principally means the Gospel with which God had instrusted him So Tit. 1.3 c. 2. But not excluding the former by the Saints to whom the Faith was delivered I understand All the people of God to whom it was delivered by the fore-mentioned servants of God And as some of these were Saints in regard only of visible profession and dedication and others were made Saints in respect of true and saving sanctity so the faith was delivered unto these differently to the former by way of outward administration and visible dispensation to the later who were made true Saints by way of saving and effectuall operation They who were and continued to be onely visible and externall Saints had the faith delivered unto them as the common sort of Israelites had to whom God wrote the great things of his Law and yet they were accounted a strange thing Hos 6.12 and to whom were committed the oracles of God Rom. 3.1 and yet they beleeved not Isai 53.1 contenting themselves in the retaining the letter of the Law declaring Gods Statutes and taking his covenant into their mouth in the mean time never regarding to have the law written in their hearts Psal 50.16.17 c. but hating instruction and casting the word of God behind them They who had the faith delivered unto them by way of efficacious and saving operation did not only hear but beleeve the report of Gods messengers and the arm of God was revealed to them Isai 53.1 To whom it was given to know the Mysteries of the Kingdom of God although to others it were not given Mat. 13.11 and for whose sake alone the faith is delivered to others who got no good at all thereby but onely an estimation for members of the visible Church 1. The Word is to be laid out and delivered to Observ 1. not to be laid up and kept from others The Saints are to be the better for it The Ministry is in Scripture compared to light what more diffusive to seed it must be scattered to bread it must be broken and distributed to every one according to their exigencies to salt it must not be laid up in the Salt-box but laid out in seasoning the flesh that it may be kept from putrefaction He who hides truth buries gold Ministers must rather be worn with using than rusting Paul did spend and was spent The sweat of a Minister as 't is reported of Alexander's casts a sweet savour His talents are not for the napkin but occupation How sinfull are they that stand idle in a time of labour how impious they who compell them to stand so 2. They who retain and keep the Faith are Saints Observ 2. Visibly those are Saints and that is a Church which keep it by profession and ministerially A Church that is which is the pillar and ground of truth 1 Tim. 3.15 Rom. 3.2 to whom the Oracles of God are committed as Paul speaks of the Jewes None are so to complain of the defects of our Church for what it wants as to deny it a Church considering what it hath It holds forth the truth of all Doctrines which serve both for the beginning and increase of faith It 's one of Christs golden Candlesticks wherein he hath set up the light of his Word and though Sectaries do not yet Christ walks in the midst of them I must be bold to fear that because our adversaries cannot rationally deny that while we hold forth the Truth we are a true Church they labour by their errours to extinguish the Truth that so we may be none 3. How much is the world beholding to Saints 3. Observ They have kept the Faith the Word of life for the ingratefull world ever since 't was first delivered Were it not for them we had lost our Truth nay lost our God These are they who have in all ages with their breath nay with their bloods preserved the Gospel kept the word of Christs patience Rev. 3.8.10 And rather then they would not keep the Faith they have lost their lives They profit the world against its will they are benefactors to their severall ages like indulgent Parents they have laid up the riches of faith for those who have desired their deaths It 's our duty though not to adore them yet to honour their memory Satan knows no mean between deifying and nullifying them Imitation of them is as unquestionably our duty as adoration of them would be our sin 4. 4 Observ Vnholiness is very unsutable to them to whom the Faith is delivered It 's delivered to Saints in profession and they should labour to be so in power They should adorn the Doctrine of God Tit. 2.10 How sad a sight is it to behold the unsanctified lives of those to whom this faith hath been long delivered How many live as if faith had banished all fidelity and honesty or as if God had delivered the faith not to furnish their souls with holiness but only their shelves with Bibles Books in the head not in the Study make a good Scholar and the word of faith not in the house or head but in the heart and life make a Christian Oh thou who art call'd a Saint either be not so much as call'd so or be more than call'd so otherwise thy externall priviledg will be but an eternall punishment If God have delivered his Faith to thee deliver up thy self to him 5. 5 Observ The Fewness of faiths entertainers is no derogation from faiths excellency They are a poor handfull of Saints by whom the faith is preserved and to whom it is delivered in the world The preatest number of men and nations have not the faith delivered unto them ministerially and of them the far greater part never had it delivered efficaciously It s better to love the faith with a few than to leave it with a multitude Numbers cannot prove a good cause nor oppose a Great God 6. Observ 6. The true reason of Satans peculiar rage against Saints they have that faith delivered to them which is the bane and battery of his kingdom that word which is an Antidote against his poison that doctrine which discovers his deeds of darknesse Satans policy is to dis-arm a place of the word when he would subdue it he peaceably suffers those to live who have not the weapons of holy doctrine he throws his cudgels against fruitfull trees he lays wait as a thief for those who travel with this treasure They who are empty of this treasure may sing be merry when they meet with him he never stops them Others who have the faith he sets upon annoyeth I have given them thy word saith Christ the world hath hated thē John 1.7 3. Jude saith in this amplification Explicat the faith was once delivered once 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Three things may be touched in the Explication 1. The meaning of the word once 2.
a picture that looks every way his religion leaves him not at the Church-doors he retains his purity where-ever he lives He hath a principle like a fountain in him that supplyes him in the time of drought not like a plash of water lick'd up with an hours heat of the Sun The musick allures him not the fournce affrights him not from God 3. As the actings of a sanctified person are from and according to a renewed principle of life so are they for it and that both in respect of preservation of life in himself and also the propagation of it to others 1. A sanctified person acts for his sanctified principle of spirituall life in respect of preserving it in himself which he expresseth 1. In shunning what-ever may prejudice and impair it much more then a man doth avoid that which would shorten a naturall life as sword poyson diseases c. that which parteth between God and the soul being more hurtfull then that which parteth 'twixt soul and body What shifts have some made to scramble from death throwing estates into the sea leaving them and sweetest relations running thorow rivers fire c. And have not holy men suffered more to keep from sin which tends to spirituall death have they not left goods lands children have they not run thorow fire water nay into them even embracing death rather then death temporall rather then spirituall A man would give all the world rather then lose one naturall life but a Christian would give a thousand lives rather then lose the life spirituall Lord saith he I desire but to live to keep Christ who is my life Psal 63.3 Col. 3.4 2. In a prizing his food that upholds life He loves what nourisheth him delights in the Law of God 1 Pet. 2.2 Psal 19.10 hungreth after the sincere milk of the word accounts it sweeter then the honey and the honey-comb hath a most ardent affection to uncorrupted Truths accounts a famine of the Word the sorest esteems the bread of life the staff of life When he was dead he had no hunger the Word was as food in a dead mans mouth found no savour or entertainment now though God give him never so much of other supplyes yet 't is a famine with him if he have not bread like an infant-King that preferrs the brest before his Crown though he be rich in grace yet he is poor in spirit he desireth grace having the grace to desire He never saith I have enough truth of grace ever puts him upon growth 3. A sanctified person labours to preserve his inward principle of life In using the means that may recover him Jer. 17.11 Psal 41.4 when his life is endangered by sicknesse desiring earnestly that God would heal him embracing the sharpest administrations the bitterest reproofs taking down the most loathed pill bearing the heaviest affliction being willing to be cut sawed seared so as to be saved His great request is that he may be whole walk holily that the pain and impotency of his disease the filthinesse and hurtfulnesse thereof were both removed 2. A sanctified person acts for his principle of spirituall life In labouring to communicate it to others as well as to preserve it in himself The life of a spiritually quickned soul is generative of it self All living creatures have a seminary for propagating of their kinde the spirit of life is fruitfull endeavouring to derive it self from one to another You never heard of a soul that loved to make a monopoly of Christ Grace may be imparted not impaired Samson when he had found honey gave his father and mother some with him John 4. The woman of Samaria calls others to Christ being called How diffusive of Christ was blessed Paul like the wall which reflects upon the passenger the Sun shining upon it How sutable was that wish of his to a sanctified soul I would to God that thou and all that hear me this day were almost and altogether such as I am except these my bonds Act. 26.29 Every Christian labours to raise up seed to his elder brother The great design of the soul is to set up Christ more in it self and others to leaven others with grace and this gaining of souls is a Christians greatest covetousnesse This for the explication of the sort or kinde of their first priviledge Sanctification The Observations follow in the second place 1. Obs 1. Grace whereby we are changed much excels grace whereby we are onely curb'd The Sanctification wherewith the faithfull were said to be adorned was such as cur'd sin as well as cover'd it not a sanctification that did abscondere but abscindere not onely represse but abolish corruption Psal 145. The former restraining grace is a fruit only of generall mercy over all Gods works common to good and bad binding the hand leaving the heart free withholding only from some one or few sins tying us now and loosing us by and by intended for the good of humane society doing no saving good to the receiver In a word onely inhibiting the exercise of corruption for a time without any reall diminution of it as the Lions that spared Daniel were Lions still and had their ravenous disposition still as appeared by their devouring others although God stop'd their mouthes for that time But this sanctifying grace with which the faithfull are here adorned as it springs from Gods speciall love in Christ so it is proper to the Elect worketh upon every part in some measure body soul spirit abhorrs every sin holdeth out to the end is intended for the salvation of the receiver it doth not only inhibit the exercise of corruption but mortifieth subdueth diminisheth it and works a reall change of a Lion making a Lamb altering the naturall disposition of the soul and making a new man in every part and faculty 2. From the nature of this Sanctification I note Obs 2. It changeth not the substance and faculties of soul and body but onely the corruption and disorder and sinfulnesse thereof it rectifies but destroyes not like the fire wherein the three children were it consumes the bonds not the garments it doth not slay Isaac but onely the ram it breaks not the string but tuneth it The fall of man took not away his essence but onely his holinesse so the raising of man destroyes not his being but his unholy ill-being Grace beautifieth not debaseth nature it repairs not ruins it It makes one a man indeed it tempereth and moderateth affections not abolisheth them it doth not extinguish the fire onely allay it that it may not burn the house It doth not overthrow but order thy love hatred sorrow joy both for measure and object Thou mayst be merry now thou art sanctified but not mad-merry thy rejoycing will now be in the Lord elevated not annihilated They are mistaken that think Sanctification unmans a man that he must now alway be sad and sowre solitary that as they said of Mary a Christian
the perfection of Christ When Darius his mother had saluted Hephestion instead of Alexander the great who was Alexanders Favourite she blushed and was troubled but Alexander said to her It is well enough done for he is also Alexander The meanest Saint is to be beloved for what of Christ is in him he is an old Casket full of pearls But above all how destructive to brotherly love is oppression 1 Thess 4.6 defrauding and grinding our brethren Let no man saith Paul defraud his brother in any matter Even the Jew who might take usury of an Heathen might not take it of his Brother If Lillyes rend and tear Lillyes what may Thorns do Nor must a Christian content himself in not hurting a Christian his care must be to benefit him to do him good And that for his Soul All thy Spiritual gifts of knowledge utterance c. must profit thy brother 1 Cor. 12. 1 Cor. 14.26 Comfort him in his troubles of mind direct him in his doubts reprehend him gently for his faults Not to rebuke him is to hate him Levit. 19.17 To be angry with the sin of our brother is not to be angry with our brother To love the soul is the soul of love so to love thy brother as to labour to have him live in heaven with thee For his name not casting aspersions on him but wiping them off not receiving much less raysing accusations against him but laying hold upon the theif that pillaged his name as knowing that the receiver in this case is as bad as he For his body visiting and sympathising with him in his sicknesse helping him to utmost ability to find the jewel of health For outward necessaries pittying him in his low estate◠casting the dung of thy wealth on the barren soyl of his poverty making his back thy wardrobe his belly Psal 16.3 thy barn his hand thy treasury For body and soul praying for him calling upon God as Our Father not thine alone In the Primitive time saith one there was so much love Tert. Apol. c. 39. that it was ad stuporem Gentilium to the wonder of Gentiles but now so little that it may be to the shame of Christians That which was the Motto of a Heathen Dic aliquid ut duo simus Say something that we may he two must not belong to Christians It s best that dissention should never be born among brethren and next that it should die presently after its birth When any leak springs in the Ship of Christian society we should stop it with speed The neerer the union is the more dangerous is the breach Bodies that are but glewed together may if severed be set together as beautifully as ever but members rent and torn cannot be healed without a scar What a shame is it 1 Joh. 3.14 1 Joh. 5.1 1 Joh. 4.7 8 c. that the bond of grace and religion should not more firmly unite us than sinful leagues do wicked men A true Christian like the true mother to whom Solomon gave the Child may be known by affection As the spleen grows the body decayeth and as hatred increaseth holiness abateth In summ This love to the faithful must put forth it self both in distributing to them the good they want and in delighting in them and rejoycing with them for the good they have Both these how profitable how honourable how amiable are they Most honourable it is for the meanest Christian to be a Priest to the high God Heb. 13.16 to offer a daily sacrifice with which God is well pleased to resemble God in doing rather then in receiving good to be the hand of God to disperse his bounty to have God for his debtor to lend to the Lord of heaven and earth What likewise is more profitable than that our distribution to Saints like an ambassador by lying Lieger abroad should secure all at home that this most gainfull employment should return us pearls for pibbles jewels for trifles crowns for crumbs after a short seed-time a thousand fold measure heaped shaken thrust together and running over What lastly so amiable as for members of the same body children of the same father and who lay in the same womb suck at the same brests sit at the same table and expect for ever to lodg in the same bosom to be at union with and helpful to one another And on this side heaven Psal 16.3 Vid. doctiss Rivetum in loc where should our complacency center it self but upon the truly excellent noble illustrious ones who are every one Kings and more magnificent than ever were worldly Monarchs for their allyance having the Lord of heaven and earth for their Father the King of Kings for their elder Brother Psal 45.9 a Queen the Church the Spouse of Christ for their Mother having for their treasures those exceeding precious promises 2 Pet. 1.4 more to be desired than gold yea Psal 19.10 than fine gold in comparison of which a mountain of gold is but a heap of dung For their guard having the attendance of Angels Psal 34.7 John 6.27 Cant. 1.2 Cant. 4.7 nay the wisdom care and strength of God For their food having bread that endures to eternal life drink better than wine and a continual feast For their apparel having the robes of Christs righteousnesse here which makes them as beautifull as Angels all fair and without spot and attire to be put on hereafter which will shine more gloriously then an hundred Suns made into one For their habitation a palace of glory a building of God an house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Having thus first explained this love here desired by the Apostle in its several sorts I come in the next place to touch briefly upon those rare and excellent properties of this grace of love both as it is set upon 1 God 2 Man 1. This grace of love set upon God is true cordial and sincere 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not in word or outward profession but in truth and in the inward man not complemental but reall the inward purpose of the heart having an emphasis Of love that hypocrisie and expressions cannot reach And the truth is our loving of God Eph. 6.24 is not so properly said to be sincere as to be our very sincerity Then and then alone a dutie is done in sincerity when 't is done in love and herein stands hypocrisie when though there is much doing yet there 's no loving The love of an hypocrite to Christ like the shining of the Gloworm is without any inward heat and stands only in a glistering profession or like some spices which are cold in the stomack though hot in the mouth or like the fire in Moses his bush it burneth not while it blazeth it proceeds from humane inducements of education Countenance or Commands of Superiours Interest an apprehension of the love of Christ barely to mankind or from this that Christ is out
onely as they increase elevate it The very snuffers of death shall make it burn the more brightly It unconquered out-lives as opposition so its fellow-graces 1 Cor. 13. the faithful are rooted and grounded in love They love God for himself who fails not Ep. 3.17 1 Cor. 13.8 and therefore Love it self fails not Hypocrites are uneven in their love feigned things are unequal appearing friends cannot dissemble so exactly but that at one time or other their hatred will appear In some companies or conditions they will shew what they are In the time of persecution they fall away Mat. 13.21 like rotten Apples they fall off in a windy day True love to Christ Amor uescit ferias knows no holy-daies it ever hath a rest of Contentment never hath a rest of Cessation 2. I proceed to the Properties of love to man First Rom. 12.9 1 Pet. 1.22 1 John 3.18 It 's a love unfeigned without dissimulation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Love without hypocrisie Love indeed and in truth not in word and tongue a love from the heart 'T is not like the love of Joab and Judas that outwardly kiss'd and inwardly at that time designed killing It contents not it self in giving like Nephthali Gen. 49.21 Goodly words The Apostle speaks of Soundness in Charity Tit. 2.2 Unsound Charitie is Courtship not Christianity Of all things dissimulation doth worst in love as being most corrupting of and contrarie to the nature of it and appearing love is nothing but Christianity acted and Religion painted some sins scratch the face of love but hypocrisie stabs it at the heart Secondly It 's an expressive open-handed Love though it ariseth at the heart yet it reacheth to the hand Love is a fruitful grace it bears not onely the leaves and blossoms of words and promises 1 John 3.18 but the fruit also of beneficial performances If Love be in truth t' will also be in deed words be they never so adorned cloath not the naked be they never so delicate they feed not the hungry be they never so zealous they warm not the cold be they never so free they set not the bound at liberty our Faith must work by love Love must be seen felt and understood verbal Love is But painted fire Love is so beautiful a Grace that it 's willing to be seen The Apostle saith Rom. 13.10 Love worketh no ill it 's a diminutive expression there 's more intended even the doing of all the good the Law requires and therefore he adds Love is the fulfiling of the Law Thirdly It 's a forward chearful Love It is not drawn or driven but runs it staies not till the poor seeks it but it seeks for him Onesiphorus sought out Paul diligently Prov. 23.6 2 Tim. 1.17 Rom. 12.13 It relieves not with an evil eye It makes men given to hospitality the water of bountie flows from it as from a Fountain and goes not out as from a narrow mouth'd bottle with grumbling It is not like the spunge that sucks up the water greedily but gives it not out unless it be squeezed Hoc ipso amplius gaudent pauperes cum paupertati corum consultum fuerit pudori Leo. Serm. 4. Duplex Eleemosyna quia damus quia hilariter damus Ingenuous poverty rejoyceth in this forwardness of love as much as in the gift it self for thereby not only it's want but bashfulness is relieved It s a double beneficence when we give and give chearfully The mind of the receiver is more refreshed with the chearfulness of the Giver than is his bodie with the greatness of the Gift Fourthly It 's an extensive universal Love 1. Vniversal in respect of duties it shuns no performance that may benefit Bodie Name Mind Soul of another Love is a Pandora abounding in every good work and gift Rom. 13.10 it 's therefore called the fulfilling of the Law Love is the Decalogue contracted and the Decalogue is Love unfolded Love is a Mother the ten Commandments her ten children and she forgets none neglects none Gal. 6.10 2. It 's Vniversal in respect of persons It remembers the Apostles rule to do good to All even wicked men it loves though not as wicked yet as men the men not their manners Col. 1.4 Non peccatorem sed justum in paupere nutrit qui in illo non culpam sed naturam diligit Gr. 3. past 1 Pet. 2.17 Jam. 2.1 The Love of the Collosians was extended to all the Saints wherever there 's grace love will follow for grace is beautiful wherever it is The Oyntment of Love falls even upon the skirts of the garment as well as the head Love is set upon the Brotherhood the whole Fraternitie of Believers not here and there upon one Holy Love regards grace in its working-day clothes upon a Dung-hill in a Prison Grace in the Ideot as well as in the Scholar in the Servant as well as the Master As all our delight must be in the Saints Ps 16.3 so our delight must be in all the Saints 5. It 's a religious and a holy love It 's from in and for holinesse From it he that loves his brother first 1 Tim. 1.5 loves God 1 Tim. 1.5 first he gives his heart to God as a son before he reacheth out his hand to man as his brother His love is said to be out of a pure heart First he gives himself then his Secondly In holinesse and holy wayes It joynes not hands with any in a way of sin For this is not unity but faction it hath no fellowship with fruitfull works Ephes 5.11 but reproves them it makes a man most angry with the sin of him whom he loves most He fears not only to be fratricida but fideicida he doth not so love a man as to be an Enemy to religion Thirdly for holinesse this love is set upon holy ones because they are so not because they are great but good Gods Image in them is the Load-stone of our love 1 John 5.2 6. It 's a just and righteous love It bestowes gifts not spoyles it hurts not some to help others it buyes not a burying place for strangers with the bloud of Christ it is not bountifull upon any others cost The people of God must be blamelesse and harmlesse Phil. 2.15 not having in the one hand bread for one and in the other a stone for another We must not build Gods house with Satans tools the poorest Saint wants not our unrighteousnesse to help him 7. It 's a prudent discerning love It loves all yet with a difference it is most set upon those that are the fittest objects either for want or worth it beats not the poor from the door while it makes strangers drunk in the Cellar It is not like the Oak which drops its acorns to swine Gal. 6.10 It loves Gods friends best the wicked with a love of pity the
godly with a love of complacency True Christians shall have a Benjamins portion of love Mark 10.21 it doth good especially to the houshold of faith Brotherly-love is set upon brethren Christ loved the young man a Pharisee by shewing loving respect toward him but he loved Lazarus a godly man with a dear intimate love John 11.3 5.11 the best men shall have the best love There 's a prudence also in the measure of expressing love so to love to day as we may love to morrow We sow not by the bushel but the handfull 8. It 's a mutual reciprocal love Hence 't is Joh. 13.34 Gal. 5.13 Col. 3.13 Gal. 6.2 Jam. 5.16 1 Thes 5.11 that there is so frequent mention of Loving one another giving and receiving benefits is by some compared to the Game at Tennis wherein the Ball is tossed from one to the other and if it falls it 's his forfeit who mist his stroke His disposition is very bad who if he will not provoke will not repay love where Affection there Gain is reciprocal The Pole sustains the Hop and the Hop adorns the Pole the Wall bears up the Roof and the Roof preserves the Wall from wet the wise directeth the strong and the strong protecteth the wise the zealous inflameth the moderate and the moderate tempers the zealous the rich supplyeth the poor and the poor worketh for the rich Love must have an eccho to resound and return 9. It 's a fervent burning love 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 q. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Puritie and fervencie of love are joyned together 1 Pet. 1.22 and 1 Pet. 4.8 Have fervent charitie among your selves It must be a love to the utmost not remiss and faint not a love of courtesie and civil correspondencie but of intireness and holy vehemencie such a love as was between Jonathan and David surpassing the love of women The fervencie of it must be so great as that it may burn and consume all intervening occasions of hatred and dislike by bearing with infirmities covering of sins construing mens meanings in the better part condescending to those of lower parts and places 1 King 18. like the fire that fell from Heaven upon Elijahs Sacrifice which lick'd up a trench full of water A love that overcomes the greatest difficulties for the good of others and triumphs over all opposition 10. It 's a constant and unwearied love 1 Phil. 9. Joh. 13.1 15.12 A love that must abound more and more A love that must be like that of Christs who loved his to the end Love is a debt alway to be owed and alway to be paid 't is a debt which the more we pay the more we have And which herein differs from all civil debts that it cannot be pardoned When we have well chosen our Love we should Love our choice and be true Scripture-friends to love at all times not fawning upon our friends when high and frowning upon them when low not looking upon them as Dyals onely when the Sun of success shines upon them we should love them most when they want us not when we want them most This for the explication of the third and last blessing which the Apostle requesteth for these Christians Love 2. The Observations follow 1. Love to God flows not from Nature Observ 1. 1 John 4.7 God is not onely the Object but the Author of it From him for these Christians the Apostle desires it The Affection of Love is natural the Grace of Love is divine As Love is the motion of the will toward good ti 's in us by Nature but as it is the motion of the will toward such an object or as terminated upon God it is by Grace Love is one of the Graces to be put on Col. 3.14 Rom. 1.30 and we are no more born with it in us than with our clothes on us Wicked men are haters of God and that as the word signifieth with the greatest abhorrency 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 abhorreo unde Styx they so hate him as to desire he were not that so they might live without the limits of his Law the reach of his Justice God is onely by them look'd upon with fear Ps 139.21 2 Chro. 19.2 1 Joh. 3.13 Joh. 15.18.20 Rom. 8.7 as a Judge and whom men fear as hurtfull they hate and wish they were taken out of the way Mens hearts and Gods holiness are very opposite The carnal mind is enmity against God The very reason of it the best thing that is in Corrupt Nature even Lady-Reason her self is not an enemy onely but enmity and irreconcileable There is in it an Enmity against every truth preferring before it humane mixtures and Traditions and undervaluing Gods mercy and the way of obtaining it in his Sonne misjudging all his wayes as grievous and unprofitable accounting all his Servants base and contemptible An enmitie there is in Affection against his Word wishing every truth which crosseth its lust razed out of the Scripture quenching the motions of the Spirit refusing to hear his voice rejecting the councel of God against his people his Messengers hating them most that speak most of God either with the language of lip or life Enmity in conversation holding the truth in unrighteousness by wilful disobedience forsaking the waies of God to walk in those of Nature casting off his Yoke and refusing to be reformed And all this hatred is against God though man by it hurts not God but himself man being Gods enemy not by hurting his will but resisting it Non nocendo sed resistendo The consideration whereof should humble us for our folly and danger in hating so good and great a God It should also teach from whom to beg renewed inclinations Lord Whither should we go but to thee and how but by thee 2. Love is the best thing which we can bestow upon God Observ 2. 'T is our All And the All which the Apostle desires these Christians may return to God who had bestowed upon them mercy and peace Love from God is the top of our happiness and love to God the summe of our duty It 's that onely grace whereby we most neerly answer God in his own kind he commands corrects comforts directs pitties sustains c. in these we cannot resemble him but he loves us and in this respect we may and must answer returning love for love Love is the best thing that the best man did ever give his God Love is a gift in bestowing whereof hypocrites cannot joyn with the faithful there 's nothing else but they may give as abundantly as the most upright in heart they may give their tongue hand estate children nay life but Love with these or these in love they cannot give And the truth is not giving this they give to God in his esteem just nothing The best thing that an Hypocrite can bestow is his Life and yet Paul tels us That though
is not impaired The receiving of grace by one doth no more hinder the receiving thereof by another than one mans seeing of the Sun hindereth another from seeing it also God is a rich Father he giveth though not alike yet sufficient portions to all his children Our elder brother had a double portion he was anointed with the oyle of gladnesse above his fellowes Psal 45.7 but the oyntment poured upon the head fell down upon every member He who had holinesse for Abraham Moses David Peter will not suffer the least child in his house to be totally destitute They all drank of that rock which flowes toward us If we had but their thirst here 's as much water still as ever there was The people of God should neither envy one another for their fulnesse nor upbraid one another with their emptinesse but admire the wisdome and blesse the bounty of him who giveth to all though differently The whole Company of Saints is like to a well tuned instrument Varii toni in musica the strings whereof though not all of one note but some higher some lower yet all together make a sweet harmony nor can the loudest be without the smallest In what grace one is defective in that let another labour to supply In what one abounds let another labour to imitate and excell but let all adore and delight in him whose are the scatter'd excellencies bestowed upon all the Saints in the world 3. Observ 3. Where God hath begun grace he is not weary of bestowing more Mercy be multiplyed to you sanctified ones To him that hath shall be given Mark 4.25 God loves not to set up a foundation without a wall nor wals without a roofe He perfects what concerns his people and the work of the Lord is perfect Deut. 32.4 Isai 10.12 And he doth his whole work upon Mount Sion How good is God not only to do good because he will do good but because he hath done so to make one grace a kind of obligation upon himselfe to bestow another God herein resembling some magnificent King who when he hath set his love upon a favourite afterward is in love with his own choice of and bounty on him and loves him for these very favours which he hath given him John 15.2 John 1.50 Every branch that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit Greater things saith Christ to Nathaneel thou shalt see He who killeth one lust shall kill another he who is conscionable in one duty shall be enabled to another He who hath the grace of desire shall have grace bestowed on his desire and he who hath grace to do a little shall have grace to do more God is never weary of giving He hath oyle enough for every vessell and still asketh when he hath fill'd all our vessels as that woman in the story Bring me yet a vessell The meditation whereof 2 King 4.6 as it should comfort us against our spirituall deficiencies in regard we know where to have more grace so should it incite us to proceed in holinesse and never to think we have enough or to answer as he did There is not a vessell In the best things there 's no excesse 4. Obser 4. Onely sanctified ones have the blessing of spirituall multiplication As first God gave the word of Creation before he gave the word of Benediction so doth he still spiritually Whosoever hath not Mat. 13.12 from him shal be taken away even what he hath If there be not essentia there cannot be incrementum If no truth no growth of grace Omnis germinatio supponit plantationem A stake that is meerly thrust into the ground having neither root nor life groweth in nothing but in rottennesse and this speaks the misery of one not in Christ and enlivened by the spirit of regeneration nothing doth him good he devoureth fat ordinances but hath a lean soule he is by the showers of every Sermon and Sacrament made meeter for the axe and fitter fuell for hell 5. Obser 5. Our beginning in holinesse is an Engagement upon us to go on Sanctified preserved called ones must multiply grace The beginning in the spirit must be a caution to us that we end not in the flesh If Saints be barren the Trees of Gods Ort-yard where can increase be expected A fruitlesse tree in the field may haply be born with not such an one in the garden They who are planted in the House of God Psal 92.13 14. should flourish in the Courts of our God still bring forth fruit in old age be fat and flourishing It is an unanswerable Dilemma If the wayes of God were bad why did you begin in them if good why did you not proceed They who are holy must be holy still Rev. 22.11 It 's a great disgrace for religion to be disgraced by her children to be forsaken by her followers The dispraise of any by a friend is easily believed by every one especially by an enemy to the dispraised when sanctified ones grow loose and remisse sanctity is stabb'd by the reproaches of others it is but scratched It 's excellent counsel of the Apostle that we lose not the things which we have wrought 2 Ep. John 8. Luke 22.3 As the vigilancy of Satan is to take from sanctified ones so their care must be to keep what they have gotten and to get what they want 6. Observ 6. God affords graces sutable to all the exigences of his people multiplyed grace to those who are in multiplyed difficulties and tentations My grace saith God to Paul is sufficient for thee 2 Cor. 12.9 When ever God gives a burden he provides a shoulder He never requireth brick from his people without giving them straw He will either multiply grace or diminish the tentation He bids his people up and eat if he sends them a long journey Those Saints of his whom he hath employed in winter seasons he hath ever cloathed with winter garments commonly the best men have lived in the worst times and Gods stars have shined brightest in the darkest ages The faithfull have been more then conquerours in conflicts both with persecuters and seducers Rom. 8.37 And truely grace multiplyed is much better than tentation either asswaged or removed VER 3. Beloved when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation it was needfull for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered to the Saints VVE have finished the first part of this Epistle viz. the Title The second follows the Body and Substance of the whole Epistle wherein the Apostles scope is to incite these Christians to imbrace a seasonable Exhortation to the 24th verse of the Epistle In it there are four principall parts two of them contained in this third verse 1. The Reasons of the Apostles sending this Exhortation to
those twenty can cure that one infected person Rusty armour soon makes bright armour rusty by lying neer it when as the bright armour imparts to the other none of its brightnesse 1. The written word is needfull as the rule of faith and manners Observ 1. Jude upon the entrance of the Seducers with their errours tels the Christians it was needful to write this Epistle to regulate and direct them They who deny that the written Word is necessarily required to be the rule of faith must necessarily give way to the overthrowing of faith There 's no Truth in the Scripture can be proved or beleeved with a divine faith unless the ratio credendi or ground of such beleeving be the revelation of God in writing John 20 31. John 1.5.13 These things are written saith John that you may beleeve that Jesus is the Christ. And These things have I written saith he unto you that ye might beleeve in the name of the Son of God 2 Pet. 1.9 Wee have a more sure word of prophesie saith Peter to which yee do well to take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place Without this light the way of truth cannot be found The Bercans searched the Scriptures Acts 17.11 Luk. 24.25 27. Act. 13.33 Rom. 14.11 whether those things they heard were so The doctrines of faith have been ever by Christ and his Apostles proved and errors which oppose them have been ever by them confuted by the written word They who build not their faith upon the written word must needs go to Enthusiasms the Pope or Reason for a Foundation 2. The helping forward the good of souls 2 Observ 1 Cor. 9.16 is the most needfull imployment Paul as Jude here tels us that necessity was laid upon him to do this work A saving Ministry is that which we cannot be without We can better spare the Sun in the Firmament as it was once said of Chrysostome than the preaching of a faithfull Minister The Word in its ministry is compared in Scripture to the most needfull things bread salt water physick armour c. Bread and salt are alway set upon the table whatsoever the other dishes are Let our condition be what it will the Word is alway needfull The life of the the soul is the dearest and the famine of the Word is the sorest Places though never so rich and glorious are but magna latrocinia without the Word dens of theeves not dwellings for men The removall of the Gospel is a soul-judgment and the soul of judgments It 's foolish to account the falling of the salt upon the table ominous but it 's our duty to lament the falling of them whom Christ calls the salt of the earth Mat. 5.13 They who are weary of the word are weary of heaven weary of God Ministers for performing so necessary a work as is that of saving souls should hazard themselves What father would not burn his fingers to pull his child out of the fire It is not necessary a Minister should be safe but that he should be serviceable and that a soul should be saved 3. Observ 3. The opposing of Seducers is a needfull part of our Ministry 'T was this that made Jude account it needfull to write to these Christians It 's the Ministers work to defend as well as to feed people to drive away the wolfe from as well as to provide pasture for the flock The mouths of deceivers are to be stopt and gain-sayers must be convinced Tit. 1.9 11. They subvert saith the Apostle whole houses Cursed be that patience which can see it and lay nothing I know not how it comes to passe but among many the opposing of seducers is either accounted bitter or needlesse and it 's still the policy of Satan not to suffer a sword in Israel But if there be damnable heresies I see not but there may be a damnable silence in those who should oppose them 2 Pet. 2.1 Every one must give account for his idle words and a Minister for his idle silence 4. Observ 4. Ministers should preach such doctrine as is most needfull for the places and people with whom they have 〈◊〉 do The Physician administers not one kind of physick to all distempers Some Patients require one some another Some places abound most with prophanenesse others more with errours Some places are infamous for drunkennesse others for pride others for covetousnesse others for wearinesse of the Gospel The Minister must sute his preaching to their exigences It 's not enough in war for a souldier to discharge his Musket though it be well charged with powder and bullet unlesse also he aim well to hit the enemy He who delivers good doctrine and reproofs but not sutable to the people whom he teacheth dischargeth up into the ayre God commands the Prophet to shew the people their sins Isai 58.1 not to shew one people the sins of another but their own Some observe that Christ in his doctrine ever set himselfe most against the raging impiety of the times wherein he lived We find his vehemency exprest more against the secret subtill hypocrisies of the Pharisees than against other sins which in some times and places would have deserved most severe reprehension And the truth is the preaching of seasonable and needfull truths is that which creates so much hatred to the faithfull Ministers People can be content to hear us preach of the sins of our fore-fathers but not of the sins of the present times People will not take honey out of the Lion unlesse he be dead nor taste sweetnesse in that preaching which is lively and roars upon them in their way of sin A good heart considers not how bitter but how true not how smart but how seasonable a doctrine is It desires that the word may be directed to it in particular It sets its corruptions in the fore-front of the battell when Gods arrows are flying and patiently suffers the word of Exhortation This for the third and last reason which did put the holy Apostle upon sending the following Exhortation to these Christians namely the needfulnesse of sending such an Exhortation to them It was needfull for me to write And so I passe from the first part considerable about the Apostles Exhortation viz. the reasons why he did send an Exhortation The second follows viz. the Exhortation it selfe in these words And exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints In the words the Apostle sets down 1. The way or manner of his writing which was hortatory or by way of Exhortation 2. The matter or subject of the Exhortation or to what it was that he did exhort them viz. earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints The first shews us what the Apostle did The second what these Christians ought to do First Of the way or manner of the Apostles writing which was by way of
enough It 's very good manners in Christianity to stay and to knock again though we have knock'd more than three times at a sinners conscience 3. Observ 3. The best Christians often stand in need of quickning by holy incitements The strongest arms like Moses's want holding up the ablest Christian may now and then have a spirituall qualm He who is now as it were in the third heaven 2 Cor. 12. may anon be buffeted with the messenger of Satan Grace in the best is but a creature and defectible onely the power of God preserves it from a totall failing Corruption within is strong tentations without are frequent and all these make exhortation necessary A Christian more wants company as he is a Christian than as he is a man though much as both The hottest water will grow cold if the fire under it be withdrawn 4. Observ 4. Isa 23.16 Hos 6.1 Mal. 3.16 1 Sam. 23.16 Holy exhortation is an excellent help to Christian resolution It 's as the sharpening of iron with iron It 's a whetstone for the relief of dulnesse Jonathan in the wood strengthened David's hand in God They who fear the Lord must often speak one to another The want of communion is the bane of Christian resolution When an Army is scattered 't is easie to destroy it The Apostle Heb. 10.23 24. joyns these two together the holding fast the profession of our faith without wavering the provoking one another to love and good works as also the exhorting one another 5. Observ 5. Heb. 13.22 Christians must suffer the word of Exhortation They must be intreated If importunity overcame an unrighteous Judge to do good to another how much more should it prevaile with us for our own good Let not Ministers complain with Esay I have spread out my hands all the day to a rebellious people Isai 65.2 Heavenly Wisdome is easie to be intreated Men want no intreaty at all to do good to their bodies Whence is it that when we want no precept and therfore have none to love our selves all Precepts and Exhortations are too little to perswade us to the true self-love This for the way or manner of the Apostles writing it was by Exhortation The second followeth The Apostles expressing to what he exhorted these Christians viz. earnestly to contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints In which words I consider two things 1. What it is which the Apostle here commends to them carefully to maintain and defend The faith once delivered to the Saints 2. The means whereby or the manner how he exhorts these Christians to maintain and preserve that thing which was by earnest contention Earnestly contend 1. What thing it is which the Apostle here commends to these Christians to maintain and preserve viz. The faith once delivered to the Saints This thing the Apostle here first specifieth calling it the faith secondly amplifieth three wayes 1. It was faith given or delivered 2. To the Saints delivered 3. Once delivered 1. He specifieth the thing which these Christians were to maintain and defend Explicat faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The word faith in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is derived from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 doceo and persuadeo to teach concerning the truth of a thing which we perswade men to believe it is in Scripture taken either properly or improperly 1. Properly and that either 1. In its generall notion for that assent which is given to the speech of another Or 2. In its different sorts and kinds and so it 's either humane or divine humane the assent which we give to the speech of a man or divine the assent which we give to divine Revelation This divine faith is comonly known to comprehend these four sorts 1. Historicall faith called also by some dogmaticall 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is nudus assensus that bare assent which is given to divine truth revealed in the Scripture without any inward affection either to the revealer or to the thing revealed Thus the divels believe James 2.19 and ver 17. This is called dead faith 2. Temporary faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not so properly call'd a different kind of faith from the former as a further degree of the same which is an assent given to divine truths with some taste of and delight though not applicative and prevalent in the knowledge of those truths for a time Mat. 13.21 he endureth for a while Luke 8.13 for a while they believe Miraculosa 3. Miraculous faith is that speciall assent which is given to some speciall promise of working miracles and this is either active when we believe that miracles shall be wrought by us as 1 Cor. 13.2 Mat. 7.22 or passive when we believe they shal be wrought for and upon us Acts 14.9 4. †Justificans Justifying faith which is assent with trust and affiance to the promise of remission of sin and salvation by Christ's righteousnesse Rom. 3.26 Gal. 2.16 Luke 22.32 Acts 15.9 Rom. 4.5 c. 2. Faith is considered improperly and so it 's taken in Scripture four wayes especially 1. For * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 De hac fide nunc loquimur quam adhibemus cum alicui credimus non ca quam damus cum alicui pollicemur nam ipsa dicitur fides sed aliter dicimus non mibi habuit fidem aliter non mihi servavit fidem Illud est non credidit quod dixi hoc non fecit quod dixit secundùm hanc fidem quâ credimus fideles sumus Deo secundùm illam verò quâ fit quod promititur etiam Deus est fidelis nobis Aug. lib. 6. de sp lit cap. 31. fidelity and faithfulnesse And so faith is attributed to God Rom. 3.3 Shall their unbeliefe make the faith of God without effect And to man Mat. 23.23 Yea have omitted the weightier matters of the Law judgment mercy and faith This is as Cicero saith Dictorum conventorúmque constantia the truth and constancy of our words and agreements So we say he breaks his faith Punica fides 2. For the profession of the faith Act. 13.8 Acts 14.22 Rom. 1.8 Your faith is spoken of throughout the world 3. For the things believed or the fulfilling of what God hath promised Gal. 3.23 Before faith came we were kept under the Law shut up unto the faith which should afterward be revealed and ver 25 But after that faith is come Here faith is taken for Christ the Object of faith 4. For the doctrine of faith or the truth to be believed to salvation and more peculiarly for the doctrine of faith in Christ Acts 6.7 A great company of the priests were obedient to the faith Rom. 3.31 Do we make void the law through faith Nomine fidei censetur illud quod creditur illud quo creditur Lomb. Rom. 12.6 Acts 24.24 He heard him concerning the faith in
Christ Gal. 1.23 He now preacheth the faith which before he persecuted So 1 Tim. 4.16 Gal. 3.2 So here in this place of Jude Faith once delivered is to be understood of the faith of heavenly doctrine the word of faith which the Apostle saith God had delivered to them and they were to maintain against the opposite errours of seducers This holy doctrine being called faith 1. Because it is the instrument used by God to work faith The Spirit by the word perswading us to assent to the whole doctrine of the Gospel and to rest upon Christ in the promise for life In which respect faith is said to come by hearing Rom. 10.15 And the Gospel the power of God Rom. 1.16 c. to every one that believes The faith to be believed begets a faith believing 2. Because it is a most sure infallible faithfull word and deserves to be the object of our faith and belief The Author of it was the holy and true Rev. 3.7.14 Tit. 1.2 2 Pet. 1.2 the faithful and true Witnesse God who cannot lie The Instruments were infallibly guided by the immediate derection and assistance of the holy Ghost The Matter of it an everlasting truth the Law being a constant rule of righteousnesse the Gospel conteining promises which shall have their stability when heaven and earth shall passe away and of such certainty that if an angel from heaven should teach another doctrine he must be accursed It abounds also with prophesies predictions most exactly accomplished though after hundreds yea thousands of years The form of it which is its conformity with God himself sheweth that if God be faithfull Heb. 4.12 Psal 19.7 9. needs must his word be so its powerfull it searcheth the heart its pure and perfect true and faithfull and all this in conformity with the power omniscience purity perfection truth of God himself The end of it is to supply us with assured comfort Rom. 15.4 Observ 1. 1. The word of life is most worthy of assent and approbation No word so much challengeth belief as Gods it 's so true and worthy of belief that it 's called faith it self When in Scripture the object is called by the name of the habit or affection it notes that the object is very proper for that habit or affection to be exercised about Heaven is in Scripture called joy to shew it 's much to be rejoyced in and the Doctrine of salvation is called faith to shew that its most worthy of our faith Infidelity is a most inexcusable and incongruous sin in us Tit. 1.2 Heb. 6.18 Isa 53.1 when the faithfull and true God speaks unto us It 's impossible for God to lie and yet Who hath beleeved our report may be a complaint as ordinary as it is old How just is God to give those over to beleeve a lie who will not beleeve the truh How miserable is their folly who beleeve a lie and distrust faith it self 2. Observ 2. Deplorable is their estate who want the doctrine of salvation They have no footing for faith they have they hear nothing that they can beleeve Uncertainty of happiness is ever the portion of a people who are destitute of the Word He who wants this light knows not whither he goeth The Fancy of the Enthusiast the Reason of the Socinian the Traditions of the Papist the Oracles of the Heathens are all Foundations of sand death shakes and overturns them all 3. Observ 3. The true reason of the firmnesse and stedfastnesse of the Saints in their profession they lean upon a sure word Spiritus sanctus non est Scepticus ne◠opiniones in cordibus sed assertiones producit ipsâ vit â omni experientiâ certiores a more sure word than any revelation a word called even faith it self Greater is the certainty of Faith then that of Sense and Reason It 's not Opinion and Scepticism but Faith The holy Ghost is no Sceptick it works in us not opinions but assertions more sure than life it self and all experience The more weight and dependency we set upon the word so firm a foundation is it the stronger is the building None will distrust God but they who never tryed him 4. Our great end in attending upon the word should be the furthering of our faith The jewel of the Word should not hang in our ears but be lock'd up in a beleeving heart 'T is not meat on the table but in the stomack that nourisheth and not the Word preached but beleeved that saves us The Apostle having specified the thing which they were to maintain Faith he amplifieth it and that three wayes 1. Explicat 2. He saith it was delivered The word in the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here translated delivered signifieth to be given or delivered from one to another severall wayes in Scripture according to the circumstances of the place where and the matter about which 't is used Sometime it importeth a delivering craftily deceitfully or traiterously in which respect the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is often rendred to betray as Matth. 2.4.10 and Chap. 26 15 16 21 23 24 25. and Chap. 16.45 46 48. In some places it signifieth a delivering in a way of punishment and suffering As Mat. 4.12 Jesus heard that John was delivered up So Mat. 5.25 and 10.17.19.21 and 17.22 and Acts 7.42 c. In other places it signifieth a delivering in a way of committing something to ones trust to be carefully regarded and preserved as Mat. 11.27 and 25.14 20. and John 19.20 and 1 Pet. 2.23 And thus it frequently signifieth a delivering by way of information or relation of doctrines and duties from one to another to be kept and observed And that both from God first by the speech and afterward by the writing of holy men for the use of his Church as 1 Cor. 11.2 2 Thes 2.15 and 3.6 2 Pet. 2.21 and also from men who often deliver doctrines to others not written in the word Mat. 15.2 Mark 7.9.13 but invented by men In this sense the delivering here mentioned is to be taken namely for such an information or relation of Gods will as they to whom it is delivered are bound to preserve and keep as their treasure In which respect the delivering of this faith or doctrine of salvation comprehends first Gods bestowing it secondly Mans holding and keeping it 1. Gods bestowing it and in that is considerable 1. In what wayes and after what manner God delivered it 2. What need there was of this delivery of the faith by God 1. In what wayes God delivered the faith the Scripture tels us he hath delivered it either extraordinarily Num. 12.6.8 Heb. 1.1 as immediately by himselfe by Angels by a voice by a sensible apparition to men sometime when they were awake at other times when they were sleeping by dreams sometime only by inward inspiration Or ordinarily and so he delivers the doctrine of faith 1. To his
after one battel to double and reinforce the fight again with new supplies Others best of all that Jnde exhorts these Christians to put to all their strength acriter summo continuo maximo studio and utmost force in their contention as those who fought for their lives nay that which was dearer then life it self even the life of their souls and so great is this contention that no one English word is able to express the Greek to contend with all their strength extraordinarily beyond measure most earnestly do scarcely render the meaning of the word More particularly this extraordinary and most eminent contention importeth five things 1. A serious and weighty cause and ground of contention Men account not trifles worth any much lesse vehement strife The thing about which they contend earnestly is either weighty or so esteemed 2. It importeth a considerable enemy to strive with not one who is contemptible but who requireth a great power to contend with him 3. Some strength and force whereby to deal with him A child is not only unable to conquer but even to contend with a Giant 4. A putting forth of strength against the enemy Though a man be never so strong yet if he stands still and puts not out his strength he contends not 5. And lastly the contending after such a manner as is conducible to a victory and prevailing over the enemy with whom we contend even the using of our utmost best and choycest endeavours not a slight but a serious and victorious contention 2. From hence we may gather what this earnest contention doth comprehend which is here to be imployed about this faith 1. It imports that the fore-mentioned faith is a serious and weighty ground and a most considerable cause upon for which to contend What doth the Scripture more hold forth to be our duty than to buy the truth Prov. 23.23 Phil. 1.27 Rev. 3.10 Mat. 11.19 and not to sell it To strive together for the faith of the Gospel to be fellow-helpers to the truth to keep the word of Gods patience to be valiant for the truth to justifie wisdome c. Most precious is this faith to be contended for first even God himself was the fountain and founder of it the Sun from which this ray of faith was darted the Mine whence this faith more to be desired than the finest gold was taken Psal 19.10 All the Princes of the world with all their combined bounties could never have bestowed this faith upon the world How precious is it secondly in regard of the price of it the death of Christ without which not one promise of the word of life would ever have been made or made good to our souls How precious lastly in regard of the benefit of it it doth all for us that God doth For God affords by it direction in our doubts Psal 19.7 8 9. John 17.17 Rom. 1.16 consolation in our troubles confirmation in our fears sanctification in our filthinesse guidance to glory In sum 't is the power of God to salvation 'T is not then a slight and triviall but a most weighty and considerable cause for which these Christians were so earnestly to contend it being for the maintaining of the faith 2. It implyeth and presupposeth a considerable and strong adversary to contend with in contending for the faith The enemies with whom these Christians were to strive were Sectaries and soul-destroying Seducers and Satan is the ring-leader instructer and assistant both of these and all other forces raised against faith We wrestle not against flesh and bloud saith the Apostle but against principalities and powers Ephes 6.12 Gen. 3.1 Luke 22.31 1 Thes 2.18 We wrestle not with flesh and bloud as it is in it selfe weak and frail but as set on work assisted and guided by Satan Flesh and bloud are but Satans instruments he setteth them on work he tempted Eve not the Serpent he winnowed Peter when the man and maid made Peter to deny Christ Satan hindered Paul from coming to the Thessalonians though by the persecuting Jewes Rev. 2.10 Satan cast some of the Smyrnians into prison when men did it The false Prophets with whom these Christians here were to contend for the faith are called the Ministers of Satan 1 Cor. 11.15 Ephes 2.2 Ephes 4.27 Acts 5.3 he is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience Satan hath a hand in the soliciting of us to sin either by our own lusts or by the inticements of others In all combates either against our own corruptions or others persecuters or seducers if we can drive away the divell flesh and bloud will not much annoy us If the Captain be conquered the common souldier will yeild It 's Satan who seduceth in Seducers Paul was afraid 2 Cor. 11.3 lest as the Serpent beguiled Eve the mind of the Corinthians should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ He is the enemy that soweth tares among the wheat Mat. 13. And had not these Christians in contending for the faith a considerable enemy How could the Seducers want subtilty to creep in among these Christians by their persons and into them by their opinions into whom Satan the Serpent had crept before nay who now had the advantage of being the old Serpent How easily could he flatter each humour Rev. 12.9 propound sutable lusts to every pallate clothe and colour every heresie and lust with plausible titles Christian Liberty new Lights rare Notions oyle and butter over wicked practices and do much with sweet words cunning and doubtfull expressions What powerfull adversaries were these seducers Ephes 2.2 who had the Prince of power the strong man armed the god of this world to help them How could they want malice and cruelty who were assisted by the enemy of souls the destroyer the roaring lyon the red dragon How could they want diligence and activity who had the divell to drive them him to instigate whose motion in sin is his rest who walketh about seeking whom he may devour 3. This earnest contention imports a considerable strength wherby to contend for the faith against so potent an Adversary Every ones strength is in it self but weakness the strongest are not of themselves able to stand before the weakest tentation Our strength is then from our Head our Captain Jesus Christ who bestoweth upon us such supplies of grace as that we are never fully and finally foyled but in and with him overcome all as the persecuting so the enticing world More particularly he affordeth this strength to us two wayes 1. On his part he sendeth his Spirit to bestow upon us 2. On our parts he enables our faith to receive from him the supplies of his strength 1. On his part he bestowes his Spirit to strengthen us This his Spirit doth two wayes 1. By working 2. By strengthening our union with Christ 1. In the former the Spirit conveyeth a principle of spirituall life
and holinesse 1 John 3.9 putteth into us a seed that shall never die and infuseth an habit of holinesse never to be lost or overcome Phil. 1.19 Ephes 3.16 Ephes 6.10 2. In the latter it affordeth those continued supplies of grace whereby we are more and more strengthened with might to resist all tentations go through all conflicts to find preservation and direction in every danger and doubt to walk in daily detestation of every sinfull way to call and cry for grace which is wanting and in a word Phil. 4.13 enabled to do all things through him who strengtheneth us 2. On our parts he enables our faith by his Spirit to receive from him the supplies of his strength This he doth by giving a power to faith 1. To unite us unto and to incorporate us into him as the branches are in the tree the member in the body or the house upon the foundation We laying hold upon him for ours by our faith as he layeth hold upon us for his by his Spirit wherby the union is compleat and reciprocall 2. To improve this union for our assistance by drawing daily influences of grace and strength from Christ who is a fountain of fulnesse John 1.16 John 15.1.5 Gal. 2.20 as the root doth from the soyl or the branches from the root or the pipe from the fountain Hence it is that we live by faith it being the instrument that fetcheth vertue from Christ to sustain us in all our wants and weaknesses it being not only in but drinking of the fountain it not only uniting us as members to the head but supplying us as members from the head with all vertue necessary to the preservation of grace both from the filth of sin within us and the force of tentations without us and hence it is that faith makes use of all ordinances but as the conduit pipes or water-courses to convey from Christ that grace and strength it wants it esteeming ordinances without Christ but as a viall without a cordiall or a pipe without water Faith also having united us to Christ helps us to expect through him that abundant reward which will infinitely more than countervail for all the combats and contentions for him against his enemies Moses saw him that was invisible Heb. 11.26.27 he had an eye to the recompence of reward We faint not c. saith the Apostle while we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen 2 Cor. 4.16.18 And herein consisteth principally the strength of Christians in this earnest fight and contention 4. This earnest contention by which the faith is maintained implyeth a putting out forth of this strength against the enemy with whom we contend for the faith He who hath strength contends not if he stands still and acts not Sundry wayes is strength to be put forth in contending for this faith 1. Magistrates must put forth their strength 1. By commanding their subjects to submit to the faith Their edicts and injunctions should be like those of Asa and Hezekiah who commanded Judah to seek the Lord. 2 Chro. 14.4 2 Chro. 29.5.30 2 Chro. 34.33 They must engage men to be true and faithfull to God by precept and example their commands must not so savour of state policy as to be regardless of Scripture purity 'T is not reason of State but ruin of States to be remiss in enjoyning piety The lawes of man should be a guard to the Law of God They who reign by God should reign for him Neh. 13.19 How unreasonable is it that people should be lawless only in Religion Shall it not be indifferent whether men will pay a tax And shall it be indifferent whether they will ever hear a Sermon It was a commendable decree of Artaxerxes though aheathen and that for which the faithfull servant of God blessed God That whosoever would not do the law of God judgment should be executed upon him to death to banishment Ezra 7.26.27 to confiscation of goods or imprisonment and of Darius Dan. 6.26 who decreed that in every dominion of his Kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel 2. By repressing the perveters of the faith Restraining hereticks and Seducers removing the impediments of Religion whether persons or things Nebuchadnezzar a heathen made a decree that none should speak any thing amiss against God 1 Kin. 15.12.13 2 Kin. 18.5 2 Kin. 23.8 2 Chro. 17.6 2 Chro. 31.1 Asa took away the Sodomits Idols and removed Maachah an idolatresse from being queen Hezekiah removed the high places and brake the images and cut down the groves So Josiah defiled the high places and brake them down Thus likewise Jehoshaphat took away the high places and groves out of Judah Thus also Manasseh took away the strange gods and the idol out of the house of the Lord and all the idols that he had built c. To these may be added zealous Nehemiah in repressing Sabboth-breakers Neh. 13.21 And the Apostle saith Rulers are a terrour to wicked works Rom. 13.3 3. By providing and maintaining a faithfull Ministry to dispense the doctrine of faith Thus did Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah 2 Chro. 17.8.9 2 Chro. 31.4 That Magistrate cannot contend for the faith which contends against the Ministers thereof Satan knowes no mean between the pampering and famishing of the Ministry double labour must not be requited with scarce a single maintenance Ministers should not labour for and yet not without a comfortable recompence They ought not to be left to the courtesie of those who though they account enough for themselves but a little yet they account a little for the Ministry too much It 's not enough for faithfull Ministers to be kept from being battered and storm'd by cruel persecuters unless also from being starved by the common protestants 2. Ministers must contend for the faith principally two wayes 1. 1 Tim. 6.3 Tit. 2.1 By preaching the word of faith they must preserve the pattern of wholsome words and speak the things which become sound doctrine They must take heed of their own mixtures and not adulterate the doctrine of faith to please men The beauty of heavenly truths wants not the paint either of humane or hereticall additions The babes of Christ must be fed with sincere milk and the sorenes of mens eyes must not hinder the lights of the Church from shining 2. By confuting gainsaiers and hereticks The Apostle commands Titus by sound doctrine to convince gainsayers Tit. 1.9.11 Ministers must not only have a voice to call their sheep but to drive away wolves one to establish truth 2 Cor. 13.8 another to oppose errour one of his hands must work and the other hold a weapon Christ confuted the corrupt glosses of the Pharisees and Paul confounded the Jewes by proving that this is the very Christ Act. 9.22 and Apollos mightily convinced the Jewes and that publikely shewing by the Scriptures
suffering them to enter among them he saith They were before ordained to this condemnation he thereby teaching that God was neither regardless and unmindfull of the Church nor indulgent to the false teachers or their false teachings 2. In setting down the impiety of these Seducers 1. He expresseth it more generally saying They were ungodly 2. More particularly he shews wherein that ungodlinesse appeared 1. In their abusing the grace of God Turning the grace c. 2. In their opposing the God of grace Denying the onely Lord c. 1 The Apostle describes the entrance of the seducers among the Christians Explicat And 1. He describes it from the nature of the parties entring They are men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The Apostle seems for two reasons to note the nature of these seducers calling them men Riv. in loc Me. lius sentiunt qui per hominis funes intelligunt omnem humanam amabilem tractationem qualis solet esse hominum erga homines Homines hominum causâ generati sunt ut ipsi inter se alii aliis prodesse possint Cic. l. 5. Offic. 1. To aggravate the sin of the seducers One man should be helpfull not hurtfull to another Man is a word used to denote goodness I drew them with the cords of a man saith God Hos 11.4 to express his gentleness toward the people And in our ordinary expression humanity is used for kind and helpfull carriage Cruelty to the body is more beseeming beasts but cruelty to the soul is fitter to be used by Divels than by men The nearer any one is to us the more heinous is the hurt which he offers us or we him Natura nos cognatos edidit Senec. Nature hath made us near of kin To be cruel and hurtfull to others is to put off the man as well as the Christian 2. To amplifie the danger of these Christians Men like our selves may most probably prevail over us by their seducements Non lupi silvestres sed urbani specie humanâ lupinam vitiositatem tegunt Were they Divels or beasts they might affright but being men they allure As it 's the wisdome of God to send us holy men to instruct us and win us to himself so it s the subtilty of Satan to send wicked men to seduce and draw us from God None hurt so unexpectedly and unavoydably as those who are near and sutable to our nature Seducers are Satans dequoyes to fetch men in to him by multiiudes 1. Observ 1. Sin hath made even man a hurtfull creature Not onely man hurtfull to beasts and beasts to man but man to man Even man who should be in stead of God a keeper a defender is by sin made a wolf a destroyer of man Man till sinfull was never harmfull Before he sin'd he naked neither fear'd nor offer'd wrong His sinless state will ever be known by the name of a state of innocency or hurtlesness 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sine cornibus non feriens cornibus Phil. 2.15 and when the lost image of God is again restored he is made a Lamb a Dove a harmless or as the word in the Originall signifies a hornless creature But how much more than brutishly cruel hath sin made man become witness not only the vast multitude of men destroyed in all ages by men and the incredibly exquisite tortures as wrackings sawings burnings c. against man invented by man as if sin had set up an hellish inquisition in mans nature but even the murders committed by Seducers and Hereticks upon the souls of men it being now as much against corrupt nature to go towards hell alone as to walk in the wayes of heaven at all Oh that we could contemplate the odiousnesse of sin in this glass of it's harmfulness 2. Observ 2. We should not content our selves in being meer men He who is and continues no more but a man had better never to have been so much as a man A man altogether without grace though otherwise never so exquisitely accomplished is but a tame divell and often most hurtfull How restlesse should we be till the divine nature be bestowed upon us 2 Per. 14. The naturall man or the man who hath no more than a rationall soul naturall abilities and perfections as he cannot receive so he can and will oppose the things of the Spirit of God Satan can as easily enter as assault a man meerly naturall And many who have had religious education and made hopefull beginnings yet having never been by a saving change of heart more then men have soon shewn themselves as bad almost as divels Nature elevated to the highest pitch by its most exquisite improvements is still but nature it may thereby be coloured over but grace can only change it 3. Observ 3. We should beware of those who are but meer naturall men and have nothing more or more excellent then humane nature It 's the Command of Christ to beware of men Mat. 10.17 Beware of them 1. lest they betray your liberties lives or externall welfare Naturae bonitas nisi pietate confirmetur facilè illabescit Cartw. Harm Christ committed not himselfe to man because he knew what was in man and let not us commit our selves to them because we know not what is in them Nature is a slippery thing and unlesse back'd by grace will prove but unsteady How oft have I seen found I had almost said that the love of acquaintance meerly naturall ends upon change of times either in persecution or at the best in cruell compassion in perswading to self-preservation by wracking conscience and offending God! 2. Especially let us beware lest they betray our souls by seducing them from God and truth Follow no man further than he follows God Look upon every man as a rule ruled not as a rule ruling Captivate thy understanding to none but God Take equall heed of receiving the word of God as the word of man and of receiving the word of man as the word of God The errour of the Master is the tentation of the scholer Love no man so much as to follow that of his which is not lovely in that sense call no man Master We must never beleeve errour when he speaks it nor truth because he speaks it 4. Satan is wont to make use of such instruments as Observ 4. may most probably do his work He loves to put upon himself the most taking and insinuating shape when he comes to tempt us He imployed the most subtill creature to convey his tentations to our first parents Ordinarily he makes use of men and most commonly of the fittest either for parts or seeming piety to work upon men He also hath his Apostles and Ministers to pervert the world 2 Cor. 11.13.15 transforming themselves into the Apostles of Christ and the Ministers of righteousnesse But how unworthy is it for men to suffer Satan to use their parts and wits against their Maker
urinator Herodot Luke 4.40 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 8.11 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1. First the meaning of the word The word comprehends two things 1. It implies a fact brought about accomplished which is an obtaining of a through entrance and getting into some place or company noted in the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in or into 2. It mainly intends the manner of accomplishing it or the course taken and used to effect and bring that entrance about which is by slynesse and subtilty close and cunning carriage and entrance unawares the single and simple verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth subeo mergo ingredior to dive sink to go in to go under and it 's used concerning the setting of the Sun as Mark 1.32 and Luke 4.40 c. because it seems then to sink or dive into the sea And the Apostle speaks of some 2 Tim. 3.6 who crept into houses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Vulg. qui penetrant i. e. qui penitus intrant Scire volunt secreta domus atque inde timeri Subrepserunt Bez. subintroierunt Vulg. Furtive se insinuare Latenter furtive ingredi Obiter subrepere Obliquè se ingerere tanquam aliud agentes ingredi adding only the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in to this verb 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Beza translates qui irrepunt others qui immergunt who subtilly silently slip in and dive as it were to the bottom to search and understand the affaires of houses as Jesuites use to do in States and Kingdoms But the principall Emphasis lieth in the preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which added to the former verb signifieth a more secret and subtle close and deceitfull manner of Seducers entrance than the simple word will bear and it imports their entrance in a by-way at a back-door theevishly by little and little clancularly unawares creepingly a winding in by stealth obliquely beside the way of any reall worth and fit qualifications of integrity and piety to further the spirituall welfare of the Church and beside the intentions of the faithfull who not knowing what manner of men these Seducers were but conceiving them by reason of their painted and specious appearances of godlinesse to be worthy of admission gave them entrance before they were aware And this is the force of the preposition 2 Pet. 2.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 they shall privily bring in heresies that is subtilly deceitfully and so as the Church should not be aware of them they bringing in their errours under the notion and appearance of truth The same force hath the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gal. 2.4 in two words in that one verse where the Apostle speaks of false brethren 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 unawares brought in who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 came in privily Irreptitios subintroductos obiter ingressos subintroductitios c. They crept into the company of the faithfull by fraud and such cunning artifices specious and plausible pretences that the faithfull never went about to keep them out for though in both these places of Jude and Galatians their coming in might not be unawares so as that the faithfull knew not at all of their coming in yet it was unawares so as that they knew not what manner of persons how unworthy and hereticall c. they were when they did come in among them 2. The second thing to be explained is the agreement of the word thus opened to the Seducers in their entrance among these Christians 1. It agrees to them in regard they had already gotten in they were fully entred by their artifices they had obtained footing in the Church And the Apostle urgeth these Christians by this motive of the nearnesse of these seducers to them and their presence among them that they should be the more strenuous in contending against them God had suffered them to obtain entrance that those Christians who were approved might be made manifest The sincerity of the faithfull was discovered by the apostacy of hypocrites When a City is altogether in peace all the Inhabitants are accounted faithfull and loyall but when seditions and commotions arise they who are faithfull to the Prince are then discovered from the rest And when heresies and persecutions for the truth arise the sincerity of the faithfull is manifested by the defection of those who in times of peace seem'd haply as good as the best Thou shalt not saith God to his people hearken to the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams for the Lord your God proveth you to know whether you love the Lord your God c. And by the entrance of these seducers the faithfull were more excited to search after and to defend the truth Both the sincerity of believers and the truths to be believed were made more evident Nothing is so certain as that which out of doubtfulnesse is made certain The Sun of truth breaks most clearly out of a cloud of errours * Pet. Molin in Epist dedic ad Enodation Languesceret fides no irritata ex judiciorum conflictu quasi ex collisione silicum emicant veritatis scintillae quae tandem victrix perrumpit obstantia Debemus Pelagio coelestio Aureolos tractatus Augustini de praedestinatione de natura gratia perseverantia Pravum haereticorum acumen viri sancti acuebat industriam Aug. de ver rel c. 8. Haeretici plurimum prosunt non verum docendo quod nesciunt sed ad verum quaerendum carnales ad verum aperiendum spirituales catholicos excitando The clashing of the faithfull and erroneous like the striking of flint and steel sends forth the brightly shining sparks of truth Yea further God by the entrance of these hereticks made both them and their hypocriticall followers manifest to the world that so they might at once both patefacere and pudefacere as Pareus speaks on 1 Cor. 11.19 discover and disgrace themselves before all men who hereby might know and shun them By the entrance also of these seducers the faithfull saw that this world was not a place of locall separation from all wicked ones and were incited to long for that place where good and bad shall be perfectly parted 2. The word here used of creeping in unawares agrees to these seducers in regard of the manner of their entrance which was close subtle hypocriticall and unawares without any fitness in themselves to enter or any intention in the faithful to admit them they only using many slie and sinfull artifices to bring both their persons and pinions into reputation among the faithfull by reason of which both were suffered unawares to enter although indeed both deserved to be kept out before and thrown out after their entrance This practise in the generall of insinuating creeping and winding unawares into the society and estimations of the faithfull hath been used both by these and all other seducers and therefore 2 Cor. 11.13 Paul cals
these false Apostles deceitfull workers Satan using them for his instruments to beguile as sometime he did the Serpent which beguiled Eve Likewise Rom. 16.18 Paul saith that they deceive the hearts of the simple And Acts 20.30 that they draw many disciples after them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 By these Gal. 3.1 the Galatians were bewitched These would have beguiled the Colossians Col. 2.18 They have their slight and cunning craftinesse whereby they lie in wait to deceive Ephes 4.14 They creep into houses and lead captive silly women 2 Tim. 3.6 They are seducers and deceiving ver 13. False teachers privily bringing in damnable heresies 2 Pet. 2.1 And they make merchandise of people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ver 3. And they allure ver 18. those who were clean c. But more particularly the by-wayes in which they go the subtle artifices and insinuations by whith they creep into the company and good opinions of the Church and deceitfully enter unawares are such as these 1. They conceal their opinions Vid. Aug. contr Pelag. l. 1. Pelagius dixit liberum sic confitemur arbitrium ut dicamus nos semper indigere Dei auxilio ita homi nis laudamus naturam ut Dei semper gratiam addamus auxilium Anathema qui docet gratiam Dei per singulos actus nostros non esse necessariam Diligenter est interrogandus Pelagius quam dicat gratiam quâ fateatur homines adjuvari c. Mihi paenè persuaserat hanc illam gratiam de qua quaestio est confiteri Aug. de gra Christ c. 37. In fraudem nomen Christi circumferunt Hos 7.8 especially at their first entrance Either they totally forbear the delivering of errours or else they deliver them so darkly cloudily and ambiguously as that they may finde subterfuges and places for retreating whensoever they are charged with them They love to know but are wary in being known like Moles they labour to spoil the ground by keeping under ground It 's often harder to finde them than to overcome them Their words and phrases have divers senses the same sentence shall speak both truth and falshood so that their disciples shall understand them one way and the ingenuous hearer shall hope that they meant another by reason of which deceit they resemble some light-fingerd-dealers who can steal even from those who look upon them Augustine was sometime almost well perswaded concerning Pelagius so seemingly orthodoxe were his expressions about grace 2. They utter some reall and wholsome truths Their custome is to mix something true with much that is false that thereby they may put off one with another The false Apostles taught Christ joyning some other thing with him in the cause of salvation and so the Papists at this day Their doctrines like that cake which Hosea saith was not turned are neither raw nor baked i. e. neither altogether true nor altogether false or like a picture which seems beautifull on the one side and deformed on the other or like the commodities of some deceitfull chapmen the top the uppermost of the bag is good and vendible but the wares which are under are corrupt and unsound or as that image the head is of gold but the feet of iron and clay Errour would never be honour'd before the people unlesse it were seen in the company of truth As a man who is often taken in a lie is not believed when he speaks the truth so he who is often observ'd to speak truth is not mistrusted though he somtimes utters what is false 3. They preach doctrines pleasing to corrupt nature 2 Pet. 2.18 such as are most delightfull to flesh and bloud They know that naturally people cannot endure sound doctrine Isai 30.10 2 Tim. 4.3 2 Cor. 2.17 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 desire not to have right things prophesied to them but smooth things and deceits and therefore they corrupt and deal deceitfully with the word like deceitfull Vintners who for gain mix water with their wine meer truth they know would be bitter truth veritas mera veritas amara and therefore they are more desirous to be sweet and unsound than harsh and wholsome suting their doctrines as some fable of the taste of the Manna in the wildernesse to the pleasure of every pallate Hence it was that the false Apostles preach'd up circumcision and other abrogated observations because they knew such doctrines only would be savoury to Jewish pallates And hence it was that these seducers preached doctrines of liberty and licentiousnesse 2 Pet. 2.19 Jude 4. and such as turned the grace of God into lasciviousnesse making the narrow way to heaven seem broader then God ever intended it holding before peoples eyes the spectacles of carnall liberty wherby in their passage over the narrow bridge of Christianity they adventuring upon a supposed bredth tumble down into the waters of perdition 4. They deliver such doctrines as savour of novelty The subjects of which they treat must be represented as rare and unusuall to accomplish which either they put upon them a new dresse a new shape and fashion of words and expressions or they deliver either that which is false and against Scripture they chusing rather to be erroneous than not to be rare and often venting for new truths old errours new drest or that which is nice and very uncertainly grounded upon Scripture they preferring a doubtfull before a common way well knowing that usuall truths will not sute with itching eares If the doctrines which they deliver be old and ordinary truths they often as men use to do by old stuffes water them over with new expressions strange and new-minted phrases not savouring of Scripture-simplicity or agreeable to the pattern of wholsome words 5. They labour to work the godly and orthodox Ministers out of the affections of their hearers They erect a building of honour for themselves upon the ruins of the reputation of such who deserve to stand when they are ruin'd Well they know 2 Cor. 10.10 as long as the messenger is loved the message is not like to be loathed They had much rather stand in the peoples light than that a godly Minister should stand in theirs Omnis apostata est osor sui Ordinis The greatest enemies to true have ever been false teachers Thus it was of old Michaiah and Jeremiah had the one a Zedekiah the other a Pashur to smite them And as the practice of smiting with the tongue at least still continues Amos 7.10 so doth the pretence of that practice Hence 't is that faithfull Ministers must be represented as the disturbers and troublers of Church and State though the true reason why turbulent practices against the peace of both are by false prophets condemned a good work is that they may get all the practice to themselves while the peaceable servants of Christ are only suspected Non accuso verba tanquam vasa pretiosa fed vinum quod in illis
the barren wildernesse and they are by God compared to drossie silver Jer. 6.28 which all the art and pains of the Silver-smith cannot refine and therefore called reprobate silver These seducers in Gods Ort-yard were trees without fruit twice dead pluck'd up by the roots Jude 12. 4. A fourth woe in this condemnation is Gods giving them up to strong delusion a delighting in errour and false doctrine with a believing it and thus seducers are said not only to deceive but to be deceived 2 Tim. 3.13 2 Thes 2.10 11. and those who received not the love of the truth had strong delusion sent them from God and upon them the deceivablenesse of unrighteousnesse takes hold and thus God suffered a lying spirit to deceive Ahab and his prophets 5. A fifth woe in this condemnation is a stumbling at and a quarrelling with the word of life 1 Pet. 2.8 and Christ the rock of salvation Thus Paul speaks of some who were contentious and obeyed not the truth Rom. 2.8 and of seducers who resist the truth 2 Tim. 3.8 Like these in Jude who contended so muth against the faith that all which Christians could do was little enough to contend for it against those who made the Gospel a plea for licenciousnesse 6. A sixth woe in this condemnation is progressiveness in sin 2 Tim. 3.13 and as the Apostle speaks of seducers a waxing worse and worse a walking so far into the sea of sin as at length to be over head and eares a descending to the bottom of the hill a daily treasuring up wrath a proficiency in Satans school a growing artificially wicked and even doctors of impiety 7. Which lastly will prove the great and heavy woe not to be contented to be wicked and to go to hell alone but to be leaders to sin 2 Tim. 3.13 and to leaven others with impiety and thus Paul saith that seducers were deceiving as well as deceived 2 Pet. 2.2 And Peter that many shall follow their pernicious wayes And certainly impiety propagated shall be condemnation heightned 2. Why is this punishment of seducers called Condemnation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the cause for the effect I grant Condemnation is properly the sentence or censure condemning one to some punishment and though in this place it be taken for the very punishment it selfe yet fitly doth the Spirit of God set out this punishment of wicked men by a word that notes a sentencing them thereunto And that 1. Because a sentence of condemnation is even already denounced against them 2. Because it is such a punishment as by judiciary sentence is wont to be inflicted upon guilty offenders 1. It is really and truly denounced c. For besides Gods fore-appointing the wicked to this condemnation as it is the punishment of sin the execution of his justice wicked men are in this life sentenced to punishment 1. By the word of God which tels them that God will render to every man according to his deeds to them who do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousnesse indignation and wrath Rom. 2.8 c. And that he who believeth not is condemned already John 3.18 2. By their own conscience which accuseth and condemneth as Gods Deputy and here tels them what they deserve both here and hereafter If our hearts condemne us c. 1 John 3.20 c. 3. By the judgements of God manifested against those who have lived in the same sins the wrath of God being revealed against all unrighteousnesse Rom. 1.18 4. By the contrary courses of the godly The practices of Saints really proclaiming that because the wayes of the wicked are sinfull and destructive therefore they avoid them Mat. 12.41 42. and thus Noah sentenced the old world by being a practicall Preacher of righteousnesse 2 Pet. 2.5 And all these sentencings of wicked men do but make way for that last and great sentence to be pronounced at the day of judgment Mat. 7.23 Mat. 25.41 to the punishment both of eternall losse and pain 2. It is such a punishment as by judiciary sentence is wont to be executed upon guilty offenders and so it is in two respects 1. Because it is Righteous 2. Severe 1. Righteous These Seducers were not spiritually punished without precedent provocations Rom. 1.28 as they did not like to retaine God in their knowledge God gave them over to a reprobate mind 2 Thes 2.10 and God sends them justly strong delusions that they should beleeve and teach a lie because they received not the love of the truth and because they would not be Scholers of truth they justly become Masters of error 2. The punishment of wicked men is such as is wont to be inflicted upon offenders by a sentence because of its weight and severity It is not 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not a paternall chastisement or a rebuke barely to convince of a fault but it 's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Judges sentence condemning to a punishment the guilty Malefactor It is not medicinall but penall not the cutting of a Chirurgian but of a Destroyer the happinesse of correction stands in teaching us but this punishment is the giving of sinners up to unteachablenesse and what is it indeed but a hell on this side hell for God to withdraw his grace and to suffer men to be as wicked as they will to be daily damning themselves without controle to bee carried down to the gulf of perdition both by the wind of Satans tentation and which is worse the tide of sinfull inclination For God to say Be and do as bad as you will be filthy still Rev. 22.11 sleep on now and take your rest I le never jog nor disturb you in your sins How sore a judgment is it to be past feeling so as that nothing cooler than hel fire and lighter then the loyns of an infinite God can make us sensible though too late OBSERVATIONS 1. Observ 1. The condemnation of the wicked is begun in this life As heaven so hell is in the seed before it is in the fruit The wicked on this side hell are tunning and treasuring up that wrath Rom. 2.5 which hereafter shall be broached and revealed The wicked have even here hell in its causes The old bruises which their souls by sin have received in this life will be painfull when the change of weather comes when God alters their condition by death When thy lust asks How canst thou want the pleasure let thy faith answer by asking another question How can I bear the pain of such a sin Observ 2. Tristitia nostra quasi habet quia in somnis tranfit Qui somnium indicat addit quasi quasi sedebam quasi loquebar quasi equitabā quia cum evigelaverit non invenit quod videbat Quasi thesaurum inveneram dicit mendicus si quasi non esset mendicus non
The sharpest knife grows blunt without whetting the most honest debtor sometimes wants calling on The Apostle Peter puts the Christians in remembrance to stir up even their pure minds 2 Pet. 3.1 The freest Christian sometime wanteth the spur Our very sanctified affections are like heated water which of it self grows cold but neither retains nor increaseth its heats unlesse the fire be put under and blown up Good things in the heart lie as embers under ashes and need daily stirring up OBSERVATIONS 1. Great is the sin of those who contemn repeated truths Observ 1. A Christian must not have an itching but an humble and obedient ear Sinfull is that curiositie that despiseth a wholesome truth because it 's common Truths delivered of old may possibly now be freshly usefull and those delivered now may be helpfull in old age or on our death-beds Who would neglect a friend that may stand him in stead hereafter Every truth like a Lease brings in revenue the next year as well as this He that knows truth never so fully knows no hurt by it nay the more he knows the more of worth he sees in it How foolish are those Christians who count no doctrine good but what is new who as 't is storied of Heliogabalus cannot endure to eat twice of one dish How just will it be for want to overtake the wantoness of these hearers 2. Observ 2. Christians must not only receive but retain also the truths of God Our Memories must be heavenly store-houses and treasuries of precious truths not like hour-glasses which are no sooner full but they are running out The commandments must be bound upon our hearts and holy instructions like Books in a Library must be chained to our memories Keep these words in the midst of thy heart saith Solomon Prov. 4.21 And I have hid thy word in my heart that I might not sin against thee saith David Psal 119.11 The slipperinesse of our memories causeth many slips in our lives Peter forgot his Master and then forgot himself First he forgot the word of a Master and then he forgot the duty of a servant Conscience cannot be urged by that truth which memory doth not retain The same truths which being taken in begat our graces being kept in will increase our graces To help us in remembring heavenly truths Let us 1. be reverent and heedfull in our attentions as receiving a message from God He who regards not a truth in hearing how shall he retain it afterward 2. Let us love every heavenly truth as our treasure Delight helps memory Psal 119.16 and what we love we keep 3. Our memories should not be taken up with vanities A Christian should be most carefull to keep that which Satan is most industrious to steal away and he is like a theef breaking into an house who takes not away earthen vessels but plate and jewels Satan empties not the head of worldly trifles but of the most precious things The Memory which is fill'd onely with earthly concernments is like a golden Cabinet fill'd with dung 4. Let Instruction be followed with meditation prayer conference Deut. 6.6.7 Psa 119.97 and holy conversation by all these it is hid in the heart the more deeply and driven home the more throughly 3. Observ 3. There is a constant necessitie of a consciencious Ministry People know and remember but in part and as children and till that which is imperfect be done away we cannot spare ministeriall remembrances We shall want Pastors teachers Eph. 4.12.13 c. till we all meet c. in a perfect man And there are none weary of the Ministry but they who love not to be remembred of their duty Of this before 4. The forgetfulnesse of the people Observ 4. must not discourage the Minister A Boat is not to be cast up and broken in pieces for every leak the dullest and weakest hearer must not be cast off for his crazy memory but pitied The very Lambs of Christ must be fed the feeblest child in his house attended Paul was gentle among the Christians even as a nurse cherisheth her children If the preaching of a truth once will not serve the turn if it be not understood or remembred the first time Ministers must declare it more plainly the next time and put people in remembrance again and again 5. Observ 5. The work of Ministers is not to contrive Doctrines but to recall them They should deliver what they have received not what they have invented Their power is not to make but manifest laws for the conscience That good thing saith Paul to Timothie which was committed to thee keep c. Ministers are not Masters but Stewards of the mysteries of God Thus much the first part of the preface The duty of the Apostle The second follows the commendation of the Christians Yee once knew this EXPLICATION It may be demanded Why the Apostle saith that the Christians once knew this following example of the Israelites of which hee puts them in remembrance The Apostle mentions this knowledg of the Christians that he may gain their good will and favourable respect to the truth of which he was now speaking and that his arguing from these examples might the more easily find entertainment with them For by saying that they knew this 1. He labours to win them to a love of himself by commending them and acknowledging that good to be which he saw in them He commends them for their knowledg and expertnesse in scripture and declares that he spake not to rude ignorant but to expert Christians 2. He gains the reputation of certainty to the truths of which he was speaking he appealing for this to their own knowledg which was so clear herein Concerning the word once I have spoken largely before pag. 231 232. that he amplifieth it by saying that they knew it once that is certainly unchangeably and once for all never to revoke and alter this knowledg and both these insinuations useth Paul to the Corinthians 1 Cor. 10.15 I speak as to wise men judg ye what I say And to Agrippa for the gaining his favour to that cause which he there defended Acts 26.3 I think my selfe happy that I shall answer for my selfe before thee c. because I know thee to be expert in all customes and questions which are among the Jews And ver 26. The king knoweth of these things before whom I speak freely 3. By saying that they knew this he prevents the objection which might be made against what he was about to speak in regard that it was old and ordinary he insinuating that of set purpose be did produce a known and ancient truth rather then a new and unheard of uncertainty OBSERVATIONS 1 Knowledg is very commendable in a Christian For this the Romans are chap. 15.14 commended I am perswaded brethren that ye are full of goodnesse 1 Cor. 1.5 filled with all knowledg For this grace given to the
Corinthians 2 Tim. 3.15 the Apostle blesseth God The knowledg of the scripture from a child was the praise of Timothy True wisdom gives to the head an Ornament of grace and a crown of glory it makes the face to shine Pro. 4.9 Eccles 8.1 When the Apostle saith that some had not the knowledg of God 1 Cor. 15.34 he spake it to their shame How little to the honour of others was that complaint of the Apostle that when for the time Heb. 5.12 they ought to be teachers of others they had need that one should teach them again which be the first principles c. And as Paul speaks of some Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledg of the truth 2 Tim. 3.7 The whole life of an ignorant person is an aberration from the rule Gal. 6.16 he sayls by no Card. All his actions are wild and roving wandrings His sacrifice is the sacrifice of a fool Psal 119.5 and devout idolatry He cannot pray unlesse it be to the unknown God He cannot beleeve Rom. 10.14 for only they can trust God who know his name Psal 9.10 John 4.10 Nor can he fear and love God or desire Christ Wait therefore on the ordinances O ye ignorant ones with humble hungry souls Be wisdomes Clyents Prov. 8.34 Psal 25.9 1 Pet. 2.3 Purge your hearts of conceits of a Laodicean fulnesse God teacheth only the humble Tast the sweetnesse of divine truths Lay up what ye hear Not he who gets but hee who saves much is the rich man Yeild conscionable obedience to that of Gods will which you know Hold not the truth in unrighteousnesse The more you practice what you know the more shall you know what to practice Knowledg is the mother of obedience and obedience is the nurse of knowledg The former breeds the later the later feeds the former And yet put not off your selves with every kind of knowledge labour for a soul humbling knowledge Job ult 5.6 1 Cor. 8.2 Job 5. ult Prov. 9.12 The more the light shines into you the more you must see your own imperfections Every man is so much a fool as he thinks himself wise Let your knowledg be applicative If ye be wise bee wife for your selves Let not knowledg swim in the brain but sink into the heart Endeavour to possesse for thine own Psal 119.104 Joh. 13.17 1 Joh 2.3 the good of every threatning command promise Let your knowledg be influentiall into heart and life not informing only but reforming not as the light of torches which scatter no influences where they shine but as the light of the sun which makes the earth and plants green and growing He who is rich in knowledg must be plentiful in holiness and not like the rich Indians who have much gold in their possessions and go naked and beggarly In a word let your knowledg be useful and helpfull to others Know not to know that 's curiosity nor to be known that 's vain glory but to do good by your knowledg that 's Christian charity Knowledg increaseth in pouring out And as some have experimentally found it the Teacher learnes more by the Scholer than the Scholer by the Teacher 2 Ministers ought to commend their peoples proficiencies in holinesse Observ 2. Jude here mentions the knowledge of the Christians to their praise When people do what is commendable Ministers should commend what they doe If the former finde matter Rom. 15.15 1 Cor. 11.2 the later should find words I am perswaded of you saith Paul to the Romans that ye are full of goodnesse And I praise you brethren saith he to the Corinthians that you remember me c. A Ministers prudent commendation wins that love to his person without which the best doctrine is often but unprofitable Rare is it to find that Christian who embraceth a message which is brought him from a messenger not beloved A wise commendation will make a Reproof go down the better Constant chiding is like Physick which being too frequently taken grows naturall and therefore proves not operative Ministers should be wise in chusing a fit object for commendation the commendable actions of every one must not be presently commended some can lesse bear the sweetnesse of praise then they can the bitternesse of reproof A little wine will turn a weak brain Nor should we commend any to flatter but benefit them to encourage the humble not to content the proud But truly Christians 't were happy for Ministers if the time you make them spend in weeping and reproving they might fill with encouraging and cheering you The work and delight of a Minister is with the Bee to give honey he puts not forth the sting unlesse you by sin provoke him Of this more pag. 183. 184. 3. Observ 3. Col. 3.16 Joh 5.39 Rom. 15.4 Acts 17.11 Every private Christian should be acquainted with the Scripture It 's sinfull to clasp up the Scriptures in an unknown tongue The end of the writing the Scriptures was the instruction of every one None are so much commended in Scripture as those who most diligently search'd into it To private Christians Paul writes sundry Epistles The study of Scripture is usefull and needfull to people as well as Ministers Illumination Conversion Direction preservation from sin Psal 19.8.9 Psal 119.24 belong to the one as well as to the other and if for the abuse of Scripture the use thereof should be denyed to people why would Christ and his Apostles preach and write to those who perverted and wrested their doctrines yea why should not the reading of Scripture be deny'd not only to ignorant Monks and Priests but erroneous Clerks and Bishops from whom by abuse of Scripture most heresies have proceeded But whether Satan hath not by his methods wrought us into the other extreme when in stead of generall restraint from reading he puts people upon a generall liberty of preaching and expounding the Scripture our present distractions sufficiently witnesse 4. Observ 4. The knowledg of truth is a strong engagement upon Christians to embrace and love it The Apostle from their knowing the examples hopefully expects that they will lay them to heart Truth known and not loved is unprofitable Not he who knows a trade but follows it grows rich It will fare ill enough with the ignorant worse with the obstinate and many stripes are reserved for the opposing of much knowledg But of this before 5. Observ 5. Ministers ought not to content the curiosity but to consult the benefit of their hearers They should rather deliver Truths old and usefull then doctrines new and unprofitable Their work is not to please the Athenian but to profit the Christian They are not Cooks but Physicians and therefore should not study to delight the pallat but to recover the Patient they must not provide sawce but physick If to preach the same things be safe it matters not whether
vintage of a judgment he leaves the gleanings of grapes upon the Vine of his Church Hee never shakes his Olive tree so throughly but he leaves at least two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough four or five in the outmost branches Isa 17.6 Though I make a full end of all Nations whither I have driven thee Jer. 30.11 Jer. 46.28 yet will I not make a full end of thee but correct thee in measure yet will I not leave thee wholly unpunished Let not Israel presume upon mercy if they will sin but yet let them not despair of mercy though they suffer God will not cast off his people Ps 94.14 Though the destruction of his Israel be never so great yet it shall never be totall and should many fall yet all shall not the cause the interest of Christ shall not and though possibly in a wildernesse of common calamities the carcasses of some of his owne may fall among others so as they may never live to enter the Canaan of a longed for peace and reformation in this life yet by faith ascending up to the Nebo of a promise they may behold it afar off and see it possessed by their posterity they themselves mean while repenting of their unbelief and unworthinesse and so entring that heavenly Canaan where they shall enjoy the fulness of that which here they could have enjoyed but in part The third branch of the example of the Israelites is the cause of their destruction viz their infidelity contained in these words That beleeved not EXPLICATION For the Explication whereof two things are considerable 1. In what respect these Israelites are here said not to beleeve 2. Why they were punished for this their not believing rather then for any other sin I. For the first Unbeleevers 1. are frequently in Scripture taken for Pagans and Heathens 1 Tim. 5.8 2 Cor. 6.14 15 1 Cor. 14.23 who are alwayes without the profession of the Faith and oft without the very offer of the Word the means of knowing that Faith which is to be professed and then it s termed an unbelief of pure negation 2. Unbeleevers are said to be such who though they professe the faith and hear and know the word yet deny that credence to it which God requires and their unbeleef called an unbeleef of evill disposition is either a deniall of assent to the truths asserted in the word or of trust and affiance to the promises of good contained in the same and both these are either temporary or totall and perpetuall Into the former sometimes the elect may fall as particularly did those two disciples who by their unbeleef drew from Christ this sharp reproofe Luk. 24.25 Mark 16.11.13.14 O fools and slow of heart to beleeve all that the prophets have written And for this it was that Christ upbraided the eleven when they beleeved not them who had seen him after he was risen Luk. 1.20 And of righteous Zecharie is it said that he beleeved not those words which were to be fulfill'd in their season Into that unbeleef which is totall and habituall Joh. 6.64.65 Joh. 10.25.26 Jo. 12.37.38.39 the reprobabate only fall of whom Christ speaks Ye beleeve not because yee are not of my sheep and afterward the Evangelist They beleeved not nay they could not beleeve because that Isaias said he hath blinded their eyes c. as also Act. 10.9 divers were hardned and beleeved not These abide in unbelief John 3. ult and the wrath of God abideth on them This unbeleef of the Israelites did principally consist in their not yeelding trust and affiance to the gracious and faithful promises made by God to their forefathers and often renewd to themselves of bestowing upon them the land of Canaan for their inheritance Vide Numb Chapters 13. and 14. These promises upon the report of the spies concerning the strength of the Canaanites and their Cities were by the people so far distrusted and deemed so impossible to be fulfilled as that they not only wish'd that they had dyed in Egypt but resolved to make them a Captain to return thither again And probable it is that the unbeleef of the most was perpetnal Certumest complures fuisse pios qui vel communi impietate non fuerunt impliciti vel mox resipuerunt Cal. in Heb. 3.18 but that others even of those who at the first and for a time did distrust the faithfulnesse of Gods promise by the threatnings and punishments denounced against and inflicted upon them repented afterward of their infidelity and so beleeved that God was faithfull in his promise though they by reason of their former unbelief did not actually partake of the benefit thereof However this their sin of distrustfulnesse was their great and capitall sin that sin like the Anakims which they so feared much taller than the rest and which principally was that provocation in the wildernesse spoken of so frequently in the Scripture Heb. 3.8.12 16.18 Psal 95 8. Incredulitas malorum omnium caput Cal. in Heb. 3.18 And hence it is that God explaines this provoking him by not beleeving him How long saith he Numb 14.11 will this people provoke me how long will it be ere they beleeve me and that it was their great stop in the way to Canaan is evident in that the punishment of exclusion from Canaan was immediately upon their unbeleef inflicted upon them as also by the expresse testimony of the Apostle who saith that they could not enter in because of unbelief II. For the second Why they were destroyed rather for their unbelief then for other sins 1. Their unbelief was the root and fountain of all the rest of their sins Heb. 3.12 Jer. 17.5 This evill heart of unbelief made them depart from the living God by their other provocations All sins would be bitter in the acting if we beleeved that they would be bitter in their ending Faith is the shield of every grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 2.7 8. Acts 15.9 and Unbelief the shield of every sin Faith purifies Unbelief pollutes the heart Vnbeleevers and disobedient are in the Greek expressed by one word Heb. 11.31 What but unbelief was the cause of all those impatient murmurings of the Israelites Had they beleeved a faithfull God Num. 14.27 they would quietly have waited for the accomplishment of his promises Had they believed in him who is Alsufficient they would in the want of all means of supply have look'd upon them as laid up in God The reason why they made such sinfull haste to get flesh was because their unbelieving heart thought that God could not furnish a table in the wildernesse What but their not believing a great and dreadfull Majestie made them so fearlesly rebellious against God and their Governours What but their not believing an All-powerfull God made them to fear the Gyants and walled Cities of Canaan Faith went out and fear and every sin got
wisedome they are termed by Philosophers Daemons and Intelligences admitable is their knowledg naturall experimentall revealed The widow of Tekoah told David that he was wise according to the wisdome of an angel of God 1 Sam. 29.9 2 Sam. 19.27 to know all things on the earth And when the Scripture attributes the highest praise to inferiour creatures the comparisons are borrowed from the angels The king of Tyrus is called an annointed Cherub Ezek. 28.14 Mat. 11.10 Rev. 2.1 Act. 6.15 Videtur haec apud Judeos pa. raemialis locutio Lorin in Act. 6. Psal 78.25 The most eminent among men are called angels David admiring mans glory breaks forth thus Thou hast made him little lower than the angels They saw the face of Stephen as if it had been the face of an angel If I speak saith Paul with the tongues of angels If they had tongues they would speak incomparably better than the most eloquent Oratour Man did eat angels food But the higher the created excellencies of angels were the lower did sin pull them down Sin will make one who is an angell for perfections and priviledges to become a divell for impiety and punishment If an angel sins he makes himself a divell if he falls he falls as low as hell The more accomplish'd any one is with abilities when that is wanting which should sanctifie and season them the more destructive their abilities become to themselvs and others The better the weapon is which a mad man holds the more dangerous is his company Nothing more precious and beneficiall than an Uuicorns horn in the Apothecaries shop but nothing more deadly than it when used by the fierce creature to wound men None have done the Church of God so much hurt or tempted so many to sin as some whom we may call faln angels who by their places were the Lords messengers and for their knowledg as the woman of Tekoah said of David 1 Sam. 14.17 Ingenium Galbaemalè habitat like an angel of God Great pity that their abilities had so bad a lodging and that either their heads should be so good or their hearts no better Whom hath the divel made use of in all ages for Heresiarcks and ringleaders into heresie and prophanesse but faln angels Popes Popish prelates Jesuites and men reputed at least for subtilty and often for piety But the eminency of their abused parts and places Non datur sal salis ejus deperdita vis non potest restitui makes a dismall addition to their wretchednesse None hath God left to fall so irrecoverably nor is the lost savour of this salt againe to be restored for what salt is there that shall season unsavoury salt Nor hath God spared to throw some of them the popish Apostates already on a dunghill of disgrace and made them trampled on by all and without repentance the present seducers must look for the same reward In a publick Minister of Church or State smallest sins are abominations blasphemies God will be sanctified in those who draw near to him in any eminency of employment If a Princeh ave servants in places remote from his person he looks they should not disgrace him by their carriage but if they wait upon him at his table then he expects more exactnesse of deportment from them God looks for holinesse in all his servants but most of all in his angels Those whom he prefers to places of ministry and nearest service about himself The second particular considerable in the revolt of the angels is from what they made their defection 1. From their first estate 2. From their own habitation EXPLICATION 1. For the Explication of the former These words first estate are in the Greek contained in one word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Augusti principium clade variana memorabile factum Suet. in Octav. In Graeco principii vocabulum quod est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 non tantum ordinatiâ— vum sed potestativuâ—â— capit principatum unde 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 dicunt Principes Magistratus Tert. advers Hermog Sunt quidem adhue inter Angelos malos 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ephes 6.12 sed infernales non coetestes Geth in 2 Pet. 2. which sometime signifies principality sometimes and most properly beginning And hence it is that Oecumenius and some others conceive that the angels are here said to leave their principality height eminency principall dignity which they had by creation above all the creatures angels being by Paul call'd Col. 1.16 principallities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 This interpretation saith Junius seems too narrow though not altogether as Beza thinks to be excluded Others by this beginning understand God himself who was the author of their first being but this seems to be an harsh phrase and expression to make the keeping of their beginning Non servaverunt suam originem id est rectitudinem in quâ conditi erant q. d. justitiam originâ—lem Est inâ—â— 2. Sentent dist 3. or first estate to be the adhering to and acquiescing in God who gave them their first being The best interpretation and that which is most agreeable to the scope both of these and other Scriptures seems to be that which makes this their first estate to be that originall and primitive condition of angels not as they are substances spirituall and immortall for such even the fallen angels are but as they were created with their originall holinesse righteousnesse or integrity of nature in which respect the Elect angels which were preserved from falling are called the angels of God of the Son of man holy and such as behold the face of God This first estate which Jude saith these wicked angels kept not Christ expresseth by this one word Truth where he saith Joh. 8.44 that the divell did not abide in the truth and hath no truth in him By truth in this place is to be understood that righteousnesse and true holinesse holinesse of truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 wherein stands the image of God Eph. 4.24 nor is it unusuall in Scripture to expresse that rectitude of heart and life which is bestowed upon renewed persons by the word truth Remember saith Hezekiah 2 King 20.2 how I have walked before thee in truth And fitly may holinesse be called truth in regard it neither deceives him in whom it is by false hopes nor any other by meer shewes Bonam voluntatem in eis quis fecerat nisi ille qui eos cum bonâ voluntate id est cum amore casto quo illi adhaererent crea vit simul in eis condens naturam largiens gratiam Aug.l. 11. de Civ D. c. 11. Sicut lapsus corporum fingi non petest nisi è loco superiore ita lapsus animorum non est nisi à quadam celsitudine boni quam prius habuerint Quòd de coelo cecidisse diabolus in scripturâ dicitur non tam ad localem motum referrendum est quam ad mutationem ejus
falling of these angels from their originall holinesse and intended by the Apostle to be the effect thereof as if because they kept not their naturall integrity they therefore forsook their appointed duty and office wherein God had set them For as * Natura angelorum quum non posset esse otiosa non amplius inclinat et agit in iis quibus privata est sed in contrariis Positâ privatione hac effectiones ejus in isto genere poni necesse est Itaque optimè Christus privationi huic 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 impotentem incl nationem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 actionem inclinationis istius attexuit dicens Verit as non est in eo à principio homicida fuit Jun. in Jud. Junius well notes These angels having deprived their nature of what good was in it before since it could not be idle it did not now incline to and act in former but contrary ways and imployments for that privation being put the effects thereof must needs follow accordingly in the same kind as a man being blind sutable effects and operations will succeed Hence it is that Christ to this privation of holinesse and not abiding in the truth most fitly annexeth the impotent inclination of the divell to sin in these words There is no truth in him and the action whereby he express'd that inclination which was in being a murderer By reason of this defection then from his originall holinesse he became a lyar an adversary to God and all his a tempter a murderer a spirit of uncleannesse a slanderer a divell So that from the former privative action of forsaking his primitive integrity as from a fountain flowed a voluntary and uncessant acting sutable thereunto and opposite to the duty which at the first God appointed him And now for the high nature of this offence of the angels in leaving their own habitation needs must it be answerable to the forementioned cause thereof viz. The revolting from their originall integrity Bitter was that stream which came from such a fountain how high a contempt of God was this 1. To slight the place of his presence in which is fulnesse of joy and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore Psal 16. ult If it be an heinous sin not to attaine that presence when we are without it how unsufferable a provocation is it to despise it when we have it The presence of God is heaven upon earth and the heaven of heaven The forsaking of this was the despising of all good at once even of that which was able to satisfie all the desires and capacities of all the creatures to the brim Nay the glorious perfections of God satisfie God himselfe and if they can fil the sea how much more a little vessel 2. Heinous was the impiety of these angels in leaving their own habitation as it was a forsaking of that office and station wherein God had placed them Job 1.6 1. They were the creatures nay the sons of God He made them and therefore it was their duty to serve him the homage of obedience was due to God for their very beings He gave them those hands which he imployed he planted in them those endowments of which he desired the increase 2. They were of the highest rank of all the creatures If he expected work from the weakest worm how much more might he do so from the strongest angel If God required the tax of obedience from the poorest how much more due was it from those richest those ablest of creatures to pay it And 3. As God had bestowed upon them the best of all created beings and abilities so had he laid out for them the happiest the honorablest of all employments All creatures were his subjects but these his meniall servants or other creatures did the work without doors these waited upon his person by an immediate attendance This employment was both work and wages What was their work but to behold the face of the King of glory and to praise the glory of that King and what other happinesse is desirable imaginable OBSERVATIONS 1. Holinesse Obser 1. the image of God makes the difference between an angel and a divel When an angel leaves his integrity he becomes a divell If he keep not his primitive purity he parts with his primitive preheminence The originall holinesse of the angels is set out by the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which signifies dignity Cut off Samsons locks and he will be even as another man Though never so many other accomplishments be left behind as spirituality strength wisdome immortality c. Yet if holinesse be gone the truly angelicall part is gone That which is to be desired in a man yea an angel is goodnesse All the stars cannot make a day Should a whole sheet of paper be fill'd only with cyphers they could not all amount to the smallest number nor can the rarest endowments without grace make a person excellent The righteous not the rich the honourable the learned is more excellent than his neighbour There 's nothing will have a lustre at the day of Judgement but purity Riches honours c. like Glow-worms in the dark blind night of this world glister and shine in mens esteems but when the sun of righteousnesse shall arise in his glory all these beauties will die and decay How much are they mistaken who shun and abhor Christians as divels because they are poor deformed disgraced though they keep their integrity and how great their sin who hate them because they keep their integrity but the world will love its own Black-mores account the blackest beautifullest Would we look upon men with a renewed eye and Scripture spectacles we would judge otherwise The poorest Saint is an angel in a disguise in raggs and the richest sinner is for the present little better then a gilded divell Holinesse though veyled with the most contemptible outside is accompany'd with a silent majesty and sin even in the highest dignity bewrayes a secret vilenesse 2. Observ 2. Truth and holinesse can only plead antiquity The first estate of the fallen angels was holy Sin came or rather crept in afterwards Holinesse is as ancient as the Ancient of days and the essentiall holinesse of God the pattern of that which was at the first created in angels and man is eternall and increated Sin is but an innovation and a meer invention of the creatures A sinner is but an upstart They who delight in sin do but keep alive the adventitious blemishes of their originall and the memory of their traiterous defection from God O that we might rather remember from whence we are fallen and in Christ recover a better than our first estate To any who pretend the greatest antiquity and longest custome for error or any other sin it may be said From the beginning it was not so Mat. 19.8 Consuetudo sine veritate vetustas est erroris Tert. Hos 5.10 Prov. 22.22
And custome without truth is at the best but the antiquity of error The old path and the good way are put for the same Jerem. 6.16 If the removall of the ancient bounds and landmarks which our fathers have set be a sin so frequently prohibited how heinous is the violation of the ancient boundary of holinesse which at the first was fixed by God himself 3. The depravation of nature Observ 3. introduceth all disorder in practice When these angels had left their originall purity they soon forsake their originall employment and Mat. 7.18 the divel abiding not in the truth becomes a murderer All the irregularities of life are but derivations from unholy principles The corrupt tree yeelds not good fruit Luk. 6.45 Out of the evill treasure of the heart are evill things brought forth The wheels of the Clock going wrong needs must the hand do so the Translation will be according to the Original We see at what door to lay all the prodigious impieties in the world which are but the deformed issues of corrupted nature How foolishly are men angry with themselves for outward and visible transgressions in their lives when they tamely and quietly endure an unchanged nature like men who dung and water the roots of their trees and yet are angry for their bearing of fruit How preposterous and how plainly begun at the wrong end are those endeavours of reformation which are accompanyed with the hatred of renovation If the tree be bitter and corrupt all the influences and showrs of heaven cannot make the fruit good When these angels had lost the integrity of nature even heaven it self did not help them to it How miserable lastly is he who hath no better fountain than corrupted nature for the issuing forth of all his services Even the best performances of an unrenewed person cannot be good coming not from a pure heart Phil. 1.11 Eph 2.10 a good conscience and faith unfained they are but dead carcasses embalmed and at the best but hedg-fruit sowre and unsavoury till they who bear them are ingrafted into Christ and partake of his life 4. Corrupt nature cares not for the joyes Observ 4. joyned with the holinesse of heaven As soon as these angels had left their first estate of integrity they forsook even that holy though most happy habitation Heaven it selfe was no heaven to them when they became unholy A sinner may not unfitly be compared to a common beggar who had rather live poorly and idly than plentifully in honest imployment How great is the antipathy of corrupt nature to heavenly performances when they will not down though never so sweetened The enmity of sin against God and holinesse is not to be reconcil'd How little are we to wonder that heaven is a place only for the pure in heart and that Christ at the last day will say to the workers of iniquity Mat. 7.23 Job 22.17 Depart from me since they not only in this life say to God Depart from us Job 21.14 but should they be admitted into that habitation of blisse with unholy hearts they would be unwilling there to continue with him Let it be our care to be made meet for the inheritance of the Saints in light if we expect to have nay to love the joyes thereof 5. Observ 5. How irrationall is every sinner There 's no person in love with any sin but is indeed out of love with his owne happinesse These angels for a meer supposed imaginary happinesse of their own contriving part with the reall blessednesse of enjoying the satisfying presence of the blessed God None can become a divell till first he become a beast A sinner can with no better plea of reason yeeld to any tentation of sin Jud. 16.6 then could Samson to that motion of Delilah Tel me where thy great strength lieth and wherewith thou mightest be bound to afflict thee Wicked men are rightly call'd unreasonable 2. Thes 3.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jud. 10. Psal 49. ult or absur'd such whom no reason will satisfie and brute beasts led with humour and sense against all reason Who that had not laid aside even reason would lose his soul for a trifle a shadow and die as Jonathan said for tasting of a little hony He who accounts it unreasonable to part with the poorest worldly commodity without a valuable consideration much more to exchange a conveyance of a thousand pound per annum for a painted paper is yet much more absur'd in sinning against any command of God which is back'd with the very height of reason both in respect of our duty to the Commander and benefit by the command 6. It s a sin for any even the highest Observat 6. to exempt himselfe from service Angels have their tasks set them by God which they must not leave There 's no creature but hath an allotment of duty Though we cannot be profitable yet must we not be idle God allowes the napkin to none upon whom he hath bestowed a talent nor hath he planted any to cumber the ground and only to be burdens to the earth If wee are all of him we must be all for him It s not consistent with the soveraignty of this great King to suffer any subject within his dominions who will be absolute and not yeeld him his homage nor to his wisdome to make any thing which he intends not to use The first who adventur'd to cease from working was a divel and they who follow him in that sin shall partake with him in the sutable punishments of chains and darknesse It s a singular mercy to have opportunities of service abilities for it and delight in it at the same time It s the priviledg of the glorious angels to be confirmed in their work as well as in their happinesse God never is so angry with any as those whom he turns out of his service 7. The glorifyed are in heaven as in an habitation Observ 7. Luk. 16.9 Joh. 14.2 2 Cor. 5.1 Heb. 11.10 16 Heb. 13.14 Heb. 4.9 Omnis homo est advena nascendo incola vivendo quia compellitur migrare moriendo Aug. in q. 91. sup Lev. Heaven is in Scripture often set out by expressions importing it to be a place of stability setlement and abode as Everlasting habitations a Fathers house Mansions a building of God an House not made with hands eternall in the heavens A city a city which hath foundations a continuing city a Rest How sutable are fixed and immovable affections to this permanent and stedfast happinesse everything on this side Heaven is transitory The fashion of this world passeth away here we have no continuing city Our bodies are tabernacles and cottages of clay which shortly shall bee blown down by the wind of death * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Isid Pelus l. 1. ep 65. yea their falling begins with their very building and this whole world is an habitation which ere long will be
desire to be and would needs rest in the perfection of their own nature neglecting that rule of their superiour whereby they were called to desire the attaining supernaturall blessednesse by the grace of God Or as some expresse it this pride stood in a staying within themselves a reflecting upon their own excellency and by consequence an affecting an independency upon any superiour vertue in being and working making themselves the first cause and the last end of their own motions for since next unto God every reasonable created being is nearest unto it selfe we cannot conceive how it should turn from God and not in the next step turn unto it selfe The third particular to be explained in this first part of the Text Nemo sanae fidei credit apostatas angelos ad pristinam pietatem correctâ aliquando voluntate converti Aug. ep 107. Prosp l. 1. de vit contempt c. 3. De angelis hoc Deus disposuit implevit ut si quis eorum bonitatem voluntatis perderet nunquam eam divino munere repararet Fulgent l. de sid c. 3. Daemones nec malâ unquam possunt carere voluntate nec poena Vid. Aquin at 1. p. q. 64. a. 2. Angeli boni non habent ex suâ naturâ immutabilitatem ex bono in malum sed ex sotâ gratiâ qui tamen cum plenâ deliberatione bonum eligerunt atque ita nec mali habent naturâ suâ immutabilitatem ex malo in bonum sed ex sola privatione gratiae Greg. de Valent Disp 4. q. 15. punct 2. is the degree and measure of the defection of these angels they fell finally they kept not c. they left their c. they quite forsook God his image heaven it selfe and that office therein assigned unto them And as the holy are confirmed in goodnesse so the fallen angels are hardned in the love of that which formerly they made choice of This is intended by Christ in those words John 8.44 There is no truth in him they cannot so much as will to do well but they do immovably cleave to wickednesse These trees as they have faln so they lie Angels went so far that they never turn they fell so low they never arise This is proved from their eternall misery which the Scripture mentions in this verse and else where frequently this everlastingnesse of their punishment including the perpetuity of their sinning and such an eternall forsaking of them by God that they shall never have righteousnesse repaired in them again The school-men are too curious in inquiring into the ground of this total final fal of the angels into sin Aquinas and his followers hold that their obstinacy proceeds from the very nature of the wils of angels according to which say they angels are so inflexible and immovable that they can never hate that which once they have chosen nor chuse that which once they have hated but as I conceive Valentia overthrowes this opinion by arguing that if the immutability of the good angels from good to evill be not from nature but from grace only who yet did with ful deliberation chuse that which was good then the immutability of the evil angels from evil to good comes not from nature but from the just and totall deprivation of grace Others of them assert That God preserves in the wils of the divels an hatred of himselfe and that this preservation is an act of punitive justice and that God causeth that wicked habit in the wils of the divels whereby they are necessarily inclined to sin and this impious opinion is asserted by Occham Biel and Aureolus which I note by the way as wishing that while the Papists behold a supposed mote in the eye of holy Calvin they would observe those reall beams which are in the eyes of their own most famous Schoolmen as to this point of making God the Authour of sin But those who speak more modestly and piously then either of the former give this reason of the obstinacy of the fallen angels namely the totall and perfect privation of all holinesse which is considerable 1. On their part and so it s that defective and depraved quality as Junius cals it that utter impotency to all good Qualitas defectiva intended by those words of our Saviour There is no truth in him and flowing from that defection as its fountain called by our Saviour a not abiding in the truth and here by Jude a not keeping their first estate which defection is so set down by Jude Si non servaverunt sed dereliquerunt profectò habcre destiterunt privati sunt eo quod habebant quod autem privati sunt semel id est 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 privati sunt ut qui naturam suam eo privaverint quae cum non possit esse otiosa c. Jun. in loc saith Junius as that this totall impotency to and privation of all good in the angels is also comprehended For saith he what they kept not they ceased to have and were deprived of and what they were deprived of they lost totally 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he expresseth it once for all as those who deprived their very nature therof And since the nature of these angels though it cannot be holy yet also cannot be idle it enclines incessantly to the contrary to that of which it was deprived there following effects of the same kind with this constant privation 2. On Gods part who hath determined never to bestow upon the fallen angels reliefe and assistance for their recovery which being denied to them it is impossible that ever they should turne from their sin to God but to deliver them totally up to the bent of their own depraved nature God having so layed out their state and ordered the nature thereof that their fall should be the term of their being holy and it 's natural for every thing not to move when once arrived at it's term Hoc est angelis casus quod hominibus mors but there to stop and that as the end of life is the term beyond which God will not offer to sinners his grace so that the fall should even be the same to the angels which death is to man OBSERVATIONS 1. Observat 1. The best of created perfections are of themselves defectible Every excellency without the prop of divine preservation is but a weight which tends to a fall The angels in their innocency were but frail without Gods sustentation Even grace it self is but a creature and therefore purely dependent 'T is not from its being and nature but from the assistance of something without it that it 's kept from annihilation The strongest is but a weakling and can of himself neither stand nor go alone let the least degree of grace make thee thankfull let not the greatest make thee proud Hee that stands should take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. 10.12 What becomes of the stream if the fountain supply it not
severest punishing of offenders and not wound like murderers to destroy but like Chyrurgeons to cure and to prevent the spreading of sin yea punishment 8. Observ 8. It should be our great desire by all our own sufferings for sin to prevent the like sin in and sufferings of others We must not be like those that have the Plague who love to inffect others with it A gracious heart rather desires to hear of converts by his falls and woes then to have companions in either They who have been by sin examples of imitation should pray that by their sufferings they may become examples of Caution How rare is this heavenly temper in sufferers Most Christians when they are in troubles only desire the removall of them perhaps the sanctifying of them to themselves but who prayes for the sanctifying of them unto others It s ordinary for men under their sufferings to have thoughts of impatience against God and of revenge against the instrument of their troubles but unusuall for men to have aimes of benefiting beholders by their troubles If the Lord would throughly affect us with love to his glory and hatred to sin we should be willing to have the house pulled down upon our own heads so as sin may be destroyed in others and hereby we may do more good at our death then we have done throughout our whole lives The sinners of these laters times sin more heinously then they who lived in former ages Observ 9. The sins committed by those who have others for an example are greater then those committed formerly though they be the same for kind He who falls by stumbling at the same stone at which he dash'd who went before him falls without apology Wee in these times stand upon the shoulders of those who lived of old and therefore ought to see further we may behold by what meanes they stood where also and how they fell and how by either they sped More exactnesse in working and walking becomes us who have more light to guide us How happy were we if as we strive to excell our forefathers in other arts we did not come behind them in that heavenly art of a holy life though their helps were fewer then ours It is a common observation concerning our buildings that though they are of more curious contrivement yet lesse substantiall and durable then those of old time Non tulit nos sine exemplo◠ut inveniat sine delicto vel tollat sine patrocinio I fear this may be more truly said of our religion then of our buildings It will be more tolerable at the last day for those who lived in the times of Sodom then for sinners in these days upon whom the ends of the world are come Vnto whomsoever much is given of him shall be much required Surely as we pay dearer for our worldly commodities we must pay much dearer for our sinfull pleasures then our fore-fathers have done We had better never have heard of Sodoms ruin then not to mend our lives by the example 10. Observ 10 It s our duty to make an holy improvement of the worst things which fall out in the world Even Sodom and Gomorrha were our examples and we should make lye to cleanse us of their ashes A good man should sail as they say of skilfull Mariners with every wind and as Samson take honey out of the carcass of the Lion Vespasian raised gain out of an excrement the Estrich concocts iron Even the waters of jelousie which rotted the bellies and limbs of some made others healthfull and fruitfull The sins of the worst should and sometimes do teach the godly to walk more closely and humbly with God Were we not wanting to our selves the sin of Sodom might be to us felix culpa an happy fault But alas most men more imitate then shun the sins of others nay which is much worse they rather take occasion to oppose deride and so get hurt by seeing the holy strictnesse of the godly then to grow more watchfull and holy by observing the sinfull loosenesse of the wicked But here is the excellency of grace to make a man like David Therefore to love the Commandments of God Psal 119. i 27. because wicked men make void the Law 11. Observ ult It is our wisdome to learn how to behold the examples of caution which God hath set forth especially in Scripture with most advantage to our souls Against that which God shews we must not shut our eyes To this end 1. Let us give our assent to the truth of examples as delivered in Scripture which doth not only relate the judgments themselves but their causes also the supreme God the deserving sin Faith takes into its vast comprehension every part of Gods word It hath been the Divels policy to strike at the truths of Scripture-stories either by denying or adulterating them * Prophani quidam ex Schola Porphirii ut miraculū elevarent Confinxerunt Mosem peritissimum naturae observasse fluxum refluxum maris Erithraei refluente illo suos traduxisse Riv. in Exod. Porphiry to overturn the miraculousnesse of the Israelites passing through the Red sea saith that Moses took the advantage of a low ebbing water and so went through safely which the Egyptians not understanding were drowned by the flowing of the water Strabo likewise perverts the truth of this story of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha Graeci Scriptores Sodomam cum vicinis civitatibus eam ob causam incendio periisse sentiunt quod regio illa cavernosa esset sulphurea atque ita hujusmodi exitio obnoxia Muscul in 19. Gen. by attributing it to naturall causes and reporting that these cities were seated on a soyl sulphureous and full of holes from which fire breaking forth consumed them Examples of the dreadfullest aspect will never affright us from sin when we look upon them in the Divels dress Let us not sport at examples and make them our play-fellows Read not the example of Lots wife as the Poeticall fiction of turning Niobe into a stone What judgement thou readest beleeve though never so severe never so farre beyond thy apprehension 2. Look upon examples with deep and diligent observation They must sink into us we must set our hearts to them Steep our thoughts in them and ponder them in their certainty causes severity Posting passengers cannot be serious observers of any place How profitable is it sometime to dwel in our meditations upon these monuments of divine justice Assent must be followed with consideration Transient thoughts become not permanent examples 3. Look upon these examples with an impartiall examination Enquire within whether was such an one whom vengeance overtook a greater sinner then I am Ask thy conscience that question which the Prophet put to the Israelites are there not with me even with me the same sins against the Lord Ransack thy soul to find out the traytor hide not that in