of excommunication That others should esteem them so and avoid them as such persons is sometimes debated amongst us in our books If the Apostle say it by way of Imprecation if it sound so you are to remember first That many things are spoken by the Prophets in the Scriptures which sound as imprecations as execrations which are indeed but prophesies They seeme to be spoken in the spirit of anger when they are in truth but in the spirit of prophesie So in very many places of the Psalmes David seemes to wish heavy calamities upon his and Gods enemies when it is but a declaration of those judgements of God which hee prophetically foresees to be imminent upon them They seeme Imprecations and are but Prophesies and such wee who have not this Spirit of Prophesie nor foresight of Gods wayes may not venture upon If they be truly Imprecations you are to remember also that the Prophets and Apostles had in them a power extraordinary and in execution of that power might doe that which every private man may not doe So the Prophets rebuked so they punished Kings So a 2 King 2.24 Elizeus called in the Beares to devoure the boyes And so b 2 Kings 1. Elias called downe fire to devoure the Captaines So S. Peter killed c Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira with his word And d Acts 13.8 so S. Paul stroke Elymas the Sorcerer with blindnesse But upon Imprecations of this kinde wee as private men or as publique persons but limited by our Commission may not adventure neither But take the Prophets or the Apostles in their highest Authority yet in an over-vehement zeale they may have done some things some times not warrantable in themselves many times many things not to be imitated by us In Moses his passionate vehemency Dele me Exod. 32.32 If thou wilt not forgive them blot me out of thy booke And in the Apostles inconfiderate zeale to his brethren Optabam Anathema esse I could wish that my selfe were accursed from Christ Rom. 9.3 In Iames and Iohns impatience of their Masters being neglected by the Samaritans when they drew from Christ that rebuke You know not of what spirit you are In these Luke 9.55 and such as these there may be something wherein even these men cannot be excused but very much wherein we may not follow them nor doe as they did nor say as they said Since there is a possibility a facility a proclivity of erring herein and so many conditions and circumstances required to make an Imprecation just and lawfull the best way is to forbeare them or to be very sparing in them But we rather take this in the Text Excommunicatio to be an Excommunication denounced by the Apostle then an Imprecation So Christ himselfe If he will not heare the Chruch let him be to thee as a Heathen or a Publican That is Have no conversation with him So sayes the Apostle speaking of an Angel Anathema If any man if we our selves Gal. 1.9 if an Angel from heaven preach any other Gospel let him be accursed Now the Excommunication is in the Anathema and the aggravating thereof in the other words Maranatha The word Anathema had two significations They are expressed thus Quod Deo dicatum Just Mart. Quod à Deo per vitium alienatum That which for some excellency in it was separated from the use of man to the service of God or that which for some great fault in it was separated from God and man too Ab illo abstinebant tanquam Deo dicatum Ab hoc recedebant Chrysost tanquam à Deo abalienatum From the first kinde men abstained because they were consecrated to God and from the other because they were aliened from God and in that last sense irreligious men such as love not the Lord Jesus Christ are Anathema aliened from God Amongst the Druides with the Heathen they excommunicated Malefactors and no man might relieve him in any necessity no man might answer him in any action And so amongst the Jews the Esseni who were in speciall estimation for sanctity excommunicated irreligious persons and the persons so excommunicated starved in the streets and fields By the light of nature by the light of grace we should separate our selves from irreligious and from idolatrous persons and that with that earnestnesse which the Apostle expresses in the last words Maran Atha In the practise of the Primitive Church Maran Atha by those Canons which we call The Apostles Canons and those which we call The penitentiall Canons we see there were different penances inflicted upon different faults and there were very early relaxations of penances Indulgences and there were reservations of cases in some any Priest in some a Bishop onely might dispense It is so in our Church still Impugners of the Supremacy are excommunicated and not restored but by the Archbishop Impugners of the Common prayer Booke excommunicated too but may bee restored by the Bishop of the place Impugners of our Religion declared in the Articles reserved to the Archbishop Impugners of Ceremonies restored when they repent and no Bishop named Authors of Schisme reserved to the Archbishop maintainers of Schismatiques referred but to repentance And so maintainers of Conventicles to the Archbishop maintainers of Constitutions made in Conventicles to their repentance There was ever there is yet a reserving of certaine cases and a relaxation or aggravating of Ecclesiasticall censures for their waight and for their time and because Not to love the Lord Iesus Christ was the greatest the Apostle inflicts this heaviest Excommunication Maran Atha The word seemes to be a Proverbiall word amongst the Jews after their returne and vulgarly spoken by them and so the Apostle takes it out of common use of speech Maran is Dominus The Lord and Athan is Venit He comes Not so truly in the very exactnesse of Hebrew rules and terminations but so amongst them then when their language was much depraved Dan. 4.16 Deut. 33.2 but in ancienter times we have the word Mara for Dominus and the word Atha for Venit And so Anathema Maran Atha will be Let him that loveth not the Lord Iesus Christ be as an accursed person to you even till the Lord come S. Hierom seems to understand this Dominus venit That the Lord is come come already come in the flesh Superfluum sayes he odiis pertinacibus contendere adversus eum qui jam venit It is superabundant perversnesse to resist Christ now Now that he hath appeared already and established to himselfe a Kingdome in this world And so S. Chrysostome seemes to take it too Christ is come already sayes he Et jam nulla potest excusatio non diligentibus eum If any excuse could be pretended before yet since Christ is come none can be Si opertum sayes the Apostle If our Gospel be hid now it is hid from them who are lost that is they are lost from
they have brought it nearer to the understanding nay even to the very sense by producing some such things as even in nature doe not only resemble but as they apprehend evict a resurrection yet when all is done and all the reasons of Athenogaras and the Schoole and of S. Paul himselfe are waighed they determine all in this that they are faire and pregnant and convenient illustrations of that which was beleeved before and that they have force and power to encline to an assent and to create and beget such a probability as a discreet and sad and constant man might rest in and submit to But yet we shall finde also that though no man may speak a word or conceive a thought against the resurrection because for the matter we are absolutely and expresly concluded by the Scriptures yet a man may speak probably and dangerously against any particulur argument that is produced for the resurrection We beleeve it immediately intirely cheafully undisputably because we see it expresly delivered by the Holy Ghost And we embrace thankfully that sweetnesse and that fulnesse of that blessed Spirit that as he laies an obligation upon our faith by delivering the article positively to us so he is also pleased to accompany that Article with reasons and arguments proportionable to our reason and understanding for though those reasons do not so conclude us as that nothing might be said to the contrary or nothing doubted after yet the Holy Ghost having first begotten the faith of this Article Per ea augescit fides pinguescit as Luther speaks in another case By those reasons and arguments and illustrations that faith is nourished and maintained in a good habitude and constitution And of that kind are all the reasons brought by S. Paul here Argumentae Apostols The matter is positively delivered by him and so apprehended by us and his reasons as we said before issue out of two Topiques Be pleased to looke upon both The first is our patterne Christ Jesus He is risen therefore we shall In which though I have a faire illustration and consolation in that The Head is risen therefore the Body shall yet this reaches not to make my Resurrection like his for I shall not rise as he did And then from his other Topique his reasons rise thus If there be no Resurrection we that suffer thus much for the prefession of Christ are the miserablest men in the world Why so have not all Philosophers had Scholars and all Heretiques Disciples and all great Men flatterers and every private man affections And hath there not been as much suffered by occasion of these as S. Paul argues upon here and yet no imagination no expectation of a resurrection Leave out the consideration of Philosophers many of which suffered more then the Turks doe and yet the Turks suffer infinitely more in their Mortifications then the Papists doe Leave out the Heretiques which were so hungry of suffering that if they could not provoke others to kill them they would kill themselves Leave out the pressures of our own affections and concupiscencies and yet the covetous man is in a continuall starving and the licentious man in a continuall Consumption Take onely into your consideration the miserable vexation of the flatterer and humourer and dependant upon great persons that their time is not their owne nor their words their owne their joyes are not their owne nay their sorrowes are not their owne they might not smile if they would nor they may not sigh when they would they must doe all according to anothers mind and yet they must not know his minde consider this and you cannot say but that there is as much suffered in the world as this upon which S. Paul argues by them who place not their consolation nor their retribution in the hope of a resurrection He argues farther Edamus bibamus If there be no resurrection let us dissolve our selves into the pleasures of this world and enjoy them Why so too Have we not stories full of exemplar men that might be our patterns for sobriety and continency and denying themselves the sweetnesses of this life and yet never placed Consolation nor Retribution upon a Resurrection Would not S. Pauls own Pondus gloriae That there is an exceeding waight of eternall glory attending our afflictions serve our turne though that were determined in the salvation of the soule though there were no resurrection of the body It is strongly and wisely said by Aquinas Derogant fidei Christianae rationes non cogentes To offer reasons for any Article of faith which will not convince a man therein derogates from the dignity of that Article Therefore we must consider S. Pauls reasons as they were intended to Christians that had received the Article of the Resurrection into their faith before And then as God gave Adam a body immediately from himself but then maintained and nourished that body by other meanes so the holy Ghost by S. Paul gives the article of the Resurrection to our faith positively and then enables us to declare to our own consciences and to other mens understandings that we beleeve no impossible thing in beleeving the Resurrection for as it is the candle that lights me but yet I take a lanthorne to defend that candle from the wind so my faith assures me of the Resurrection but these reasons and illustrations assist that faith And so we have done with our first part How this assurance accrues unto us and passe in order to the other The consolation which we have from this resurrection of the body not onely in it selfe but as it gives us a sense of the spirituall resurrection of our soules from sinne by Grace We are assured then of a Resurrection and we see how that assurance growes 2. Part. But of what Of all Body and soule too For Quod cadit resurgit sayes S. Hierome All that is falne receives a resurrection and that is suppositum sayes the Schoole that is The person the whole man not taken in pieces soule alone or body alone but both For as Damascen expresses the same that S. Hierome intends Resurrectio est ejus quod cecidit iterata surrectio The Resurrection is a new rising of that which fell and Man fell A man is not saved a sinner is not redeemed I am not received into heaven if my body be left out The soule and the body concurred to the making of a sinner and body and soule must concur to the making of a Saint So it is in the last Resurrection so it is in the first which we consider now by Grace from sin And therefore we receive into comparison Triplicem casum a threefold fall and a threefold resurrection as in the naturall and bodily death so in the spirituall death of the soule also For first in naturall death there is Casus in separationem The man the person falls into a separation a divorce of body and soul and the resurrection from
soul and call the will ours we usurp the soul it self and call it ours and then deliver all to everlasting bondage Would the King suffer his picture to be used as we use the Image of God in our soules or his Hall to be used as we use the Temple of the Holy Ghost our Bodies We have nothing but that which we have received and when we come to think that our own we have not that For God will take all from that man that sacrifices to his own nets When thou commest to Church come in anothers name When thou givest an Almes give it in anothers name that is feele all thy devotion and all thy charity to come from God For if it be not in his name it will be in a worse Thy devotion will contract the name of hypocrisie and thine Almes the name of Vain-glory. The Holy Ghost came in anothers name in Christs name but not so as Montanus the Father of the Montanists came in the Holy Ghosts name Montanus said he was the Holy Ghost The Holy Ghost did not pretend to be Christ There is a man the man of sin at Rome that pretends to be Christ to all uses And I would he would be content with that and stop there and not be a Hyper-Christus Above Christ more then Christ I would he would no more trouble the peace of Christendome no more occasion the assassinating of Christian Princes no more binde the Christian liberty in forbidding Meats and Marriage no more slacken and dissolve Christian bands by Dispensations and Indulgences then Christ did But if he will needs be more if he will needs have an addition to the name of Christ let him take heed of that addition which some are apt enough to give him however he deserve it that he is Antichrist Now in what sense the Holy Ghost is said to have come in the name of Christ S. Basil gives us one interpretation that is that one principall name of Christ belongs to the Holy Ghost For Christ is Verbum The Word and so is the Holy Ghost sayes that Father Quia interpres filii sicut filius patris Because as the Son manifested the Father so the Holy Ghost manifests the Son S. Augustine gives another sense Societas Patris Filii est Spiritus Sanctus The Holy Ghost is the union of the Father and the Son As the body is not the man nor the soul is not the man but the union of the soul and body by those spirits through which the soul exercises her faculties in the Organs of the body makes up the man so the union of the Father and Son to one another and of both to us by the Holy Ghost makes up the body of the Christian Religion And so this interpretation of S. Augustine comes neare to the fulnesse in what sense the Holy Ghost came in Christs name John 17.12 For when Christ sayes I am come in my Fathers name that was to execute his Decree to fulfill his Will for the salvation of man by dying so when Christ sayes here the Holy Ghost shall come in my name that is to perfect my work to collect and to govern that Church in which my salvation by way of satisfaction may be appropriated to particular soules by way of application And for this purpose to do this in Christs name his own name is Paracletus The Comforter which is our last circumstance The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The Comforter is an Euangelicall name The Comforter Athanasius notes that the Holy Ghost is never called Paracletus The Comforter in the old Testament He is called Spiritus Dei The Spirit of God in the beginning of Genesis And he is called Spiritus sanctus The holy Spirit and Spiritus principalis The principall Spirit in divers places of the Psalmes but never Paracletus never the Comforter A reason of that may well be first that the state of the Law needed not comfort and then also that the Law it self afforded not comfort so there was no Comforter Their Law was not opposed by any enemies as enemies to their Law If they had not by that warrant which they had from God invaded the possession of their neighbours or grown too great to continue good neighbours their neighbours had not envyed them that Law So that in the state of the Law in that respect they were well enough and needed no Comforter Whereas the Gospell as it was sowed in our Saviours blood so it grew up in blood for divers hundreds of yeares and therefore needed the sustentation and the assurance of a Comforter And then for the substance of the Law it was Lex interficiens non perficiens sayes S. Augustine A Law that told them what was sin and punisht them if they did sin but could not conferre Remission for sin which was a discomfortable case Whereas the Gospel and the Dispensation of the Gospel in the Church by the Holy Ghost is Grace Mercy Comfort all the way and in the end Therefore Christ v. 17. cals the Holy Ghost Spiritum veritatis The Spirit of truth In which he opposes him and preferres him above all the remedies and all the comforts of the Law Not that the Holy Ghost in the Law did not speak truth but that he did not speak all the truth in the Law Origen expresses it well The Types and Figures of the Law were true Figures and true Types of Christ in the Gospel but Christ and his Gospel is the truth it self prefigured in those Types Therefore the Holy Ghost is Paracletus The Comforter in the Gospel which he was not in the Law In the Records and Stories and so in the Coynes and Medals of the Romane Emperours we see that even then when they had gotten the possession of the name of Emperours yet they forbore not to adde to their style the name of Consul and the name of Pontifex maximus still they would be called Consuls which was an acceptable name to the people and High-Priests which carried a reverence towards all the world Where Christ himselfe is called by a name appliable to none but Christ by a name implying the whole nature and merit of Christ that is The Propitiation of the sins of the whole world 1 John 2.2 yet there in that place he is called by the name of this Text too Paracletus the Comforter He would not forbeare that sweet that acceptable that appliable name that name that concernes us most and establishes us best Paracletus the Comforter And yet he does not take that name in that full and whole sense in which himselfe gives it to the Holy Ghost here For there it is said of Christ If any man sin we have an Advocate with the Father There Paracletus though placed upon Christ is but an Advocate But here Christ sends Paracletum in a more intire and a more internall and more viscerall sense A Comforter Upon which Comforter Christ imprints these two marks of
use the Law lawfully Let us use our liberty of reading Scriptures according to the Law of liberty that is charitably to leave others to their liberty if they but differ from us and not differ from Fundamentall Truths Si quis quaerat ex me quid horum Moses senserit If any man ask me which of these which may be all true Moses meant Non sum sermones istiâ—â—onfessiones Lord sayes hee Ibid. This that I say is not said by way of Confession as I intend it should if I doe not freely confesse that I cannot tell which Moses meant But yet I can tell that this that I take to be his meaning is true and that is enough Let him that findes a true sense of any place rejoyce in it Let him that does not beg it of thee Vtquid mihi molest us est Why should any man presse me to give him the true sense of Moses here or of the holy Ghost in any darke place of Scripture Ego illuminem ullum hominen venientem in mundum 1.13 C. 10. saies he Is that said of me that I am the light that enlightned every man any man Iohn 1.9 that comes into this world So far I will goe saies he so far will we in his modesty and humility accompany him as still to propose Quod luce veritatis quod fruge utilitatis excellit such a sense as agrees with other Truths that are evident in other places of Scripture and such a sense as may conduce most to edisication For to those two does that heavenly Father reduce the foure Elements that make up a right exposition of Scripture which are first the glory of God such a sense as may most advance it secondly the analogie of faith such a sense as may violate no confessed Article of Religion and thirdly exaltation of devotion such a sense as may carry us most powerfully upon the apprehension of the next life and lastly extension of charity such a sense as may best hold us in peace or reconcile us if we differ from one another And within these limits wee shall containe our selves The glory of God the analogie of faith the exaltation of devotion the extension of charity In all the rest that belongs to the explication or application to the literall or spirituall sense of these words And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters to which having stopped a little upon this generall consideration the exposition of darke places we passe now Within these rules we proceed to enquire who this Spirit of God is or what it is Spiritus whether a Power or a Person The Jews who are afraid of the Truth lest they should meete evidences of the doctrine of the Trinity and so of the Messias the Son of God if they should admit any spirituall sense admit none but cleave so close to the letter as that to them the Scripture becomes Liter a occidens A killing Letter and the savour of death unto death They therefore in this Spirit of God are so far from admitting any Person that is God as they admit no extraordinary operation or vertue proceeding from God in this place but they take the word here as in many other places of Scripture it does to signifie onely a winde and then that that addition of the name of God The Spirit of God which is in their Language a denotation of a vehemency of a high degree of a superlative as when it is said of Saul Sopor Domini A sleepe of God was upon him it is intended of a deepe a dead sleepe inforces induces no more but that a very strong winde blew upon the face of the waters and so in a great part dryed them up And this opinion I should let flye away with the winde if onely the Jews had said it But Theodoret hath said it too and therefore we afford it so much answer That it is a strange anticipation that Winde which is a mixt Meteor to the making whereof divers occasions concurre with exhalations should be thus imagined before any of these causes of Winds were created or produced and that there should be an effect before a cause is somewhat irregular In Lapland the Witches are said to sell winds to all passengers but that is but to turne those windes that Nature does produce which way they will but in our case the Jews and they that follow them dreame winds before any winds or cause of winds was created The Spirit of God here cannot be the Wind. It cannot be that neither which some great men in the Christian Church have imagined it to be Operatio Dei The power of God working upon the waters so some or Efficientia Dei A power by God infused into the waters so others August And to that S. Augustine comes so neare as to say once in the negative Spiritus Dei hic res dei est sed non ipse Deut est The Spirit of God in this place is something proceeding from God but it is not God himselfe And once in the affirmative Posse esse vitalem creaturam quâ universus mundus movetur That this Spirit of God may be that universall power which sustaines and inanimates the whole world which the Platoniques have called the Soule of the world and others intend by the name of Nature and we doe well if we call The providence of God Spiritus Sanctus But there is more of God in this Action then the Instrument of God Nature or the Vice-roy of God Providence for as the person of God the Son was in the Incarnation so the person of God the Holy Ghost was in this Action though far from that manner of becomming one and the same thing with the waters which was done in the Incarnation of Christ who became therein perfect man That this word the Spirit of God is intended of the Person of the Holy Ghost in other places of Scripture is evident undeniable unquestionable and that therefore it may be so taken here Where it is said The Spirit of God shall rest upon him Esay 11.2 upon the Messiah where it is said by himselfe The Lord and his Spirit is upon me And the Lord and his Spirit hath anointed me there it is certainly and therefore here it may be probably spoken of the Holy Ghost personally It is no impossible sense it implies no contradiction It is no inconvenient sense it offends no other article it is no new sense nor can we assigne any time when it was a new sense Basil The eldest Fathers adhere to it as the ancientest interpretation Saint Basil saies not onely Constantissimè asseverandum est We must constantly maintaine that interpretation for all that might be his owne opinion not onely therefore Quia verius est for that might be but because he found it to be the common opinion of those times but Quia à majoribus nostris approbatum because it is accepted for the true
Father in the Son by the Holy Ghost The verdict is That we are the children of God The Spirit beareth c. First then 1 Part. a slacknesse a supinenesse in consideration of the divers significations of this word Spirit hath occasioned divers errours when the word hath been intended in one sense and taken in another All the significations will fall into these foure for these foure are very large It is spoken of God or of Angels or of men or of inferiour creatures And first of God it is spoken sometimes Essentially sometimes Personally God is a Spirit Iohn 4.24 Esay 31.3 and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth So also The Aegyptians are men and not God and their horses flesh and not spirit For if they were God they were Spirit So God altogether and considered in his Essence is a Spirit but when the word Spir it is spoken not essentially of all but personally of one then that word designeth Spiritum sonctum The holy Ghost Goe and baptize Mar. 28.19 In the name of the Father and Sonne Spiritus sancti and the holy Ghost And as of God so of Angels also it is spoken in two respects of good Angels Sent farth to minister for them Heb. 1.14 1 King 22.22 Hosea 4.12 Esay 19.3 that shall be heires of salvation And evill Angels The lying Spirit that would deceive the King by the Prophet The Spirit of Whoredome spirituall whoredome when the people ask counsell of their stocks And Spiritus vertiginis The spirit of giddinesse of perversities as we translate it which the Lord doth mingle amongst the people in his judgement Of man also is this word Spirit spoken two wayes The Spirit is sometimes the soule Psal 31.5 Into thy hands I commend my Spirit sometimes it signifies those animall spirits which conserve us in strength and vigour The poyson of Gods arrowes drinketh up my spirit And also Job 6.4 Luke 1.47 the superiour faculties of the soule in a regenerate man as there My soule doth magnifie the Lord and my spirit rejoyceth in God my Saviour And then lastly of inferiour creatures it is taken two wayes too of living creatures The God of the spirits of all flesh Numb 16.22 Ezek. 1.21 and of creatures without life other then a metaphoricall life as of the winde often and of Ezckiels wheeles The Spirit of life was in the wheeles Now in this first Branch of this first Part of our Text it is not of Angels nor of men nor of other creatures but of God and not of God Essentially but Personally that is of the Holy Ghost Origen sayes Antecessores nostri The Ancients before him had made this note That where we finde the word Spirit without any addition it is alwayes intended of the Holy Ghost Before him and after him they stuck much to that note for S. Hierome makes it too and produces many examples thereof but yet it will not hold in all Didymus of Alexandria though borne blinde in this light saw light and writ so of the Holy Ghost as S. Hierome thought that work worthy of his Translation And hee gives this note That wheresoever the Apostles intend the Holy Ghost they adde to the word Spirit Sanctus Holy Spirit or at least the Article The The Spirit And this note hath good use too but yet it is not universally true If we supply these notes with this That whensoever any such thing is said of the Spirit as cannot consist with the Divine nature there it is not meant of the Holy Ghost but of his gifts or of his working as when it is said The Holy Ghost was not yet for his person was alwayes And where it is said Iohn 7.39 1 The fl 5.19 Quench not the Holy Ghost for the Holy Ghost himselfe cannot be quenched we have enough for our present purpose Here it is Spirit without any addition and therefore fittest to bee taken for the Holy Ghost And it is Spirit with that emphaticall article The The Spirit and in that respect also fittest to be so taken And though it be fittest to understand the Holy Ghost here not of his person but his operation yet it gives just occasion to looke piously and to consider modestly who and what this person is that doth thus worke upon us And to that purpose we shall touch upon foure things First His Universality He is All He is God Secondly His Singularity He is One One Person Thirdly His roote from whence he proceeded Father and Son And fourthly His growth his emanation his manner of proceeding for our order proposed at first leading us now to speak of this third person of the Trinity it will be almost necessary to stop a little upon each of these First then the Spirit mentioned here the Holy Ghost is God and if so Deus equall to Father and Son and all that is God He is God because the Essentiall name of God is attributed to him He is called Jehovah Iebovah sayes to Esay Goe and tell this people Esay 6.9 Acts 28.29 c. And S. Paul making use of these words in the Acts he sayes Well spake the Holy Ghost by the Prophet Esay The Essentiall name of God is attributed to him and the Essentiall Attributes of God He is Eternall so is none but God where we heare of the making of every thing else in the generall Creation we heare that the Spirit of God moved Gen. 1.2 but never that the Spirit was made He is every where so is none but God Psal 139.7 1 Cor. 2.10 whither shall Igoe from thy Spirit He knowes all things so doth none but God The Spirit searcheth all things yca the deep things of God He hath the name of God the Attributes of God and he does the works of God Is our Creator our Maker God Iob 33.4 The Spirit of God hath mademe Is he that can change the whole Creation and frame of nature in doing miracles God The Spirit lead the Israelites miraculously through the wildernesse Esay 63.14 Esay 48.16 Will the calling and the sending of the Prophets shew him to be God The Lord God and his Spirit hath sent me Is it argument enough for his God-head Esay 61.1 Luke 4.18 that he sent Christ himselfe Christ himselfe applies to himselfe that The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and hath anointed me to preach Acts 1.16 Iohn 16.13 He foretold future things The Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spoke before sayes S. Peter He establishes present things The Spirit of truth guides into all truth And he does this by wayes proper onely to God for our illumination is his He shall receive of me Ver. 14. 1 Cor. 6.11 Iohn 3.5 Iohn 16.8 sayes Christ and shew it you Our Justification is his Ye are justified in the name of the Lord Iesus by the Spirit of God Our regeneration is his There is a
sacrifice to his memory For whilst his conversation made me and many others happy below I know his humility and gentleness was eminent And I have heard Divines say those vertues that are but sparks on earth become great and glorious flames in heaven He was borne in LONDON of good and vertuous Parents And though his own learning and other multiplied merits may justly seeme sufficient to dignifie both himselfe and posteritie yet Reader be pleased to know that his Father was masculinely and lineally descended from a very ancient Family in Wales where many of his name now live that have and deserve great reputation in that Countrey By his Mother he was descended from the Family of the famous Sir Thomas More sometimes Lord Chancellor of England and also from that worthy and laborious Judge Rastall who left behind him the vast Statutes of the Lawes of this Kingdome most exactly abridged He had his first breeding in his Fathers house where a private Tutor had the care of him till he was nine yeares of age he was then sent to the Universitie of Oxford having at that time a command of the French and Latine Tongues when others can scarce speak their owne There he remained in Hart Hall having for the advancement of his studies Tutors in severall Sciences to instruct him till time made him capable and his learning exprest in many publique Exercises declared him fit to receive his first Degree in the Schooles which he forbore by advise from his friends who being of the Romish perswasion were conscionably averse to some parts of the Oath alwayes tendred and taken at those times About the fourteenth yeare of his age he was transplanted from Oxford to Cambridge where that he might receive nourishment from both soiles he staid till his seventeenth yeare All which time he was a most laborious Student often changing his studies but endeavouring to take no Degree for the reasons formerly mentioned About his seventeenth yeare he was removed to London and entred into Lincolnes Inne with an intent to study the Law where he gave great testimonies of wit learning and improvement in that profession which never served him for any use but onely for ornament His Father died before his admission into that Society and being a Merchant left him his Portion in money which was 3000. li. His Mother and those to whose care he was committed were watchful to improve his knowledge and to that end appointed him there also Tutors in severall Sciences as the Mathematicks and others to attend and instruct him But with these Arts they were advised to instill certaine particular principles of the Romish Church of which those Tutors though secretly profest themselves to be members They had almost obliged him to their faith having for their advantage besides their opportunity the example of his most deare and pious Parents which was a powerfull perswasion and did work upon him as he professeth in his PREFACE to his Pseudo-Martyr He was now entred into the nineteenth yeare of his age and being unresolved in his Religion though his youth and strength promised him a long life yet he thought it necessary to rectifie all scruples which concerned that And therefore waving the Law and betrothing himselfe to no art or profession that might justly denominate him he began to survey the body of Divinity controverted between the Reformed and Roman Church Preface to Pseudo-Martyr And as Gods blessed Spirit did then awaken him to the search and in that industry did never forsake him they be his owne words So he calls the same Spirit to witness to his Protestation that in that search and disquisition he proceeded with humility and diffidence in himselfe by the safest way of frequent Prayers and indifferent affection to both parties And indeed Truth had too much light about her to be hid from so sharp an Inquirer and he had too much ingenuity not to acknowledge he had seen her Being to undertake this search he beleeved the learned Cardinal Bellarmine to be the best defender of the Roman cause and therefore undertook the examination of his reasons The cause was waighty and wilfull delaies had been inexcusable towards God and his own conscience he therfore proceeded with all moderate haste And before he entred into the twentieth yeare of his age did shew the Deane of Gloucester all the Cardinalls Works marked with many waighty Observations under his own hand which Works were bequeathed by him at his death as a Legacy to a most deare friend About the twentieth yeare of his age he resolved to travell And the Earle of Essex going to Cales and after the Iland voyages he took the advantage of those opportunities waited upon his Lordship and saw the expeditions of those happy and unhappy imployments But he returned not into England till he had staid a convenient time first in Italy and then in Spaine where he made many usefull Observations of those Countries their Lawes and Government and returned into England perfect in their Languages Not long after his returne that exemplary pattern of gravity and wisdome the Lord Elsmore Lord Keeper of the great Seale and after Chancellor of England taking notice of his Learning Languages and other abilities and much affecting both his person and condition received him to be his chiefe Secretarie supposing it might be an Introduction to some more waighty imployment in the State for which his Lordship often protested he thought him very fit Nor did his Lordship account him so much to be his servant as to forget hee had beene his friend and to testifie it hee used him alwayes with much curtesie appointing him a place at his owne Table unto which he esteemed his company and discourse a great ornament He continued that employment with much love and approbation being daily usefull and not mercenary to his friends for the space of five yeares In which time he I dare not say unfortunately fell into such a liking as with her approbation increased into a love with a young Gentlewoman who lived in that Family Neece to the Lady Elsmore Daughter to Sir George More Chancellor of the Garter and Lieutenant of the Tower Sir George had some immation of their increasing love and the better to prevent it did remove his Daughter to his owne house but too late by reason of some faithfull promises interchangeably past and inviolably to be kept between them Their love a passion which of all other Mankind is least able to command and wherein most errors are committed was in them so powerfull that they resolved and did marry without the approbation of those friends that might justly claime an interest in the advising and disposing of them Being married the newes was in favour to M. Donne and with his allowance by the Right Honourable Henry then Earle of Northumberland secretly and certainly intimated to Sir George More to whom it was so immeasurably unwelcome that as though his passion of anger and inconsideration should
enough by it to meet Davids question Quis homo what man with Christs answer Ego homo I am the man in whom whosoever abideth shall not see death SERMONS Preached upon WHITSUNDAY SERMON XXVIII Preached at S. Pauls upon Whitsunday 1627. JOHN 14.26 But the Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name Hee shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you THis day is this Scripture fulfilled in your cares saith our Saviour Christ having read for his Text that place of Esay Esay 61.1 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me And that day which we celebrate now was another Scripture fulfilled in their eares and in their eyes too For all Christs promises are Scripture They have all the Infallibility of Scripture And Christ had promised that that Spirit which was upon him when he preached should also be shed upon all his Apostles And upon this day he performed that promise when Acts 2.1 They being all with one accord in one place there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty winde and filled the house and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire and it sate upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost And this very particular day in which we now commemorate and celebrate that performance of Christs promise in that Mission of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles are all these Scriptures performed again in our eares and eyes and in our hearts For in all those Congregations that meet this day to this purpose every Preacher hath so much of this Vnction which Vnction is Christ upon him as that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him and hath anointed him to that service And every Congregation and every good person in the Congregation hath so much of the Apostle upon him as that he feeles This Spirit of the Lord this Holy Ghost as he is this cloven tongue that sets one stemme in his eare and the other in his heart one stemme in his faith and the other in his manners one stemme in his present obedience and another in his perseverance one to rectifie him in the errours of life another to establish him in the agonies of death For the Holy Ghost as he is a Cloven tongue opens as a Compasse that reaches over all our Map over all our World from our East to our West from our birth to our death from our cradle to our grave and directs us for all things to all persons in all places and at all times The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my Name he shall teach you all things c. The blessed Spirit of God then the Holy Ghost the third person in the Trinity Divisio and yet not Third so as that either Second or First Son or Father were one minute before him in that Co-eternity that enwraps them all alike this Holy Ghost is here designed by Christ in his Person and in his Operation Who he is and what he does From whence he comes and why he comes And these two Hee and His office will constitute our two parts in this text In the first of which which will be the exercise of this day we shall direct you upon these severall Considerations First that the Person designed for this Mission and true Consolation is the Holy Ghost You shall not be without comfort saies Christ But mistake not false comforts for true nor deceitfull comforters for faithfull It is the Holy Ghost or it is none His Comfort or no comfort Him the Father will send sais Christ in a second branch though the Holy Ghost be God equall to the Father and so have all Missions and Commissions in his owne hand yet he applies himselfe accommodates himselfe to order and he comes when he hath a Mission from the Father and this Father saies Christ which is a third branch in this part sends him in my name Though he have as good interest in the name of Adonai which is all our Powerfull name and in the name of Iehâ—vah which is all our Essentiall name as I or my Father have the holy Ghost is as much Adonai and as much Ichovah as we are yet he is sent in my Name that is to proceed in my way to perfect my worke and to accomplish that Redemption by way of Application which I had wrought by way of Satisfaction And then lastly that which qualifies him for this Mission for this Imployment is his Title and Addition in this Text That he is the Comforter Discomfortable doctrines of a primary impossibility of Salvation to any man And that impossibility originally rooted in God and in Gods hating of that man and hating of that man not onely before he was a sinfull man but before he was any man at all not onely before an actuall making but before any intention to make him in Gods minde That God cannot save that man because he meant to damne him before he meant to make him are not the way in which the Holy Ghost is sent by the Father in the Sons Name For they that sent him and he that comes intend all that is done in that capacity as he is a Comforter as he is the Comforter And this is the Person and this will be the extent of our first part It is the Holy Ghost No deceiving Spirit He though as high as the Highest respects order attends a Mission staies till he be sent And thirdly he comes in anothers name in anothers way to perfect anothers worke And he does all in the quality and denomination of a Comforter not establishing not countenancing any discomfortable Doctrines First then 1. Part. Spiritus sanctus the Person into whose hands this whole worke is here recommended is the Holy Ghost The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost The manifestation of the mysterle of the Trinity was reserved for Christ Some intimations in the Old but the publication only in the New Testament Some irradiations in the Law but the illustration onely in the Gospell Some emanation of beames as of the Sun before it is got above the Horizon in the Prophets but the glorious proceeding thereof and the attaining to a Meridianall height only in the Euangelists And then the doctrine of the Trinity thus reserved for the time of the Gospell at that time was thus declared So God loved the World as that he sent his Son So the Son loved the World as that he would come into it and die for it So the Holy Ghost loved the World as that he would dwell in it and inable men in his Ministery and by his gifts to apply this mercy of the Father and this merit of the Son to particular souls and to whole Congregations The mercy of the Father that he would study such a way for the Redemption of our souls as the death of his only Son a way which
he gave them the holy Ghost in stead of Scriptures But to us who are weaker hee hath given both The holy Ghost in the Scriptures and if we neglect either we have neither If we trust to a private spirit and call that the holy Ghost without Scripture or to the Scriptures without the holy Ghost that is without him there where he hath promised to be in his Ordinance in his Church we have not the seale of that Promise the holy Ghost Finde then that promise in your holy love and sober studie of the Scriptures and finde the performance the fruits thereof in your conversation and then you have an Autumne better then any worldly Spring A vintage a gathering of those blessed fruits Gal. 5.22 The fruit of the Spirit is love joy peace long-suffering gentlenesse goodnesse faith meckenesse temperance where by the way these are not called severally the fruits of the Spirit as though they were so many severall fruits which might be had one without another but collectively all together they are called the fruit It is not Love alone nor Joy alone no nor Faith alone that is the fruit of the holy Ghost Love but not love alone but that love when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can joy in that love and not repent it Joy but not joy alone but that joy when betweene the holy Ghost and you you can finde peace in that joy that you be not the sadder after for having beene so merry before this these these and all the rest together are the fruit of the holy Ghost and therefore labour to have them all or you lacke all And then lastly as we pursuing Gods Ordinance have beene able to say to you Accipite Spiritum sanctum Behold the holy Ghost in your selves behold he appeared to you when he moved you to come hither behold he appeared to you as often as he hath opened the window of the Arke your hearts to take in this Dove this houre so we may say unto you as we say in the Schoole There is an infusion of the holy Ghost liquor is infused into a vessell if that vessell hold it though it doe but cover the bottome and no more The holy Ghost is infused into you if he have made any entry if he cover any part if he have taken hold of any corrupt affection There is also a diffusion of the holy Ghost Liquor is diffused into a vessell when it fils all the parts of the vessell and leaves no emptinesse no driness The holy Ghost is diffused into you if he overspread you and possesse you all and rectifie all your perversnesses But then in the Schoole we have also an effusion of the holy Ghost And liquor is effused then when it so fils the vessell as that that overflowes to the benefit of them who will participate thereof Receive therefore the holy Ghost so as that the holy Ghost may overflow flow from your example to the edification of others That you may go home and say to your children receive ye the holy Ghost in the Spirit of contentment and acquiescence and thankfulnesse to God and me in that portion that I can leave you And say to your servants receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of obedience and fidelity And say to your neigh bours receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of peace and quiemesse And say to your Creditors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of patience and tendernesse and compassion and for bearing And to your debtors receive ye the holy Ghost in the spirit of industry and labour in your calling You see Preaching it selfe even the Preaching of Christ himselfe had beene lost if the holy Ghost had not brought all those things to their remembrance And if the holy Ghost do bring these things which we preach to your remembrance you are also made fishers of men and Apostles and as the Prophet speaks Salvatores mundi Obad. 1.21 men that assist the salvation of the world by the best way of preaching an exemplar life and holy convesation Amen SERMON XXX Preached upon Whitsunday Part of the Gospell of the Day JOHN 14.20 At that day shall ye know That I am in my Father and you in me and I in you THe two Volumes of the Scriptures are justly and properly called two Testaments for they are Testatio Mentis The attestation the declaration of the will and pleasure of God how it pleased him to be served under the Law and how in the state of the Gospell But to speake according to the ordinary acceptation of the word the Testament that is The last Will of Christ Jesus is this speech this declaration of his to his Apostles of which this text is a part For it was spoken as at his Death-bed his last Supper And it was before his Agony in the garden so that if we should consider him as a meere man there was no inordinatenesse no irregularity in his affection It was testified with sufficient witnesses and it was sealed in blood in the Institution of the Sacrament By this Wil then as a rich and abundant Ver. 3. and liberall Testator having given them so great a Legacy as a place in the kingdome of heaven yet he adds a codicill he gives more he gives them the evidence by which they should maintain their right to that kingdome that is the testimony of the Spirit The Comforter the Holy Ghost whom he promises to send to them Ver. 16. And still more and more abundant he promises them that that assurance of their right shall not be taken from them till he himself return again to give them an everlasting possession That he may receive us unto himself and that where he is we may also be The main Legacy Ver. 3. the body of the gift is before That which is given in this Text is part of that evidence by which it appeares to us that we have right and by which that right is maintained and that is knowledge that knowledge which we have of our interest in God and his kingdome here At that day ye shall know c. And in the giving of this we shall consider first the Legacy it self this knowledge Cognoscetis Ye shall know And secondly the time when this Legacy grows due to us In illo die At that day ye shall know And thirdly how much of this treasure is devised to us what portion of this heavenly knowledge is bequeathed to us and that is in three great summes in three great mysteries First ye shall know the mystery of the Trinity of distinct persons in the Godhead Ego in patre That I am in my Father And then the mystery of the Incarnation of God who took our flesh Vos in me That you are in me And lastly the mystery and working of our Redemption in our Sanctification Ego in vobis That Christ by his Spirit the Holy Ghost is in us Nequitia animae ignoratio
see he did in the Councell of Nice when after many disputations amongst the great Men of great estimation the weakest Man in the Councell rose up and he o◠whom his owne party were afraid lest his discourse should disadvantage the cause overthrew and converted that great Advocate and defender of Arius whom all the rest could never shake for though this man said no more then other men had said yet God at this time disposed the understanding and the abilities of the Adversaries otherwise then before sometimes God will have glory in arming his friends sometimes in disarming his enemies sometimes in exalting our abilities and sometimes in evacuating or enfeebling theirs And so as the Apostles were as many of us as celebrate this day as they did are filled with the Holy Ghost that is with so much knowledge as is necessary to Gods purpose in us Enough for our selves if we be private men and enough for others if wee have charge of others private men shall have knowledge enough where to seeke for more and the Priest shall have enough to communicate his knowledge to others And though this knowledge were delivered to the Apostles as from a print from a stampe all at once and to us but as by writing letter after letter syllable after syllable by Catechismes chismes and Sermons yet both are such knowledges as are sufficient for each As the glory of heaven shall fall upon us all and though we be not all of equall measure and capacity yet we shall be equally full of that glory so the way to that glory this knowledge shall be manifest to us all and infallible to us all though we do not all know alike The simplest soul that heares me shall know the way of his salvation as well as the greatest of those Fathers whom he heares me cite And upon us all so disposed the holy Ghost shall fall as he did here in fire and In tongues In fire to inflame us in a religious zeal and in Tongues to utter that in confession and in profession that is to glorifie God both in our words and in our actions This then is our portion in this Legacy A sober seeking after those points of knowledge which are necessary for our salvation and these in this text Christ derived into these three That I am in my Father That you are in me That I am in you The first of these is the knowledge of distinction of persons and so of the Trinity Ego in Paetre Trinitas Principale munus scientiae est cognoscere Trinitatem saith Origen The principall use and office of my knowledge is to know the Trinity for to know an unity in the Godhead that there is but one God naturall reason serves our turn to know a creation of the world of nothing reason serves us too we know by reason that either neither of them is infinite if there be two Gods and then neither of them can be God or if both be infinite which is an impossibility one of them is superfluous because whatsoever is infinite can alone extend to all So also we can collect infallibly that if the world were not made of nothing yet that of which the world shall be pretended to have been made of must have been made of nothing or else it must be something eternall and untreated whatsoever is so must necessarily be God it self To be sure of those two an unity in the Godhead and a creation of the world I need no Scriptures but to know this distinction of Persons That the Son is in the Father I need the Scriptures and I need more then the Scriptures I need this Pentecost this comming this illustration of the holy Ghost to inspire a right understanding of these Scriptures into me For if this knowledge might be had without Scriptures why should not the heathen beleeve the Trinity as well as I since they lack no naturall faculties which Christians have And if the Scriptures themselves without the operation of the holy Ghost should bring this clearnesse why should not the Jews and the Arians conform themselves to this doctrine of the Trinity as well as I since they accept those Scriptures out of which I provethe Trinity to mine own cōscience We must then attend his working in us we must not admit such a vexation of spirit as either to vex our spirit or the Spirit of God by inquiring farther then he hath been pleased to reveale If you consider that Christ sayes here You shall know That I am in the Father and doth not say You shall know How I am in the Father and this to his Apostles themselves and to the Apostles after they were to be filled with the holy Ghost which should teach them all truth it will out off many perplexing questions and impertinent answers which have been produced for the expressing of the manner of this generation and of the distinction of the persons in the Trinity you shall know That it is you shall not ask How it is It is enough for a happy subject to enjoy the sweetnesse of a peaceable government though he know not Arcana Imperii The wayes by which the Prince governes So is it for a Christian to enjoy the working of Gods grace in a faithfull beleeving the mysteries of Religion though he inquire not into Gods bed-chamber nor seek into his unrevealed Decrees It is Odiosa exitialis vocula Quomodo sayes Luther A hatefull a damnable Monosyllable How How God doth this or that for if a man come to the boldnesse of proposing such a question to himself he will not give over till he finde some answer and then others will not be content with his answer but every man will have a severall one When the Church fell upon the Quomodo in the Sacrament How in what manner the body of Christ was there we see what an inconvenient answer it fell upon That it was done by Transubstantiation That satisfied not as there was no reason it should And then they fell upon others In Sub and Cum and none could none can give satisfaction And so also have our times by asking Quomodo How Christ descended into Hell produced so many answers as that some have thought it no Article at all some have thought that it is all one thing to have descended into hell and to have ascended into heaven and that it amounts to no more then a departing into the state of the dead But Servate depositum Make much of that knowledge which the holy Ghost hath trusted you withall and beleeve the rest No man knows how his soul came into him whether ther by infusion from God or by generation from Parents no man knows so but that strong arguments will be produced on the other side And yet no man doubts but he hath a soul No man knows so as that strong arguments may not be brought on the other side how he sees whether by reception of species from without or
dependance or relation to any faculty in man or man himselfe have some concurrence and co-operation therein There we found that in the first creation God wrought otherwise for the production of creatures then he does now At first he did it immediatly intirely by himselfe Now he hath delegated and substituted nature and imprinted a naturall power in every thing to produce the like So in the first act of mans Conversion God may be conceived to work otherwise then in his subsequent holy actions for in the first man cannot be conceived to doe any thing in the rest he may not that in the rest God does not all but that God findes a better disposition and souplenesse and maturity and mellowing to concurre with his motion in that man who hath formerly been accustomed to a sense and good use of his former graces then in him who in his first conversion receives but then the first motions of his grace But yet even in the first creation the Spirit of God did not move upon that nothing which was before God made heaven and earth But he moved upon the waters though those waters had nothing in themselves to answer his motion yet he had waters to move upon Though our faculties have nothing in themselves to answer the motions of the Spirit of God yet upon our faculties the Spirit of God works And as out of those waters those creatures did proceed though not from those waters so out of our faculties though not from our faculties doe our good actions proceed too All in all is from the love of God but there is something for God to love There is a man there is a soul in that man there is a will in that soul and God is in love with this man and this soul and this will Aug. would have it Non amor ita egenus indigus ut rebus quas diligit subjiciatur sayes S. Aug. excellently The love of God to us is not so poore a love as our love to one another that his love to us should make him subject to us as ours does to them whom we love but Superfertur sayes that Father and our Text he moves above us He loves us but with a Powerfull a Majesticall an Imperiall a Commanding love He offers those whom he makes his his grace but so as he sometimes will not be denyed So the Spirit moves spiritually upon the waters He comes to the waters to our naturall faculties but he moves above those waters He inclines he governes he commands those faculties And this his motion upon those waters we may usefully consider in some divers applications and assimilations of water to man and the divers uses thereof towards man We will name but a few Baptisme and Sin and Tribulation and Death are called in the Scripture by that name Waters and we shall onely illustrate that consideration how this Spirit of God moves upon these Waters Baptisme Sin Tribulation and Death and we have done The water of Baptisme is the water that runs through all the Fathers Baptismus All the Fathers that had occasion to dive or dip in these waters to say any thing of them make these first waters in the Creation the figure of baptisme Tertul. There Tertullian makes the water Primam sedem Spiritus Sancti The progresse and the setled house The voyage and the harbour The circumference and the centre of the Holy Ghost And therefore S. Hierome calls these waters Matrem Mundi The Mother of the World Hieron and this in the figure of Baptisme Nascentem Mundum in figura Baptismi parturiebat The waters brought forth the whole World were delivered of the whole World as a Mother is delivered of a childe and this In figura Baptismi To fore-shew that the waters also should bring forth the Church That the Church of God should be borne of the Sacrament of Baptisme So sayes Damascen Damase Basil And he establishes it with better authority then his owne Hoc Divinus asseruit Basilius sayes he This Divine Basil said Hoc factum quia per Spiritum Sanctum aquam voluit renovare hominem The Spirit of God wrought upon the waters in the Creation because he meant to doe so after in the regeneration of man And therefore Pristinam sedem recognoscens conquiescit Terrul Till the Holy Ghost have moved upon our children in Baptisme let us not think all done that belongs to those children And when the Holy Ghost hath moved upon those waters so in Baptisme let us not doubt of his power and effect upon all those children that dye so We know no meanes how those waters could have produced a Menow a Shrimp without the Spirit of God had moved upon them and by this motion of the Spirit of God we know they produce Whales and Leviathans We know no ordinary meanes of any saving grace for a child but Baptisme neither are we to doubt of the fulnesse of salvation in them that have received it And for our selves Mergimur emergimus Aug. In Baptisme we are sunk under water and then raised above the water againe which was the manner of baptizing in the Christian Church by immersion and not by aspersion till of late times Affectus ameres sayes he our corrupt affections Idem and our inordinate love of this world is that that is to be drowned in us Amor securitatis A love of peace and holy assurance and acquiescence in Gods Ordinance is that that lifts us above water Therefore that Father puts all upon the due consideration of our Baptisme And as S. Hierome sayes Hier. Certainly he that thinks upon the last Judgement advisedly cannot sin then Aug. So he that sayes with S. Augustine Procede in confessionc fides mea Let me make every day to God this confession Domine Deus meus Sancte Sancte Sancte Domine Deus meus O Lord my God O Holy Holy Holy Lord my God In nomine tuo Baptizatus sum I consider that I was baptized in thy name and what thou promisedst me and what I promised thee then and can I sin this sin can this sin stand with those conditions those stipulations which passed between us then The Spirit of God is motion the Spirit of God is rest too And in the due consideration of Baptisme a true Christian is moved and setled too moved to a sense of the breach of his conditions setled in the sense of the Mercy of his God in the Merits of his Christ upon his godly sorrow So these waters are the waters of Baptisme Sin also is called by that name in the Scriptures Aquae peccatum Water The great whore sitteth upon many waters she sits upon them as upon Egges and hatches Cockatrices venomous and stinging sins Apoc. 17. Aqum and yet pleasing though venomous which is the worst of sin that it destroyes and yet delights for though they be called waters yet that is
called Christians that said Qui pius est summè Philosophatur The charitable man is the great Philosopher Trismeg and it is charity not to suspect the state of a dead man Consider in how sudden a minute the holy Ghost hath sometimes wrought upon thee and hope that he hath done so upon another It is a moderation to be imbraced that Peter Martyr leads us to The Primitive Church had the spirit of discerning spirits we have not And therefore though by way of definition we may say This is that sin yet by way of demonstration let us say of no man This is that sinner I may say of no man This sin in thee is irremissible Now in considering this word Irremissible That it cannot be forgiven wee finde it to be a word rather usurped by the Schoole then expressed in the Scriptures Irremissibilitas for in all those three Euangelists where this fearfull denunciation is interminated still it is in a phrase of somewhat more mildnesse then so It is It shall not be forgiven It is not it cannot be forgiven It is an irremission it is not an irremissiblenesse Absolutely there is not an impossibility and irremissiblenesse on Gods part but yet some kinde of impossibility there is on his part and on ours too For if he could forgive this sin he would or else his power were above his mercy and his mercy is above all his works But God can doe nothing that implies contradiction and God having declared by what meanes onely his mercy and forgivenesse shall be conveyed to man God should contradict himselfe if he should give forgivenesse to them who will fully exclude those meanes of mercy And therefore it were not boldly nor irreverently said That God could not give grace to a beast nor mercy to the Devill because either they are naturally destitute or have wilfully despoiled themselves of the capacity of grace and mercy When we consider that God the Father whom as the roote of all we consider principally in the Creation created man in a possibility and ability to persist in that goodnesse in which he created him And consider that God the Son came and wrought a reconciliation for man to God and so brought in a treasure in the nature thereof a sufficient ransome for all the world but then a man knowes not this or beleeves not this otherwise then Historically Morally Civilly and so evacuates and shakes off God the Son And then consider that the holy Ghost comes and presents meanes of applying all this and making the generall satisfaction of Christ reach and spread it selfe upon my soule in particular in the preaching of the Word in the seales of the Sacraments in the absolution of the Church and I preclude the wayes and shut up my selfe against the holy Ghost and so evacuate him and shake him off when I have resisted Father Son and holy Ghost is there a fourth person in the God-head to work upon me If I blaspheme that is deliberately pronounce against the holy Ghost my sin is irremissible therefore because there is no body left to forgive it nor way left wherein forgivenesse should work upon me So farre it is irremissible on Gods part and on mine too And then take it there in that state of irremissiblenesse and consider seriously the fearefulnesse of it Mat. 5.22 I have been angry and then as Christ tells me I have been in danger of a judgement but in judgement I may have counsell I may be heard I have said Racha expressed my anger and so been in danger of a Councell but a Councell does but consult what punishment is fit to be inflicted and so long there is hope of mitigation and commutation of penance But I have said fatue I have called my brother foole and so am in danger of hell fire August Chrysost In the first there is Ira an inward commotion an irregular distemper In the second there is Ira vox In the first it is but Ira carnis non animi It is but my passion it is not I that am angry but in the second I have suffered my passion to vent and utter it selfe but in the third there is Ira vox vituperatio A distemper within a declaration to evill example without and an injury and defamation to a third person and this exalts the offence to the height But then when this third Person comes to be the third Person in the Trinity the Holy Ghost in all the other cases there is danger danger of judgement danger of a Councell danger of hell but here is irremissiblenesse hell it selfe and no avoiding of hell no cooling in hell no deliverance from hell Irremissible Those hands that reached to the ends of the world in creating it span the world in preserving it and stretched over all in redeeming it those hands have I manacled that they cannot open unto me That tendernesse that is affected to all have I damped retarded that pronenesse stupified that alacrity confounded that voyce diverted those eyes that are naturally disposed to all And all this Irremissibly for ever not though he would but because he will not shew mercy not though I would but because I cannot ask mercy And therefore beware all approaches towards that sin from which there is no returning no redemption We are come now In quibus Script in our order to our third and last Branch of this last Part That this Doctrine of a sin against the Holy Ghost is not a dreame of the Schoole-men though they have spoken many things frivolously of it but grounded in evident places of Scriptures Amongst which we looke especially how farre this Text conduces to that Doctrine There are two places ordinarily cited which seeme directly to concerne this sin and two others which to me seeme not to doe so Those of the first kinde are both in the Epistle to the Hebrewes Heb. 6.4 There the Apostle sayes For those who were once inlightned and have tasted of the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost If they fall away it is impossible to renew them by repentance Now if finall impenitence had been added there could have been no question but that this must be The sin against the Holy Ghost And because the Apostle speaks of such a totall falling away as precludes all way of repentance it includes finall impenitence and so makes up that sin The other place from which it rises most pregnantly Heb. 10.29 is Of how sore a punishment shall they be thought worthy who have trodden under foot the Son of God and have done despite unto the Spirit of grace Ver. 26. As he had said before If we sin wilfully after we have received the knowledge of truth there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins but a certain fearfull looking for of judgement and fiery indignation But yet though from these places there arises evidence that such a sin there is as naturally shuts out
conformity to Angels But divers others of the Ancients have taken Soule and Spirit for different things even in the Intellectuall part of man somewhat obscurely I confesse and as some venture to say unnecessarily if not dangerously It troubled S. Hierome sometimes Ad Hedibiam l. 12. Epist 150 how to understand the word Spirit in man but he takes the easiest way he dispatches himselfe of it as fast as he could that is to speake of it onely as it was used in the Scriptures Famosa quaestio sayes he sed brevi sermone tractanda It is a question often disputed but may be shortly determined Idem spiritus hic ac in iis verbis Nolite extinguere spiritum When we heare of the Spirit in a Man in Scriptures we must understand it of the gifts of the Spirit for so fully to the same purpose sayes S. Chrysostome Spiritus est charisma spiritus The Spirit is the working of the Spirit The gifts of the Spirit and so when we heare The Spirit was vexed The Spirit was quenched still it is to be understood The gifts of the Spirit And so as they restraine the signification of Spirit to those gifts onely though the word do indeed in many places require a larger extension so do many restraine this word in our text The Soule onely Ad sensum to the sensitive faculties of the soule that is onely to the paine and anguish that his body suffered But so far at least David had gone in that which he said before My bones are vexed Now Ingravescit morbus The disease festers beyond the bone even into the marrow it selfe His Bones were those best actions that he had produced and he saw in that Contemplation that for all that he had done he was still at best but an unprofitable servant if not a rebellious enemy But then when he considers his whole soule and all that ever it can do he sees all the rest will be no better The poyson he sees is in the fountaine the Canker in the roote the rancor the venom in the soule it selfe Corpus instrumentum anima ars ipsa sayes S. Basil The body and the senses are but the tooles and instruments that the soule works with But the soule is the art the science that directs those Instruments The faculties of the soule are the boughs that produce the fruits and the operations and particular acts of those faculties are the fruits but the soule is the roote of all And David sees that this art this science this soule can direct him or establish him in no good way That not onely the fruits his particular acts nor onely the boughs and armes his severall faculties but the roote it selfe the soule it selfe was infected His bones are shaken he dares not stand upon the good he hath done his soule is so too he cannot hope for any good he shall do He hath no merit for the past he hath no free-will for the future that is his case This troubles his bones Turbata this troubles his soule this vexes them both for the word is all one in both places as our last Translators have observed and rendred it aright not vexed in one place and troubled in the other as our former Translators had it But in both places it is Bahal and Bahal imports a vehemence both in the intensnesse of it and in the suddennesse and inevitablenesse of it And therefore it signifies often Praecipitantiam A headlong downfall and irrecoverablenesse And often Evanescentiam an utter vanishing away and annihilation David whom we alwayes consider in the Psalmes not onely to speake literally of those miseries which were actually upon himselfe but prophetically too of such measures and exaltations of those miseries as would certainly fall upon them as did not seeke their sanation their recovery from the God of all health looking into all his actions they are the fruits and into all his faculties they are the boughs and into the root of all the soule it selfe considering what he had done what he could do he sees that as yet he had done no good he sees he should never be able to doe any His bones are troubled He hath no comfort in that which is growne up and past And his soule is sore troubled for to the trouble of the soule there is added in the Text that particle Valde It is a sore trouble that falls upon the soule A troubled spirit who can beare because he hath no hope in the future He was no surer for that which was to come then for that which was past But he that is all considered in that case which he proposes he comes as the word signifies ad praecipitantiam That all his strength can scarce keepe him from precipitation into despaire And he comes as the word signifies too ad Evanescentiam to an evaporating and a vanishing of his soule that is even to a renouncing and a detestation of his immortality and to a willingnesse to a desire that he might die the death of other Creatures which perish altogether and goe out as a Candle This is the trouble the sore trouble of his soule who is brought to an apprehension of Gods indignation for not performing Conditions required at his hands and of his inability to performe them and is not come to the contemplation of his mercy in supply thereof There is Turbatio Timoris Mat. 2.3 Psal 107.27 A trouble out of feare of danger in this world Herods trouble When the Magi brought word of another King Herod was troubled and all Ierusalem with him There is Turbatio confusionis The Mariners trouble in a tempest Their soule melteth for trouble Luk. 10.41 Luk. 1.29 sayes David There is Turbatio occupationis Martha's trouble Martha thou art troubled about many things sayes Christ There is Turbatio admirationis The blessed Virgins trouble When she saw the Angel she was troubled at his saying To contract this John 11.33 There is Turbatio compassionis Christs own trouble When he saw Mary weepe for her brother Lazarus he groaned in the spirit and was troubled in himselfe But in all these troubles Herods feare The Mariners irresolution Martha's multiplicity of businesse The blessed Virgins sudden amazement Our Saviours compassionate sorrow as they are in us worldly troubles so the world administers some means to extemiate and alleviate these troubles for feares are overcome and stormes are appeased and businesses are ended and wonders are understood and sorrows weare out But in this trouble of the bones and the soule in so deepe and sensible impressions of the anger of God looking at once upon the pravity the obliquity the malignity of all that I have done of all that I shall doe Man hath but one step between that state and despaire to stop upon to turne to the Author of all temporall and all spirituall health the Lord of life with Davids prayer Psal 51.10 Cor mundum crea Create a cleane heart within me
determine wholly and entirely in God too and in his glory Quoniam non in morte Do it O Lord For in Death there is no remembrance of thee c. In some other places Propter misericordiam Psal 40.11 David comes to God with two reasons and both grounded meerely in God Misericordia veritas Let thy Mercy and thy Truth alwaies preserve me In this place he puts himselfe wholly upon his mercy for mercy is all or at least the foundation that sustaines all or the wall that imbraces all That mercy which the word of this text Casad imports is Benignitas in non promeritum Mercy is a good disposition towards him who hath deserved nothing of himselfe For where there is merit there is no mercy Nay it imports more then so For mercy as mercy presumes not onely no merit in man but it takes knowledge of no promise in God properly For that is the difference betweene Mercy and Truth that by Mercy at first God would make promises to man in generall and then by Truth he would performe those promises but Mercy goeth first and there David begins and grounds his Prayer at Mercy Mercy that can have no pre-mover no pre-relation but begins in it selfe For if we consider the mercy of God to mankinde subsequently I meane after the Death of Christ so it cannot bee properly called mercy Mercy thus considered hath a ground And God thus considered hath received a plentifull and an abundant satisfaction in the merits of Christ Jesus And that which hath a ground in man that which hath a satisfaction from man Christ was truly Man fals not properly precisely rigidly under the name of mercy But consider God in his first disposition to man after his fall That he would vouchsafe to study our Recovery and that he would turne upon no other way but the shedding of the blood of his owne and innocent and glorious Son Quid est homo aut filius hominis What was man or all mankinde that God should be mindfull of him so or so mercifull to him When God promises that he will be mercifull and gracious to me if I doe his Will when in some measure I doe that Will of his God begins not then to be mercifull but his mercy was awake and at worke before when he excited me by that promise to doe his Will And after in my performance of those duties his Spirit seales to me a declaration that his Truth is exercised upon mee now as his mercy was before Still his Truth is in the effect in the fruit in the execution but the Decree and the Roote is onely Mercy God is pleased also when we come to him with other Reasons When we remember him of his Covenant When we remember him of his holy servants Abraham Isaac and Iacob yea when we remember him of our owne innocencie in that particular for which wee may be then unjustly pursued God was glad to heare of a Righteousnesse and of an Innocencie and of cleane and pure hands in David when hee was unjustly pursued by Saul But the roote of all is in this Propter misericordiam Doe it for thy mercie sake For when we speake of Gods Covenant it may be mistaken who is and who is not within that Covenant What know I Of Nations and of Churches which have received the outward profession of Christ we may be able to say They are within the Covenant generally taken But when we come to particular men in the Congregation there I may call a Hypocrite a Saint and thinke an excomunicate soule to be within the Covenant I may mistake the Covenant and I may mistake Gods servants who did and who did not dye in his favour What know I We see at Executions when men pretend to dye cheerefully for the glory of God halfe the company will call them Traitors and halfe Martyrs So if we speake of our owne innocency we may have a pride in that or some other vicious and defective respect as uncharitablenesse towards our malicious Persecutors or laying seditious aspersions upon the justice of the State that may make us guilty towards God though wee be truly innocent to the World in that particular But let mee make my recourse to the mercy of God and there can bee no errour no mistaking And therefore if that and nothing but that be my ground God will Returne to me God will Deliver my soule God will Save me For his mercy sake that is because his mercy is engaged in it And if God were to sell me this Returning this Delivering this Saving and all that I pray for what could I offer God for that so great as his owne mercy in which I offer him the Innocencie the Obedience the Blood of his onely Son If I buy of the Kings land I must pay for it in the Kings money I have no Myne nor Mint of mine owne If I would have any thing from God I must give him that which is his owne for it that is his mercy And this is to give God his mercy To give God thanks for his mercy To give all to his mercy And to acknowledge that if my works be acceptable to him nay if my very faith be acceptable to him it is not because my works no nor my faith hath any proportion of equivalencie in it or is worth the least flash of joy or the least spangle of glory in Heaven in it selfe but because God in his mercy onely of his mercy meerely for the glory of his mercy hath past such a Covenant Crede fac hoc Beleeve this and doe this and thou shalt live not for thy deed sake not nor for thy faith sake but for my mercy sake And farther we carry not this first reason of the Prayer arising onely from God There remaines in these words another Reason In morte in which David himselfe and all men seeme to have part Quia non in morte For in death there is no remembrance of thee c. Upon occasion of which words because they seeme to imply a lothnesse in David to dye it may well be inquired why Death seemed so terrible to the good and godly men of those times as that evermore we see them complaine of shortnesse of life and of the neerenesse of death Certainely the rule is true in naturall and in civill and in divine things as long as wee are in this World Nolle meliorem est corruptio primae habitudinis Picus Heptapl l. 7. proem That man is not well who desires not to be better It is but our corruption here that makes us loth to hasten to our incorruption there And besides many of the Ancients and all the later Casuists of the other side and amongst our owne men Peter Martyr and Calvin assigne certaine cases in which it hath Rationem boni The nature of Good and therefore is to be embraced to wish our dissolution and departure out of this World and yet many good and
Semel mori that every man must dye once but for any Bis mori for twice dying for eternall death upon any man as man if God consider him not as an impotent sinner there is no such invariable Decree for that death being also the punishment for actuall sin if he take away the cause the sin he takes away that effect that death also for this death it selfe eternall death we all agree that it is taken away with the sin And then for other calamities in this life which we call Morticulas Little deaths the children the issue the off-spring the propagation of death if we would speak properly no Affliction no Judgement of God in this life hath in it exactly the nature of a punishment not onely not the nature of satisfaction but not the nature of a punishment We call not Coyn base Coyne till the Allay be more then the pure Metall Gods Judgements are not punishments except there be more anger then love more Justice then Mercy in them and that is never for Miserationes ejus super omnia opera His mercies are above all his works In his first work in the Creation his Spirit the Holy Ghost moved upon the face of the waters and still upon the face of all our waters as waters are emblemes of tribulation in all the Scriptures his Spirit the Spirit of comfort moves too and as the waters produced the first creatures in the Creation so tribulations offer us the first comforts sooner then prosperity does God executes no judgement upon man in this life but in mercy either in mercy to that person in his sense thereof if he be sensible or at least in mercy to his Church in the example thereof if he be not There is no person to whom we can say that Gods Corrections are Punishments any otherwise then Medicinall and such as he may receive amendment by that receives them Neither does it become us in any case to say God layes this upon him because he is so ill but because he may be better But here our consideration is onely upon the godly and such as by repentance stand upright in his favour and even in them our Adversaries say that after the remission of their sins there remaines a punishment and a punishment by way of Satisfaction to be borne for that sin which is remitted But since they themselves tell us that in Baptisme God proceeds otherwise and pardons there all sin and all punishment of sinne which should be inflicted in the next world for children newly baptized doe not suffer any thing in Purgatory And that this holds not onely in Baptismo fluminis in the Sacrament of Baptisme but in Baptismo sanguinis in the Baptisme of blood too for in Martyrdome as S. Augustine sayes Injuriam facit Martyri He wrongs a Martyr that praies for a Martyr as though he were not already in Heaven so he suspects a Martyr that thinkes that Martyr goes to Purgatory And since they say that he can doe so in the other Sacrament too and in Repentance which they call and justly Secundam post naufragium tabulam That whereas Baptisme hath once delivered us from shipwrack in Originall sin this Repentance delivers us after Baptisme from actuall sinne Since God can pardon without reserving any punishment since God does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome since out of Baptisme or Martyrdome it appeares often that De facto he hath done so for he enjoyned no penance to the man sicke of the Palsie when he said Mat 9. Son be of good comfort thy sins are forgiven thee Sins and punishments too He intimated no such after reckoning to her of whom he said Many sins are forgiven her Sins and punishments too Luke 17. He left no such future Satisfaction in that Parable upon the Publican Luke 18. that departed to his house justified Justified from sins and punishments too And when he declared Zacheus to be the son of Abraham and said This day is Salvation come unto thy house Luke 19. He did not charge this blessed inheritance with any such encumbrance that he should still be subject to old debts to make satisfaction by bodily afflictions for former sins since God can doe this and does so in Baptisme and Martyrdome and hath done this very often out of Baptisme or Martyrdome in Repentance we had need of clearer evidence then they have offered to preduce yet that God does otherwise at any time that at any time he pardons the sin and retaines the punishment by way of satisfaction If their Market should faile that no man would buy Indulgences as of late yeares it was brought low when they vented ten Indulgencies in America for one in Europe If the fire of Purgatory were quenched or slackned that men would not be so prodigall to buy out Fathers or friends soules from thence If commutation of penance were so moderated amongst them that those penances and satisfactions which they make so necessary were not commuted to money and brought them in no profit they would not be perhaps so vehement in maintenance of this Doctrine To leave such imaginations with their Authors We see David did enjoyne himself penance and impose upon himselfe heavy afflictions after he had asked and no doubt received assurance of the mercy of God in the remission of his sins Why did he so S. Augustine observes out of the words of this Text that because some of Davids afflictions are expressed in the Preter tense as things already past and some in the Future as things to come for it is Laboravi I have mourned and it is Natare faciam I will wash my bed with teares so that something David confesses he had done and something he professes that he will doe therefore David hath a speciall regard to his future state and he proceeds with God not onely by that way of holy worship by way of confession what he had done but by another religious worship of God too by way of vow what he would doe David understood his own conscience well and was willing to husband it to manure and cultivate it well He knew what ploughing what harrowing what weeding and watring and pruning it needed and so perhaps might be trusted with himselfe and hee his owne spirituall Physitian This is not every ones case Those that are not so perfect in the knowledge of their owne estate as it is certaine the most are not the Church ever tooke into her care and therefore it is true that in the Primitive Church there were heavy penitentiall Canons and there were publique penances enjoyned to sinners Either Ad explorationem when the Church had cause to be jealous and to suspect the hearty repentance of the party They made this triall of their obedience to submit them to that heavy penance Or else Ad aedificationem to satisfie the Church which was scandalized by their sins before Or Ad Exercitationem to keepe them in continuall practise the better to resist
swore so many a man prayes and does not remember his own prayer As a Clock gives a warning before it strikes and then there remains a sound and a tingling of the bell after it hath stricken so a precedent meditation and a subsequent rumination make the prayer a prayer I must think before what I will aske and consider againe what I have askt and upon this dividing the hoofe and chewing the cud David avowes to his own conscience his whole action even to this consummation thereof Let mine enemies be ashamed c. Now these words whether we consider the naturall signification of the words Impreeatoria or the authority of those men who have been Expositors upon them may be understood either way either to be Imprecatoria words of Imprecation that David in the Spirit of anguish wishes that these things might fall upon his enemies or els Praedictoria words of Prediction that David in the spirit of Prophecy pronounces that these things shall fall upon them If they be Imprecatoria words spoken out of his wish and desire then they have in them the nature of a curse And because Lyra takes them to be so a curse he referres the words Ad Daemones To the Devill That herein David seconds Gods malediction upon the Serpent and curses the Devill as the occasioner and first mover of all these calamities and sayes of them Let all our enemies be ashamed and sore vexed c. Others referre these words to the first Christian times and the persecutions then and so to be a malediction a curse upon the Jewes and upon the Romans who persecuted the Primitive Church then Let them be ashamed c. And then Gregory Nyssen referres these words to more domesticall and intrinsicke enemies to Davids owne concupiscences and the rebellions of his owne lusts Let those enemies be ashamed c. For all those who understand these words to be a curse a malediction are loath to admit that David did curse his enemies meerly out of a respect of those calamities which they had inflicted upon him And that is a safe ground no man may curse another in contemplation of himselfe onely if onely himselfe be concerned in the case And when it concernes the glory of God our imprecations our maledictions upon the persons must not have their principall relation as to Gods enemies but as to Gods glory our end must be that God may have his glory not that they may have their punishment And therefore how vehement soever David seeme in this Imprecation and though he be more vehement in another place Let them be confounded and troubled for ever yea let them be put to shame Psal 83.17 and perish yet that perishing is but a perishing of their purposes let their plots perish let their malignity against thy Church be frustrated for so he expresses himselfe in the verse immediately before Fill their faces with shame but why and how That they may seeke thy Name O Lord that was Davids end even in the curse David wishes them no ill but for their good no worse to Gods enemies but that they might become his friends The rule is good which out of his moderation S. Augustine gives that in all Inquisitions and Executions in matters of Religion when it is meerly for Religion without sedition Sint qui poeniteant Let the men remaine alive or else how can they repent So in all Imprecations in all hard wishes even upon Gods enemies Sint qui convertantur Let the men remaine that they may be capable of conversion wish them not so ill as that God can shew no mercy to them for so the ill wish falls upon God himselfe if it preclude his way of mercy upon that ill man In no case must the curse be directed upon the person for when in the next Psalme to this David seemes passionate when hee asks that of God there which he desires God to forbear in the beginning of this Psalme when his Ne arguas in ira O Lord rebuke not in thine anger is turned to a Surge Domine in ira Arise O Lord in thine anger S. Augustine begins to wonder Quid illum quem perfectum dicimus ad iram provocat Deum Would David provoke God who is all sweetnesse and mildnesse to anger against any man No not against any man but Diaboli possessio peccator Every sinner is a slave to his beloved sin and therefore Misericors or at adver sus cum quitanque or at How bitterly soever I curse that sin yet I pray for that sinner David would have God angry with the Tyran not with the Slave that is oppressed with the sin not with the soule that is inthralled to it And so as the words may be a curse a malediction in Davids mouth we may take them into our mouth too and say Let those enemies be ashamed c. If this then were an Imprecation a malediction yet it was Medicinall and had Rationem boni a charitable tincture and nature in it he wished the men no harm as men But it is rather Pradictorium Praedictoria a Propheticall vehemence that if they will take no knowledge of Gods declaring himselfe in the protection of his servants if they would not consider that God had heard and would heare had rescued and would rescue his children but would continue their opposition against him heavy judgements would certainly fall upon them Their punishment should be certaine but the effect should be uncertaine for God only knowes whether his correction shall work upon his enemies to their mollifying or to their obduration Those bitter and waighty imprecations which David hath heaped together against Iudas Psal 109 Acts 1.16 seeme to be direct imprecations and yet S. Peter himselfe calls them Prophesies Oportet impleri Scripturam They were done sayes he that the Scripture might be fulfilled Not that David in his owne heart did wish all that upon Iudas but only so as fore-seeing in the Spirit of Prophesying that those things should fall upon him he concurred with the purpose of God therein and so farre as he saw it to be the will of God he made it his will and his wish And so have all those judgements which we denounce upon sinners the nature of Prophesies in them when we reade in the Church that Commination Cursed is the Idolater This may fall upon some of our owne kindred and Cursed is he that curseth Father or Mother This may fall upon some of our owne children and Cursed is he that perverteth judgement This may fall upon some powerfull Persons that we may have a dependance upon and upon these we doe not wish that Gods vengeance should fall yet we Prophesie and denounce justly that upon such such vengeances will fall and then all Prophesies of that kinde are alwaies conditionall they are conditionall if we consider any Decree in God they must be conditionall in all our denunciations if you repent they shall not fall upon you if
Cooke The other is a Physitian and though by bitter things provides for thy future health And such is the hony of Flatterers and such is the wormewood of better Counsellors I will not shake a Proverbe not the Ad Corvos That wee were better admit the Crowes that picke out our eyes after we are dead then Flatterers that blinde us whilst we live I cast justly upon others I take willingly upon my selfe the name of wicked if I blesse the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth or any other whom he hath declared to be odious to him But making my object goodnesse in that man and taking that goodnesse in that man to be a Candle set up by God in that Candlesticke God having engaged himselfe that that good man shall be praised I will be a Subsidy man so far so far pay Gods debts as to celebrate with condigne praise the goodnesse of that man for in that I doe as I should desire to be done to And in that I pay a debt to that man And in that I succour their weaknesse who as S. Gregory sayes when they heare another praised Gregâ—r Si non amore virtutis at delectatione laudis accenduntur At first for the love of Praise but after for the love of goodnesse it selfe are drawne to bee good Phil. 4.8 For when the Apostle had directed the Philippians upon things that were True and honest and just and purc and lovely and of a good report he ends all thus If there be any vertue and if there be any praise thinke on these things In those two sayes S. Augustine he divides all Vertue and Praise Vertue in our selves that may deserve Praise Praise towards others that may advance and propagate Vertue This is the retribution which God promises to all the upright in heart Gloriabuntur Laudabuntur They shall Glory they shall have they shall give praise And then it is so far from diminishing this Glory as that it infinitely exalts our consolation that God places this Retribution in the future Gloriabuntur If they doe not yet yet certainly they shall glory And if they doe now that glory shall not goe out still they shall they shall for ever glory In the Hebrew there is no Present tense In that language wherein God spake Futurum it could not be said The upright in heart Are praised Many times they are not But God speaks in the future first that he may still keepe his Children in an expectation and dependance upon him you shall be though you be not yet And then to establish them in an infallibility because he hath said it I know you are not yet but comfort your selves I have said it and it shall be As the Hebrew hath no Superlatives because God would keepe his Children within compasse and in moderate desires to content themselves with his measures though they be not great and though they be not heaped so considering what pressures and contempts and terrors the upright in heart are subject to it is a blessed reliefe That they have a future proposed unto them That they shall be praised That they shall be redeemed out of contempt This makes even the Expectation it selfe as sweet to them as the fruition would be This makes them that when David sayes Expecta viriliter Waite upon the Lord with a good courage Waite I say Psal 27.14 upon the Lord they doe not answer with the impatience of the Martyrs under the Altar Vsquequo How long Lord wilt thou defer it Rev. 6.10 Psal 40.1 Psal 52.9 But they answer in Davids owne words Expectans expectavi I have waited long And Expectabo nomen tuum still I will waite upon thy Name I will waite till the Lord come His kingdome come in the mean time His kingdome of Grace and Patience and for his Ease and his Deliverance and his Praise and his Glory to me let that come when he may be most glorified in the comming thereof Nay not onely the Expectation that is that that is expected shall be comfortable because it shall be infallible but that very present state that he is in shall be comfortable according to the first of our three Translations They that are true of heart shall be glad thereof Glad of that Glad that they are true of heart though their future retribution were never so far removed Nay though there were no future retribution in the case yet they shall finde comfort enough in their present Integrity Nay not onely their present state of Integrity but their present state of misery shall be comfortable to them for this very word of our Text Halal that is here translated Ioy and Glory and Praise in divers places of Scripture as Hebrew words have often such a transplantation signifies Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit Psal 75.4 Esa 44.25 Job 12.17 So that Ingloriousnesse and contempt and dejection of spirit may be a part of the retribution God may make Ingloriousnesse and Contempt and Dejection of spirit a greater blessing and benefit then Joy and Glory and Praise would have been and so reserve all this Glory and Praising to that time that David intends Psal 112.6 The righteous shall be in everlasting remembrance Though they live and die contemptibly they shall be in an honorable remembrance even amongst men as long as men last and even when time shall be no more and men no more they shall have it in futuro aeterno where there shall be an everlasting present and an everlasting future there the upright in heart shall be praised and that for ever which is our conclusion of all If this word of our Text Halal shall signifie Ioy as the Service Booke Aeternum and the Geneva translation render it that may be somewhat towards enough which we had occasion to say of the Joyes of heaven in our Exercise upon the precedent Psalme when we say-led thorough that Hemispheare of Heaven by the breath of the Holy Ghost in handling those words Vnder the shadow of thy wings I will rejoyce So that of this signification of the word Gaudebunt in aeterno They shall rejoyce for ever we adde nothing now If the word shall signifie Glory as our last translation renders it consider with me That when that Glory which I shall receive in Heaven shall be of that exaltation as that my body shall invest the glory of a soule my body shall be like a soule like a spirit like an Angel of light in all endowments that glory it selfe can make that body capable of that body remaining still a true body when my body shall be like a soule there will be nothing left for my soule to be like but God himselfe 2 Pet. 1.4 1 Cor. 6.17 I shall be partaker of the Divine nature and the same Spirit with him Since the glory that I shall receive in body and in soule shall be such so exalted what shall that glory of God be which I shall
distempers both theirs that think That there are other things to be beleeved then are in the Scriptures and theirs that think That there are some things in the Scriptures which are not to bee beleeved For when our Saviour sayes Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you he intends both this proposition I have told you all that is necessary to be beleeved and this also All that I have told you is necessary to bee beleeved so as I have told it you So that this excludes both that imaginary insufficiency of the Scriptures which some have ventured to averre for God shall never call Christian to account for any thing not notified in the Scriptures And it excludes also those imaginary Dolos bonos and fraudes pias which some have adventured to averre too That God should use holy Illusions holy deceits holy frauds and circumventions in his Scriptures and not intend in them that which he pretends by them This is his Rule Si quo minus If it were not so I would have told you If I have not told you so it is not so and if I have it is so as I have told you And in these two branches we shall determine the first part The Rule of Doctrines the Scripture The second part which is the particular Doctrine which Christ administers to his Disciples here will also derive and cleave it selfe into two branches For first wee shall inquire whether this proposition in our Text In my Fathers house are many Mansions give any ground or assistance or countenance to that pious opinion of a disparity and difference of degrees of Glory in the Saints in heaven And then if we finde the words of this Text to conduce nothing to that Doctrine wee shall consider the right use of the true and naturall the native and genuine the direct and literall and uncontrovertible sense of the words because in them Christ doth not say that in his Fathers house there are Divers Mansions divers for seat or lights or fashion or furniture but onely that there are Many and in that notion the Plurality the Multipliciry lies the Consolation First then 1 Part. for the first branch of our first part The generall Rule of Doctrines our Saviour Christ in these words involves an argument That hee hath told them all that was necessary Hee hath because the Scripture hath for all the Scriptures which were written before Christ and after Christ were written by one and the same Spirit his Spirit It might then make a good Probleme why they of the Romane Church not affording to the Scriptures that dignity which belongs to them are yet so vehement and make so hard shift to bring the books of other Authors into the ranke and nature and dignity of being Scriptures What matter is it whether their Maccabees or their Tobies be Scripture or no what get their Maccabees or their Tobies by being Scripture if the Scripture be not full enough or not plaine enough to bring me to salvation But since their intention and purpose their aime and their end is to under-value the Scriptures that thereby they may over-value their owne Traditions their way to that end may bee to put the name of Scriptures upon books of a lower value that so the unworthinesse of those additionall books may cast a diminution upon the Canonicall books themselves when they are made all one as in some forraigne States we have seene that when the Prince had a purpose to erect some new Order of Honour he would disgrace the old Orders by conferring and bestowing them upon unworthy and incapable persons But why doe we charge the Roman Church with this undervaluing of the Scriptures when as they pretend and that cannot well be denied them That they ascribe to all the books of Scripture this dignity That all that is in them is true It is true they doe so But this may be true of other Authors also and yet those Authors remaine prophane and secular Authors All may be true that Livy sayes and all that our Chronicles say may be true and yet our Chronicles nor Livy become Gospell for so much they themselves will confesse and acknowledge that all that our Church sayes is true that our Church affirmes no error and yet our Church must be a hereticall Church if any Church at all for all that Indeed it is but a faint but an illusory evidence or witnesse that pretends to cleare a point if though it speake nothing but truth yet it does not speake all the truth The Scriptures are our evidence for life or death Iohn 5.39 Search the Scriptures sayes Christ for in them ye thinke ye have eternall life Where ye thinke so is not ye thinke so but mistake the matter but ye thinke so is ye thinke so upon a well-grounded and rectified faith and assurance Now if this evidence the Scripture shall acquit me in one Article in my beliefe in God for I doe finde in the Scripture as much as they require of me to beleeve of the Father Son and Holy Ghost And then this evidence the Scripture shall condemne me in another Article The Catholique Church for I doe not finde so much in the Scripture as they require me to beleeve of their Catholique Church If the Scripture be sufficient to save me in one and not in the rest this is not onely a defective but an illusory evidence which though it speake truth yet does not speake all the truth Fratres sumus quare litigamus sayes S. Augustine Wee are all Brethren by one Father one Almighty God and one Mother one Catholique Church and then why do we goe to Law together At least why doe we not bring our Suits to an end Non intestatus mortuus est Pater sayes he Our Father is dead for Deut. 32.30 Is not he your Father that bought you is Moses question he that bought us with himselfe his blood his life is not dead intestate but hath left his Will and Testament and why should not that Testament decide the cause Silent Advocati Suspensus est populus Legant verba testamenti This that Father notes to be the end in other causes why not in this That the Counsell give over pleading That the people give over murmuring That the Judge cals for the words of the Will by that governs and according to that establishes his Judgement I would at last contentious men would leave wrangling and people to whom those things belonged not leave blowing of coales and that the words of the Will might try the cause since he that made the Will hath made it thus cleare Si quo minus If it were not thus I would have told you If there were more to be added then this or more clearnesse to bee added to this I would have told you In the fift of Matthew Christ puts a great many cases what others had told them Mat. 5. but he tels them that is not
the true body and true soule true matter and true forme that is just possession for having and sober discretion for giving then enters the word of our Text literally The liberall man deviseth liberall things He devises studies meditates casts about where he may doe a noble action where he may place a benefit He seekes the man with as much earnestnesse as another man seeks the money And as God comes with an earnestnesse as though he thought it nothing to have wrought all the weeke to his Faciamus hominem Now let us make man So comes the liberall man to make a man and to redeeme him out of necessity and contempt the upper and lower Milstone of poverty And to returne to our former representations of Liberality Light and Sight As light comes thorough the glasse but we know not how and our sight apprehends remote objects but we know not how so the liberall man looks into darke corners even upon such as are loath to be looked upon loath to have their wants come into knowledge and visits them by his liberality when sometimes they know not from whence that showre of refreshing comes no more then we know how light comes thorough the glasse or how our sight apprehends remote objects So the liberall man deviseth liberall things And then which is our third terme and consideration in this civill and morall acceptation of the words By liberall things he shall stand Some of our later Expositors admit this phrase The liberall man shall stand to reach no further Shall stand nor to signifie no more but that The liberall man shall stand that is will stand will continue his course and proceed in liberall wayes And this is truely a good sense for many times men do some small actions that have some shew and tast of some vertue for collaterall respects and not out of a direct and true vertuous habit But these Expositors with whose narrownesse our former Translators complied will not let the Holy Ghost be as liberall as he would bee His liberality here is That the liberall man shall stand that is Prosper and Multiply and be the better established for his liberality He shall sowe silver and reape gold he shall sowe gold and reape Diamonds sowe benefits and reape honour not honour rooted in the opinion of men onely but in the testimony of a cheerfull conscience that powres out Acclamations by thousands And that is a blessed and a loyall popularity when I have a people in mine owne bosome a thousand voices in mine owne conscience that justifie and applaud a good action Therefore that Translation which we mentioned before reads this clause thus The liberall man imagineth honest things and commeth up by honesty still that which he calls Honesty is in the Originall Liberality and he comes up he prospers and thrives in the world by those noble and vertuous actions It is easie for a man of any largenesse in conversation or in reading to assigne examples of men that have therefore lost all because they were loath to part with any thing When Nazianzen sayes That man cannot be so like God in any thing as in giving he meanes that he shall be like him in this too that he shall not bee the poorer for giving But keeping the body and soule of liberality Giving his owne and giving worthily in soule and body too that is in conscience and fortune both By liberall things he shall stand that is prosper Now these three termes Liberality the vertue it selfe the studying of Liberality Rex this devising and the advantage of this Liberality this standing being yet in this first part still upon the consideration of civill and morall Liberality wee are to consider according to their Exposition that binde this Prophecy to an Hezckias or a Iosias in which Prophecy we finde mention of all those persons we are I say to consider them in the King in his Officers the Magistrate and in his Subjects For the King first this vertue of our Text is so radicall so elementary so essentiall to the King as that the vulgat Edition in the Romane Church reads this very Text thus Princeps verò ea quae principe digna sunt cogitabit The King shall exercise himselfe in royall Meditations and Actions Him whom we call a Liberall man they call a King and those actions that we call Liberall they call Royall A Translation herein excusable enough for the very Originall word which we translate Liberall is a Royall word Nadib and very often in the Scriptures hath so high a Royall signification The very word is in that place where David prayes to God to renew him spiritu Principali And this Psal 51.10 spiritus Principalis as many Translators call a Principall a Princely a Royall spirit as a liberall a free a bountifull spirit If it be Liberall it is Royall For when David would have bought a threshing-floore 2 Sam. 24.23 to erect an Altar upon of Araunah and Araunah offered so freely place and sacrifice and instruments and all the Holy Ghost expresses it so All these things did Araunah as a King offer to the King There was but this difference between the Liberall man and David A King and The King Higher then a King for an example and comparison of Liberality on this side of God hee could not goe The very forme of the Office of a King is Liberality that is Providence and Protection and Possession and Peace and Justice shed upon all And then this Prophecy considered still the first way morally Principes civilly carries this vertue not onely upon the King but upon the Princes too upon those persons that are great great in blood great in power great in place and office They must bee liberall of that which is deposited in them The Sunne does not enlighten the Starres of the Firmament meerly for an Omament to the Firmament though even the glory which God receives from that Ornament be one reason thereof but that by the reflection of those Starres his beames might be cast into some places to which by a direct Emanation from himselfe those beames would not have come So doe Kings transmit some beames of power into their Officers not onely to dignifie and illustrate a Court though that also be one just reason thereof for outward dignity and splendor must be preserved but that by those subordinate Instruments the royall Liberality of the King that is Protection and Justice might be transferred upon all And therefore Epistol ad Salvian S. Hierome speaking of Nebridius who was so gracious with the Emperor that he denied him nothing assignes that for the reason of his largenesse towards him Quòd sciebat non uni sed pluribus indulgeri Because he knew that in giving him he gave to the Publique Hee employed that which he received for the Publique And lastly our Prophecy places this Liberality upon the people Now Populus still this Liberality is that it
to others in the plurall to many others But now it is Visum est mihi Spiritui Sancto It seemes good unto me to one man alone and when it does so it shall seeme good to the Holy Ghost too And of these two Hereticall violences to the Holy Ghost we complaine against that Church first that they put the Holy Ghost in a Rebellion against the Son of God from whom he proceeds And then as for the most part the end of them who pretend right to a Kingdome and cannot prove it is to lie in Prison That they have imprisoned the Holy Ghost in one mans breast and not suffered that winde to breathe where it will as Christ promised the Holy Ghost should doe For neither did the Holy Ghost bring any such thing to their remembrance as though Christ had taught any such Doctrine neither can they that teach it come nearer the sin The unpardonable sin against the Holy Ghost then thus to make him a supplanter of Christ or supplanted by Antichrist But we hold you no longer in this ill Aire Charismata Spiritus blasphemous and irksome contumelies against the Holy Ghost we promised at first to dismisse you at last in a perfume with the breath of the Holy Ghost upon you and that is to excite you to a rectified sense and knowledge August that he offers himselfe unto you and is received by you Facies Dei est qua nobis innotescit That is alwaies the face of God to us by which God vouchsafes to manifest himselfe to us So his Ordinance in the Church is his face And Lux Dei qua nobis illucescit The light of God to us is that light by which he shines upon us Lex Dei Lux Dei his word in his Church And then the Evidence the Seale the Witnesse of all that this face which I see by this light is directed upon me for my comfort is The Testimony of the Holy Ghost when that Spirit beares witnesse with our spirit that he is in us And therefore in his blessed Name and in the participation of his power I say to you all Accipite Spiritum sanctum Receive ye the holy Ghost Not that I can give it you 2 Cor. 3.5 but I can tell you that he offers to give himselfe to you all Our sufficiency is of God sayes the Apostle Acknowledge you a sufficiency in us a sufficient power to be in the Ministery for as the Apostle addes He hath made us able Ministers of the New Testament Not able onely in faculties and gifts requisite for that function those faculties and gifts whether of nature or of acquisition be in as great measure in some that have not that function but able by his powerfull Ordinance as it is also added there to minister not the letter not the letter onely but The Spirit the Spirit of the New Testament that is the holy Ghost to you Therefore as God said to Moses I will come downe Numb 11.17 and talk with thee and I will take of the Spirit which is upon thee and put it upon them God in his Spirit does come downe to us in his Ministery and talke with us his Ministers at home that is assist us in our Meditations and lucubrations and preparations for this service here and then here in this place he takes of that Spirit from us and sheds upon you imparts the gifts of the holy Ghost to you also and makes the holy Ghost as much yours by your hearing as he made him ours by our study Be not deceived by the letter by the phrase of that place God does not say there that he will take of the Spirit from us and give it you that is fill you with it and leave us without it but he will take of that Spirit that is impart that Spirit so to you as that by us and our present Ministery he will give you that that shall be sufficient for you to day and yet call you to us againe in his Ordinance another day Learne as much as you can every day and never thinke that you have learnt so much as that you have no more need of a Teacher for though you need no more of that man you may be perchance as learned as he yet you need more of that Ordinance We give you the holy Ghost then when we open your eyes to see his offers Those words of the Apostle Our selves have the first fruits of the Spirit Rom. 8.23 S. Ambrose interprets so Our selves we the Ministers of God have the first fruits of the Spirit the pre-possession the pre-inhabitation but not the sole possession nor sole inhabitation of the Holy Ghost but we have grace for grace the Spirit therefore to shed the Spirit upon you that that precious Oyntment Psal 133.2 the Holy Ghost is this Unction which was poured upon the Head upon Christ may run downe upon Aarons beard and from those gray and grave and reverend haires of his Ministers may also go downe to the skirts of his garments to every one of you who doe not onely make up the garment that is the visible but the mysticall body it selfe of Christ Jesus Ver. 3. The dew of Hermon descends upon the mountaines of Sion But the waters that fall upon the mountaines fall into the valleyes too from thence The Holy Ghost fals through us upon you also so as that you may so as that you must finde it in your selves The Holy Ghost was the first Person that was declared in the Creation The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters Gen. 1.2 that was the first motion This is eternall life to know God and him whom he sent Christ Iesus But this you cannot doe but by him whom they both sent the Holy Ghost 1 Cor. 12.3 No man can say that Iesus is the Lord but by the Holy Ghost Iohn Baptist who was to baptize Christ was filled with the holy Ghost from the wombe You who were baptized in Christ were filled in your measure with the holy Ghost from that wombe from the time that the Church conceived you in Baptisme And therefore as the Twelve said to the multitude Acts 6.3 Looke yee among ye seven men full of the holy Ghost So we say to the whole Congregation Looke every man to himselfe that he be one of the seven one of that infinite number which the holy Ghost offers to fall upon That as ye were baptized in the holy Ghost and as your bodies are Temples of the holy Ghost so your soules may be Priests of the holy Ghost and you altogether a lively and reasonable sacrifice to God in the holy Ghost Eph. 1.13 That as you have beene sealed with the holy Spirit of promise you may finde in your selves the performance of that promise finde the seale of that promise in your love to the Scriptures for as S. Chrysostome argues usefully Christ gave the Apostles no Scriptures but