Death where is thy Sting So that when we come to resign back these frail Bodies these Vessels of Mortality to the Dust from whence they were taken we may yet say of our Souls as Christ did of the Damosel whom he raised up That she was not dead but only Slept for in like manner we shall as certainly rise out of the Grave and Triumph over the dishonours of its Rottenness and Putrefaction as we rise in the Morning out of our Beds with Bodies refreshed and advanced into Higher and Nobler Perfections For the Head being once risen we may be sure the Members cannot stay long behind And Christ is already risen and gone before to prepare Mansions for all those who belong to him under that High Relation That where He is They to their Eternal Comfort may be also rejoycing and singing Praises and Hallelujahs to him who sitteth upon the Throne and to the Lamb for Ever and Ever To Whom Be Rendered and Ascribed as is most due all Glory Might Majesty and Dominion to Eternal Ages Amen THE Christian Pentecost OR THE Solemn Effusion of the Holy Ghost IN THE Several Miraculous Gifts Conferred by Him upon the Apostles and first Christians Set forth in a SERMON Preached At Westminster-Abbey 1692. 1 COR. XII 4 Now there are diversities of Gifts but the same Spirit OUR Blessed Saviour having Newly Changed his Crown of Thorns for a Crown of Glory and ascending up on high took Possession of his Royal Estate and Soveraignty according to the Custom of Princes is here treating with this Lower World now at so great a distance from him by his Ambassador And for the greater Splendour of the Embassy and Authority of the Message by an Ambassador no ways Inferiour to Himself even the Holy Ghost the Third Person in the Blessed Trinity in Glory Equal in Majesty Co-eternal and therefore most peculiarly fit not only as a Deputy but as a kind of Alter Idem to supply his Place and Presence here upon Earth and indeed had he not been Equal to him in the Godhead he could no more have supplyed his Place than he could have filled it which we know in the Accounts of the World are Things extreamly different as by sad and scandalous Experience is too often found Now the summ of this his Glorious Negotiation was to Confirm and ratifie Christ's Doctrine to seal the New Charter of the Worlds Blessedness given by Christ Himself and drawn up by his Apostles and Certainly it was not a greater Work first to Publish than it was afterwards to Confirm it For Christianity being a Religion made up of Truth and Miracle could not Receive its Growth from any Power less than that which first gave it its Birth And being withal a Doctrine Contrary to Corrupt Nature and to those Things which Men most Eagerly Loved to wit their Worldly Interests and their Carnal Lusts it must needs have quickly decayed and withered and dyed away if not Watered by the same Hand of Omnipotence by which it was first planted Nothing could keep it up but such a standing mighty Power as should be able upon all occasions to Countermand and Controul Nature such an one as should at the same time both Instruct and Astonish and baffle the Disputes of Reason by the Obvious overpowering Convictions of Sense And this was the Design of the Spirit 's Mission That the same Holy Ghost who had given Christ his Conception might now give Christianity its Confirmation And this he did by that wonderful and various Effusion of his Miraculous Gifts upon the first Messengers and Propagators of this Divine Religion For as our Saviour himself said John 4.48 Vnless you see signs and wonders you will not believe So that Sight was to introduce Belief and accordingly the first Conquest and Conviction was made upon the Eye and from thence passed victorious to the Heart This therefore was their Rhetorick this their method of Perswasion Their Words were Works Divinity and Physick went together They Cured the Body and thereby Convinced the Soul They Conveyed and enforced all their Exhortations not by the Arts of Eloquence but by the Gift of Tongues These were the Speakers and Miracle the Interpreter Now in Treating of these Words I shall Consider these Three Things First What those Gifts were which were conferred by the Spirit both upon the Apostles and first Professors of Christianity Secondly What is Imported and to be understood by their Diversity and Thirdly And Lastly What are the Consequences of their Emanation from one and the same Spirit First And first for the first of them These Gifts are called in the Original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say Acts of Grace or favour and signifie here certain Qualities and Perfections which the Spirit of God freely bestowed upon Men for the better Enabling them to Preach the Gospel and to settle the Christian Religion in the World and accordingly we will Consider them under that known Dichotomy or Division by which they stand divided into Ordinary and Extraordinary And first for the Ordinary Gifts of the Spirit these he conveys to us by the mediation of our own Endeavours And as He who both makes the Watch and Winds up the Wheels of it may not Improperly be said to be the Author of its motion so God who first Created and since sustains the Powers and Faculties of the Soul may justly be called the Cause of all those Perfections and Improvements which the said faculties shall attain unto by their Respective Operations For that which gives the form gives also the Consequents of that form and the Principle with all its appendant Actions is to be referred to the same Donor But God forbid that I should determine God's Title to our Actions barely in his giving us the Power and Faculty of Acting Durandus indeed an Eminent Schoolman held so and so must Pelagius and his followers hold too if they will be True to and abide by their own Principles But undoubtedly God does not only give the Power but also vouchsafes an Active Influence and Concurrence to the production of every particular Action so far as it has either a Natural or a Moral goodness in it And therefore in all acquired Gifts or Habits such as are those of Philosophy Oratory or Divinity we are properly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Co-workers with God And God ordinarily gives them to none but to such as Labour hard for them They are so his Gifts that they are also our own Acquisitions His assistance and our own study are the joint and adequate Cause of these Perfections And to imagine the Contrary is all one as if a Man should think to be a Scholar barely by his Master's Teaching without his own Learning In all these Cases God is ready to do his Part but not to do both His own and ours too Secondly The other sort of the Spirit 's Gifts are Extraordinary Which are so absolutely and entirely from God that the Soul
to state and settle it upon Better For the doing of which the most effectual ways I conceive may be these Two 1. By Revelation 2. By Exemplification First As to the first whereof it must needs be either by an Immediate Declaration of this great Truth not discoverable by Reason by a Voice from Heaven or by God's Inspiring some certain Select Persons with the Knowledge of it and afterwards enabling them to Attest it to the World by Miracles And as this is undoubtedly sufficient in it self for such a Purpose so Providence has not been Wanting partly by Revelation and partly by Tradition thereupon to keep alive amongst Men some Perswasion at least of this Important Truth all along as appears even from those fabulous accounts and stories which the Heathen World still Cloathed or rather Corrupted it with Nevertheless such has been the Prevalence of Humane Corruption and Infidelity as in a great Degree to frustrate all the Impressions that bare Revelation or Tradition could make upon Men's Minds while they chiefly governed their Belief by the Observation of their Senses which from the Daily occurring Instances of Mortality shew them that as the Tree fell so it lay and that no Body was ever seen by them to return from the Mansions of the Dead but that for any thing they could find to the contrary all passed into Dust and Rottenness and Perpetual Oblivion Secondly The other way therefore of Convincing the World of this momentous Truth in comparison of which all Science and Philosophy are but Trifles must be by Exemplification That is to say by giving the World an Instance or Example of it in some Person or Persons who having been confessedly Dead should revive and return to Life again And this one would think should be as full and Unexceptionable a Proof that there may be a Resurrection of Men to a future Estate as could be desired Nothing striking the Mind of Man so powerfully as Instances and Examples which make a Truth not only Intelligible but even Palpable sliding it into the Understanding through the Windows of Sense and by the most familiar as well as most unquestionable perceptions of the Eye And accordingly this Course God thought fit to take in the Resurrection of Christ by which he Condescended to give the World the greatest satisfaction that Infidelity it self could rationally insist upon Howbeit notwithstanding so plain an Address both to Men's Reason and Sense too neither has this Course proved so successful for Convincing of the World of a Resurrection from the Dead and a future Estate consequent thereupon but that Unbelief has been still putting in its objections against it For it is not I confess the Interest of such as Live ill in this World to believe that there shall be another or that they shall be sensible of any Thing after Death has once done its Work upon them and therefore let Truth and Scripture and even Sense it self say what they will for a Resurrection Men for ought appears will for ever square their Belief to their Desires and their Desires to their Corruptions so that as we find it in the 16 th of Luke and last v. though they should even see one rise from the Dead they would hardly be perswaded of their own Resurrection Such a sad and deplorable hardness of Heart have Men Sinned themselves into that nothing shall convince them but what first pleases them be it never so much a Delusion Nevertheless the most Wise and Just God is not so to be mocked who knows that by Raising Christ from the Dead he has done all that rationally can or ought to be done for the Convincing of Mankind that there shall be a Resurrection whether they will be Convinced by it or no. But now if after all it should be asked How is Christ's Resurrection a Proof that the rest of Mankind shall rise from the Dead too I answer That considered indeed as a bare Instance or Example it proves no more than that there may be such a Thing since the same Infinite Power which effected the One may as well effect the Other but then if we consider it as an Argument and a Confirmation of that Doctrine whereof the Assertion of a General Resurrection makes a principal part I affirm that so taken it does not only prove that such a Thing may be but also That it actually shall be and that as certainly as it is Impossible for the Divine Power to set its seal to a Lye by ratifying an Imposture with such a Miracle And thus as Christ's Resurrection irrefragably proves the Resurrection of the rest of Mankind so it no less proves Christ himself to have been the Messiah for that having all along affirmed himself to be so he made good the Truth of what he had so affirmed by his miraculous rising again and so gave as strong a Proof of his Messiaship as Infinite Power joined with Equal Veracity could give And upon this Account we have his Resurrection alledged by St. Peter for the same Purpose here in the Text which was part of his Sermon to the Jews concerning Iesus Christ whom he proves to be their True and long expected Messiah against all the Cavils of Prejudice and Unbelief by this one invincible Demonstration In the Text then we have these Three Things Considerable First Christ's Resurrection and the Cause of it in these words Whom God hath raised up Secondly The manner by which it was effected which was by loosing the Pains of Death And Thirdly and Lastly The Ground of it which was its absolute Necessity expressed in these Words It was not possible that He should be holden of it and 1. For the first of these The Cause of the Resurrection set forth in this expression Whom God hath raised up It was such an Action as proclaimed an Omnipotent Agent and carried the hand of God writt upon it in broad Characters Legible to the meanest Reason Death is a disease which Art cannot Cure and the Grave a Prison which delivers back its Captives upon no humane summons To restore Life is only the Prerogative of him who gives it Some indeed have pretended by Art and Physical applications to recover the dead but the success has sufficiently upbraided the attempt Physick may repair and piece up Nature but not Create it Cordials Plaisters and Fomentations cannot always stay a Life when it is going much less can they remand it when it is gone Neither is it in the Power of a Spirit or Demon good or bad to inspire a new Life For it is a Creation and to Create is the incommunicable Prerogative of a Power infinite and unlimited Enter into a body they may and so act and move it after the manner of a Soul but it is one thing to move another to animate a Carcass You see the Devil could fetch up nothing of Samuel at the request of Saul but a shadow and a Resemblance his Countenance and his Mantle which yet
not positively promised to reward our sincere Obedience Which Promise though His meer Grace and Goodness induced Him to make yet His Essential Truth sâ—andâ— obliged 〈◊〉 see performed For though some have ventur'd so far as to declare God under no obligation to Inflict the Eternal Torments of Hell how peremptorily soever threatned by Him upon Men dying in their sins Yet I suppose none will be so hardy or rather shameless as to affirm it free for God to perform or not perform His promise The Obligation of which being so Absoâ—ute and Vnalterable I do here further affirm that upon the Truest and most â—â—sured Principles of Practical Reason there is as strong and as enforcing a Motive from the Immutable Truth of God's promise to raise Men to the Highest and most Heroick Acts of a Christian Life as if every such single Act could by its own Intrinsick Worth Merit a Glorious Eternity For to speak the Real Truth and Nature of things that which excites endeavour and sets Obedience on Work is not properly a Belief or perswasion of the Merit of our Works but the Assurance of our Reward And can we have a greater assurance of this than that Truth it self which cannot break its Word has promised it For the most High and Holy One as we have shewn and may with Reverence speak has pawned His Word His Name and His Honour to reward the stedfast finally Persevering Obedience of Every one within the Covenant of Grace notwithstand its Legal Imperfection And therefore though we have alâ— the Reason in the World to blush at thâ—â—â— Worthless Emptiness of our Best Duties and to be ashamed of the poorness and shortness of our most Complete Actions and in a Word to think as meanly of them and of our selves for them as God Himself does Yet still let us build both our Practice and our Comfort upon this One Conclusion as upon a Rock That â— though after we have done All We are still Vnprofitable Servants yet because We have done All God has engaged Himself to be a Gracious Master To whom therefore be rendred and ascribed as is most due all Praise Might Majesty and Dominion both Now and for Evermore Amen A SERMON Preached at CHRIST-CHURCH in OXFORD Before the University Octob. 29. 1693. LUKE XI 35 Take heed therefore that the Light which is in Thee be not Darkness AS Light is certainly one of the most glorious and useful Creatures that ever issued from the Wisdom and Power of the Great Creator of the World so were the Eye of the Soul as little weakened by the Fall as the Eye of the Body no doubt the Light within us would appear as much more Glorious than the Light without us as the Spiritual Intellectual Part of the Creation exceeds the Glories of the Sensible and Corporeal As to the Nature of which Light to give some Account of it before I proceed further and that without entring into those Various Notions of it which some have amused the World with It is in short That which Philosophers in their discourses about the Mind of Man and the first Origins of Knowledge do so much magnify by the Name of Recta Ratio that great source and Principle as they would have it both of their Philosophy and Religion For the better explication of which I must according to a Common but necessary distinction and elsewhere made use of by me observe that this Recâ—â— Ratio may be taken in a double sence First For those Maxims or General Truths which being collected by the observations of Reason and formed thereby into certain Pâ—â—â—ositions are the Grounds and Principles by which Men govern both their Discourse and Practice according to the Nature of the objects that come before them or Secondly It may be taken for thaâ— Faculty or Power of the Soul by which it forms these Maxims or Propositions and afterwards discourses upon them And so no doubt it is to be taken here For Propositions themselves as to the Truth of them are neither Capable of Increase or Decrease Improvement or Diminution but the Powers and Faculties of the Soul are Capable of Both that 〈◊〉 of becoming stronger or weaker acâ—ording as Men shall Use or Abuse Cultivate or Neglect them Upon which Account this Recta Ratio can be nothing â—lse but that Intellectual Power or Faâ—ulty of the Soul which every one is â—â—â—urally endowed with To which Faculty as there belong Two Grand and Principal Offices to 〈◊〉 One to Inform or Direct and the â—ther to Command or Oblige so the 〈◊〉 Faculty sustains a different 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 â—r Denomination according to each of â—hem For as it serves to Inform the Soul â—â—y discovering Things to it so it is called the Light of Nature but as it obliges the Soul to do this or forbear that which it does as it is actuated or informed with those forementioned general Truths or Maxims so it is called the Law of Nature which two offices though belonging to one and the same Faculty are very different For the former of them to wit iâ—â— Enlightning or Informing Quality extends much further than itâ—â— obligingâ— Vertue does even to all Things Knowable by the mind of Manâ— but the latter only to such Things 〈◊〉 are matter of Practice and so fall undeâ— a Moral Consideration Besides that this obliging Quality must needs also preâ—suppose the Enlightning Quality as Essentiâ—ally going before it For as no Law 〈◊〉 bind till it be Notified or Promulged so neither can this faculty of the Soâ—â— oblige a Man till it has first Informed 〈◊〉 By which we see that the Light of Nâ—ture according â—o the Essential Order 〈◊〉 Things precedes the Law of Nature anâ— Consequently in strictness of Speech ought to be distinguished from it how much soever some have thought fit 〈◊〉 Confound them And I doubt not 〈◊〉 it is This which the Text here Principally intends by the Light within us Nevertheless since the word Conscience takes in both and signifies as well a Light to Inform as it imports and carrieâ— with 〈◊〉 also a Law to oblige us I shall Indifferently express this Light by the Name of Conscience as a Term equivalent to it in all the following Particuâ—â—â—s but still this shall be with respect 〈◊〉 its Informing rather than to its obliging office For as much as it is the former of these only which is the proper effect 〈◊〉 light and not the latter For though â—â—nscience be both a Light and as it â—â—mmands under God a Law too yet 〈◊〉 it is a Light it is not formally a Law â—â—or if it were then whatsover it disâ—â—vered to us it would also oblige us 〈◊〉 But this is not so since it both may â—â—d does discover to us the indifferent â—â—ture oâ— many Things and Actions â—â—thout obliging us either to the Prâ—ctice or Forbearance of them which one â—onsideration alone is sufficient to set the difference between the enlightning and the obliging
Heaven would grow Cheap and Common and which is very preposterous to Conceive they would be Miracles without a Wonder The Papists indeed who having swallowed and digested the Belief of so many Monstrous Contradictions would do but very unwisely and disagreeably to themselves if for ever after they should stick at any advantageous Absurdity these I say hold that the Gift of Miracles still continues ordinary in their Church and that the Christian Religion has still the same need of such Miraculous Confirmations as it had at first Where if by the Christian they mean their own Popish Religion I am so fully of their mind that I think there is need not only of Daily but even of hourly or rather continual Miracles to Confirm it if it were but in that one single Article of Transubstantiation But then we know whose Badge and Character the Scripture makes it to Come in Lying Wonders and we know also that Lying Wonders are true Impostures and theirs are of that Nature that the fallacy is so gross and the Cheat so Transparent in them that as it hardens the Iews and Mahumetans with a desperate Invincible Prejudice against Christianity as a Thing as false as those Miracles which they see it recommended by so I am Confident that it Causes many Christians also to nauseate their own Religion and to fall into secret Atheism being Apt to Think as even these Impostors also pretend that the very Miracles of the Apostles might be of the same Nature with those which they see daily Acted by these Spiritual Juglers so that hereby the grand Proof of Christianity falls to the ground and has no force or hold upon Men's minds at all Whereas our Saviour Himself laid the main Stress and Credit of his Gospel and of his Mission from God upon his Miracles The Works that I do says He bear Witness of me John 10.25 And Believe me for my very Works sake John 14.11 And had I not done amongst them the Works which no other Man did they had not had Sin John 15.24 So that we see here that the Credit of all turned upon his Miracles his mighty and Supernatural Works But as we know it often falls out that when a Man has once got the Character of a Lyer even Truth it self is suspected if not absolutely disbelieved when it comes from the Mouth of such an one So these Miracle-Mongers â—aving alarm'd the World round about tâ—em to a discernment of their Tricks wâ—en they came afterwards to Preach Christianity especially to Infidels and to preâ—â— it upon Men's belief in the strength of those Miraculous Works which were truely and really done by Christ yet since they pretend the same of their own Works too which all People see through and know to be Lyes and Impostures all that they Preach of Christ is presently looked upon as false and fictitious and leaves the minds of Men locked up under a fixed obstinate and impregnable Infidelity Such a fatal blow has the Legerdemain of those Wretches given to the Christian Religion and such jealousies have they raised in some Men's Thoughts against it by their false Miracles and Fabulous Stories of the Romantick feats of their Pretended Saints In all which there is nothing indeed strange or Miraculous but the Impudence and Impiety of such as report and make them and the folly of such as can believe them 2. Pass we now to the second Thing proposed which is to shew what is meant by this Diversity of Gifts mentioned in the Text. It Imports I conceive these Two Things 1. Something by way of Affirmation which is Variety 2. Something by way of Negation which is Contrariety 1. And first for the first of them It imports Variety of which Excellent Qualification it is hard to say whether it makes more for Vse or Ornament It is the very Beauty of Providence and the Delight of the World It is that which keeps alive Desire which would otherwise flag and tire and be quickly weary of any one single Object It both supplies our Affections and Entertains our Admiration Equally serving the Innocent Pleasures and the Important Occasions of Life And now all these Advantages God would have this desireable Quality derive even upon his Church too In which great Body there are and must be several Members having their several Vses Offices and Stations as in the 28 th v. of this Chapter where my Text is the Apostle tells us that God has placed in the Church first Apostles secondarily Prophets thirdly Preachers after that Miracles then Gifts of healing helps Governments Diversities of Tongues The particular Function and Employment of so many parts subserving the Joint Interest and Design of the whole As the motion of a Clock is a Complicated motion of so many Wheels fitly put together and Life it self but the Result of so many several Operations all issuing from and Contributing to the support of the same Body The great help and furtherance of Action is order and the Parent of order is Distinction No sence faculty or Member must Encroach upon or interfere with the Duty and Office of another For as the same Apostle discourses in the two next verses Are all Apostles Are all Prophets Are all Teachers Are all Workers of Miracles Have all the Gift of Healing Do all Speak with Tongues Do all Interpret No but as in the Natural Body the Eye does not Speak nor the Tongue see so neither in the Spiritual is every one who has the Gift of Prophecy endued also with the Gift and Spirit of Government every one who may speak well and pertinently enough upon a Text is not therefore presently fit to rule a Diocess nor is a Nimble Tongue always attended with a strong and a steady Head If all were Preachers who should Govern or rather indeed who could be governed If the Body of the Church were all Ear Men would be only hearers of the Word and where would then be the Doers For such I am sure we are most to seek for in our days in which sad experience shews that Hearing of Sermons has with most swallowed up and devoured the Practice of them and manifestly serves instead of it rendring many Zealots amongst us as really guilty of the Superstition of resting in the bare Opus Operatum of this Duty as the Papists are or can be Charged to be in any of their Religious Performances whatsoever The Apostle justly reproaches such with Itching Ears 2 Tim. 4.3 And I cannot see but that the Itch in the Ear is as bad a distemper as in any other part of the Body and perhaps a Worse But to proceed God has use of all the several Tempers and Constitutions of Men to serve the Occasions and Exigences of his Church by Amongst which some are of a Sanguine Chearful and Debonair Disposition having their Imaginations for the most part filled and taken up with Pleasing Ideas and Images of Things seldom or never Troubling their Thoughts either by