the Lord rests not upon the poor And the Pharisees had taken up somewhat like it when they give the people no better stile than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 than of cursed and such as know not the Law St. Ioh. vii 49. Their blessing then comes by Christ it seems so they may well honour him upon that score 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the poor the Gospel is preacht is one of the tokens he sends St. Iohn Baptist to evidence himself the true Messiah quite contrary to the Pharisees Hic populus qui non novit this people that knoweth not the Law The Gospel the Law of Christ the far better Law is preacht it seems to the poor by him and spiritus is now joyn'd with pauperes The Spirit and poor together we find in his first Sermon and first beatitude the poor in Spirit St. Mat. v. 3. and a while after Quam difficile c. How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the Kindom of God St. Mark x. 23. The condition altered the poor advanc'd the rich deprest a good reason why the multitude should follow and respect him and a great testimony of our Saviours mercy and humility so to honour mean things Yet 2. that the multitude may not forget themselves as they are too prone to do to ride you know whither when they are set a horse back they may remember Christ would not commit himself unto them St. Ioh. ii 24. He needed not their honour he knew what they would do in a few days hence cry as many Crucifies as they did to day Hosannahs as fast to crucifie him as now to bless him Indeed they are easie to be seduced and led away by any wind of Doctrine new Teachers and Seducers We have found it so of late Christ and his Church and his Religion more dishonoured by the madness of the multitude than he was honoured here They have stript himself and his Church of all the Garments and Ornaments to cloath themselves instead of stripping themselves or spreading their own Garments to honour him Yet for all that of such giddy pieces as these Christ does not always refuse to be honoured that we may know he does not deal with us after our sins nor reject us for our weaknesses much less condemn or damn us for them before we have committed them Nay perhaps 3. he accepts this honour from this multitude that he might shew us what all worldly honour is how fickle how inconstant how vain it is to puff up our selves with the breath of men to feed our selves with their empty air They that are now ready to lick the dust of some great mans feet and spread not their Garments
under another title it comes from him as the gift of Tongues or Interpretation or Prophesie or the Word of Wisdom or the Word of Knowledg are reckoned by the Apostle to come from the same Spirit 1 Cor. xii 8. it may be most properly from him as he is the Spirit of Truth By the second way of knowledg it comes to pass that men of less capacities and lower understandings applying their affections as well as understandings to embrace the Truth do know and understand it more effectually are more resolute in the defence of it express it better in their lives and know more sometimes of the particular ways of God in his particular Providence and Direction of the affairs of his Saints for of this kind of wisdom the fear of the Lord always is the beginning and it often happens of the passages of the World too as they relate to Gods disposing order Yet by reason of the inabilities of understanding or want of the course or means of knowledg it falls out that they oftener err in the conceits and apprehensions of things than the other And more than so it as often comes to pass whether to humble them when they begin to be proud of their holiness and piety and think themselves so much above other men wiser better more holy more righteous than they or to punish them for some particular sin as disobdience curiosity of enquiring into depths above them singularity discontentedness self seeking or the like or to stir up their endeavours now beginning to languish or to make them yet more circumspect and wary in their ways for these or some such causes I say it comes to pass that God suffers them to run into grand and enormous errors foul and foolish extravagancies of opinion which if once they trench on practise and are deliberate in or might with easie industry have been avoided even grieve and quench that Holy Spirit that was in them and expel him too but if their errors be unvoluntary not easie for them at that time to be avoided or of lesser moment stand they may with the Spirit of Grace and they good men still How therefore now shall we know what is from the Spirit of Truth when he comes so to us is but a necessary enquiry yet the resolution is hard and difficult I know no better way to resolve you than by searching the nature of this Spirit of Truth as Christ has pleased to express him in his last most holy and comfortable Discourse of which the Text is but a part the several expressions of whose nature and office set together will I am confident assure us of a way to discern the Spirit of truth when it is that He speaketh in us You may turn your leaves and go along with me Chap. xiv 17. The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive so then 1. if the Article or Opinion which we receive be such an one as the world cannot if it be contrary to worldly interests carnal respects sensual pleasures 't is a good sign at first If it cannot enter into a carnal or natural mans heart if mans wisdom teach it not as the Apostle speaks 1 Cor. ii 13. if it grow not in the garden of nature that 's a good sign 't is the Spirit of truth is come that thus enables us to receive a Doctrine so disadvantagious and displeasing Look into the next verse ver 18. I will not leave you comfortless If then 2. it be such an assertion that has good ground in it to rest upon that will not fail us in distress that will stick by us in our deepest agonies comfort us in our greatest discomforts not leave us when all earthly comforts do then 't is from above then 't is a true comfort a truth from this He this Spirit of truth that is the Comforter too See next v. 26. He shall teach you all things bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you If then 3. it be an assertion that carries the analogy of faith along with it that agrees with all the other principles of Christian faith that is according to the rule of Christs holy word that soberly and truly brings to our remembrance what he has said at any time or done for us that remembers both the words that he spake and the deeds that he has done his actions and example if it be according to his example of humility obedience patience and love if it bring us heartily to remember this Christs pattern in our lives and opinions too then it comes from him that should come and is worth your receiving and remembring it In the same verse again in the words just before he is called the Comforter and Holy Ghost who is also there promised to teach us too And if the Doctrine be such that not only comforts us in the receiving and remembrance but such also as becomes Comforters too that teaches us to comfort others the poor and needy the afflicted and distressed and to do it holily too as by the Holy Ghost that is with good and pure intentions and do it even to their Ghosts and Spirits as well as to their bodies if it teach true holy Ghostly spiritual counsel and all other convenient comfort to them our Christian brethren Then 't is 4. a doctrine from this Spirit of truth he comes in it Turn ye now to Chap. xv 23. But when the Comforter is come whom I will send unto you from the Father even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father c. When the Doctrine 5. is no other than what either establishes the Doctrine of the holy Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost or contradicts it not and in all benefits received refers thanks and acknowledgment to the one as well as the other as from the one through the other by a third In this particular it is no other than the Spirit of truth for no other Spirit can reveal it Go on now through the vers He shall testifie of me The Doctrine 6. that bears witness of Christ that he is God that he is Man that he is Christ the Saviour of the World that he came to save sinners all whosoever would come to him not a few particular ones only that he is a complete and Universal Saviour such as he profest himself by entertaining all comers sending his Spirit and Apostles into all Nations commanding them to preach to every creature which are no other than his own words this is also from the Spirit of truth a Doctrine worthy Him that is the Comforter that brings so general a comfort with it Step now into the next Chapter Chap. xvi to which we owe the Text. When he is come he will reprove the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment ver 8. When the Doctrine is 7. such as it reproves the world of sin that it can do no good of it self that it is full of evil and corruption convinces
ready and willing to guide us into all truth yet and 2. to shew us how he will do it that we may learn how to be guided by him This the sum And the Vse of all will be that we submit our selves to him and to his guidance to be taught and led and guided by him to his guiding and to his truth and to all of it without exception To guide and to be guided are relatives infer one another If we will have him guide us he will have us be guided by him and give up our selves to his way of guiding Oh that we would that there were but a heart in us to do so we should not then have so many spirits but more truth one Spirit would be all and all truth would be one this one single Spirit would be sufficient to guide us into all truth He would guide us into all truth But I must from my wishes to my words where we see first we have a guide that though Christ be ascended from us into Heaven yet we are not without a guide upon the Earth I. I will not leave you comfortless said he when he was going hence St. Ioh. xiv 18. Had he left us without a guide he had so comfortless indeed in a vast and howling wilderness this earth is little else But a Comforter he sends ver 7. such a one as shall teach us all things St. Iohn xiv 26. that 's a comfort indeed none like it to have one to guide us in a dangerous and uncertain way to teach us that our ignorance requires to do all the offices of a guide unto us to teach us our way to lead us if need be in it to protect and defend us through it to answer for us if we be questioned about it and to cheer us up encourage and sustain us all the way II. Such a guide as this is 2. this He we are next to speak of He the Spirit of Truth so 't is interpreted but immediately before He shall teach you teach you the way reveal Christ to you for unless he do you cannot know him teach you how to pray Rom. viii 26. teach you what to say how to answer by the way if you be called to question in it St. Luke xii give you a mouth and wisdom too St. Luke xxi 15. teach you not only to speak but to speak to purpose He 2. shall lead you too deducet lead you on be a prop and stay and help to you in your journey He 3. shall protect and defend you in it as a guide free you from danger set you at full liberty 2 Cor. iii. 17. be a cover to you by day and a shelter to you in the night the breath of the Holy Spirit will both refresh us and blow away all our enemies like the dust He 4 if we be charged with any thing will answer for us like a guide and governor 'T is not you says Christ but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you St. Matth. x. 20. He lastly it is that quicken our spirit with his Spirit that encourages and upholds us like a guide and leader for without him our spirits are but soft air and vanish at the least pressure He guides our feet and guides our heads and guides our tongues and guides our hands and guides our hearts and guides our spirits we have neither spirit nor motion nor action nor life without him III. But here particularly he comes to guides us into the Truth And God knows we need it for surely men of low degree are vanity says the Psalmist and men of high degree are a lie Psal. lxii 9. not lyars only but a very lye as far from truth as a lie it self things so distant from that conformity with God which is truth for truth is nothing else that no lie is further off it Nor soul nor body nor heart nor mind nor upper nor lower powers conformed to him neither our understandings to his understanding nor our wills to his will nor any thâ—ng of us really to him our actions and words and thoughts all lye to him to his face we think too low we speak too mean we deal too falsly with him pretend all his yet give most of it to our lusts and to our selves and we are so used to it we can do no other we are all either verbal or real lies need we had of one to guide us into the truth God is Truth to guide us to him Christ is the Truth St. Iohn xiv 6. to guide us to him His Word is Truth to guide us into that into the true understanding and practise of it His Promises are Truth very Yea and Amen to guide us to them to rest and hold upon them His way is the way of Truth to guide us into that into a Religion pure holy and undefiled that only is the true one Into none of these can any guide but this guide here He sheweth us of the Father He reveals to us the Son He interprets the Word and writes it in our hearts He leads and upholds us by his Promises seals them unto us seals us again to the day of Redemption the day of truth the day when all things shall appear truly as they are He sets our Religion right he only leads us into that Man cannot he can speak but to the ear there his words dye and end Angels cannot they are but ministring spirits at the best to this Spirit Nature cannot these truths are all above it are supernatural and no other truth is worth the knowing Nay into any truth this Spirit only can we only flatter and keep ado about this truth and that truth and the other but into them we cannot get make nothing of any truth without him unless he sanctifie it better else we had not known it Knowledge puffeth up all knowledge that comes not from this Spirit so the very truth of any truth that which truly confirms it to the divine will and understanding that makes truth the same with goodness is from this Spirit from his guiding and directing his breathing it or breathing into it or upon it IV. Thus we are faln upon the fourth particular that he will guide us into all truth Gods mercies and Christs are ever perfect and of the largest size and the conducts of the Spirit are so too into all goodness Gal. v. 9. into all fulness Ephes. iii. 19. into all truth here into all things That we are not full is from our selves that we are not led into all truth is for that all truth does not please us and we are loth to believe it such if it make not for us he for his part is as ready to guide us into all as into one For take we truth either for speculative or practical either for the substance against types and shadows or the discerning the substance through those shadows or take we it in opposition to obscurity and doubting understand we it
elevates our souls by the Spirit of Wisdom coelestia sapere as it is Col. iii. 2. to those things that are above Sapientia est rerum altissimarum says the divine Philosopher Wisdom is of things of the higest nature of a high ascending strain 2. It penetrates and pierces like the fire by the Spirit of understanding understands that which the Spirit of man cannot understand 1 Cor. ii 11. the very things of God pierces into them all 3. It tries like fire by the Spirit of counsel and advice teaches us to prove all things and choose the best 4. It hardens us against all the evils that can befall us as fire does the brick against all weather by the spirit of fortitude and ghostly strength 5. It enlightens the darkness of our souls by the spirit of knowledge teaches us to know the things that belong unto our peace the ways and methods of salvation 6. It heats the coldness of our affections by the Spirit of piety and true godliness inflames us with devotion and zeal to Gods service And 7. it softens our obdurate hearts by the Spirit of holy fear that we melt into tears and sighs at the apprehension of Gods displeasure even as Wax melteth before the fire the highest hardest rockiest mountains melt and flow down at his presence when once his Spirit does but cast a ray upon them These are the seven gifts of the Spirit represented to us by so many properties of the fire 4. There are seven other operations and effects of the same Spirit as lively also exprest by it and make the fourth reason why the holy Ghost appears under the semblance of fire 1. Fire it burns and the Prophet Isaiah calls this Spirit a Spirit of burning Isa. iv 4. It makes our hearts burn within us as it did the Disciples going to Emaus St. Luke xxiv 32. puts us to a kind of pain raises sorrow and contrition in us makes the scalding water gush out of our eyes you may even feel it burn you 2. With this burning it purifies and purges too As things are purified by the fire so are our spirits and souls and bodies purified by the Spirit 3. For purifie it must needs for it devours all the dross the chaff the hay and stubble that is in us purges out our sins burns up every thing before it that offends is a consuming fire Heb. xii 29. so is God so is his Spirit 4. Yet as it is a consuming so it is a renewing fire Fire makes things new again And do but send out thy Spirit O Lord and they are made Psal. civ 30. We are all made for so it is that thou renewest the face of the earth the face of this dull earth of ours by putting into it the Holy Spirit 5. To this purpose it makes that like as fire it separates 5. things of divers natures silver from tin metals from dross Separare heterogenea is one of the effects of fire says the Philosopher to distinguish and divide between things of different kinds And Spiritus judicii discretionis the Prophet styles the Spirit a Spirit of judgment it is Isai. 4. 4. a discerning Spirit teaches us to discern between Dross and Gold Truth and Error between Good and Evil and without it we discern nothing This the Apostle reckons as a peculiar donation of it the discerning of spirits 1 Cor. xii 10. 6. Yet as it separates things of different natures so 6. it unites things of the same kind just as the fire does several pieces of the same metal into one body This holy Spirit is a Spirit of unity They that separate they have not the Spirit St. Iude 19. Schisms and Divisions Strife Heresies and Seditions are the works of the flesh not of the spirit Gal. v. 20. The fruit of the Spirit is love and peace says St. Paul there ver 22. And the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace we hear of too Ephes. iv 3. Into one Spirit we are baptiz'd all for there is but one one Spirit one Body one Hope one Lord one Faith one Baptism one God one all that are of God ver 5 6. nothing so contrary to the Holy Spirit as divisions of the members from the head or from one another a shrewd witness this against the spirits of our age and an evidence that to what spirit soever they lay claim they lay false claim to this they belong not to this Spirit which is so much for uniting all the parts of the body of Christ together 7. And this it can do when it s sees its time for lastly it is an invincible Spirit it bears down all before it turns all into it like the fire of all the Elements the most victorious and triumphant There is no standing out against this Spirit 't is an Almighty Spirit that can do what it will It inflames the air into a fire vain airy spirits into celestial flames of love and charity It dries up the water the raw waterish humors of our souls and fixes all waverings and inconstancies It burns up our earth and all the grass and hay and sprouts what ever that stand against it It sets whole houses all a fire sets us all a fire for Heaven and heavenly business Thus it burns it purifies it consumes and renews again it separates and it gathers and it caries all before it dees what it will in Heaven and Earth subdues Scepters vanquishes Kingdoms converts Nations throws down Infernal Powers and turns all into the obedience of Christ. To this purpose it is that it now also here comes in Tongues The second manner we noted of his appearance and that for three reasons 1. nothing more convenient to express either our business or him whose it is The Tongue is the instrument of speech the Word is express by it Christ is the Word the Holy Spirit as it were the Tongue to express him comes to day with an Host of tongues to send this Word abroad into all the World Nothing more necessary for the Apostles were to be the Preachers of it had receiv'd a Commission to go and preach St. Matth. xvi 15. wanted yet their tongues some new enablements went not therefore till they were this day brought them and a more necessary thing the Holy Ghost could not bring them for that purpose Yet they had need 2. be of fire sharp piercing tongues like the little flames of fire such as would pierce into the soul reveal the inmost secrets of the heart and spirits and it seems so they proved 1 Cor. xiv 25. piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit of the joints and marrow Heb. iv 12. Tongues of fire 3. to warm the cold affections of men into a love of Christ every tongue is not able to do that it must be a tongue set on fire from Heaven that can do that Tongues and tongues of fire sharp piercing tongues warm with heavenly heat are the only tongues
judges right Let us do nothing but with moderation and not think much to shew it unto all when we are sure to be rewarded for it and those that observe it not are sure to be punished 8. The Lord is at hand in the blessed Sacrament and that is also now at hand but a week between us and it And moderation of all kinds is but a due preparation to it some special act of it to be done against it Righteousness and equity is the habitation of his seat says David the Lord sits not nor abides where they are not The holy Sacrament that is his Seat a Seat of wonder is not set but in the righteous and good soul has no efficacy but there Modesty and humility are the steps to it into the modest and humble soul only will he vouchsafe to come All reverence and civility is but requisite in our addresses unto it But moderation meekness and patience and sweetness and forgiving injuries is so requisite that there is no coming there no offering at the altar till we be first reconciled to our Brother Go be first reconciled to thy Brother says our Lord himself S. Mat. v. 24. so that now if we desire a blessing of the blessed Sacrament unto us if we desire the Lord should there come to us let our moderation be known to all men before we come Let us study the art of reconcilement let us not stand upon points of honour or punctilio's with our Brother upon quirks and niceties let us part with somewhat of our right let us do it civilly use all men with courtesie and civility express all modesty and sweetness in our conversation all softness and moderation patience and meekness gentleness and loving kindness towards all even the bitterest of our enemies considering the Lord is at hand the Lord of Righteousness expects our righteousness and equity the Lord in his body and looks for the reverent and handsom behaviour of our bodies the Lord of pure eyes and cannot endure any unseemliness or intemperance either in our inward or outward man the Lord that died and suffered for us and upon that score requires we should be content to suffer also any thing for him not to be angry or troubled or repine or murmur at it or at them that cause it At the Holy Sacrament he is so near at hand that he is at the Table with us reaches to every one a portion of himself yet will give it to none but such as come in an universal Charity with all the forementioned moderations Give me leave to conclude the Text as I began it and fix the last Argument upon the time The time is now approaching wherein the Lord came down from Heaven that he might be the more at hand Fit it is we should strive to be the more at hand to him the readier at his command and service the time wherein he moderated himself and glory as it were to teach us moderation appeared so to all that our moderation also might appear to all of what size or rank or sect whatsoever I remember a story of Constantia Queen of Arragon who having taken Charles Prince of Salerno and resolving to sacrifice him to death to revenge the death of her Nephew Conradinus basely and unworthily put to death by his Father Charles of Anjon sent the message to him on a Friday morning to prepare himself for death The young Prince it seems not guilty of his Fathers cruelty returns her this answer That besides other courtesies received from her Majesty in Prison she did him a singular favour to appoint the day of his death on a Friday and that it was good reason he should die culpable on that day whereon Christ died innocent The answer related so much mov'd Constantia that she sends him this reply Tell Prince Charles if he take contentment to suffer death on a Friday because Christ died on it I will likewise find my satisfaction to pardon him also on the same day that Iesus sign'd my pardon and the pardon of his Executioners with his Blood God forbid I shed the blood of a man on the day my Master shed his for me I will not rest upon the bitterness of revenge I freely pardon him Behold a Speech of a Queen worthy to command the world worthy a Christian indeed To apply it is only to tell you we may often take excellent occasions of vertue and goodness from times and days and bid you go and do likewisâ— The time that is at hand is a time to be celebrated with all Christian joy and moderation some particular and special act of Charity Equity Modesty Meekness Moderation to be sought out to be done in it or to welcome it The Feast of Love to be solemnized with an universal Charity the Lord at hand to be honoured with the good works of all our hands His coming to pardon and save sinners to be accompanied with a general reconcilement and forgiveness of all enemies and injuries of a moderation to be exhibited unto all Let your moderation then keep time as well as measure be now especially shewn and known and felt and magnified by all with whom we have to do that thus attending all his comings he may come with comfort and carry us away with honour come in grace and hear us come in mercy and pardon us come in his word and teach us come in spirit and dwell with us come in his Sacrament and feed and nourish us come in power and deliver us come in mercy and reward us come in glory and save us and take us with him to be nearer to him more at hand to sit at his right hand for evermore THE FIRST SERMON ON Christmas-Day ISAIAH Xi 10. And in that day there shall be a root of Iesse which shall stand for an Ensign of the People to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious AND in that day there shall be And in this day there was a root of Iesse that put forth its branch That day was but the Prophesie this day is the Gospel of it Now first to speak it in the Psalmists phrase truth flourished out of the earth now first the truth of it appeared Some indeed have applied it to Hezekiah and perhaps not amiss in a lower sense but the Apostle who is the best Commentator ever upon the Prophets applies it unto Christ Rom. xv 10. There we find the Text and him it suits to more exactly every tittle of it and of the Chapter hitherto than to Hezekiah or any else He was properly the branch that was then to grow out of old Iesse's root For Hezekiah was born and grown up already some years before thirteen at least He 2. it is whom the Spirit of the Lord does rest upon ver 2. upon Hezekiah and all of us it is the Dove going and returning Upon him 3. only it is that the Spirit in all its fulness with all its gifts wisdom and
grace not of desert That 't is 4. yet a receiving sufficient full every one enough and that not single grace neither but one for another one after another one upon another That 't is 5. a general business all receiving somewhat some grace or other and that seldom or never by it self none without receiving That 6. it is from Christ from him it is from his grace and from his fulness that we receive whatever we receive That lastly grace for grace it is for some end and purpose it is that we receive it receive grace that we may say grace give thanks and acknowledge it 2. Receive grace that we may shew grace receive grace from God that we may shew it unto men 3. Receive grace even for grace it self to increase and grow in it daily more and more till both it and we come both to perfection Of all these this is the sum that in Christ there is fulness all fulness fulness in both natures fulness that contents not it self till it have fill'd others till it fill us all That from this fulness we receive receive all we have all we have though not all he has all sorts of graces fitting for us and all gratis are therefore to give thanks for it as we have received so to repay again grace for grace And of all this is the scope the Exaltation of Christ and of his grace the scope of the Text the Sermon and the day 'T is but making it yours too and then all will be full And that it may so I begin now particularly to open to you all this fulness where I am first to shew you whose it is His fulness 1. His you know is a Relative must relate to somewhat that is before His to some that was spoken of before who 's that one to whom Saint Iohn bare witness that he was before ver 15. long before in the beginning ver 1. but was fain to draw nearer e're we could see him or his fulness to draw himself into the flesh e're we could fully discern his grace or behold his glory was made flesh the word made flesh ver 14. the only begotten of the Father become the only born of a Virgin Mother before we hear of any one full of grace and truth This word this eternal word this only begotten Son of God is He this His belongs to yet this fulness then fully His when he was made the Son of Man In that first appeared the fulness of his love the fulness of his Word and Promise the fulness of his Grace and Mercy the infinite grace and favour done to our flesh the fulness of his truth and reality above all those empty types and shadows which more amus'd then fill'd the world The body that 's of Christ says the Apostle Col. ii 17. the full body of truth full bodied grace never till he took a body to make it full The Law that could not fill us the very life of things there was poured out at the foot of the Altar and all the rest went into smoke The Prophets they could not fill us with any thing but expectation fill us with good words but alas they are but wind would have proved so too had not he embodied them All the world could not fill us the fulness of time was not come upon it till the Son of fulness came all that was in it till he came was vanity and emptiness could neither satisfie it self nor us 'T is Christ that filleth all in all Ephes. i. 23. He the end of the Law the completion of the Prophets the fulness of the World To him it is that this fulness is attributed to the fulness of Christ Ephes. iv 13. In him it is it dwells Col. i. 19. So it pleased God says the Apostle there so to gather together in one all things in Christ both which are in heaven and which are in earth even in him Ephes. i. 10. Fulness must needs be his in whom all things are gathered altogether in whom earth and heaven together 2. Thus the fulness you see is his and it being the fulness of Heaven and Earth you see in general what his fulness is In particular it cannot be measured It is as high as Heaven what canst thou do deeper then Hell what canst thou know the measure of it is longer then the earth and broader then the Sea Job xi 8 9. There is no end of his fulness no more than of his greatness In him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge Col. ii 3. all wisdom and knowledge treasured up in him all in the very knowing him all the very treasures of wisdom and knowledge the choicest to be found there all even hidden and obscured by his swallow'd up in that he knows all and to know him is to know all the highest Wisdom the deepest knowledge is but silliness and ignorance in respect of his hides it self at the comparison as lesser lights do at the Suns glaring Beams in him is all knowledge and in the knowledge of him is all wisdom hidden and contained In him 2. is the fulness of grace Full of grace are thy lips Psal. xlv 3. and if the lip 's full the heart 's not empty for out of the abundance there the fulness here the very stature of fulness Ephes. iv 13. In him 3. is the fulness of truth ver 14. so full that he is stil'd the very truth it self St. John xiv 6. I am the truth the truth of the promises all the promises since the Creation All the promises of God are in him yea and in him Amen 2 Cor. i. 20. The truth of all the Types and Shadows and Sacrifices from the worlds first cradle the true Paschal Lamb the true Scape-Goat the true High-Priest Adam and Isaac and Ioseph and Ioshua and Samson and David and Solomon were but the representations of him or what was to be more substantially done by him They are but the draughts and pictures he the substance all the way To him they all related had not their offices actions or passions scarce their very names fulfilled but in him all their fulness was in him Their truth and all truth besides the doctrine of truth never fully delivered never fully revealed or known till he came with it We knew it but in pieces we saw it but in clouds we heard it but in dark and obscure Prophesies till he came a light into the world to manifest it all 't is then we first hear of the whole will of God and the declaring that the whole counsel of God Acts xx 27. truth was not at the fulness till he taught it Nor 4. was his the fulness of wisdom and knowledge grace and truth but of the Spirit too not by measure St. Iohn iii. 34. but immeasurably full He all the graces of the Spirit and all of them to the full in him The Spirit himself proceeds from him St. Iohn xv 26. he must therefore
have Glory upon Glory For Christ will fill us if we will with more than a simple Grace or Glory increase and advance us by degrees in both Grace for Grace is put to signifie abundance of Graces as Iob ii 4. Skin for skin skin after skin one thing after another will a man give for his life Grace for Grace that is Grace after Grace will God give us one after another never leave giving will not only give us one or two simple graces but a confluence and full tide of them one crowding upon the other gratiam cumulatam Graces upon heaps all spiritual blessings Eph. i. 3. redemption forgiveness of sins ver 7. the knowledge of the mystery of his will ver 9. the Seal of the Spirit ver 13. all the gifts and graces of the Spirit all holy Vertues and Accomplishments all sanctifying and edifying Graces for to procure us Grace in the eyes of God and Graces to gain us Grace in the eyes of men Grace to make our selves gracious in the sight of God and Grace to make others gracious also to bring others into Grace into the Grace of the Gospel Thus also we receive and this And here hath an emphasis and 't is this to denote this fulness and abundance of Grace that especially whatever else Yet this And may be an adversative as much as sed or quamvis peradventure thus we receive and Grace we receive and Grace in this abundance but not all Grace alike but Grace for Grace that is either according to his Grace wherewith he loves us some more some less one this another that according to the measure of the gift of Christ Ephes. iv 7. Or 2. Grace for Grace according to the measure of the use we make of one Grace we receive another He that hath to him shall be given St. Mat. xiii 12. Or 3. Grace for Grace that is one after this manner another after that 1 Cor. vii 7. One receives one Grace another receives another not all alike not all the same To one is given the word of Wisdom to another the word of knowledge to another Faith c. 1 Cor. xii 8. and so onward and which adds much to the fulness of this Grace it reaches now fifthly unto all we all have received 5. All is a large word yet no larger then Christs Grace Ho every one cries the Prophet every one come take it Isa. lv 1. he disgraces Christs Grace nay ungraces it that ties it up only to I know not what elect ones All things were made by him ver 3. and received they nothing by it He fills all things living with plenteousness Psal. cxlv 16. and receive they nothing He enlightens every man that comes into the world ver 9. and is that nothing neither 1. Does he that receives light from Christ receive nothing Yes yes all receive some benefit or other from Christs coming It were to deny his fulness to deny that All the Patriarchs that went before all drank of the same Rock which Rock was Christ 1 Cor. x. 4. they received their fill of him according to the capacity of their Vessels All the Prophets that followed after they also were partakers of the same Grace in another manner But they that followed him they Gentiles as well as Iews they above all receiued and Grace for Grace Nay I am perswaded that there was no man no creature there is no man no creature the Devils only excepted but receive some benefit or other from this fulness the goodness of God which is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance and to everlasting life 2 S. Pet. iii. 9. would not suffer any to perish for want of receiving that without which they could not but perish that first Grace which might in some measure dispose him for a second and so forward were he but willing to work with it Nay even We and what were we We that were his enemies St. Paul tells us we receive reconcilement by his Grace and why not any enemies as well as we We that were haters of God Rom. i. 30. and hateful to men Tit. iii. 3. We that were dead in trespasses and sins Ephes. ii 1. full of all abominable iniquities we received pardon of them all and were received to Grace and what reason have we then to exclude any who be they what they will cannot be worse than we were once nor in less capacity to receive it To be sure omnes will reach them all and God is gracious to all not only to them that call upon him but to them also that never seek him nor call upon him Isa. lxv 1. This is Grace indeed and 't is that makes up the fulness that shews it full 6. 'T is time we should know to whom we owe it look we back again once more to the ejus and you have it Of his fulness that is of Christs it is that we thus all receive that we receive all this Ephes. i. 6. In the beloved it is that we are thus gratified thus grac'd thus begrac'd And the beloved is he in whom he was well-pleased with us all S. Mat. iii. 17. Grace and Truth why that 's true Grace and that came by Iesus Christ in the verse next the Text. We were all ungracious Children he the only gracious Son who makes us gracious In him he chose us Ephes. i. 4. In him he predestinated us to the adoption of Children ver 5. In him he hath made us accepted ver 6. In him we have redemption forgiveness and the very riches of grace ver 7. All in him and without him nothing So get him and get all lose him and lose all Acts iv 12. There is no other name but his no other Grace but his by which we can be saved From the Grace he had with his Father from the beginning we have ours in time from the Grace he hath purchased with him to which he was exalted by his obedience Phil. ii 9. we are also exalted to his Grace From the Grace wherewith he loved us are we made partakers of his Grace He design'd it for us he he deserv'd it for us he infuses it into us he works it in us and after all he has yet reserved a greater for us an eternal Glory for the reward of Grace 7. How can we now then lastly but render Grace for Grace say grace and bless him over this plenty and fulness cry Grace Grace unto it as the Prophet has it Zach. iv 7. proclaim and tell it to the world fill our lips with Songs and Hymns of Praise fill the Congregations with his Glory and the world with telling out his goodness To do it the better to do the greater right to his Grace let us take the Grace-cup in our hand and do it the Cup which Christ blessed and gave to us to remember him and his Grace in We call it a receiving let us then receive it receive and answer this
either understand Religion or practice it that God still allows us the glory of these Stars though one differing in glory from another that he hath not yet totally darkned our heaven upon us nor removed our true lawful and faithful Pastors clean away that we wander not from Sea to Sea and from the North even to the East that we run not to and fro to seek the Word of God to see a Star and cannot find it but have them yet standing over us and directing us It will be a thousand to one but we miss of Christ when we lose this Star a thousand to one that we go into the wrong house instead of his when we lose our Bishops and Teachers the days we now see tell us so already For his House being undoubtedly the Church and the Church not to be seen or found but by the light and brightness of successive Bishops and Ministers who are the Churches glory and its Crown and joy nothing but sad and giddy errors can be expected where they are not A third Star is the Word of God and there first the sure Word of Prophecy a light as St. Peter stiles it shining in a dark place to which he tells us we do well if we take heed 2 Pet. i. 19. Then secondly the sure Promises of the Gospel of Grace and Truth and Pardon the comfortable and glorious light by which we are led to the knowledge of Christ full glad and merry with the hopes of such pardon and forgiveness of such grace and favour A fourth Star is inward Grace the light of the holy Spirit by which we are not only led to the place of this new-born Child but this Child it self even new-born in us This is a Star that rises in the very heart the Day-star rising there 2 Pet. i. 19. without which we should sit in perpetual shades the day never dawn upon us All the former Stars good Examples and Instructions and spiritual Predictions and Promises Pastors and Teachers can teach little without this Star St. Paul may plant and Apollos water and no increase the Preachers speak and preach into the air nothing stay behind good example be spilt as water on the ground divine Prophesies and Promises only strike the outward ear to little purpose all of them together unless the Spirit speak within and warm and lighten the soul with its fiery tongue and comfort it vvith invvard light and heat Hence is the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory which the Apostle speaks of 1 Pet. i. 8. A fifth Star which is heavenly glory a bright morning Star it is that Christ promises to give him that continues and holds out unto the end Rev. ii 28. I will give him the morning star that is eternal life the Star of glory This is a Star will shew us Christ as he is bring us to him not in his Cradle but in his Throne not in his Mothers lap but in his Fathers bosom A Star that will lead us both here and hereafter to his presence Here the great Star that most surely brings us and most effectually perswades to Christ and Christian Piety is the hope of Heaven the promise of Glory In the strength of this hope we suffer any thing for him we hunger and thirst endure cold and nakedness poverty and scorn whips and fetters halters and hatchets racks and tortures ignominy and death whilst this Star seems to open heaven unto us thus it brings us to him here and hereafter it fills us with the beatifical vision of him for ever I need not tell you this is a very sufficient ground of the greatest joy it self being almost nothing else And yet there is a sixth Star the Star that was foretold should come out of Iacob Num. xxiv 17. I am the bright morning Star Rev. xxii 16. I Iesus says he himself am the root and off-spring of David and the bright and morning Star He the Star that leads us to himself his own beauty the great attractive to him his mercy the sure convoy to himself his humility his being the root so low and humble the conduct to his Highness his Incarnation and Nativity his becoming the off-spring and Son of David being made man the only way above all to bring us unto himself Here 's the ground the very ground indeed of all our joy and comfort that he thus came into the World to save Sinners thus clouded his eternal brightness his starry nature his glorious Godhead with the dark rays of flesh and matter appearing at best but as a sublunary Star the Doctor and Bishop of our souls that we might so the easier come unto him and be comforted not confounded in his brightness Thus we have multiplied the Star in the Text by the perspective of the Spirit into Six or shew'd you the six spiritual rays which issue from it which reach to us and even shine God be thanked still though that be gone or shut up in the Treasuries of the Almighty all of these signal grounds of true Christian joy Good Examples good Teachers a good Word of God the good Spirit of Grace the good hope of glory the good of goods our good and gracious Saviour so good Stars and so good occasion of rejoycing that there can be no better 3. And yet a degree may be added from the third Consideration of the time when this Star appeared Indeed it had long before this day been seen had led the Wise men all the way comforted and cheer'd them up all their long journey through only at Hierusalem there it left them there where one would think the Star should shine the brightest But 1. What need Star-light when the Sun of righteousness is so near Or what 2. should need a Type when the Substance was so hard by Or what necessity 3. of a Star when they were now in a surer and brighter light so says St. Peter 1 Pet. i. 19. the Law and Prophets at hand to point out him they sought Or how 4. should we expect any special favour from the God of Heaven while we stay in Herod's Courts in Satan's territories in wicked company Or why 5. should we think the Star should stay upon us when we leave it That God should help us when we as it were renounce his direction to enquire for mens Go to the Iews and Herod for it How should we but lose God's grace if we neglect it 'T is the great ground here then of their rejoycing that after they had lost it they here recover it that they are now got out of Herods Court a place of sin and darkness and are now refresh'd again with the heavenly Light No joy in the World like that of recovering Heaven when it is almost lost No joy to the womans for finding again the Groat that she had lost No rejoycing like the Shepherds for the lost sheep when he has found it The joy reacheth up to heaven says Christ the very Angels rejoyce
cry'd out openly We fools we fools indeed how have we cheated our selves of Heaven the glorious Kingdom whilst the poor Lazarus's these poor contemptible things crept in and we with all our pride and riches and vaunting quite shut out ver 8. And now I may read the Text another way as an assertion not a wish and I find it read so Thus Si saperent intelligerent providerent If men were wise they would both understand and consider all these things without this ado They would presently turn considerarent into providerent too and so the word is rendred by the vulgar and provide now for their latter end And the provision will not stand us in much nor shall I stand long upon it Three ways to do it and you have all The Son of Syrach's 1. Remember thy end and let enmity cease says he Ecclus. xxviii 6. Let us not spend our wits our courage our estates any longer in feuds and enmities seeing God has now at length so strangely brought us all altogether The 2. way shall be his too with a little alteration Ecclus. vii 36. Remember thy latter end and that thou never henceforward do amiss I know 't is read remember and thou shalt not but 't is as true if read remember and thou wilt not if you consider it as you should you will also provide you sin no more To make all sure make the provision our Blessed Saviour would have you for a third Provide the bags that wax not old St. Luke xii 33. friends that will not fail you make them to you out of the Mammon you have gotten make the poor your friends with it That when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations S. Luke xvi 9. And consider lastly for the close of this part of the Text and I am almost at the close of all that all this is Gods desire He wishes it here he wishes it all the holy Text through Oh that there were such an heart in them Deut. v. 29. O that my people would hearken to it Psal. lxxxi 14. O that men would therefore Psal. cvii. four times in it II. And yet the second general of the Text tells you he does more wishes it so heartily that he complains again complains they answer not his wishes And wisht he has so often that he may well complain How often have I says he St. Luke xiii 34. so often nor they nor we can tell it Only so often Noluistis as often as he would so often they would not All the day long he had stretched out his hand unto them sent to them by his messengers early and late to desire them visited them with judgments courted them with mercies and yet they would not disobedient and gain-saying people that they were And therefore complain he does that do what he can he must give them up though with a Quomodo te tradam Hos. xi 8. with great regret and sorrow give them up for fools men of neither understanding nor consideration men that like fools throw away Gold for baubles men that are so far from understanding or considering that they live as if they car'd not whether they went to Heaven or Hell But I love not to lengthen out complaints in this case I should ne're have done and 't is time I should And the Text only insinuating not enlarging Gods complaints gives me an item to do so too Only give me leave in brief to sum up all Every wise man before at any time he begins a work sits down and considers what he has to do and to what end he does it O that we would be so wise in ours that we would retire our selves some minutes now and then to consider the ill courses at any time we are in or entring on And when we are got into our Chambers and be still thus commune with our selves What is this business I am about to what purpose is this life I lead this sin this waste this vanity Am I grown so soon forgetful of my late sad condition or so insensible of my late rebellions and of the pardon God has given me as thus impudently to sin again Is this the reward I make him for all his mercies thus one after another to abuse them still or is it that I am weary of my happiness and grown so wanton as to tempt destruction Is it that I may go with more dishonour to my Grave leave a blot upon my name and stand upon record for a fool or worse to all posterity for ever Is it that I have not already sins enough but I must thus foolishly still burthen my accompts Is it that I may go the more gloriously to Hell and damn my self the deeper Is it that I may purposely thwart God in all his ways of mercy and judgment cross his desires scorn his entreaties defie his threats despise his complaints anger him to the heart that I may be rid of him and quit my hands of all my interests in Heaven for ever Why this is the English of my sins my profaneness and debaucheries the courses I am in or now going upon and will I still continue them This would be considering indeed and a few hours thus spent sometimes would make us truly wise And let us but do so we shall quickly see the effect of them God shall have his wishes and we shall be wise and we shall have ours too all we can wish or hope and no complaining in our streets All our former follies shall be forgotten and all ill ends be far off from us and when these days shall have an end we shall then go to our Graves in peace to our Accompts with joy and passing by some of us perhaps even the gates of Hell come happily to the end of all our hopes the salvation of our souls have our end glory and honour and immortality and eternal life where we as Daniel tells us the wise do shall shine as the brightness of the Firmament and as the Stars for ever and ever Whether he bring us who is the eternal Wisdom of his Father Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit three Persons and one Eternal Immortal Invisible and only Wise God be all Power and Riches and Wisdom and Strength and Honour and Glory and Blessing for ever and ever A SERMON ON THE ANNUNTIATION OF THE Blessed Virgin Mary St. LUKE i. 28. And the Angel came in unto her and said Hail thou that art highly favoured The Lord is with thee Blessed art thou among women THe day will tell you who this Blessed among women is we call it our Lady-day And the Text will tell you why she comes into the day because the Angel to day came in to her And the Angel will tell you why he to day came in to Her she was highly favoured and the Lord was with her was to come himself this day into her to make her the most blessed among women sent
it must not be determined by us we must not the meanest of us resolve and determine with our selves to be ignorant or remain so in any spiritual or heavenly business but to know as far as our condition requires or will give us leave Yet in meer humane knowledges even a resolved ignorance may do well when your knowing would take up more time than it is worth when it would rob us of better or hinder us in the more necessary improvements of our souls when there is just fear it will but make us insolent or impertinent better far not to know a Letter not to speak a Tongue but what the Nurse and Mother taught us than be the nimblest Orator or skilfullest Linguist or rarest Philosopher if nothing be like to come of it but the disturbance of the Church the seducing others and vain glory in our selves In this case we may with St. Paul even determine to be ignorant more ignorant still especially in unprofitable curious or impious knowledge or ways of knowing However even in the best and most necessary of these it may be requisite not to know in a second sense that is not to seem to know them to bear our selves sometimes as if we did not There are some we may have to deal with that are suspicious of being deceived by too much reason and Philosophy with whom 't is the only way to work to renounce as it were all Art and Logick and discourse as if we were wholly ignorant in them that we may so by St. Pauls own way of becoming all things to all men to the ignorant as ignorant of every thing but salvation by plainness and condescension to their humour win them to the truth And indeed where ever Eloquence Language Philosophy or natural reason are like more to lose than gain a soul more to vaunt themselves than preach Christ not to know that is to seem not to know them or deal by them or build upon them or make shew of them but conceal them is the best Not to know them in a third sense is not to teach them not to teach them when we should be teaching Christ or teach them instead of Christ Natural Reason for Divine Faith Moral Philosophy for the only Divinity Not to know them fourthly to profess and make our whole business of them to make knowledge our whole profession as if Religion consisted knowing only and they the best Christians that knew most Alas Nos Doctrinis nostris trudimur in infernum is too true Many a learned man is thrust at lest into hell with all his knowledge We may speak with the tongues of Angels and have all knowledge all faith too even to a miracle and to do miracles and yet for all that be but sounding brass and tinckling Cymbals meer noise and vapour not so good as the Prophets reprobate Silver but meer Brass and Copper that will not pass with heaven for currant money nor be received into the Treasuries of God better it is not to know at all than to know only and no more to know and not do we shall only get the more stripes by the bargain and hovvever vve seem to knovv God not to be knovvn of him or acknovvledged by him but sent avvay by Christ vvith an I know you not The things then not to be knovvn and the not knovving being things of so difficult or doubtful nature best it is novv that vve determine somewhat of them that vve may knovv both the things and knovvledge or rather not knovvledge that is fittest for us The any thing the Apostle means expresly is set dovvn in the former verse under the terms of excellency of speech or wisdom and that vvisdom Chap. i. 20. to be the wisdom of the world of the wise and prudent Moral Philosophy of the Scribe Law and History and Philology of the disputer of this world natural Philosophy Mathematicks Astronomy Astrology all which St. Paul seems determined not to know 'T is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he has so judg'd it so judg'd and past sentence upon all those knowledges as to give a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to give a negative to them all In things of moment 't is good to be determined and resolved 'T is for want of this judgment and determination that we lose our selves so oft e're we are aware and not only consume our days in knowledges that do not profit in searching out endless Genealogies and disputations to no benefit of the hearers without the least edification Settle we and fix our selves upon this point in all our knowings and not knowings to do all to edification that whether we know any thing or not whether we know every thing or nothing it be all to the glory of God and then even our ignorance will save us as well as our knowledge only with this item that it be a determining by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Apostle here a determination with judgment to discern and judge what things are fit not to be known what to be known what knowledge and time and pains to bestow upon them what we are to be wholly ignorant in what in part what really not to know what to seem only not knowing in what to conceal and what to teach what to make our profession of and what to know only by the by how far and where and when to know them And this is the very determining our determination I spake of for a fourth consideration I shall set no other bounds either to our knowledge or object or our determining our selves to it or in it than what we have within the bounds of the Text because my determination is to hasten to the knowledge of Iesus Christ and him Crucified To determine then this determination of St. Paul's not to know any thing take we the words as they lie and consider who it is that has thus determined I it is that St. Paul himself it is an Apostle and a great knowing one too Yet I have determined not to know Sciences there are that are below an Apostle that become not him whatever they do others The Apostles were to act all by the power of the Spirit were not to study words and humane arguments though we sometimes find them disputing too Acts xix 8. and quoting Poets and humane Authors Acts xvii 28. were not to pretend to such worldly wisdom that the glory might be wholly Gods and the whole world convinc'd that as the Christian Faith was not stablished by mortal strength nor setled by worldly power so it was not perswaded by humane wit or interests and was therefore truly divine and heavenly But 2. even the successors of the Apostles the Ministers of the Gospel though they have now only this ordinary way of enabling them to their office are yet so to use their knowledge as if they us'd them not their chief work being Christs and these only as ways to it remembring their great business to be to know
Christ Crucified and to teach him and not to know any thing but in order to it at least not to profess any thing above or equal with it that may swallow up the time which ought to be spent in divine employments Thus this not knowing is first determined by the person Persons wholly interessed in the business of Heaven not to turn their studies into a business of the world persons design'd to an extraordinary office not to deal in it by extraordinary means but guide all according to that rule and way and work that God has set them But the not knowing the secular Sciences is not only limited to spiritual persons there are limits within which all must keep as well their ignorance as knowledge When at any time they will determine not to know it must be 1. by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by judgment and discretion not promiscuously such things as sound judgment propounds unnecessary dangerous or unfruitful It must be 2. by a non judicavi quicquam whatsoever knowledge we have of humane Sciences we must judge and reckon it as nothing determine it to be no or her than dross and dung than building with hay and stuble in respect of the knowledge of Iesus Christ not any thing to that It must be 3. too without putting any estimate upon our selves for any such knowledge we must still think we know nothing whilst we know no more Moses a man as St. Stephen stiles him Acts vii 22. mighty in words and deeds and learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians yet when God would send him of his errand considering that tells God he was not eloquent neither heretofore nor since he had spoken to his servant but slow of speech and slow of tongue And Isaiah that Seraphick Prophet cries out he is a man of unclean lips Isa. vi 5. so little valued they all their knowledge when they had but a glimpse of that great knowledge God was now imparting to them How much soever we think we know before when we once come to the knowledge of Christ or but our thoughts to come to know a taste of the riches of the fulness of the knowledge of Christ we then know we know nothing count our selves dolts and ideots meer fools and blocks for squandering away so much time and cost and pains upon those empty notions whereby we are not an inch the nearer Heaven and it may be the further from God after all our labour Then only we begin truly to know when we can pass this sentence upon our selves that we know not any thing when we are so humble that we think so at least think not any thing of our selves for all we know 4. We must determine not to know any thing at all of humane Sciences or natural reasonings rather than to determine our selves by it renounce it rather all knowing and turn all to believing not fix our faith upon natural principles or believe no further than we can know rather than so we had far better know nothing set it up for a resolution however in the matters of faith not to know that is not to go about to determine them by reason for the natural man he understands them not ver 14. they are foolishness unto him a foolish thing to him to talk of a God Incarnate of a Crucified Saviour of a Religion whose glory is the Cross and reward he knows not where nor when Or 5. he is only not determined to know any thing so the negative is truly joyn'd not to his knowledge but to his determination not determined if he know it he counts it but by the by his main business is something else humane knowledge is but by the way and obiter he intends them not for his doctrine nor yet to prove or stablish his doctrine upon them as upon foundations nor pearch moral and natural Philosophy for Divinity but to advance both the one and the other all Philology Language and History to the Service of Christ and the glory of his Cross to use our Rhetorick to set forth his sufferings the merit and benefit and glory of them our natural Philosophy to find us out the God of Nature in all his works moral Philosophy and History to disswade Vice and encourage Vertue even by the light of nature the knowledge of the Heavens and heavenly Spirits to declare his excellent and wondrous works our Criticisms to sift out truth and our Languages to express it in a word not so much to know any of them as God through them not them properly but Christ Iesus by them There is no fear of humane Sciences thus determined Yet there is one way more to determine our not knowng by by the persons with whom we have to do Our Doctrines for so we told you and for the chief meaning here we tell you now again to know here signifies to teach our Doctrines are to be proportioned and fitted for the auditory It was no meaner a mans practice than St. Pauls to the weak to become as weak to gain the weak to the weak and simple not to speak mysteries and speculations to them that were without Law as without Law plain honest dealing not quirks and quillets to gain such not to know any such thing among such as they Yet sometimes upon the same ground to do quite contrary to confound the wisdom of the world by that which that counts foolishness the strength of the world by that it reckons weakness the honourable things of the world by things which that esteems base and ignominious The Corinthians gloried in their learning and eloquence St. Paul to confute their vanity undertakes to do more by plainness and rudeness of speech and ignorance than they all of them can by all their wisdom and rhetorick among them he will make no use of any thing but the contemptible knowledge of the Cross of Christ and yet do more then all their Philosophers and Orators Where Learning will serve but to ostentation and the ear only tickled by it or humane applause not edification Schism not peace the issue of it among them not to know any such thing is best of all for let all things be done says the Apostle to edification 1 Cor. xiv 26. and if that will be done best by plainness to use plainness if by learning to use that as the you are that are to be edified so the I the Minister to deal with them if they be puft up with humane knowledge to humble them to the Abc of the Cross to exalt and preach up that above all knowledge whatsoever if divided into Schisms by the several Sects of Philosophy or the Masters of them to unite all again into one as so many pieces into one Cross among them to cry up no knowledge but thence or thither So then now to sanctifie all our secular knowledges and ignorances thus we are to determine them to know our times and place and persons for them to keep
nor stir nor raise up our selves or our heads Who shall ascend Whatever question it is it is most certainly an assertion of difficulty Who shall ascend no man can read it but he will read hardness in the ascending And yet it would be harder but for the last consideration of the words that 't is a kind of admiration of the Prophets at the foresight of Christs Ascension He in his spirit foresaw his Saviour climb this Hill and wonder'd â—t it From his ascending some of the difficulty is abated He has led one way â—â—ac'd a path open'd a door into Heaven unto all Believers so we us'd to sing in the Te Deum I need not tell you he has ascended in all the senses of the words no height of holiness but he has none frequenter in the Temple than he was none in Heaven till he came thither He the first that made our dull earth ascend so high He rose and ascended up on high without the least help of metaphor or figure rose from the Grave ascended into the Hill aâ—cended thence into the Hill of the Lord stands there at his right hand St. Stephen saw him so Acts â—ii 53. Never said Prophet any thing that more punctually fell out than this he may well admire it and so may we Yea and praise him too To him we owe all our Ascensions all the height and ascensions of our spirits in grace and goodness all our priviledges to worship him in holy places all our assurances and hopes of Heaven and the possession of it His rising raises us his ascending makes us ascend He the only prime singular one we only as parts and members of him What is then left us to do What for all this priviledge Why if Christs grace and Gods Worship and Heaven it self be such priviledges I hope we will not be so silly to forgo them or betray them Seeing they be so high ones we cannot be so unworthy now to do any thing beneath them any base or unworthy thing Being holy ones too we will not be so profane to pollute our selves or them with lusts and sacriledges Being so admirable priviledges all we cannot certainly but adore Gods mercy in them Being glorious ones too we must glorifie him for them count all things dross and dung in comparison of them Being yet hard to come by the more need we have to labour for them set all our powers make it all our work to get them to get grace and worship and glory to ascend the hill and holy place with all holiness as the way to glory In a word seeing all this priviledge comes by Christ 't is him we are to thank and serve and worship upon his own hill and in his own holy place till the time come till we ascend in glory And yet there is something more behind the way to this hill the conditions required to obtain this priviledge what we are to perform that we may attain it To have clean hands and pure hearts minds not lift up to vanity and mouths that will not swear to deceive our neighbour For he only shall ascend into the hill of the Lord he only shall rise up in his holy place he only is a true Believer he only truly worships God when he comes to Church to worship he only shall go to Heaven that hath clean hands c. THE FIRST SERMON UPON Whitsunday St. JOHN iii. 8. The wind bloweth where it listeth and thou hearest the sound thereof but canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth So is every one that is born of the Spirit THe wind bloweth And this day it blew to purpose A mighty rushing wind there was that this day fill'd the House where the Disciples were assembled Acts ii 2. And it blew truly where it listed when it blew only in that Chamber where they were And the sound of it was heard sufficiently when Parthians and Medes and Elamites the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Iudea in Cappadocia Pontus and Asia Phrygia and Pamphilia in Aegypt and in the parts of Lybia about Cyrene and strangers of Rome Iews and Proselites Cretes and Arabians all of them this day heard it fram'd into articulate voices into Tongues as many and divers as the Countries they came from Yet could not any of them tell whence this wind blew whence these sounds came for they were all amazed and in doubt saying one to another What meaneth this ver 12. Nor could the Disciples themselves but in general that from heaven it came nor whither it went when it retired from them This Day then was this Text fulfilled in your ears O happy Disciples Nicodemus might to day by experiment understand what in this Chapter he could not apprehend the Wind and Spirit both together and feel the workings of them both there both in one descent together though here he did not when they were put in one word together where whether Spiritus Ventus or Spiritus Spiritus both 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were understood Expositors have disputed and it stands yet upon the question The Ancients restrained the words to the holy Spirit and translate it Spiritus The Modern Expositors to the Wind and translate it Ventus To do both right we shall joyn both senses understand the words as a similitude made by our blessed Saviour to instruct both Nicodemus and us in the ways of the Spirit and in the knowledge of the spiritual Regeneration by the likeness of the Wind. So two Simile's there will be in the Text. Sicut Ventus sic Spiritus and Sicut spiritus sic spiritualis The First Similitude is between the Wind and the Spirit The Second between the Spirit and the spiritual man or him that is born of the Spirit In the similitude betwixt the Wind and the Spirit we shall observe I. The Nature of them both in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 breath or Wind or Spirit it signifies them all II. The Power and Operation both of the one and of the other they blow both of them where they list III. The Plainness of their sounds Thou hearest the sound thereof both of them easie enough to be heard IV. The Obscurity yet of both their Motions ye know of neither of them whence they come or whither they go According to these four points will the second similitude be extended too He that is born of the Spirit will be like the Spirit in all four In his Nature in his Operations in his Plainness in some particulars and his Obscurity in others So is every one that is born of the Spirit But to tell you fully the true Condition of him that is born of the Spirit I must tell you first the Nature the Operations and the Properties of the Spirit And to tell you the Nature the Operations and the Properties of the Spirit I must shew you also those of the Wind that so by the more perfect discovery of them we may the more perfectly admire them and
dead Earth into Herbs and Flowers Such a wind is this Spirit that gives life to every one that comes into the world for he is the Spirit of Life Rom. viii 2. But that which adds somewhat still to the fuller glory of these effects and must not be pass'd without a note is that 't is Spirit still this wind blows still For however the winds are not always in a noise and bustle yet some spirit of air there is that moves in the deepest stillness Spiritus there is always though not ventus some tender breeze though no gale of wind there is always stirring And if there were not continually some such sweet breathings of the Holy Spirit upon us when those strong and louder blasts seem to be lull'd asleep we were but dead men and might sleep for ever but such there are and we live by them I might but I will not add any more to the Effects either of the Wind or of the Spirit I pass on to their Course and Compass to shew you how far their effects and powers reach The Wind bloweth where it listeth and the Spirit where he willeth And here I must tell you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vbi vult is a large circuit Vbi is where and Vbi is when and Vult is what you will especially when 't is his who worketh all things according to the counsel of his will Ephes. i. 11. So that 't will be no stretching to say either of the Wind or of the Spirit that it bloweth 1. Where it lists and 2. How it lists and 3. As much as it lists and 4. On whom it lists and 5. When it lists 1. The Wind blows where it lists on this side or on that side or on any side any where and every where The Spirit does so too only with more propriety to Vbi vult doing out of the liberty of its own will what the wind only does out of the subtilty of its nature No place lies exempted from the power of his will It finds St. Paul and Silas in the prison and blows up the organs of their voices into Songs and Hymns It finds Manasses in the dungeon blows there with his wind and the waters flow out of his eyes It finds St. Matthew at the receipt of Custom and blows him out of a Publican into an Apostle It blows St. Peter and St. Andrew out of their Boat to the stern of the Church of Christ. He blows upon some in their journey as upon St. Paul upon others at home as upon Cornelius upon one in the bed upon another at the Mill upon Ionas in the Whales belly No place beyond his compass not the Isles of the Gentiles not the land of Vz not the Deserts of Arabia Here and there even amongst them he blows some into his Kingdom In a word no chamber so secret but it can get into no place so remote but it can reach none so private but it can find none so strong but it can break through none so deep but it can fathom none so high but it can scale no place at all but it can come into and none so bad but some way or other it will vouchsafe to visit It makes Holy David cry out as in an extasie Psal. cxxxix 6. Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit or Whether shall I go then from thy Presence If I climb up into Heaven thou art there if I go down to Hell thou art there also If I take the wings of the morning and remain in the uttermost parts of the earth even there also shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall hold me No place it seems in Heaven or Earth or Sea or Hell it self can hold him out Nor can any hold him to this or that way of working neither for He bloweth 2. How he lists sometimes louder sometimes softer sometimes after this manner sometimes after that He raises new inclinations or he cherishes the old He changes the tempers of men or disposes them He removes opportunities of doing ill or he propounds opportunities of doing good he scares us with threats or allures us with promises he drives us with judgments or he draws us with mercies he inflames us within or he moves us from without which way soever it pleases him No wind so various in its blowing Different ways he has to deal with divers men and diversities of gifts he has for them too differences of Administrations diversities of Operations 1 Cor. xii 5. To one he gives the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge to another faith to another the gift of healing to another the working of miracles to another prophesie to another discerning of spirits to another divers kinds of tongues to another the interpretation of tongues all from the Spirit says the Apostle in the forecited Chapter Nor was this only for those times He still breaths diversities of gifts and graces as he pleases On some sanctifying graces on others edifying On others both To some he gives a cheerful to others a sad spirit to some a kind of holy lightness to others a religious gravity to one a power wholly to quit the World to another power to stand holy in it to one an ability to rule to another a readiness to obey to one courage to another patience to a third temperance and so to others other graces as he thinks fittest 3. Yet of these gifts to some more to some less not to all alike nay not to the same person always alike neither but 3. as much only as this Spirit will All have not faith alike nor hope alike nor charity alike nor courage alike nor patience alike neither all vertues nor any vertues all alike Upon some the abundance of the Spirit dwells upon others he breaths only some have had exstasies others but only moderate breathings Eliah had abundance of the Spirit yet Elisha has it doubled 2 Kings ii 9. And yet this very same Elisha that presently upon it divides Iordan with the wind of a Mantle and restores waters to their sweetness and earth to its fruitfulness by a cruse of Salt 2 Kings ii 21. in but the very next Chapter cannot so much as prophesie without a Minstrel ver 15. is not so much as in a disposition to receive this divine Spirit without the help of an Instrument of Musick to rally his spirits into harmony and order St. Paul who was but even now caught up into the third Heavens 2 Cor. xii 1. feels by and by such a thorn in the flesh ver 7. that of all that great extraordinary proportion he has no more left him than a poor pittance a mere sufficiency ver 9. 4. And the Person is as much in his own power as the measure is He blows not only what but upon whom he will He is no mans debtor Rom. xi 35. He will have mercy upon whom he will have mercy Rom. ix 18. What
if He to shew his justice will no longer breath upon some persons who have so long despised his mercy and yet to make known the riches of his glory will yet breath somewhat longer upon others that for ought we know may have deserv'd as little Who can complain seeing he blows sufficiently upon all and is not obliged either in justice or mercy to do more but justly may do all where or upon whom he will One Vbi there is behind He is free also for his own time for he 5. bloweth when he listeth Upon some in the womb as upon St. Iohn Baptist upon others in the Cradle upon some in their child-hood upon others in their youth upon others not till gray-hairs cover them In the morning at the third the sixt the ninth hour in the evening in the still of night in our sleep and when we are awake are all his times as he pleases to make them or dispose them In prosperity in adversity in the midst of tears or in the midst of smiles in health in sickness whensoever it pleases him He call'd Samuel in his childhood David in his youth St. Paul in his manhood Manasses in his age and that which without contradiction shews the unlimittedness of his power the Thief upon the Cross. I shall dismiss this Point if you please to take home with you these Corollaries or Lessons hence 1. If the Spirit bloweth where it listeth Wâ— are not certainly to exclude any place or Nation from these blessed gales or with the Donatists to confine him to any corner of the world or to the Church or Congregation we are of as if he could blow no where else Learn Charity 2. If the Spirit bloweth How he listeth We do but shew our folly to prescribe him his way He knows what best he has to do how best to mannage us to Salvation Learn Discretion 3. If it be as much too only as he lists 'T is not sure our merit or desert if we have more of him than others nor perhaps their demerit always who have less Whatever it is 't is more than we deserve both they and we Let that suffice to humble us and make us thankful Learn Humility 4. If it be only upon Whom he pleases 'T is certainly sometimes upon some we know not So we have no reason to pass a censure upon any mans soul. Learn to think well of all And so much the rather in that 5. he bloweth When he will If he has not already he may hereafter breath upon him or her thou doubtest most If thou perhaps thy self feel'st him not within thee now thou may'st ere long Learn hence to despair neither of thy self nor any one else In a word seeing all his actions are so free all his blessings and all the ways of them so wholly in his own breast Let us all resign up all our wills to his and submit them wholly to his pleasure for time and place and manner and measure and bid him do with us what he pleases Yet for all this Would we not now willingly know somewhat of these mysterious and stupendous operations There is somewhat I confess towards it in the next Point and I shall shew you it that though you cannot perfectly discern the motions of the Spirit you may yet hear the sound thereof that 's the third General of the Text the plainess of the sound both of the Wind and of the Spirit easie enough both of them to be heard And thou hearest the sound thereof III. For the Wind I need not tell you it it speaks loud enough sometimes to wake the drowsiest sleeper though we cannot see it we can hear it And so we may the Spirit too as invisible as he is Now two sounds there are of the Spirit An Outward and an Inward They that heard the Patriarchs the Prophets and Apostles preach they heard the outward so in St. Stevens case the Iews are said to resist the Spirit by which he spake Acts vi 10. They that now hear them read or preacht they still hear the sound of the Spirit For so Christ tells us It is not they the Prophets and the Apostles that speak but the Spirit that speaketh in them St. Matth. x. 20. The inward sound of the Spirit is to be heard too When thou perceivest pious and godly motions rise within thee when at any time good desires come upon thee when holy resolutions spring up within thy bosom when thou feelest thy soul overspread with heavenly light and the divine truth preaching to thine understanding then thou hearest the inward sound then this Holy Spirit begins to discourse and converse with thee And truly though none of these be properly sounds but only metaphorical yet they are plain expressions of the Spirit and may well go for the sounds of it to discern it by Yet that you may not mistake false sounds for true ones if you recollect what has been spoken scatteredly already in the discourse of the Nature Operations and Effects of the Spirit you will easily find the true ones to be these If the motion that at any time within us be pure and heavenly calm and gentle if it purifie our hearts if it cleanse our affections if it penetrate the bones and marrow if it cool the feavers of our lusts if it blow out the coals of our wrath if it blow down the fortresses of sin if it blow up good resolutions if it blow away the dust that hangs too often upon our good actions the interests and by respects if it refresh the wounded spirit if it warm us with holy flames if it quicken us to all obedience to God and Man if it cause the the fruits of the Spirit the Apostle speaks of Gal. v. to bud up in us then 't is doubtless from this Spirit and they are all as so many several kinds of sounds that loudly speak his being and breathing in us Whatever motion sound or language is not consonant to one or other of these let men talk of the Spirit what they will they are not of the Spirit in the Text nor does it make them spiritual men that have it Thus far our knowledge of the Spirit extends these are the sounds it makes within and without us But our ignorance of it extends further More of it there is that we know not than that we know for notwithstanding all this deciphering of the nature effects and sound of the Wind or Spirit The Obscurity of the course it takes and the Motion it moves in is far greater for thou canst not tell whence it cometh nor whither it goeth Nor wind nor spirit IV. For the Wind first They are but general notions we entertain of it God brings the winds out of his treasure says the Psalmist cxxv 7. Out of those hidden chambers they come but where those chambers are we cannot tell On a suddain they arise ere we are aware and away they go and who can follow them Who
still unseen and unheard or however expedit vobis it was expedient for them that Christ should go away that the Comforter might come for us it is not I am sure if we have none to come Settle we therefore this for an Article of our faith that he comes still I told you before how you should know it by his breathings inwardly in you good thoughts and desires his breathings outwardly good words and expressions by his workings with you good life and actions in a word by his gifts and graces But if this be all why is it now said When he is come Came he not thus before to the Patriarchs and Prophets were not they partakers of his gifts mov'd and stirr'd and actuated by him why then so much ado about Christs sending him now and of his coming now as if he was never sent never came before We read indeed in the Old Testament often of his coming never of his sending but by way of promise that God would send or of prophesie that he should be sent and that but once neither expresly Psal. civ 30. Emittes spiritum creabuntur So though come he did in those days of old yet voluntarily meerly we might conceive never sent never so distinct a notion of his person then then only as the Spirit of God now as the Spirit of the Father and the Son then only as the Power of God now as a Person in the God-head This the first difference between his coming then and now 2. Then he came as the Spirit of Prophesie now as the Spirit of Truth that is as the very truth and fulfilling of it of all the former Prophesies 3. Then upon Iudea and few else besides it may be Iob in the land of Vz and Rahab in Iericho and Ruth in Moab here and there now and then one now upon all flesh upon Iew and Gentile both alike the partition-wall like the walls of Iericho blown down by the breath of this Spirit by the blast of this horn of the most High 4. Then most in types and shadows now clearly and in truth 5. Then sparingly they only sprinkled with it now poured out Ioel's Effundam fulfilled Acts ii 1. a common phrase become now full of the Holy Ghost Acts vii 55. and filled with the Spirit Ephes. v. 18. 6. Then he came and went lighted a little but staid not motabat or volitabat flew or fluttered about mov'd and stirr'd them at times as it did Sampson Iudg. xiii 25. coming and going now 't is he is come He sate him down upon the Apostles Acts ii 3. sate him down in the Chair at their Synod Acts xv 28. Visum est Spiritui Sancto nobis calls us his Temples now not his Tabrnacles places of a during Habitation and is to abide with us for ever Lastly Then he came to help them in the observance of the Jewish and Moral Law now to plant and settle an obedience to the Christian Faith For Christ being to introduce a more perfect and explicate faith in the blessed Trinity and a Redeemer to wean men from the first elements and beggarly rudiments as the Apostle calls them to raise them from earthly to heavenly promises to elevate them to higher degrees of love and hope and charity and vertue and knowledge and being besides to arm them against those contradictions and oppositions that would be made against them by the world those persecutions and horrid ways of martyrdom they were to encounter with in the propagation of the Christian Faith for these ends it was necessary that the Spirit of Truth should come anew and come with power as it did at first with wonder that by its work and power those great and glorious truths might be readily received and embraced For this seems the very end of his coming to convince the world ver viii of this Chapter and to testifie of him Chap. xv 26. and to glorifie him in the very next verse to the text ver 14. to evince this new revealed truth to the souls and consciences of men that Messiah was come that Jesus was the Christ that the Iewish Sacrifices were now to have an end that the Prophesies were all fulfilled in him that his Law was now to succeed in the place of Moses's that he justified where the Law could not that through him now in his Name and in none other Salvation henceforth was to be preached to Iew and Gentile and God had open'd now that door of hope to all the world To bear witness to this and perswade this truth so opposite to Natural and Iewish reason or so much above the ordinary reach of the one and the received customs of the other thus to enhance Piety and Perfection thus to set up Christ above the Natural and Mosaick Law thus now to glorifie God in Christ and Christ as Christ need there was great need that the Spirit of Truth himself should come himself after a new fashion in a greater manifestation of his power than in former times bring greater grace because he required of us a greater work All this while we have given you but general notions of his coming either when he first came in his fulness on the Apostles and first Disciples or when secondly he comes on any as the Holy Spirit in good motions and affections We are yet to see when he comes as the Spirit of Truth to descend now thirdly to a distinct and particular enquiry When the Spirit of Truth is in us or come to us when we have him in us Nor is this way of consideration less necessary than the other though it may be harder far forsomuch as we daily see many a pious Christian Soul seduced into Error in whom yet we cannot doubt but the Holy Spirit has a dwelling many a good man also err in many opinions of whose portion of the good Spirit we make no question whilst some many others of less Piety it may be none more fully know the truth than either of the other Understand therefore there is a double way of knowing even divine truth 1. the one by the way of natural reason by principles and conclusions rationally and logically deduced out of the evidences of Scripture 2. the other by particular assents and dissents of the Understanding and Will purified and sanctified to all ready obedience to Christ. By the first it comes that the greatest Scholars the most learned and rational men know always the most truths both speculative and practick both in their Principles and Inferences and are therefore always fittest to determine doubts and give counsel and direction both what to believe and what to do in all particular controversies and debates which concern either Truth or Error or Justice and Injustice Right or Wrong the practices and customs of former times and Churches or their contraries and disuses and this may be done without the Spirit of Sanctification or the holy sanctifying Spirit under that title at least though indeed
may plant Apollo water but the increase is this Spirit of Gods when all is done that man can do he must have his act or it will not be done 3. He leads on fair and easily for diducet it is no Iehu's pace that pace is only for an earthly kingdom not an heavenly The Spirit leads softly on like Iacob Gen. xxxiv 14. according as the Cattel and Children are able to endure according as our inferiour powers signified by the Cattel and our new begun piety and capacities intimated by the Children are able to follow 'T is danger else we lose them by the way He that presses even truth and piety too fast upon us is liker to tire us and make us give out by the way than to lead us out to our journeys end By degrees it is that even the greatest perfection must be come to Truths are to be scattered as men are able to bear them Christs own method in the verse before The way into all truth is by some and some 4. This guiding is by teaching one Translation has docebit shall teach and Chap. xiv 26. it is so too he shall teach you teach us the necessity of a Teacher How shall they hear without a Preacher Rom. x. 14. To this purpose the Spirit set Teachers in the Church 1 Cor. xii 28. Pastours and Teachers Eph. iv 11. Pastors to rule Teachers to teach both to guide us into the truth Yea but Teachers we now have store that to be sure guide not into the truth for they teach contraries and contradictions What Teachers then are they that teach the truth Such as be sent says St. Paul Rom. x. 15. sent by them that have authority to send them if they come without authority or from a false one from them that never receive'd power themselves to send others though they were sent themselves they are not sent by the Spirit and though they may guide now and then into a truth teach something that is true into all they cannot their very Function is a lie and their preaching of it 5. Leading or guiding into all truth as one omnem veritatem in the Singular will tell us that unity is his way of guiding No truth in division we cannot so much as see our faces true in the clearest water if it be troubled cast but a stone in and divide its surface and you spoil your seeing true cast but a stone of division into the Church and no seeing truth 'T is the spiritual man that only truly discerns and sees the truth the natural and carnal man he cannot 1 Cor. ii 14 15. And if there be Divisions or Schisms among you are you not carnal says St. Paul in the next Chapter 1 Cor. iii. 3. Yes you are so the Schismatick or he that causes rents and divisions in the Church is but a carnal man for all his brags and cannot see the truth how much soever he pretend it 'T were well if men would think of this we were likely then the sooner to see truth to be guided into all truth if we could once keep all together peace and truth go both together Thus far one word has led you The Connexion of that and the other with the former of his guiding with his coming will lead you further When He the Spirit of truth is come then he will guide you When he is come is when he is so grounded and setled in us that we can say he is come indeed he is in us of a truth then all truth will follow presently When the holy Spirit has once taken up his lodging in us that we also begin to be holy Spirits too then truth comes on a main If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God St. Ioh. vii 17. till our hearts be well fram'd to the obedience of Gods Commandments no truly knowing truth Divine knowledge is contrary to other knowledges they begin in speculation and end in action this begins with action and ends in speculation seeing and knowing God What man is he that feareth the Lord him shall he teach in the way that he shall choose Psal. xxv 11. When the Spirits holiness is come into us his truth will follow as fast as we can bear it till we come to the fulness of the measure of the stature of Christ to Christ himself that is the Truth the way now to come to the knowledge of truth is by holiness and true obedience Nor yet so to be understood as if the good man only knew the truth or that every one that has Christ or the Spirit dwelling in them were the only knowing men and therefore fit only to teach others Indeed if you take knowledge for practical and saving knowledge so it is no man knows God but he that loves him no man so knows truth but he that loves and follows it and no man is saved by knowing but by doing it But that which may serve to save a mans self will not serve to save others to bring them to salvation 'T was one of Corah Dathan and Abirams Doctrines indeed Numb xvi 3. All the Congregation is holy every one of them wherefore then do you Moses and Aaron lift up your selves above the Congregation of the Lord Why do you Priests lift up your selves so much to think you only are fit to teach and rule the people But the earth opened her mouth ver 30. and confuted the madness of these men Be the person never so holy if he have no Function to it he must not presume to teach others though he must teach himself Holiness is one gift the power of teaching is another though both from the same Spirit and no venturing upon Aarons St. Pauls or St. Peters Office unless the Spirit has set us apart to that end and purpose 'T is enough for any other that he has truth enough to save himself and 't is but Ambition Presumption and Sacriledge and by that a lessening of his goodness to pretend to that which God has not call'd him to but his own preposterous zeal or too high conceit of his own holiness and abilities and so far from being like to guide into all truth that our own days are sufficient witnesses all Errors and Heresies have sprung from it The way that the Spirit guides into all his truth is by the Scripture interpreted by the Church by the decrees and determinations and customs of it by the hand of our lawful Pastors and Teachers himself inwardly acting and moving in us inwardly working and perswading us outwardly ministring opportunities and occasions to us leading us by degrees preserving us in peace keeping us in obedience and holiness and charity Thus he guides into all truth ordinarily and no way else VII And to be sure lastly thus he will Christ here promises for him him that he shall for so we may render it He shall And he is the Spirit of truth says the Text. So
too yet in measure and order too no other then the Spirit gives them utterance 4. And lastly though first it be in the Text yet because it is but the circumstance and time of the story and not the main business or second of it and fittest to close up all in good time and order The Time when all this was done when these things came to pass when the Apostles were so dispos'd when the Holy Ghost thus descended when this strange issue fell out When the day of Pentecost was fully come in very good time the promis'd time Christs time Gods own time such as he had prefigur'd them in in the Law too at the fifty days Feast after the Passover a solemn day and somewhat more as you shall hear anon Thus we best join the History and the Moral the Doctrine and Use of Pentecost or Whitsunday nay the very Holy Spirit of the day and our souls to day together that we may not be like men that only come to hear news a story and away but such as hear the Word and profit by it Which that we may Come O mighty wind and blow upon us Descend O holy Fire and warm our hearts give me a tongue O blessed Spirit out of this days number and utterance give thy servants capacious spirits and remembrance that thy Word may rush in upon them as a sound from Heaven and fill the houses of all our souls with joy and gladness with holy fire of Piety and Devotion that we may with one accord one heart and mind speak forth thy praise and glory The first Point in the order I have set you is the disposition of them that the Holy Spirit will come and light upon 1. They are of one accord 2. in one place 3. sitting quietly and expecting there and that 4. also upon the solemn day when the day of Pentecost any solemn day or occasion is presented them They are first of one accord whom this Spirit vouchsafes to descend into This unity draws the Spirit to them that keeps it with them the house of unity is the only Temple of the Spirit of Unity That soul which breaks the bond of unity and divides it self from the Church of Christ from the company of the Apostles and their Successors the still Fathers of it cannot hold this holy wind cannot enclose this holy fire they are broken and crackt crack only of the Spirit but are really broken from that body in which only the Spirit moves Take and divide a member from the body be it the principal that in which most spirit was the heart or the head and once divided the Spirit vanishes from it will not sit nor dwell in it just so is it it in Christs Body the Church If one of the chiefest members of it one erst while of the devoutest and most religious in it once grow so proud of his own wisdom or gifts so singular in his conceits as to separate himself from his fellows from that body whereof Christ is the head he goes away like a member from the natural body and leaves the Spirit behind him that retires from him for it is one Spirit and cannot be divided from the body though it work diversly in it If this being of one accord of one mind be the temper for the receipt of the Holy Spirit as here you see it is and in reason it can be no otherwise it being the Spirit of love and unity What spirit are they of Whose Religion is Faction whose chief pretended Piety is Schism whose business is to differ from all the World Nothing can be more evident than that men are now adays much at a loss for the Spirit however every one claim to it seeing there is no accord but discord not diversities only but contrarieties but contradictions amongst them that most pretend the Spirit Indeed were this they any less a They than the Apostles themselves and the whole number of the then Disciples or had there been but the least division among them either about the manner of staying or expecting Christs Promise or which is less about the place to stay in It may be these men might have had a shadow for their separations but Apostles they were and in one place they were too altogether agreed in all were all in unity were all in uniformity not their minds only but their bodies too together Men thought it nothing a while since to withdraw themselves from the Houses of God as if no matter at all for the place they could for all that be of the same faith but too woful experience has prov'd it now that with the one place the one faith is vanisht with the ceremony the substance gone too with the uniformity of Worship the unanimity of our minds and the uniformity of our faith too blown into the air How shall we do O blessed Spirit in so many crackt vessels to retain thee Needs must the Spirit expire out of that body which has so many breaches and divisions in it so many divided houses so many broken Churches so many rotten Congregations I know if it be only necessity divides us and drives us into several dens and caves as it did the Primitive Christians in the days of those fiery persecutions that the Holy Spirit will ransack all the cranies and search out all the privatest corners be they above ground or under it but it is because the mind of all those several places is but one and in that respect they are no more than so many several cells of the one Catholick Church but where choice and not necessity wilfulness and not force singularity and not purity of Truth or Conscience makes the division and draws Disciples into Chambers Parlors Barns or Mills Woods or Desarts go not says Christ out after them say they what they will of Christ or Spirit there believe it not St. Matth. xxix 26. Two in a field and yet one taken and the other left two at the mill and one taken and the other left ver 40. So at the most I fear great hazard that any if they be no better no more orderly gather'd when the Master comes Or were they yet perhaps in several places sitting as they are here that is quietly and in true peace and faith expecting the promise of their Lord something might be said to excuse their separations but not only actually to break the unity of the Spirit and the bond of Peace but to breath out nothing but war contention and dispute to be so far from sitting down and either suffering for Christ or humbly expecting his time of assistance and deliverance out of their perplexities and discomforts as to take the matter into their own hands and prevent the coming of the Spirit of Peace by rising and raising spirits of war and confusion they must give me leave to tell them they know not what spirit they are of a heady guiddy furious spirit zeal I bear them witness with St. Paul
Rom. x. 2. without knowledge and spirit without holiness for the Spirit of the Prophets is subject to the Prophets 1 Cor. xiv 32. much more to the God of the Prophets to his time and order And yet there is another disposition to be observed in those upon whom the good Spirit lights to make either instruments of glory to the Church or Piety to God 'T is sitting and expecting if you mark it till the day or days of Pentecost be fully come and accomplisht souls willing to keep a holy-day or holy-days to the Lord neither to be scar'd from the attendance of their Master and their Devotions nor to be shortned and interrupted in their pious course of faith and piety by the now so terrible scare-crows of set Feasts as Iewish legal and superstitious observances as the new zelots are so wise to term them because they understand not terms or times The spiritual man if they be what they boast discerns the things of God though hidden in darker mysteries knows better to distinguish Iudaism from Christianity Piety from Superstition and is not only content but studies to wait upon his Lord upon any day glad to get it too Passover or Pentecost makes use of them all and turns them fairly from their old Iudaism and consecrates them anew to his Masters service and this doing the very Spirit himself authorizes and abets whilst he thus seems to pick out the time for his own coming at the Iewish Pentecost so to sanctifie a new Christian Pentecost the Christian Whitsuntide to all Christian Generations by this solemn glory of his benefits to day to be remembred for ever Thus we have the disposition he vouchsafes to descend upon unanimous uniform peaceable orderly expecting souls Such as set apart and keep days to God with faith and patience and in obedience and order the contrary tempers are too rough lodgings for the Spirit of meekness order and peace be we so prepar'd and he will come II. Now see we how he comes the manner of the Holy Spirits coming Double it is to the ear and to the eye To the ear first and that 1. suddenly from Heaven secondly 3. like a sound thence 4. the sound of a rushing mighty wind that 5. filled all the house yet 6. the house only where they sate thus to the ear Then 2. to the eye in the appearance of tongues cloven tongues tongues of fire tongues sitting and lastly sitting upon each of them We take first what came first the sound and that first was sudden suddenly says the Text yet as sudden as it came go it shall not so not without a note or two Suddenly then it came to shew the freeness of Gods grace so far above desert that it is also above apprehension it out-runs that and is upon us ere we are aware so little probability have we to deserve it that we commonly have not time to do it and when we have yet so suddain does it fall that we may well see it comes not from our selves so dull a piece as earth and sin has made us To shew 2. the readiness of his goodness beyond expectation readier far to give than we to take comes commonly upon us sooner then we expect or wish prevents us with his goodness as the Psalmist observes to us Psal. xxi 3. and runs very swiftly Psal. cxlvii 15. flying upon the wings of the wind Psal. civ To shew us 3. the vanity of men who think it comes with observation It does not says Christ St. Luke xvii 20. 'T is not at our command The Prophets themselves could not Prophesie when they listed 't was cecidit Spiritus the Spirit fell upon them the common phrase in Scripture and then they prophesied till that fell and fall it did but at times what times it pleased the motions of the Prophet were but as other mens Indeed I remember Elisha willing to prophesie to Iehoshaphat the King of Iudah 2 King iii. 14 15. calls for a Minstrel and it came to pass that while the Minstrel play'd the hand of the Lord came upon him Not that either the Spirit was at the will and under the power of the Minstrel or the Prophet but to shew the disposition that the holy Spirit vouchsafes soonest and suddenest to come to a sweet and tunable soul dispos'd to accord to love and peace and unity And by the way you may take notice Musick and the Spirit are at no discord as the late spiritual men forsooth would have us to believe the Prophet you see thought it the only way and medium to raise his spirits into heavenly raptures to make himself capable of new Inspirations to call for an Instrument of Musick and as it were to perswade the heavenly Spirit down by some grave and sober Musick which may make us wonder how these great pretenders to the Spirt and gapers for it should be so furious enemies against the Church Musick so ever employ'd and approv'd both by God and his Prophets and Apostles for singing with melody says St. Paul too Ephes. v. 19. to fit and sweeten and raise our dull and rougher spirits to the service of Heaven and the entertainment of the heavenly and gentle motions of the Spirit in those holy performances But all this while this is but to dispose our selves the Spirit it self is at its own disposal for all this and when he comes comes on a sudden Even to awake 4. and rouse us up We are drowsie souls to Heaven-ward want some sudden change to startleus things that come leisurely will not do it It must be a sudden turn that will turn us out of our selves or from our follies or so much upward And sudden 5. it is again to shew the activity of the Spirit of God how wonderful he is among the Children of men that he cannot only turn the world upside down when ere he please but assoon as he pleases does but blow with his wind and the waters flow casts but a sudden glance of an eye at St. Peter and out run the waters out of his he that was but just now afraid of the voice of a silly girl fears not presently the lightnings and thunders of the greatest Tyrants Nox ut tetigerit mentem docet solumque tetigisse docuisse est Mam humanum subito ut illustrat immutat affectum abnegat hoc repente quod erat exhibet repente quod non erat S. Greg. He does but touch the mind and teaches it shines into it and changes it together forgets immediately what it was and is what it was not All the quickest ways of men must have time and leisure be it but to cast an eye but O qualis est artifex iste Spiritus But how wonderful an Artist is thy Spirit O Lord that knows not the least hinderance or delay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it comes so suddenly there is no appearance often of its coming not so much as a whiff or shadow before it to give us
warning of its approach for this reason among the rest least we should attribute any thing to our own preparations yea though they be such as God requires Sudden last of all to shew us our duties not to neglect the light and sudden motions of the Holy Spirit though we know not how or when or whence they rise so we know but whether they go and lead us if to good catch at them let them not go as they came but leap we into the water while it stirrs fan we our selves with this wind while it moves for how long it will stay or whether ever come again we know not take it in the present while we may omit no good motion no opportunity or occasion of any doing well suddenly it comes and suddenly it may be gone if we lay not hold upon it and make use of it Thus from the quickness and suddenness of this Spirits motion Gods grace and goodness his incomprehensible power and operation and our readiness to lay hold upon it are preached to us But from Heaven what next is preached to us but that thence it is all holy winds and breaths and spirits come from Heaven not of men no humane wit can teach what this Spirit does the spirit of man but the things of a man 1 Cor. ii 11. it knows no further the things of Heaven from the Spirit of Heaven de Caelo from the very Heaven of Heavens not any lower Heavens or any other spirits of Heaven but that which has no plural number is but one and is an Heaven it self not only a Spirit of Heaven but Heaven that is the Spirit the Heaven in whom all of us live and move and have our being as in our Heaven of Glory Yet again from Heaven that we may at any time know what wind blows in us if our affections intentions and endeavours are only totwards Heaven set upon Heaven and heavenly things if what moves us be only heavenly and not earthly interests then 't is the good Spirit that reigns and rules in us then 't is the Wind and Spirit and Fire and Tongue a wind out of Gods own treasury a Spirit out of Gods own bosom a fire from that Eternal Light a tongue from that Eternal Wisdom but if our actions come but so much as collaterally and glancing at other respects than God and Heaven 't is no Spirit no motion no work of his Spirit but some others this comes directly straight from Heaven 3. Now from Heaven what is it that comes here there came suddenly a sound from Heaven a sound yes a sound and 't is a good hearing the best news we ever heard since Christs departure a sound that is gone out into all Lands and into the end of the World Sonus coelorum the sound of the Heavens the very true Pythagorical harmony of the Spheres the sweetest sound was ever heard the sound of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and the knowledge of it We perhaps lookt when we heard of something coming down from Heaven for some glorious Host of Angels Cherubims or Seraphims some or other of them at least or for the new Hierusalem we read of Rev. xxi 2. coming from above down from God out of Heaven and we think much to be put off with a sound yet I must tell you this sound sounds better in our ears the sound of an Eternal Comforter that should abide with us for ever and bring us in due time to that new Hierusalem and those blessed Spirits in Heaven And with a fitter convoy he could not come than with a sound who was now to send and constitute such as should sound out the Gospel over all the World so many Apostles Evangelists Pastors and Teachers Nor yet of all sounds with any so correspondent to him could he come as that of the wind nothing more to express his Glory and Godhead that this Spirit he is that very he that cometh riding upon the wings of the wind a fit blast to stop the idle breath of those saucy enquirers of our age who dispute this blessed Spirit out of his Deity Need had he appear it seems 4. as a rushing mighty wind to rush down these enemies of his and overthrow them Indeed he came to day with so mighty and powerful a blast that we might see both his Power and Godhead as well as his Mercy and Goodness to us his goodness in coming like a wind his power in coming like a rushing mighty one The benefits we receive from the wind represent the benefits we receive from the Spirit and so 1. present his goodness The Wind first purges and clears the Air from noisom and infectious vapours the Spirit clenses and purifies our souls and bodies from the stinking and unwholsom steams of sins and lusts 2. The Wind sometimes gathers up clouds and rains and sometimes scatters them again The Holy Spirit one whiles gathers clouds into the countenance and brings showers into the eyes of the penitent sinner and other while it blows away all blackness from our faces and makes the soul look up and the Spirits smile and dance in our hearts and eyes 3. The Wind cheers and refreshes the Plants and Trees the blessed Spirit cheers the Plants of Grace within us and makes them fructifie and prosper puts life and spirit into the root verdure and freshness into the leaf fineness and subtilty into the rellish of the fruit of all holy actions and vertues 4. The Wind cools the heat and revives the fainting spirit the Holy Spirit does so too allays the inordinate heat of concupiscence within us cools the over-hotness and ardors of our Passions revives us and recovers us when we are almost choakt with the fumes and flames of our own corruption affections and lusts 5. The Wind again kindles the fire and blows the spark into a flame and the Holy Spirit it is that kindles all heavenly warmth and flames within us without his breath we are all but dead coles 6. The Wind scatters the chaff and skreens the dust out of the corn the Holy Spirit blows away all our chaff and dust all our dross and rubbish our vanities and follies and makes us fit corn for Gods own Garners 7. The Wind it is that drives home the Ship into the Haven and the Holy Spirit it is that drives our poor torn and tatter'd Vessels into the Haven where we would be as the Psalmist speaks drives us up and down over the troublesom Sea of this tempestuous World into the Port of everlasting bliss into the Haven of Heaven it self You see the goodness and graces of the Holy Spirit not unfitly expressed by the resemblance of the Wind. See we now his Power as well resembled by it by the rushing mighty wind The Wind is but a thin and airy puff so subtile that we cannot see it yet what a rattling does it make rattles the Ships of Tharsis together tears up Trees by the roots throws down
Word that I thy servant may have utterance this thy people give thee audience all of us obedience and all our hearts and tongues be so thorowly heated with thy holy fire that they may be filled with thy praise and honour all the day long That we may do so here are tongues given in the Text ver 3. Cloven tongues as it were of fire there we left there we begin again at the second Way and Manner of the holy Spirits coming down to day And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sate upon each of them Where 1. of the Order 2. Of the Appearance 3. Of the Manner it self And lastly of the Continuance of it For the Order 't is the second way of the Spirits coming here first in the wind then in the fire The holy fire within us is not kindled but with a mighty wind The divine spark or soul cannot be blown up into a fire till some mighty wind has shaken all our powers blown off the dust and ashes those earthly worldly affections that choak'd and cover'd it till it has rais'd a tumult in all the corners of us dispers'd the vanities and irregularities of all our motions and scatter'd every thing that hinder'd it from the obedience to the Spirit then and not till then the fire bursts forth and as the Psalmist we speak with our tongues For the Order 2. is the same between the sound and the tongues The Sound first the tongues second We are first to hear before we speak so the Spirits order tells us here Not turn Teachers at the first dash not presume to teach others before we are thorowly taught our selves that 's none of the Spirits way of teaching how spiritual soever they think themselves that do so that speak what they have neither seen nor heard their own fancies and imaginations the divisings of their own hearts such as the Christian world never heard before whereof there is not so much as the sound or any thing sounding like it in all the Writings of the Church The sound too 3. before the fire The Spirit manifests it self by degrees first more obscurely to the ear then more evidently to the eye I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear says Iob Chap. xlii 5. that was a favour but now mine eye seeth thee that 's a greater The Spirit comes by degrees Gods favours rise upon us in order There comes first a great and strong wind that rends the mountains and breaks in pieces the rocks before him that throws down our mountainous thought and projects breaks them all in pieces crosses our designs thwarts them with some great affliction or some strange thing or other breaks our very hearts our stony hearts then follows an earthquake in all our faculties we begin to shake and tremble with the fear of the Almighty then comes the fire and burns up all the chaff scorches our very bones and warms us even at the heart whereupon presently there issues out a still small voice out of our lips the tongues follow upon the fire or are even with it This was signified to us thus by Gods appearing to Elijah 1 Kings xix 11 12. and the same order the holy Spirit of God uses here to the Apostles the same method still he keeps with us For he thrusts not in upon us unprepared he makes himself a way into us gives us not so clear an evidence as seeing him at the first not till the sound has well awaken'd us and the wind well brush'd and cleans'd our houses for him Yet then appear he does For we now presently hear of his appearance There appeared tongues The manifestation of the Spirit says St. Paul is given to every man to profit withal 1 Cor. xii 7. Not the Spirit only but the manifestation too No Spirit without some manifestation If the Spirit be an extraordinary Spirit the manifestation will be so too If it be but ordinary the manifestation will be no more 1. If God sends any with an extraordinary commission to preach or teach he enables them with an extraordinary Spirit appears with them after some extraordinary fashion tongues or miracles or some high heavenly fires come with them They but blaspheme the Spirit and usurp upon the Office who take it upon them without such a warrant they run without sending says God Ier. xxiii 21. their tongues are but their own and however those perverse fellows in the Psalm infer they are they that ought to speak who is Lord over them Psal. xii 4. they ought not to speak there is a Lord over them what ere they think that will one day call them to accompt and make them know it their fire they bring is but Nadabs and Abihu's their zeal without knowledge they have no tongue but what their mother taught them the holy Spirit has taught them none made no appearance to them either by fire or by tongues they are filled with some other Spirit the Spirit of Pride of Division or Rebellion or somewhat worse where the Spirit sends with an extraordinary commission it will appear by some gift extraordinary and miraculous somewhat will appear But 2. if our mission be but ordinary the ordinary way that the Spirit has now left in the power and authority of the Church will be sufficient yet that must appear too our authority appear thence our tongues serve to it too to the edifying of the Church 1 Cor. xiv 12. to the building of it up not to the pulling of it down Every gift of the holy Spirit is to have its manifestation tongues and interpretation and prayer and Prophesie and all the rest yet all in order Every one to employ not hide his talent he who has a ministery to waite on that he that is to exhort to attend to that he that is to teach to busie himself in that though all according to proportion Rom. xii 6 7 8. all to appear to the glory of God Yea even those saving graces of the Spirit are not always to be kept within they are to appear in tongues or fire so shine that others may glorifie so speak and act that others seeing our good conversation may be affected with it and perswaded to grace and vertue by it The Spirit is not given to be hid under a bushel the wind cannot the fire will not the tongue is not usual to be kept in so They all appear'd here after their way the wind after its way the tongues and fire after theirs in this verse to the fight the most certain of the senses that we might not be deceived by pretended Spirits might have somewhat manifest to judge by to tell us that the graces of the Spirit whether those for edification of others or sanctification of our selves are for manifestation to appear to others as well as to our selves we receive them to that purpose to profit others and to approve our selves These may serve for reasons why
understanding and counsel and might and the rest is poured out upon He 4. it is alone that judges the earth in righteousness which is said of this root ver 4. He 5. it is that shall smite the earth with the rod or spirit of his mouth as it is ver 4. so attested 2 Thess. ii 8. He 6. it is that can make the Wolf and Lamb the Leopard and the Kid the Calf the young Lion and the fatling lie down and dwell together as is prophesied of him ver 6. He the only Prince and God of Peace that can reconcile all enmities and difference that can unite all disagreeing spirits In a word He is the very only He whom God hath set up for an Ensign to the People to whom all the Gentiles flock in to whom rest and glory both properly belong the only root too from whence all good things spring or ever sprung either to Iesse or David or any other Nor is it the Apostle or we Christians only that thus expound it of Christ the learnedst of the Jewish Rabbies do so too Tam Christiani quam tota Circumcisio fatetur says S. Ierome all the Circumcised Expositors confess as much all understand it of the Messiah only a temporal Messiah they would have and erre in that because ours the true one they will not acknowledge But we have enough from what they do from their own â—onfessing it to be spoken of the Messiah or the Christ. Of whom we have here four particulars to consider the stock from whence he was to come The design upon which he was to come The success of his design and the glory of his success 1. The stock from whence he was to come is the Root of Iesse 2. The design upon which he was to come is to stand for an Ensign to the people to come in unto him 3. The success of his design is their coming in and seeking to him to it shall the Gentiles seek 4. The glory of his success and his rest shall be glorious Rest he shall have in it and glorious he shall be by it And to bring both ends of the Text together nay all the ends of it together I shall lastly add the time when this Rest shall spring when this Ensign shall stand up when the Gentiles shall seek when this Rest and Glory or glorious rest shall be In that day says the Text. In this day says the Time In the Birth of Christ. In the Times of Christ all this should be and all this was Both days are one and this of his Birth-day the very first of all these things here beginning to be fulfilled And the sum of all is no more but this that notwithstanding the most calamitous times such as were threatned to the Iews by bringing upon them the Assyrian in the former Chapter there should a day of deliverance at last appear a day of rest and glory when the Messiah or Christ should come to perfect all their deliverances and not only theirs but the Gentiles also and build up a Church out of them both unto himself and dwell and rest gloriously among them and bring them also to his eternal rest and glory I begin at the root of this great design to shew you who it is and whence he comes that shall thus stand up for the rest and glory of the People And the Root of Iesse here he is call'd There shall be a root of Iesse In the first verse his stile somewhat differs He is called a Rod out of the stem of Iesse and a branch out of his Roots and he is them all and this root in the Text but a Metonymy to express them all 1. He is a Rod the Rod the staff that so comforted old David Psal. xxiii that even raises his dead bones out of the Grave and makes him as it were walk still among the living The staff that supported dying Iacob which he lean'd upon and worshipped Heb. xi 21. which we may worship too without any Idolatry A Rod a Staff he is to lean upon a staff that will not fail us not like the reeds of Egypt the supports and succours that the world affords us they will but run into our hands and hurt us to be sure never be able to hold us up This Christ is the only staff for that A staff that will comfort us when we are ready to die that we may trust to upon our death-beds that we may commit our dying spirits to as S. Stephen did Acts vii 59. No other can do that but this of Christ. Indeed no rod hath either comfort or strength to hold by but only He. Yet a rod 2. he is to rule and correct us too as there is need a rod of iron by which God bruises the rebellious spirits Psal. ii 9. The rod or Scepter of Iudah the Shepherds rod or hook one to shew his Kingly power the other his Priestly power over us So the word denotes two of his prime offices out to us and may yet intimate a third the Shepherds rod being not so much to strike as to direct and lead the stragling Sheep into the way a part of his Prophetick Office So a word well chosen to signifie unto us all his three Offices And the Rod or Wand that is carried before the Iudge when he goes to the Judgment-seat may not unfitly be added to the other and put us in mind that this our King and Priest and Prophet shall also come to be our Iudge and we therefore so to carry it so to yield our obedience to him so to submit to his Rod as we intend to answer it when he comes to be our Iudge as we expect or hope to have his favour in the day of Iudgment But he is a Rod 3. new springing out of the root a kind of pliable tender thing so stil'd for his meekness and humility ready to be wound and turn'd any way for our service to become any thing to become all things for our good A rod so pliant so flexible so pliable so tender never any son of man so pliant to his Fathers will so flexible to all good so pliable to do or suffer so tender over us never so meek and humble and lowly never any Nor did 4. ever rod grow out of a more unlikely stem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the word used here imports a dead trunck cut close down to the earth no appearance of life or power in it The Royal Family of David was come to that nothing appeared above ground that could give hope of the least bud or leaf And then it was that notwithstanding this Rod came forth So low may things be brought to humane eyes and yet rise again Gods time is often then When our eyes are ready to fail with expectation and all hopes have given up the Ghost when the Family of David from whence all the promis'd and look'd for hope was in a condition near an extinguishment when Herod had usurp'd