uttered but that the best of us are overtaken sometime through blindness sometime through hastiness sometime through impatience sometime through other passions of the mind whereunto God knows we are too subject That I find by true experience the best way of Learning and Peace is that which cures all these evils as far as in the World they are curable and that is the waies of Holiness which are therefore the best and only way of Truth In Disputations there is no end and but very little advantage but the way of godliness hath in it no Error and no Doubtfulness By this therefore I hoped best to applie the Counsel of the Wise man Stand thou fast in thy sure Understanding in the way and knowledg of the Lord and have but one manner of word and follow the word of peace and righteousness I have reason to be confident that they who desired me to publish this Discourse will make use of it and find benefit by it and if any others do so too both they and I shall still more and more give God all thanks and praise and glory Via Intelligentiae SERM. VI. John VII 17. If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of my self THE Ancients in their Mythological Learning tell us that when Jupiter espyed the Men of the World striving for Truth and pulling her in pieces to secure her to themselves he sent Mercury down amongst them and he with his usual Arts dressed Error up in the Imagery of Truth and thrust her into the Croud and so left them to contend still and though then by Contention men were sure to get but little Truth yet they were as earnest as ever and lost Peace too in their Importune contentions for the very Image of Truth And this indeed is no wonder but when Truth and Peace are brought into the world together and bound up in the same bundle of life when we are taught a Religion by the Prince of Peace who is the Truth it self to see men Contending for this Truth to the breach of that Peace and when men fall out to see that they should make Christianity their Theme that is one of the greatest wonders in the World For Christianity is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a soft and gentle Institution 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it was brought into the World to soften the asperities of humane nature and to cure the Barbarities of evil men and the Contentions of the passionate The Eagle seeing her breast wounded and espying the Arrow that hurt her to be feathered cryed out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the feathered Nation is destroyed by their own Feathers That is a Christian fighting and wrangling with a Christian and indeed that 's very sad but wrangling about Peace too that Peace it self should be the argument of a War that 's unnatural and if it were not that there are many who are homines multae religionis nullius penè pietatis Men of much Religion and little Godliness it would not be that there should be so many quarrels in and concerning that Religion which is wholly made up of Truth and Peace and was sent amongst us to reconcile the hearts of men when they were tempted to uncharitableness by any other unhappy argument Disputation cures no Vice but kindles a great many and makes Passion evaporate into sin and though men esteem it Learning yet it is the most useless Learning in the World When Eudamidas the Son of Archidamas heard old Xenocrates disputing about Wisdom he asked very soberly If the old man be yet disputing and enquiring concerning Wisdom what time will he have to make use of it Christianity is all for practice and so much time as is spent in quarrels about it is a diminution to its Interest men enquire so much what it is that they have but little time left to be Christians I remember a saying of Erasmus that when he first read the New Testament with fear and a good mind with a purpose to understand it and obey it he found it very useful very pleasant but when afterwards he fell on reading the vast differences of Commentaries then he understood it less than he did before then he began not to understand it For indeed the Truths of God are best dressed in the plain Culture and simplicity of the Spirit but the Truths that men commonly teach are like the reflexions of a Multiplying-glass for one piece of good money you shall have forty that are phantastical and it is forty to one if your finger hit upon the right Men have wearied themselves in the dark having been amused with false fires and instead of going home have wandred all night 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in untroden unsafe uneasie wayes but have not found out what their Soul desires But therefore since we are so miserable and are in error and have wandred very far we must do as wandring Travellers use to do go back just to that place from whence they wandred and begin upon a new account Let us go to the Truth it self to Christ and he will tell us an easie way of ending all our Quarrels For we shall find Christianity to be the easiest and the hardest thing in the World it is like a secret in Arithmetick infinitely hard till it be found out by a right operation and then it is so plain we wonder we did not understand it earlier Christ's way of finding out of Truth is by doing the will of God We will try that by and by if possible we may find that easie and certain in the mean time let us consider what wayes men have propounded to find out Truth and upon the foundation of that to establish Peace in Christendom 1. That there is but one true way is agreed upon and therefore almost every Church of one denomination that lives under Government propounds to you a Systeme or collective Body of Articles and tells you that 's the true Religion and they are the Church and the peculiar people of God like Brutus and Cassius of whom one sayes Vbicunque ipsi essent praetexebant esse rempublicam they supposed themselves were the Common-wealth and these are the Church and out of this Church they will hardly allow salvation But of this there can be no end for divide the Church into Twenty parts and in what part soever your lot falls you and your party are damned by the other Nineteen and men on all hands almost keep their own Proselytes by affrighting them with the fearful Sermons of Damnation but in the mean time here is no security to them that are not able to judge for themselves and no Peace for them that are 2. Others cast about to cure this evil and conclude that it must be done by submission to an infallible Guide this must do it or nothing and this is the way of the Church of Rome Follow but the Pope and his
us without any further question put this argument to a material issue let us do all that we can do towards the destruction of the whole body of sin but let us never say we cannot be quit of our Sin till we have done all that we can do towards the mortification of it For till that be done how can any man tell where the fault lies or whether it can be done or no If any man can say that he hath done all that he could do and yet hath failed of his duty if he can say truly that he hath endured as much as is possible to be endured that he hath watched alwayes and never nodded when he could avoid it that he hath loved as much as he could love that he hath waited till he can wait no longer then indeed if he sayes true we must confess that it is not to be understood But is there any man in the World that does all that he can do If there be that man is blameless if there be not then he cannot say but it is his own fault that his sin prevails against him It is true that no man is free from sin but it is as true that no man does as much as he can against it and therefore no man must go about to excuse himself by saying no man is free from his sin and therefore no man can be no not by the powers of grace for he may as well argue thus No man does do all that he can do against it and therefore it is impossible he should do what he can do The argument is apparently foolish and the excuse is weak and the deception visible and sin prevails upon our weak arguings but the consequence is plainly this When any man commits a sin he is guilty before God and he cannot say he could not help it and God is just in punishing every sin and very merciful when he forgives us any but he that says he cannot avoid it that he cannot overcome his lust confesses himself a servant of Sin and that he is not yet redeemed by the blood of the Holy Lamb. 5. He that would be advanced beyond the power and necessity of of sinning must take great caution concerning his thoughts and secret desires For lust when it is conceived bringeth forth sin but if it be suppressed in the conception it comes to nothing but we find it hard to destroy the Serpent when the egg is hatched into a Cockatrice The thought is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no man takes notice of it but lets it alone till the sin be too strong and then we complain we cannot help it Nolo sinas cogitationem orescere suffer not your thoughts to grow up for they usually come 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as S. Basil says suddenly and easily and without business but take heed that you nurse them not but if you chance to stumble mend your pace and if you nod let it awaken you for he only can be a good man that raises himself up at the first trip that strangles his sin in the birth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 good men rise up again even before they fall saith S. Chrysostom Now I pray consider that when sin is but in the thought it is easily suppressed and if it be stopt there it can go no further and what great mountain of labour is it then to abstain from our sin Is not the Adultery of the eye easily cured by shutting the eye-lid and cannot the thoughts of the heart be turned aside by doing business by going into company by reading or by sleeping A man may divert his thoughts by shaking of his head by thinking any else by thinking nothing Da mihi Christianum saith S. Austin intelligit quod dico Every man that loves God understands this and more than this to be true Now if things be thus and that we may be safe in that which is supposed to be the hardest of all we must needs condemn our selves and lay our faces in the dust when we give up our selves to any sin we cannot be justified by saying we could not help it For as it was decreed by the Fathers of the Aurasican Council 2d. Hoc etiam secundum fidem Catholicam credimus c. This we believe according to the Catholick Faith that have received Baptismal Grace all that are baptized by the aid and cooperation of Christ must and can if they will labour faithfully perform and fulfill those things which belong unto salvation 6. And lastly If sin hath gotten the power of any one of us consider in what degree the sin hath prevailed If but a little the battel will be more easie and the victory more certain but then be sure to do it throughly because there is not much to be done But if sin hath prevailed greatly then indeed you have very much to do therefore begin betimes and defer not this work till old age shall make it extremely difficult or death shall make it impossible Nam quamvis prope te quamvis temone sub uno Vertentem sese frustra sectabere canthum Cum rota posterior curras in axe secundo If thou beest cast behind if thou hast neglected the duties of thy vigorous age thou shalt never overtake that strength the hinder wheel though bigger than the former and measures more ground at every revolution yet shall never overtake it and all the second counsels of thy old age though undertaken with greater resolution and acted with the strengths of fear and need and pursued with more pertinacious purposes than the early repentances of young men yet shall never overtake those advantages which you lost when you gave your youth to folly and the causes of a sad repentance However if you find it so hard a thing to get from the power of one master-sin if an old Adulterer does dote if an old Drunkard be further from remedy than a young sinner if Covetousness grows with old age if ambition be still more Hydropick and grows more thirsty for every draught of Honour you may easily resolve that old age or your last sickness is not so likely to be prosperous in the mortification of your long prevailing sins Do not all men desire to end their dayes in Religion to dye in the arms of the Church to expire under the conduct of a religious man when ye are sick or dying then nothing but prayers and sad complaints and the groans of a tremulous repentance and the faint labours of an almost impossible mortification then the despised Priest is sent for then he is a good man and his words are Oracles and Religion is truth and sin is a load and the sinner is a fool then we watch for a word of comfort from his mouth as the fearful Prisoner for his fate upon the Judges answer That which is true then is true now and therefore to prevent so intollerable a danger mortifie your sin betime for else you will hardly mortifie
been hit upon and yet I have told you all the wayes of Man and his Imaginations in Order to Truth and Peace and you see these will not do we can find no rest for the soles of our feet amidst all the waters of Contention and Disputations and little artifices of divided Schools Every man is a lyar and his Understanding is weak and his Propositions uncertain and his Opinions trifling and his Contrivances imperfect and neither Truth nor Peace does come from man I know I am in an Auditory of inquisitive persons whose business is to study for Truth that they may find it for themselves and teach it unto others I am in a School of Prophets and Prophets Sons who all ask Pilate's Question What is Truth You look for it in your Books and you tug hard for it in your Disputations and you derive it from the Cisterns of the Fathers and you enquire after the old wayes and sometimes are taken with new appearances and you rejoice in false lights or are delighted with little umbrages and peep of Day But where is there a man or a Society of men that can be at rest in his enquiry and is sure he understands all the Truths of God where is there a man but the more he studies and enquires still he discovers nothing so clearly as his own Ignorance This is a demonstration that we are not in the right way that we do not enquire wisely that our Method is not artificial If men did fall upon the right way it were impossible so many learned men should be engaged in contrary parties and Opinions We have examined all wayes but one all but God's way Let us having missed in all the other try this let us go to God for Truth for Truth comes from God only and his wayes are plain and his sayings are true and his promises Yea and Amen and if we miss the Truth it is because we will not find it for certain it is that all that Truth which God hath made necessary he hath also made legible and plain and if we will open our eyes we shall see the Sun and if we will walk in the light we shall rejoice in the light only let us withdraw the Curtains let us remove the impediments and the sin that doth so easily beset us that 's God's way Every man must in his station do that portion of duty which God requires of him and then he shall be taught of God all that is fit for him to learn there is no other way for him but this The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and a good understanding have all they that do thereafter And so said David of himself I have more understanding than my Teachers because I keep thy Commandments And this is the only way which Christ hath taught us if you ask What is Truth you must not do as Pilate did ask the Question and then go away from him that only can give you an answer for as God is the Author of Truth so he is the Teacher of it and the way to learn it is this of my Text For so saith our blessed Lord If any man will do his will he shall know of the Doctrine whether it be of God or no. My Text is simple as Truth it self but greatly comprehensive and contains a Truth that alone will enable you to understand all Mysteries and to expound all Prophecies and to interpret all Scriptures and to search into all Secrets all I mean which concern our happinesse and our duty and it being an affirmative hypothetical is plainly to be resolved into this Proposition The way to judge of Religion is by doing of our duty and Theologie is rather a Divine life than a Divine knowledge In Heaven indeed we shall first see and then love but here on Earth we must first love and love will open our eyes as well as our hearts and we shall then see and perceive and understand In the handling of which Proposition I shall first represent to you that the certain causes of our Errors are nothing but direct sins nothing makes us Fools and Ignorants but living vicious lives and then I shall proceed to the direct demonstration of the Article in question that Holiness is the only way of Truth and Vnderstanding 1. No man understands the Word of God as it ought to be understood unless he layes aside all affections to Sin of which because we have taken very little care the product hath been that we have had very little wisdom and very little knowledge in the wayes of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Aristotle wickedness does corrupt a mans reasoning it gives him false principles and evil measures of things the sweet Wine that Vlysses gave to the Cyclops put his eye out and a man that hath contracted evil affections and made a league with sin sees only by those measures A Covetous man understands nothing to be good that is not profitable and a Voluptuous man likes your reasoning well enough if you discourse of Bonum jucundum the pleasures of the sense the ravishments of lust the noises and inadvertencies the mirth and songs of merry Company but if you talk to him of the melancholy Lectures of the Cross the content of Resignation the peace of Meekness and the Joyes of the Holy Ghost and of rest in God after your long discourse and his great silence he cries out What 's the matter He knows not what you mean Either you must fit his humour or change your discourse I remember that Arianus tells of a Gentleman that was banished from Rome and in his sorrow visited the Philosopher and he heard him talk wisely and believed him and promised him to leave all the thoughts of Rome and splendors of the Court and retire to the course of a severe Philosopy but before the good mans Lectures were done there came 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 letters from Caesar to recall him home to give him pardon and promise him great employment He presently grew weary of the good mans Sermon and wished he would make an end thought his discourse was dull and flat for his head and heart were full of another story and new principles and by these measures he could hear only and he could understand Every man understands by his Affections more than by his Reason and when the Wolf in the Fable went to School to learn to spell whatever letters were told him he could never make any thing of them but Agnus he thought of nothing but his belly and if a man be very hungry you must give him meat before you give him Counsel A mans mind must be like your proposition before it can be entertained for whatever you put into a man it will smell of the Vessel it is mans mind that gives the Emphasis and makes your argument to prevail And upon this account it is that there are so many false Doctrines in the only Article of
ages past and troubled themselves with tying untying knots like Hypocondriacks in a fit of Melancholy thinking of nothing troubling themselves with nothing and falling out about nothings and being very wise very learned in things that are not and work not and were never planted in Paradise by the finger of God Mens notions are too often like the Mules begotten by aequivocal and unnatural Generations but they make no species they are begotten but they can beget nothing they are the effects of long study but they can do no good when they are produced they are not that which Solomon calls viam intelligentiae the way of understanding If the Spirit of God be our Teacher we shall learn to avoid evil and to do good to be wise and to be holy to be profitable and careful and they that walk in this way shall find more peace in their Consciences more skill in the Scriptures more satisfaction in their doubts than can be obtained by all the polemical and impertinent disputations of the world And if the holy Spirit can teach us how vain a thing it is to do foolish things he also will teach us how vain a thing it is to trouble the world with foolish Questions to disturb the Church for interest or pride to resist Government in things indifferent to spend the peoples zeal in things unprofitable to make Religion to consist in outsides and opposition to circumstances and trifling regards No no the Man that is wise he that is conducted by the Spirit of God knows better in what Christs Kingdom does consist than to throw away his time and interest and peace and safety for what for Religion no for the Body of Religion not so much for the Garment of the Body of Religion no not for so much but for the Fringes of the Garment of the Body of Religion for such and no better are the disputes that trouble our discontented Brethren they are things or rather Circumstances and manners of things in which the Soul and Spirit is not at all concerned 3. Holiness of life is the best way of finding out truth and understanding not only as a Natural medium nor only as a prudent medium but as a means by way of Divine blessing He that hath my Commandments and keepeth them he it is that loveth me and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father and I will love him and will manifest my self to him Here we have a promise for it and upon that we may relye The old man that confuted the Arian Priest by a plain recital of his Creed found a mighty power of God effecting his own Work by a strange manner and by a very plain instrument it wrought a divine blessing just as Sacraments use to do and this Lightning sometimes comes in a strange manner as a peculiar blessing to good men For God kept the secrets of his Kingdom from the wise Heathens and the learned Jews revealing them to Babes not because they had less learning but because they had more love they were children and Babes in Malice they loved Christ and so he became to them a light and a glory St. Paul had more Learning then they all and Moses was instructed in all the Learning of the Egyptians yet because he was the meekest man upon Earth he was also the wisest and to his humane Learning in which he was excellent he had a divine light and excellent wisdom superadded to him by way of spiritual blessings And St. Paul though he went very far to the Knowledge of many great and excellent truths by the force of humane learning yet he was far short of perfective truth and true wisdom till he learned a new Lesson in a new School at the feet of one greater then his Gamaliel his learning grew much greater his notions brighter his skill deeper by the love of Christ and his desires his passionate desires after Jesus The force and use of humane learning and of this Divine learning I am now speaking of are both well expressed by the Prophet Isaiah 29. 11 12. And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a Book that is sealed which men deliver to one that is learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I cannot for it is seal'd And the Book is delivered to him that is not learned saying Read this I pray thee and he saith I am not learned He that is no learned man who is not bred up in the Schools of the Prophets cannot read Gods Book for want of learning For humane Learning is the gate and first entrance of Divine vision not the only one indeed but the common gate But beyond this there must be another learning for he that is learned bring the Book to him and you are not much the better as to the secret part of it if the Book be sealed if his eyes be closed if his heart be not opened if God does not speak to him in the secret way of discipline Humane learning is an excellent Foundation but the top-stone is laid by Love and Conformity to the will of God For we may further observe that blindnesse errour and Ignorance are the punishments which God sends upon wicked and ungodly men Etiamsi propter nostrae intelligentiae tarditatem vitae demeritum veritas nondum se apertissime ostenderit was St. Austin's expression The truth hath not yet been manifested fully to us by reason of our demerits our sins have hindred the brightness of the truth from shining upon us And St. Paul observes that when the Heathens gave themselves over to lusts God gave them over to strong delusions to believe a Lie But God giveth to a man that is good in his sight wisdom and knowledge and joy said the wise Preacher But this is most expresly promised in the New Testament and particularly in that admirable Sermon which our blessed Saviour preach'd a little before his death The Comforter which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name he shall teach you all things Well there 's our Teacher told of plainly But how shall we obtain this teacher and how shall we be taught v. 15 16 17. Christ will pray for us that we may have this Spirit That 's well but shall all Christians have the Spirit Yes all that will live like Christians for so said Christ If ye love me keep my Commandments and I will pray the Father and he will give you another Comforter that may abide with you for ever even the spirit of truth whom the World cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him Mark these things The Spirit of God is our teacher he will abide with us for ever to be our teacher he will teach us all things but how if ye love Christ if ye keep his Commandments but not else if ye be of the World that is of worldly affections ye cannot see him ye
the great Syrian that stirred up the sluggish and awakened the sleepers and comforted the afflicted and brought the young men to discipline the Looking-glass of the Religious the Captain of the Penitents the destruction of Heresies the receptacle of Graces the habitation of the Holy Ghost These were the men that prevailed against Errour because they lived according to Truth and whoever shall oppose you and the Truth you walk by may better be confuted by your Lives than by your Disputations Let your adversaries have no evil thing to say of you and then you will best silence them For all Heresies and false Doctrines are but like Myron's counterfeit Cow it deceived none but Beasts and these can cozen none but the wicked and the negligent them that love a Lie and live according to it But if ye become burning and shining lights if ye do not detain the truth in unrighteousness if ye walk in light and live in the Spirit your Doctrines will be true and that Truth will prevail But if ye live wickedly and scandalously every little Schismatick shall put you to shame and draw Disciples after him and abuse your Flocks and feed them with Colocynths and Hemlock and place Heresie in the Chairs appointed for your Religion I pray God give you all Grace to follow this Wisdom to study this Learning to labour for the understanding of Godliness so your Time and your Studies your Persons and your Labours will be holy and useful sanctified and blessed beneficial to men and pleasing to God through him who is the Wisdom of the Father who is made to all that love him Wisdom and Righteousness and Sanctification and Redemption To whom with the Father c. FINIS A SERMON Preached in Christs-Church Dublin July 16. 1663. AT THE FUNERAL Of the Most Reverend Father in God JOHN Late Lord Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland WITH A Succinct Narrative of His whole Life The fourth Edition enlarged By the Right Reverend Father in God Jeremy Lord Bishop of Down and Connor LONDON Printed for R. Royston Bookseller to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty 1666. A Funeral Sermon SERM. VII 1 Cor. XV. 23. But every Man in his own Order Christ the first fruits afterward they that are Christ's at his coming THE Condition of Man in this world is so limited and depressed so relative and imperfect that the best things he does he does weakly and the best things he hath are imperfections in their very constitution I need not tell how little it is that we know the greatest indication of this is That we can never tell how many things we know not and we may soon span our own Knowledge but our Ignorance we can never fathom Our very Will in which Mankind pretends to be most noble and imperial is a direct state of imperfection and our very liberty of Chusing good and evil is permitted to us not to make us proud but to make us humble for it supposes weakness of Reason and weakness of Love For if we understood all the degrees of Amability in the Service of God or if we had such love to God as he deserves and so perfect a conviction as were fit for his Services we could no more Deliberate For Liberty of Will is like the motion of a Magnetick Needle toward the North full of trembling and uncertainty till it were fixed in the beloved Point it wavers as long as it is free and is at rest when it can chuse no more And truly what is the hope of man It is indeed the Resurrection of of the Soul in this world from sorrow and her saddest pressures and like the Twilight to the Day and the Harbinger of joy but still it is but a conjugation of Infirmities and proclaims our present calamity only because it is uneasie here it thrusts us forwards toward the light and glories of the Resurrection For as a Worm creeping with her belly on the ground with her portion and share of Adam's Curse lifts up its head to partake a little of the blessings of the air and opens the junctures of her imperfect body and curles her little rings into knots and combinations drawing up her tail to a neighbourhood of the heads pleasure and motion but still it must return to abide the fate of its own nature and dwell and sleep upon the dust So are the hopes of a mortal man he opens his eyes and looks upon fine things at distance and shuts them again with weakness because they are too glorious to behold and the Man rejoices because he hopes fine things are staying for him but his heart akes because he knows there are a thousand ways to fail and miss of those glories and though he hopes yet he enjoys not he longs but he possesses not and must be content with his portion of dust and being a worm and no man must lie down in this portion before he can receive the end of his hopes the salvation of his Soul in the Resurrection of the dead For as Death is the end of our lives so is the Resurrection the end of our hopes and as we dye daily so we daily hope but Death which is the end of our life is the enlargement of our Spirits from hope to certainty from uncertain fears to certain expectations from the death of the Body to the life of the Soul that is to partake of the light and life of Christ to rise to life as he did for his Resurrection is the beginning of ours He dyed for us alone not for himself but he rose again for himself and us too So that if he did rise so shall we the Resurrection shall be universal good and bad all shall rise but not altogether First Christ then we that are Christs and yet there is a third Resurrection though not spoken of here but thus it shall be The dead of Christ shall rise first that is next to Christ and after them the wicked shall rise to condemnation So that you see here is the sum of affairs treated of in my Text Not whether it be lawful to eat a Tortoise or a Mushroom or to tread with the foot bare upon the ground within the Octaves of Easter It is not here inquired whether Angels be material or immaterial or whether the dwellings of dead Infants be within the Air or in the Regions of the Earth the inquiry here is whether we are to be Christians or no whether we are to live good lives or no or whether it be permitted to us to live with Lust or Covetousness acted with all the Daughters of Rapine and Ambition whether there be any such thing as sin any judicatory for Consciences any rewards of Piety any difference of Good and Bad any rewards after this life This is the design of these words by proper interpretation for if men shall dye like Dogs and Sheep they will certainly live like Wolves and Foxes but he that believes the Article of the
of his perfect obedience and purest holiness and he calling us to an imitation of the same obedience and the same perfect holiness prepares a way for us to the same Resurrection If we by holiness become the Sons of God as Christ was we shall also as he was become the Sons of God in the Resurrection But upon no other terms So said our blessed Lord himself Ye which have followed me in the Regeneration when the Son of Man shall sit on the throne of his glory ye also shall sit upon Thrones judging the Tribes of Israel For as it was with Christ the first Fruits so it shall be with all Christians in their own order as with the Head so it shall be with the Members He was the Son of God by love and obedience and then became the Son of God by Resurrection from the dead to life Eternal and so shall we but we cannot be so in any other way To them that are Christ's and to none else shall this be given For we must know that God hath sent Christ into the World to be a great example and demonstration of the Oeconomy and Dispensation of Eternal life As God brought Christ to glory so he will bring us but by no other method He first obeyed the will of God and patiently suffered the will of God he dyed and rose again and entred into glory and so must we Thus Christ is made Via Veritas Vita the Way the Truth and the Life that is the true way to Eternal life He first trode this Wine-press and we must insist in the same steps or we shall never partake of this blessed Resurrection He was made the Son of God in a most glorious manner and we by him by his merit and by his grace and by his example but other than this there is no way of Salvation for us That 's the first and great effect of this glorious order 4. But there is one thing more in it yet Every man in his own order First Christ and then they that are Christ's But what shall become of them that are not Christs why there is an order for them too First they that are Christs and then they that are not his * Blessed and holy is he that hath his part in the first Resurrection There is a first and a second Resurrection even after this life The dead in Christ shall rise first Now blessed are they that have their portion here for upon these the second death shall have no power As for the recalling the wicked from their Graves it is no otherwise in the sense of the Spirit to be called a Resurrection than taking a Criminal from the Prison to the Bar is a giving of Liberty When poor Attilius Aviola had been seized on by an Apoplexy his friends supposing him dead carried him to his Funeral pile but when the fire began to approach and the heat to warm the body he revived and seeing himself incircled with Funeral flames called out aloud to his friends to rescue not the dead but the living Aviola from that horrid burning But it could not be he only was restored from his sickness to fall into death and from his dull disease to a sharp and intolerable torment Just so shall the wicked live again they shall receive their Souls that they may be a portion for Devils they shall receive their bodies that they may feel the everlasting burning they shall see Christ that they may look on him whom they have pierced and they shall hear the voice of God passing upon them the intolerable sentence they shall come from their Graves that they may go into Hell and live again that they may die for ever So have we seen a poor condemned Criminal the weight of whose sorrows sitting heavily upon his soul hath benummed him into a deep sleep till he hath forgotten his groans and laid aside his deep sighings but on a sudden comes the Messenger of death and unbinds the Poppy Garland scatters the heavy Cloud that incircled his miserable head and makes him return to acts of life that he may quickly descend into death and be no more So is every Sinner that lies down in shame and makes his grave with the wicked he shall indeed rise again and be call'd upon by the voice of the Archangel but then he shall descend into sorrows greater than the reason and the patience of a man weeping and shrieking louder than the groans of the miserable children in the Valley of Hinnom These indeed are sad stories but true as the voice of God and the Sermons of the Holy Jesus They are Gods Words and Gods Decrees and I wish that all who profess the belief of these would consider sadly what they mean If ye believe the Article of the Resurrection then you know that in your body you shall receive what you did in the body whether it be good or bad It matters not now very much whether our bodies be beauteous or deformed for if we glorifie God in our bodies God shall make our bodies glorious It matters not much whether we live in ease and pleasure or eat nothing but bitter herbs the body that lies in dust and ashes that goes stooping and feeble that lodges at the foot of the Cross and dwells in discipline shall be feasted at the eternal Supper of the Lamb. And ever remember this That beastly pleasures and lying lips and a deceitful tongue and a heart that sendeth forth proud things are no good dispositions to a blessed Resurrection 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is not good that in the body we live a life of dissolution for that 's no good harmony with that purpose of Glory which God designs the body 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said Phocyllides for we hope that from our beds of darkness we shall rise into Regions of light and shall become like unto God They shall partake of a Resurrection to life and what this can infer is very obvious For if it be so hard to believe a Resurrection from one death let us not be dead in trespasses and sins for a Resurrection from two deaths will be harder to be believed and harder to be effected But if any of you have lost the life of Grace and so forfeited all your title to a life of Glory betake your selves to an early and an entire Piety that when by this first Resurrection you have made this way plain before your face you may with confidence expect a happy Resurrection from your graves For if it be possible that the Spirit when it is dead in sin can arise to a life of Righteousness much more it is easie to suppose that the body after death is capable of being restor'd again And this is a consequent of St. Paul's Argument Rom. 5. 10. If when ye were enemies ye were reconciled by his death much more being reconciled we shall be saved by his life plainly declaring that it
good Divines But all this while we are but in the preparation to the Mysteries of Godliness When we have thrown off all affections to sin when we have stripp'd our selves from all fond adherences to the things of the world and have broken the chains and dominion of our Passions then we may say with David Ecce paratum est Cor meum Deus My heart is ready O God my heart is ready then we may say Speak Lord for thy Servant heareth But we are not yet instructed It remains therefore that we inquire what is that immediate Principle or Means by which we shall certainly and infallibly be led into all Truth and be taught the Mind of God and understand all his Secrets and this is worth our knowledge I cannot say that this will end your Labours and put a period to your Studies and make your Learning easie it may possibly increase your Labour but it will make it profitable it will not end your Studies but it will direct them it will not make Humane Learning easie but it will make it wise unto Salvation and conduct it into true notices and ways of Wisdom I am now to describe to you the right way of Knowledg Qui facit Voluntatem Patris mei saith Christ that 's the way do God's Will and you shall understand God's Word And it was an excellent saying of S. Peter Add to your Faith Virtue c. If these things be in you and abound ye shall not be unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For in this case 't is not enough that all our hindrances of Knowledge are removed for that is but the opening of the covering of the Book of God but when it is opened it is written with a hand that every eye cannot read Though the windows of the East be open yet every eye cannot behold the glories of the Sun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plotinus the eye that is not made Solar cannot see the Sun the eye must be fitted to the splendor and it is not the wit of the man but the spirit of the man not so much his head as his heart that learns the Divine Philosophy 1. Now in this Inquiry I must take one thing for a praecognitum that every good man is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he is taught of God and indeed unless he teach us we shall make but ill Scholars our selves and worse Guides to others Nemo potest Deum scire nisi à Deo doceatur said St. Irenaeus lib. 6. cap. 13. If God teaches us then all is well but if we do not learn Wisdom at his feet from whence should we have it it can come from no other Spring And therefore it naturally follows that by how much nearer we are to God by so much better we are like to be instructed But this being supposed as being most evident we can easily proceed by wonderful degrees and steps of progression in the Oeconomy of this Divine Philosophy For 2. There is in every righteous man a new vital Principle the Spirit of Grace is the Spirit of Wisdom and teaches us by secret Inspirations by proper Arguments by actual Perswasions by personal Applications by Effects and Energies and as the Soul of a man is the cause of all his vital Operations so is the Spirit of God the Life of that Life and the cause of all Actions and Productions Spiritual And the consequence of this is what St. John tells us of Ye have received the Vnction from above and that annointing teacheth you all things All things of some one kind that is certainly all things that pertain to life and godliness all that by which a man is wise and happy We see this by common experience Unless the Soul have a new Life put into it unless there be a vital Principle within unless the Spirit of Life be the Informer of the Spirit of the Man the Word of God will be as dead in the operation as the Body in its powers and possibilities Sol Homo generant hominem saith our Philosophy A Man alone does not beget a Man but a Man and the Sun for without the influence of the Celestial Bodies all natural Actions are ineffective and so it is in the operations of the Soul Which Principle divers Phanaticks both among us and in the Church of Rome misunderstanding look for new Revelations and expect to be conducted by Ecstasie and will not pray but in a transfiguration and live upon raptures and extravagant expectations and separate themselves from the conversation of men by affectations by new measures and singularities and destroy Order and despise Government and live upon illiterate Phantasms and ignorant Discourses These men do 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they belie the Holy Ghost For the Spirit of God makes men wise it is an evil Spirit that makes them Fools The Spirit of God makes us Wise unto Salvation it does not spend its holy Influences in disguises and convulsions of the Understanding Gods Spirit does not destroy Reason but heightens it he never disorders the Beauties of Government but is a God of Order it is the Spirit of Humility and teaches no Pride he is to be found in Churches and Pulpits upon Altars and in the Doctors Chairs not in Conventicles and mutinous corners of a House he goes in company with his own Ordinances and makes progressions by the measures of life his infusions are just as our acquisitions and his Graces pursue the methods of Nature that which was imperfect he leads on to perfection and that which was weak he makes strong he opens the heart not to receive murmurs or to attend to secret whispers but to hear the word of God and then he opens the heart and creates a new one and without this new creation this new principle of life we may hear the word of God but we can never understand it we hear the sound but are never the better unless there be in our hearts a secret conviction by the Spirit of God the Gospel it self is a dead Letter and worketh not in us the light and righteousness of God Do not we see this by daily experience Even those things which a good man and an evil man know they do not know them both alike A wicked man does know that Good is lovely and Sin is of an evil and destructive nature and when he is reproved he is convinced and when he is observed he is ashamed and when he has done he is unsatisfied and when he pursues his sin he does it in the dark Tell him he shall die and he sighs deeply but he knows it as well as you Proceed and say that after death comes Judgment and the poor man believes and trembles he knows that God is angry with him and if you tell him that for ought he knows he may be in Hell to morrow he knows that it is an intolerable truth but it is also undeniable And yet after all this
he runs to commit his sin with as certain an event and resolution as if he knew no Argument against it These notices of things terrible and true pass through his Understanding as an Eagle through the Air as long as her flight lasted the air was shaken but there remains no path behind her Now since at the same time we see other persons not so learned it may be not so much versed in Scriptures yet they say a thing is good and lay hold of it they believe glorious things of Heaven and they live accordingly as men that believe themselves half a word is enough to make them understand a nod is a sufficient reproof the crowing of a Cock the singing of a Lark the dawning of the day and the washing their hands are to them competent memorials of Religion and warnings of their duty What is the reason of this difference They both read the Scriptures they read and hear the same Sermons they have capable Understandings they both believe what they hear and what they read and yet the event is vastly different The reason is that which I am now speaking of the one understands by one Principle the other by another the one understands by Nature and the other by Grace the one by Humane Learning and the other by Divine the one reads the Scriptures without and the other within the one understands as a Son of Man the other as a Son of God the one perceives by the proportions of the world and the other by the measures of the Spirit the one understands by Reason and the other by Love and therefore he does not only understand the Sermons of the Spirit and perceives their meaning but he pierces deeper and knows the meaning of that meaning that is the secret of the Spirit that which is spiritually discerned that which gives life to the Proposition and activity to the Soul And the reason is because he hath a Divine Principle within him and a new Understanding that is plainly he hath Love and that 's more than Knowledge as was rarely well observed by S. Paul Knowledge puffeth up but Charity edifieth that is Charity makes the best Scholars No Sermons can edifie you no Scriptures can build you up a holy Building to God unless the Love of God be in your hearts and purifie your Souls from all filthiness of the Flesh and Spirit But so it is in the regions of Stars where a vast body of Fire is so divided by excentrick motions that it looks as if Nature had parted them into Orbs and round shells of plain and purest materials But where the cause is simple and the matter without variety the motions must be uniform and in Heaven we should either espy no motion or no variety But God who designed the Heavens to be the causes of all changes and motions here below hath placed his Angels in their houses of light and given to every one of his appointed Officers a portion of the fiery matter to circumagitate and roll and now the wonder ceases for if it be enquired why this part of the fire runs Eastward and the other to the South they being both indifferent to either it is because an Angel of God sits in the Centre and makes the same matter turn not by the bent of its own mobility and inclination but in order to the needs of Man and the great purposes of God And so it is in the Understandings of Men when they all receive the same Notions and are taught by the same Master and give full consent to all the Propositions and can of themselves have nothing to distinguish them in the events it is because God has sent his Divine Spirit and kindles a new fire and creates a braver capacity and applies the Actives to the Passives and blesses their operation For there is in the heart of man such a dead sea and an indisposition to holy flames like as in the cold Rivers in the North so as the fires will not burn them and the Sun it self will never warm them till Gods holy Spirit does from the Temple of the New Jerusalem bring a holy flame and make it shine and burn The Natural man saith the holy Apostle cannot preceive the things of the Spirit they are foolishness unto him for they are spiritually discerned For he that discourses of things by the measures of sense thinks nothing good but that which is delicious to the palate or pleases the brutish part of Man and therefore while he estimates the secrets of Religion by such measures they must needs seem as insipid as Cork or the uncondited Mushrom for they have nothing at all of that in their constitution A voluptuous person is like the Dogs of Sicily so fill'd with the deliciousness of Plants that grow in every furrow and hedge that they can never keep the scent of their Game 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said St. Chrysostom The fire and water can never mingle so neither can sensuality and the watchfulness and wise discerning of the Spirit Pilato interroganti de veritate Christus non respondit When the wicked Governour asked of Christ concerning Truth Christ gave him no answer He was not fit to hear it He therefore who so understands the Words of God that he not only believes but loves the Proposition he who consents with all his heart and being convinc'd of the truth does also apprehend the necessity and obeys the precept and delights in the discovery and lays his hand upon his heart and reduces the notices of things to the practice of duty he who dares trust his proposition and drives it on to the utmost issue resolving to go after it whithersoever it can invite him this Man walks in the Spirit at least thus far he is gone towards it his Understanding is brought in obsequium Christi into the obedience of Christ. This is a loving God with all our mind and whatever goes less than this is but Memory and not Understanding or else such notice of things by which a man is neither the wiser nor the better 3. Sometimes God gives to his choicest his most elect and precious Servants a knowledge even of secret things which he communicates not to others We finde it greatly remark'd in the case of Abraham Gen. 18. 17. And the Lord said Shall I hide from Abraham that thing that I do Why not from Abraham God tells us ver 19. For I know him that he will command his Children and his Houshold after him and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment And though this be irregular and infrequent yet it is a reward of their piety and the proper increase also of the spiritual man We find this spoken by God to Daniel and promised to be the lot of the righteous man in the days of the Messias Dan. 12. 10. Many shall be purified and made white and tryed but the wicked shall do wickedly and what then None of