attributes he hath he is called the Spirit of Adoption Rom. 8.15 the Spirit of Faith 2 Cor. 4.13 the Spirit of Grace of Love of Joy of Zeale for where he worketh Grace is operative our Love is without dissimulation our Joy is like the joy of heaven as true though not so great our Faith a working faith and our Zeal a coale from the Altar kindled from his fire not mad and raging but according to knowledge he makes no shadowes but substances no pictures but realities no appearances but truths a Grace that makes us highly favoured a precious and holy Faith full and unspeakable Love ready to spend it self and zeal to consume us of a true existence being from the spirit of God who alone truly is but here the spirit of Truth yet the same spirit that planteth grace and faith in our hearts that begets our Faith cilates our Love works our Joy kindles our Zeal and adopts us in Regiam familiam into the Royall Family of the first-born in Heaven but now the spirit of Truth was more proper for to tell men perplext with doubts that were ever and anon and sometimes when they should not asking questions of such a Teacher was a seal to the promise a good assurance they should be well taught that no difficulty should be too hard no knowledge too high no mystery too dark and obscure for them but Omnis veritas all truth should be brought forth and unfolded to them and have the vayle taken from it and be laid open and naked to their understanding Let us then look up upon and worship this spirit of Truth as he thus presents and tenders himself unto us as he stands in opposition to two great enemies to Truth as 1. Dissimulation 2. Flattery and then as he is true in the lessons which he teacheth that we may pray for his Advent long for his coming and so receive him when he comes And first dissemble he doth not he cannot for dissimulation is a kind of cheat or jugling by which we cast a mist before mens eyes that they cannot see us it brings in the Divel in Samuel's mantle and an enemy in the smiles and smoothness of a friend it speakes the language of the Priest at Delphos playes in ambiguities promises life As to King 〈◊〉 who a 〈…〉 slew when death is neerest and bids us beware of a chariot when it means a sword No this spirit is an enemy to this because a spirit of truth and hates these in volucra dissimulationis this folding and involvednesse these clokes and coverts these crafty conveyances of our own desires to their end under the specious shew of intending good to others and they by whom he speaks are like him and speak the truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Cor. 3.12 in the simplicity and godly sincerity of the spirit not in craftinesse not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 handling the Word of God deceitfully 2 Cor. 4.2 Eph. 4.14 not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in the slight of men throwing a Die what cast you would have them noting their Doctrine to men and the times that is not to men and the times but to their own ends telling them of Heaven Wisdom 1.5 when their thoughts are in their purse This holy spirit of Truth flies all such deceit and removes himself far from the thoughts which are without understanding and will not acquit a dissembler of his words there is nothing of the Divels method nothing of the Die or hand no windings nor turnings in what he teacheth but verus vera dicit being a spirit of truth he speaks the truth and nothing but he truth and for our behoof and advantage that we may believe it and build upon it and by his discipline raise our selves up to that end for which he is pleased to come and be our teacher And as he cannot dissemble so in the next place flatter us he cannot the inseparable mark and character of the evill spirit qui arridet ut saeviat who smiles upon us that he may rage against us lifts us up that he may cast us down whose exaltations are foiles whose favours are deceits whose smiles and kisses are wounds for flattery is as a glasse for a fool to look upon and so become more fool than before it is the fools eccho by which he hears himself at the rebound and thinks the wiseman spoke unto him and it proceeds from the father of lies not from the spirit of truth who is the same yesterday and to day and for ever who reproves drunkennesse though in a Noah adultery though in a David want of faith though in a Peter and layes our sins in order before us his precepts are plain his law is in thunder his threatnings earnest and vehement he calls Adam from behind the bush strikes Ananias dead for his hypocrisie and for lying to the holy Spirit deprives him of his own Thy excuse to him is a libell thy pretence fouler than thy sin thy false worship of him is blasphemy and thy form of godlinesse open impiety and where he enters the heart Sin which is the greatest errour the grossest lye removes it self heaves and pants to go out knocks at our breast and runs down at our eyes and we hear it speak in sighs and grones unspeakable and what was our delight becomes our torment In a word he is a spirit of truth and neither dissembles to decieve us nor flatters that we may deceive our selves but verus vera dicit being truth it self tells us what we shall find to be most true to keep us from the dangerous by-paths of errour and misprision in which we may lose our selves and be lost for ever And this appears is visible in those lessons and precepts which he gives which are so harmonious so consonant so agreeing with themselves and so consonant and agreeable to that Image after which we were made to fit and beautifie it when it is defaced and repaire it when it is decayed that so it may become in some proportion measure like unto him that made it for this spirit doth not set up one precept against another nor one text against another doth not disanul his promises in his threats nor check his threats with his promises doth not forbid all Feare in confidence nor shake our confidence when he bids us feare doth not set up meeknesse to abate our zeale nor kindles zeale to consume our meeknesse doth not teach Christian liberty to shake off obedience to Government nor prescribes obedience to infringe and weaken our Christian liberty This spirit is a spirit of truth and never different from himself never contradicts himself but is equall in all his wayes the same in that truth which pleaseth thee and that which pincheth thee in that which thou consentest to and that which thou runnâ—st from in that which will rayse thy spirit and that which will wound thy spirit And the reason why men who
talk so much of the spirit doe fall into grosse and pernicious errors is from hence that they will not be like the spirit in this equall and like unto themselves in all their wayes that they lay claime to him in that Text which seemeth to comply with their humour but discharge and leave him in that which should purge it that upon the beck as it were of some place of Scripture which upon the first face and appearance looks favourably upon their present inclinations they run violently on this side animated and posted on by that which was not in the Text but in their lusts and fancy and never look back upon other testimonies of divine Authority that Army of evidences as Tertullian speaks which are openly prest out and marshall'd against them which might well put them to a halt and deliberation which might stay and drive back their intention and settle them at last in the truth which consists in a moderation betwixt two extremes For we may be zealous and not cruell we may be devout and not superstitious we may hate Idolatry and not commit Sacriledge we may stand fast in our Christian liberty and not make it a cloak of maliciousnesse if we did follow the spirit in all his wayes who in all his wayes is a Spirit of truth for he commandeth zeale and forbids Rage he commends devotion and forbids superstition he condemns Idolatry yea and condemns sacriledge he preacheth liberty and preacheth obedience to superiours and in all is he same spirit And this spirit did come His Advent and Christ did send him and in the next place to this end he came to be our leader to guide us in the wayes of truth to help our infirmities to be our conduct to carry us on to the end which is nomen officii the name of his office and Administration which one would think were but a low office for the spirit of God and yet these are magnalia spiriûts the wonderfull things of the spirit and doe no lesse proclaime his divinity then the Creation of the world we wonder the blind should see the lame goe the deaf heare the dead be raysed up but doth it not follow pauperes Evangelizantur Mat. 11.5 the poore receive that Gospel weigh it well and in the Ballance of the fanctuary as great a miracle as the former And this his Advent and coming was free and voluntary and though he was sent from the Father and the sonne yet sponte venit he came of his own accord and he not onely comes but sends himself say the schooles as he dayly works those changes and alterations in his creature These words to be sent and to come and the like Dicit Mittam ut propriam autoritatem oftendat Tum denique veniet quo verbo spiritûs potestas indicatur Naz. Or. 37. are not words of diminution or disparagement He came in no servile manner but as a Lord as a friend from a friend as in a letter the very mind of him that sent it which shewes an agreement and concord with him that sent him but implyes no inferiority no degree of servility or subjection Yet some there have been who have stumbled at the shadow which this word hath cast or indeed at their own and for this made him no more then a Creature 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a supernumerary God brought in to serve and minister and no distinct person of the blessed Trinity But what a grosse error what foule ingratitude is this to call his goodnesse servility his coming to us submission and obedience and count him not a God because by his gracious operation he is pleased to dwell in men and make them his Tabernacle why may we not as warrantably conceive so of either person For God with reverence to so high a Majesty serves us more then we doe him who are nothing but by his breath and power he serves us every day nay he Feedeth they young Ravens that call upon him He knocks at our doores he intreats waits suffers commands us to serve one another commands his Angels to serve minister unto us res rationesque nostras curat he keeps our Accounts numbers our teares watcheth our prayers in our misery in the deepest dungeon he is with us And these are no disparagements but Arguments of his excellency and infinite goodnesse and faire lessons to us not to be wanting to our selves and our brethren who have God himself thus carefully waiting upon us and to remember us that to serve our brethren is to exalt and advance and rayse us up to be like unto him When we wash our brethrens feet when we bind up their wounds when we sit down in the dust with them when we visit them in prison and minister to them on their bed of sicknesse we may think we debase our selves and doe decrease as it were but it is our honour our Crown our conformity to him who was the servant of God and our servant and made himself like unto us that he might serve us in his flesh and doth so to the end of the world invisibly by his spirit T is the spirits honour to be sent to be a leader a conduct and though sent he be yet he is as free an Agent as the sonne and the sonne as the Father Tertullian calls him Christi vicarium Christs vicar here on earth to supply his place but that argues no inequality for then the sonne too must be unequall to the Father for his Angel his Messenger he was and went about his fathers businesse And to conclude this in a farr remote and more qualifyed sense we are his vicars his deputies his Steward 's here on earth and 't is no servility 't is our honour and glory to doe his business to serve one another in love to be Servants to be Angels I had almost said to be holy Ghosts one to another John 20.21 As my Father sent me saith our Saviour to his Disciples so send I you and he sends us too who are Haereditarii Christi Discipuli Christs Disciples by inheritance and succession that every one as he is endowed from above should serve him by serving one another and though our serving him cannot deserve that name yet is he pleased to call it helping him that we should help him to feed the hungry to guide the blind and teach the ignorant and so be the Spirits Vicars as he is Christs that Christ may fill us more and more with his spirit which may guide and conduct us through the manifold errors of this life through darkness and confusion into that truth which may lead us to bliss The Spirits lesson For as he is a spirit of Truth so in the next place the lesson which he teacheth is Truth even that truth which is an Art Saint Austin calls it so and a law to direct and confine all other Arts quâ praeeunte seculi fluctus calcamus which goes before us in our
way and through all the surges of this present world brings us to the presence of God who is truth is self a truth which leads us to our Originall to the Rock out of which we were hewen and brings us back to our God who made us not for the vanities of this world but for himself an Art to cast down all Babells all towring and lofty imaginations which present unto us falshoods for truths appearances for realities plagues for peace which scatter and divide our soules powre them out upon variety of unlawfull objects which deceive us in the very nature and end of things For as this spirit brought life and immortality to light 2 Time 1.10 for whatsoever the prophets and great Rabbies had spoken of immortality was but darknesse in comparison of this great light so it also discovered the errors and horror of those follies which we lookt upon with love and admiration as upon heaven it self What a price doth luxury place on wealth and riches what horror on nakednesse and poverty How doth a jewell glitter in my eyes and what a slurr is there upon virtue what Glory doth the pomp of the world present and what a sad and sullen aspect hath righteousnesse How is God thrust out and every Idol every vanity made a God but the truth here which the spirit teacheth discovers all pulls off the vayle shewes us the true countenance and face of things that we may not be deceived shewes us vanity in riches folly in honour death and destruction in the pomp of this world makes poverty a blessing and misery happinesse and death it self a passage to eternity placeth God in his Throne and man where he should be at his footstoole bowing before him which is the readiest way to be lifted up unto him and to be with him for evermore In a word a truth of power to unite us to our God that brings with it the knowledge of Christ the wisdome of God which presents those precepts and doctrines which lead to happinesse a truth that goes along with us in all our wayes waits on us on our bed of sicknesse leaves us not at our death but followes us and will rise again with us unto judgement and there either acquit or condemn us either be our Judge or Advocate For if we make it our friend here it shall then look lovely on us and speak good things for us but if we despise it and put it under our basest desires and vile affections it will then fight against us and triumph over us and tread us down into the lowest pit Christ is not more gracious then this truth to them that love it but to those who will not learne shall be Tribulation and anguish the Sun turn'd into Bloud the world on fire the voyce of the Archangel the Trump of God the severe countenance of the Judge will not be more terrible then this truth to them that have despised it For Christ Jesus shall judge the secrets of the heart acquit the just condemn the impenitent according to this truth which the spirit teacheth according saith Saint Paul to my Gospel Rom. 2.16 The large extent of this lesson This is the lesson The spirit teacheth truth let us now see the extent of it which is large and universall for the spirit doth not teach us by halves doth not teach some truths and conceal others but teacheth all truth makes his disciples and followers free from all errors that are dangerous and full of saving knowledge For saving knowledge is all indeed that truth which brings me to my end is all and there is nothing more to be known I desired to know nothing but Christ and him crucified saith S. Paul 1 Cor. 2.2 here his desire hath a Non ultra this truth is all this joyns heaven and earth together God and man mortality and immortality misery and happiness in one drawes us neer unto God and makes us one with him This is the Spirits lesson 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 and too many are too willing to stay till it be given but because this spirit first found out the way to save us by so weak a means as Faith And as he first found it out so he teacheth it and leaves out nothing not a tittle not an Iota which may serve to compleat perfect this Divine Science In the book of God are all our members written All the members yea and all the faculties of our soul and in his Gospel his Spirit hath framed rules and precepts to order and regulate them all in every act in every motion and inclination which if the Eye offend pluck it out if the Hand cut it off which limit the understanding to the knowledg of God which bind the will to obedience and moderate confine our Affections level our hope fix our joy stint our sorrow which frame our speech compose our gesture fashion our Apparel set and methodize our outward behaviour Instances in Scripture in every particular are many and obvious and what should I more say for the time would faile me to mention them all In a word then this truth which the spirit teacheth is fitted to the whole man fitted to every member of the body to every faculty of the soule fitted to us in every condition in every relation it will reign with thee it will serve with thee it will manage thy riches it will comfort thy poverty ascend the throne with thee and sit down with thee on the dunghill it will pray with thee it will fast with thee it will labour with thee it will rest and keep a Sabbath with thee it will govern a Church it will order thy Family it will raise a kingdome within thee it will be thy Angel to carry thee into Abrahams bosome and set a crown of glory upon thy head And is there yet any more or what need more than that which is necessary There can be but one God one Heaven one Religion one way to blessednesse and there is but one Truth and that is it which the Spirit teacheth and this runs the whole compass of it directs us not onely ad ultimum sed usque ad ultimum not onely to that which is the end but to the means to every step and passage and approch to every help and advantage towards it and so unites us to this one God gives us right to this one Heaven and brings us home to that one end for which we were made And is there yet any more Yes particular cases may be so many and various that they cannot all come within the compass of this truth which the spirit hath plainly taught 't is true but then for the most part they are cases of our own making cases which we need not make cases sometimes raised by weakness sometimes by wilfulness sometimes even by sin it self which
reignes in our mortall bodies and to such this lesson of the Spirit is as an Ax to cut them off But be their Originall what it will if this truth reach them not or if they bear no Analogy or affinity with that which the Spirit hath taught nor depend upon it by any evident and necessary consequence they are not to be reckoned in the number of those which concern us because we are assured that he hath led us into all truth that is necessary Some things indeed there are which are indifferent in themselves quae lex nec vetat nec jubet which this Spirit neither commands not forbids but are made necessary by reason of some circumstance of time or place or quality or persons for that which is necessary in it self is alwayes necessary and yet are in their own nature indifferent still veritas ad omnia occurrit this truth which is the spirits lesson reacheth even these and containes a rule certain and infallible to guide us in them if we become not lawes unto our selves and fling it by to wit the rules of Charity and Christian prudence to which if we give heed it is impossible we should miscarry It is the love of our selves the love of the world not charity or spirituall wisdome which make this noyse abroad which rend the Church in pieces and work this desolation on the earth it is the want of conscience the neglect of conscience in the common and known wayes of our duty which have raised so many needless cases of conscience which if men had not hearkened to their lusts had never shewn their head had been what indeed they are nothing the acts of charity are manifest 1 Cor. 13. She suffereth long even injuries and errours but doth not rise up against that which was set up to enlarge and improve her Charity is not rash to beat down every thing that had its first rise and beginning from Charity is not puffed up swells not against a harmless yea and an usefull constitution though it be of man Doth not behave it self unseemly layes not a necessity upon us of not doing that which lawful authority even then styles an indifferent thing when it commands it to be done Charity seeketh not her own treads not the publique peace under foot to procure her own Charity is not provoked checks not at every feather nor startles at that monster which is a creation of our own Charity thinketh no evil doth not see a Serpent under every leaf nor Idolatry in every bow of Devotion if we were charitable we could not but be peaceable if that which is the main of the Spirits lesson did govern mens actions there would be abundance of peace so long as the moon endureth Multa facienda sunt non jubente lege sed liberâ charitate saith Austin Charity is free to do suffer many things which the Spirit doth not expresly command and yet doth command in generall when it commands and enjoyns obedience to Authority which hath no larger circuit to walk and shew it self in than in things in themselves indifferent which it may enioyn for orders sake and the advantage of those things which are necessary which 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 siagularia because that eye is given us to view and consider particular occurrences and circumstances and it depends 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 divest our selves of all hopes or feares of those things which may either shake or raise our estates we cannot be to seek For how easy is it to a disengaged and willing mind to apply a generall precept to particular actions especially if Charity fill our hearts which is the bond of perfection and the end and complement of the Law which indeed is our spirituall wisdome In a word in these cases when we goe 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 for Charity beareth all things believeth all things hopeth all things endureth all things And this is the extent of the Spirits lesson and if in other truths more subtill than necessary we are to seek it matters not for we need not seek them for it is no sin not to know that which I cannot know it is no sin to be no wiser than God hath made me or what need our curiosity rove abroad when that which is all and alone concerns us lies in so narrow a compasse In absoluto facili aeternitas Hil. de Trin. 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 delightfull as Paradise it self See God hath shut up Eternity within the compasse of two words Believe and Repent which is a full and just commentary on the Spirits lesson the summe 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 commandements 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 with malice what defyance what contentention what gall and bitternesse amongst Christians and 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 wheeles and the prancing of the horses the horseman lifteth up his bright speare and his glittering sword Nah. 3.2,3 Every part of Christendome almost is a stage of war and the pretence is written in their banners you may see it waving in the aire for God and Religion and 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 which will be sufficient to lift us to our
end and raise us to happinesse can make no larger a circumference 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 Spirits 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 passe to the manner and method of the spirits Teaching it is not Raptus a forcible and violent drawing but ductus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word a gentle leading and guiding into all truth Ducet vos He shall lead you into all truth And now we know our Teacher and the Lesson it will be good to know the method of this Discipline The word is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall lead you which implyes a capability a preparednesse a willingnesse in them to be led and the spirit that leadeth us teacheth us also to follow him not to resist him that he may lead us not to grieve him by our backwardnesse that he may fill us with joy not to quench him that he may enlighten us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 2 Tim. 1.6 to stir up his gifts that they dye not in us Now this promise was directly and primarily made to the Apostles whose Commission was extraordinary even as large as the whole world and therefore needed the spirits guidance in a more high and eminent manner the 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 universall as the world And yet to them it was given in measure and where measure is there are degrees for they were lead by degrees not streight to all truth but by steps and approches Saint Peter himself was not wrapt up as his pretended successor into the chaire of truth to determine all at once for when pentecost was now past he goes to Caesarea and there learnes more then he did at Jerusalem sees 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 Acts 10.34 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 Catholique 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 they used no meanes at all to bring down the blessed Spirit for t is plaine they did wait for his coming they did pray for the truth they did labour for the truth they did conferre one with another met together in counsel deliberated before they did determine nor could they imagine they had the spirit in a string and could command him as they please and make him follow them whithersoever they were pleased to go And then between us and the Apostles there is a maine difference nor can we expect an ocular and visible descent and therefore if we will be taught by the spirit we must use the meanes which the same spirit hath prescribed in those lessons which he first and extraordinarily taught the Apostles and not make use of his name to misinterpret interpret those lessons which he taught or bring in new of our own and as new so contrary to them for what is new must needs be contrary because he then taught all truth and what is more then all is nothing what is more then all truth must needs be a lye Nor did he lead them into all truth for themselves alone but for all those who should come after them for all generations to the end of the world he made them Apostles sent them to make us Christians to make that which he taught them a rule of life and to fix it on the Church as on a pillar that all might read it that none should adde to it or take away from it and for this they are called a Foundation Ephes 2.20 and we are said to be built upon them Jesus Christ being the head corner-stone which we could not be if their testimony were so scant and defective that there were left a kind of necessity upon us to hew and square out what stones we please and lay a new one of our own to cast down theirs and beare up whatsoever our insolent and boundlesse lusts will lay upon it And now what 's become of my Text for if this be admitted we cannot say the spirit led them for what leading is that which leaves us so farre behind at such a distance from the end that in every age he must come againe and take us by the hand and draw us some other way even contrary to that which he first made known and what an all is that to which every man may adde what he please even to the end of the world for every mans claim and Title to the spirit is the same as just warrantable in any as in one when they speak contrary things the evidence is the same that is none at all unless this be a good Argument he hath the spirit because he sayes so which is as strong on his side that denyes it upon the same pretence Amongst the sonnes of men there are not greater fooles then they who have nothing to say for what they say but that they say it and yet think this nothing enough and that all Israel are bound to hearken to them as if God himself did speak And this is an evil a folly a madnesse which breaths no where but in Christendome never heard of in any other body or society but that of Christians for though many Governours of Common-wealths did pretend to a kind of commerce and familiarity with some God or Goddess when they were to make a law yet we doe not read of any as farre as I remember that did put up the same pretence that they might break it but when the law was once promulg'd there was nothing thought of but obedience or punishment But Christians who have the best Religion have most abused it have play'd the wantons in that light in which they should have walkt with feare and trembling and finding themselves at losse finding no satisfaction to their pride and ambition to their malice and lusts from any lesson the Spirit hath yet taught have learnt an Art to suborne something of their own to supply that defect and call it a Dictate of the spirit Nor was this evill of yesterday or which befell the weakest onely for the Divell hath made use
of it in all ages as of the fittest Engine to undermine that truth which the spirit first taught Tertullian as wise a man as the Church then had being not able to prove the Corporiety of the soule by scripture flyes to private Revelation in his Book De anima non per aestimationem sed Revelationem what he could not uphold by reason and judgment Post Ioannem quoque prophetiam meruimus conscqui c. Tertull. de Anim c. ix montanizans he strives to make good by Revelation for we saith he have our Revelations as well as Saint John Our sister Priscilla hath plenty of them her traunces in the Church she converses with Angels and with God himself and can discerne the hearts and inward thoughts of men Saint Hierome mentions others and in the dayes of our fore-fathers Calvin many more Calvin contra Libert who applyed the name of the spirit to every thing that might facilitate and help on their designe as parish priests it is his resemblance would give the name of six or seven severall Saints to one image that their offerings might be the more I need not goe so farre back for instance Our present age harh shewen us many who have been ignorant yet wiser then their Teachers so spirituall that they despise the word of God which is the dictate of the spirit for this monster hath made a large stride from forreigne parts and set his foot in our coasts If they murder the spirit moved their hand and drew their sword if they throw down Churches it is with the breath of the Spirit if they would bring in parity the pretence is the Spirit cannot endure that any should be supreme or Pope it but themselves our humour our madnesse our malice our violence our implacable bitternesse our railing and reviling must all go for inspirations of the spirit Simeon and Levi Absolon and Achitophel Theudas and Judas the Pharisees and Ananias they that despise the holy Spirit of God these Scarabees bred in the dung of sensuality these Impostors these men of Belial must be taken no longer for a generation of vipers but for the scholars and friends of the holy Ghost whatsoever they do whithersoever they goe He is their leader though it be to hell it felf May we not make a stand now and put it to the question whether there be any holy Ghost or no and if there be whether his office be to lead us Indeed these appropriations these bold and violent ingrossings of the blessed Spirit have I fear given growth to conceits well neer as dangerous that the spirit doth not spirare breaths no grace into us that we need not call upon him that the text which telleth us the holy Ghost leadeth is the holy Ghost that leads us that the letter is the spirit and the spirit the letter an adulterate piece new coyned an old Heresie brought in a new dress and tire upon the stage again that he is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a strange unheard of Deity and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an ascriptitious and supernumerary God Nazianz Or. 37. Quis veterum vel recentium adoravit spiritum quis oravit c. sic Macedoniani Eunomiani Ibid. I might say that it is more dangerous than this for to confess the Spirit and abuse him to draw him to as an accessary and abettor nay as a principall in those actions which nature it self abhors and trembles at is worse than out of errour to deny him For what a Spirit what a Dove is that which breathes nothing but gall and wormwood but fire and brimstone what a Spirit is that which is ever pleading and purveying for the flesh what a Spirit is that which is made to bear witnesse to a lie for as Petrarch tells us Nihil importunius erudito stulto that there is not a more troublesome creature in the world than a learned foole so the Church of Christ and Religion never suffered more than by carnall men who are thus spirit-wise for by acknowledging the Spirit and making use of his name they assume unto themselves a licence to do what they please and work wickednesse not onely with greedinesse but cum privilegie with priviledge and authority which whilest others doubt of though it be not onely an Error but Blasphemy yet parciùs insaniunt they are not so outragiously made But yet we must not put the spirit from his office because dreams or rather the evaporations of mens lusts do passe for revelations or say he is not a leader into truth because wicked or fanatick persons walk on in the wayes of Errour in the wayes of Cain or Corah and yet are bold to tell the world that this spirit goes before them The mad Athenian took every ship that came into the harbour to be his but it doth not follow hence that no wise and sober merchant knew his own To him that is drunk things appeare in a double shape and proportion Geminae Thehae gemini soles two cities and two suns for one but I cannot hence conclude that all sober men do so nor can I deny the Spirits conduct because some men wander as they please and run on in those dangerous by-paths where he will not lead them this were to deny an unquestionable and fundamentall truth for an inconvenience to dig up the foundation because men build hay and stubble upon it or because some men have sore eyes to pluck the Sun out of its sphere It were indeed dangerous to teach that the spirit did teach and lead us were there not meanes to try and distinguish the Spirits instructions from the suggestions of Satan or those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 those mishapen lumps and abortive births of a sick and loathsome brain or our private humour which is as great a Divel Beloved 1. Epist of St. John c. 4. v. 1 2. saith S. Joh. believe not every spirit that is every inspiration but try the spirits whether they be of God for many false Prophets are gone out into the world that is have taken the chaire and dictate magisterially what they please in the name of the Spirit when themselves are carnall And he gives the rule by which we should try them in the next verse Every spirit that confesseth Jesus is the Lord is of God that is whosoever strives to advance the Kingdome of Christ and to set up the spirit against he flesh to magnifie the Gospel to promote men in the wayes of innocency perfect obedience which infallibly lead to happinesse is from God every such inspiration is from the spirit of God for therefore doth the spirit breath upon us that he may make us like unto God and so draw us to him that where he is we may be also But then those inspirations which bring in God to plead for Baal which cry up Religion to gain the world which tread down peace and charity and all that is praise-worthy under feet to make way for
mens unruly lust to pace it more delicately to its end they that magnifie Gods will that they may do their own these men these spirits cannot be from God By their fruits you shall know them For their hypocrisie as well and cunningly wrought as it is is but a poor cob-web-lawn and we may easily see through it even see these spirituall men sweating and toyling for the flesh these spirits digging in the mineralls and making haste to be rich for though Gloria Patri Glory be to God on High he the Prologue to the Play for what doth an hypocrite but play yet the whole drift the businesse of every Scene and Act is to draw and conclude all in this From hence we have our gain The Angel or the Spirit speaks first and is the Prologue and Mammon and the Flesh make up the Epilogue Date manus why should not every man clap his hands surely such Roscii such nimble cunning actors deserve a plaudite By their fruits you shall know them what spirit soever they have it is not of God for nothing more contrary to the flesh than this spirit and therefore he cannot lead this way nor can he teach any thing that may flatter or countenance it there is nothing more against his nature than this fire may descend and the earth may be removed out of its place nature may change her 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 breath any doctrine forth which savours of the world of the flesh or corruption and therefore we may nay we must suspect all those doctrines and actions which are said to be the effects and products of the blessed spirit when we observe them drawn out and levelled to carnall ends and temporall 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 purchase When I see a man rowl his eys compose his countenance order and methodize his gesture as if he were now on his death-bed to take his leave of the world when I hear him loud in Prayer and as loud in reviling the iniquity of the times when I see him startle at a misplaced word as if it were a thunder-bolt when I heare him cry as loud for a reformation as the Idolatrous Priests did upon Baal I begin to think I see an Angel in his flight and mount going up into heaven but then after all this extaticall devotion after all this zeal and in the midst of all this noyse wherein I see him stoop like the vultur and flie like lightning to the prey I cannot but say within my self Oh 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 spirit of truth looks upward moves upward directs upward to those things which are above and if we follow him neither our doctrine nor our actions will ever savour of this dung So then we see this inconvenience and mischief which sometimes is occasioned by this doctrine of the Spirits leading is not unavoidable it is not necessary though I mistake and take the Divel for an Angel of light that the holy Ghost should be put to silence though Corah and his complices perish in their gainsayings yet God forbid that all Israel should be swallowed up on the same gulph In the third of the first of Samuel Samuel runs to Eli when the voice was Gods but was taught at last to answer Speak Lord for thy servant heareth though there be many false Prophets yet Micaiah was a true one and though there be many false Teachers come into the world yet the spirit of God is a spirit of Truth ducet nos and he shall lead us into all truth And that we may follow as he leads we must observe the wayes in which he moves for as there is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a way of peace Luk. 1.79 so there are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the wayes of truth and in those wayes the spirit will lead us I may be in viis iniquitatis in the wayes of wickednesse in the wayes of the Gentiles and prophane men in viis meis in my own wayes in those wayes which my fancy and lust hath chalked out on that pinacle and height where my ambition hath placed me in that mine and pit where my coverousnesse hath buried me alive and in these I walk with my face from Jerusalem from the truth and in these he leads us not How can he learn poverty of spirit who hath no God but Mammon and knows no sin but poverty How can he be brought down to obedience and humility who with diotrephes in S. John loves to have preheminence and thinks himself nothing till he is taller than his fellowes by the head and shoulders how can he hearken to the truth who studies lies and doe we now wonder why we are not taught the truth where the Spirit keeps open school there is no wonder at all the reason why we are not taught is because we will not learn Ambition soars to the highest seat and the Spirit directs us to the ground to the lowest place the love of the world doth fill our barns and the Spirit points to the bellies of the poore as the better and safer garners my private factious humour tramples under foot obedience to superiours because I my self would be the highest and challenge that as my peculiar which I deny to others but this spirit prescribes order Doth Montanus lead about silly women and prophesy doth he call his dreames revelations Eusebius tells us that the Spirit which led him about was nothing else but an inseparable desire of precedency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 l. 1. c. 21. Tert. coat Valent c. 4. Doth Valentinus number up his Aeones and as many crimes as gods Tertullian informes us that he hoped for a Bishoprick but fell from those hopes and was disappointed by one who was raised to that dignity by the prerogative of Martyrdome and his many sufferings for the truth Doth Arrius deny the divinity of the Son read Theodoret and he will shew you Alexander in the chaire before him Theod. l. 1. c. 2. Doth Aerius deny there is any difference between a Bishop and Presbyter the reason was he was denied himself and could not be one so that he fell from a Bishoprick as Lucifer did from Heaven whose first wish was to be God and whose next was that there were no God at all From hence these stirres and tumults in the Church of Christ from hence these storms and tempests which blow and beat in her face from hence these distractions and uncertainties in Christian Religion that it is a matter of some danger but to mention it which made Nazianzen in some passion as it may seem cry out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉
it up in knots The Postillers play'd with it and made it well-neer ridiculous and we have seen some such unseemly Jiggs in our dayes and there have been too many Theoricall Divines who have stretched beyond their line beyond the understanding of their hearers and beyond their own wrought darknesse out of light made that obscure which was plain that perplexed which was easie have handled Metaphors as Chymists doe metalls and extracted that out of them which Christ never put into them made them lesse intelligible by pressing them so far and by beating them out have made them nothing more obscure then the thing which it should shew and yields us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sea of words but not a word of sense and to be regenerate is something more then to be made good who were evil and to be a new creature is something more if we could tell what it were then to be a just and righteous man and we are born and made what we are against our will And what hath followed this bold obtruding of our own thin and forced conceits upon the Church under the high commanding form of necessary truths even that which hath been observed of philosophy when men made wisdom the onely aime and end of their studies then philosophy was it self in its prime and naturall glory being drawn up unto its proper end but when they applied themselves to it onely to fill up their time or satisfie their ambition or to delight their wits then she lost her native complexion and strength and degenerated into folly then Epicurus raised a swarm of atomes and Diogenes made him a tub the Stoicks brought in their decrees and paradoxes then there were Mille familiarum nomina so many Sects that it is not easie to draw them into a catalogue and some there were who declared their different opinions and disputed one against the other by outward signes alone as by Weeping and Laughing so we find it also in the Church of Christ that Divinity never suffered so much as when it was made a matter of wit and ambition and policy and faction became moderators and staters of questions Then every man became an interpreter of Scripture and every interpreter had need of another to interpret him Then men taught the Law as Moses received it out of a thick cloud and darknesse was drawn over the face of life it self and men received it as it was taught and did understand them who did not understand themselves received it as news out of a far country and conceived of it either more or lesse then it was received it in parcells and fragments which hung like meteors in their fancy or as indigested lumps in their minds which soon broke out into sores and ulcers and one was a Libertine another an Anabaptist another a Leveller and some there were who did distinguish themselves by the motion and gesture and some which is strange by the nakednesse of their bodies and thus mischief grew up and multiplied through the blindnesse or deceitfulnesse of reachers and the folly and madnesse of the people which evil had not certainly so far over-run the Church if men would have kept themselves within their own limits and not took upon them to be wiser then God if the truth had been as plainly taught as it was first delivered and not held out by mens ignorance or ambition and set forth with words and phrases and affected notions of our own if all men would have contended for and rested in that faith alone which was once delivered to the Saints And this I markt and avoided and in the course of my ministery run from as far as a good will with my weaknesse could carry me and as I strook at those errours which are most common and did strive to set up in their place those truths which are most necessary so I did indeavour to do it to the very eye with all plainnesse and evidence and as neer as I could in the language of him who for us men and for our salvation did first publish them to the world to which end and to which alone next to the glory of God these my rude and ill-polished papers are consecrate and if they attain this in many or few or but one I have a most ample recompense for my labour and praise and dispraise shall be to me both alike for the one cannot make these Sermons better nor the other worse I know others before me have raised themselves up to a higher pitch and strook at errour with more art and brought more strength to the building up of the Truth and I have seen it exalted and Falshood led in triumph gloriously by those whom God and their industry hath more fitted to the work and I have but offered my self up to it as some succours which come when the day and heat is over who though they doe not help yet shew their good will and we know that even they who bring on the baggage do some service 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Naz Orat. 20. The God of patience and Consolation grant that we may be like minded one towards another according to Christ Jesus that we may with one mind and mouth glorifie God even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ Rom. 15.5,6 A TABLE DIRECTING TO THE TEXTS OF SCRIPTURE Handled in the following SERMONS Foure Festivall Sermons On Christmas-Day HEB. 2.17 Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren page 1. On Good-Friday ROM 8.32 He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him give us all things 23 On Easter-Day REV. 1.18 I am he that liveth and was dead and behold I live for evermore Amen and have the keyes of Hell and of death 45 On Whitsunday JOHN 16.13 Howbeit when He the spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all truth 67 Twenty six Sermons more Serm. 1. JAM 1. Ver. ult Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherlesse and widowes in their affliction and to keep himself unspotted from the World 1. Serm. 2. 1 SAM 3.18 And Samuel told Eli every whit and kept nothing from him And He said It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good 21 Serm. 3. COLOSS. 2.6 As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord so walk in him 45 Serm. 4. JOHN 6.56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him 67 Serm. 5. EZEK 33.11 As I live saith the Lord I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked Turne ye Turne ye from your evil wayes For why will ye dye oh House of Israel 87 Serm. 6. EZEK 33.11 Turne ye Turne ye c. 111 Serm. 7. EZEK 33.11 From your evill wayes c. 133 Serm. 8. EZEK 33.11 From your evill wayes c. 155 Serm. 9. EZEK 33.11 Why will ye die c. 177 Serm. 10. EZEK
the true cause in the bosome of the Father nay in the bowels of his Son and there see the cause why he was delivered for us written in his Heart it was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.4 the love of God to mankind and what was in mankind but enmity and hostility sinne and deformity which are no proper motives to draw on his love and yet he loved us and hated sinne and made haste to deliver us from it Dilexisti me domine plusquam te quando mori voluisti pro me saith Aust Lord when thou dyedst for me thou madest it manifest that my soule was dearer to thee then thy self such a high esteeme did he set upon a Soule which we scarce honour with a thought but so live as if we had none For us men then and For us Sinners was he delivered the Prophet Esay speaks it and he could not speake it so properly of any but him He was wounded for our transgressions and broken for our Iniquities So that he was delivered up not onely to the crosse E◠53. and shame but to our sinnes which nayled him to the crosse which crucified him not onely in his Humility but in his glory now he sits at the right hand of God and puts him to shame to the end of the world Falsò de Judaeis querimur why complain we of the Jewes malice or Judas's treason of Pilates injustice we we alone are they who crucifyed the Lord of life Our Treachery was the Judas which betrayed him Our malice the Jew which accused him our perjury the false witnesse against him our Injustice the Pilate that condemned him our pride scorned him our envy grinned at him our luxury spet upon him our covetousnesse sold him our corrupt bloud was drawn out of his wounds our swellings prickt with his Thornes our sores launced with his speare and the whole Body of sinne stretched out and crucified with the Lord of life Tradidit pro nobis he delivered him up for us sinners no sinne there is which his bloud will not wash away but finall impenitency which is not so much a sinne as the sealing up of the body of sinne when the measure is full pro nobis for us sinners for us for us the progeny of an arch-traytor and as great traytors as he take us at our worst if we repent he was delivered for us and if we do not repent yet he may be said to be delivered for us for he was delivered for us to that end that we might repent Pro nobis Pro nobis omnibus so us all for us men and for us sinners he was deliver'd pro infirmis for us when we were without strength pro impiis for us when we were ungodly pro peccatoribus for sinners Rom. 5.6,7 for so we were consider'd in this great work of our Redemption and thus high are we gone on this scale and ladder of love There is one step more pro nobis omnibus he was deliver'd for us all all not consider'd as elect or reprobate but as men as smners for that name will take in all for all have sinned And here we are taught to make a stand and not to touch too hastily and yet the way is plaine and easie pro omnibus for all this some will not touch and yet they doe touch and presse it with that violence that they presse it almost into nothing make the world not the world and whosoever not whosoever but some certaine men and turne all into a few deduct whom they please out of all people Nations and Languages and out of Christendome it self and leave some few with Christ upon the Crosse whose persons he beares whom they call the elect and meane themselves sic Deus dilexit mundum so God loved the world that is the Elect say they John 3.16 they are the world where t is hard to find them for they are called out of it and the best light we have which is of Scripture discovers them not unto us in that place and if the Elect be this world which God so loved then they are such Elect which may not believe and such elect as may perish and whom God will have perish if they doe not believe T is true none have benefit of Christs death but the Elect but from hence it doth not follow that no other might have had theirs is the kingdome of heaven but are not they shut out now who might have made it theirs God saith Saint Peter would not that any should perish 2 Pet. 3.8 and God is the Saviour of all men saith Saint Paul but especially of those that believe 1 Tim. 4.10 all if they believe and repent and those who are obedient to the Gospel because they doe the bloud of Christ is powred forth on the Believer and with it he sprinkles his heart and is saved the wicked trample it under their foot and perish That the bloud of Christ is sufficient to wash away the sinnes of the world nay of a thousand worlds that Christ paid down a ransome of so infinite a value that it might redeeme all that are or possibly might be under that Captivity that none are actually redeemed but they who make him their Captaine and doe as he commands that is believe and repent or to speak in their own language none are saved but the elect In this all agree in this they are Brethren and why should they fall out when both hold up the priviledge of the believer and leave the rod of the stubborne Impenitent to fall upon him The death of Christ is not applyed to all say some It is not for all say others the virtue of Christs meritorious passion is not made use of by all say some it was never intended that it should say others and the event is the same for if it be not made use of and applyed it is as if it were not as if it had never been obtain'd onely the unbeliever is left under the greater condemnation who turned away from Christ who spake unto him not onely from heaven but from his crosse and refused that grace which was offer'd him which could not befall him if there had never been any such overture made for how can he refuse that which never concern'd him how can he forfeit that pardon which was never seal'd how can he despise that spirit of grace which never breathed towards him They who are so tender and jealous of Christs bloud that no drop must fall but where they direct it doe but veritatem veritate concutere undermine and shake one truth with another set up the particular love of God to believers to overthrow his generall love to Mankind confound the virtue of Christs passion with the effect and draw them together within the same narrow compasse bring it under a Decree that it can save no more then it doth because it hath its bounds set hitherto it shall go and no further and was ordained to quicken
and that there is no such pleasing variety of colours there as we see so the pomp and riches glory of this world are of themselves nothing but are the work of our opinion and the creations of our fancy have no worth nor price but what our lusts and desires set upon them luxuria his pretium fecit 't is our luxury which hath raised the market and made them valuable and in esteem which of themselves have nothing to commend them and set them off My covetousnesse makes that which is but earth a God my ambition makes that which is but aire as heaven and my wantonnesse walks in the midst of pleasures as in a Paradise there is no such thing as Riches and Poverty Honour and Peasantry Trouble and pleasure but we have made them and we make the distinction there are no such plants grow up in this world of themselves but we set them and water them and they spread themselves and cast a shadow and we walk in this shadow and delight or disquiet our selves in vain Diogenes was a King in his tub when great Alexander was but a Slave in the world which he conquered how many heroick persons lie in chains whilest folly and basenesse walk at large and no doubt there have been many who have looked through the paint of the pleasures of this life and beheld them as monsters and then made it their pleasure and triumph to contemn them And yet we will not quite exclude and shut out riches and the things of this world from the summe for with Christ they are something and they are then most valuable when for his sake we can fling them away for it is he alone that can make Riches a gift and Poverty a gift Honour a gift and Dishonour a gift Pleasure a gift and Trouble a gift Life a gift and Death a gift by his power they are reconciled and drawn together and are but one and the same thing for if wee look up into heaven there we shall see them in a neer conjunction even the poor Lazar in the rich mans bosom In the night there is no difference to the eye between a Pearl and a Pibble-stone between the choicest beauty and most abhorred deformity In the night the deceitfulnesse of riches and the glory of affliction lie hid and are not seen or in a contrary shape in the false shape of terrour where it is not or glory where it is not to be found but when the light of Christs countenance shines upon them then they are seen as they are and we behold so much deceitfulnesse in the one that we dare not trust them and so much hope and advantage in the other that we begin to rejoyce in them and so make them both conducible to that end for which he was delivered and our convoyes to happiness All things is of a large compasse large enough to take in the whole world but then it is the world transformed altered the world conquered by Faith the world in subjection to Christ All things are ours when we are Christs for there is a Civil Dominion and right to these things and this we have jure creationis by right of Creation for the earth is the Lords and he hath given it to the sons of men and there is an Evangelical Dominion not the power of having them but the power of using them to his glory that they may be a Gift and this we have jure adoptionis by right of Adoption as the sons of God begotten in Christ Christ came not into the world to purchase it for us or enstate us in it he did not suffer that we might be wanton nor was poor that we might be rich nor was brought to the dust of death that we might be set in high places such a Messias did the Jewes look for and such a Messias doe some Christians worse than the Jewes frame to themselves and in his name they beat their fellow-servants and strip them deceive and defraud them because they fancy themselves to be his in whom there was found no guile and they are in the world as the mad Athenian was on the shore every ship every house every Lordship is theirs and indeed they have as fair a title to their brothers estate as they have to the kingdome of Heaven for they have nothing to shew for either I remember in 2 Corinth 4.4 S. Paul calls the Divel the God of this world and these in effect make him the Saviour of the world for as if he had been lifted up and nailed to the Crosse for them to him every knee doth bow nor will they receive the true Messias but in this shape for thus they conceive him giving gifts unto men not spirituall but temporall not the Graces of the Spirit Humility Meeknesse and Contentednesse but Silver and Gold dividing Inheritances removing of Land-marks giving to Ziba Mephibosheths land making not Saints but Kings upon the earth and thus they of the Church of Rome have set it down for a positive truth that all civil Dominion is founded in Grace that is in Christ a Doctrine which brings with it a Pick-lock and a Sword and gives men power to defraud or spoyle whom they please and to take from them that which is theirs either by fraud or by violence and to do both in the name and power of Christ But let no man make his charter larger than it is and in the Gospel we finde none of such an extent which may reach to every man to every corner of the earth which may measure out the world and put into our hands any part of it that either our wit or our power can take in for Christ never drew any such conveyance the Gospel brought no such tidings but when labour and industry have brought them in sets a seal imprints a blessing on them sanctifies them unto us by the Word and by Prayer and so makes them ours our servants to minister unto and our friends to promote and lift us forward into everlasting habitations Our Charter is large enough and we need not interline it with those Glosses which the Flesh and the love of the World will soon suggest with Christ we have all things which work to that end for which he was delivered we have his commands which are the pledges of his love for he gave us them that he might give us more that he might give us a Crown we have his promises of immortality and eternall life Faciet hoc nam qui promisit est potens he shall do it for he is able to perform it with him every word shall stand he hath given us faith for that is the gift of God to apprehend and receive them and hope to lift us up unto them He hath given us his Pastors to teach us that is scarce looked upon as a gift but then he hath given us his Angels to minister unto us and he hath given us his Spirit fills us
powerfull Lord shall be lifted up and crowned with glory and honour for evermore Which God grant c. HONI â—…T QVI MAL Y PENSE A SERMON Preached on Whitsunday JOHN 16.13 Howbeit when He the spirit of truth is come he will lead you into all truth WHen the spirit of truth is come c. and behold he is come already and the Church of Christ in all ages hath set apart this day for a memoriall of his coming a memoriall of that miraculous and unusuall sound that rushing wind those cloven tongues of fire And there is good reason for it that it should be had in everlasting remembrance For as he came then in solemn state upon the Disciples in a manner seen heard so he comes though not so visibly yet effectually to us upon whom the ends of the world are come that we may remember it though not it a mighty wind yet he rattles our hearts together though no house totter at his descent yet the foundations of our souls are shaken no fire appears yet our breasts are inflamed no cloven tongues yet our hearts are cloven asunder 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every day to a Christian is a day of Pentecost his whole life a continued holy-day wherein the Holy Ghost descends both as an Instructer and a Comforter secretly and sweetly by his word characterizing the soul imprinting that saving knowledge which none of the Princes of this world had not forcing not drawing by violence but sweetly leading and guiding us into all truth When He the spirit of truth is come c. In which words we have 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Epiphany or Apparition of the blessed Spirit as Nazianzen speaks or rather the promise of his coming and appearance and if we well weigh it there is great reason that the Spirit should have his Advent as well as Christ his that he should say Lo I come Psal 40. For in the volume of the book it is written of him that the spirit of the Lord should rest upon him Es 11.2 and I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh Joel 2.28 Christus legis Spiritus Sanctus Evangelii complementum Christs Advent for the fulfilling of the Law and the Spirits for the fulfilling and compleating of the Gospel Christs Advent to redeem the Church and the Spirits Advent to teach the Church Christ to shed his blood and the Spirit to wash and purge it in his blood Christ to pay down the ransome for us Captives and the Spirit to work off our fetters Christ to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Spirit to interpret it for we may soon see that the one will little availe without the other Christs Birth his Death and Passion Chists glorious Resurrection but a story in Archivis good newes sealed up a Gospel hid till the Spirit come and open it and teach us to know him Phil. 3.10 and the vertue and power of his Resurrection and make us conformable to his death This is the summe of these words and in this we shall passe by these steps or degrees First carry our thoughts to the promise of the Spirits Advent the miracle of this day cùm venerit when the spirit of truth comes in a sound to awake them in wind to move them in fire to enlighten and warm them in tongues to make them speak Secondly consider 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the work and employment of the Holy Ghost 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he shall lead you into all truth In the first we meet with 1. nomen personae if we may so speak a word pointing out to his person the demonstrative pronoune ille when he shall come 2. Nomen naturae a name expressing his nature he is a spirit of truth and then we cannot be ignorant whose spirit it is In the second we shall find Nomen officii a name of office and administration 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word from whence comes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a leader or conducter in the way for so the Holy Ghost vouchsafed to be their leader and conducter that they might not erre but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep on in a strait and even course in the way And in this great office of the Holy Ghost we must first take notice of the lesson he teacheth it is Truth Secondly the large extent of this lesson 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he leads into all truth Thirdly The method and manner of his discipline which will neerly concern us to take notice of it is ductus a gentle and effectuall leading he drives us not he drawes us not by violence but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is the word here he takes as it were by the hand and guides and leads us into all truth Cùm venerit ille spiritus veritatis When He the spirit of truth c. And first though we are told by some that where the article 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is added to fo there we are to understand the person of the Holy Ghost yet we rather lay hold on the pronoun 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ille when he the spirit of truth shall come he shall lead you which points out to a distinct person For if with Sabellius he had onely meant some new motion in the Disciples hearts or some effect of the Spirit 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 had been enough but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He designes a certain person and ille he in Christs mouth a distinct person from himself Besides we are taught in the Schools Actiones sunt suppositorum actions and operations are of persons now in this verse Christ sayes that he shall lead them and before he shall reprove the world and in the precedent chapter he shall testifie of me which are proper and peculiar operations of the blessed Spirit and bring him in a distinct person from the Father and the Son And therefore S. Augustine rests upon this dark and generall expression The Holy Ghost communicates both of the Father and the Son is something of them both whatsoever we may call it whether we call him the Consubstantiall and Coeternall communion and friendship of the Father and the Son or with Gerson and others of the Schools Nexum Amorosum the Essentiall Love and Love-knot of the undivided Trinity But we will wave these more abstruse and deeper speculations in which if we speak not in the Spirits language we may sooner lose than profit our selves and speak more than we should whilest we are busie to raise our thoughts and words up to that which is but enough It will be safer walking below amongst those observations which as they are more familiar and easy so are they more usefull and take what oare we can find with ease than to dig deeper in this dark mine where if we walk not warily we may meet with poysonous fogs and damps instead of treasure We will therefore in the next place enquire why he is called the Spirit of Truth for divers
〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. I would saith he Naz. Or. 20. there were no precedency no priority no dignities in the Church but that mens estimation did onely rise from vertue but now the right hand and the left the higher and the lower place these terms of difference have led men not into the truth but into that ditch where Errour mudds it self Caeca avaritia saith Maximus covetousness and ambition are blind and cannot look upon the truth though she be as manifest as the sun at noon and it fares with men in the lust of their eyes in the love of the world as it did with the man in Artemidorus who dreamt he had eyes of gold and the next day lost them had them both put out for now no smell is sweet but that of lucre no sight delightfull but of the wedge of gold and so by a strange kind of Chymistry they turn Religion into Gold and even by Scripture it self heap up Riches and so they lose their sight and judgement and savour not the things of God but are stark blind to that truth which should save them But now grant that they were indeed perswaded of the truth of that which they defend with so much noyse and tumult yet this may be but opinion and fancy which the love of the world will soon build up because it helps to nourish it and how can we think that the spirit did lead them in those wayes in which self love and desire of gaine did drive on so furiously for sure the spirit of truth cannot work in that building where such Sanballats laugh him to scorne Now all these are the very cords of vanity by which we are drawn from the truth and must be broken asunder before the spirit will lead us to it for he leads us not over the Mountaines nor through the bowells of the Earth nor through the numerous Atomes of our vaine and uncertaine and perplext imaginations but as the wisdome which he teacheth so is the method of his Discipline pure peaceable Jam. 3.17 and gentle without partiality without hypocrisie and hath no savour or relish of the Earth for he leads the pure he leads the peaceable he leads the humble In a word he leads those who are lovers of peace and truth Conclus And now to draw towards aconclusion will you know the wayes in which the Spirit walks and by which he leads us will you know the rules we must observe if we will be the Spirits Schollars I will be bold to give them you from one who was a great lover of truth even Galen the Physician I can but name them for the time will not suffer me to insist they are but four the first is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Truth the second 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Industry a frequent meditation of the truth the third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an orderly and methodicall proceeding in the pursuit of Truth the last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercitation and our conformity to the truth in our conversation And this gold though it be brought from Ophir yet may it be usefull to adorn and beautifie those who are the living temples of the holy Ghost And first Love is a passion imprinted in us to this end to urge and carry us forward to the truth and it is the first of all the passions the first of all the operations of the soul the first mover as it were being a strong propension to that we love and which is fitted and proportioned to the mind seeking out the meanes and working forward with all the heat of intention unto the end eminent among the affections calling up my fear my hope my anger my sorrow my fear of not finding out yet in the midst of fear raising a hope to attain to it my sorrow that I find not so soon as I would and my anger at any thing that is averse or contrary at any cloud or difficulty that is placed between me and the truth The love of Christ saith S. Paul constraineth me 2 Cor. 5.14 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a resemblance taken from women in travell constraineth urgeth me worketh in me such a desire as the pain in travell doth in a woman to be dlivered for do we not labour and travell with a conclusion which we would find out and what joy is there when we have like that of a woman in travell when a man-child is brought into the world If you love me keep my commandement John 14.15 saith Christ if you love me not you cannot but if you love me you 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 offers it self and is even importunate with us to receive it there can be no other reason given but this that our hearts are congealed our spirits frozen and we are coldly affected to the truth nay are averse and turn from it this truth crosseth our profit that our pleasure other truths stand in our light obstruct our passage to that we most desire S. Paul speaks plainly If the truth be hid it is hid to them that perish 2 Cor. 4.3,4 in whom the God of this world hath fo blinded their mind that the light of this truth should not shane upon them for 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 but those that withdraw themselves doth his soul hate Now in the next place this love of truth brings in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a love of Industry for if we love it it will be alwayes in our thoughts and we shall meditate of it day and night for to love seven yeares are but a few dayes and great burdens are but small and labour is but pleasure and we walk in the region of truth viewing it and delighting in it gathering what may be for our use we walk in it as in a Paradise Truth is best bought when it costs us most and must be wooed oft and seriously and with great devotion as Pythagoras said of the gods Non est salutanda in transitu is not to be spoken with in the By and passage is not content with a glance and slutation and no more but we must behold it with care and anxiety we must make a kind of peregrination out of our selves and must run and sweat to meet it and then this spirit leads us to it And this great encouragement we have that in this our labour we never faile of the end we labour for which we cannot find in our other endeavours and attempts in which we have nothing to uphold us under those burdens which we lay upon our own shoulders but a deceitful hope which carries us along to see it self defeated the frustration whereof
is a greater penalty and vexation than that which we undertook for its sake How many rise up early to be rich and before their day shuts up are beggers how many climb to the highest place and when they are neer it and ready to fit down fall back into a prison But in this we never faile the Spirit working with us and blessing the work of our hands making our busie and carefull thoughts as his chariot and then filling us with light such is the priviledge and prerogative of Industry such is the nature of Truth that it will be wrought out by it nor did ever any rise up early and in good earnest travell towards it but this spirit took him by the hand and brought him to his journeys end If thou seekest her as silver Prov. 2.4,5 if thou search for her as for had treasure which because it is hid we remove many things turn up much earth and labour hard that we may come to it then shalt thou understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God in which 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 leads us according to his own will nad counsel not ours that as he is an Omnipotent so he is a free Agent also and worketh and dispenceth all things according to the pleasure of his will 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 Divels tares grow up in us Nobis dormientibus whilest we sleep The third is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 method or an orderly proceeding in the wayes of truth for as in all other Arts and Sciences so in our spirituall wisdome and in the school of Christ we may not hand over head huddle up matters as we please but must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep an order and set course in our studies and proceedings our Saviour Christ hath a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 6.33 seek first the kingdome of God and in that kingdome every thing in its order there is something first and something next to be observed and every thing is to be ranked in its proper place the Author of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us of principles of Doctrine 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 picture or a statue out of clay Most Christians are perfect too soon which is the reason that they are never perfect they are spirituall in the twinkling of an eye they know not how nor no man else they leap over all their alphabet and are at their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their end before they begin are at the top of the ladder before they have set a foot to the first step or rown they study heaven but not the way to it they study faith but not good works repentance without a change or restitution Religion without order they are as high as Gods closet in heaven when they should be busie at his foot-stool study predestination but not sanctity of life study assurance but not that piety which should work it study heaven and not grace and grace but not their duty and now no marvel if they meet not with that saving truth in this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in this so great disorder and confusion no marvel when we have broke the rules and order not observed the method of the Spirit if the Spirit lead us not who is a Spirit that loveth order and in a right method and orderly course leads us into the truth The last is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 exercitation and practice of the truths we learn which is so proper and necessary for a Christian that Christian Religion goes under that name and is called an exercise by Clem. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Strom. l. 4. Al. Nyssen Cyril of Ilierusalem and others and though they who lead a Monasticall life have laid claim to it as their own they were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 yet it may well belong to every one that is the Spirits Scholar who is as a Monk in the world shut up out of it even while he is in it exercising himself in those lessons which the Spirit teacheth and following as he leads which is to make the world it self his monastery A good Chritian is the true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epictet Arrian l. 3. c. 5. and by this daily exercise in the doctrines of the Spirit he doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the Stoicks speak drive the truth home and make it enter into the soul and spirit for as Auaxagoras said well manus causa sapientiae 't is not the brain but the hand that causeth knowledge Talis quisque est qualibue delectater inter artisicem artificium mira cognatio est and worketh wisdome for true wisdome that which the Spirit teacheth consists not in being a good Critick or in rightly judging of the sense of the words or being a good Logician in drawing out a true and perfect definition of Faith and Charity or discoursing aptly and methodically of the Lessons of the Spirit or in being a good Oratour in setting out the beauty and lustre of Religion to the very eye No saith the son of Syrach He that hath no experience knoweth little Ecclus. 34.10 Ex mandato mandatum cernimus by practising the command we gain a kind of familiarity a more inward and certain knowledge of it If any man will do the will of God he shall know the Doctrine Joh. 7.17 in Divinity and indeed in all knowledge whose end is practice that of Aristotle is true Those things we learn to do we learn by doing them we learn devotion by prayer charity by giving of alms meeknesse by forgiving injuries humility and patience by suffering temperance by every day fighting against our lusts as we know meat by the taste so do we the things of God by practice and experience and at last discover heaven it self in piety and this is that which S. Paul calls knowledge according to godlinesse 1 Tim. 6.3 we taste and see how gracious the Lord is we do as it were see with our
eyes and with our hands handle the word of truth In a word we manifest the truth and make it visible in our actions and the Spirit is with us and ready in his office to lead us further even to the inner house and secret closet of truth displayes his beames of light as we press forward and mend our pace every day shining upon us with more brightnesse as we every day strive to increase teaching us not so much by words as by actions and practice by the practice of those vertues which are his lessons and our duties we learn that we may practice and by practice we become as David speaks Psal 119.99 wiser then our teachers to conclude day unto day teacheth knowledge and every act of piety is apt to promote and produce a second to beget more light which may yet lead into more which may at last strengthen establish us in the truth and so lead us from truth to truth to that happy estate which hath no shadow of falshood but like the Spirit of Truth endureth for evermore THE FIRST SERMON JAMES I. Vers ult Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is This to visite the fatherlesse and widdows in their affliction and to keep himselfe unspotted from the World NOthing more talkt of in the world then Religion nothing lesse understood nothing more neglected there being nothing more common with men then to be willing to mistake their way to withdraw themselves from that which is indeed Religion because it stands in opposition to some pleasing errour which they are not willing to shake off and by the help of an unsanctified complying fancy Multi fibi fidem ipsi potiut constitunut quam accipiunt dum quae velunt sapiunt nolunt sapepere quae vera sunt cum sapientiae haecveritas sit ea interdum sapere quae nolis Hilar. 8. de Trin. V. 22. to frame one of their own and call it by that name That which flatters their corrupt hearts That which is moulded and attempered to their bruitish desigus That which smiles upon them in all their purposes which favours them in their unwarrantable undertakings That which bids them Go on and prosper in the wayes which lead unto death That with them is True Religion In this Chapter and indeed in every Chapter of this Epistle our Apostle hath made this discovery to our hands Some there were as he observes that placed it in the ear did hear and not do and rested in that some did place it in a formall devotion did pray but pray amisse and therefore did not receive some that placed it in a shadow and appearance Verse 25. seemed to be very religious but could not bridle their tongue and were safe they thought under this shadow others there were that were partiall to themselves despisers of the poor that had faith and no works in the second Chapter and did boast of this others that had hell fire in their Tongue and carried about with them a world of iniquity which did set the wheel the whole course of Nature on fire in the third Chapter and last of all some he observed warring and fighting killing that they might take the prey and divide the spoil in the fourth Chapter And yet all religious Every one seeking out death in the errour of his life and yet every one seeming to presse forward towards the mark for the price of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus To these as to men ready to dash upon the rock and shipwrack doth our Apostle cry out as from the shore to turn their compasse and steer their course the right way and seeing them as it were run severall wayes all to meet at last in the common gulph of eternall destruction He calls and calls aloud after them To the superstitious and the prophane To the disputer and the scribe to them that do but hear and to them that do but babble To them that do but professe and to them that do but beleeve the word is Be not deceived This is not it but Haec est This is pure Religion is vox à Tergo as the Prophet speaks Esay 30. a voice behinde them saying This is the way walk in it This is as a light held forth to shew them where they are to walk as a royal Standard set up to bring them to their colours This doth Infinitatem rei ejicere as the Civilians speak Take them from the Devils latitudes and expatiations from frequent and fruitlesse hearing from loud but heartless prayer from their beloved but dead faith from undisciplined and malitious zeal From noise and blood from fighting and warring which could not but defile them and make them fit to receive nothing but the spots of the world from the infinite mazes and by-paths of Errour and brings them into the way where they should be where they may move with joy and safety looking stedfastly towards the End Let us now hear the conclusion of the whole matter whatsoever Divines have taught whatsoever Councels have determined or the schoolmen defined whatsoever God spake in the old times whatsoever he spake in these last dayes That which hath filled so many volumes and brought upon us Fatigationem Carnis that weariness of the flesh Ecclesia 1 2.12 which Solomon complains of in reading that multitude of Books with which the world doth now swarm with That which we study for which we contend for which we fight for as if it were in Democritus his Well or rather as the Apostle speaks in Hell it self quite out of our reach or if there be any truth that is necessary or any other commandment it is briefly comprehended in this saying even in this of Saint James Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this to visit c. I way call it the picture of Religion in little in a small compasse and yet presenting all the lines and dimensions the whole signature of Religion fit to be hung up in the Church of Christ and to be lookt upon by all that the people which are and shall be born may truly serve the Lord May it please you therefore a while to cast your eyes upon it and with me to view First The full proportion and severall lineaments of it as it were the essentiall parts which constitute and make it what it is and we may distinguish them as the Jew doth the Law by Do and Do not The first is Affirmative To do Good to visit the fatherlesse and widdows in their affliction The second not to do evil to keep our selves unspotted from the world And then secondly to look upon as it were the colours and beauty of it and to look upon it with delight as it consists First in its purity having no mixture Secondly in its undefilednesse having no pollution And then thirdly the Epigraph or title of it the Ratification or seal which is set to it to make it Authentick
which is set to not of men or by men but divinâ manu by the hand of God Himself which drew the first copy and pattern For this is true Religion apud Deum patrem with God and the Father and as he gave witnesse to his Son from Heaven This is my beloved Son so doth he also to Christiain Religion of which he was the Author and Finisher Haec est This is it and in this I am well pleased Pure Religion and undefiled before God c. Let us now in order view these and these two To do Good and abstain from Evil our charity to others in the one and our charity to our selves in the last in being as those Dii benefici those Tutelar Gods to the Widows and Fatherlesse and those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to keep all evil from our selves I call the effentiall parts of Religion without which it can no more subsist then a man without a soul For as the body without the spirit is dead even so faith without works is dead also Not that we exclude Faith or Prayer or Hearing of the Word for without faith religion is but an empty name and it comes by hearing and is increased by devotion Faith is a foundation upon a Foundation for as Truth is the foundation of faith Amb. in Psal 118. so is faith the Foundation of an Holy Conversation in this we edifie our selves and in this we sustain and uphold others in this we stand and in this we raise up others From faith are the issues of life from this as from a fountain flow those waters of comfort which refresh the widow and fatherlesse and that water of separation Num. 31.23 which purifies us keeps us unspotted as white as snow But our Apostle mentions none of these and I will give you some reason at least a fair conjecture why he did not And first not Faith we see here where he tells us what Pure Religion is he doth not so much as name it for indeed it is the ground of the whole draught and portrayture of Religion and as we observe it in Pictures it is in shadow not exprest out yet seen supposed by Saint James writing not to Insiders but to those who had already given up their names unto Christ And it is like those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Mathematicks which Tully calls Iuitia Mathematicorum the beginnings and principles of that science which if we grant not we can make no further progresse in that science In the sixth to the Hebrews Saint Paul calls it a principle of the Doctrine of Christ and what necessity was there for my Apostle to commend that unto them which they already embraced to direct them in that in which they were perfect to urge that which they could not deny not deny nay of which they made their boast all the day long No Saint James is for Ostende mihi he doth not once doubt of their faith but is very carnest to force it out that it may evaporate and shew it self in their works of piety Then faith is a starre 2 Tim. 1.19 and when it streams out light and the beams are the works of charity Then faith is as a ship when Pure Religion is the rudder to steer and guide it that it dash not on a rock and ship-wrack Then faith is the soul of the soul when by its quickning and enlivening power we run the wayes of Christs commandments pure creduat pure ergo loquantur faith the Father Their belief is right therefore let their conversation be sincere no other conclusion can naturally be deduced from faith and of it self it can yeeld no other and this it will yeeld if you do not in a manner destroy it and spoyle it of its power and efficacy for what an unnaturall inconsequence is this I beleeve that Christ hath taught me to be mercifull as my heavenly Father is mercifull That charity hath the promise of the world to come Therefore I will shut up my bowels this I am sure is one part of our belief if it be not our Creed is most imperfect and yet such practicall conclusions doth our avarice and luxury draw Our faith is spread about the world but our charity is as a candle under a bushell the great errour and folly of this our age which can shew us multitudes of men and women which as the Apstle speaks are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth which have con'd their Creed by heart but have little skill or forgot their skill they have in the royall Law who cry up faith as the Jews did the Temple of the Lord and are very zealous for it yet suffer it to decay and waste till it be dead as my Apostle speaks cat out the very heart of it by a carelesse and prophane conversation as the Jews with their own hands did set fire on that Temple which they so much adored And this may be a second reason why he mentions not faith in his character of Religion for having every where preacht up the power and efficacy of faith men carnally minded did so fill their thoughts with the contemplation of that fundamentall vertue that they left no roomfor other vertues not so efficacious indeed to justifie a sinner yet as necessary as faith it self did commend extol the power of faith when it had none at all in them nay which is the most fatall miscarriage of all did make it an occasion Rom. 6.6 through which sinne revived which should have destroyed in them the whole body and juncture of sin it being common to men at last to fix and fettle their minds upon that object which is most often presented to their mindes as the Countrey peasant having heard much talk of the City of Rome began at last to think there was no other City but that If we look forward to the second Chapter of this Epistle we shall think this more then a conjecture for there he seems to take away from faith its saving attribute Numquid fides potest salvmn sacere Can faith save a man What an Heretick what a Papist would he be that should but put up this question in these our dayes wherein the sola justificat hath left faith alone in the work of our salvation and yet the question may be put up and the resolve on the negative may be true It cannot save him certainly that saith he hath faith and hath not works And thus though he dispute indeed against Simon the sorcerer and others as we may gather out of Irenaeus yet in appearance he levels his discourse against Paul the Apostle for not by works but by saith faith Saint Paul not by faith but by works saith Saint James and yet both are true the one speaking to the Jews who were all for the Law the other to those who were all for faith and to them who had buried all thought of good works in the
to win our love and allure and draw us and if it draw us we must up and be stirring and walke on to meet it Climachus what that devout Writer saith of his Monk is true of the Christian he is assidua naturae violentia his whole life is a constant continued violence against himself against his corrupt nature which as a weight hangs upon him and cloggs and fetters him which having once shaken off he not onely walks but runns the wayes of Gods Commandements Conclus 1. Secondly let us walke honestly as in the Day walk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as becommeth Christians in our severall stations and conditions of life and not think Christ dishonoured if we mingle him with the common Actions of our life For we never dishonour him more then when we take him not in and use him not as our guide and rule even in those Actions which for the grosnesse of the subject and matter they work on may seem to have no favour or rellish of that which we call Religion Be not deceived Maâ—um Rempturb â—i quam comam â—…ec he that thus takeâ—… him in is a Priest a King the most honorable person in the world Behold the profane Gallant who walks and talks away his lâ—…e who divides himself between the combe and the glass and had rather the Common-wealth should flie in pieces then one hair or his Periwig should be out of its place to whom we bow and cringe to and sail down to as to a Golden Calf I tell you the meaness Artizan that works with his hands even he that grindes at the Mill is more honourable then hee Take the speculative Phantastique Zealot the Christian Pharisee that shuts himself up between the eare and tongue between hearing much and speaking more and doing contrary the worst Anchoret in the world being full of Oppression deceit and bitterness I may be hold to say The vilest person he that sits with the doggs of your Flock is more Honorable more righteous then hee and of such as these Saint Paul spake often Philip. 3.18 and he spake it weeping that they did walk but walke as Enemies to the Cross of Christ Let then Every man move in his owne Sphere orderly abide in the Calling wherein he is called and in the last place That we may move with the first mover Christ the beginner and Author of our walke Let us take him along with us in all our waies Hearken what Christ Jesus the Lord will say That we may walk before him with Reverence and Godly feare not sicut vidimus Heb. 11.28 as we have seen but look upon one another as the two Cherubims 1 King 6. touching and moving one another but with the Ark of the Testimony in the midst betwixt us and by that either inciting or correcting one another in our walk Secondly not sicut visum suerit not as it shall seem good in our own eyes for nothing can be more deceitfull then our own thoughts nor sicut visum spiritui not as every spirit may move us which wee call Holy for it may be a lying spirit and lead us out of our way into those evills which grieve that Blessed Spirit whose Name we have thus presumtuously taken in vain But let us walk as we have received him let us joyn example with the word it will be no more as a meteor to mislead us but a bright morning Starr to direct us to Christ correct our fancy by the rule and it will be sanctum cogitatorium a Lymbeck an holy elaboratory of such thoughts which may fly as the Doves to the windows of heaven and last of all try the Spirit by the word for the word is nothing else but the breathing and voice of the Spirit and then thou shalt be baptized with the Spirit and fire the Spirit shal enlighten thee and the spirit shall purge and cleanse thee and lead the into all truth shall breath comfort and strength into thee in this thy walk and pilgrimage and thou shalt walk from strength to strength from virtue to virtue even till thou come to thy journeys end to thy Fathers house to that Sabbath rest which remains to the Children of God THE FOURTH SERMON JOHN 6.56 He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him THese words are our Saviours and it was usuall with this our good Master by those things which were visible to the eye to lift up his hearers minds and thoughts to spiritual and Heavenly things to draw his discourse from some present occasion or businesse in hand He curseth the fig-tree Math. 21.19 Sterilitas nostra in Ficu Luke 11. which had nothing but leaves to correct our sterility and unfruitfulnesse at the table of a Pharisee upon the sight of the clean outside of his cup he discovers his inward parts full of ravening and wicknesse At Jacobs well Iohn 4. he powreth forth to the woman of Samaria the water of life After he had supped with his disciples he takes the cup and calls the wine his Blood John 15. and himself the true Vine Thus did Wisdom publish it self in every place upon every occasion The well the Table the High-way side every place was a Pulpit every occasion a Text and every good lesson a Sermon To draw down this to our present purpose In the beginning of this Chapter he worketh a miracle multiplyes the loaves and the fishes that the remainder was more then the whole a miracle of it self able to have made the power of god visible in him and something indeed it wrought with them for behold at the 24. v. they seek him they follow him over the Sea They ask him Rabbi when camest thou hither at the next verse but our Saviour knowing their hypocricy answers them not to what they ask but instructs them in that they never thought on Verily verily you seek me not for the miracle but the loaves v. 26. But behold I shew you yet a more excellent way I shew you bread better then those loaves better then Moses his manna behold I am the bread of life v. 48 and my flesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed v. 55. and he commends it unto them by three Virtues or effects 1. That it fills and satisfies which neither the loaves nor Moses his manna could do For he that cometh to me that devoteth himself to me shall never hunger and he that beleeveth in me shall never thirst v. 35. 2. It is a living bread v. 51. a bread that gives life which Moses manna could not do but was destroyed with them that ate it in the wildernesse v. 49. 3. That it was bread which had power to incorporate them to embody them to make them one and give them union and communion with the Lord of life in the words of my Text He that cateth my flesh and drinketh my blood that is as Christ himself
uno homine Syllas suisse credideris Valerius Max. l. 6. c 9. a Herod and a John Baptist a Zelot a Phinehas and an Adulterer and as the Historian said two Sylla's in one man like a play-book and a Sermon bound up together But these I told you are not true virtues but proceed many times from the same principles which their vices do for I may be a Hypocrite and a man of Belial for the same and but where Christ dwells he purgeth the whole house not one but every faculty of the soul that is the whole man as he raised not a part but all Lazarus for if any part yet favour of rottennesse and corruption we cannot say that Lazarus is risen He worketh I say an universal equal obedience which as a Circle consists in an equality of life in every respect answering to the command and working of Christ as a circle doth in every part look upon the point or Center 2. Secondly Col. 2.5 he works in us an even and constant obedience the Apostle calls it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the firmity and stedfastnesse of our faith in Christ For as the Philosoper well observes that the affections do but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 lightly move us raise some motion in the minde Artic. l. 2. Ethic. c. 1.5 trouble us and vanish so that one affection many times drives out another as Amnon did Tamar our love ending in batred and our sorrow in anger and our fear in joy But from virtue we are said 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be strongly disposed to be confirmed and establisht in our actions so the reason of that unevennesse that instability that inconstancy in the conversation of men that they are now loud in their Hosanna and anon a loud in their Crucifige now in Abrahams bosom and anon into Dalilahs lap now fighting anon cursing now very seraphical and anon wallowing in the mire is from this that they have no other motive no other principle then peradventure some private respect or some weak impression of some good lesson they have lately heard some faint radiations from the truth and therefore can arise no higher then the Fountain and will soon run out with it now it is not so with the true Christian in whom Christ dwelleth for he moves with the Sun which never starts out of his sphere hath Christ living in him and the power of the Gospel assisting him in every motion and so cannot have these qualms of devotion these waverings this unevenness these Cadi-surgia as the Father calls them Ephr. Sycus 1 John 3.9 1 Pet. 1.5 these risings and fallings these marches and Halts these profers and relapses because Christ is living in him because the seed of God abideth in him and he is kept by this power of Christ unto salvation Thirdly he worketh a sincere and real obedience in that heart in which he dwells and this is proper to the true Christian For the actions of an hypocrite are not natural but artificial not the actions of a living soul but like unto the motions of that Artificial body which Albertus made not proceeding from any life in them but forced as it were by certaine wheeles and Engines by love of a good Name by feare of smart or hope to bring their purposes about and thus many times he walks to his end in the habit of a Saint when no other appearance will serve but where Christ dwells there is his spirit and where his spirit is there is truth and he fashioneth and shapeth out our affections to the things themselves makes our affections such as so faire an object requires that as his promises so our affections are yea and Amen that as his reward is real so is our love to it real as the Gospel and Heaven and Christ is true so are our affections towards them hearty and sincere true as he is true and faithful as he is faithful So then to conclude this Christ dwelleth in every true Christian not as a contracted or divided Christ as the Antient Hereticks made him but dwells as the Apostle speaks fully and plentifully in him Secondly he dwells in him as Christ yesterday and to day and the same for ever not as Baal now preent with us and anon asleep Lastly he dwelleth in him not as Marcion blasphemed 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in a phantasme or apparition for so he is in every hypocrite but true and perfect God by the same power his father gave him as truely dwelling in him by his virtue and efficacy as he now doth in glory in the highest Heavens And now we have seen both the parts 1. Our part to dwell in him 2. His gracious act to dwell in us let us a little look aback upon this great light and see what matter it will further afford us for our instruction And 1. we must look back upon the resemblance the two Cherubines and see how they keep their places and not turn away the face but eye each other continually and by them learn not to turn away from Christ but to look up upon the finisher of our faith as he looks upon us to dwell in him as he dwells in us which makes up our union and communion with Christ knits us together in the bond of love For as it is between Christ and his Father so it must be between us and him John 14.12 John 17. I am in the Father and the Father in me and all mine is thine and thine mine and I glorifie him and he glorifies me and that relation betwixt him and his Father is the ground and foundation of that reference that union which is between Christ and a regenerate soul and then see how it ecchos between them my beloved is mine and I am my well beloveds I know my sheep and my sheep know me they dwell in me and I in them Oh auras vices Oh happy enterchanges Oh blessed Reciprocation when Christ looks upon us in love and we look back upon him in faith working by love when he shines upon us with all his Graces and we reflect back again upon him not in his person for he needs it not being the fulnesse of him that filleth all things but upon him in our selves and searching the inward man and decking and preparing a place for him upon him in that poor Lazar in those his brethren and our brethren nay upon him even in our enemies for even in them Matt. 5.44 he is pleading for them and commanding us to love them I say unto you love your enemies Nay further yet reflect upon him in his Enemies and can Christ be in his enemies not indeed so neer as to dwell in them but so neer unto them as to call unto thee to pray for them to pity them John 10,16 to restore them for even they may be in the number of those his other sheep which he will bring into his ford Oh remember the resemblance but withal remember
in 't Death onely is terrible to the living and then there can be no stronger argument that thou art alive then this that thou doubtest thou art dead already And list up thy head too Thou despairing and almost Desperate sinner whom not thy many sins but thy unwillingness to leave them hath brought to the ' Dust of Death who first blasphemest God then drawest the punishment neerer to thee then he would have it and art thy own Hang-man and Executioner not that Pardon is deny'd but that thou wilt not â—ue it out Look about thee and thou mayest see Hope comming towards thee and many Arguments to bring it in An Argument from thy soul which is not quite lost till it be in hell and if thou wilt possesse it it shall not be lost An argument from thy will which is free and mutable and may Turne to good as well as evill An argument from the very Habite of sin which presseth thee down which though it be strong yet is it not stronger then the grace of god and the activity of thy will It is very difficult indeed but the Christian mans work is to overcome difficulties An argument from those sholes and multitudes of offenders who have wrought themselves out of the power of death and the state of Damnation from many who have committed as many sinnes as thou but this one of Despaire from those Publicans and sinners who have entered into the Kingdome of Heaven An argument from thy own argument which thou so unskilfully turnst against thy self for it is no argument 't is but a weak peremptory conclusion held up without any Premises or Reason that can enforce it For Despaire is but Peâ—itio Principii proves and concludes the same by the same makes our sinnes greater then Gods Mercies because they are so and Repentance impossible because it is so Though the Soule be not quite lost till it be lost for ever though the will be free and Grace offers it self though the voice of God be Turne Though multitudes have Turn'd and that which hath been done may be done againe Though the Argument be no Argument yet despaire doth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 against what reason â—oever hold up the Conclusion Thou sayst That God cannot forgive thee if he cannot then he is not mercifull neither is he just and so he is not God and then what needst thou despair we begin in sinne proceed to Blasphemy and so end in despaire But a God he is and mercifull but thy sinnes ae greater then his Mercies which is another Blasphemy and brings in something more Infinite then God and takes Gods office from him and dispences his Mercies of which he alone is Lord and shuts up his rich Treasury of goodness when he is ready and willing to lay it open and so ruins us in despight of God But thou saist Though canst not repent which is thy greatest error and the main cause of thy despaire for when the heart is thus hard it beats off all succours that are offered all those meanes which may be as Oyle to supple it Thou canst not is not true Thou shouldst say Thou wilt not Repent for if thou wilt thou maist for thou canst not tell whether thou canst repent or no because thou never yet putst it to the Tryall but being in the pit didst shut the mouth of it upon thy self and stop it up with a false opinion of God and of thy self with dark notions and worthlesse conceits of Impossibilities Behold God calls after thee againe and againe his Grace as a devout Writer speaks is most officious to take thee out his Mercy ready to embrace thee if thou do not stubbornly cast her off Behold a multitude of penitents who have escaped the wrath to come and beâ—ken to thee by their example to follow after them and retire from these Hellish thoughts and conclusions into the same shadow and shelter where they are safe from those false suggestions and fiery darts of the enemy and if this will not move thee then behold the blood of an immaculate Lamb streaming down to wash away thy sins and with them thy despair to raise thee from thy Grave this sepulchre of rotten bones baneful Imaginations that thou mayest walk before him in the land of the living to beget Repentance and to beget a hope to pity us in our tentations who was sensible of his own Hebr. and to drive despair from off the face of the earth For why should the name of a Saviour and despair be heard of in the same coasts if it breath within the curtains of the Church 't is not Christ but the Devil and our sensuality that brings it in The end of his coming was to destroy it for this he came into the world for this he died Ask Christ saith Saint Basil what he carries on his Shoulders it is the lost sheep Ask the Angels for whom they rejoyce it is for a sinner that repenteth Ask God for what he is so earnest as to call and call again It is for those who are now in their evil wayes Ask the Shepherd and he will tell you he left ninty and nine to find but one lost sheep his desire is on us and he had rather we would be guided by his Shepherds-staff then be broken by his rod of iron if thou wilt return returne his wisdom hath pointed out to it as the fittest way His justice yeelds and will look friendly on thee whilst thou art in this way and mercy will go along with thee and save thee at the end If thou wilt thou mayest Turn and if thou wilt Turn thou shalt not despair or if a cloud overspread thee it shall vanish at the brightnesse of mercy as a mist before the Sun Here then is Balm of Gilead Turn ye Turn ye a loving compassionat call to turn even those who despair of turning The second hinderance presumption a Doctrine of singular comfort but this Balm is not for every wound nor will it drop and distill upon him who goeth on in his sin for mercy is as strong drink and wine to be given to them who are ready to perish and to such who have grief of heart Prov. 31.6 Many times it falls out by reason of our presumption and hardnesse of heart that there is more danger in pressing some truth then in maintaining errours care not for the morrow is as Musick to the sluggard and he hears it with delight and folds his hands to sleep If we commend labour the covetous hath encouragement enough to drudgon to rise up early and lie down late to gain the meat that perisheth if we but mention a worship in spirit and truth the sacrilegious person takes up his hammar and down goes ceremony and order and the Temple it self how many solifidians hath free grace occasioned how many Libertines hath the indiscreet pressing of the freedom we have by Christ raised the Gospel it self we see hath
withdraw his grace that we might fall from him and perish And therefore Hilarie passeth this heavy censure upon it impiae est voluntatis it is the signe of a wicked Heart and one quite destitute of those graces and riches which are the proper Inheritance of beleeving Christians to pretend they therefore want them because they were not given them of God A dangerous errour it is and we have reason to fear hath sunk many a soul to that supine carelessnes to that deadnesse from whence they could never rise again for this is one of the wiles of our enemy not onely to make use of the flying and fading vanities of this world but of the best Graces of God to file and hath hammer them and make them snares and hath wrought temptations out of that which should strengthen us against them Faith is suborn'd to keep out Charity the spirit of truth is named to lead us into errour and the power of Gods Grace hath lost its authority and Energie in our unsavorie and fruitlesse Panegyricks we hear the sound and name of it we blesse and applaud it but the power of it is lost not visible in any motion in any Action in any progresse we make in those wayes in which along grace will assist us floats on the Tongue but never moves either heart or hand For do we not lie still in our graves expecting till this Trump will sound do we not cripple our selves in hope of a miracle Non est honae solidae fidei omnia ad volumatem Dei referre ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in Nobis ipsis Tertul. Exhort ad Castitatem do we not settle upon our lees and say God can draw us out wallow in our blood because he can wash us as white as snow do we not love our sickness because we have so skilful a Physitian and since God can do what he will doe what we please This is a great evil under the Sun and one principal cause of all that evil that is upon the earth and makes us stand still and look on and delight in it and leave it to God alone and his power to remove it as if it concern'd us not at all and it were too daring an attempt for us mortals the sons of Adam to purge and clense that Augaean stable which we our selves have filled with dung as if Gods wisdom and Justice did not move at all and his mercy and power were alone busie in the work of our salvation busie to save the adulterer for though he be the member of an Harlot yet when God will he shall be made a member of Christ to save the seditious For though he now breath nothing but Hail-stones and coals of fire yet a time will come where he shall be made peaceable whether he will or no to save them who resolve to go on in their sin for he can check them when he please and bring them back to Obedience and holinesse in a word to save them whose Damnation sleepeth not I may say with the Father utinam mentirer would to God in this I were a lier but we have too much probability to induce us to beleeve it as a truth that they who are so ready to publish the free and irresistible power of Gods Grace and call it his Honour dishonour him more by the Neglect of their duty which is quite lost and forgot in an unseasonable acknowledgement of what God can and a lazy expectation of what he will work in them and so make God Omnipotent to do what his Wisdom sorbids and themselves weak and impotent to do what by the same wisdom he commands and then when they commune with their heart and finde not there those longings and pantings after piety that true desire and endeavour to mortifie their earthly members which God requires when in this Dialogue between one and himself their hearts cannot tell them they have watched one houre with Christ flatter and comfort themselves that this emptinesse and nakednesse shall never be imputed to them by God who if he had pleased might have wrought all in them in a moment by that force which flesh and blood could never withstand And thus they sin and pray and pray and sin and their impiety and devotion like the Sun and the Moon have their interchangeable courses it is now night with them and anon 't is day and then night again and it is not easie to discern which is their day or which is their night for there is darknesse over them both They hear and commend vertue and piety and since they cannot but think that vertue is more then a breath and that it is not enough to commend it they pray and are frequent in it pray continually but do nothing pray but do not watch pray but not strive against a temptation but leave that to a mightier hand to do for them and without them whilst they pray and sin call upon God for help when they fight against him as if it were Gods will to have it so for if he would have had it otherwise he would have heard their prayers and wrought it in them and therefore will be content with his Talent though hid in a napkin which if he had pleased might have been made ten and with his seed again which if he had spoke the word had brought forth fruit a hundred fold Hence it comes to passe that though they be very evil yet they are very secure this being the triumph over their Faith not to conquer the world but to leave that work for the Lord of Hosts Himself and in all humility to stay till he do it for they can do nothing of themselves and they have done what they can which is nothing and now they are heartlesse feeble and if I may so speak this do-nothing devotion which may be as hot on the tongue of a Pharisee and tied to his Phylactery must be made a signe of their election before all times who in time do those things of which we have been told often that they that do them shall not inherit the kingdome of Heaven I do not derogate from the power of Gods grace they that do are not worthy to feel it but shall feel that power which shall crush them to pieces they rather derogate from its power who bring it in to raise that obedience which comming with that tempest and violence it must needs destroy and take away quite for what obedience is there where nothing is done where he that is under command doth nothing vis ergo ista non gratia saith Arnobius this were not grace or royal favour but a strange kinde of emulation to gain the upper hand We cannot magnifie the Grace of God enough which doth even expect and wait upon us John 1. ep 2 c. 27. v. wooe and serve us it is that unction that precious ointment Saint Iohn speaks of but we must not poure it forth upon the
Matt. 21. but to gain the inheritance what set the whole City of Ephesus in an uprore but Demetrius his Rhetorick the brutish but strong perswasions of the flesh from this craft have we this gain Acts 19. Look back upon every age of the Church was there ever rent or Schism which these made not was there ever Heresie which these coined not was there ever fire which they kindled not was there ever torment which these invented not was there ever evil in the City which these have not done And though the truth and Religion were held up and shewed openly for a pretense yet these envenom'd the heart and strengthned the hand of all the enemies of the Church those whet the sword and made the furnace of Persecution seven times hotter then it would have been the flesh is the treasury from whence these windes blow that rage and beat down all before them And thus it is with every one that is born of the flesh he is ever in labour with mischief is ever teeming and travelling with persecution and wants nothing but occasion as a Midwife to bring it forth And now as we have beheld one person in this Tragedy and the chiefest actor so let us look upon the other the patient born after the spirit and behold a Lamb for the spirit who came down like a dove begets no tigers or Lions Behold a man a worm and no man virumperpissicium as Seneca calls Socrates Sen. ep 104. a man of sufferance deaf or if not yet dumb to all reproaches and when injuries are loudest as silent as the Grave kissing the hand that strikes him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Naz. candidatum crucis as Tertul. on that is so sitted and prepared for the crosse that he looks upon is spiritualiz'd in matter as upon a preferment poor Lamb he cannot bite and devour he cannot scatter the Counsels of the crafty he cannot binde the hands of the mighty ignorant and foolish as David speaks as a beast in this world a man in nothing but in Christ Jesus being elemented and made up of love and peace and long-suffering gentlenesse meeknesse Gal. 5.22 the rinciples of the spirit having no security no policy no eloquence no strength but that which lies in his innocency and truth which he carries about as a cure but is lookt upon as a persecution by those who will not be healed Why hast thou set me up as a mark saith Job Job 7. why every one that is born of the spirit is set up as a mark Saint Paul calls it a spectacle 1 Cor. 4.6 as a man appointed to die or as Tertul. renders that place elegit veluti Bestiarios cull'd out and set apart to fight with beasts a mark for envy to shoot out her eye at for malice to strike and spit at for every Shimei to fling a stone at and a curse together every Ziba to cozen every Judas to betray a mark for all the Devils Artillery for all the fiery darts that malice and subtlety can draw out of Hell for he must appear saith Seneca out of Plato as a fool that he may be wise as weak that he may be strong as base and vile that he may be more honorable and if you ask a reason of his Jerem. 15.10 we can give no other but this because he is born of the spirit for he is no sooner thus born but he comes forth a contentious man that striveth with the whole earth nor can the spirit breath and work in him but he shakes every corner of the earth every thing that is from the earth earthy It strives to pull the wanton from the harlots lips to level the ambitious with those who are of low degree it beats the Covetous from his Mammon it wrests the sword out of the hand of the revenger it strikes out the teeth of the oppressor it markes the Schismatick and avoids him it Anathematizeth the Heritick It is that Angel which stands in our way when we are running greedily for a reward it is that Prophet that forewarns us that hand on the wall that writes against us the Cock that calls us to repentance that Trump that summons us to Judgement well said Martin Luther Nihil scandalosius veritate there is not a more scandalous a more offensive thing in the world then that spirit of truth which begets and constitutes a Christian which much resembles the Load-stone quae trahit simul avertit which is at once both attractive and averse at one part draws the Iron at the other loaths it as the truth knits al good men all that are born of the spirit in a bond of peace but withdraws it self will not joyn with the evil with those who are born after the flesh and so makes them enemies and therefore I may add to Luther Nihil periculosius veritate there is not a more dangerous thing in the world in respect of the world then the truth for as the truth as it was said of Noah Heb. 11. Condemns the world that is convinceth it of infidelity and so leaves it open to the sentence of condemnation so doth the world also condemn the truth 1. By reproaching it and bringing up an evil report of it as an unnecessary thriftlesse troublesome seditious thing Ecquis Chrislus cum suâ fabulâ said the Heathen what ado here is with Christ and his Legend and so saith every Athiest in his heart every one that is born after the flesh 2. By selling it as the wanton doth for a smile the covetous for bread for that which is not bread the ambitious for a breath a sound a thought the Superstitious for a Picture for an Idol which is nothing and then 3. By violence against the friends and lovers of truth that they may drive it out of the world by commanding and charging them to speak no more in that name by persecuting them Gen. 22.6 as Ismael did Isaac with a scoff for this is all we read vidit ludentem Sarah saw Ismael mocking him and this scoff this derision whatsoever it was Saint Paul calls a persecution this is the Devils Method to make a scoff the prologue to a Tragedy to usher in persecution with a jeer first put the Christians in the skins of beasts and then bait them to death with dogs first disgrace them and then ad Leones away with them to the Lions first cal the orthodox Bishops traditores and then beat them down at the very Altar first make them vile and then nothing the Psalmist fully expresseth it Psal 55.20 swords are in their lips for every word these scoffers speak eats flesh it is a mock now it will be a blow it wil be a wound it begins in a Libel it ends in rise kill and eat the first letter the Alpha is a mock the last the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is desolation Thus the son of the free-woman he that is born after the spirit is
a Tyrant which is but in his Nostrills you will not forsake it in time of Temptation Love if it be true oh it is mighty in operation stronger then Death it self and will meet and cope with him though he comes towards us on his pale Horse Mieremb de arte volunt with all his pomp and Terrour Love saith a devout Writer is a Philosopher and can discover the Nature and qualities the malignity and weakness of those Evills which are set up to shake our Constancy and strike us from that rock on which we are founded who is a God like unto our God saith David what can be like to that we love what can be equall to it if our Hearts be set on the Truth to it the whole world is not worth a thought Nullum spectaculum sine concussione spiritus Tert. de Spect. c. 15. nor can that shop of vanities shew forth any thing that can shake a soul or make the passions Turbulent and unruly that can draw a Teare or force a smile that can deject it with sorrow or make it mad with joy that can raise an Anger or strike a feare or set a desire on the wing every object is dull and dead and hath nothing of Temptation in it for to love the truth is all in all and it bespeaks the world as Saint Paul did the Grave where is thy victory nor heigh Rom. 8.35,36,37,38,39 nor depth can seperate us from that we love And love is a Sophister able to answere every Argument wave every subtilty and defeat the Deviills 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his wiles and crafty enterprizes nay Love is a Magician and can conjure downe all the terrours and noyse of Persecution which are those evill Spirits which amaze and cow us Love can rowse and quicken our drooping and fainting spirits and strengthen the most feeble knees and the hands that hang downe If we love the Truth if Truth be the Antecedent the consequent is most Naturall and Necessary and it cannot but follow that therefore we will when there is reason lay downe our lives for it For againe what is said of Faith is true of Love it purifies the Conscience and when that is clean and pure the soul is in perfect Health cheerfull and active full of courage either to doe or suffer ready for that disgrace which brings honour for that smart which begets joy for that wound which shall heale for that Death which is a Gate open'd to Eternity ready to goe out and joyne with that Peace which a good Conscience which is her Angelus custos her Angel to keep her in all her wayes hath seal'd assured unto her A good conscience is an everlasting never-failing foundation the foundation of that bliss which the noble army of martyrs now enjoy But then the clamors checks of a polluted one will not give us leisure enough to build up an holy resolution for when we have deteined the Truth of God in unrighteousnesse 1 Rom. 81. as the Apostle speaks kept it downe as a Prisoner and not suffered it to worke in us any Thing like unto it self when in the whole course of our life we have kept her Captive under our sensuall Lusts and affections have not hearkened to her voice when she bids us do this but done the contrary when in our ruff and jollity we have thus slighted and baffled her it is not probable that in Time of Danger and Astonishment she should have so much power over us as to winne us and to prevail with us to suffer for her sake but we shall willingly nay hastily throw her off and renounce her when to part with her is to escape the evill that we most feare and avoid the blow that is coming towards us for wee shall soon let goe that which wee hold but for fashion sake which we fight against when wee defend it and tread under foot even then when wee exalt it which hath no more credit with us then what our Parents our Education the voice of the People and the multitude of professors have even forc'd upon us If the Truth have no more Power over us if we have no more love for the Truth but this which hath nothing but the name of Love but is indeed the contrary if we blesse it with our Tongue and fight against it with our Lusts at once embrace and stifle it then those sensuall Lusts which in time of Peace did deteine and keep it under will be the same and shew themselves againe in Time of Persecution and be as forcible to deterre us from those Evills which are so but in shew and appearance as they were before to plunge us in those of sin which were true and reall If we love not the truth we are Ismaels and not Isaacs Every uncleane Beast is not fitt to make a Sacrifice nor the hairy scalp of him that goes on in his sinnes fitt for the Crowne of Martyrdome for how shall hee who drawes out his life in Open Hostility to Christ and trifles with him and contemnes him all his Dayes suffer or die for him before Repentance and Reconciliation which is indeed in the very Act of Hostility shall wee seek for Heaven in Hell or shall wee seek for witnesses to the Truth amongst a Generation of Vipers Can he who all his life long hath cast Christs words behind him seale to them with his blood that they are true Can the Conscience so beaten so wasted so overwhelm'd with the Habits of sinne upon the sudden take in and entertaine a Feare of so little a sinne as the denyall of one Truth is in respect of all Can Ismael in the twinkling of an Eye bee made an Isaac I will not say It is Impossible but it carries but little shew of probabilitie and if it be ever done it is not to be brought in censum ordinariorum nor falls out in the Ordinary course that is set and is to bee lookt upon as a Miracle which is not wrought every day but at certain times and upon some important occasion and to some especial end for it is very rare and unusual that conscience should be quiet and silent so long and then on the sudden be as the mighty voice of God That it should lie hid so long and then come forth and work a miracle drive us to the confession of some one truth which had no power to hold us from polluting our selves with so many sins Keep faith 1 Tim. 1.19 saith Saint Paul and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made ship-wrack for so neer an alliance there is between faith and a good conscience that we must either keep them both or lose them both faith being as Saint Paul intimates as the ship and an undefiled conscience as the rudder if you strike off the rudder or let it go the Ship will soon dash upon the rocks and faith will be lost in the waves
else but the Flattery of our Sense because when I breake the Law my will stoops downe to please my sense and betray my reason but yet when I please my sense I doe not alwayes sinne for I may please my sense and be Temperate I may please my eye and make a Covenant with it I may please my Tast and yet set a knife to my Throat I may please my sense and it may be my Health and Virtue as well as my sinne so in like manner to please men against God is the basest slattery and Saint Paul flings his Dart at it but to please men in reference to God is our Duty and takes in the greatest part of Christianity for thus to please men may be my Allegiance my Reverence my meekness my Longanimity my charitable care of my Brother I may please my superior obey him I may please my obliged Brother and forgive him I may please the poore Lazar and relieve him I may please an erring Brother and convert him and in thus doing I doe that which is pleasing both to God and man What then is that which here St. Paul condemnes Look into the Text and you shall see Christ and men as it were two opposite Termes If the man be in Error I must not please him in his Error for Christ is Truth If the man be in sinne I must not please him for Christ is Righteousness And in this case we must deale with men as Saint Austin did with his Auditory when he observed them negligent in their Duties we must tell them that which they are most unwilling to heare Quod non vult is facere Bonum est saith he That which you will not doe That which you are afraid of and run from That which with all my Breath and Labor I cannot procure you to love That is it which we call to doe good That which you deride That which you Turne away the care from with scorne That which you loath as poyson That which you persecute us for Quod non vultis audire verum est That which you distast when you heare as gall and Wormwood That which you will not Heare That which you call strange Doctrine That is Truth As Petrarch told his friend Si prodessevis scribe quod Doleam Petrarch l 7. de Re. F c. ult If you will profit and Improve me in the wayes of Goodnesse let your Pen drop Gall write something to me which may trouble and grieve me to read so when men stand in opposition to Christ when men will neither heare his voice nor follow him in his wayes but delight themselves in their owne and rest and please themselves in Error as in Truth to awake them out of this pleasant Dreame we must trouble them we must thunder to them we must disquiet and displease them for who would give an Opiate Pill to these Lethargiques 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 in stead of purging out the noxious Humour to nourish and increase it to smooth and strew the wayes of Error with Roses that men may walk with case and Delight and even Dance to their Destruction to find out their palate and to fittit to envenom that more which they affect as Agrippina gave Claudius the Emperor 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 observes and learnes the Temper and Constitution of the place he lives in and so frames his speech and Behaviour that he may seem to settle and establish that which he studies to overthrow to be a Patriot of 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 shee hath but either substract from it or adde 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 Error of the Galatiams here To magnisy Faith and shut out Good Works is a Dash That we can doe nothing without Grace is a Truth but when we will doe nothing to impute it to the want of Grace is a bold and unjust addition To worship God in Spirit and Truth our Saviour commands it but from hence to conclude against outward worship is an injurious Defalcation of a great part of our Duty The Truth is corrupted saith Nyssen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Orat. 1. Cont. Ennom To stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free The Apostle commands it but to stand so as to rise up in the Face of the Magistrate is a Gloss of Flesh and Blood and corrupts the Text Letevery soul be subject to the higher Powers That 's the text but to be subject no longer then the Power is manag'd to our will is a chain to bind Kings with or a Hammer to bear all Power down that we may tread it under our Feet and when we cannot relish the text these mixtures and Additions and Substractions will please us These hang as Jewells in our Eares these please and kill us beget nothing but a dead Faith a graceless life not Liberty but Licentiousnesse not Devotion but Hypocrisy not Religion but Rebellion not Saints but Hypocrites Libertines and Traytors And these we must avoid the rather because they goe hand in hand as it were with the truth and carry it along with them in their Company Tert. de Proscript as Lewd persons doe sometimes a Grave and Sober man to countenance them in their sportiveness and Debauchery De nostro sunt sed non nostrae saith Tertul. 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 St. Ambrose adviseth Gratian the Emperor of all Errors in Doctrine we must beware of those which come neerest and border as it were upon the truth and so draw it in to help to defeat it self Because an open and manifest Error carries in its very forehead an Argument against it self and cannot gain admittance but with a vaile whereas these Glorious but painted Falshoods find an easy entrance and begge entertainment in the Name of truth it self This is the Cryptick method and subtill 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 that they may the more securely raise
same sinners we were as wicked as ever Our Religion puts forth no thing but blossomes or if it knit and make some shew or hope of fruit it is but as we see it in some Trees it shoots forth at length and into a larger proportion and bigness then if it had had its natural concoction and ripened kindly and then it hath no tast or rellish but withers and rots and falls off And thus when we too much dote on Ceremomy we neglect the maine work and when we neglect the work we fly to Ceremony and formality and lay hold on the Altar we deale with our God Clem. Alexande 3. strom as Aristotle of Cyrene did with Lais who promised to bring her back again into her country if she would help him against his Adversaries whom he was to contend with and when that was done to make good his oath drew her picture as like her as art could make it and carried that and we fight against the devil as Darius did against Alexander with pomp and gayetry and gilded armor as his prey rather then his enemies and thus we walk in a vain shadow and trouble our selves in vain and in this Region of shews and shadows dreame of happinesse and are miserable of heaven and fall a contrary way as Julius Caesar dream'd that he soared up Suet. Vit. C. Caesar and was carryed above the clouds and took Jupiter by the right hand and the next day was slain in the Senate-house I will not accuse the foregoing Ages of the Church because as they were loud for the Ceremonious part of Gods worship so were they as sincere in it and did worship him in spirit and truth and were equally zealous in them both and though they raised the first to a great height yet never suffered it so to over-top the other as to put out its light but were what their outward expressions spake them as full of Piety as Ceremony and yet we see that high esteem which they had of the Sacraments of the Church led some of them upon those errors which they could not well quit themselves of but by falling into worse It is on all hands agreed that they are not absolutely necessary not so necessary as the mortifying and denying of our selves not so necessary as Actuall holinesse It is not absolutely necessary to be baptized for many have not passed that Jordan yet have been saved but it is necessary to have the Laver of Regeneration and to clense our selves from sin It is not absolutely necessary to eat the Bread and drink the Wine in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper for some crosse accident may intervene and put me by but it is necessary to feed on the Bread of Life as necessary as my meat to doe Gods will True Piety is absolutely necessary because none can hinder me from that but my selfe but it is not alwayes in every mans power to bring himselfe to the Font or approach the Lords Table All that can be said is That when they may be had they are absolutely necessary but they are therefore not absolutely necessary because they cannot alwaies be had and when they stretcht beyond this they stretcht beyond their line and lost themselves in an ungrounded and unwarranted admiration of these Ordinances which whilst we look upon them in their proper Orbe and Compasse can never have honour and esteem enough They put the Communion into the mouthes of Infants who had but now their Being and into the mouthes of the Dead who had indeed a BEing but not such a Being as to be fit Communicants and Saint Austin thought Baptisme of Infants so absolutely necessary that Not to be baptized was to be Damned and therefore was forced also to create a new Hell that was never before heard of and to find out mitem damnationem a more mild and easie damnation more fit as he thought for the tendernesse and innocency of Infants Now this was but an error in speculation the error of devout and pious men who in honour to the Author of the Sacraments made them more binding and necessAry then they were and we may learn thus much by this over-great esteem the first and best Christians and the most learned amongst them had of them that there is more certainly due then hath been given in these latter times by men who have learnt to despise all Learning and whose great devotion it is to quarrell and cry down all Devotion who can find no way to gain the reputation of Wisdome but by the fierce and loud impugning of that which hath been practiced and commended to succeeding Ages by the wisest in their Generation by men who first cry down the Determinations of the Church and then in a scornfull and profane pride and animosity deny there is any such Collection or Body as a Church at all But our Errors in Practice are more dangerous more spreading more universall For what is our esteem of the Sacraments more a great deale then theirs and yet lessE because 't is such which we should not give them even such which they whom they are so bold to Censure would have Anathematized We Think or Act as if we did that the Water of Baptisme doth clense us though we make our selves more Leopards fuller of spots then before That the Bread in the Eucharist will nourish us up to eternall life though we feed on husks in all the remainder of our dayes We baptize our children and promise and voew for them and then instill those thriving and worldly principles into them which null and cancell the vow we made at the Font hither we bring them to renounce the world and at home teach them to love it And for the Lords Supper what is commonly our preparation A Sermon a few houres of meditation a seeming farewell to our common affaires a faint heaving at the heart that will not be lifted up a sad and demure countenance at the time and the next day nay before the next day this mist is shaken off and we are ready to give Mammon a salute and a cheerfull countenance the world our service to drudge and toyle as that shall lead us to rayle as loud to revenge as maliciously to wanton it as sportfully to cheat as kindly as ever we did long before when we never so much as thought of a Sacrament And shall we now place all Religion nay any Religion in this or call that good that absolutely good and necessary for which we are the worse absolutely the worse every day Well may God ask the question Will he be pleased with this Well may he by one Prophet ask who hath required it and by another instruct us and shew us yet a more excellent way It was not the error of the Jew alone to forget true and inward sanctity and to trust upon outward worship and formality but sad experience hath taught us that the same error which misled the Jew under his weak and