whiles they speak of an irresistible act in turning us they mean not such an act as cannot be at all resisted if we would but such a one as the will through Gods gracious inclination would not wish to resist for that their will to resist is so overcome by the sweet motions of Gods Spirit that now yieldance is made powerfully voluntary In which sense the very Jesuites themselves confess an irresistibility Bellarmine Suarez Valent. disp 8. q. 3. p. 4. Valentia and others granting it as impossible there should not be a conversion where there is an effectuall grace as that there should not be a conversion where there is a conversion D. Abbot exerc 2. ex Arm. declar ad ord omnia gratiae ascribantur modo ne statuatur irresistibilis Omnia gratiae ascribantur modo ne statuatur irresistibilis Arm. cit per R. Abbot ep Sarisb e declar ad ord p. 56. Quicquid sit constanter docent omnes hunc modum actuandi liberum arbitrium ejus libertati nihil nocere imo maxime proficit illam Paul Fir. spec Schol. p. 487. Now whether this irresistibleness be out of a consequent supposition as the Jesuites or out of an antecedent as the Dominicans with many of ours or whether this powerfull influence into the will be by way of a Physicall or morall motion they are subtleties fit for Schools not meet to trouble the heads of ordinary Christians It is enough for us to know that we will to consent because God works this will in us strongly yet sweetly and by an omnipotent facility so as no free will of ours resists Gods will to save us as St. Austin pithily Trahitur ergo miris modis ut velit ab illo qui novit intus inipsis hominum cordibus operari non ut homines quod fieri non potest nolentes credant sed ut volentes ex nolentibus fiant Aug. contr 2. Epist Pelag. To dispute then of the power of that will to resist which God hath made willing to yield what is it but to strive about the passage of those sheep which neither are bought nor ever shall be Man is in a marvelous manner drawn to will by him that knows to work inwardly in Mens hearts not that they should believe whether they will or no which is impossible but that of unwilling they should be made willing saith St. Austin True God makes us willing of unwilling and so we resist not But how doth he make us willing Whether by an irresistible manner of working in us or not this say the Opponents is the main question Surely so as that to use Aquinas his word the will is impelled though not compelled so as that though there is in the nature of the will a freedom and capacity of agreeing or dissenting in respect of it self yet as it is for the present moved and actuated by the effectual inclination of the Almighty now it so swayes one way as if it had for the time put off the power of refusing What need we then trouble our selves with these upstart termes of Resistible and Irresistible Let it content us that the gratious inoperation of God effectually drawes the heart of man to will to receive to entertain the happy motions of his good Spirit to our renovation If we yield not this to God we yield nothing and if we give him this he will not quarrel us for more But what place sover these differences have found in Forraign Schools and Pulpits ours have reason to be free if we shall listen to that wise and moderate voice of our church which our forecited reverend Author commends unto us who after the relation of the two extream opinions resteth in this Medio tutissimus that men are so stirred and moved by Grace that they may if they attend thereunto obey the grace which calleth and moveth them And that they may by their freewil also resist it But withal that God when he will and to whom he will gives such an abundant such powerful such congruous otherwise effectual grace that although the will may in respect of the liberty thereof resist yet it resists not but doth certainly and infallibly obey And that thus God deals with those whom he hath chosen in Christ so far as shall be necessary to their salvation Who so cannot sit down quietly in this decision me thinks should be no friend to peace And if any man stumble at the first clause as at the threshold of this sentence Let him know that our Divines at Dort have in effect said no lesse whiles having yielded to mans free-will in those external works which are required of us before our conversion and supposing certain effects in the way to our conversion which are wrought by the power of the word and spirit in the hearts of men not yet justifyed add further that those whom God thus affects by his word and Spirit those he doth truely and seriously call and invite to faith Theol. Briâ— Dord de Art 2. Thes 5. and conversion and that Christ in his death not only founded his Evangelical covenant but hath also obtained of his father that wheresoever this Covenant shall be published there also should ordinarily such a measure of grace be administred as should be sufficient to convince all impenitent and unbelieving men of neglect or contempt And lastly that whom God thus affects he forsakes not nor ceaseth to promote in the way of their conversion till he be first forsaken of them by a voluntary neglect or contempt of this initial grace But what need any proof hereof whiles that clause speaks but of a common grace and the persons to whom this liberty is ascribed are such as by that learned B. are contra-distinguished to them which are truely called according to the purpose of God Let us go but so far as these two guides will joyntly lead us it will be bootlesse to quarrel about any further discovery Hanc nostram esse sententiam prositemur hominem de salute aeteâ—na cortum esse posse debere solam Dei gratiam esse perseverantiae causam supernaturalem quae sacit ut voluntas nostra perseverare possit velit Rem Ep. ad ext p. 75. Concerning the fifth Article of perseverance The Belgick Opponents at first spake timorously professing not absolutely to hold a possibility of the totall or finall defection of true believers only suspending their opinion and rather inclining to the affirmative but afterward they grew to a strong resolution of that whereof they formerly but doubted In whose writings yet when a Man shall come to read that a Man may and ought to be certain of his own eternal Salvation That the only grace of God is the supernatural cause of perseverance which makes our will both able and willing to persevere he would think there need no more words that this quarrel were at a happy end But when he shall see them flying off into the distinctions of certainty for the
God our Heavenly Father toward us is no less then infinite Psal 103.13 what return do we make of love to him again we can perhaps talk largely of our love to God but where is the proof of it Did we love our Father in Heaven as children could we strange our selves from his interest Could we indure to see him wronged in all his concernments to hear his sacred and dread name blasphemed to see his Ordinances trampled upon his messengers contemptuously used his house and his day prophaned would we not spit at that son that would put up such indignities offered to his carnal Father And why will we lay claim to a son-ship of God if we can swallow such spiritual affronts put upon our God Thirdly every not ill-natur'd and ungracious son as God hath none such bears a kind of awfull respect to his Father both in what he doth and in what he suffers For his actions he dares not to do any thing wilfully that may work his Fathers displeasure and even those things which he would not stick to do before a stranger yet before his Father he reverentially forbeares to do If I be a Father where is my honour Malac. 1.6 If then we be not awfully affected to the presence of God If we dare boldly sin God in the face it argues strongly that we have no filial relation to him For his sufferings A child will receive that correction from the hand of a Father which he would never abide from a stranger He that would be ready to repay blowes to another man takes stripes from a Father and answers them onely with tears Thus if we be the Sons of God we do submissely undergo from his hand what fatherly chastisment he shall be pleased to lay upon us but if we be ready to struggle and groyningly repine at his correction it showes we do not acknowledge him for our Father Lastly a son as he is wholly at his parents disposing so he depends upon his Fathers provision expecting such patrimony as his Father shall bestow upon him and waiting with patience for such childes-part as he can have no hope of from a stranger If we do so to our Heavenly Father leading the life of faith with him casting our selves upon his gracious providence for all good things of either World and fixing our eyes upon that glorious inheritance which he hath purchased for us above we do evidently show our selves to be the sons of God but what need we any other evidence of this blessed condition then what is here expresly laid down to our hands in my Text So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God What is it then to be led by the Spirit of God The originall is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a word which every Grammarian knowes to signifie both agi and duci to be led or driven so where it is said by one Evangelist that Christ was led into the Wilderness to be temped Mat. 4.1 Of another it is read that he was driven Mark 1.12 And though the vulgar reads it here qui aguntur yet our Rhemists turn it Those that are led noteing in the margin out of St. Augustines true explication that Gods children are not violently compelled against their wills but sweetly drawn moved and induced to do good So as this word then implies both an act of Gods Spirit working in us and our complying with that act in an obedient and ready conformity thereunto For wherever the Spirit of God is it is not idle and ineffectuall but it is still directing and inclining unto good and whosoever is led by that Spirit yields himself to the motions and guidance Acti agimus as the old word is In all leading therefore and so in this there must be an hand to guide and a foot to follow good motions on Gods part and motions in good on ours both these must go together else there is no leading by the Spirit of God It is not enough that good thoughts are injected into us by the holy Spirit yea it is so farr from availing us as that a man is so much the worse for those good motions he entertaines not as the motions are more excellent and divine But those good injections must be received imbraced delighted in and followed home in a constant and habituall practise with a resolute rejection and detestation of the contrary Besides that spirit of our mind Ephes 4.23 which lodgeth in every brest every man is led by some spirit or other One is led by a spirit of Errour 1 Tim. 4.1 and seduction in matter of understanding Another by the spirit of giddiness Esa 19.14 into wild fancies and brainsick imaginations another is led by the Spirit of bondage to slavish fears and afflictive horrours as in the next verse to my Text another by the spirit of the World 1 Cor. 2.12 Another and indeed all these by the unclean Spirit as he is usually styled in the Gospell others which are all the regenerate are led by the Spirit of God when our Saviour said to his too fiery Disciples Ye know not of what Spirit ye are he implies that of some spirit they must needs be now there are those that pretend to be led by the spirit of God and are not St. Paul could upon good warrant say I trust I have the Spirit of God that trust was however he modestly expresses it no lesse then a certain knowledg but a Zidkijah on the other side in a false presumption can say Which way went the Spirit of God from me to speak to thee I remember in the history of the Anabaptists of Munster one of those illuminated companions of John Becold and Onipperdoling is said to have kill'd his own naturall Brother in the face of his parents and professed to do it upon a revelation from the Spirit the night before And what heresies and prodigious opinions have been set on foot and maintained to the death under pretence of the dictation and warrant of Gods Spirit who can be ignorant Let us therefore enquire how a man may know whether he be truly led by the Spirit of God First then the Spirit of God leads no man but in a right way and what is that but the way of Gods Commandements All other wayes are wayes of our own oblique and crooked as deviating from the straight line of righteousnesse In them either we lead our selves or Satan leads us If any man be tempted let him not say that he is tempted of God God moves to holy duties to just and charitable actions and none but them for he cannot be contrary to himself Is there any of us therefore that is carried on in a course of uncleannesse excess disobedience oppression or any other sin whatsoever Alas we are led by a contrary spirit in the dark wayes that lead to death and Hell It were blasphemy to father these sinfull mis-leadings upon the holy Spirit of God Secondly Gods
impressa fuit aliqualis notitia veritatis divinae dolor de peccatis suis aliquod desiderium aliqua cura liberationis mutentur plane in contrarium veritaâ—em rejiciant odio habeant concupiscentiis suis se tradant in peccatis occalleant ibid. Thes 5. 8. These foregoing inward acts wrought by the word and Spirit both may be and are many times through the fault of the rebellious will choaked and quenched in the hearts of Men so as after some knowledg of divine truth some sorrow for sin and desire and care of deliverance they fall off to the contrary and give themselves over to their own lusts Ne Electi quidem ipsi in his praecedane is ad regenerationem actibus ita se gerant unquam quin ut propter negligentiam resistentiam suam possint juste a Deo deseri derelinqui sed ea est erga eos Dei specialis misericordia ut quam vis c. Eos tamen iterum iterumque urgeat Deus nec desistat promo vere donec eosdem gratiae suae prorsus subjugaverit ac in statu filiorum regeneratorum collocaverit Theol. Br. ibid. Thes 6. 9. Yea the very elect of God do not so carry themselves in these foregoing Acts but that they do oft-times justly deserve for their neglect and resistance to be forsaken of God But such is his speciall grace and mercy to them that he notwithstanding followes them effectually with powerfull helps till he have wrought out his good work in them Gratiam specialem essicacem ad salutem certo perducentem his quos Deus ex beneplacito suo gratioso elegerit propriam profitetur D. Overal in Art 3. Sent. 3. 10. When the hearts of his elect are thus excited and prepared by the foregoing Acts of grace God doth by his secret and wonderfull work regenerate and renew them infusing into them his quickning Spirit and induing all the powers of their soul with new qualities of grace and holyness Deus animos electorum suorum praedictis gratiae suae actibus excitatos praeparatos intima quadam mirabili operatione regenerat quasi de novo creat infundendo spiritum vivificantem omnes animae facultates novis qualitatibus imbuendo Theol. Br. de convers Thes 1. 11. Upon this conversion which God works in the heart followes instantly our actuall conversion to God whiles from our new changed will God fetches the act of our believing and turning to him He gives that power which the will exercises so as it is at once both ours and Gods ours in that we do work Gods in that he works it in us Praedictam conversionem sequitur haec nostra conversio actualis Deo perliciente ipsum actum credendi convertendi ex mutata voluntate quae acta adeo agit ipsa convertendo se ad Deum credendo hoc est actum suum vitalem simul eliciendo ibid. 12. In working upon the will God doth not overthrow the nature of the will but causeth it to work after it's own native manner freely and willingly neither doth he pull up by the roots that sinfull possibility which is in our nature to resist good motions but doth sweetly and effectually work in Man a firme and ready will to obey him his grace is so powerfull that it is not violent Divina haec actio non laedit voluntatis libertatem sed roborat neque tamen extirpat radicitus vitiosam resistendi possibilitatem sed pravitatem ad resistendum motibus spiritus sancti sed haec resistibilitas propter efficacissimam suavissimam motionem gratiae nequit in actum hic nunc erumpere huic gratiae resisti nequit quia primum operatur velle id est non resistere c. ibid. in explic Thes 2. Deum cum voluerit quibus voluerit gratiam tam abundantem tam potentem aut congruam aut alio modo efficacem concedere ut quamvis possit voluntas ratione suae libertatis resistere non tamâ—n resistat sed certo infallibiliter obsequatur Dr. Overal in Artic 4. It is true that whiles our naturall concupiscence raignes in us we have not only a possibility but a proneness to resistance which yet is by the gracious and effectuall motion of God Spirit so over ruled that it breaks not forth into a present Act for God works in us to will that is not to resist Yea the very will to resist is for the time taken away by the power of grace Deus hominem conversum fidelem non ita semper movet ad bonos actus subsequentes ut tollat ipsam voluntatem resistendi sed quandoque permittit illam vitio suo deficere a ductu gratiae in particularibus multis actibus concupiscentiae suae parere Theol. Br. ibid. Thes 3. 13. God doth not alwayes so work in the regenerate that he doth ever take from them this will to resist but sometimes suffers them through their own fault to give way to their own sinfull desires for howsoever in those principall Acts which are absolutely necessary to Salvation the grace of God works powerfully in the elect both the will and the deed in his own good time yet in some particular acts he thinks good for his own holy purposes to leave the best Men sometimes to themselves who do thereupon grieve his good Spirit by a recoverable resistance Oportet semper discrimen statuere inter illos actus principales sine quibus salus Electorum non constat particulares subsequentes actus c. ibid. in explic Of the Fifth ARTICLE OF PERSEVERANCE QUibusdam non electis conceditur quaedam illuminatio supernaturalis cujus virtute intelligant ea quae in verbo Dei annuntiantur esse vera iisdemque assensum praebent minime simulatum In iisdem ex hac cognitione fide oritur affectuum quaedam mutatio morum aliqualis emendatio non electi huc usque progressi ad statum tamen adoptions justificationis nunquam perveniunt Theol. Br. de 5. Art Thes 1 2 3 4. 1. EVen among those which belong not to the election of God there are some that are enlightned by supernaturall knowledg and give their assent to the truth of the Gospel receiveing the same with some joy and from that knowledg and faith find some change in their affections and lives who yet howsoever they may pass in the judgment of charity never attained to that hearty renovation which is joyned with justification nor yet to the immediate disposition thereunto and therefore were never in the true State of the adoption of Sons these may utterly fall away from that grace which they have professed Unde constat â—os nunquam reipsa pertingere ad illam mentis affestuum mutationem renovationem quae cum justificatione conjuncta est imo nec ad illam quae proxime praeparat ac disponit ad justificationem ibid. in explic 4. Artic. Idem regeniti ac justificati quandoque
IOSEPHI HALL NORVIC EPISCOPI VERA EFFIGIES REVERENDI DO NI The Shaking of the Olive-Tree THE Remaining Works Of that Incomparable PRELATE JOSEPH HALL D. D. Late LORD BISHOP of NORWICH WITH SOME SPECIALTIES OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE IN HIS LIFE Noted by His own Hand Together with His HARD MEASURE VVritten also by Himself Heb. 11.38 Of whom the World was not worthy John 6.12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by J. Cadwel for J. Crooke at the Ship in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1660 CHRISTIAN READER WE present thee here with some scattered Reliques of a departed Saint void of the superstition of those of Rome as those of Rome are void of their divine operation These few drops of Inke from the Authors pen will work saving miracles when the pretended blood of the Baptist so shrined and adored at Naples shall blush at its weaknesse That account which thou hast here of the Life of the Reverend Author from his own hand is exceedingly too short and modest yet durst we not presume to make any additions to it for many reasons Our Relation to him would but impair the credit of our most sincere relations of him as too partial and flattering and indeed the attempt is too hard and high for us where his own accurate pencil hath begun a draught of himself to continue it with the same Elegancy and Decorum And besides where this meek Moses hath drawn a vail over his own shining face in his pourtraict of himself It seems to us undecent to take it away though to discover more of his splendour especially to the weak and prejudiced eyes of this Age and Generation who cannot indure innocency it self when habited in a Rochet We remember what Seneca saith and it is in his De Ira too they are affecti oculi quos candida vestis obturbat happy is it for him that the blackest Stigma that can be fastned upon him is that his robes were whiter then his Brethrens that only the coat of our Joseph hath drawn their envy upon him the Man Dr. Hall was not the object of their distast but the Bishop To satisfy these tender eyes they have here this great Aaron stripped of all his Priestly Ornaments and laid open to them only in these few winding sheets spunne and woven with his own hand In the narrative of his life his pen breaks off with his outward pressures wherein all the Losses and indignities he suffered did so little trouble him as to some eminent Commissioners who desired to know his suffering condition and made fair overtures of some little reparation he replyed that of Seneca Qui se habet nihil perdidit God had no sooner withdrawn his hand from visiting him with those outward tryals then he began to exercise him by sore afflictions of the body in his continually increasing paines of the stone and strangury which for many years held him and pursued him to the death yet could not these great impediments take him off from being active both in Presse and Pulpit His intellectuals and sences continued strong and fresh to the last his head continued Gold and his heart of refined Silver when all the rest of his body was half clay His sence of the sad and divided condition of the Church was to his end passionatly tender professing all willingness to live though in the midst of his exceeding pains and torments so he might be any way instrumental to the making up of the breaches of it and putting it in due frame and order But since all his endeavours with men so little prevailed he never ceased wrestling with God to this purpose setting apart one day in every weak through the Year for fasting and humiliation with his Family not that he sought his own Interests to be restored to that Episcopal height and greatness of which he had been divested All those who truely knew him can witness with us his abundant contentment in his retreat to a private life as not a misery but a blessing to him We know when in the height of all his honors he was ready enough to such a secession could he fairly and handsomly have retired And now that impetuous storme which beat him off from the course of his publick employments though it batter'd his vessel and tore his sailes yet it did but drive him to the quiet haven where he would be justly could he take up the words of holy Nazianzen in this and many other things his parallel who when hotly opposed and thrust from his See of Constantinople could say A retired life everwas and now is dearly affected by me though they drive me from my chair they cannot drive me from my God Among many worthy men who received Ordinaon to the Ministry from his hands we cannot but mention one in whome he take great comfort as being a notable precedent for the rest of our learned religious Gentry to follow It was Mr. Gipson Lucas an Esq of good estate a great Commissioner and Justice of Peace in the County of Suffolk who found his Spirit and Conscience so wrought upon as after good deliberation and consultation with others he came to this Reverend Father for Ordination as refusing to take it from any hands where his did not precede which he received good proof being given of his abilities according to his desire and he who entred Nayoth before this aged Samuel like Saul in his scarlet for that was his habit returned from him a Sackcloth Prophet continuing a diligent and zealous preacher of the Gospel To returne to the Reverend Author his retreat from the World though he were hotly and constantly charged with furious onsets of his sharp diseases yet was it answerable to his life solemn and staid with a composed and heavenly temper of spirit The stream was deep which could run clear calmly through so craggy crooked a Channel without a murmure After his prevailing infirmities had wasted all the strengths of nature and the Arts of his learned and excellent Physician D. Brown of Norwich to whom under God we and the whole Church are ingaged for many Years preserving his life as a blessing to us after his Fatherly reception of many persons of Honour Learning and Piety who came to crave his dyeing prayers and benediction One of which A Noble person he saluted with the words of an ancient Votary Vides hominem mox pulverem futurum after many holy prayers exhortations and discourses he rouzed up his dying Spirits to a heavenly Confession of his Faith which ere he could finish his speech was taken from him so that we cannot here insert it After some struglings of nature with the agonies of death he quietly gradually and even insensibly gave up his last breath And now how can we forbear to cry sadly after him O our Father our Father the Chariots of Israel and the Horsemen thereof Theodorets Lamentation over Chrysostome may be taken up over Him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Though ye have
house But God fetcht it about for me in that absence and Nescience of mine and that Reverend and better Deserving Divine was well satisfied with greater hopes and soon after exchanged this Mortall estate for an Immortall and Glorious Before I could go down through my continuing weakness to take possession of that Dignity his Majesty pleased to design me to his Attendance into Scotland where the great love and respect that I found both from the Ministers and People wrought me no small envy from some of our own upon a commonly received supposition that his Majesty would have no further use of his Chaplains after his remove from Edenborough for as much as the Divines of the Country whereof there is great store and worthy choice were allotted to every station I easily obtained through the Solicitation of my ever Honoured Lord of Carlile to return with him before my fellowes No sooner was I gone then suggestions were made to his Majesty of my over plausible Demeanure and doctrine to that already prejudicate people for which his Majesty after a gracious acknowledgment of my good service there done called me upon his return to a favourable and milde account not more freely professing what Informations had been given against me then his own full Satisfaction with my sincere and just answer as whose excellent wisdom well saw that such winning carriage of mine could be no hinderance to those his great Designes At the same time his Majesty having secret notice that a Letter was coming to me from Mr. VV. Struther a Reverend and Learned Divine of Edenborough concerning the five points then proposed and urged to the Church of Scotland was pleased to impose upon me an earnest charge to give him a full answer in satisfaction to those his modest Doubts and at large to declare my Judgment concerning those required Observations which I speedily perform'd with so great approbation of his Majesty that it pleased him to command a transcript thereof as I was informed publickly read in their most famous University The effect whereof his Majesty vouchsafed to signifie afterwards unto some of my best friends with allowance beyond my hopes It was not long after that his Majesty finding the exigence of the affairs of the Nether-Landish Churches to require it both advised them to a Synodicall decision and by his incomparable wisdom promoted the work My unworthiness was named for one of the Assistants of that honourable grave and reverend meeting where I failed not of my best service to that wofully distracted Church By that time I had stayed some two Moneths there the unquietness of the Nightâ— in those Garrison Towns working upon the tender disposition of my Body brought me to such weakness through want of Rest that it began to disable me from attending the Synod which yet as I might I forced my self unto as wishing that my Zeale could have discountenanced my infirmity where in the mean time it is well worthy of my thankfull remembrance that being in an afflicted and languishing condicion for a fortnight together with that sleepless distemper yet it pleased God the very Night before I was to preach the Latin Sermon to the Synod to bestow upon me such a comfortable refreshing of sufficient sleep as whereby my spirits were revived and I was enabled with much vigour and vivacitie to perform that service which was no sooner done then my former complaint renewed upon me and prevailed against all the remedies that the counsell of Physitians could advise me unto so as after long strife I was compelled to yield unto a retirement for the time to the Hague to see if change of place and more carefull attendance which I had in the house of our Right Honourable Ambassador the Lord Carleton now Viscount Dorchester might recover me But when notwithstanding all means my weakness increased so farr as that there was small likelyhood left of so much strength remaining as might bring me back into England it pleased his gracious Majesty by our Noble Ambassadors solicitation to call me off and to substitute a worthy Divine Mr. Dr. Goade in my unwillingly forsaken room Returning by Dort I sent in my sad farewell to that grave Assembly who by common vote sent to me the President of the Synod and the Assistants with a respective and gracious valediction neither did the Deputies of my Lords the States neglect after a very respectfull complement sent from them to me by Daniel Heinsius to visit me and after a Noble acknowledgment of more good service from me then I durst own dismissed me with an Honourable retribution and sent after me a rich Medall of Gold the portraicture of the Synod for a precious Monument of their respects to my poor indeavours who failed not whiles I was at the Hague to impart unto them my poor advice concerning the proceeding of that Synodicall meeting The difficulties of my return in such weakness were many and great wherein if ever God manifested his speciall Providence to me in over-ruling the cross accidents of that passage and after many dangers and despairs contriving my save arrivall After not many years setling at home it grieved my soul to see our own Church begin to sicken of the same disease which we had endeavoured to cure in our Neighbours Mr. Montagues tart and vehement assertions of some positions neer of kin to the Remonstrants of Netherland gave occasion of raising no small broil in the Church Sides were taken Pulpits every where rang of these opinions but Parliaments took notice of the division and questioned the Occasioner Now as one that desired to do all good offices to our dear and common Mother I set my thoughts on work how so dangerous a quarrell might be happily composed and finding that mis-taking was more guilty of this dissention then mis-believing since it plainly appeared to me that Mr. Montague meant to express not Arminius but B. Overall a more moderate and safe Authour however he sped in delivery of him I wrote a little project of Pacification wherein I desired to rectify the judgment of mâ—n concerning this misapprehended controversy showing them the true parties in this unseasonable Plea and because B. Overall went a mid-way betwixt the two opinions which he held extream and must needs therefore somewhat differ from the commonly-received tenet in these points I gathered out of B. Overall on the one side and out of our English Divines at Dort on the other such common propositions concerning these five busy Articles as wherein both of them are fully agreed All which being put together seemed unto me to make up so sufficient a body of accorded Truth that all other questions moved here-abouts appeared merely superfluous and every moderate Christian might find where to rest himself without hazard of Contradiction These I made bold by the hands of Dr. Young the worthy Dean of Winchester to present to his Excellent Majesty together with a humble motion of a peaceable silence to be
gone and doth go a mid-way betwixt these so ascribing all to grace that it destroyes not nature teaching us as Bernard well that we will is from nature that we will good and well is from grace But if it stick with you that we are bidden to draw nigh to God and therefore we can do it else the exhortation were vain and reason-lesse know that these charges show us what we should do not what we can do and that he who bids us can and doth together with the word of his invitation inable us to do what he requires his Spirit working with his word effects what he commands As a mother or nurse bids the child come to her but reaches forth a finger to uphold it in the walk If therefore Wisdom say in the Proverbs 1.17 I love them that love me yet St. John must comment upon Solomon prior dilexit he loved us first else we could never have loved him 1 John 4.19 It is true that in order of time there is no difference betwixt Gods working and our willing our conversion so soon as it is fire it burnes and if it burnes it is fire but in order of nature Gods work is before ours as the cause before the effect As we therefore say sensibly blow the fire and it will burne implying that our blowing doth not make it to be fire but helps to intend the heat where fire is so doth the Spirit of God say here draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you Our first motion of drawing to God is the work of God he that thus drawes our will to him upon our pliant obedience to his will thus graciously seconds and rewards his own work in us so if we draw nigh to him by his co-working grace he will draw nearer still to us by his perfecting grace And oh how happy a condicion is this whosoever hath by Gods mercy attained unto it What can that man want who injoyes him that possesses all things In thy presence is the fulnesse of joy saith the Psalmist as contrarily in his estranging of himself from us there is nothing but grief and horrour It is with God and the Soul as betwixt the Sun and the Earth In the declining of the Year when the Sun drawes afar off from us how doth the Earth mourne and droop how do the Trees cast off the ornaments of their leaves and fruit how doth the Sap of all Plants run down to the root and leave the bare boughs seemingly feare and dead But at the approach of it in the rising of the Spring all things seem revived the earth decks her self in her fresh abiliments of blossomes leaves flowers to entertain those comfortable heats and influences so and more is it in the declining or approach of this all-glorious Sun of righteousnesse In his presence there is life and blessednesse in his absence nothing but dolour disconsolatenesse despair if an earthly King do but withdraw himself from us for a time we are troubled how much more if the King of glory shall absent himself from us in displeasure Surely nothing but our sins can estrange him from us our miseries do rather attract him to us our sins are only they that separate between God and us That we may therefore shut up in some application there is the same reason of a particular soul and of a whole Church one of these is but an abridgment of the other there is therefore the same consideration of Gods absence from or presence with both And certainly if sins can alienate a people from God and God from a people we have cast our selves miserably aloof from him For which of his commandments have we not shamefully violated wo is me how is our patient God affronted by us every day By our atheous profanesse by our frequent oathes and blasphemies by our wilfull disobediences by our pride excesse drunkennesse uncleanesse usury cozenages oppressions lying slanderous detractions as if we would utterly casheere the ninth commandement out of the Decalogue Yea what evil is there under Heaven that we can wash our hands of But withall we are so much the further off from God by how much we either were or or should have been nearer of a people that knew not God that could not know him no other could be expected Had we had the Gospel of the Kingdome lock't up from us and been kept hood-wink't from the knowledg of his royall Law the times of such ignorance God had not regarded But now that we have had so clear a light of Gods truth shining in our faces and such importunate solicitations from God to reclaim us from our wicked wayes by his Messengers rising early and suing to us and yet have as it were in spight of Heaven continued and aggravated our wickednesses Alas what excuse is there for us how can we do other then hang down our heads in a guilty confusion and expect a fearfull retribution from the just hand of God Thus have we done to God and whilest we have gone away from him hath he done other to us Hath he not given too just testimonies of withdrawing his countenance from us Hath he not for these many years crossed us in our publick designes both of war and peace Hath he not threatned to stir up evill against us out of our own bowels Nay which is worse then all this hath he not given us up to a generall security obdurednesse and insensiblenesse of heart so as we do not feel either our own sins or our dangers or relent at all at his judgments Alas Lord thou art too far off from us and we have deserved it yea we have too well deserved that thou shouldst turn thy face away from us for ever that thou shouldest draw near to us in thy vengeance who have so shamefully abused thy mercy But what shall we say Whatsoever we be we know thou wilt be ever thy self a God of mercy and compassion long suffering and great in kindnesse and truth so bad as we are could we have the Grace to draw nigh to thee in an unfained re-repentance thou wouldst draw nigh to us in mercy and forgivenesse Could we turne away from our sins to thee thou wouldst turne away from thy judgments to us Lord what can we do to thee without thee Oh do thou draw us unto thee that we may come Do thou enable us to draw nigh unto thee upon the feet of our affections upon the hands of our actions upon the knees of our prayers that so thou mayest draw nigh to us in thine Ordinances in thine Audience in thy grace and mercy in thine Aid and Salvation All this for thy mercy sake and for thy Christs sake to whom with thee O Father and thy good Spirit one infinite God be given all praise honour and glory now and for ever Amen A SERMON Preacht on WHITSUNDAY June 9. 1644. in the GREEN-YARD OF NORWICH By JOS. B. of N. EPHES. 4.30 And grieve not the holy
Spirit of God by which ye are sealed to the day of Redemption IT was a rule of some wise Heathen of old That he was a great Master of Morality that had learn'd to govern his Tongue his Gut his Concupiscence these three And well might it be so when Christianity hath so farr seconded it as that the Spirit of God hath singled out one of these for a Triall of the rest He that offends not with his Tongue is a perfect Man James 2.2 So as that triplicity is reduced to an Unitie and indeed if a man have attained to an exact government of this loose and busie filme which we carry in our mouths it is a great argument of his absolute Mastership over himself in the other particulars whereupon it is that the Apostle hath hedged in my Text with this Charge Before my Text inhibiting all corrupt Communication after it all bitternesse and Clamour and evill speaking and betwixt both enforcing this vehement and Heavenly dehortation And grieve not the holy Spirit Intimating in the very contexture of the words that that man can never hold good terms with the Spirit of God what profession soever he makes that lets his tongue loose to obscene and filthy Communication or to bitter or spightfull words against his Brethren and in these words disswading us both from this and all other before mentioned particularities of wickednesse by an argument drawn from unkindnesse look to it for if you shall give way to any of these vicious courses ye shall grieve the holy Spirit of God and that will be a shamefull and sinfull ingratitude in you forasmuch as that holy Spirit hath been so gracious unto you as to Seale you to the day of Redemption a motive which how sleight soever it may seem to a carnall heart and by such a one may be past over and pisht at in imitation of the carelesse note of Pharaoh Who is the Spirit of God that I should let my Corruptions go yet to a regenerate man to such our Apostle writes it is that irresistible force whereof Nahum speaks that rends the very Rocks before it Nahum 1.6 And indeed an ingenuous Spirit is more moved with this then with all outward violence The Law of Christ both constraines and restraines him constraines him to all good Actions and restraines him from all evill The good Patriark Joseph when his wanton Mistresse solicited him to her wicked lust Behold saith he My Master hath committed all that he hath to my hand there is none greater in his house then I neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee because thou art his wife how then can I do this great wickednesse and sin against God Gen. â—â— 8.9 wherein ye see he hath a double Antidote for her poysonous suggestion the one his Masters favour and trust which he may not violate the other the offence of his God Joseph knew he could not do this wickednesse but he must bring plagues enough upon his head but that is not the thing he stands upon so much as the sin against God A Pilate will do any thing rather then offend a Cesar that word thou art not Cesars friend if thou let him go John 19.12 strikes the matter dead Thou art not Gods friend if thou entertain these sins cannot but be prevalent with a good heart and bear him out against all Temptations and this is the force of our Apostles inference here who after the enumeration of that black Catalogue of sins both of the whole man and especially those of the Tongue infers And grieve not the holy Spirit of God whereby ye are Sealed to the Day of Redemption The Text you see is a dehortatory charge to avoid the offence of God wherein we have the Act and the subject the Act Grieve not the subject set forth by his Title by his Merit his Title The holy Spirit of God his Merit and our obligation thence arising By whom ye are sealed to the day of Redemption the subject is first considerable both in Nature and Act as that the knowledg and respect whereof doth both most disswade us from the offence and aggravate it when it is committed The holy Spirit of God which when we have shortly meditated on apart we shall joyne together by the Act inhibited in this holy dehortation That this is particularly to be taken of the third person of the blessed Trinity to whom this day is peculiarly devoted there can be no doubt for both the Title is his The holy Spirit of God not absolutely God who is an holy Spirit but the holy Spirit of God and the effect attributed to him is no lesse proper to him for as the contriving of our Redemption is ascribed to the Father the atchieving of it to the Son So the Sealing confirming and applying of it to the Holy Ghost There are many Spirits and those holy and those of God as their Creator and Owner as the enumerable Company of Angels and the Spirits of Just Men made perfect Hebr. 12. but this is set forth as Zanchius notes well with a double Article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that holy Spirit by a transcendent eminence by a singularity as that which is alone The holy Spirit of God Now why the third Person should specially be denominated a Spirit a title no lesse belonging to the Father and the Son to the whole absolute Deity as being rather Essential then Personal or why an holy Spirit since Holinesse is as truly Essentiall to the other Persons also as their very being Or why being coequal and coessential with God the Father and the Son he should be called the Spirit of God though they might seem points incident into the Day yet because they are Catechetical heads I hold it not so fit to dwell in them at this time Only by the way give me leave to say that it had been happy both for the Church of England in general and this Diocesse in particular that these Catechetical Sermons had been more frequent then they have been as those which are most usefull and necessary for the grounding of Gods People in the principles of saving Doctrine and I should earnestly exhort those of my Brethren of the Ministry that hear me this day that they would in these perilous and distractive times bend their labours this way as that which may be most effectuall for the setling of the Soules of their hearers in the grounds of true Religion that they may not be carried about with every winde of Doctrine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Cockboat of mens fancies as the Apostle speak but this by the way I shall now only urge so much of the Person as may add weight to the dehortation from the Act Grieve not the holy Spirit of God and every notion of it adds a several weight as a Spirit as the Spirit of God as the holy Spirit of God It is a rule not capable of contradiction that by how much more
excellent the Person so much more hainous is the offence done to him As to offend an Officer is in the eye of the Law more then to offend a private Subject a Magistrate more then an inferiour Officer a Peere more then a Magistrate for that is Scandalum Magnatum a Prince more then a Peere a Monarch more then a Prince Now in very nature a Spirit is more excellent then a Body I could send you higher but if we do but look into our own breasts we shall finde the difference There is a Spirit in Man saith Elihu Job 32.8 The Spirit of Man is as the Candle of the Lord saith Wise Solomon Prov. 20.27 without which the whole House is all dark and confused Now what comparison is there betwixt the Soul which is a Spirit and the Body which is Flesh even this which Wise Solomon instanceth in may serve for all The Spirit of a Man sustains his infirmities but a wounded Spirit who can hear Lo the Body helps to breed infirmities and the Spirit bears them out to which add the Body without the Spirit is dead the Spirit without the Body lives more It is a sad word of David when he complaines My bones are vexed Ps 6.2 and cleaves to my skin Psal 102.5 yet all this is tolerable in respect of that My Spirit faileth me My Spirit is overwhelmed within me my heart within me is desolate Psal 143.4 they were sore strokes that fetcht blood of our blessed Saviour but they were nothing to these inward torments that wrung from him the bloody sweat in his Agony when he said my soul is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy unto the Death could we conceive that the Body could be capable of pain without the Spirit as indeed it is not since the Body feeles only by the Spirit that pain were painlesse but this we are sure of that the Spirit feels more exquisite pain without the Body in the state of separation from it then it could feel in the former conjunction with it and the wrong that is done to the Soul is more haynous then that which can be inflicted on the Body By how much then more pure simple perfect excellent the Spirit is whom we offend by so much more grievous is the offence to offend the Spirit of any good Man one of Christs little ones is so hainous that it were better for a man to have a milstone hanged about his neck and to be cast into the bottom of the Sea Mat. 18.6 To offend an Angel which is an higher degree of spirituality is more then to vex the Spirit of the best man Suffer not thy mouth to cause thy Flesh to sin neither say before the Angel that it was an errour Eccles 5.6 Hence St. Paul heightens his adjuration to Timothy I charge thee before the Elect Angels 1 Tim. 5.21 And giving order for the decent demeanure of the Corinthian Women in the Congregation requires That they should have power on their head because of the Angels 1 Cor. 11.10 To offend therefore the God of Spirits the Father of these spirituall Lights must needs be an infinite aggravation of the sin even so much more as He is above those his best Creatures and there cannot be so much distance betwixt the poorest worme that crawles on the Earth and the most glorious Archangel of Heaven as there is betwixt him and his Creator One would think now there could be no step higher then this yet there is our Saviour hath so taught us to distinguish of sins that he tells us All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven Matth. 12.31 and Marc. 3.29 Not that we can sin against one Person and not offend another for their essence is but one but this sin is singled out for a special obstruction of forgivenesse for that it is done against the illumination and Influence of that Grace whereof the Holy Ghost is the immediate giver and worker in the Soul who is therfore called the Spirit of Grace hereupon is Stevens challenge to the stiff-necked Jews Act. 7.51 Ye do alwayes resist the holy Ghost And his charge to Ananias Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost Act. 5.3 Ye see then how this charge riseth and what force is put into it by the condition of the Person A Spirit the holy Spirit the holy Spirit of God enough to make way for the consideration of the Act inhibited Grieve not the holy Spirit of God Grieve not c. How incompatible are the termes of this charge That which makes the sin as it is set forth more sinfull may seem to make it impossible If a Spirit how is it capable of passion and if it be impassible how can it be grieved Alas we weak mortalls are subject to be hurried about with every blast of passion The Almighty is above all the reach of these unquiet perturbations Lo that God which mercifully condescended because his infinite glory transcends our weaknesse to speak unto us men by man and by Angels in the forme of Men speaks to us men in the style and language of Men Two wayes then may the Spirit of God be said to be grieved in Himself in his Saints in himself by an Anthropopathie as we call it In his Saints by a Sympathie the former is by way of Allusion to humane passion and carriage so doth the Spirit of God upon occasion of mens sins as we do when we are grieved with some great wrong or unkindnesse And what do we then First we conceive an high dislike of and displeasure at the Act Secondly we withdraw our countenance and favour from the offender Thirdly we inflict some punishment upon the offence and these are all of them dreadfull expressions of the grieving of Gods Spirit even these three displeasure aversion punishment For the first Esay expresseth it by vexation Esay 63.10 A place so much more worthy of observation for that some judicious interpreters as Reverend Calvin Zanchius Pagnine and Cornelius a Lapide think very probably that this text is borrowed from thence 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And they rebelled and vexed the Spirit of his holinesse Where such an Act is intimated as compriseth both grief and Anger surely we do not think it safe to irritate the great and if it be but a man a little bigger then our selves we are ready to deprecate his displeasure but if it be a man that is both great and dear to us with whom we are faln out how unquiet are we if we have any good nature in us till we have recovered his lost favour do ye not see with what importunity good David seeks to appease the wrath of his incensed Father in Law none of the best men and causelesly provoked Let my Lord the King hear the words of his Servant If the Lord have stirred thee up against me let him accept an offering but if they
God hath taken at our thus Grieving of him his Indearments our Ingagements his Expectation were we a people that God had no whit promerited by his favours that he had done nothing for us more then for the savage Nations of the World surely the God of Heaven had not taken it so deeply to heart but now that he hath been more kind to us then to any Nation under Heaven how doth he call Heaven and Earth to record of the justnesse of his high regret Hear O Heaven and hearken O Earth for the Lord himself hath spoken I have nourished and brought up Children and they have rebelled against me Esa 1.2 and excellently Jerem. 2.31 O generation see the word of the Lord have I been a wilderness to Israel a land of darkness therefore it followes Behold I will plead with thee ver 35. Neither are his indearments of us more then our ingagements to him for what Nation in all the World hath made a more glorious profession of the name of God then this of ours What Church under the cope of Heaven hath been more famous and flourishing Had we not pretended to holiness and purity of religion even beyond others the unkindness had been the lesse now our unanswerablenesse calls God to the highest protestation of his offence Be astonished O Heavens and be horribly afraid be ye very desolate saith the Lord for my people have committed two evils they have forsaken me the Fountain of living waters and have hewen them out Cisternes broken Cisternes that can hold no water Jer. 2.11 And who is so blind as my servant Esa 42.19 Now according to his Indearments and our Ingagements hath been his just expectation of an answerable carriage of us towards him the Husbandman looks not for a crop in the wild desart but where he hath Gooded and plowed and Eared and Sowne why should not he look for an harvest And this disappointment is a just heightner of his griefe what could I have done more for my Vineyard that I have not done I looked for grapes and it brought forth wild grapes And now I will tell you what I will do to my Vineyard I will take away the hedge thereof and I will lay it wast Esa 5.4 5. Wo is me we do not hear but feel God making his fearfull word good upon us I need not tell you what we suffer the word of Esay is fulfilled here It shall be a vexation onely to understand the report Esa 28.19 Alas we know it too well what rivers of blood what piles of Carcasses are to be seen on all sides would God I could as easily tell you of the Remedy and why can I not do so Doubtlesse there is a remedy no lesse certain then our suffering if we had but the grace to use it too long alas too long have we driven off the applying of our redress yet even still there is Balme in Gilead still there is hope yea assurance of help if we will not be wanting to our selves we have grieved our God to the height Oh that we could resolve to make our peace with our provoked God at the last Excellent is that of Esay 27.5 Let him take hold of my strength and make Peace with me and he shall make peace with with me Oh that we could take hold of our strong Helper who is mighty to save that we would lay hold on the strength of his marvellous mercies Oh that we could take Benhadads course here as they said of the King of Israel much more may I say of the God of Israel He is a merciful God let us put sackcloth upon our loynes and ropes upon our heads and go to the God of Israel and say Thy servants say I pray thee let us live 1 K. 20.31 Oh that it could greive us thoroughly that we have greived so good a God that we could by a sound and serious humiliation and hearty Repentance reconcile our selves to that offended Majesty we should yet live to praise him for his mercifull deliverance and for the happy restauration of our peace which God for his mercies sake vouchsafe to graunt us Thus much for the grieving of the holy Spirit in himself by way of allusion to humane affection Now followes that grievance which by way of Sympathy he feels in his Saints Anselme Aquinas Estius and other latter Interpreters have justly construed one branch of this offence of the Holy Spirit to be when through our leud despightful words or actions we grieve and scandalize those Saints and Servants of God in whom that Holy Spirit dwells It is true as Zanchius observes well that it is no thank to a wicked man that the Spirit of God is not grieved by him even in person he doth what he can to vex him the Impossibility is in the Impassiblenesse of the Spirit of God not in the Will of the Agent But although not in himself yet in his faithful Ones he may and doth grieve him They are the Receptacles of the Holy Ghost which he so possesses and takes up that the injuries and affronts done to them are felt and acknowledged by him As when an enemy offers to burn or pull down or strip plunder the house the Master or Owner takes the violence as done to himself We are the Temples the Houses wherein it pleaseth the Spirit of God to dwell what is done to us is done to him in us He challengeth as our Actions The Spirit of God prayes in us Rom. 8.26 so our Passions also he is grieved in our grief such an interest hath God in his that as Christ the second person in the Trinity could say to Saul why persecutest thou me So the Holy Ghost appropriates our injuries to himself If ye be reproached for the Name of Christ happy are ye saith S. Peter for the Spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you on their part he is evil spoken of but on your part he is glorified 1 Pet. 4.14 Lo the Holy Spirit is glorified by our sufferings and is evil spoken of in our reproaches the word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is blasphemed so as it is a fearful thing to think of to speak contumelious words against Gods children is by the Apostles own determination no better then a kinde of blaspheming the Holy Ghost See then consider ye malicious uncharitable men your wrongs reach further then ye are aware of ye suffer your tongues to run ryot in bitter Scoffs in spightful slanders in injurious raylings against those that are truly conscionable ye think ye gall none but men worse then your selves but ye shall finde that ye have opened your mouthes against Heaven I speak not for those that are meer outsides visors of Christianity making a shew of Godliness and denving the power of it in their lives I take no protection of them God shall give them their portion with Hypocrites But if he be a true childe of God one that hath the true fear
vexations which we meet withall here below and which is yet more from all the danger of sinning which now every day adds to the fearfulness of our account and lastly from the wofull wages of sin Death bodily spirituall eternall here is a redemption worth our longing for worth our joying in when Joseph was fetcht out of Pharaohs Gaol and changed the nasty rags of his prison for pure linnen vestures and his Iron fetters for a chain of Gold and his wooden stocks for Pharaohs second Charet Gen. 41.42 do we not think he must needs be joyfully affected with it When Peter was called up from betwixt his Leopards as that Father termes them and had his shackles shaken off and was brought through the Iron gates into the free and open street or when Daniel was called out of the lyons den to the embracements of Darius could he choose but rejoyce in the change when Lazarus was called after three dayes entombing out of his grave and saluted his mourning sisters and walk't home with his friends could there be ought but the voice of joy and gladnesse among them But alas all these are but sleight resemblances of the blessed Redemption which is purchased for us who are thus ransomed from sin and death Rather if we could imagine the soul of a Trajan fetcht out of hell by the prayers of Gregory or of a Falconella by Tecla according to the bold legends of lying fablers and now freed from those intolerable and unconceiveable torments we might apprehend in some measure what it is that is wrought for our souls in this mercifull redemption and what is the favour of that deliverance which we must long to have fully perfected But alas what shall I say to us We are enslaved and fettered and we are loath to be free we are in love with our bonds with our miseries with our sins and when death comes like a good Ebed-molech to drag us up out of our dungeon we are unwilling to put the rags under our arme-pits and to lay hold of that our sure and happy conveyance to the light and liberty of the Saints Oh our wretched unbelief that is guilty of this slackness of our desires whereas if we were what we profess our selves we would think the time long till it be accomplished and say Come Lord Jesus come quickly even so come Lord Jesus come quickly and make up our full redemption from misery from sin from death and bring us into that glorious liberty of the Sons of God This for the day of our redemption now Secondly let us see what this sealing is to the day of Redemption I find in Gods book three uses of a seal 1. For secrecy 2. For peculiar designation 3. For certainty and assurance For secrecy first So God speaking of the condition of Israel Deut. 32.34 Is not this laid up in store and sealed up among my treasures So Esay speaking of a vision of his It shall be as the letter of a book sealed whereof one shall say Read this the other shall answer I cannot for it is sealed Esa 29.11 Yea this sealing argues a long reservation and closenesse Go thy way Daniel for the words are closed up and sealed to the time of the end Dan. 12.9 and thereupon it is that John is forbidden to seale up the book of his prophesie Revel 22.10 for the time is â—igh at hand so we are wont to do in ordinary practise that Closet which we would have no body go into we seal up that bag which we would not have opened and that letter which we would not have seen by others we seal up and think it a great violation of civility to have it opened Hence is that sigillum confessionis the seale of confession amongst the Romish Casuists held so sacred that it may not in any case whatsoever be broken up Insomuch as their great Doctour Martinus Alphonsus Vivaldus goes so farr as to say Si penderet salus vel liberatio totius mundi ex revelatione unius peccati non esset revelandum etiamsi totus mundus esset perdendus That if the safety of the whole World should depend upon the revealing of one sin it is not to be revealed though all the World should be destroyed and adds Imo propter liberationem omnium animarum totius mundi non est revelandum Though it were for the freeing of all the souls of the whole World it is not to be revealed in his Candelabrum aureum De sigillo number the 11th A strange height of expression to give the World assurance of the close carriage of their auricular Confession and that not without need for were it not for this perswasion their hearths might cool and men would keep their own counsell and surely not to meddle with their tyrannicall impositions upon the conscience in their forced confessions which we do justly call carnificinam conscientiae I should hold and profess that if a man should come in the anguish of his soul for some sin to unload his heart secretly to the bosom of his Minister of whom he looks for counsell and comfort if in such a case that Minister should reveale that sin to any other whosoever no death were torment enough for such a spirituall perfidiousnesse all secrets are at the least sub sigillo fidei under the seal of fidelity and therefore not to be revealed For peculiar designation thus our blessed Saviour speaking of himself the Son of man adds For him hath God the Father sealed Joh. 6.27 that is hath designed him to the speciall office of his Mediatorship So Revelation 7.5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand and so the name of the number of the severall tribes to the whole sum of an hundred fourty four thousand were designed to Salvation But the chief use of the seale is for certainty and assurance so Jezebel to make sure work with the Elders of Jezreel for the dispatch of Naboth sealed it with Ahabs seale 1 Kings 21. so the Jewish Princes Priests and Levites when they had made their covenant sealed it with their seales Nehem. 9. the last verse Hence Hamans Order for the destruction of the Jewes was sealed with the Kings seale Esth 3.12 and the countermand for their preservation so sealed also Esth 8.8 so Jeremy for his land at Anathoth wrote and sealed Jerem. 32.9 so the gravestone of Christs Tomb was sealed Matth. 27.66 And still this is our practise that which we would make sure and past all question we give not under our hand onely but our seal also In all these three regards of secrecy peculiar designation and certainty the Church is sons obsignatus a well sealed up Cant. 4.12 and she justly prayes Set me as a Seal upon thine heart and a Seal upon thine arme Cant. 8.6 Let us take them severally into our thoughts and first for the Secrecy It is a sure word which the Spirit of God hath 2 Tim. 2.19 The foundation of God remaineth
besides it And indeed what other can we insist upon Outward profession will not do it many a one shall say Lord Lord with a zealous reduplication which yet shall be excluded And for pretended revelations they are no lesse deceitfull Satan oftentimes transforming himself into an Angel of light A Zidkijeh thinks he hath the Spirit as well as any Michaiah of them all our books are full of the reports of dangerous dulusions of this kind whereby it hath come to pass that many a one in stead of the true David hath found nothing but an image of clouts laid upon a bolster stuffed with Goats hair 1 Sam. 19.16 But this mark of reall sanctification cannot fail us It will ever hold good that which St. Paul hath Rom. 8. So many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the Sons of God Nothing in this World can so highly concern us as this to see and know whether we be sealed to the day of Redemption Would we know how it may be evidenced to us look upon the impression that Gods Spirit hath made upon our hearts and lives if he have renewed us in the inner man and wrought us unto true holiness to a lively faith to a sincere love of God to a conscionable care of all our actions and to all other his good graces doubtlesse we are so sealed that all the powers of Hell cannot deface and obliterate this blessed impression But the principal main use of this Seal is for certainty of performance If we have the word of an honest man we believe it but if we have his hand we make our selves more sure but if we have both his hand and seal we rest secure of the accomplishing of what is given or undertaken How much more assurance may we have when we have the word of a God whose very title is Amen Rev. 3.14 whose promises are like himself Yea and Amen 2 Cor. 1.20 Alas the best man is deceitful upon the balance and his true stile is Omnis homo mend ax every man is a lyer But for this God of truth Heaven and Earth shall passe away before one tittle of his word shall fail but when that promise is seconded by his Seal what a transcendent assurance is here It is the charge of the Apostle Peter Give diligence to make your calling and election sure 2 Pet. 1.10 Sure not in respect of God whom no changes can reach whose word is I am Jehovah my counsel shall stand but in respect of our apprehension not in regard of the object only which cannot fail but even of the subject also which if it were not fecible sure the Spirit of God would not have injoyned it or imposed it upon us The Vulgar reads Per bona opera by good works And indeed it is granted by Beza and Clamier that in some Greek copies it is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whereupon Bellarmine would fain take an advantage to prove his conjecturall assurance A strange match of words meerly contradictory for if but conjecturall how can it be assurance and if it be assurance how only conjecturall we may as well talk of a false truth as a conjecturall assurance But that implication of Bellarmine is easily blown over if we consider that these Good works do not only comprehend external works as almes-deeds prayer attendance on Gods ordinances and the like but also the internall acts of the soul the Acts of believing the Acts of the love of God the Acts of that hope which shall never make us ashamed These will evidence as our calling and election so the certainty of both and therefore are the seal of our Redemption Let foolish men have leave to improve their wits to their own wrong in pleading for the uncertainty of their right to Heaven But for us let us not suffer our souls to take any rest till we have this blessed seal put upon us to the assuring of our Redemption and Salvation that we may be able to say with the chosen vessel God hath sealed us and given us the earnest of his Spirit in our hearts 2 Cor. 1.22 If we have the grant of some good lease or some goodly Mannor made to us by word of mouth we stay not till we have gotten it under black and white and not then till we have it under seal nor then if it be a perpetuity till we have livery and seizin given us of it and when all this is done we make account securely to enjoy our hopes and shall we be lesse carefull of the main-chance even of the eternal inheritance of Heaven Lo here all these done for us Here is the word preaching peace and Salvation to all that believe here are his Scriptures the internal monuments of his written word confirming it here is the seal added to it here is the Livery and Seâ—zin given in the earnest of his Spirit and here is sufficient witnesse to all even Gods Spirit witnessing with our Spirits that we are the sons of God Let us finde this in our bosome and we are happy neither let our hearts be quiet till we can say with the chosen Vessel I am perswaded that neither life nor death nor Angels nor Principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any creature can be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Rom. 3. the last verse Lo this is not a guesse but an assurance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither doth the Apostle speak of his own speciall revelation as the Popish Doctors would pretend but he takes all beleevers into the partnership of this comfortable unfailablenesse nothing shall separate us thus happy are we if we be sealed unto the day of Redemption Having now handled the parts severally let us if you please put them together and see the power of this inference or argument ye are by the Spirit of God sealed to the day of redemption Oh therefore grieve not that Spirit of God by whom ye are thus sealed The Spirit of God hath infinitely merited of you hath done so much for you as ye are not capable to conceive much lesse to answer in so Heavenly an obsignation Oh then be you tender of giving any offence to that good Spirit Do not you dare to do ought that might displease that loving and beneficent Spirit Be not you so much your own enemies as to give just distast to your good God So as the force of the argument as we intimated at the first lies upon an action of unkindnesse affording us this instruction that the ground of Gods Childrens fear to offend must be out of love and thankfulness great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared saith the Psalmist he doth not say great is thy mercy that thou maist be loved nor great is thy Majesty that thou maist be feared but great is thy mercy that thou maist be feared base servile natures are kept in with feare
Spirit leads no man but by a just rule That rule is the word of truth in all matter of judgment that must direct us uncertain and variable Traditions private and ungrounded Revelations which are any way crosse to this recorded will of God are the deceitful guides of the spirit of errour If then any frantick or superstitious person shall pretend any other direction then God hath given us in his revealed will well may I say of him as St. Paul dares say of an Angel from Heaven if any such could be guilty of that offence Let him be Anathema Thirdly Gods Spirit leads his sweetly and gently disponit omnia suaviter not in a blustring and hurrying violence but by a leasurely and gracious inclination so in Elijahs vision There was fire wind Earthquake but God was in none of them these were fit preparatives for his appearance but it was the still soft voice wherein God would be revealed 1 Kings 19.12 Those that are carried with an heady and furious impetuousnesse and vehemence of passion in all their proceedings which are all rigour and extremity are not led by that good spirit which would be styled the spirit of meekness who was pleased to descend not in the form of an Eagle or any other soul of prey but in the form of a meek and innocent dove Fourthly Gods Spirit leads on in a constant way of progression from grace to grace from vertue to vertue like as the sun arises by degrees to his full meridian whereas passion goes by suddain flashes like lightning whereof the interruptions are as speedy and momentany as the eruptions The very word of leading implies a continuance neither can they be said to be led on that make no proceedings in their way if either therefore we go backward or stand still in goodnesse if we promove not from strength to strength we have no ground to think we are led by the Spirit of God Lastly Flesh and Spirit are ever opposite one to the other and go still contrary wayes and lead to contrary ends If ye walk after the flesh ye shall dye saith our Apostle Nature and Grace which have their hands in this manuduction both wayes stand in perpetual opposition to each other If therefore we be led by our sensual appetite to do and affect that which is pleasing to corrupt nature we are led by that blind guid the flesh and if the blind lead the blind it is no marvell if both of them fall into the pit of perdition but if we mortify our evil and corrupt affections crossing and curbing our exorbitant and sinful desires and bringing them forceably under the subjection of Gods Spirit Now we may be assured to be led by the Spirit of God Other particularities of discovery might be urged whereby we might easily judg of our own conditions but these are enow whereby we may try our selves our guides and wayes It is cleare then to summe up these proofes of our estate that only they who walk in the wayes of Gods commandements who are directed by the revealed Will and word of God who are sweetly inclined by the gracious motions of his Spirit who go on in a constant fashion through all the degrees of grace and obedience who restrain their own natural desires and affections submitting themselves wholy to the government of the Holy Ghost onely they I say are led by the Spirit of God Five sorts of men there are therefore who what challenge so ever they may pretend to make are not led by the Spirit of God First those that go on in a known evil way Lead me O Lord in the wayes of thy righteousnesse saith the Psalmist Lo they are only the pathes of righteousnesse in which God leads us the rest are false wayes as the Psalmist justly calls them which every good heart and much more the holy God utterly abhors wo is me that I have lived to see those dayes wherein any that looks with the face of a Christian should maintain that sins are no sins to the faithful and that he is the holiest man that can sin the boldlyest and with the greatest freedom from reluctancy Did ever any man look for Heaven in Hell before Did ever any seek for the greatest good in the worst of evils This is not heresie but meer Devilisme wherewith yet it seems some ungrounded soules are wofully tainted God be merciful to them and reclaim them ere it be too late from so damnable an impiety Secondly those that are led by their own vain imaginations and illusive dreams in the wayes of error raising unto themselves new and wild opinions and practises without any warrant from the written word of God Thirdly those that are carried by passion and distemper though even in good waies turning a religious heat into fury and uncharitable rage Fourthly those that make no progresse at all in good but either decay in grace or thrive not And lastly those that humour and sooth up corrupt nature careing only to fulfil the lusts of their own flesh All these whereof God knowes there are too many in the World yea in the Church of God making a fair flourish of Christianity are nothing lesse then led by the Spirit of God and therefore can lay no claim to the state or title of the Sons of God which is inferred in the connexion of this qualification with the priviledg being the third head of our discourse So many as are led by the Spirit of God are the Sons of God The Spirit of God is God neither is mention made here of the Spirit only as by way of exclusion of the other persons No what one doth all do according to the old maxime All the external works of the Trinity are indivisible it is good reason then that God should lead his own and so he doth But here it will be fit for us to consider How far this leading of Gods Spirit will argue and evince this son-ship and whether every conduct thereof will do it There is a work of the Spirit of God at large The Spirit of God fills all the World saith the Wiseman Wisdom 1.7 Not so yet as was the errour of P. Abailardus in Bernard That Gods Spirit is anima mundi as the God of the World not as the soul of the World As in the state of the first Tohu and Bohu the Spirit of God sluttered upon the Waters as it were to hatch the creature which should be produced Gen. 1.2 so doth he still fill the world for the preservation of this universse But in this all he works in man especially There is a spirit in man saith Elihu in Job 32.8 and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding yet this is not the leading of this holy Spirit that we are in hand with lower then this there are certain common graces wrought in men by the Spirit of God as some general iluminations in the knowledg of divine things some good moral dispositions some restraints
of evil inclinations and actions which yet will never reach to evince our son-ship to God How easily were it for me to name you divers Heathens which have been eminent in all these and yet for ought we know never the nearer to Heaven yet lower there are some speciall gifts of the Spirit which we call Charismata rare endowments bestowed upon some men excellent faculties of preaching and praying power of miraculous workings as no doubt Judas did cast out Devils as well as the best of his fellow-Apostles gifts of tongues and of Prophesie and the like which do no more argue a right to the son-ship of God then the Manuaries infused skill of Bezaleel and Aâ—oliab could prove them Saints yet lastly there may be sensible operations of the Spirit of God upon the soul in the influences of holy motions into the heart in working a temporary faith and some fair progresse in an holy profession and yet no sonship the world is full of such glow-wormes that make some show of Spiritual Light from God when they have nothing in them but cold crudities that can serve for nothing but deceit Will ye then see what leading of the Spirit can evince us to be the Sons and Daughters of God know then that if we will hope for a comfortable assurance hereof we must be efficaciously led by his sanctifying Spirit first in matter of judgment secondly in our dispositions and thirdly in our practise For matter of judgment ye remember what our Saviour said to his Disciples When the Spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all Truth John 16.13 That is into all saving and necessary truthes so as to free us from grosse ignorance or main errour Whosoever therefore is enlightned with the true and solid knowledg of all those points of Christian doctrine which are requisite for salvation is in that first regard led by the Spirit and in this behalf hath a just title to the son-ship of God as contrarily those that are grosly and obstinately erroneous in their judgment of fundamental truthes let them pretend to never so much holinesse in heart or life shall in vain lay claim to this happy condition of the Sons of God For our disposition secondly If the holy Spirit have wrought our hearts to be right with God in all our affections if we do sincerely love and fear him if we do truely believe in him receiving him as not our Saviour only but as our Lord If our desires be unfained towards him If after a meek and penitent self-dejection we can find our selves raised to a lively hope and firm confidence in that our blessed Redeemer and shall continue in a constant and habitual fruition of him being thus led by the Spirit of God we may be assured that we are the Sons of God for flesh and blood cannot be accessary to these gracious dispositions Lastly for our practise it is a clear word which we hear God say by Ezekiel I will put my Spirit into the midst of you and will by it cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my laws Ezech. 36.27 Lo herein is the main crisis of a soul led by the Spirit of God and adopted to this heavenly son-ship It is not for us to content our selves to talk of the lawes of our God and to make empty and formal professions of his name Here must be a continued walk in Gods statutes it will not serve the turne for us to stumble upon some acceptable work to step aside a little into the pathes of godlinesse and then draw back to the World no my beloved this leading of Gods Spirit must neither be a forced angariation as if God would feoffe grace and salvation upon us against our wills nor some suddain protrusion to good nor a meer actual momentany transient conduction for a brunt of holinesse and away leaving us to the sinful wayes of our former disobedience and to our wonted compliances with the World the Devil and the Flesh but must be in a steady uninterrupted habitual course of holy obedience so as we may sincerely professe with the man after Gods own heart My soul hath kept thy Testimonies and I love them exceedingly Psal 119.67 Now then dear Christians lay this to heart seriously and call your selves sadly to this triall What is the carriage of our lives What obedience do we yeild to the whole law of our God If that be entire hearty universal constant perseverant and truly conscientious we have whereof to rejoyce an unfailing ground to passe a confident judgment upon our spiritual estate to be no lesse then happy But if we be willingly failing in the unfained desires and indevours of these holy performances and shall let loose the reins to any known wickednesse we have no part nor portion in this blessed condition Mark I beseech you how fully this is asserted to our hands in this saith the beloved Apostle the Children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousnesse is not of God neither he that loves not his brother 1 Joh. 3.10 Observe I pray you what test we are put to ye hear him not say who so talks not holily or who so professes not godlinesse in these an hypocrite may exceed the best Saint but whosoever doth not righteousnesse withall see what a clause the Disciple of love superadds to the mention of all Righteousnesse neither he that loves not his brother surely the Spirit of God is a Loving Spirit Wisdom 1.6 and St. Paul hath the like phrase Rom. 15.30 To let passe then all the other proofes of our guidance by the spirit Instance but in this one Alas my Brethren what is become of that charitable and christian carriage of men towards one another which God requires of us and which was wont to be conspicuous amongst Christian compatriots Wo is me instead of that true and hearty love which our Saviour would have the Livery of our Disciple-ship the badg of our holy profession what do we see but emulation envy malice rigid censures and rancorous heart-burnings amongst men In stead of those neighbourly and friendly offices which Christians were wont lovingly to performe to each other what have we now in the common practise of men but underminings oppressions violence cruelty Can we think that the Spirit of him who would be styled Love it self would lead us in these rugged and bloody pathes No no this alone is too clear a proof how great a stranger the Spirit of God is to the hearts and waies of men and how few there are that upon good and firme grounds can plead their right to the son-ship of God Alas alas if these dispositions and practises may bewray the sons of an holy God what can men do to prove themselves the children of that hellish Apollion who was a man-slayer from the beginning For us my beloved Oh let us hate and bewaile this common degeneration of Christians and as we would
brimstone from heaven upon us now is it high time to mourne for the anteverting of a threatned vengeance shortly therefore to sum up all that we have spoken whether we feel evils of punishment or fear them or be conscious of the evils of sin that have deserved them we cannot but finde it a just time to weep and mourne And now to come home close to our selves can any man be so wilfully blind as not to see that all these are met together to wring tears from us and to call us to a solemn and universal mourning What single men suffer themselves best feel and our old word is The wronged man writes in marble I meddle not with particulars Our pains of body our losses in our estate our demestique crosses our wounds of Spirit as they are kept up in our own breasts so they justly call us to private humiliations if we cast abroad our eyes to more publick afflictions have we not seen that God hath let his sea loose upon us in divers parts of our Land as if for a new judgment upon us he would retract the old word of his decreed limitation Hitherto shalt thou come but no further and here shall thy proud waves be stayed Job 38.11 Hath not God given us in divers parts of our Nation a feeling touch of some of the Egyptian plagues in the mortality of our cattle in the unusual frequencie of noysome and devouring vermine But wo is me all these are but flea-bites in comparison of that destructive sword that hath gone through the Land and sheathed it self in the bowels of hundred thousands of brethren Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my People Jer. 9.1 Was there ever a more fearful example of divine vengeance against any Nation then to be armed against each other to their mutual destruction that Christian compatriots brethren should pour out each others blood like water in our streets and leave their mangled carcasses for compost in our Fields That none but the sharper sword should be left to be the arbiter of our deadly differences that Fathers and Sons should so put off all natural affection as to think it no violation of piety to cut the throats of each other Oh that we have lived to see the woful havock that the hellish fury of war hath made every where in this flourishing and populous Island the flames of hostile furie rising up in our Towns and Cities the devastation of our fruitful and pleasant Villages the demolition of our magnificent Structures the spoiles and ruines of those fabricks that should be sacred in a word this goodly Land for a great part of it turned to a very Golgotha and Aceldama These these my brethren if our eyes be not made of pumices must needs fetch tears from us and put us into a constant habit of mourning And if our punishments deserve thus to take up our hearts where shall we find room enough for sufficient sorrow for those horrible sins that have drawn down these heavy judgments upon us Truly beloved brethren if we were wholly resolved into tears and if every drop were a stream 1 Kin. 8.38 we could not weep enough for our own sins and the sins of our People Let every man ransack his own breast and finde out the plague of his own heart but for the present let me have leave a little to lay before you though it is no pleasing object that common leprosie of sin wherewith the face of this miserable Nation is over-spread whether in matter of practise or of opinion For the former should I gather up all the complaints of the Prophets which they have taken up of old against their Israel and Juda and apply them to this Church and Nation you would verily think them calculated to this our meridian as if our sins were thiers and their reproofs ours what one sin can be named in all that black bedrole of wickednesse reckoned up by those holily querulos censors which we must not own for ours Of whom do you think the Prophet Esaiah speaks when he sayes Your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear for your hands are defiled with blood and your fingers with iniquity your lips have spoken lies your tongue hath muttered perversnesse Esay 59.2.3 Of whom do ye think the Prophet Micah speaks when he sayes The rich men thereof are full of violence and the inhabitants thereof have spoken lies and their tongue is deceitfull in their mouthes Micah 6.12 Do we think of Epicurisme and self-indulgence Whom do we think the Prophet Amos speaks of when he saies Wo be to them that are at ease in Zion that put farr away the evill day and cause the seat of violence to come near that lye upon beds of Ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches that drink wine in bowles and anoint themselves with the chief ointment but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph Amos 6.1.3.4.6 Tell me brethren was there ever more riot and excesse in diet and clothes in belly-cheer and back-timber then we see at this day Do we think of drunkennesse and surfets Of whom do we think Esay speaks when he saith They have erred through Wine and through strong drink are out of the way the Priest and the Prophet have erred through strong drink Indian smoak was not then known they are swallowed up of wine they are out of the way through strong drink they erre in vision they stumble in judgment for all tables are full of vomit and filthinesse Esay 28.7 Of whom doth the Prophet Hosea speak when he sayes Whoredome and Wine and new Wine take away the heart well may these two be put together for they seldom go asunder but tell me brethren was there ever such abominable beastlinesse in this kinde as raigns at this day since the hedg of all Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction was throwne open And if we think good to put these and some other of their damnable society together of whom do we think the Prophet Hosea speaks when he sayes The Lord hath a controversy with the Land because there is no truth no mercy no knowledg of God in the Land By swearing and lying and killing and stealing and committing adultery they break out and blood toucheth blood Hos 4.1.2 Do ye think of perjury Of whom do ye think the same Hosea speaks when he sayes They have spoken words swearing falsly in making a covenant Hos 10.4 Do we think of the violation of holy things and places Of whom do we think the Prophet Esay speaks when he sayes Is this house which is called by my name become a den of robbers in your eyes behold even I have seen it saith the Lord Esay 7.11 I could easily tire you if I have not done so already with the odious parallels
in this place when it is said Christ our passover is sacrificed for us So as here is a trope or figure twice told First the lamb is the passover Secondly Christ is that paschal Lamb. You would think this now far-fetched here was a double passing over The Angels passing over the Israelites the Israelites passing out of Egypt both were acts the one of God the other of men as for the lamb it is an animal substance Yet this Lamb represents this passover This is no newes in sacramental speeches The thing signed is usually put for the sign it self My covenant shall be in your flesh that is circumcision the sign of my covenant the rock that followed them was Christ 1 Cor. 10.4 that is Christ was represented by that rock This cup is the new testament So here Christ our passover Gen. 17.13 that is Christ represented by the Paschal-lamb What an infatuation is upon the Romish party that rather then they will admit of any other then a grosse literall capernaiticall sence in the words of our Saviours sacramental supper This is my body will confound Heaven and Earth together and either by a too forceable consequence endeavour to overthrow the truth of Christs humanity or turne him into a monster a wafer a crum a nothing Whenas St. Austin hath told us plainly sacramentaliter intellectum vivificabit Take it in a sacramental sence there is infinite comfort and spiritual life in it As for his body St. Peter hath told us the heavens must contain him till the time of the restitution of all things Acts 3.21 Yea when our Saviour himself hath told us the words that I speak are spirit and life Jo. 6. Now what a marvellous mercy was this of God to Israel thus to passe over them when he slew the first-borne of Egypt There was not an house in all Egypt wherein there was not mourning and lamentation no roof but coverd a suddainly made carcasse what an unlook't for consternation was here in every Egyptian Family Only the Israelites that dwelt amongst them were free to applaud this judgment that was inflicted upon their tyrannous persecutors and for their very cause inflicted for this mercy are they beholden under God to the blood of their Paschal-lamb sprinkled upon their door-posts Surely had they eaten the lamb and not sprinkled the blood they had not escaped the stroak of the destroying Angel This was in figure In reality it is so It is by and from the blood of our redeemer sprinkled upon our souls that we are freed from the vengeance of the Almighty Had not he dyed for us were not the benefit of his precious blood applyed to us we should lye open to all the fearful judgments of God and as to the upshot of all eternall death of body and soul As then the Israelites were never to eat the Paschal-lamb but they were recalled to the memory of that saving preterition of the Angel and Gods merciful deliverance from the fiery furnaces of the Egyptians so neither may we ever behold this sacramental representation of the death of our blessed Saviour but we should bethink our selves of the infinite mercy of our good God in saving us from everlasting death and rescuing us from the power of hell This is the first figure That the Lamb is the Passover The se-second followes That Christ is that Paschal-Lamb Christ then being the end of the Law it is no marvell if all the ceremonies of the Law served to prefigure and set him forth to Gods people but none did so clearly and fully resemble him as this of the paschal Lambe whether we regard 1. the choyce 2. the preparation 3. the eating of it The choice whether in respect of the nature or the quality of it the nature ye know this creature is noted for innocent meek gentle profitable such was Christ our Saviour His fore-runner pointed at him under this stile Behold the Lamb of God what perfect innocence was here No guile found in his mouth Hell it self could finde nothing ro quarrel at in so absolute integrity What admirable meekness He is brought as a Lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb so opened be not his mouth Esay 53.7 Doth his own treacherous servant betray him to the death Friend wherefore art thou come Mat. 26.50 Do the cruel tormentors tenter out his pretious limmes and nail his hands and feet to the tree of shame and curse Father forgive them for they know not what they do Oh patience and meeknesse incident into none but an infinite sufferer 2ly The quality Every Lamb would not serve the turne it must be agnus immaculatus A lamb without blemish that must be paschal Exod. 12.5 Neither doth it hinder ought that leave is there given to a promiscuous use either of lamb or kid for the sacramental supper of the passover For that was only allowed in a case of necessity as Theodoret rightly and as learned Junius well in the confusion of that first institution wherein certainly a lamb could not be gotten on the suddain by every Israelitish house-keeper to serve six hundred thousand men and so many there were Exod. 12.37 This liberty then was only for the first turne as divers other of those ceremonious circumstances of the passover were namely the four daies preparation the sprinkling of the blood upon the door-cheeks eating with girded loines and staves in their hands which were not afterward required or practised The lamb then must represent a most holy and perfectly sin-less Saviour could he have been capable of the least sin even in thought he had been so far from ransoming the World that he could not have saved himself Now his exquisite holinesse is such as that by the perfection of his merits he can and doth present his whole Church to himself glorious not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing as holy and without blemish Ephes 5.27 Canst thou therefore accuse thy self for a sinful wretch a soul blemished with many foul imperfections Look up man lo thou hast a Saviour that hath holinesse enough for himself and thee and all the World of beleevers close with him and thou art holy and happy Behold the immaculate lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world thine Therefore if thou canst lay hold on him by a lively faith and make him thine This for the choice the preparation followes so Christ is the paschal lamb in a threefold respect in resemblance of his killing sprinkling his blood and roasting 1. This Lamb to make a true passover must be slain So was there a necessity that our Jesus should dye for us The two Disciples in their walk to Emaus hear this not without a round reproof from the mouth of their risen Saviour Oh fooles and slow of heart to beleeve all that the Prophets have spoken Ought not Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into his glory Luc. 24.26 Ought not there is
both 2 Cor. 1.22 Who hath sealed us Lo the promise was past before vers 20. and then yet more confirmed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 21. and now past under seale 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 vers 22. Yea but the present possession is yet more and that is given us in part by our received earnest 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Earnest is a binder wherefore is it given but by a little to assure all In our transactions with Men when we have an honest Mans word for a bargain we think it safe but when his hand and seale infallible but when we have part in hand already the contract is past and now we hold our selves stated in the commodity what ever it be And have we the promise hand seale earnest of Gods Spirit and not see it not feel it not know it Shortly whom will we believe if not God and our selves No Man knowes what is in Man but the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Man that is in him as St. Paul to his Corinthians Ye have heard Gods Spirit hear our own out of our own mouth Doth not every Christian say I believe in God c. I believe in Jesus Christ I believe in the holy Ghost I believe the Communion of Saints the forgiveness of sins and life Everlasting And doth he say he believes when he believes not or when he knows not whether he believe or no what a mockery were this of our Christian profession Or as the Jesuitical evasion commonly is is this only meant of an assent to these general truthes that there is a God a Saviour a sanctifyer Saints remission salvation not a special application of these several articles to the soul of him whose tongue professeth it Surely then the devil might say the creed no less confidently then the greatest Saint upon Earth There is no Devil in hel but believes not without regret that there is a God that made the World a Saviour that redeemed it a blessed Spirit that renewes it a remission of sins an eternal Salvation to those that are thus redeemed and regenerate and if in the profession of our faith we go no further then Devils how is this Symbolum Christianorum To what purpose do we say our creed But if we know that we believe for the present how know we what we shall do what may not alter in time we know our own frailty and ficklenesse what hold is there of us weak wretches what assurance for the future Surely on our part none at all If we be left never so little to our selves we are gone on Gods part enough there is a double hand mutually imployed in our hold-fast Gods and ours we lay hand on God God laies hand on us if our feeble hand fail him yet his gracious and omnipotent hand will not fail us even when we are lost in our selves yet in him we are safe he hath graciously said and will make it good I will not leave thee nor forsake thee The seed of God saith the beloved disciple Joh. 3. remaines in him that is born of God so as he cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 trade in sin as an unregenerate not lose himself in sinning so as contrary to Card. Bellarmines desperate Logick even an act of infidelity cannot marr his habit of faith and though he be in himself and in his sin guilty of death yet through the mercy of his God he is preserved from being swallowed up of death whiles he hath the seed of God he is the Son of God and the seed of God remaines in him alwayes That of the great Doctor of the Gentiles is sweet and cordiall and in stead of all to this purpose Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I am fully perswaded that neither Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ â—esus our Lord. Rom. 8.39 O divine oratory of the great Apostle Oh the heavenly and irrefragable Logick of Gods Pen-man it is the very question that we have now in hand which he there discusses and falls upon this happy conclusion That nothing can separate Gods elect from his everlasting love he proves it by induction of the most powerfull agents and triumphes in the impoâ—ence and imprevalency of them all and whiles he names the principalities and powers of darkness what doth he but imply those sins also by which they work And this he saies not for himself only least any with Pererius and some other Jesuites should harp upon a particular Revelation but who shall separate us he takes us in with him and if he seem to pitch upon his own person in his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet the subject of this perswasion reacheth to all true believers That nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord Us not as it is over-stretched by Bellarmine and Vasquez indefinitely for those that predestinate in generall but with an implyed application of it to himself and the believing Christians to whom he wrote The place is so clear and full that all the miserable and strained Evasions of the Jesuiticall gainsayers cannot elude it but that it will carry any free and unprejudiced heart along with it and evince this comfortable truth That as for the present so for the future we may attain to be safe for our spirituall condition What speak I of a safety that may be when the true believer is saved already already past from death to Life already therefore over the threshold of Heaven Shortly then our faith may make our calling sure our calling may make sure our election and we may therefore confidently build upon this truth that our calling and election may be made sure Now many things may be done that yet need not yea that ought not to be done This both ought and must be indeavored for the necessity and benefit of it This charge here as it implies the possibility so it signifies the convenience use profit necessity of this assecuration for sure if it were not beneficiall to us it would never be thus forceably urged upon us And certainly there needs no great proof of this For nature and our self-love grounded thereupon easily invites us to the indeavour of feoffing our selves in any thing that is good this being then the highest good that the Soul of Man can be possibly capable of to be ascertained of Salvation it will soon follow that since it may be done we shall resolve it ought it must be indeavored to be done Indifferent things and such as without which we may well subsist are left arbitrary to us but those things wherein our spirituall well-being consisteth must be mainly laboured for neither can any contention be too much to attain them such is this we have
ex consideratione peccati Theol. Britan. Dordr Artic. 1. de reprob Thes 5. Of Christs Death DEus lapsi generis humani miseratus misit filium suum qui seipsum dedit pretium redemptionis pro peccatis totius mundi Nemo mortalium est qui non possit vere serio per Ministros Evangelii vocari ad participationem remissionis peccatorum vitae aeternae per hanc mortem Christi Theol. Brit. Dordr de 2 Art Thes 3. GOd pitying the woful condition of man fallen by his free will into sin and perdition sent his own Son that he should give him himself as a ransom for the sins of the whole World so as there is no living soul that may not be truly and seriously invited by his faith to take hold of the forgiveness of his sins and everlasting life by the virtue of this death of Christ with certain assurance of obtaining both In hoc merito Christi sundatur universale promissum Evangelicum juxta quod omnes in Christum credentes remissionem peccatorum vitam aeternam re ipsa consequantur Theol. Britan. Dordrac ibid. Thes 4. 2. Upon this infinite merit of Christs death is grounded that universall promise and covenant of the Gospell offering remission and salvation to all Men through the whole World if they be not wanting to the receipt thereof Illud pretium quod solutum est pro omnibus quod omnibus credentibus certo proficiet ad vitam aeternam non proficit tamen omnibus c. Theol. Brit. Dordr de Art 2. Explic. Thes 3. 3. Notwithstanding this infinite merit of Christs death the fruit and benefit thereof doth not accrew to all Men but to those only who do apply the virtue of his death by faith Constat Christum proponendo Evangelium etiam illam gratiam internam administrasse quae hactenus sussiciebat ut ex eo quod non acceptarent vel rejicerent Evangelium juste coargui possint infidelitatis Theol. Britan. ibid. in explicat Thes 5. In Ecclesia ubi salus omnibus offertur ea est administratio gratiae quae sufficit ad convincendos omnes impoenitentes incredulos quod sua culpa voluntaria vel neglectu vel contemptu evangelii perierint ut supra 4. Those within the Church especially that do not reap this benefit by the death of Christ perish manifestly by their own default forasmuch as God hath ordained that wheresoever the gracious promise of the Gospel shall be preached there shall be and is withall ordinarily so much supernaturall grace offered together with the outward means as may justly convince the impenitent and unbelieving of a wilfull neglect if not a contemptuous rejection 5. Besides this generall promise of the Gospel God hath decreed to give a speciall more abundant and effectuall grace unto his elect whereby they may be enabled certainly and infallibly to apply unto themselves the benefit of Christs death and do accordingly believe and persevere and attain Salvation 3. Supposita morte Christi pro omnibus hominibus intentione Dei conditionata de gratia promissionis Evangelicae generali addit intentionem Dei specialem de applicando beneficio mortis Christi per gratiam magis abundantem efficacem absolute certo infallibiliter solis electis fine praejudicio reliquorum D. Overal ibid. Art 2. The Third and Fourth ARTICLE Of Mans Corruption His Free-will His Conversion to God and the Manner of it OMnes consentiunt liberum arbitrium nihil boni posse sine gratia praeveniente comitante subsequente ita ut gratia teneat principium medium finem in conversione fide omni opere bono D. Overal ibid Art 3. 1. MAns will since the fall hath of it self no ability to any Spiritual Act every good motion of it must come from the Grace of God preventing accompaning following it yea naturally it is inclinable to all evill In voluntate Scilicet lapsa est potentia passiva ad esse hoc supernaturale extrinsecus adveniens recipiendum non autem activa ad idem vel per se vel cum alio producendum Theol. Brit. de Artic. 3. 4. Thes de conversione 2. Ipsam voluntatem bonam faciendo vivisicat Epist Synod Episc Afric cit ibid. 2. There is not therefore in the will of the naturall man any active power to work his own conversion In the regeneration God infuseth a new life he quickeneth the will by making it good Sunt quaedam opera externa ab hominibus ordinarie requisita priusquam ad statum regenerationis aut conversionis perducantur 3. There are yet certain foregoing acts that are prerequired to the conversion of a man and they are both inward and outward Quae ab iisdem quandoque libere fieri quandoque libere omitti solent ut adire Ecclesiam audire verbi praeconium id genus alia ibid 4. Outward as to go to the Church to sit reverently to hearken to the word spoken In these we have freedom of will either way Sunt quaedam effecta interna ad conversionem sen regenerationem praevia quae virtute verbi spiritusque in nondum justificatorum cordibus excitantur qualia sunt notitia voluntatis divinae sensus peccati timor poenae cogitatio de liberatione spes aliqua veniae ibid. Thes 2. Non solet gratia divina homines perducere per subitum Enthusiasmum sed multis praeviis actionibus ministerio verbi subactos praeparatos ibid. in explic Thes 2. 5. Inward as the knowledg of Gods will the feeling of our sin the fear of hell the thought of deliverance some hope of pardon for the grace of God doth not use to work upon a Man immediately by sudden raptures but by meet preparations informing the Judgment of his danger wounding the conscience by the terrours of the law suppleing it by the promises of the Gospel These inward Acts tending towards conversion are by the power of the word and Spirit of God wrought in the heart of a Man not yet justified Quos Deus mediaente verbo per spiritum suum hunc in modum afficit eos ad fidem conversionemque vere serio vocat invitat Theol. Brit. ibid. Thes 3. 6. Those whom God thus affects by his word and Spirit he doth truly and seriously call and invite to faith and conversion 7. Those whom he hath thus affected and called he forsakes not neither ceaseth to further in the way to their conversion till through their willing neglect or repulse of this initiall grace he be forsaken of them Quos ita afficit Deus non deserit nec desistit in vera ad conversionem via promovere priusquam ab illis per neglectionem voluntariam aut hujus gratiae initialis repulsam deseratur Hi praecedanei effectus virtute verbi spiritusque rebellis voluntatis vitio suffocari ac penitus extingui possunt in multis solent adeo ut nonnulli in quorum mentilus virtute verbi spiritusque
works these he decrees to worke in his why should we be scrupulous in what place they come into the holy purposes of God which we graunt cannot be missing in our way to Heaven Why do we not rather labour to be such as he requires that we may injoy what he hath promised and pre-ordained for us What say the Belgick Defendents Neither did we ever say that those singular persons whom God chose from all eternity were to be considered without respect to Christ and faith in him but have ever roundly professed that the merits of Christ and faith in him are considered of God in this election of individual persons as means whereby he hath decreed to bring them to salvation see then how narrow this difference is God hath decreed by these means to bring men to salvation yet these fall not into his decree of ordinary choice to salvation they are in the execution of his decree and in the decree of his execution they are not in the decree of his election Let these be undoubted truths as they are yet what need the souls of quiet Christians be racked with so subtile questions It well befits the Schooles to examine these problemes but for common Christians it doth not so much concern them to enquire how the order of Gods decree stands in our apprehension of that one simple act of the divine understanding or will as how it is in respect of the execution Here comes in our main interest in these eternall Councills of the Almighty which drawes from us a due care and indeavour to be capable of this promised salvation and to avoid the wayes of death Could we be perswaded to take more from that speculation and to add more to this practise it would be much happier for us Neither is this election according to the Plea of the opponents made ever the more uncertain by this prerequisition of our faith since they profess to teach it supposed in our election not as a condition whose performance God expects as uncertain but as a guift which God according to his eternall prescience foresees in Man present and certain as the decree of sending Christ into the World did not depend upon a conditioned and uncertain expectation of what Man would do or would not do but upon the infallible notice of God who foresaw Man as presently sinning or falne so as the election of God is not suspended upon the mutability of Mans will but upon the infallible certainty of the foreknowledg of God to whose eyes our faith and perseverance is not more doubtfull then future and whose prescience hath no less infallibility then his decree If therefore God may have the sole glory of this work in the guift of that faith which he foresees and our election hazards no certainty as they profess to hold what is there that should need to draw blood in this first quarrell But what need I labour to reconcile these opinions which have no reason to concern us The Church of England according to the explication of R. B. Overall goes a mid-way betwixt both these For whiles the one side holds a generall conditionall decree of God to save all Men if they believe and a particular decree of saving those whom he foresaw would believe and the other side not admitting of that generall conditionate decree only teaches a particular absolute decree to save some speciall persons for whom only Christ was given and to whom grace is given irresistiblely all others being by a no less absolute decree rejected our Church saith he with St. Austin maintaineth an absolute and particular decree of God to save those whom he hath chosen in Christ not out of the prescience of our faith and will but out of the meer purpose of his own will and grace and that thereupon God hath decreed to give to whom he pleaseth a more effectuall and abundant grace by which they only not may believe and obey if they will but whereby they do actually will believe obey and persevere without prejudice to the rest to whom he hath also given gracious offers and helps to the same purpose though by their just fault neglected What can the Synod of Dort in this case wish to be said more Indeed with all he addeth a general conditionate will of God or a generall evangelical promise of saving all if they do believe since God doth will and command that all men should hear Christ and believe in him and in so doing hath offred grace and salvation unto all declaring how well these two may agree together That first God hath propounded salvation in Christ to all if they believe and hath offred them within the Church especially a common and sufficient grace in the means that he hath mercifully ordeined if men would not be wanting to the word of God and his holy Spirit and that to ascertain the salvation of man he hath decreed to add that especiall effectuall and saving grace unto some Neither of which truths can well and safely be denyed of any Christian Only the sound of a generall and conditionate will perhaps seems harsh to some ears whereto yet they should do well to inure themselves since it is the approved distinction of worthy Orthodox and unquestionable Divines Deum velle quaedam absolute manifestum esse literae sacrae confirmant etenim voluit mundum creari c. Eundem Deum velle quaedam conditionaliter docent itidem sacrae literae vult enim omnes salvari si velint implere legem aut in Christum credere proinde illam priorem voco absolutam voluntatem hanc vero posteriorem conditionalem Opusc p. 291. Caeterum illud tamen verum est Deum velle omnes homines salvos fieri voluntate scil revelata conditionali nimirum si velint in Christum credere ejus legi servandae studere hac enim voluntate nemo a salute cognitione veritatis excluditur c. ibid. pag. 285. Zanchius in his book de praedest Sanct. hath it interminis with a large exposition That God willeth some things absolutely saith he it is manifest and plainly confirmed by Scriptures so he absolutely willed the world should be created and governed so he absolutely willed that Christ should come into the World and dye for the salvation of his elect he wills also absolutely that the elect shall be saved and therefore perfomes to them all things that are necessary to their salvation that the same God willeth some things conditionally the Scriptures also teach us For God would have all men to be saved if they would keep the Law or believe in Christ and therefore I call that first an absolute will this latter a conditional And in the next leaf to the same purpose he saith it is also true that God would have all men to be saved in his revealed and conditionate will scil if they would believe in Christ and carefully keep his law for by this will no man is excluded from
to me Let him look how in the rest he can be reconciled to himself Very shame shall at the last drive such a one if he be ingenuous from incompatible propositions In the mean time the good that he offers I will not refuse and leave the evil to his avoiding As a man that meets with a slack debtor will not be unwilling to take what small summes he can get till either more may come in or he may conveniently sue for the rest It is good to hold the ground we have got till by the power of truth we can recover more Not that I could readily take up with the palpable Equivocations of an Arrius or Pelagius No wise Chapman will suffer himself to be paid with slips Truth and Falshood will necessarily descry themselves Neither is it hard for a judicious Reader to discerne a difference betwixt yielding and dissembling Where I see a man constant to himself in a favourable assertion I have reason to construe it as a fair comming off towards reconcilement If nothing but the rigour of opinions shall be stood upon what Hope can there be of Peace To shut up therefore if what I have here meant well be as well taken and well improved I shall have comfort in the quieting of many Hearts and many Tongues If not at least I shall have comfort in the quietnesse of mine own heart which tels me I have wished well to the Church of God To whose awful sentence I do mâ—st humbly submit my self and these my poor endeavours professing my self ready to eat whatsoever word shee shall dislike and desirous to buy her peace even with blood Now the God of peace encline the hearts of men as to zeal of truth so to love of peace And since we are fallen upon those points which are disputable to the worlds end as we see in the practise both of the Romish and Germane and Netherlandish Churches the same God compose the minds of men to a wise moderation and binde up their lips in a safe and discreet silence that if our brains must needs differ yet our hearts and tongues may be ever one Amen A LETTER CONCERNING Falling Away FROM GRACE MY good Mr. B. You send me flowers from your Garden and Look for some in returne out of mine I do not more willingly send you these then I do thankfully receive the other I could not keep my hand from the paper upon the receit of your Letters though now in the midst of my attendance As my desire of your satisfaction cals me to write somthing so my other imployments force me to brevity in a question wherein it were easy to be endlesse I am sorry that any of our new Excuti-fidians should pester your Suffolk although glad in this that they could not Light upon a soyle more fruitful of able oppugners it is a wonder to me to think that men should Labour to be witty to rob themselves of comfort Good Sir Let me know these new Disciples of Leyden that I may note them with that black cole they are worthy of Troublers of a better peace then that of the Church the peace of the Christian soul they pretend antiquity What heresy doth not so What marvell is it if they would wrest Fathers to them while they use Scripture it self so violently For that their first instance of Hymeneus and Alexander how vain it is like themselves Nothing can be more plain then that those men were grosse hyppocrites who doubts therefore but they might fall from all that good they pretended to have What is this to prove that a true child of God may do so but say they these men had faith and a good conscience True such a faith and goodnesse of conscience as may be incident into a Worldly counterfeit Yea but they reply a true justifying faith I think such a one as their own rather I may say these men desevre not the praise of Himeneus his faith which is nothing in this place but Orthodoxe doctrine How oft doth St. Paul use the word so to his Timothy 1 Tim. 4.1 In the latter times some shall depart from the faith interpreted in the next words and shall give heed to spirits of error and doctrines of Devills and 2 Tim. 3.8 He describes his false teachers by this title Reprobate concerning the faith Which I think no man will expound of the grace but he Doctrine Yet say they there is no necessity binds us to that sense here But the scope of this place compared with others may evince it That which followes plainly points us to this meaning that they might learn not to blaspheme Their sin was therefore an Apostasy from the Dostrine of the Gospel and casting foul aspersions upon that profession so that an opposition to wholesome Doctrine was their shipwrack They except yet A good conscience is added to this faith therefore it must needs be meant of justifying faith Do but turne your eyes to 1 Tim. 3.9 where as in a commentary upon this place you shall finde faith and good conscience so conjoyned that yet the Doctrine not the vertue of faith is signified St. Paul describes his Deacon there by his spiritual wealth Having the mystery of faith in pure conscience No man can be so grosse to take the mystery of faith for the grace of faith or for any other then the same Author in the same chapter cals the mystery of Godlyness It is indeed fit that a good conscience should be the cofer where truth of Christian Doctrine is the treasure Therefore both are justly commanded together and likely each accompanies other in their loss and that of Irenaeus is found true of all hereticks sententiam impiam vitam luxuriosam c. Yea but Hymeneus and Alexander had both these then and lost both They had both in outward profession not in inward sincerity that rule is certain and eternal If they had been of us they had continued with us nothing is more ordinary with the Spirit of God then to suppose us such as we pretend that he might give us an example of Charity in the censure of each other of which kind is that noted place Heb. 10.29 And counteth the blood of the Testament wherewith he was sanctifyed an unholy thing and those unusual elogies which are given to the Churches to whom the Apostolical letters were directed This place therefore intends no other but that Himenaeus and Alexander which were once professors of the Christian doctrine and such as lived orderly in an unblameable and outwardly holy fashion to the World had now turn'd their copy cast off the profession which they made and were fallen both to loosenesse of manners calumniation of the truth they had abandoned For that other Scripture Rom. 8.12 13. No place can be more effectual to cut the throat of this uncomfortable heresy St. Paul writes to a mixt company it were strange if all the Romans should have been truly sanctifyed those which were yet
a motive for God to give largely unto us as that we give freely unto God 2 Sam. 11 16. David did but intend to build God an house and now in a gratious retribution God tells him by Nathan The Lord will build thee an house and will establish thine house and thy kingdome for ever before thee and contrarily in this it holds as in all other pious bequests 2 Cor. 9.6 He that soweth sparingly shall reap sparingly if some particular wayes of the conveighance of our bounty were anciently ceremonial Prov. 3.9 yet we are sure this charge is perpetual Honour the Lord with thy substance Had our blessed Saviour been of the mind of these drye and pinching Devotionists he had surely chid Mary Magdalene for the needlesse wast of that her pretious ointment and have agreed with Judas how much better it migh have been employed for the relief of many poor soules that wanted bread then in such a complement of unnecessary delicacy Mat. 26.13 but how kindly this seasonable expence was taken by our Lord Jesus appears in that the memorial of this beneficence is ordained by him to have no narrower bounds of Time or Place then this blessed Gospel it self Shortly as the honest and learned Gerson long since distingushed in matter of Doctrine so must we learn to distingush in matter of practise some things are of the necessity of devotion others of the piety of devotion and yet further in this second ranke some things are essential to the piety of devotion without which it cannot be at all others are accidental without which it cannot be so well under this latter sort expedience and decency both of cleanliness and cost challenge a due place and cannot justly be denyed it As it is in our own case some things are requisite out of the necessity of nature without which we cannot subsist other things are requisite for the convenience of our estate without which we cannot maintain a well being He that hath Bread and Drinke and Cloathes may live but he that hath not his Linnen washed and his meat cleanly dressed and change of warme suits will hardly live with comfort To the great marriage of the Kings son in the Gospel all comers are invited yea the guests are fetcht from the very high waies Mat. 22.9.10 and hedges where there could be no probability of any choice Wardrobe yet when the King comes in and finds a man without his wedding garment he in displeasure asks Friend how camest thou in hither sufficienty intimating that even comlinesse of fashion and meet complement are worthily expected in the solemn entertainments of God To conclude if we have rightly apprehended the dreadful and glorious Majesty of the great God we shall never think we can come with reverence enough into his holy presence and it is no small appendance of reverence to have our very bodies decently composed before him and if we have well weighed the absolute soveraignty of this great King of Glory and the infinite largess of our munificent God who hath given us our selves and all that we have or are or hope for that hath not grudged us ought in earth or heaven no not the dear son of his love and eternal essence but hath sent him out of his bosome for our redemption we cannot think all our little enough to consecrate to his blessed name and service and shall hold that evil eye worthy to be pulled out which shall grudg the fattest of his flocks and heards to the altar of the Almighty Now the appâ—ication of this whole discourse I leave to the thoughts of every reader who cannot but easily finde how too much need there is of a monitor in this kind whiles the examples of a profane indecency so abound every where to the great shame of the Gospel and scandall of all ingenious mindes I forbear to particularize a volume would be too straight for this complaint It is not the blushing of my Nation the derision of Foraigners the advantage of adversaries that I drive at in these seasonable lines it is the reformation of those foul abuses gross neglects outward indignities notorious pollutions which have helpt to expose the face of this famous Church late the glory of Christendom to the scorne of the nations round about us who now change their former envy at her unmatchable beauty into a kinde of insulting pity of her miserable deformity Returne dear brethren returne to that comly order and decency which won honour and reverence to your goodly forefathers After the main care of the substance of divine worship which must be ever holy spiritual answerable to the unfailing and exact rule of the eternal word of God let the outwatd carriage of Gods sacred affairs be what may be sutable to that pure and dreadful Majesty whose they are let his now neglected houses be decently repaired Nequid pâ—ofanum Templo Dei insâ—ratur â—oâ—feâ—sus sedâ—m quâ—m inhabitat deâ—eâ—inquat Cyprian de habitâ— virg neatly kept reverently regarded for the owners sake and inviolably reserved for those sacred uses to which they are dedicated let his holy table be comly spread attended with awful devotion let them be clean both within and without that bear the vessels of the Lord let the maintenance of his altar be free liberal chearful let Gods chair the pulpit be climb'd into by his chosen servants with trembling and gravity briefly let his whole service and worship be celebrated with all holy reverence this is the way to the acceptation of God and to honour with men Good Security A Comfortable DISCOURSE OF The Christians Assurance of Heaven Grounded upon 2 Pet. 1.10 Give diligence to make your Calling and Election sure IT shall be my onely drift and endeavour in this discourse to settle the hearts of those who profess the name of Christ in a main case of Christian resolution concerning their present and final estate the mean whereof is no lesse comfortable and useful then the extremes miserably dangerous whiles one is causelesly confident and dyes presuming another is wilfully careless and perisheth through neglect both fearfully mis-carry and help to fill up hell I shall desire to guide the wise Christian in a midway between both these and teach him how to be resolute without presumption and to be awful without distrust how to labour for an holy security and modest confidence Ere we descend to the matter Three termes require a little clearing what this calling is What election What the sure-making of both As to the first this cannot be taken of an outward calling For we are sure enough of that wheresoever the Gospel is preached we are called outwardly neither are we much the nearer to be sure of that for many are called few chosen yea certainly this not answered shall aggravate our damnation It is therefore an inward and effectuall calling that we must endeavour to make sure a call not by the sound of the word only
but by the efficacy of the Spirit The soul hath an ear as well as the body when the ear of the soul hears the operative motions of Gods spirit as well as the ear of the body hears the external sound of the Gospel then are we called by God when true faith is wrought in the Soul as well as outward conformity in our life when we are made true Christians as well as outward professors then and not till then have we this calling from God Such then is our calling the election is answerable to it Not a temporal and external to some special office or dignity whereof our Saviour Have not I chosen you twelve John 6.70 and Moses his chosen Psal 106. Not a singling out from the most to an outward profession of Christ whereof perhaps the Apostle 1 Thes 1.4 Knowing beloved that ye are elect of God and the Psalmist Blessed is he whom thou choosest and causest to dwell in thy courts Psal 65.5 For notwithstanding this noble and happy priviledge little would it availe us to be sure of this and no more no profession no dignity can secure us from being perfectly miserable but an eternal election to glory whereof St. Paul Ephes 1.4 God hath chosen us in Christ before the foundations of the World that we might be holy and blamlesse before him in love and to his Colossians As the elect of God holy and beloved such as to whom saving Faith is appropriated the style whereof is Fidus electorum the faith of the Elect Tit. 1.1 Such then is our calling and elction Now this calling this election must be made sure or firme as the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies sure and firme not on Gods part who we know is unchangble in his nature in his counsels So as in that regard our election if it be at all is most sure and surer cannot be but on ours not only in respect of the object which is the truth and immutability of the thing it self but in respect of the subject too the soul that apprehends it so sure that it cannot be falsified cannot be disappointed It is not for us to expect such a certainty of knowledg in this point as there is of Principles of Arts or of those things whereof common sence assures us Our Schoolmen make distinction of a certainty evident and inevident Evident which ariseth out of the clearness of the object it self and the necessary connection of the termes as that the whole is greater then a part Inevident which arises not so much out of the intrinsecal truth of the proposition it self as out of the veracity and infallibleness of the party that affirmes it So both Divine and Humane faith receive their assurance from the Divine or Humane authority whereon it is grounded and this inevident assurance may be so certain as to expel all prevailing doubt though not all troubling doubt Neither need there any other for the Articles of our creed which we take upon the infallible trust of him who is the truth it self and can no more deceive us then not be This latter is the certainty which we must labour to attain unto In the grant whereof our Romish Divines are generally too straight-laced yielding yet a Theological certainty which goes farr but not home although some of them are more liberal as Catharinus Vega Ruardus Tapperus and Pererius following them which grant that some holy men out of the feeling and experience of the power of Gods Spirit in them may without any speciall revelation grow to a great height of assurance if not so as that they may swear they are assured of this happy estate of grace yet so as that they may be as confident of it as that there is a Rome or Constantinople which one would think were enough but the rest are commonly too sparing in the inching out of the possibilitie of our assurance by nice distinctions Cardinal Bellarmine makes six kindes or degrees of certainty whereof three are clear three obscure the three first are the certainty of understanding the certainty of knowledg the certainty of experience The first of them is of plain principles which upon meer hearing are yielded to be most true without any traverse of thoughts The second is of conclusions evidently deduced from those principles The third is of the matters of sense about which the eye or eare is not deceived The three latter certainties which are more obscure are those of Faith or Beleefe and the degrees thereof The first whereof is the certainty of the Catholick or Divine faith which depending upon Gods authority cannot deceive us The second is the certainty of humane faith so depending upon Mans authority and in such matters as shut out all fear of falshood or disappointment in believing them as that there was an Augustus Caesar a Rome a Jerusalem The third is the certainty of a well grounded conceit which he pleaseth to call conjecturall raised upon such undoubted signes and proofs as may make a Man secure of what he holdeth and excludes all anxiety yet cannot utterly free him from all fear This last he can be content to yield us and indeed in his stating the question stands onely upon the deniall of the certainty of a Divine faith in this great affair we are ready to take what he gives so as then here may be a certainty in the heart of a regenerate Man of his calling and election and such a one as shall render him holily secure and free from anxiety Let the distinguisher weary himself with the thoughts of reconciling certitude with conjectures security with fear let us have the security and let him take the fear to himself Shortly then whiles the Schools make much ado of what kind of certainty this must be taken whether of faith or of hope or of confidence surely if it be such an hope and confidence as makes not ashamed by disappointing us both are equally safe It is enough if it be such a fiduciall perswasion as cannot deceive us nor be liable to falshood But how far then reaches this assecuration So far as to exclude all fears all doubting and hesitation Neither of these Not all kind of fear for we are bidden to work out our salvation with fear and trembling Philip. 2. and to spend the time of our pilgrimage in fear 1 Pet. 1. Not doubting which the counsell of Trent would seem to cast upon our opinion we cannot be so senseless as not in the conscience of our infirmities and manifold indispositions find our selves put to many plunges but yet so as that by the power of our faith which is the victory that overcomes the World at last we do happily recover and find our selves freed by a comfortable and joyfull â—â—uctation If any Man could be so fond as to think we stand so sure that we shall never shake or move he grosly misconceives our condition but if so sure that we shall never be turned up by the roots never