and for the advantage of those things which are necessary that are already under a higher and more binding law than any Potentate or Monarch of the earth can make The acts I say of Charity are manifest But those of Christian Prudence are not particularly designed Prudentia respicit ad singularia because that eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences and circumstances and it dependeth upon those things which are without us whereas Charity is an act of the will And here if we would be our selves or rather if we would not be our selves but be free from by-respects and unwarrantable ends if we would devest our selves of all hopes or fears of those things which may either shake or raise our estates we could not be to seek For how easy is it to a disingaged and willing mind to apply a general precept to particular actions especially if Charity fill our hearts which is the bond of perfection Col. 3.14 Rom. 13.10 and the end and complement of the Law and indeed our spiritual wisdome In a word in these cases when we go to consult with our Reason we cannot erre if we leave not Charity behind us Or if we should erre our Charity would have such an influence upon our errour that it should trouble none but our selves 1 Cor. 13.7 For Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things This is the extent of the Spirit 's Lesson And if in other truths more subtil than necessary we are to seek it mattereth not for we need not seek them It is no sin not to know that which I cannot know to be no wiser than God hath made me And what need our curiosity rove abroad when that which is all and alone concerneth us lieth in so narrow a compass In absoluto facili aeternitas saith Hilary The way to heaven may seem rough and troublesome but it is an easy way easy to find out though not so easy at our first onset to walk in and yet to those that tread and trace it often as delightful as Paradise it self See God hath shut up Eternity within the compass of two words Believe and Repent which is a full and just commentary on the Spirit 's Lesson the sum of all that he taught Lay your foundation right and then build upon it Because God loved you in Christ do you love him in Christ Love him and keep his commandments than which no other way could have been found out to draw you neer unto God Believe and Repent this is all Oh wicked abomination whence art thou come to cover the earth with deceit What malice what defiance what contention what gall and bitterness amongst Christians yet this is all Believe and Repent the Pen the Tongue the Sword these are the weapons of our warfare What ink what blood hath been spilt in the cause of Religion How many innocents defamed how many Saints anathematized how many millions cut down with the sword yet this is all Believe and Repent We hear the noyse of the whip and the ratling of the wheels and the prancing of the horses The horseman lifteth up his bright sword and his glittering spear Nah. 3.2 3. Every part of Christendome almost is a stage of war and the pretense is written in their banners you may see it waving in the air FOR GOD AND RELIGION yet this is all Believe and Repent Who would once think the Pillars of the earth should be thus shaken that the world should be turned into a worse chaos than that out of which it was made that there should be such wars and fightings amongst Christians for that which is shut up and brought unto us in these two words Believe and Repent For all the truth which is necessary and will be sufficient to lift us to our end and raise us to happiness can make no larger a circumferance than this This is the Law and the Prophets or rather this is the Gospel of Christ this is the whole will of God In this is knowledge justification redemption and holiness This is the Spirit 's Lesson and all other lessons are no lessons not worth the learning further than they help and improve us in this In a word this is all in all and within this narrow compass we may walk out our span of time and by the conduct of the same Spirit in the end of it attain to that perfection and glory which shall never have an end And so from the Lesson and Extent of it we pass to the Manner and Method of the Spirit 's Teaching It is not Raptus a forcible and violent drawing but Ductus a gentle Leading and Guiding The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall lead Which implyeth a preparedness and willingness to be led And the Spirit that leadeth us teacheth us also to follow him not to resist him that he may lead us Acts 7.51 Eph. 4.30 1 Thes 5.19 2 Tim. 1.6 not to grieve him by our backwardness that he may fill us with joy not to quench him that he may enlighten us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to stir up his gifts that they dye not in us Now this promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles whose Commission being extraordinary and their Diocess as large as the whole world they needed the Spirits guidance in a more high and eminent manner gifts of Tongues and diversities of graces which might fit them for so great a work that as their care so their power might be as universal as the world And yet to them was the Spirit given in measure and where measure is there are degrees and they were led by degrees not straight to all truth but by steps and approaches S. Peter himself was not wrapt up as his pretended Successor into the chair of Truth to determine all at once For when Pentecost was now past he goeth to Caesarea Acts 10.11 34. and there learneth more then he had done at Jerusalem seeth that in the Sheet which was let down to the earth which he heard not from the Tongues and of a truth now perceived what he did not before that God was no accepter of persons that now the partition-wall was broken down that Jew and Gentile were both alike and the Church which was formerly shut up in Judea was now become Catholick a Body which every one that would might be a member of Besides though the Apostles were extraordinarily and miraculously inspired yet we cannot say that they used no means at all to bring down the blessed Spirit For it is plain they did wait for his coming they prayed for the truth and laboured for the truth they conferred one with another met together in counsel deliberated before they did determin Nor could they imagin they had the Spirit in a string and could command him as they please and make him follow them whithersoever they would And then between us and the Apostles there
and help himself out of them and take himself off from that amazement Marcion ran dangerously upon the greatest blasphemy Duos Ponticus Deos tanquam duaâ— Symplegadas naufragit sui adfert quem negare non potuit i. e. creatorem i. e. nostrum quem probare non poterit i. e. suum Tertull. 1. adv Marcion c. 1. and brought in two Principles one of Good and another of Evil that is two Gods But when the Lord shall come and lay judgment to the line all things will be even and equal and the Heretick shall see that there is but one Now all is jarring discord and confusion but the Lord when he cometh will make an everlasting harmony He will draw every thing to its right and proper end restore order and beauty to his work fill up those breaches which Sin hath made and manifest his Wisdome and Providence which here are lookt upon as hidden mysteries in a word he will make his glory shine out of darkness as he did Light when the earth was without form 1 Cor. 15.28 That the Lord may be all in all Here in this world all lyeth as in a night in darkness in a Chaos or confusion and we see neither what our selves nor others are We see indeed as we are seen see others as they see us with no other eyes but those which the Prince of this world hath blinded Our Judgment is not the result of our Reason but is raised from by and vile respects If it be a friend we are friends to his vice and study apologies for it If it be an enemy we are angry with his virtue and abuse our wits to disgrace it If he be in power our eyes dâ—zle and we see a God come down to us in the shape of a man and worship this Meteor though exhaled and raised from the dung with as great reverence and ceremony as the Persians did the Sun What he speaketh is an oracle and what he doth is an example and the Coward the Mammonist or the Beast giveth sentence in stead of the Man which is lost and buried in these If he be small and of no repute in the world he is condemned already though he have reason enough to see the folly of his Judges and with pitty can null the censure which they pass If he be of our faction we call him as the Manichees did the chiefest of their sect one of the Elect But if his Charity will not suffer him to be of any we cast him out and count him a Reprobate The whole world is a theatre or rather a Court of corrupt Judges which judge themselves and one another but never judge righteous judgment For as we judge of others so we do of our selves Judicio favor officit our Self love putteth out the eye of our Reason or rather diverteth it from that which is good and imployeth it in finding out many inventions to set up evil in its place as the Prophet speaketh We feed on ashes Isa 44.20 a deceived heart hath turned us aside that we cannot deliver our soul nor say Is there not a lye in our right hand Thus he that soweth but sparingly is Liberal he that loveth the world is not covetous he whose eyes are full of the adulteress is chast he that setteth up an image and falleth down before it is not an Idolater he that drinketh down bloud as an ox doth water is not a Murderer he that doth the works of his father the Devil is a Saint Many things we see in the world most unjustly done Multa injustè fieri possunt quae nemo possit reprehendere Cic. de Finibus Mic. 6.16 which we call Righteousness because no man can commence a suit against us or call us into question and we doubt not of Heaven if we fall not from our cause or be cast as they speak in Westminster-hall If Omri's statutes be kept we soon perswade our selves that the power of this Lord will not reach us and if our names hold fair amongst men we are too ready to tell our selves that they are written also in the book of life This is the judgment of the world Thus we judge others and thus we judge our selves so byassed with the Flesh that for the most we pass wide of the Truth Others are not to us nor are we to our selves what we are but the work of our own hands made up in the world and with the help of the world For the Wisdome of this world is our Spirit and Genius that rayseth every thought dictateth all our words begetteth all our actions and by it as by our God we live and move and have our being And now since Judgment is thus corrupted in the world even Justice requireth it Et veniet Dominus qui malè judicata rejudicabit the Lord will come and give judgment against all these crooked and perverse judgements and shall lay Righteousness to the plummet Isa 28.17 and with his breath sweep away the refuge of lyes and shall judge and pass another manner of sentence upon us and others then we do in this world Then shall we be told what we would never believe though we have had some grudgings and whisperings and half-informations within us which the love of this world did soon silence and suppress Then shall he speak to us in his displeasure and Aliud est judicium Christi aliud anguli su surrorum Hier. though we have talked of him all the day long tell us we forgot him If we set up a golden image he shall call us Idolaters though we intended it not and when we build up the sepulchres of the Prophets and flatter our selves and accuse our forefathers tell us we are as great murderers as they and thus find us guilty of that which we protest against and haters of that which we think we love and lovers of that which we think we detest and take us from behind the bush from every lurking hole from all shelter of excuse take us from our rock our rock of ayr on which we were built and dash our presumptuous assurance to nothing Nor can a sigh or a grone or a loud profession or a fast or long prayers corrupt this Lord or alter his sentence but he shall judge as he knoweth who knoweth more of us then we are willing to take notice of and is greater then our Conscience which we shrink and dilate at pleasure 1 John 3.20 and fit to every purpose and knoweth all things and shall judge us not by our pretense Rom. 2.16 our intent or forced imagination but according to his Gospel VENIET He shall come when all is thus out of Order to set all right and straight again And this is the end of his Coming And now being well assured that he will come we are yet to seek and are ready with the Disciples to ask Matth. 24.3 When will these things be and What hour will he
Wilt thou not by him and by thy own sins and miseries which drew from him tears of blood learn to pity thy self Wilt thou still rejoyce in that iniquity that troubled his spirit and shed his blood which he was willing should gush out of his heart so it might melt thine and work but this in thee pity to thy self We talk of a first Conversion and a second and I know not what Cycles and Epicycles we have found out to salve our irregular motion in our wayes to bliss If we could once have compassion on our selves the work were done And When were you converted or How were you converted were no such hard questions to be answered For I may be sure I am converted if I be sure that I truly pity my self Shall Christ only have compassion on thy soul But then again shall he shed his blood for his Church that it may be one with him and at unity in it self and canst thou not drop a tear when thou seest this his body thus rent in pieces as it is at this day When thou seest the World the Love of the world break in and make such havock in the Church oh it is a sad contemplation will none but Christ weep over Jerusalem Luk. 19.41 Secondly let us look upon him living and not take our eye from off him to fill and feed and delight it with the vanities of this world with that which hath neither life nor spirit with that which is so neer to nothing with that which is but an idole Behold he liveth that which thou so dotest on hath no life nor can it prolong thy life a moment Who would not cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils Isa 2.22 and then what madness is it to trust in that which hath no breath at all Shall Christ present himself alive to us and for us and shall we lay hold on Corruption and Rottenness And when Heaven openeth it self to receive us shall we run from it into a Charnel-house and so into Hell it self In the third place Behold he liveth for evermore and let us not bound and imprison our thoughts within a span and when immortality is offered affect no other life but that which is a vapour Jam. 4.14 Let us not raise that swarm of thoughts which must perish but build up those works upon our everliving Saviour which may follow us follow us through the huge and unconceivable tract of eternity Doth our Saviour live for evermore and shall we have no spirit in us but that which delighteth to walk about the earth and is content to vanish with it Eternity is a powerful motive to those who never have such pensive thoughts as when they remember their frailty and are sick even of health it self and in a manner dead with life when they consider it as that blessing which shall have an end Eternity is in our desire though it be beyond our apprehension What he said of Time is truer of Eternity If you do not ask what it is we know but if you ask we are not able to answer and resolve you or tell you what it is When we call it an infinite duration we do but give it another name two words for one a short Paraphrase but we do not define what it is And indeed our first conceptions of it are the fairest For when they are doubled and redoubled they are lost in themselves and the further they extend â—hemselves the more weary they are and at greater loss in every proffer and must end and rest at last in this poor and unsatisfying thought That we cannot think what it is Yet there is in us a wild presage an unhandsome acknowledgment of it for we phansie it in those objects which vanish out of fight whilst we look upon them we set it up in every desire for our desires never have an end Every purpose of ours every action we do is Aeternitati sacrum and we do it to eternity Prov. 23.5 Psal 49.11 We look upon Riches as if they had no wings and think our habitations shall endure for ever We look upon Honour as if it were not air but some Angel confirmed a thing bound up in eternity We look upon Beauty and it is our heaven and we are fixt and dwell on it as if it would never shrivel and be gathered together as a scroul and so in a manner make Mortality it self eternal And therefore since our desires do so enlarge themselves and our thoughts so multiply that they never have an end since we look after that which we cannot see and reach after that which we cannot grasp God hath set up that for an object to look on which is eternal indeed in the highest Heavens and as he hath made us in his own image so in Christ who came to renew it in us he hath shewed us a more excellent way unto it and taught us to work out eternity even in this world in this common shop of change to work it out of that in which it is not which is neer to nothing which shall be nothing to work it out of Riches by not trusting them out of Honour by contemning it out of the Pleasures of this world by loathing them out of the Flesh by crucifying it out of the World by overcoming it and out of the Devil himself by treading him under our feet For this is to be in Christ and to be in Christ is to be for evermore Christ is the eternal Son of God and he was dead and liveth and liveth for evermore that we may dye and live for evermore and not only attain to the Resurrection of the dead but to eternity Last of all let us look upon the keyes in his hand and knock hard that he may open to us and deliver our soul from hell and make our grave not a prison but a bed to rise from to eternal life If we be still shut in we our selves have turned the key against our selves Christ is ready with his Keyes to open to us and we have our Keyes too our key of Knowledge to discern between life and Death and our key of Repentance and when we use these Christ is ready to put his even into our hands and will derive a power unto us mortals unto us sinners over Hell and Death And then in the last place we shall be able to set on the Seal the AMEN and be confirmed in the certainty of his Resurrection and Power by which we may raise those thoughts and promote those actions which may look beyond our threescore years and ten Psal 90.10 through all successive generations to immortality and that glory which shall never have an end This is to shew and publish our faith by our works as S. James speaketh Jam. 2.18 this is with the heart to believe as S. Paul Rom. 10.10 For he that believeth from the heart cannot but be obedient to the Gospel unless we
urge and carry us on toward the Truth It is the first of all the passions and operations of the soul the first mover as it were being a strong propension to that we love And it is fitted and proportioned to the mind seeking out means and working forward with all heat of intention unto the end It is eminent among the affections calling up my Fear my Hope my Anger my Sorrow my Fear of not finding out what I seek yet in the midst of fear raising a Hope to attain to it my Sorrow that I find it not so soon as I would and my Anger at any thing that is averse or contrary at any cloud or difficulty placed between me and the Truth The love of Christ saith S. Paul 2 Cor. 5.14 constraineth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is a resemblance taken from women in travel Love constraineth urgeth me worketh in me such a desire as the pain in travel doth in a woman to be delivered For do we not labour and travel with a conclusion which we would find out and what joy is there when we have like that of a woman in travel when a man-child is brought into the world If ye love me keep my commandments John 14.15 saith Christ If ye love me not ye cannot but if ye love me ye will certainly keep them Will you know the reason why the wayes of Truth are so desolate why so little Truth is known when all offereth it self and is even importunate with us to receive it There can be no other reason given but this Our hearts are congealed our spirits frozen and we coldly affected to the Truth nay averse and turn from it This Truth crosseth our profit that our pleasure other Truths stand in our light and obstruct our passage to that we most desire S. Paul speaketh plainly 2 Cor. 4.3 4. If the truth be hid it is hid to them that perish In whom the God of this world hath so blinded their mind that the light of this truth should not shine upon them If we have eyes to see her she is a fair object as visible as the Sun If we do but love the Truth the Spirit of Truth is ready to take us by the hand and lead us to it Hebr. 10.38 but those that withdraw themselves doth his soul hate 2. In the next place the Love of Truth bringeth in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Psal 1.2 a Love of Industry If we love it it will be alwayes in our thoughts and we shall meditate of it day and night Gen. 29.20 To Love seven years are but a few dayes great burdens are but small and labour is a pleasure when we walk in the region of Truth viewing it and delighting in it gathering what may be for our use we walk as in a paradise Truth is best bought when it costeth us most it must be wooed oft and seriously and with great devotion As Pithagoras said of the Gods Non est salutanda in transitu it is not to be spoken with in the By and passage it is not content with a glance and salutation and no more but we must behold it with care and anxiety make a kind of perigrination out of our selves run and sweat to meet it and then this Spirit leadeth us to it And this great encouragement we have In this our labour we never fail of the end we labour for But in our other endeavours and attempts we have nothing to uphold us under those burdens we lay upon our own shoulders but a deceitful hope which carrieth us along to see it self defeated and the frustration of that hope is a greater penalty and vexation than that pains we undertook for its sake How many rise up early to be rich and before their day shutteth up are beggers How many climb to the highest place and when they are near it and ready to sit down fall back into a prison But in this labour we never fail the Spirit working with us and blessing the work of our hands He maketh our busie and careful thoughts as his chariot and then filleth us with light Such is the privilege and prerogative of Industry such is the nature of Truth that it will be wrought out by it Never did any rise up early and in good earnest travel towards it but this Spirit brought him to his journeyes end Prov. 2.4 5. If thou seekest her as silver saith the wise man if thou search for her as for hid treasures which being hid we remove many things turn up much earth and labour hard that we may come to them then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God In this work our Industry and the Spirits help are as it were joyned and linked together You will say perhaps that the Spirit is an omnipotent Agent and can fall suddenly upon us as he did upon the Apostles this day that he can lead us in the way of Truth though we sit still though our feet be chained though we have no feet at all But the Proverb will answer you 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If God will you may sail over the sea in a sieve But we must remember the Spirit leadeth us according to his own will and counsel not ours As he is an omnipotent so is he a free Agent also and worketh and dispenseth all things according to the good pleasure of his will Eph. 1.5 And certainly he will not lead thee if thou wilt not follow he will not teach thee if thou wilt not learn Nor can we think that the Truth which must make us happy is of so easie purchase that it will be sown in any ground and as the Devil's tares Matth. 13.25 grow up in us whilest we sleep 3. The third rule is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Method or an Orderly proceeding in the wayes of Truth As in all other Arts and Sciences so in spiritual Wisdome and in the School of Christ we may not hand over head huddle up matters as we please but we must keep an orderly and set course in our studies and proceedings Our Saviour Christ hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Seek ye first the kingdome of God Mat. 6.33 and in that Kingdome every thing in its order There is something first and something next to be observed and every thing to be ranked in its proper place The Authour of the Epistle to the Hebrews telleth us of principles of doctrine Hebr. 6.1 which must be learned before we can be led forward to perfection Heb. 5.13 14. of milk and of strong meat of plainer lessons before we reach at higher Mysteries Nor can we hope to make a good Christian veluti ex luto statuam as soon as we can make a statue out of clay Most Christians are perfect too soon which is the reason that they are never perfect They are spiritual in the twinkling of an eye they know not how nor no
its perfection of beauty you may consider it 1. as fitted and proportioned to our very nature 2. as fitted to all sorts and conditions of men 3. as lovely and amiable in the eyes of all 4. as filling and satisfying us 5. as giving a relish and sweet tast to the worst of evils which may befall us whilest with love and admiration we look upon it and making those things of the world which are not good in themselves useful and good and advantageous to us This is the object which is here set up and it is a fair one and Man is called to be the spectatour He hath shewed thee O man And if he look upon it with a stedfast and single eye with affection and love it will make him dignum Deo spectaculum an object fit for the Angels and God himself to look upon For 1. it is fitted to him 2. it is opened and made manifest placed before his eye He hath shewed thee it 3. Last of all it is required of him for what else doth he require It is proper for him It is displayed and laid open before him It is a Law to bind him He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require And first we cannot doubt but God built up Man for this end alone for this Good to communicate his Goodness to him to make him partaker of a Divine nature to make him a kind of God upon the earth to imprint his image upon him by which according to his measure and capacity he might express and represent God 1. By the Knowledge not only of natural and transitory things but also of those which pertain to everlasting life as it is Col. 3.10 being renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him 2. By the rectitude and sanctity of his Will Ephes 4.24 putting on that new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness and 3. By the free and ready Obedience of the outward parts and inward faculties to the beck and command of God which being Divine a breathing from God himself cannot but look forward and look upward upon its original and so teach us to be just as God is righteous in all his wayes to be merciful as he is merciful and to walk humbly before him who hath thus built us up out of the dust but to eternity I say God hath imprinted this image on Man And what communion can God have with evil 1 Cor. 7.31 What relation hath an immortal Essence to that which passeth away changeth every day and at last is not Take Man for the miracle of the world as Trismegistus calleth him that other that lesser world the tye and bond of all the other parts which were made for his sake and what conversation should he have but in heaven what should he look upon but that which is good Or take him as made after Gods image as having that property which no other creature hath to understand to will to reason and determin by which he was made capable of good and made to be partaker of it and we cannot think he had an Understanding given him only to forge deceit and contrive plots Job 24.15 to find out a twilight and an opportunity to do mischief to invent new delights to make an art of pleasure and draw out a method and law of wickedness that that which was given him as his counseller in relation to this good should be his purveiour in the works of the flesh and no better then a pander to his lust We cannot think that he had a Will given him to embrace shadows and apparitions which play with our Phansie and deceive us to wait upon the Flesh which fighteth against the Spirit and this Image within us We cannot think he had Reason given to distinguish him from the other creatures to make him worse then they This cannot be the thought of a Man whilest he remaineth so a Man Illud mirum malos esse tam multos nam ut aqua piscibus circumfusus nobis spiritus volucribus convâ—nit Ita certè facilius esse oportebat secundum naturam quà m contra eam vivere Quint. l. 12. Instit orat c. 11. 1 Cor. 15 45. who is formed and fitted and fashioned only for that which is good This consideration made Quintilian himself a heathen to pronounce That it was as natural for Man to be good as for Birds to fly or Fishes to swim because Man was made for the one as the Birds and Fishes were for the other Secondly there is no proportion at all between any corporeal or sensual thing and the soul of man which is a spirit and immortal and so resembleth that God which breathed it into us For as Lactantius said God is not hungry that you need set him meat nor thirsty that you should pour out drink unto him nor in the dark that you need light up candles And what is Beauty what is the Wedge of gold to the Soul The one is from the earth earthly the other is from the Lord of heaven The World is the Lords and the World is the Souls and all that therein is Psal 24.1 And to behold the Creature and in the World as in a book to study and find out the Creatour to contemplate his Majesty his Goodness his Wisdome and to discover that happiness which is prepared for it to behold the heavens the works of Gods hand and purchase a place there to converse with Seraphim and Cherubim this is the proper act of the Soul for which it was made this this alone was proportioned to it And herein consisteth the excellency and very essence of Religion and the Good which is here shewed us in exalting the Soul in drawing it back from mixing with the Creature in bringing it into subjection under God the first and only Good in uniting it to its proper object in making that which was the breath of God breathe nothing but God The Soul being as the matter and this Good here that is Piety and Religion the form the Soul being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for so Plato calleth Matter the receptacle of this Good as the Matter is of the Form and never right and of a perfect being till it receive it this Good being as the seed and the Soul the ground the matrix and the womb And there is a kind of sympathy between this Good this immortal seed and the heart and mind of Man as there is between Seed and the womb of the Earth For the Soul no sooner seeth it unclouded unvailed not disguised and made terrible by the intervention of things not truly good but upon a full manifestation she is taken as the Bridegroom in the Canticles with its eye and beauty Heaven is a fair sight even in their eyes who tend to destruction so that there is a kind of nearness and alliance between this Good and those notions and principles which God
narrow heart and an earthy mind Cant. 4.12 And if there be any Mercy in us it is as a fountain sealed up which sendeth not forth a drop or a garden inclosed where no man can come to fill his hand This hard opinion the world hath of Mercy as of the most useless and the most unprofitable and disadvantageous thing in the world as the nurse of Prodigality and the mother of Beggery as that which letteth out our blood and life to feed and strengthen others We will therefore in the next place as Tertullians phrase is in hunc ictum confiderare have an eye on this blow and we shall avoid it with ease For indeed it is rather a proffer then a blow And it will soon appear that it is Mercy alone that maketh our wealth ours that it is never more ours then when we part with it that Alienation is our best Assurance and continueth it to us for ever For first it is but an errour to imagin that God openeth his hand and filleth our basket and giveth us the good things of the world for our selves alone and for our own use that he openeth the windows of heaven and droppeth down his blessings into us there to settle and putrifie and corrupt For this is saith Basil as if a man who made hast to the theatre should think all others excluded because he came first This is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to appropriate to thy self those things which are common to all to lock up that in thy chest which should fill the bellies of the poor The goods of the Church in former ages were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wealth of God and of the poor Apol. c. 39. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the things of God Tertullian calleth them deposita pietatis the pledges of Mercy deposited in our hands And if I should call the wealth of Christians so I should not erre Bern. l. 4. de considerat for all are bound to count them so patrimonium crucifixi the patrimony of their crucified Saviour given them not onely to feed and cloath themselves but to supply the necessity of others who have a right which indeed they cannot challenge have something in our granaries and wardrobes to which we onely keep the key with a charge from Heaven to open them when Nakedness and Misery come but so near as to knock at our eyes For God who gave them is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the great Auditour who will take a strict account if we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 use them as our own as the Antients use to speak or spend that in wantonness which should strengthen the weak knees and hands that hang down We are ready to say saith the Father 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Whom do I wrong in keeping of my own And must I be cruel to my self that I may be merciful to others Must I put my knife to my throat that a stranger may be fed And we are easily perswaded that we are good Christians if we be not Foxes to deceive or Lions to devour them The greatest part of our Piety is negative and I would we did but make that good Not to oppress Not to defraud Not to take away with us is to be Merciful as Thieves saith Salvian out of Tully qui putant se vitam dare quibus non eripiunt who will say they give him his life whom they do not kill And yet if Mercy open not my bowels and my hand too I may wrong my brother when I do him no harm I may defraud and spoil him when I take nothing from him I wrong no man is a poor apology Why man Ad voluntatem commodantis commodatarius uti debet accommodato alioquin furtum facit in re commodata Bern. de Inteteriori dom c. 25. thou wrongest the King of Kings when thou sufferest his subjects to perish And this Negative Mercy is no better then Theft The bread which thou layest up is not thine but the bread of the hungry The garment which thou hast lockt up in thy chest is the garment of the naked The gold which thou hidest in the earth is the revenue of the poor and needy As he said of his writings Omne tuum nihil tuum All is thine and nothing is thine For in the second place the best use we can put our riches to the true use which God that gave them hath taught us is so to use them that they may stead us in our greatest necessity to open our hand that it may be filled to water that we may be watered again saith Solomon Prov. 11.25 Luke 16.9 to make them our friends saith a wiser then Solomon to make that which is a parasite to deceive us a snare to entrap us an enemy to fight against us a friend to help and succour us so to use it that it may return multiplyed into our hands For what is properly gain Is not this for a mite to receive a talent for one seed one work of Mercy to receive an hundred-fold Negotiatio est aliqua amittere ut plura lucreris Tertull. ad Mart. c. 2. saith the Father It is a kind of traffick and merchandise to lay out something that you may gain more to venture a knife or bugle to bring back a diamond to treasure up by spending to increase our stock by diminishing it and by losing all to purchase more What was ever saith Julian the Apostate the poorer for what he gave And of himself he telleth us that whatsoever he laid out to supply the wants of others was returned back again by the Gods as the Apostate had now learnt to speak into his hands with usury For when his Liberality had well-near exhausted his own estate his Grand-mothers happily and opportunely fell into his hands What that cursed Apostate falsly attributeth to his false Gods that the God of Gods doth most exactly perform He hath set up his Assurance-office to pay us back in our own coine or if not in that which cannot be valued being of an inestimable price I make no doubt but Gods Mercy is ready to shine upon ours for he loveth it and loveth to look on it I doubt not but he rewardeth our Mercy with the blessings of this life For a cup of cold water which the hand of Mercy filleth and poureth out he giveth many times riches and honour though we perceive it not but attribute them to something else as to our Wisdome and Industry rather then to that Providence which alwaies waiteth upon Mercy blessing it in the work and blessing it when the work is done But what are these to that reward which is laid up for those who do seminare in benedictionibus sow plentifully What are Riches that have wings to Immortality What is a Palace to Heaven We visit the sick and the Spirit of comfort visiteth us We serve our brethren and the Angels minister unto us
but once and shall never see again acteth over those sins which he shall never bring into act delighteth in that which he shall never enjoy robbeth and slayeth and rideth in triumph on a thought and so leaveth his God who gave him this power and faculty to a better end then to wallow in this mire and to be enslaved to the drudgery of so vile an imployment Yet too many are willing to perswade themselves that God neither seeth this nor regardeth it that a Thought is such Gozamour of so thin an appearance that it escapeth the eye and so they set up a whole family of thoughts in their mind and dally and delight themselves with them as with their children And yet this is the ground of all evil and evil it self wrought in the Soul which worketh by its faculties as the Body doth by its members the Eye and the Hand And thus it may beat down Temples murder men lay Kingdoms level with the ground And it groweth and multiplieth reflecteth upon it self with joy and content omnia habet peccatoris praeter manus and hath all that maketh a sinner but Hands But though Men see not our thoughts for this is a Royal prerogative yet they are visible to his eye who is a Spirit And they that look upon them as bare and naked thoughts and not as complete works finisht in the soul know not themselves nor the nature of God and therefore cannot be said to walk with him Rom. 16.17 To conclude then These walk not with God let us therefore mark and avoid them The Presumptuous daring sinner walketh not with him but hideth himself in his Atheistical conceit That because Man cannot punish God doth not see The Hypocrite cometh forth in a disguise and acteth his part and because Men applaud him thinketh God is of their mind as the Pantomine in Seneca who observing the people well pleased with his dancing did every day go up into the Capitol and dance before Jupiter and was perswaded that he was also delighted in him The Apologizer runneth into the holes and burrows of excuses and there he is safe for who shall see him The Speculative sinner hideth himself and all his thoughts in a thought in this thought That Thoughts are so near to nothing that they are invisible That Sin is not sinful till it speak with the tongue or act with the hand But the eye of God is brighter then the Sun and his eye lids will try the children of men Psal 11 4 as the Goldsmith trieth his gold in the fire and will find out the dross which we do not see And if we will not walk with him but walk contrary unto him Lev 26 21 23 c. he will also walk contrary unto us He will see us and not see us know us and not know us Habemus nescientem Deum quod tamen non nescit l. 9. de Trin. saith Hilary God will seem not to know that which he doth know and his ignorance is not ignorance but a mystery For to them who walk not with him humbly now the Word will be at the last day Matth. 25.12 I know you not then God will keep state and not know and acknowledge them This pure God will not know the Unclean this God of truth will not know the Dissembler this strong and mighty God will bring down the Imperious offender this Light will examine thoughts and excuses will fly before it as the mist before the Sun But then Psal 1.6 The Lord knoweth the way of the Righteous saith the Psalmist and those that do justly and love Mercy and walk as under his all seeing eye with humility and reverence he will lead by the hand go along with them uphold and strengthen them in their walk shadow them under his wing and when their walk is ended know them as he did Moses Exod 33. Numb 12. Mal. 3 17 above all men And seeing his own marks upon them beholding though a weak yet the image of his Justice and his Mercy upon them he will spare them as a father spareth his son that serveth him He will know them and love them know them and receive them with an EVGE Well done good and faithful servants Matth. 25.21 23. You have embraced the Good which I shewed you done the thing which I required of you you have dealt justly with your brethren and I will be just in my promises you have shewed Mercy and Mercy shall crown you you have walked humbly with me I will now lift up your heads and you shall inherit the Kingdom which was prepared for you from the foundation of the world Matth. 29.34 The Seventh SERMON GAL. IV. 29. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so is it now IN these words the Apostle doth present to our eye the true face of the Church in an Allegory of Sarah and Hagar of Ismael and Isaac of mount Sinai and mount Sion Gal. 4.24 Which things are an allegory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It speaketh one thing and meaneth another and carrieth wrapt up in it a more excellent sense then the words at first hearing do promise Take the full scheme and delineation in brief 1. Here is Sarah and Hagar that is Servitude and Freedom 2. Here are two Cities Jerusalem that now is the Synagogue of the Jews and that Jerusalem which is above the Vision of peace and mother of all the faithful For by the new Covenant we are made children unto God 3. Here is the Law promulged and thundred out on mount Sinai and the Gospel the Covenant of Grace which God published not from the mount but from heaven it self by the voice of his Son In all you see a fair correspondence and agreement between the type and the thing but so that Jerusalem our Mother is still the highest the Gospel glorious with the liberty it brought and the Law putting on a yoke breathing nothing but servitude and fear Isaac an heir and Ismael thrust out the Christian more honorable then the Jew The curtain is now drawn and we may enter in even within the veil and take that sense which the Apostle himself hath drawn out so plainly to us And indeed it is a good and pleasing sight to see our priviledge and priority in any figure to find out our inheritance in such an Heir our liberty and freedom though in a Woman Who would not lay claim to so much peace and so much liberty Who would not challenge kindred of Isaac and a Burgessship in Jerusalem It is true every Christian may But that we mistake not and think all is peace and liberty that we boast not against the branches that are cut off Rom. 11.18 Paul bringeth in a corrective to check and keep down all swelling and lifting up of our selves the adversative particle S E D But as then so now We are indeed
Arts themselves are not liberal but when they make men so free and ingenuous Arithmetick and Geometry are but a kind of Legerdemain if they teach men onely metiri latifundia accommodare digitos avaritiae to measure Lordships and to tell money What need we instance in these The Word of God which bringeth salvation may bring death if it be not received with the meekness of a babe that we may grow thereby The Sacrament the blessed Sacrament of the Lord's Supper which hath been magnified too much and yet cannot be magnified enough was ordained as Physick to renew and revive and quicken our souls but if it be not received to that end for which it was first instituted it is not Physick but damnation Non QUID sed QUEMADMODUM vers 29. It is not the bare Doing of a thing but the Manner of doing it the driving it on to its right end which giveth it its full beauty and perfection A sincere Heart and the Glory of God set the true image of Liberality on the gift of a mite Attention and Obedience make the Word the savour of life Humility and Repentance sanctifie a fast and Shewing of the death of the Lord maketh us truly partakers of his body and bloud Our Saviour Christ hath fully decided this controversie in a word and with one breath as it were hath said enough to still the tumults of the disputers which have been as the raging of the sea and to settle all the vain and needless controversies of this age John 6.63 even in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The flesh profiteth nothing it is the Spirit that quickeneth For to say his flesh profiteth nothing is a plain declaration that he meant not to give it us to eat That which is nourishment to the body is not proportioned to the soul nor will that which reneweth a soul restore the body to a healthful temper Who would go about to recover a sick man with an Oration of Tully's or set a joynt with an axiom of Philosophy Who can restore a sick soul with bread and wine with flesh or bloud Although these two parts the Soul and the Body are knit and united rogether and do sympathize so as that which refresheth the body doth affect and please the mind and that which cheareth the mind doth strengthen the body yet both the parts receive that which is proper to them the body that which is of a corporeal nature and the soul that which is spiritual and both mutually communicate to each other the fruit and benefit of both without the least confusion of their operations and proprieties Although we see the actions of the body as Hunger and Thirst many times attributed to the soul and the functions of the soul as to Will and the like to the body Therefore we must distinguish between the Meritorious cause and the Efficiency and Application of it which are both joyntly necessary but their manner of operation is diverse It was necessary that the flesh and bloud of Christ should be separated from each other in his violent death on the cross that his most precious bloud should be poured out for remission of sins but to make it a physical potion to make it nourishment to our souls it was not necessary that his bodily substance should be taken into ours For if it should our Saviout telleth us it would profit nothing And the reason is plain Because the merit and virtue of his death which is without us is made ours not by any fleshly conjunction or union with him who merited for us by offering himself but 1. by his Will by which he in a manner maketh it over unto us and 2. by our due receiving of it which is made complete by our Consent and Faith and Giving of thanks which is the work alone of that Spirit which quickeneth and giveth life The blessed Virgin did no doubt partake of the merit of Christ but not because she conceived and bore him nine moneths in her womb but in that she conceived him by faith in her heart Luke 11.27 28. The womb was blessed that bare him and the paps that gave him suck but they rather were blessed who heard his word and kept it The Flesh and Bloud of Christ doth truly quicken us as it was offered up for us a sacrifice on the cross as a meritorious cause and as he gave it for the salvation of the world But it doth not quicken by being received into our bodies but by being received into our souls His merit was enough to save the whole world and yet his merit were nothing if not applied and that application is not wrought without but within us not by the Spirit of life but by the force and power of his death and passion the meritorious cause Rom. 8.2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the Law of Sin and Death What need we hear stir this Water of life and turn it into gall and bitterness Why should this Bread be gravel between our teeth Why should Christ's love be made the matter of war and contention It is called the Body and Bloud of Christ and it is called Bread and Cup in my Text And it is a miserable servitude saith Augustine signa pro rebus accipere to take the signs of things for the things themselves and not to be able to lift up the eye of our mind a-above the corporeal creature to take in eternal light That we may lift up ours let us fix it upon the end for which Christ offered his body and bloud and upon the end for which we are to receive the Sacrament and signs of it And let one end be the measure and rule of the other Let Christ lifted upon the cross draw us after him to follow as he leadeth His body was bruised and his bloud shed to purge us from all iniquity and to make us a peculiar people unto himself That was Christ's end And our end must be proportioned to it So to receive the Sacrament of his body and bloud that it may be instrumental to that end Which cannot be by eating his flesh and bloud that flesh which was crucified and that bloud which was shed One would think it impossible that any should think our Saviour should command us that which is impossible or shew us a way which cannot lead to the end Flesh and Bloud taken down into the stomach can no more feed and quicken a Soul then it can enter into the Kingdom of heaven But his Obedience his Humility his Cross and Passion his meritorious Suffering and Satisfaction these have power and influence on the Soul These are here presented to us as Manna and better then Manna and if we take them down and digest them they will turn into good bloud and feed us to eternal life His Body and Bloud were thus given and thus we must receive them Our Saviour calleth it his
wayes but delight themselves in their own and rest and please themselves in Errour as in Truth to awake them out of this pleasant dream we must trouble them we must thunder to them we must disquiet and displease them For who would give an opiate pill to these Lethargicks To please men then is to tell a sick man that he is well a weak man that he is strong an erring man that he is orthodox instead of purging out the noxious humour to nourish and increase it to smooth and strew the wayes of Errour with roses that men may walk with ease and delight and even dance to their destruction to find out their palate and to fit it to envenom that more which they affect as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperour poyson in a Mushrome What a seditious flatterer is in a Common-wealth that a false-Apostle is in the Church For as the seditious flatterer observeth and learneth the temper and constitution of the place he liveth in and so frameth his speach and behaviour that he may seem to settle and establish that which he studieth to overthrow to be a Patriot for the publick good when he is but a promoter of his private ends to be a servant to the Common-wealth when he is a Traytor so do all seducers and false-teachers They are as loud for the Truth as the best champions she hath but either subtract from it or add to it or pervert and corrupt it that so the Truth it self may help to usher in a lye When the Truth it self doth not please us any lye will please us but then it must carry with it something of the Truth For instance To acknowledge Christ but with the Law is a dangerous mixture It was the errour of the Galatians here To magnifie Faith and shut out Good works is a dash That we can do nothing without Grace is a truth but when we will do nothing to impute it to the want of Grace is a bold and unjust addition To worship God in spirit and truth Joh. 4.23 our Saviour commandeth it but from hence to conclude against outward Worship is an injurious defalcation of a great part of our duty Gal. 5.1 To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free the Apostle commandeth it but to stand so as to rise up in the face of the Magistrate is a Gloss of Flesh and Bloud and corrupteth the Text. Rom. 13.1 Let every soul be subject to the higher powers that is the Text but to be subject no longer then the Power is mannaged to our will is a chain to bind Kings with or a hammer to beat all Power down that we may tread it under our feet And when we cannot relish the Text these mixtures and additions and subtractions will please us These hang as Jewels in our ears these please and kill us beget nothing but a dead Faith and a graceless life not Liberty but Licentiousness not Devotion but Hypocrisie not Religion but Rebellion not Saints but Hypocrites Libertines and Traytors The Truth is corrupted saith Nyssene 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 1. contra Eunom by subtraction by alteration by addition And these we must avoid the rather because they go hand in hand as it were with the Truth and carry it along with them in their company as lewd persons do sometimes a grave and sober man to countenance them in their sportiveness and debauchery De nostro sunt sed non nostrae saith Tertullian De Proscript They invade that inheritance which Christ hath left his Church Some furniture some colour something they borrow from the Truth something they have of ours but ours they are not And therefore as S. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperour of all errours in doctrine we must beware of those which come nearest and border as it were upon the Truth and so draw it in to help to defeat it self because an open and manifest errour carrieth in its very forehead an argument against it self and cannot gain admittance but with a veil whereas these glorious but painted falsehoods find an easie entrance and beg entertainment in the Name of Truth it self This is the cryptick method and subtil artifice of Men-pleasers that is Men-deceivers to grant something that they may win the more and that too in the end which they grant not rudely at first to demolish the Truth but to let it stand a while that they may the more securely raise up and fix that Errour with which it cannot stand long S. Paul saw it well enough though the Galatians did not Gal. 5.2 If you be circumcised Christ profiteth you nothing that is is to you as if there were no Christ at all If the false Apostles had flatly denied Christ the Galatians would have been as ready as S. Paul to have cut them off because they had received the Gospel but joyning and presenting the Law with Christ they did deceive and please them well who began in the Spirit and did acknowledge Christ but would not renounce the Law propter metum Judaeorum for fear of their brethren the Jews Now these Men-pleasers these Crows Dictam Diogenis 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athen. Deipnos l. 6. c. 17. which devour not dead but living men are from an evil eg and beginning are bred and hatcht in the dung in the love of this world and are so proud and fond of their original that it is their labour their religion the main design of their life to bring the Truth Religion and Christ himself in subjection under it And to this end they are very fruitful to bring forth those mishapen issues which savour of the earth and corruption and have onely the name of Christ fastned to them as a badge to commend them and bring them to that end for which they had a being which is to gain the world in the name but in despite of Christ And these are they who as S. Peter speaketh make merchandise of mens souls nummularii sacerdotes 2 Pet. 2.3 as Cyprian calleth them Doctours of the Mint who love the Image of Caesar more then the image of God and had rather see the one in a piece of gold then the other renewed and stampt in a mortal man And this image they carry along with them whithersoever they go and it is as their Holy Ghost to inspire them For most of the doctrines they teach savour of that mint and the same stamp is on them both The same face of Mammon which is in their heart is visible also in their doctrine Thus Hosea complained of the false Prophets in his time Hos 4.8 They eat up the sin of my people that is by pleasing them they have consented to their sin and from hence reaped gain for flattery is a livelyhood Or they did not seriously reprehend the sins of the people that they might receive more sacrifices on which they might feed Some render it Levabant animum
None of these will fit us but SICVT ACCEPIMVS as we have received from Christ and his Apostles which is the onely sufficient Rule to guide us in our Walk 1. Not SICVT VIDIMVS as we have seen others walk No though their praise be in the Gospel and they are numbred amongst the Saints of God For as S. Bernard calleth the examples of the Saints condimentum vitae the sawce of our life to season and make pleasant what else may prove bitter to us as Job's Dunghill may be a good sight for me to look upon in my low estate and his Patience may uphold me David's Groans and Complaints may tune my sorrow Saint Pauls Labours and Stripes and Imprisonment may give me an issue 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a way 1 Cor. 10.13 a power to escape the like temptation by conquering it I may wash off all my grief with their tears wipe out all disgrace with their contumelies and bury the fear of Death in their Graves so they may prove if we be not wary venenum vitae as poyson to our life and walk For I know not how we are readier to stumble with the Saints then to walk with them readier to lie down with David in his bed of lust then in his couch of tears readier to deny Christ with Peter upon a pretense of frailty then to weep bitterly out of a deep sense of our sin In the errours and deviations of my life I am Noah and Abraham and David and Peter I am all the Patriarchs and all the Apostles but in that which made them Saints I have little skill and less mind to follow them It will concern us then to have one eye upon the Saint and another upon the Rule that the actions of good men may be as a prosperous gale to drive us forward in our course and the Rule the Compass to steer by For it will neither help nor comfort me to say I shipwrackt with a Saint James 2.1 My brethren saith S. James have not the faith of Christ in respect of persons It is too common a thing to take our eye from the Rule and settle it upon the Person whom we gaze upon till we have lost our sight and can see nothing of Man or Infirmity in him His Virtue and our Esteem shine and cast a colour and brightness upon the evil which he doth upon whatsoever he saith though false or doth though irregular that it is either less visible or if it be seen commendeth it self by the person that did it and so stealeth and winneth upon us unawares and hath power with us as a Law Could S. Augustine erre There have been too many in the Church who thought he could not and to free him from errour have made his errours greater then they were by large additions of their own and fathered upon him those mishapen births which were he now alive he would startle at and run from or stand up and use all his strength to destroy Could Calvine or Luther do or speak any thing that was not right They that follow them and are proud of their names willing to be distinguished from all others by them would be very angry and hate you perfectly if you should say they could And we cannot but be sensible what strange effects this admiration of their persons hath wrought upon the earth what a fire it hath kindled hotter then that of the Tyrant's fornace Dan. 3. For the flames have raged even to our very doors Thus the Examples of good men like two-edged swords cut both wayes both for good and for bad and Sin and Errour may be conveyed to us not onely in the cup of the Whore but in the vessels of the Sanctuary They are as the Plague and infect wheresoever they are but spread more contagion from a Saint then from a man of Belial In the one they are scarce seen in the other they are seen with horror In the one we hate not the sin so much as the person and in the other we are favourable to the sin for the person's sake and at last grow familiar with it as with our friend De Abrog priv Miss Nihil perniciosius gestis sanctorum said Luther himself There is nothing more dangerous then the actions of the Saints not strengthened by the testimony of Scripture and it is far safer to count that a sin in them which hath not its warrant from Scripture then to fix it up for an ensample for it is not good to follow a Saint into the ditch Let us take them not whom men for men may canonize themselves and others as they please but whom God himself as it were with his own hand hath registred for Saints Hebr. 11.32 Numb 25.7 8 Psal 106.30 Samson was a good man and hath his name in the catalogue of Believers Phinehas a zealous man who staid the plague by executing of judgement but I can neither make Samson an argument to kill my self nor Phinehas to shed the bloud of an adulterer Lib. 2. de Baptismo q. 4. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Hebr. 10.24 S. Basil observeth that amongst those many seeming contradictions in Scripture one is of a Fact or Work done to the Precept The Command is Thou shalt not kill Samson killed himself Phinehas with his spear nailed the adulterous couple to the earth but every man hath not Samson's spirit nor Phinehas's commission The Father's rule is the rule of Wisdome it self When we read in Scripture a Fact commended which falleth cross with the Precept we must leave the Fact and cleave to the Precept For Examples are not rules of life but provocations to good works SICVT VIDIMVS As we have seen then is not a right SICVT We must be like unto Elias but not consume men with fire like unto Peter but not cut off a mans ear like unto S. Paul 1 Cor. 11.1 but himself correcteth it with a SICVT EGO CHRISTI as I am unto Christ 2. In the next place if not SICVT VIDIMVS as we have seen others then not SICVT VISVM FVERIT as it shall seem good in our own eyes For Phansie is a wanton unruly froward faculty and in us as in Beasts for the most part supplieth the place of Reason Vulgus ex veritate pauca Pro Roscio Comaedo ex opinione multa aestimat saith Tully The Common people which is the greatest part of mankind for vulgus is of a larger signification then we usually take it in are led rather by Opinion then by the Truth because they are more subject and enslaved to those two turbulent Tribunes of the Soul the Irascible and the Concupiscible appetite and so more opinionative then those who are not so much under their command It is truly said Affectiones facilè faciunt opiniones Our affections will easily raise up opinions For who will not soon phansie that to be true which he would have so which may either fill his
bound to nourish a hope No man is so lost but he may be restored Whilest he is in this state of life he is in statu merendi or demerendi in the way to bliss or in the way to destruction And if he were at the very brink yet the hand of Mercy may pull him back No fatal decree no malignant aspect from heaven hath so blasted him as to make him uncapable of thy help If there be any such ostendat scriptum Hermogenis officina let the Predestinarian shew it As God once said by his Prophet Where is the bill of divorce so may we Where is the decree And if we cannot shew it it is to us as if there were none at all There is nothing can concern us but but what we may know and that is our duty writ in legible characters as with the sun-beams Thou shalt love thy brother as thy self It is a strange kind of Despair to despair of our brother when we should cure him a Despair flowing from the bitter fountain of Hypocrisie and Uncharitableness For Love looketh many times on unwelcome truths and is unwilling to read them as truths Are we told our friend is dead Amor noluit dictum Love would have it unsaid And can it then be musick in our ears to hear that some of our brethren are damned from all eternity that they were built up as men after the image of God on purpose to be made for hell Why should we love to hear this why should we delight to preach it It is almost a miracle that we can believe it We cannot think that all that Christ preached unto were saved yet he who knew what was in man preached unto them And therefore we must not look upon our brother in the volume of Eternity but in the leaves of Time and consider not what he was nor what he is but what he may be not what a crooked piece he is but what an image of Christ we may make him and by the example of our Saviour follow him with our care and find him out Despair will stay us Hope will send us after him Forsitan huic in sepulcro scelerum jacenti dicat Christus Lazare veni foràs How know we whether Christ may not call unto him lying and rotting in his sin as in a grave Come forth Or if he should yet after all this care perish yet thou shalt save thy self because thou wouldest have saved him Fac quod debes eveniat quod vult is an old plain Arabian proverb and will be good counsel to the world's end Do what thou shouldest and fall out what will Do thy duty and thou hast done all though nothing be done Coyn not suppositions pretend not difficulties or impossibilities presage not ill success How readest thou That is the rule and thou must walk by it Look not on Christ in the bosom of his Father but as he walked upon earth and follow him and by his example follow thy brother with thy counsel If he hearken to thee thou hast wone thy brother If not yet thou art doing Christs ' work which will sooner bring thee to him then thy gazing back and looking what God did from all eternity That may settle thee to dwell in him but this will strike thee with the spirit of giddiness S. Chrysostom bringeth in even Judas himself whom though he was called the child of perdition yet his Master ceased not by counsels and threatnings by admonitions and benefits to have either perswaded or deterred him by any means to have wone and kept him from betraying him And this saith he Christ did to teach us to perform our duty to our brother whether he will hear or whether he will forbear Whatsoever the success shall be blessed shall he be whom his Lord at his coming shall find so doing 2. It will concern us to do the same on our selves to find our selves and all our defects out Non emendabis te nisi te deprehenderis Till this we cannot mend and better our selves If we do not see how little ground we have gone over and how much still remaineth if we do not reach forth Phil. 3.13 as S. Paul speaketh to that which is before we shall make no progress Heb. 6.1 We are not to rest on the principles and beginnings of piety but to go on to perfection If we begin with a miracle with alacrity and cheerfulness in the profession of Christianity and then flag and fail and fall back if we rise up and walk and then be worse paralyticks then before the miracle is lost the first grace and favour will change countenance and stand up and accuse us and that which bespoke us to go and might have promoted us to happiness will appear to our condemnation It is a dangerous thing to be the worse for Christ's goodness more miserable by his favours more impotent when we are healed more bold and daring after a miracle to rest in beginnings as in the end to riot it on benefits and to be brought back on those wings which should carry us on to perfection Unto which we ought still to press forward as the Angels mounted to heaven on Jacob's ladder step by step rung by rung by degrees Luke 14.30 Commonly we are cured too soon We begin to build and are not able to finish We do not sit down and cast with our selves what will cost us We do not weigh the labour the dangers the inconveniencies which attend this Profession the loss of our goods the hazard of our lives the displeasure of friends the daily wrestlings and fightings not onely with principalities and the powers of darkness but with our selves These are not in our thoughts But to take the name of Christ to give up our names unto him to be called Christians that is our 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 our Zenith our perfection When Christ hath bid us rise and walk when he hath called us by his Gospel out of the world when we can reckon our selves as members of his Church we say as Esau did to his brother Jacob Christ hath dealt graciously with us and we have enough we walk on in a vain shadow in an imagination in a dream comfort our selves we bless our selves we assure our selves as if we were pressing forward in the wayes to happiness And the truth is we begin too soon we are perfect too soon comforted too soon assured too soon And we may justly fear that the greatest part of Christians are so soon in heaven that they will never come there For how are we taken and delighted with the most slender performances How doth the heart leap at the gift of a penny What musick is there in a sigh though breathed from an hallow heart what refreshment in a fast though it be to bloud and oppression What a heaven do we feel when have we made a good profession What a Sabbath day's journey have we taken when we have heard a Sermon How
as those do who are brought near and even united to the thing that they would have 2. At this is proportioned to the Soul so it is to every soul to all sorts of men It equally concerneth all of what calling or condition soever It is a merchandise which cannot be bought by a deputy cannot be recovered by a proxy Like the Sun it looketh upon all and must be looked upon by all It is fitted to all and bindeth all And therefore the buying of it the study of it and of every branch of it concerneth you who are our hearers as much as us who teach it It is not of so large a compass but the narrowest understanding may contain it God will not shut us out of heaven because we cannot untie every knot and answer every doubt I never could think it a matter of wit and subtilty to become a Christian There is saith S. Hierome sancta rusticitas a kind of holy plainness and rusticity simplicitas idiotarum amativa as Gerson speaketh a simplicity of the unlearned which is full of love and affection which like men at distance from that which they desire look more earnestly towards it Numb 11.29 It is to be wished indeed that all the Lord's people were prophets for knowledge is a rich ornament of the soul But he that doth not attain deep knowledge with the wisest may attain true happiness with the best as a man may put into the haven in a small bark as well as in an Argosie Mark 12.42.44 He who giveth all that he hath for the Truth though it be but two mites his serious but weak endeavours shall be sure of a good penyworth He that buyeth what we can shall have enough And therefore it is fitted to all to all nations to all sexes to all ages to all tempers and constitutions to the Jew and to the Gentile to the bond and to the free to the Scribe and to the idiote to the young and to the aged None so much a Jew so much a slave so dull and slow of understanding none so much a Lazar so much a Barzillai so over run with sores or decrepit with age but he may buy the Truth Freedom and slavery circumcision and uncircumsion quickness and slowness of wit youth and age in respect of this purchase are alike 3. As it is fitted to all so it is lovely and amiable in the eyes of all even of those who will not buy it What amiable and not be desired Yes it is so in this spiritual Mart. We can conceive it good and refuse it we can behold its beauty and not woo it we can say it is a rich pearl and yet prefer a pebble on the beach before it say How amiable are the courts of Truth and yet never enter them For in this Knowledge and Desire do not alwaies meet but the Will oftentimes planet-wise slyly creepeth on her own way contrary to the strong circumvolution of the First mover the Understanding pointeth one way and the Affections sway us another The Understanding looketh upon Truth as a prize yet the Will rejecteth it as a vanity the Understanding judgeth it to be the best good yet the Will turneth from it as from the worst of evils The good that I would Rom. 7.19 that is which I approve that do I not But in our temporal affairs these faculties of the soul are seldom at variance but profit and advantage of this kind we seek with all our soul with all our heart with all our understanding But for this heavenly commodity though we have not an heart to buy yet we have an head to judge of the worth and value of it .. Even the fool in this is as wise as Solomon and can say that this Truth is more precious then rubies Prov. 3.15 But as they who knew the judgment of God Rom. 1.31 that they who commit all unrighteousness are worthy of death did not onely do the same but had pleasure in them that did so on the other side many who know this Truth to be the best merchandise do not onely not traffick for it themselves but are enemies to them that do and hinder and persecute them all they can are angry at them that do what themselves judge to be best And this is the glory and triumph of Truth Matth. 11.19 that she is justified not onely of her children but of her very enemies that she striketh a reverence in those that neglect her is magnified by those who revile her and findeth a place in their breasts who suppress her When the poor merchants of Truth are proscribed and her children appointed to die then doth Truth hold up her sceptre in the very inward parts of the raging persecutours and forceth them to condemn themselves for condemning them to honour those whom they have delivered to shame and death and in their heart to null that sentence which their fury and sensuality have put in execution And thus we retain in publico sensu in the common stock of Nature enough to discover what we should buy But to venture and traffick to spend and lay out our selves upon it is the work of that Grace which subdueth the Flesh to the Spirit and crucifieth the Affections and Lusts which have more power upon the Will then the Reason and may dim the eye of the Understanding but never quite put it out For who ever was so much a traitour as to condemn Fidelity What adulterer did ever yet write a panegyrick on Uncleanness Who was ever so evil as to commend evil Who did ever so ill govern his life as not to wish he might die the death of the righteous Num. 23.10 When evil is laid to the charge of wicked men they count it an heavy charge and therefore to shift it off are fain to run themselves within the danger of a worse and to call evil good Psal 14.1 53.1 and good evil Which yet they do but say in their heart as the Fool doth in the book of Psalms that there is no God They do not think but say it in their heart say it by rotâ— as that which they would have to be truth but know to be false 4. Yet to raise the price of this jewel higher know that if we buy not the Truth not onely our wealth and riches but even the goodly and gracious endowments of our souls also are nothing worth For want of this one purchase where is the rich Glutton now nay where is the scribe 1 Cor. 1.20 where is the wise where is the disputer of this world What a poor Worse then nothing is a rich Atheist or an honourable Hypocrite What speak we of Riches and Honour Virtue it self is of small use if it take not this Truth along with it We are taught by Divines that by the fall of our first parents we did utterly lose some things and though other excellent things do still remain
many times then that which we gain by lawful and prescribed means then that which we buy For it moveth like a tempest and driveth down all even the Truth it self before it Look over the whole catalogue of the sons of Belial and take a view of all the turbulent spirits that have been in the world and ye shall find the most of them to have been Enthusiasts pretenders to an unsought for and suddain revelation most wicked because so soon good and extremely ignorant because wise in an instant James 3.17 But the Truth which is from above and is not thrown down but bought from thence is pure and peaceable and easie to be intreated full of good works and without hypocrisie And it self is conveyed into us the right way so it ordereth every motion and action regulateth the whole progress of our life and maketh it like unto it self That may seem an harsh saying of Metellus Numidicus and had a Christian Divine uttered it Gell. lib. 1. c. 6. he had gone for a Pelagian His demum Deos propitios esse aequum est qui sibi adversarii non sunt Dii immortales approbare virtutem non adhibere debent It is a kind of justice that God should be favourable to those who are not enemies to themselves God sitteth above as one that hath set us our task and observeth our hands and doth not do all himself But his reason certainly is orthodox Quid nos à Deo diutiùs exspectemus nisi errationibus finem faciamus What can we expect from the God of truth if we still follow lies and will make no end of running from the truth God hath so ordered that nothing of great moment can be suddenly done Every work must find us fitted and prepared or else we shall find it will fly out of our reach Hence the Philosopher giveth this reason why there be so few wise men Quia pauci Sapientiam dignam putant nisi quam in transitu cognoscant Because the most have so low an opinion of the Truth that they think her not worth saluting unless it be by the by The reason why men know not the Truth is because they reverence it not but think it is a wind which will blow when they list that it will enter them without entreaty become theirs when they please yea whether they will or no. This is the cause why Truth which is the best merchandise is so seldom bought and phansies of our own are entertained in its place Hence it is that all our silver is dross our coyn counterfeit and our actions bear so little of the image and face of Truth upon them that To be merciful is but to fling a mite into the treasury To fast is to abstain for a day To pray is but to say Lord hear me or which is worse to multiply words without sense To love the Truth is but to hear it preached To be a Christian is onely to profess it To have faith is to boast of it To have hope is to say so and To be full of charity is but to do good to our selves These graces we deny not are infused yet they are gained encreased and confirmed in us by care and diligence Faith cometh by hearing saith the Apostle Rom. 10.17 We cannot but observe that in our greener years we are catechized and instructed and in our riper age when reason is improved in us we look over our evidence again and again and by the miracles and innocency of our Saviour and by the excellency of his doctrine and by the joynt testimony of the Apostles and the huge improbability that they should deceive us Jude 20. we are built up and building implieth labour on our most holy Faith which worketh by Charity Gal. 5.6 When that Faith which is not thus bought but is brought in without any motives or inducements without study or meditation which is not bought but created by our selves and so is a phansie rather then Faith bringeth forth nothing praiseworthy is not a foundation of good works but a mere pillar of our own setting up to lean upon and to uphold and comfort a spirit that would otherwise droop when we have committed evil If mens Faith did cost them more sure they would make more use of it then they do And for Hope What is it but a conclusion gathered by long experience by curious and watchful observation by a painful peregrination through all the powers of our soul and an exact search of all the actions of our life which if answerable to the Truth produce a firm Hope if not our Hope we may call an anchor Heb. 6.19 but it is of no more use then an anchor painted upon a wall or rather it is not an anchor but a rock at which we may shipwreck and sink I might instance in more For thus it is in all the passages of our life There is nothing wrought in us but with pains at least nothing that is worth possessing Nay those evils which we should dispossess our selves of do not alwayes enter with ease 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Chrysostome Even the things of the Devil are not attained without labour and cost How laborious is thy Revenge how busie thy Cruelty how watchful and studious thy Lust what penance doth thy Covetousness put thee to And if our vices cost us so dear and stand us at so high a rate shall we think that that Truth will run after us and follow us in all our wayes which bringeth along with it an eternal weight of glory Can a negligent and careless glance upon the Bible can our airy and empty speculations can the wantonness of our ear can our confidence and ignorance straight make us Evangelists Or is it probable that Truth should come è profundo putei out of the bottom of the well and offer her self to them who stand idle at the mouth and top of it and will let down no pitcher to draw it up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Olymp. od 5. as Pinder speaketh Labour and cost wait still upon the Truth Nor will she visit and abide with us unless these usher her in and attend upon her Like Jabez Truth is most honourable but we bear it with pain 1 Chron. 4.9 In a word Truth is the gift of God but conditional given on condition that we fit our selves to receive it It cometh down from heaven but it must be called for here on earth Think not it will fall upon thee by chance or come to thee at any time Eccl. 11.9 12.1 if not in the dayes of thy youth yet in the evil dayes and the years in which thou shalt have no pleasure that it will offer it self in thine old age on thy bed of sickness that it will joyn and mingle it self with thy last breath and carry thy soul to happiness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Now is the market now is the Truth set to sale as it
we know he was but a man and we know he erred or else our Church doth in many things It were easie to name them But suppose he had broached as many lies as the Father of them could suggest yet those who in their opinions had raised him to such an height would with an open breast have received them all as oracles and have licked up poison if it had fallen from him For they had the same inducement to believe him when he erred which they had to believe him when he spake the Truth We do not derogate from so great a person we are willing to believe that he was sent from God as an useful instrument to promote the Truth But we do not believe that he sent him as he sent his Son into the world that all his words should be spirit and life John 6.63 that in every word he spake whosoever heard him heard the Father also Thus ye see how Prejudice may arise how it may be built upon a Church and upon a person and may so captivate and depress the Reason that she shall not be able to look up and see and judge of that Truth which we should buy I might instance in others and those too who have reformed the Reformation it self who have placed the Founder of their Sect as a star in a firmament and walk by the light which he casteth and by none other though it come from the Sun it self Who fixing their eye upon him alone follow as he led and in their zele and forward obsequiousness to his dictates many times outgo him and in his name and spirit work such wonders as we have shrunk and trembled at But manum de tabula we forbear lest whilest we strive to charm one serpent we awake an hundred and those such as can bite their brethren as Prejudice doth them I shall but instance in two or three prejudicial opinions which have been as a portcullis shut down against the Truth The first is That the Truth is not to be bought nor obtained by any venture or endeavour of ours but worketh it self into us by an irresistible force so as that when we shall have once got possession of it no principalities or powers no temptation no sin can deprive us of it but it will abide against all storms and assaults all subtilty and violence nay it will not remove though we do what in us lieth to thrust it out so that we may be at once possessours of it and yet enemies to it Now when this opinion hath once gained a kingdome in our heads and we count it a kind of treason or sacrilege to depose it why should we be smitten Isa 1.5 why should we be instructed any more Argument and reason will prove but paper-shot make some noise perhaps but no impression at all What is the tongue of the learned to him who will hearken to none but himself We talk of a preventing Grace to keep us from evil but this is a preventing ungracious perversness to withhold us from the Truth For when that which first speaketh in us which we first speak to our selves or others to us who can comply with that which is much dearer to us then our selves our corrupt humour and carnality when that is sealed and ratified for ever advice and counsel come too late When Prejudice is the onely musick we delight to hear what is the tongue of Men and Angels what are the instructions of the wise but harsh and unpleasant notes abhorred almost as much as the howlings of a damned spirit When we are thus rooted and built up in errour what can shake us It is impossible for us to learn or unlearn any thing For there is no reason we should be untaught that which we rest upon as certain and which we received as an everlasting truth written in our hearts by the finger of God himself and that as we think with an indeleble character Or why should we studie the knowledge of that which will be poured by an omnipotent and irrefragable hand into our minds Who would buy that which shall be forced upon him When the Jew is thus prepossessed when he putteth the Word of God from him Acts 13.46 and judgeth himself unworthy of everlasting life then there is no more to be said then that of the Apostles Lo we turn to the Gentiles Another Prejudice there is powerful in the world somewhat like the former namely a presumption that the Spirit of God teacheth us immediately and that a new light shineth in our hearts never seen before that the Spirit teacheth us not onely by his Word but against it That there is a twofold Word of God 1 Verbum praeparatorium a Word read and expounded to us by the ministery of men 2. Verâ—um consummatorium a Word which consummateth all and this is from the Spirit The one is as John Baptist to prepare the way the other as Christ to finish and perfect the work It pleaseth the Spirit of God say they by his inward operation to illuminate the mind of man with such knowledge as is not at all proposed in the outward Word and to instill that sense which the words do not bear Thus they do not onely lie to the holy Ghost but teach him to dissemble to dictate one thing and to mean another to tell you in your ear you must not do this and to tell you in your heart you may to tell you in his proclamation Matth. 5.21 you may not be angry with your brother and to tell you in secret you may murder him to tell you in the Church Matth. 21.13 you must not make his house a den of thieves and to tell you in your closet you may down with it even to the ground Juven Sat. 8. Inde Dolabella est atque hinc Antonius inde Sacrilegus Verres From hence are wars contentions heresies schismes from hence that implacable hatred of one another which is not in a Turk or a Jew to a Christian For tell me What may not they say or do who dare publish this when their Phansie is wanton It is the Spirit when their Humour is predominant It is the Spirit when their Lust and Ambition carry them on with violence to the most horrid attempts It is the Spirit when they help the Father of lies to fling his darts abroad It is the Spirit It is indeed the Spirit a Spirit of illusion a bold and impudent Spirit that cannot blush For when it is agreed on all sides that all necessary truths are plainly revealed in Scripture what Spirit must that be which is sent into the world to teach us more then all In a word it is a Spirit that teacheth us not that which is but that which our Lusts have already set up for truth A new light which is but a meteor to lead us to those precipices those works of darkness which no night is dark enough to cover Such a Spirit as proceedeth
the highest heavens for evermore The Sixteenth SERMON PART II. 1 COR. VI. 20. For ye are bought with a price therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's THese words are a Logical Enthymeme consisting of two parts an Antecedent Ye are bought with a price and a Consequent naturally following Therefore glorifie God in your body and in your spirit which are God's God's by Creation and God's by Redemption the Body bought and redeemed from the dust to which it must have fallen for ever and the Soul from a worse death the death of sin from those impurities which bound it over to an eternity of punishment and therefore both to be consecrated to him who bought them How God is to be glorified in our spirit we have already shewn to wit by a kind of assimilation by framing and fashioning our selves to the will and mind of God He that is of the same mind with God glorifieth him by bowing to him in his still voice and by bowing to him in his thunder by hearkening to him when he speaketh as a Father and by hearkening to him when he threatneth as a Lord by hearkening to his mercy and by hearkening to his rod. For the Glory of a King is most resplendent in the obedience of his subjects In a word we glorifie God by Justice and Mercy and those other vertues which are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 defluxions and emanations from his infinite goodness and light In a just and perfect man God shineth in glory and all that behold him will say that God is in him of a truth The Glory of God is that immense ocean into which all streams must run Our Creation our Redemption are to his glory Nay the Damnation of the wicked at last emptieth it self and endeth here This his wisdom worketh out of his dishonour and forceth it out of blasphemy it self But God's chief glory and in which he most delighteth is from our submissive yielding to his natural and primitive intent which is that we should follow and be like him in all purity and holiness In this he is well pleased that we should do that which is pleasing in his sight Then he looketh with an eye of favour and complacency upon Man his creature when he appeareth in that shape and form which he prescribed when he seeth his own image in him when he is what he would have him be when he doth not change the glory of God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things when he doth not prostitute that Understanding to folly which should know him and that Will to vanity which should seek him nor fasten those Affections to the earth which should wait upon him alone when he falleth not from his state and condition but is holy as God is holy merciful as God is merciful perfect as God is perfect Then is he glorified then doth he glory in him Deut. 30.9 and rejoyce over him as Moses speaketh as over the work of his hands as over his image and likeness not corrupted not defaced Then is Man taught Canticum laudis nothing else but the Glory and Praise of his Maker Thus do we glorifie God in our spirit Now to pass to that which we formerly did but touch upon Man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 made up of both of Body and Spirit and therefore must glorifie God not onely in the spirit but in the body also For such a near conjunction there is between the Body and the Soul that nothing but Death can divorce them and that too but for a while a sleeping-time after which they shall be made up into one again either to howl out their blasphemie or to sing a song of praise to their Maker for evermore If we will not glorifie God in our body by chastity by abstinence by patience here we shall be forced to do it by weeping and gnashing of teeth hereafter It is true the body is but flesh 2 Cor. 4.11 yet the life of Jesus may be made manifest in this our flesh It is but dust and ashes but this dust and ashes may be raised up and made a Temple of the holy Ghost a Temple in which we offer up ch 6.19 not beasts our raging lusts and unruly affections nor the foul stench and exhalations of our corrupted hearts but the sweet incense of our devotion not whole drink offerings but our tears and strong supplications such a Temple which it self may be a sacrifice a holy and acceptable sacrifice Rom. 12.1 post Dei templum sepulcrum Christi saith Tertullian and being a Temple of God be made a sepulchre of Christ by bearing about in it the dying of our Lord Jesus For when we beat it down and bring it in subjection when we do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep it chast and pure quench those unholy fires which are even ready to kindle and flame up in it bind and tye it up from joyning with that forbidden object to which its bent and natural inclination carrieth it when we have set a watch at every sense at every door which may be an in-let to the Enemy when we have learned so far to love it as to despise it to esteem of it as not ours but his that made it to be macerated and diminished to be spit upon and whipt to be stretched out on the rack to be ploughed up with the scourge to be consumed in the fire when his honour calleth for it when with S. Paul we are ready to offer it up then is the power of Christ's death visible in it and the beauty of that sight is the glory of God First we glorifie God in our bodies when we use them for that end to which he built them up when we make them not the weapons of sin but the weapons of righteousness when we do not suffer them to make our Spirit and Reason their servants to usher in those delights which may flatter and please them but bring them under the law and command of Reason Touch not Taste not Handle not which by its power may check the weakness of the Flesh and so uphold and defend it from those allurements and illusions from that deep ditch that hell into which it was ready to fall and willing to be swallowed up Now saith S. Paul vers 13◠the body is not for fornication It was not created for that end For how can God who is Purity it self create a body for uncleanness Not then for fornication but for the Lord and the Lord for the body Who made it as an instrument which the mind might use to the improvement and beautifying of it self as a vessel to be possest by us in holiness and honour 1 Thes 4.4 his Temple and thy vessel his Temple that thou mayest not profane it and thy vessel that thou mayest not defile and pollute it nor defile thy soul in it For this kind of
celestial dialect and not as some of late have been ready to make it the language of the Whore of Babylon as if Faith onely did make a Protestant and Good works were the mark of a Papist What mention we Papist or Protestant The Christian is the member of this Body and Common-wealth this is his language Zeph. 3.9 the pure language When Hand and Tongue Faith and Good works a full Persuasion and a sincere Obedience are joyned together then we shall speak this language plainly and men will understand us and glorifie God the Angels will understand and applaud us and the Lord will understand and crown us We shall speak it not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faintly and feignedly ready upon any allurement or terrour to eat our words but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall make it plain by an Ocular demonstration And this is truly to say JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. This is the Lesson our first Part. And thus far we are gone And we see it is no easie matter 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to speak but these three words JESUS EST DOMINUS Jesus is the Lord. For we must comprehend Eph. 3.18 saith the Apostle the breadth and length and depth and height of this Divine mystery the breadth saith S. Augustine in the expansion and dilatation of my Charity the length by my continued perseverance unto the end the height in the exaltation of my hope to reach at things above and the depth in the contemplation of the bottomless sea of God's mercies These are the dimensions And if we will learn these Mathematicks because we see the Lesson is difficult we must have a skilful Master And behold my next Part bringeth him forth bringeth us news of one who is higher then heaven broader then the sea and longer then the earth as Job speaketh It is the holy Ghost For no man can say that Jesus is the Lord but by the holy Ghost And indeed good reason that he should be our Teacher For as the Lesson is such should the Master be The Lesson is spiritual the Teacher a Spirit The Lecture is a lecture of piety and the Spirit is an holy Spirit The Lesson proposeth a method to joyn Heaven and Earth God and Man Mortality and Immortality Misery and Happiness in one to draw us near unto God and make us one with him and the holy Ghost is that consubstantial and coeternal Friendship of the Father and the Son nexus amorosus as the Schools speak the essential Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity Flesh and blood cannot reveal this great mystery it must be a Spirit And the Spirit of this world bringeth no news from Heaven we may be sure It must be SPIRITUS SANCTUS the holy Ghost SPIRITUS SANCTUS for JESUS DOMINUS the holy Ghost for Jesus the Lord that by the grace of the holy Spirit we may learn the Power of the Son and by the inspiration of his Holiness learn the mystery of Holiness For it is not sharpness of wit or quickness of apprehension or force of eloquence that can raise us to this Truth but the Spirit of God must lead us to this tree of Knowledge Therefore Tertullian calleth Christian Religion commentum Divinitatis the invention of the Divine Spirit as Faith is called the gift of God not onely because it is given to every believer but because the Spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith O qualis artifex Spiritus sanctus What a skilful Artificer what an excellent Master is the blessed Spirit who found out a way to lift up Dust it self as high as Heaven and clothe it with eternity whose least beam is more glorious then the Sun and maketh it day unto us whose every whisper is as thunder to awake us cujus tetigisse docuisse est whose every touch and breathing is an instruction 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene For this Spirit is wise and can he is loving and will teach us if we will learn He inspireth an Herdsman and he straight becometh a Prophet He calleth a Fisherman and maketh him an Apostle Et non opus est morâ Spiritui Sancto He standeth not in need of any help from delay Without him Miracles are sluggish and of no efficacy but upon his breathing our Saviour shall appear glorious in his ignominy and the Thief shall worship him on his cross as if he had been in his Kingdom in whom he wrought such an alteration that in S. Hierom's phrase mutavit homicidii poenam in martyrium he was so changed that he died not a thief or murtherer but a Martyr And such a powerful Teacher we stood in need of to raise our Nature and that corrupt unto so high a pitch as the participation of the Divine Nature For no act and so no act of holiness or spiritual knowledge can be produced by any power which is not connatural to it and as it were a principle of that act So that as there is a natural light by which we are brought to the apprehension of natural principles whether speculative or practick by which light many of the Heathen proceeded so far as to leave most of them behind them who have the Sun of righteousness ever shining upon them so there must be a supernatural light by which we may be guided to attain unto truths of a higher nature Which the Heathen wanting did run uncertainly as S. Paul speaketh and beat the air and all those glorious acts by which they did out shine many of us were but as the Rainbow before the Floud for shew but for no use at all The Power must ever be connatural to the Act. Nature may move in her own sphere and turn us about in that compass to do those things which Nature is capable of but Nature could not make a Saint or a member of Christ To spiritualize a man to make him Christi-formem to bring him to a conformity and uniformity with Christ is the work alone of the Spirit of Christ Which he doth sweetly and secretly powerfully characterizing our hearts and so taking possession of them The Apostle telleth us that Christ dwelleth in us by his Spirit by his power and efficacy Rom. 8.11 which worketh like fire enlightning warming and purging our hearts Matth. 3.11 which are the effects of Fire First by sanctifying our knowledge of him by shewing us the riches of his Gospel and the beauty and majesty of Christ's Dominion and Kingdom with that evidence that we are forced to fall down and worship by filling the soul with the glory of it as God filled the Tabernacle with his Exod. 30. that all the powers and faculties of our soul are ravished at the sight that we come willingly and fall down willingly before this Lord in a word by bringing on that Truth which our heart assenteth to with that clearness and fulness of demonstration that it passeth through all the
The treasures thereof are infinite the minerals thereof are rich assiduè pleniùs responsura fodienti The more they are digged the more plentifully do they offer themselves that all the wit of men and Angels can never be able to draw them dry But even this Word many times is but a word and no more Sometimes it is a killing letter Such vain and unskilful pioneers we are that for the most part we meet with poisonous damps and vapours instead of treasure I might adde a third Teacher Christ's Discipline which when we think of nothing but of Jesus by his rod and afflictions putteth us in remembrance that he is the Lord. This Teacher hath a kind of Divine authority and by this the Spirit breatheth many times with more efficacy and power then by the Church or the Word then by the Prophets and Apostles and holy Scriptures For when we are disobedient to his Church deaf to his Word at the noise of these many waters we are afraid and yield our necks unto his yoke All these are Teachers But their authority and power and efficacy they have from the Spirit The Church if not directed by the Spirit were but a rout or Conventicle the Word if not quickned by the Spirit a dead letter and his Discipline a rod of iron first to harden us and then break us to pieces But AFFLAT SPIRITUS the Spirit bloweth upon his Garden the Church and the spices thereof flow And then to disobey the Church is to resist the Spirit INCUBAT SPIRITUS The holy Ghost sitteth upon the seed of the Word and hatcheth a new creature a subject to this Lord. MOVET SPIRITUS The Spirit moveth upon these waters of bitterness and then they make us fruitful to every good work In a word The Church is a Teacher and the Word is a Teacher and Afflictions are Teachers but the Spirit of God the holy Ghost is all in all I might here enter a large field full of delightful variety But I forbear and withdraw my self and will onely remember you that this Spirit is a spirit that teacheth Obedience and Meekness that if we will have him light upon us we must receive him as Christ did in the shape of a Dove in all innocency and simplicity He telleth us himself that with a froward heart he will not dwell and then sure he will not enlighten it For as Chrysostom well observeth that the Prophets of God and Satan did in this notoriously differ that they who gave Oracles from God gave them with all mildness and temper without any fanatick alteration but they who gave Oracles by motion from the Devil did it with much distraction and confusion with a kind of fury and madness so we shall easily find that those motions which descend not from above are earthly sensual and devilish that in them there is strife and envying and confusion and every evil work but the wisdom which is from above from the holy Ghost is first pure then peaceable gentle easie to be intreated James 3. full of mercy and good fruits Be not deceived When thy Anger rageth the Spirit is not in that storm When thy Disobedience to Government is loud he speaketh not in that thunder When thy Zele is mad and unruly he dwelleth not in that fiery hush When the faculties of thy soul are shaken and dislocated by thy stubborn and perverse passions that thou canst neither look nor speak nor move aright he will not be in that earthquake But in the still voice and the cool of the day in the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the calm and tranquility and peace of thy soul he cometh when that storm is slumbred that earthquake setled that thunder stilled that fire quenched And he cometh as a light to shew thee the beauty and love of thy Saviour and the glory and power of thy Lord. And though he be sole Instructor yet he descendeth to make use of means and if thou wilfully withdraw thy self from these thou art none of his celestial Auditory To conclude Wilt thou know how to speak this language truly that Jesus is the Lord and assure thy self that the Spirit teacheth thee so to speak Mark well then those symptoms and indications of his presence those marks and signs which he hath left us in his word to know when the voice is his For though as the Kingdom of heaven so the Spirit of God cometh not with observation yet we may observe whether he be come or no. Remember then first that he is a Spirit and the Spirit of God and so is contrary to the Flesh and teacheth nothing that may flatter or countenance it or let it loose to insult over the Spirit For this is against the very nature of the Spirit as much as it is for light bodies to descend or heavy to move upwards Nay Fire may descend and the Earth may be moved out of its place the Sun may stand still or go back Nature may change its course at the word and beck of the God of Nature but this is one thing which God cannot do he cannot change himself nor can his Spirit breathe any doctrine forth that savoureth of the World or the Flesh or Corruption Therefore we may nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be effects and products of the blessed Spirit when we observe them drawn out and levelled to carnal ends and temporal respects For sure the Spirit can never beat a bargain for the world and the Truth of God is the most unproportioned price that can be laid out on such a purchace When I see a man move his eyes compose his countenance order and methodize his gesture and behaviour as if he were now on his death-bed to take his leave of the world and to seal that Renouncement which he made at the Font when I hear him loud in prayer and as loud in reviling the iniquities of the times wishing his eyes a fountain of tears to bewail them day and night when I see him startle at a mis-placed word as if it were a thunderbolt when I hear him cry as loud for a Reformation as the idolatrous Priests did upon their Baal I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount going up into heaven But after all this devotion this zele this noise when I see him stoop like the Vultur and fly like lightning to the prey I cannot but say within my self O Lucifer son of the morning how art thou fallen from heaven how art thou brought down to the ground nay to hell it self Sure I am the holy Ghost looketh upward moveth upward directeth us upward and if we follow him neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung Remember again that he is SPIRITUS RECTUS a right Spirit as David calleth him Psal 51. not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 winding and turning several wayes now to God and anon nay at once to Mammon now glancing
the same Apostle telleth the Athenians Act. 17.14 c. that God made the world and all things therein and made of one bloud all nations that they should seek the Lord if haply they might feel after him and find him though he be not far from every one of us not far from us if we will seek him The Schools call it vehiculum creaturae the chariot of the creature by which we may be carried up as Elijah was to Heaven by which Man who amongst all the creatures was made for a supernatural end is lifted up nearer to that end For as the Angels have the knowledge of the Creature in the Creator himself saith Bernard for what a poor sight is the Creature to an Angel that seeth the face of him that made it so Man by degrees gaineth a view of God by looking on the works of his hands Secondly As God manifesteth himself in his creature so he appeareth as a light in our very souls Prov. 20.27 He hath set up a candle there Solomon calleth it so The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord searching all the inward parts of the belly a light to all the faculties of the soul and to all the parts of the body to guide and direct them in the seeking after God By this light it is that thou lookest upon thy self and art afraid of thy self By this light they that are in darkness they that are darkness it self the profanest Atheists in the world at one time or other behold themselves as stubble and God as a consuming fire behold that horror in themselves which striketh them into a trembling fit This candle may burn dim being compassed about with the damp of our corruptions but it can no more be put out then the light of the Sun In my prosperity I said I shall never be moved I am a Saint of God a man of blessings guided assisted applauded by God himself Here the candle burneth dim But when Fortune or rather Providence shall turn the wheel and throw me on the ground then it will blaze and by that light I shall behold God my enemy whom I called my friend and fellow-worker Whilest we are men we have reason or we are not men and whilest the spirit remaineth it is a candle though we use it not as we should but are guided rather by the prince of darkness Thirdly to quicken and revive this light God hath sent another Light into the world God was made manifest in the flesh 1 Tim. 3 16. John 1.14 saith S. Paul The Word was made flesh not onely to dwell amongst us but to teach us to improve the light of nature and all those principles of the knowledge of good and evil with which we were born John 17.26 He declared his father's name he made him visible to the eye and set him up as an ensample of purity and justice of mercy and love His Flesh being the window through which Immortality and Eternity and God himself was discovered to mortal men that so he might joyn finem principio the end to the beginning Man to God that so we might seek him in the light of his face God being made thus conspicuous in his Gospel Psal 89.15 shining in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face and person of Jesus Christ who is the brightness of his glory 2 Cor. 4.6 Hebr. 1.3 and the express image of his person And indeed to seek God is not to seek his essence which is past finding out but his will which Chirst hath fully manifested in his Gospel This true light hath made God an object indeed hath given us a more distinct knowledge of him then the light of Nature could do hath declared his attributes revealed his will rent every veil cleared all obscurity scattered every mist and cloud made him of an unknown a known God hath revealed his arm his power to punish us if we seek him not hath opened his bowels proclaimed a jubilee a re-instating of all those who will forsake their old wayes and seek him with their whole heart For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works Ephes 2.10 2 Cor. 5.17 which God hath ordained before that we should walk in them that so we might be new creatures that as he created the world out of a rude heap or mass without form to bring forth fruits so he might make us of disobedient and disorderly men composed and plyable to his will that he might draw us out of the chaos of our own confused imaginations and redeem us from bondage into the glorious liberty of the sons of God which liberty consisteth alone in seeking and serving him Thus then you see though God be invisible and incomprehensible yet he hath discovered himself so far as to draw us after him we may see so much of him as to seek him so much as to make us happy and unite us to him And is not this enough Is it not enough for us to be happy Unhappy we if we neglect this delight by desiring more Unhappy we if we do not seek him because he is not as visible as our selves This were indeed to make him like unto our selves to confine and limit him that is to deny him to be God this were to be the worst Anthropomorphites in the world to give God hands and eyes and voice and not believe he is unless he object and offer himself to our very senses And yet see he doth in a manner present himself to thy very sense For why shouldst thou not hear him in his thunder see him in his miracles feel him in every work of his hands Or rather why canst thou not hear him in his Word for that is his voice see him in thy self for thou art built up after his image and no hand but that which is Almighty could have raised such a structure Why canst thou not feel him in his sweet and secret insinuations in the inward checks he giveth thee when thou art doing evil and in his incitements to piety When we feel these we may truly say Est Deus in nobis that God is in us of a truth Hold up then the buckler against this temptation against this fiery dart of Satan which is of force if thou repellest it not to consume and wast thy soul this temptation I say That God and Divine things appear not in so visible a shape as thou wouldst have them What folly is it to aim at impossibilities and to desire to see that which cannot be seen It is plain they are the worst and meanest things that are open to the eye Who ever saw Vertue saith Ambrose who ever handled Justice And wouldst thou dust and ashes have thy God appear in such a shape as thou mayst behold him Walk then by faith For that is the eye thou hast to see him with whilest thou art in this mortal body
is somewhat without that hath either flattered our sense or complied with our reason The effect doth in some sort demonstrate the cause And the cause of Joy is the union and presence of some good And as the cause is such is the effect as the object is such is the joy If our joy spring from the earth it is of the same nature earthy muddy gross unclean Eccl The Wise-man calleth it madness But if it be from heaven and those things which are above it is bright serene and clear What is it then that maketh David so glad that he thus committeth his joy to a Song and publisheth it to the world The next words tell us Something that he heard the voice of a company earnest in expectation and loud in expression hasting and even flying to the service of God and to the place where his honour dwelleth They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Now if ye look upon the object so divine and consider David a man after God's own heart ye cannot wonder to find him awakening his harp and viol and tuning his instrument of ten strings to hear him chanting his Laetatus sum and to see him even transported and ravished with joy So now you have the parts of the Text 1. David's Delight 2. the Object or Reason of it In the Object there are circumstances enough to raise his joy to the highest note First a Company either a Tribe or many of or all the people They said unto me So in another place he speaketh of walking to the house of God in company Psal 55.14 A glorious sight a representation of heaven it self of all the Angels crying aloud the Seraphim to the Cherubim and the Cherubim echoing back again to the Seraphim Holy holy holy Lord God of Sabaoth Secondly their Resolution to serve the Lord dixerunt they said it And to say in Scripture is to Resolve We will go is either a Lie or Resolution Thirdly their Agreement and joynt Consent We This is as a Circle and taketh in all within its compass If there be any dissenting unwilling person he is not within this Circumference he is none of the We. A Turk a Jew and a Christian cannot say We will serve the Lord and the Schismatick or Separatist shutteth himself out of the house â—f the Lord. We is a bond of peace keepeth us at unity and maketh many as one Fourthly their Chearfulness and Alacrity They speak like men going out of a dungeon into the light as those who had been long absent from what they loved and were now approching unto it and in fair hope to enjoy what they most earnestly desired We will go We will make haste and delay no longer Ipsa festinatio tarda est Speed it self is but slow-paced We cannot be there soon enough Fifthly and lastly the Place where they will serve God not one of their own chusing not the Groves or Hills or High-places no Oratory which malice or pride or faction had erected but a place appointed and set apart by God himself Servient Domino in domo sua They will serve the Lord in his own house They said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. Thus much the Object affordeth us enough to fill such an heart as David's with joy Now let us look upon the Psalmist in his garment of joy And we may observe First the nature of his Joy It was as refined as spiritual as heavenly as its object What they said was holy language and his Joy was true and solid the breathing and work of the Spirit of truth Secondly the Publication of it He could not contein himself Psal 39.3 but his heart being hot within him he spake with his tongue and not content with that he conveyed his speech into a song He said it he sung it he committed it to song that the people being met together at Jerusalem might sing it in the house Lord. I was glad when they said unto me We will go into the house of the Lord. These are the Parts and of these we shall speak in order We begin with the Object for in nature that is first We cannot tell what a mans Joy is till we see what raised it The Object therefore of David's joy must be first handled Therein the first circumstance is That there were many a Company that resolved to go into the house of the Lord. v. 4. The tribes go up saith the Psalmist even the tribes of the Lord unto the Testimony of Israel that is the people of Israel go up according to the covenant made with Israel Psal â—8 11 And The Lord gave the word great was the company of those that published it He speaketh as if there were some virtue in Number And so his son Solomon Two and if two Eccles 4.9 then certainly many are better then one Yet such an imputation lieth upon the Many that peradventure I might well have omitted this circumstance Non tam bene cum rebus humanis agitur ut plures sint meliores The world was never yet so happy that the most should be best 1 Cor. 1.26 Not many wise men after the flesh not many mighty not many noble are called saith St. Paul And Many are called saith Christ but few are chosen Matth. 20.16 It was the Many that resisted the holy Ghost that stoned the Prophets that persecuted the Apostles It is the Many that now divide the Church that disturbe and shake the common-wealth that work that desolation on the earth What security nay what religion can there be when our estates and our lives when Truth it self must be held by Votes must rise or fall by most voices Christus violentiâ suffragiorum in crucem datus saith Tertullian This is it which layeth the cross upon us which nailed the Son of God himself to the Cross I did not well to mention it For indeed it is the errour not of the Church of Rome alone but of all others also to judge of the Church by the multitude of Professours as the Turk doth of an army by its number nec aestimare sed numerare not to weigh and consider what the professours are but to number them And they have made Multitude a note of the true Church As if to shew you the Sun-rising I should point to the West or where there are but a few cry out Behold a troup cometh Matth 7 14. Luk. 13.23.24 Our Saviour saith there are few that shall be saved But say they if ye will know the true Church indeed behold the multitudes and nations behold the many that joyn with her that fall down and worship her Every faction striveth to improve it self Every Heretick would gain what proselytes he can Every Church would stretch forth the curtains of her habitation All would confirm themselves in their errour by the multitude of those who are taken in it Cùm error singulorum
word which is a work which will break forth into action a word like unto that of God who spake and it was done Psal 33.9 Psal 62.11 who speaketh and repenteth not God hath spoken once that is immobiliter saith a Father His word is immutable IBIMUS We will go Here is their Resolution a strong will begotten of Love vehemens bene ordinata voluntas a vehement and well-ordered will Lord Psal 26.8 I have loved the habitation of thy house saith the Psalmist This is invictissimè constantissimè velle as S. Augustine speaketh a preserving and unconquered will a resolution taken up once for all not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoicks speak an assent that it is fit so to do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an active motion by which the mind is carried along and in a manner forced to that it desireth a full perswasion as that of Abraham Rom. 4. as that of S Paul Acts 21. who Rom. 4.21 Acts 21 11-14 though he was so sure to be bound and put in fetters by the Jews at Jerusalem yet he would go up thither and by no arguments nor intreaties nor tears be persuaded to the contrary as that of Martine Luther who would enter the city Wormes though every tile on every house were a devil as that of the blessed Martyrs whom neither threats nor flatteries could at all work upon but their firm and setled purpose of mind added strength to the weaker part animated and quickned and as it were spiritualized their bodies and made them subservient and ministerial to bring their resolution into act Hence in a manner they suffered as if they suffered not They seemed to be ignorant of their stripes senseless of their wounds unconcerned in their torments Death appeared to them in as fair a shape as Life it self yea was desired before it This is it we call Resolution to will and do or to will which is to do For quicquid imperavit sibi animus obtinuit Whatsoever the mind commandeth it self whatsoever it resolveth on is as good as done already For when we have looked upon the object and approved it when we have beheld its glory and confirmed our selves in the liking of it when we have cast by all objections which flesh and bloud may bring in of danger or difficulty when we have fastned the thing to our soul and made it as it were a part of it when it is become as Christ saith our meat John 4.34 then there is such an impression of it made iâ—â—he heart such a character as is indeleble and we are as violently carried towards it as an hungry man is to his food and refreshment neither difficulty nor danger neither principalities nor powers neither life nor death can so stand between as to keep us from it My heart is fixed O God my heart is fixed saith David Psal 57.7 and then he cannot but sing and give praise The heart being fixed to the object carrieth it about with it is joyned to it even when it is out of sight when at the greatest distance Finis operi adulatur The end we propose and the glory thereof doth give light and lustre to our endeavours yea and cast a kind of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and loveliness even on that which would deterre us from it and leaveth not in us the consideration or memory of any thing besides it self This is Resolution This maketh an IBIMUS We will go significant without this we cannot clearly pronounce IBIMUS we cannot truly say We will go into the house of the Lord. Such a resolution David here observed at least supposed in the people of Israel For whether the Ark were to be setled or the Temple to be edified or re-edified any of these might well stir up a desire in them and a resolution to see it done For the Ark was a Sam. 4.21 22. Psal 78.61 the glory of Israel and b Jer. 7.4 The Temple of the Lord was a frequent and solemn word in their mouthes they c Psal 44.8 made it their boast all the day long their long absence therefore could not but whet their desire raise their expectation fix and setle their will and make them impatient of delay Oh when shall we appear in the presence of God! When shall we go into the house of the Lord Thence we heard the oracles of God There is the mercy-seat There we offered sacrifices and burnt-offerings There we called upon God's name There are set thrones of judgment the thrones of the house of David There the glory of the Lord appeared and made it as heaven it self We will go This was their Resolution We now pass to behold 3. Their Agreement and joynt Consent Which is visible in the pronoun WE We will go Much hath been said of Pronouns of the power and virtue of them of Meum and Tuum what swords they have whet what bloud they have spilt what fires they have kindled what tumults they have raised in the world 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Nazianzene How long shall we hear in the Church these quarrelsome words Mine and Thine My understanding and Thy understanding My wit and Thy wit My preacher and Thy preacher My Church and Thy Church It is not Mine or Thine but Ours WE is a bond of peace and love that tieth us all together and maketh us all one We are all Israelites we are one people we are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fellow-citizens and members of the same body We have one Law one Temple one Religion one Faith one God one Heaven cur non omnes unus dicantur saith Origen and why may not all then be one Yes we are all one And there is as great unity between us if we be of the same body saith Cyprian as there is between the beams and the Sun between rivers and their fountain between branches and their root WE taketh in a whole nation a whole people the whole world and maketh them one DECERNIMUS We decree We ordein is taken for a word of state and majesty but it is indeed a word of great moderation and humility an open profession that though Princes command yet they do it not alone but by the advise and counsel of others For in making a Law the King and his Counsel are but one So WE maketh Manasseh and Ephraim all Israel all the Tribes one WE maketh a Common-wealth and WE maketh a Church Though there be Lords and peasants Pastours and people Acts 1.15 though the number of the names together be an hundred and twenty yea many millions yet WE by interpretation is but one 1 Cor. 12.8 c. To one is given the word of wisdom to another the word of knowledge to another faith to another the gifts of healing to another the working of miracles c. But it is by one and the same Spirit And as there is but one Spirit so there is but one Christ and in
and the service of God but even after the means which may bring us unto it with what joy do we embrace all opportunities how do we bless and magnifie every Ordinance how doth every occasion appear unto us as the cloud that covered the Tabernacle what a light is every glimmering what a Sun is every star how doth the least help raise us up and the smallest advantage fill us with joy Psal 119.60 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 We no sooner say We will go but we are at our journeys end We make haste and delay not to keep God's commandments Alacrity is a sign that devotion is sincere and as it were natural Nature runneth her course chearfully without interruption and displayeth her self with a kind of triumph in every creature The Moon knoweth her appointed seasons Psal 104.19 and the Sun his going down And the Sphears are constantly wheeled about with a perpetual motion Iterum redeunt per quod ibant They still hast from the same point and back to it again Naturae animalium à nullo doctae sunt saith Hipprocrates The natures and qualities of living creatures are not conveyed into them by long instruction but what they do they do by nature and that with ease and alacrity Who taught Fire to burn or Trees to grow Who taught heavy bodies to descend or light ones to mount aloft We may say they were all taught by God by that Power which Philosophers call Nature And thus it is with those who being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 taught of God are well-affected unto and love his service they have as it were a second nature put into them Rom. 12.2 2 Cor. 5.17 The Apostle calleth it a renewing of the mind and a new creature They are carried with facility and chearfulness to their end and strive forward to the things which are above with as great propensity and readiness as light bodies move upwards Psal 42.1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks so panteth my soul after thee O God saith the Psamist As Nature is operative and forcible in the one so is the Spirit in the other And as Nature doth her work with ease so doth Grace All difficulty and slowness is from the earth earthy from the flesh from corruption An unclean heart maketh virtue an heavy task but a right spirit maketh it a delight Nihil difficile amanti There is nothing of difficulty in that which a man loveth The fool goeth to his duty as to the correction of the stocks Prov. 7.22 But he that is wise and loveth goodness is delighted with the very thought and contemplation thereof even when it is beset with terrour and difficulty A good man hath more reluctancy to evil then an evil man to good He falleth not from his duty but by some strong temptation which surprizeth him unawares but the other nè rectè quidem facere sine scelere potest as Tullie speaketh of Vatinius committeth an offence even when he doth that which is right and defileth a good deed in the doing The one loveth the work it felf the other is dragged to it as an ox to the slaughter Prov. 7.22 It was well said of Hilarie Minus est facere quam diligere To do a virtuous act is not so considerable as to love it For it may be done grudgingly and with an evil mind which is indeed not to do it but to turn bread into stones hony into gall and bitterness that which should feed and cherish into an offence But when Love hath wrought in us an alacrity to our duty then it is in a manner become natural to us We call it an Habit And it is a fair note of a virtuous habit if the acts of virtue be performed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with oblectation of mind For if the soul be well disposed and qualified if it be fitted and shaped to that which is good joy maketh an effusion and flux there and letteth out the heart IBIMUS We will go into the house of the Lord We long to be there We will hasten our pace We will break through all difficulties in the way No chains shall keep us back but those of Necessity And though these lay hold on us yet if our will be free and have determined its act the duty is dispatched If we look toward the Temple with a longing eye we serve God there though we enter not into it For plus est diligere quà m facere If I love and will I have done my work before I begin Again chearfulness is a sign of perfection in our devotion Till a thing be perfect it is in a manner streightned and contracted in it self there is in it a kind of striving towards its 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in a journey though it is some pleasure to look back upon that part of the way which we have left behind us yet it troubleth us to look forward upon that which is yet before us and we are never merry indeed till we sit down at our journeys end Semivirtues dispositions faint inclinations to duty may warm perhaps but cannot enflame us they make us neither active nor chearful nor constant in our wayes Non facimus assiduè non aequaliter saith the Stoick We do our duty neither constantly nor equally We do it to day and leave it undone to morrow We do this thing to day and to morrow the quite contrary One day as St. Hierome saith in the Church another in the theatre one day devout another profane to day hang down the head like a bulrush to morrow lift up our heads on high and exalt our selves without measure This 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this irregularity and inconstancy of behaviour as St. Basil calleth it is visible in the lives of those men whom the love of God hath not built up and rooted in that which is good For the seeming goodness of such is not natural but forced and artificial like the motions in water-works which while the water runneth in the trough present us with some delightful sight it may be some history of the Bible as the Faith of Abraham the Devotion of David the Humility of the Publicane but when the water is once run out all is done and there is no more to be seen Thus outward respects love of a good name profit and advantage may carry us about a while and present us to the view as men washed and cleansed as Prophets and holy persons but when those fail we suddenly fall to the mire where we first wallowed and are three times more polluted then before For that form of godliness did not proceed from a right principle from the love of that we did but from the love of something else which is contrary to it from the love of the Flesh which Religion crucifieth from the love of Profit which Piety casteth behind her from the love of Glory which Devotion blusheth at from the love of the World which Faith
foretold for the Tares as well as for the Wheat Poena sequitur culpam Punishment follows close upon Sin And this is Gods mocking of us which consists in giving every seed it s own body If we sow to the Flesh he clothes it with Death And herein consists his Justice and his Providence 1. in punishing of sin 2. in fitting and proportioning the punishment to it First Sowing implyes labour and industry This Phrase is often used They have sowen the wind and shall reap the whirle-wind Hos 8.7 They have laboured much to little purpose And Job 4.8 They that plow wickedness and sow iniquity reap the same As they that expect the year and a good Harvest first manure and plow the ground then scatter their seed upon it so do wicked men first turn their thoughts as the Husbandman doth the earth lutosas cogitationes saith Bernard earthly dirty thoughts busily tending the Flesh as if it were a field to be tilled racking their memory calling up their Understanding debauching their Reason fitting their instruments watching opportunities putting all things in readiness to bring their purposes about which is as it were their Plowing and then they break forth into action which is their Sowing and then springs up either Adultery or Murder or Oppression Behold he travaileth with iniquity he hath conceived mischief He is in as great pain as a woman with travail And all this trouble is to bring forth a Lye Psal 7.14 Scarce any sin but costs us dear For first as there is lucta a kind of contention in doing a good work an holding back of the Flesh when the Spirit is ready for when the Spirit is ready the Flesh is weak saith our Saviour So in the proceedings of wicked men there is also lucta some secret strugling and complaining of the Spirit when the Flesh is ready When the Hand is held up to strike the Eye open to gaze and the Mouth to blaspheme there be fightings within and terrours without there is a Law staring in our face like a Tribune with his Veto to forbid us a Conscience chiding a Judge frowning a Hell opening its mouth to devoure them all which must be removed as Amasa's body or else they will stand still 2 Sam. 20 1◠and not pass and venture on to that which they intended These Fightings must cease these Terrours be abated their Conscience slumber'd the Law nulled the Judge forgot Hell fire put out or sow they cannot For if these did appear in their full force and vigour did they look upon these as truths and not rather as our mormos and illusions how could they put such seed into the ground Again secondly though their Will have determined its act yet there may be many hinderances and retardancies many cross accidents intervene to hinder the work The child may be brought to the birth and there may be no strength to bring forth The Seed may be ready to be sown and the hand too weak to scatter it For the Will is not alwayes accompanied with Power God forbid it should It was but a weak argument which Luther brought against the Freedom of the Will from the Weakness and inability of performance Ostendant saith he magni illi Liberi arbitrii ostentatores Let them saith he who boast of Freewill shew any power they have to kill so much as a fly For a limited Power is no argument of a limited Will He that cannot get his bread may wish for a Kingdom and he that cannot kill a fly may will the destruction of the whole vvorld Novv this limitation of their Povver this weakning their strength in the way makes them go forth vvith sorrovv carrying their seed of iniquity and not able to scatter it This makes them mourn and cover the Head as Haman flings them on the bed with Ahab makes them hang themselves as Ahithophel did This many times puts them on the rack strikes them with care and anxiety fills them with distracted thoughts which choke one another The Covetous man would be rich but he must rise up early and lye down late and eat the bread of sorrow The Ambitious would climb but he must first lick the dust The Seditious would trouble the waters but is afraid they may drown him Nemo non priùs peccat in seipsum There is no man sins but first he offends and troubles himself before he conveys the poyson of his sin on others He that hurts his brother felt the blow first in his own bosome We read of the work of Faith and labour of Charity And it is true it is not so easie a matter to believe nor so easie a matter to be charitable as many suppose who cannot be brought to study either but must have them on gift Virtus duritiâ exstruitur A Christian is a Temple of the holy Ghost but it is Hardness and Industry that must help to build him up But yet we cannot but observe that there is as much care taken I am unwilling to say more in the sweeping and garnishing a habitation for Satan What Gibeonites are we in the Devils service and what lazy dreamers in the family and house of God More cost is bestowed in sowing to the Flesh then in sowing to the Spirit It is the service of Christ but Drudgery of Satan both are sowing but we make that of the Flesh the more laborious of the two To apply this in a word We read in our books of a devout Abbot who beholding what cost and art a woman had bestowed in attiring her self fell a weeping and Oh said he what a misery is this that a woman should bestow more labour upon the dressing of her body then we have done in the adorning of our souls that she should put more ornaments on her head then we have been careful to put into our hearts What a misery is it that we should wish for heaven and contend for earth that Mary's part should be the better but Martha's the greater Oh what a sad contemplation is it that many men will not be perswaded to take so much pains to go to heaven and eternal rest as many thousands do to go to hell and everlasting Torments that we should sweat for the bread that perisheth and but coldly and faintly ask for the bread of life that we should heap up riches James 5 3. which will eat our flesh as it were fire and be ever afraid of that Grace which will raise us from the dead that we should watch for the twilight an opportunity to do evil and let so many opportunities of doing good fly by us not marked nor regarded lay hold on any opportunity to destroy our brother and let pass any that prompts us to help him that we should labour and travel and spend our selves in the one and be so weary and faint and dead in the other that we should take more delight to feed with swine then to eat at Christs Table that the way
have more then he can desire the blind may comfort the deaf that he shall hear the trump and the deaf the blind that he shall see his Saviour come again in glory The Church that is now militant may comfort her self that she shall be triumphant Here we converse with dust and ashes with the shapes of Men and malice of Devils or if with saints with saints full of imperfection Here are Nimrods and Nero's and worse then Nero's men who do but what mischief they can and the Devil himself can do no more Illic Apostolorum chorus martyrum populus there are the Apostles and martyrs This is but the valley of tears there all tears shall be wiped from our eyes and we shall need no comfort because we shall feel no sorrow but serve God day and night and with the glorious company of the Apostles and the noble army of Martyrs with the whole Church sing praises to the God of consolation for evermore To which place of everlasting consolation he bring us who purchased our peace with his bloud Jesus Christ the righteous The Two and Thirtieth SERMON ACTS II. 13 14. And they were all amazed and were in doubt saying one to another What meaneth this Others mocking said These men are full of new wine OF all the expressions of our distast a Scoff is the worst Admonition may be physick a Reproof may be balm a Blow may be ointment but Derision is as poyson as a sword as a sharp arrow It was the height of Jobs complaint that contemptible persons made jests on him And it was the depth of Samsons calamity that when the Philistins hearts were merry they called for Samson to make them sport That which raises our anger presents some magnitude to our eyes but that which we entertein with scorn is of no appearance not worth our thought less then nothing But now every thing is not alwayes as it appears especially to the eye of the scoffer For we see things of excellency and such as are carried about in a higher sphere may be depressed and submitted to jests We cannot cull out a better instance then that which we have here the miracle of this feast of Pentecost not done in a corner but in a full assembly and the face of the world In a general congregation of men out of every nation under heaven a Wind rusheth in Flatus qui non inflavit sed vegetavit saith S. Augustine a blast which did not blow them up but quicken and make them lusty and strong Tongues as of fire which sate upon them Ignis qui non cremavit sed suscitavit a fire which did not burn and consume but enliven and refresh them The Wind was violent and the Spirit was in the wind The Tongues were as of fire and the Spirit was in that fire they were cloven and the Spirit was in the cleft Christ was as good as his word This sound was the echo of his promise this REPLETI SVNT they were filled with the holy Ghost a commentary on EGO MITTAM and the filling of their Hope Christ's ASCENDIT endeth in DONA DEDIT and his promise in a miracle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 How high a mystery is this saith Nazianzene how venerable Christ had finished his work his Birth his Circumcision his Tentation his Passion his Resurrection his Ascension which he calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the corporeal things of Christ These being all past 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 now the Spirit begins to move but not as it did on the face of the waters and as the nature of a Spirit is invisible but in state in things sensible in a rushing wind to the Ear in tongues of fire to the Eye both heard and seen Certainly a great mystery a great miracle it was And Miracles should not be the subject of scorn but admiration they should check and suppress our mirth in silence and astonishment But to press this further yet This miracle is most seen in the gift of Tongues For whether they spoke but one language and God worded it in the ear so that it was heard of every man as his own proper dialect or whether they spake in the several language of every nation to the Persians in theirs to the Medes in theirs and to the Elamites in theirs as is very probably gathered out of the text by Nazianzene and others a miracle it was and could not be wrought by any other hand then that of Omnipotency Commonly Knowledge whether of things or languages is the daughter of Time and Industry Quis unquam de noviter plantatis arbusculis matura poma quaesivit Who ever lookt for fruit from a branch scarcely yet ingrafted in the stock Est etiam studiis sua infantia saith the Oratour As the bodies of the strongest men so even studies have their infancy and their growth and slowly after long time and much care and attendance they ripen and improve by degrees to perfection But here the course and natural order of things was strangely altered For men not learned Galilaeans not of the best capacity began to speak with other tongues on a sudden Greek Persian Arabick Parthian and not common and vulgar things but MAGNALIA DEI the wonderful works of God Their skill and knowledge was as sudden as the wind or fire Put now these together and you will wonder as much to see any countenance framed to laughter as to see the tongues and the fire and be amazed at the scoff and mock as much as at the miracle But the observation is old and common That where the finger of God is most visible there the Devil will put in his claw to deface the beauty of Gods work to alter the face and complexion of the greatest miracles that they may appear as trifles and meriments If God send his fiery Tongues upon his Apostles the Devil will also set the tongues of men on fire If God send a mighty wind there shall another blow out of the Devils treasury to blast and scatter all the marks and characters of Gods power If the Apostles speak with tongues there shall be tongues as active as the pen of a ready writer to scoff and disgrace them and to pour contempt on that which God hath made wonderful in our eyes tongues that shall call the breathing of the Spirit a frensie and the speaking of languages the evaporation and prating of drunkards and that shall make the greatest miracle mere mockery You may hear them speak in my Text Others mocking said These men are full of new wine In which words briefly we observe these particulars 1. the Object of their derision and what it was they mocked at 2. the Persons not all but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others some of them 3. the Scoff it self These men are full of new wine Out of the first we may learn thus much That even Miracles may be scoffed at Next we may observe what manner of persons Scoffers are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
the walls of Jerusalem to disannul the Law and to establish the Gospel magni opus moliminis an enterprise of great difficulty and therefore to be wrought with might and main by wonders and great signs As the Law was promulged with thunder and lightning so must the Gospel also by a voice from heaven even by great miracles which are the dialect and language of Power and are from heaven heavenly For in every Miracle there are two things as Aquinas saith Quod fit and Propter quod fit 1. the Thing done which must exceed the power of Nature and that order which God hath settled and established in the world and 2. the End for which it is done vvhich is alwayes supernatural for confirmation of some necessary truth Indeed if we consider the omnipotencie of the Agent properly there is no miracle at all It being as easie for the Creator of all things to alter the course of Nature as at first to establish it to bid the Sun stand still as to command it to run its race to put out the Stars as to light them in their sphears to give sight to the blind as at first to give them eyes to unloose the tongue as to make it Deus ita magnus est in operibus magnis ut minor non sit in minimis saith S. Augustine God is so great in his greatest works that he is no whit less in his least as great in the making of a Fly as of an Angel The Divine hand is alwayes like it self even in the production of those things which are most unlike But to us some works are wonderful quia inordinatè veniunt because they transcend the common course and order of things And it hath pleased God in his Divine goodness to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for our sakes and for our salvation to be various and manifold in the expression of his power and when we cannot behold him as we should in those obvious and plain but wonderful characters engraven in the book of Nature to present us with those which the hand of Nature cannot draw He openeth the eyes of the blind that we who sat in darkness may see the true light he multiplyeth the loaves that we may hunger after righteousness he maketh the dumb to speak that we may sing his praises he casteth out the devil that we acknowledge him to be God Quot miracula tot documenta Every miracle was a lesson not onely for shew but for instruction and to work in us the obedience of faith For though God alone be the Authour of our faith yet he worketh it in us by this means By his wonders as by a kind of iradiation from himself he illuminateth the Understanding and maketh the Will pliable so that we readily embrace the truth which before we were afraid of He who having been born blind received his sight John 9.30 wondred that the Pharisees should not know whence he was who had opened his eyes and thought their blindness almost as great a miracle as his recovery By this light and by the gratious and wonderful speaches which flowed from him the Woman here in the Text saw those excellencies that were in Christ and discovered him to be no common and ordinary person She made a right use of the light whilest it shone in its brightness As Christ did and spake these things it came to pass saith the Text. Her free acknowledgment did as it were keep time with the miracle for no sooner had Christ ended his speach but she lifteth up her voice Now as the Apostle saith of Abel Hebr. 11.4 this Woman being dead yet speaketh She bespeaketh us to have Christ's wondrous works in remembrance to lay hold on all occasions which may either beget or confirm our faith dum ventus operam dat vela explicare whilest the wind bloweth whilest the Spirit breatheth to unfold our sails that we may be carried on in a straight and even course to the knowledge and practice of the truth which will make us happy This is indeed to make the right use of God's works and words and to drive them to the right end Vnumquodque propter suam operationem saith the Philosopher Every thing is and hath its being for its proper operation for the work it hath to do If miracles work no alteration in us they are no miracles to us If God's words prevail not we nullifie them by our infidelity and disobedience as much as in us lieth we make the works and words of God of none effect and shorten the arm and weaken the hand of the Almighty What were all the beauty in the world if there were no eye to descry it What are all the riches of the Gospel without faith What were the greatest miracle if all the world were Pharisees Non videt qui non credit miracula saith S. Augustine To him that believeth not Miracles have lost their force and are not wonderful But ye will say perhaps that Miracles are now ceased We see no sign we behold no wonder No blind receive their sight no dumb spirits are cast out in our streets It is true nor is it necessary there should not so necessary now the Church hath stretched forth the curtains of her habitation as when she scarce had a being That watring is not requisite now she is grown and become a tree that was when she was like a grain of mustard-seed Matth. 13.31 32. Of the miracles of these times we may say what Livie saith of the prodigies of his Quò magìs credebant simplices religiosi homines eò plura nuntiantur The forward credulity of simple and devout souls hath much encreased their number The Legend had not been so full had men been slower of belief and not so ready to credit what every impostour hath been active to invent But yet though Miracles are ceased and we see no more signs though Christ cast not out devils nor raise the dead yet still he speaketh these things and still he teacheth us And we may say we see him curing diseases giving sight to the blind ears to the deaf feet to the lame a tongue to the dumb casting out devils and raising the dead because his word endureth for ever 2 Pet. 1.19 and as S. Peter saith is firmior sermo and the surest testimony we can have And if we will not believe his word neither would we believe though we saw him now raising up one from the dead Further I may say with S. Gregory Quod corporaliter tunc faciebat Christus illud S. Ecclesia spiritualiter quotidie facit What Christ did in person then he doth every day now spiritually by the Church When by our ministery the Covetous is brought to stretch forth his hand to help the poor then Christ hath recovered a dry hand when the Ignorant learn his statutes he giveth sight to the blind when we open our lips which Fear had sealed up so that we dare
but Love joynes the Will and the Tongue and the Hand together and indeed is nothing else but a vehement and well ordered will Knowledge may be but a dream but Love is ever awake up and doing 1 John 2.3 I may so know the truth that I may be said not to know it but I cannot so love the truth that I may be said to hate it For though the Scripture sometimes attributeth knowledge of the truth to them who so live as if they knew it not yet it never casts away the pretious name of Love on those who so live as if they loved it not A Pharisee an hypocrite may know the truth but it was never written that they loved it but that they loved the praise of men more then of God And this was the reason that they had eyes and saw not eares and heard not nor understood that they had tongues and spake not that they would not be perswaded when they were convinced and withstood the truth when they were overcome In a word Knowledge may leave us like unto the idoles of the heathen with hands that handle not and mouths that speak not Love onely emulateth the power of our Saviour and works a miracle casts out the spirit which is dumb For when he spake these things not the Pharisees but a woman of the company lift up her voice And thus her heart was truly affected and she lift up her voice As the Prophet speaks Jer. 20.9 The Love of Christ was in her heart as a burning fire shut up in her bones and she was weary of forbearing and she could not stay It was like that coal of the Seraphins which being laid on her mouth Isa 6.7 she spake with her tongue Now in the next place what was it that begat her love but the admiration of Christs person his power and his wisdome This was it which kindled that heat within her which broke out at her lips Plato calls Admiration the beginning of Philosophy We admire and dwell upon the object and view it well till we have wrought the Idea of it in our minds Whence Clemens citeth this saying out of the Gospel according to the Hebrew Qui admiratus fuerit regnabit qui regnabit requiescet He that at first admires that which to him is wonderful shall at last reign and he that reigns shall be at rest shall not waver or doubt or struggle formidine contrarii with fear that the contrary should be true and that that which he saw should be but a false apparition and a deception of the sight This woman here saw and wondred and loved she saw more then the Pharisees to whom a sign from heaven appeared in no fairer shape then the work of Beelzebub She saw Christs miracles were as his letters of credence that he came from God himself She had heard of Moses and his miracles but beholds a greater then Moses here For 1. Christs miracles breathed not forth horrour and amazement as those of Moses did in and about the mountain of Sinon Nor 2. were they noxious and fatal to any as those which Moses wrought in Pharaohs court and in Aegypt He did not bring in tempest and thunder but spake the word and men were healed He did not bury men alive but raised men out of their graves He brought upon men no fiery serpents but he cast out devils If he suffered the devils to destroy the hogs yet he tyed them up from hurting of men and what is a Hog to a Man In a word Moses's miracles were to strike a terrour into the people that he might lead them by fear but Christs were to beget that admiration which might work love in those whom he was to lead with the cords of men with the bonds of love All Christs miracles were benefits Acts 10.38 For he went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed with the devil for God was with him Christs miracles were above the reach and power of Nature Nature had no hand in the production of any of them All that we vvonder at are not Miracles not an Eclipse of the Sun vvhich the common people stand amazed at because they know not the cause of it Nor is that a Miracle vvhich is besides the ordinary course of Nature For then every Monstre should be a Miracle Nor that vvhich is done against Nature for so every child that casteth a stone up into the air doth vvork a Miracle But that is a Miracle vvhich is impossible in Nature and vvhich cannot be vvrought but by a supernatural Hand 2. Christs miracles vvere done not in a corner but before the sun and the people This Woman here heard the dumb speak she savv the blind see the lame go and the lepers cleansed Miracles vvhen they are wrought are not the object of our faith but of our sense They are signs and tokens to confirm that which we must believe 3. Christs miracles were done as it were in an instant With a touch at a word he cured diseases which Nature cannot do though helpt by the art of the Physician All the works of Nature and of Art too are conceived and perfected in the womb of Time 4. Last of all Christs miracles were perfect and exact When he raised Jairus's daughter Luke 8.55 he presently commanded them to give her meat When he cured Peters wives mother forthwith she was so strong that she arose and ministred unto them Matth. 8 1â— He gave his gifts in full measure nor could more be desired then he gave And shall not these miracles and these benefits appear wonderful in our eyes Shall not his Power beget Admiration and Admiration Love and Love command our voice Shall a woman see his wonders and shall we be as blind as the Pharisees Shall she lift up her voice and shall we still keep in us the devil that is dumb It came to pass as he did and spake these things a certain woman of the company lift up her voice and said And now we should pass to what she said but I see the time passeth away Let us therefore make some use of what hath already been said and so conclude And first let us learn from this woman here to have Christs wonderful works in remembrance to look upon them with a stedfast and a fixed eye that they may appear unto us in their full glory and fill us with admiration For Admiration is a kind of voice of the soul Miracula obstupuisse dixisse est saith Gregory Thus Silence it self may become vocal and truly to wonder at his works is to profess them This motion of the heart stirred up with reverence to the ears of the uncircumscribed Spirit is as the lifting up of the voice which speaks within us by those divers and innumerable formes and shapes of admiration which are the inward expressions of the soul When the soul is in an ecstasie when it is transported and wrapt up above it self
us to bliss But when the Will is subdued and made obedient to the Truth then Gods precepts which are from heaven heavenly fill the soul with a joy of the same nature not gross and earthy but refined and spiritual a joy that is the pledge and the earnest as the Apostle calls it of that which is to come When the Will is thus subject and framed and fashioned according to the rule and pattern which God hath drawn it cloths it self as it were with the light of heaven which is the original of this chast delight Then what a pearl is Wisdome what glory is in poverty what honour in persecution what a heaven in obedience Then how sweet are thy words unto my tast Psal 119.103 yea sweeter then honey unto my mouth saith David In quibus operamur in illis gaudemus for such as the work is such is the joy A work that hath its rise and original from heaven a work drawn out according to the law which is the will of God begun in an immortal soul and wrought in the soul promoted by the Spirit of God and the ministery of Angels and breathing it self forth as myrrh or frankincense amongst the children of men will cause a joy like unto it self a true and solid joy having no deceit no carnality no inconstancy in it a beam from heaven kindled and cherisht by the same Spirit a joy which receives no taint nor diminution from those sensible evils which to those that keep not Gods word are as Hell it self and the onely Hell they think of but giving a relish and sweetness to that which were not evil if we did think it so making Poverty Disgrace and Death it self as fewel to foment and increase it upholding us in misery strengthning us in weakness and at the hour of death and in the day of judgment streaming forth into the ocean of eternal Happiness Blessedness invites attends and waits upon Obedience and yet Obedience ushereth it in being illix misericordiae it inviteth Gods Mercy and draws it so near as to bless us and it makes the blessing ours not ex rigore justitiae according to the rigour of justice as I call that mine which I buy with my money For no obedience can equal the reward And what can the obedience of a guilty person merit but ex debito promissi according to Gods promise by which he hath as it were entailed Blessedness on those who hear his word and keep it Hebr. 6.10 and God is not unrighteous to forget our work and labour of love Oh let neither our obedience swell and puff us up as if God were our debtor nor let us be so afraid of merit as not to keep Gods word Let not our anger against Papists transform us into Libertines and let us not so far abominate an errour in judgment as to fall into a worse in practice let us not cry down Merit and carry a Pope nay Hell it self along with us whithersoever we go Let us not be Papists God forbid And God forbid too that we should not be Christians Let us rather move like the Seraphims which having six wings covered their face with the uppermost Isa 6.2 and not daring to look on the majesty of God and covered their feet with the lowest as acknowledging their imperfection in respect of him but flew with those in the midst ready to do his will Let our obedience be like unto theirs Let us tremble before God and abhor our selves but between these two let the middle wings move which are next to the Heart and let our hearty Obedience work out its way to the end For conclusion Let us not look for Blessedness in the land of darkness amongst shades and dreams and wandring unsetled phantasmes Phansie is but a poor petard to open the gates of heaven with Let us not deceive our selves To call our selves Saints will not make us Saints to feign an assurance will not seal us up to the day of redemption Presumption doth but look towards Blessedness whilst Disobedience works a curse and carries us irrecoverably into the lowest pit What talk we of the imputed righteousness of Christ when we have none of our own what boast we of Gods grace when we turn it into wantonness The imputed righteousness of Christ is that we stand to when we are full of all iniquity and this we call appearing in our elder brothers robes and apparel that as Jacob did we may steal away the blessing Thus the Adulterer may say I am chast with Christs chastity the Drunkard I am sober with Christs temperance the Covetous I am poor with Christs poverty the Revenger I am quiet with Christs meekness he that doth not keep his word may keep his favour and if he please every wicked person may say that with Christ he is crucified dead and buried As Calvisius Sabinus in Seneca thought he did do himself what any of his Servants did if his servant were a good Poet he was so if his servant were well-limb'd he could wrestle if his servant were a good Grammarian he could play the Critick And so if Christ fasted fourty dayes and fourty nights we fast as long though we never abstain from a meal If Christ conquered the devil when he tempted him we also are victorious though we never resist him If Christ opened not his mouth when he was haled to the slaughter we also are as sheep though we open our mouth as a sepulchre And therefore as Seneca speaks of that rich man Nunquam vidi hominem indecentius I never saw a man whose Happiness did less become him so most true it is This obedience is but an unbeseeming garment because it had no other artificer but the Phantasie to spin and work and make it up Beloved if we keep God's word he will keep his and impute righteousness to us though we have sinned and come short of the Glory of God! What talk we of applying the promises which he may do who is an enemy to the cross of Christ If we keep his word the promises will apply themselves And indeed applying of the promises is not a speculative but a practick thing an act rather of the Will then of the Understanding When the Will of man is subject to the will of God this dew from heaven will fall of it self Vpon them that walk according to the rule shall be mercy and peace and upon the Israel of God To conclude If we put on the Lord Jesus if we put him on all his Righteousness his Obedience his Love his Patience that is if we keep his word he will find his Seal upon us by which he will know us to be his and in this his likeness he will look upon us with an eye of favour bless us here with joy and content and so fit and prepare us for everlasting blessedness at the end of the world when he shall pronounce to all that have kept his word that blessed
under the name of Perfection because it tendeth to it So there is the Perfection of a beginner for he is a perfect beginner and the Perfection of a proficient for he is a perfect proficicent And there is a higher degree of Perfection of those who are so spiritualized so familiar with the Law of Christ that they run the wayes of his commandments But there is none so perfect but he may be perfecter yet none so high but he may exalt himself yet further in the grace and favour of God And even the beginner who seemeth to follow Christ yet a far off by that serious and earnest desire he hath to come nearer may be brought so near unto him as to be his member For there be babes in Christ and there be strong men And Christ looketh favourably even upon those babes and will take them into his arms and embrace them For his mercy is a garment large enough to cover all to reach even from the top to the last round and step of that ladder which being reared on earth reacheth up to heaven and to carry on those who first set foot in the wayes of life with a desire to ascend higher For all these are within within the pale of his Church Without are dogs and sorcerers and they who love and make a lie who have no relish of heaven no savour of Christ's ointment no desire of those things which are above no taste of the powers of the world to come For where this desire is not where it is not serious Christ is quite departed out of those coasts For Christ did not build his Church as Plato formed his Commonwealth who made such Laws as no man could keep but he fitted his Laws to every man and requireth no more of any then what every one by the strength which he will give may exactly accomplish It is a precept of a high nature and which flâ—sh and bloud may well shrink at be ye therefore perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect Mat. 5.48 This is a hard and iron speech and he must have the stomach of an Ostrich that can digest it Therefore the Church of Rome hath sauced it to make it easie of digestion and hath made it not a peremptory Precept but a Counsel or Advice left it to our free choice whether we will keep it or no. To neglect and pass it by will hazard aureolam non auream it is their own distinction not the crown of life but some brooch or top some degree of happiness there And this is a great errour either to adde to or to take off from that burthen which it hath pleased Christ our Lawgiver to lay upon us Seem this precept never so harsh this burthen never so heavy yet if we consult with that patience and strength wherewith it hath pleased Christ to endue us by his blessed Spirit we shall be able to bear it without any abatement or diminution For we may deal with it as Protagoras did with his burthen of sticks dispose of it in so good order and method as to bear it with ease and have no reason to complain of its weight It is not so hard as we at first suppose And that we may gather from the illative particle Therefore Which hath reference to the verses going before and enjoyneth a Love above the love of Publicans whose love was negotiatio a bargaining a trafficking love vvho payed love for love loved none but those who loved them and so raiseth our Love to the love of our heavenly Father as to the most perfect rule and then draweth it down to compass and bless even the worst enemies we have And so this Perfection here doth not signifie an exact performance of all the commandments but the observation of this one The Love of our neighbour and that not in respect of the manner of observing it but the act it self That we love not onely our friends but our enemies And this indeed is a glorious act worthy the Gospel of Christ For to love them that love us is but a kind of necessary and easie gratitude the first beginings and rudiments of Piety the dawning of Charity But when we have attained to this to love them that love us not that hate us that persecute us then our Charity kindled from the the Love of our Father shineth forth in perfection of beauty He that can doe this hath fulfilled the Law For he that can love him that hateth him will love God that loveth him will love him when he frowneth on him when he afflicteth him when as Job speaketh he killeth him For indeed he cannot doe one but he must doe both But then for the manner of that love there he must needs come short of the patern Dust and ashes cannot move with equal motion in this sphere of Charity with the God of Love That we may love our enemies is possible but that we love them with the same extension or intension of love as God loveth them is beyond our belief and conceit and so impossible to be reached by the best endeavours we have God may give us strength but he cannot give us his arme He may make us wise and strong and good but not as good and wise and strong as himself What cruelty is our Mercy to his What weakness in our Power to his Almightiness Hovv ignorant is our Knovvledge to his light If vve speak of Wisdom he alone is vvise if of Povver he onely can doe what he will in heaven and in earth If vve speak of Mercy his Mercy reacheth over all his works Man is a finite mortal creature and all his goodness and wisdom and mercy are as mortal and changeable as himself and if it do measure out his span and hold out to the end of it yet it will retain a tast and relish of the cask and vessel of flesh and mortality and corruption But yet the Law is perfect and required a perfect man cum Dei adjutorio in nostrâ potestate consistit saith Augustine often and it is in our power with the help of God's grace to be perfect Rom. 16.25 God doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 stablish us 1 Cor. 1.8 he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 confirm us he doth work in us to will and to do by giving us the sight of his glory and by his Spirit exciting and strengthening us He doeth it that giveth sufficient helps and advantages to do it The whole honour of every effect is due and returneth to the first Cause By this help we may be perfect as perfect as the prescript of the Gospel and the new covenant of Grace requireth For 1. God requireth nothing that is above our strength And certainly we can do what we can do we can do what by him we are enabled to do I can do all things saith S. Paul through Christ that strengtheneth me We may love him with all our mind with all our heart with all
to it For what man would profess himself a beast And from hence it cometh to pass that we see aliquid optimi in pessimis something that is good in the worst that we hear a Panegyrick of Virtue from a man of Belial that Truth is cried up by that mouth which is full of deceit that when we do evil we would not have it go under that name but are ready to maintain it as good that when we do an injury we call it a benefit No man is so evil that he desireth not to enroll his name in the list of those who are Good Temperance the drunkard singeth her praises Justice every hand is ready to set a crown upon her head Wisdom is the desire of the whole earth So you see these precepts are fitted to the soul and the soul to these precepts But secondly as this Law of Liberty is proportioned to the Soul so being looked in and persevered in it filleth it with light and joy giveth it a taste of the world to come For as Christ's yoke is easie but not till it is put on so his precepts are not delightful till they are kept Aristotle's Happiness in his books is but an Idea and Heaven it self is no more to us till we enjoy it The Law of Liberty in the letter may please the Understanding part which is alwayes well-affected and inclinable to that which is apparently true but till the Will which is the commanding faculty have set the feet and hands at liberty even that which we approve we distaste and that which we call honey is to us as bitter as gall Contemplation may delight us for a time and bring some content but the perversness of the Will breedeth that worm which will soon eat it up For it is a poor happiness to speak and think well of Happiness to see it as in picture quae non ampliùs quà m videtur delectat which delighteth no longer then it is seen as from a mount to behold that Canaan which we cannot enjoy A Thought hath not wing and strength enough to carry us to Blessedness But when the Will is subdued and made obedient to this Law then this Law of Liberty which is from the heaven heavenly filleth the soul with a joy of the same nature with a spiritual joy of which the joy in heaven is the complement and perfection with a joy which is not onely the pledge but the earnest of that which is to come When the Will is thus subact and framed and fashioned according to this Law according to this pattern which God hath drawn then it clotheth it self as it were with the light of Heaven which is the original of this joy Then what a pearl is Wisdom What glory is in Poverty What a triumph is it to deny our selves What an ornament is the Cross What brightness reflecteth from a cup of cold water given to a Prophet What do you see and feel then when you intercede with your Bounty and withstand the evil dayes and take from them some of their blackness and darkness when you sweeten the cup of bitterness the onely cup that is left to many of the Prophets when you supply their wants and stretch forth your hand to keep them from sinking to the dust when you do this to the Prophets in the name of Prophets Tell me doth it not return upon you again and convey into your souls that which cannot be bought with money or money-worth Are you not made fat and watered again with the water you poured forth Are you not ravished in spirit and lifted up in a manner into the third heaven I cannot see how it should be otherwise For that God which put it into your hearts to do it when your hearts have eased and emptied themselves by your hands is with you still and filleth them up with joy Every act of Charity payeth and crowneth it self and this Blessedness alwayes followeth the giver But hath the receiver no joy but in that which he receiveth Yes he may and ought or else he is not a worthy receiver It is indeed a more blessed thing to give then to receive and therefore there is more joy But the receiver hath his and his joy is set to his songs of praises to God and acknowledgments to man There is musick in Thanks and when I bless the hand that helped me I feel it again My praises my prayers my thanks are returned with advantage into my bosom The giver hath his joy and the receiver hath his It is a blessed thing to give and it is a most becoming and joyful thing to be thankful In quibus operamur in illis gaudemus saith Tertullian As the work is such is the joy A Work that hath its rise and original from heaven drawn out according to the royal Law which is the will of God begun and wrought in an immortal soul and promoted by the Spirit of God and ministery of Angels and breathing it self forth as myrrh and frankincense amongst the children of men And a Joy like unto it a true and solid joy having no carnality no inconstancy in it a beam from heaven kindled and cherished by the same Spirit a joy which receiveth no taint or diminution from sensible evils which to those who remain not in this Law are as hell it self and the onely hell they think of but giving a relish and sweetness to that which were not evil if we did not think it so making Poverty Disgrace and Death it self as fuel to foment and increase it upholding us in misery strengthening us in weakness and in the hour of death and in the day of judgment streaming forth into the ocean of eternal happiness BEATUS ERIT IN OPERE He that doth the work shall be blessed here in this life in his works and when he is dead his works shall follow him and compass him about as a triumphant robe Thus Blessedness first inviteth then attendeth and waiteth upon Perseverance in obedience and yet obedience ushereth it in illex misericordiae first the work of God's Grace and Mercy and then drawing it so near unto us as to bless us And it maketh the blessing ours not ex rigore justitiae according to the rigour of justice as I call that Mine which I buy with my money For no obedience can equal the reward And what can the obedience of a guilty person merit All is from Grace saith S. Paul And when the will of God is thus made manifest he deserveth nothing but a rebuke that disputeth longer of Merit Nor can I see how a guilty and condemned person can so much as give it entrance into his thought It did go once but for a work good or evil and no more If it be more in its best sense it is then more then it can be and so is nothing but ex debito promissi according to God's promise by which he hath as it were entailed Blessedness on those who look into the Law
actions are sometimes to be forborn if they be not expedient 639. 1102. Laws necessary for Man 1066. Laws still are framed and given by the prevailing party 1070. Reasons why humane Laws must needs be defective 121. 131. If we will be just we must do many things that mens L. enjoyn not 121. Many wayes to pervert and elude the Laws 122. 132. The Law of Nature more firm and binding then any written Law 124. 127 128. How far it carried some Heathen 1083 1084. Laws of Men and Laws of God compared 168. 228. 230. The Law of God is perfect 1088. but not so perfect as the Gospel 1078. Christ came not to dissolve the Law either of Nature or of Moses 1068. What arguments some Gospellers use to shake off the yoke of the Law 1068. Some will not allow Christ to be a Law-giver nor his Gospel a Law 1068 c. What a world of Laws are they subject to that will not obey Christs 1070 1071. Christ hath reformed and enlarged the Law and exacteth far more of us then the Law did 1078 1079. 1098. The Law of Christ teacheth us to look higher then the natural man could sore 1084. Christ's Laws as well as Mans have their force and life from Rewards and Punishments 390. 1122. Their nature and excellent effects 1067. Whether God's Laws may be exactly and fully obeyed 109 c. v. Gospel Many think Law and Liberty contrary things and that they are never free but when lawless 1099. But there is no liberty but under some Law 1099. ¶ Lawgivers the Disciples of God 106. v. GOD. Lev. x. 10. 1033. ¶ xix 17. 293. Libellatici 1121. Libertines errours confuted 392 c. v. Papists Liberty Our Christian Liberty wherein it consisteth 1097 c. Many abuse it 640. 1103. It is restrained by Sobriety Charity Autority 638 c. 1101 c. Men love to hear of Christian L. but not to have it confined 691. Doctrines of Liberty though true yet are not to be pressed 618. How to stand fast in our Christian Liberty 1103. How Law and Liberty can both be said of the Gospel 1099. c. Obedience to Law is Liberty to Angels to Men to the inanimate Creatures 1100. Lie The Persians told their children they might lie to their enemies but not to their friends 134. Life of Man short and uncertain 356. It is too pretious a thing to be prodidally flung away for a trifle 705 706. but it must be willingly parted with for Righteousness sake 706. We live not indeed till our new birth 1003. London's privileges and London's sins 422 423. 920. D. Longinus 103. LORD This word expresseth the Majesty and Greatness of God 103. and remembreth us of our allegeance 114. If we will not own Christ for our Lord he will not be our Saviour 760 c. 1072. v. Christ Jesus Love v. Charity Christ God Love is the most eminent and potent among the Affections 66. 550 551. It s mighty force 23. 66. 75. 192 193. It setteth all the other Affections on work 550 551. It is like Fire 550 743. Love Worldly and Godly 338. Love of our Selves how dangerous 856 857. v. Self-love They who love the World have no Love to God or Man 890 891. v. World How strangely Love blindeth the Judgment 670. That which we love is either our joy or our grief 570. Love both in God and Man is accompanied with Jealousie 743. What it is to love God 1012. Its effects in the soul 1013. It is the noblest motive to duty 395. 743. It maketh a man earnest and chearfull in duty 843 c. Where Love is cold and defective there is an irregular and inconstant behaviour 845. It may stand with Fear 394. v. Fear If not tempered with Fear it may be too bold 396. 399. Love coupleth not onely Men but also Faith and Hope together 242. 736. Love hath the advantage of Knowledge 977. It is better to love good then to do it 149. Not to love that which is good is to hate it 689 690. What a strange strait St. Paul's Love of Christ brought him into 1006 c. 1010. Our Love should be fixed on the Truth 672. Love of the Truth will not onely burn within us but also shine forth to others 551 c. Our Love of God hath inseparably united to it the Love of our Brethren 1009. To love them that love us is but the rudiments of Charity Christians have an higher an harder lesson 1087. Love of our Brother how to be shewn 576 c. Luk. xi 41. 831. ¶ xii 4 5. 394. ¶ 32. 397. ¶ xiv 13 14. 690. ¶ xvi 25 617. ¶ xvii 10. 1092. ¶ xix 41 c. 359. 795 c. ¶ xxii 42. 266. Lust v. Ignorance Luther 526. 682. Lutheranes depend no less on Luther then the Papists do on the Pope or on their Church 682. The reply of a Prince to the Lutheranes 1070. Luxurie Unnecessary Arts at first the daughters now the nurses of Luxurie 219. Lycurgus 231. 301. M. MAd-men v. Fools Majesty what 311. Maldonate's spite against Calvine 922. He rejected an interpretation that he held best onely because Calvine's 671. Malice and Ign. misconstrue every thing 961 962. 965 966. But their mis-interpretations will not prevail against the Truth 963. Malice against the Truth is downright or interpretative and both must be cast away 688 c. Man created and preserved by God and vvhy 104 105. 107. 115 116. 647. 649. Why created so excellent a creature 87. 647. His beauty and perfection consisteth in obedience and conformity to God 107. Man is a most goodly creature if not transformed by sin 125 135. By sin he is become worse then any Beast 378. How degenerated from his original and how to be restored 782. How weak and indigent 313. 938. How uneven and changeable 383. 773. How subject to chance 936. Other creatures can attein their ends of themselves but Man cannot without a guide 1066. How Christ hath honoured Man and how he ought to honour himself 218. He is too excellent a creature to mind earthly things 647 c. 653. He is a voluntary agent in the work of his conversion 435 436. 584-587 Man is a fair mirrour to behold God in 125. He is a theatre where the Flesh and the Spirit are fighting continually 312. 767. Every Man is a glass for another to see himself in 936 937. All have one common extraction 938. In Nature's Heraldry all Men are equal 279. All by nature are brethren and therefore should help and not hurt one another 123. 938. Arguments to move us thereunto 938. What helps Nature hath supplied Man with 939. His Body and Soul opposit each to other 159. His Mind curious and restless 218. 248. It should not be overtasked 249. What it is that can satisfie him 90 91. 786. Impossible for Man to equal God 1087. He is not to be accounted a Man who wanteth reason 96. The fickleness of Man's