for heaven that unless they be followed with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 full speed as in an hue and cry there is small hope of overtaking or bringing them back again to the earth And yet without them heaven must be fain to turn an unhabitable part of the world pars globi incognita as empty of Saints as it is full of glory without them Nemo Deum no man shall see God Could I imagine it possible for me to be instrumentâ—â— to you in this work to advise or direct you in this course this method of seeking your peoples souls so that God might one day find them in this temper in pace Sanctitate in peace and holiness I should put off all the reverence that I bear to this assembly all consideration of the business of this day and venture to be unseasonable that I might be useful to you in this point But I know there be no general rules that can promise themselves such a successfulness the variety of tempers must have different accommodations and well if after using of all means we can be able to save any The way most probable in my conceipt is the bringing men acquainted with the difference betwixt the first and second Covenant then pitching on the second as that that belongs to us Christians to shew them the condition of this covenant in the gross the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 law of faith made up of commands as well as promises all the Gospel-precepts that join together to complete that Codex that law of Repentance self-denyal Charity the New creature which S. Paul interprets 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Faith consummate by love or as S. James 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perfected by works sincere impartial constant though not unsinning perfect obedience And then if you will have it in the retaile the Sermon in the mount in the 5 and 6 of Matthew will give it you completely were men but possess'd that those duties there mentioned with the ego autem but I say to you were duties indeed not only phrases and formes of speech that they are not only by grace made possible to a Christian an easie yoke light burthen and a command nigh unto thee Rom. 10.8 i. e. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the 72. render that place of Deuteron from whence it is cited but also most indispensably necessary without which nemo Deum none shall see God Gods oath being gone out against all others with a nunquam introibunt they shall never enter into his rest It would I conceive within a while be found necessary either to give over pretending toward heaven or else to observe those gesses that alone of all others can bring us thither and so the world of Christians be once more divided as Epiphanius saith it was in the first ages not into Orthodox and heretical for those are titles that every man will apply as he lists the one to himself and his adherents the other to all others that he disfancies not again into spiritual and carnal for those were abused too in Tertullians time as soon as ever he turned Montanist then strait nos spirituales we spiritual and all others animales psychici meer animal men but into 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 godly and ungodly livers and so impiety injustice and uncharitableness be the grand heresies to be anathematized and peace and holiness the most Orthodox Christian tenets in our Religion But then for the atchieving this aim let me tell you that men must have more than Sermons to lead them the visible preachings of your lives must 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cooperate and join in the work of drawing sinners to God or else 't will hardly prove successful you know the story in Gellius when that excellent counsel was given at Lacedemon by one that was vitâ defamatissimus infamous for a very ill life they were to take the counsel out of his mouth and appoint a good man to deliver it though a worse Orator Lib. 18.3 Two things the Gospel was first planted by teaching and miracles and those miracles in Scripture-phrase are called works and mighty works Now though the miracles be outdated yet the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 works in the other sense must never be antiquated 't is they that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 power belongs to the efficacy and force and mightiness of our preaching which if it be not added to our Sermons our threats will be taken for Mormo's our promises for delusions our exhortations out of Scripture for acts of tyranny and oppression laying those burthens on other mens shoulders which we will not touch with our own fingers But if our lives bear witness to our doctrine by letting them see us write those copies with our own hands which we require them to transcribe then as Polybius saith of Philopoemen that good Orator and good man and the goodness of the man was the special piece of his oratory 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we shall not only perswade but inforce our auditors This is the only honest way of insinuating our selves into our peoples affections by letting them see how hearty our exhortations are by our zeal to observing them our selves by shewing what miracles of reformation the Gospel is able to work on them by an essay of its efficacy on our own breasts And if this positive part of S. Pauls practice be perfectly con'd the negative will follow the non vestra not yours He that heartily and affectionately seeks the souls of his auditors will never pitch design on any thing else that is theirs the crown that belongs to him that converteth many to righteousness is too rich to receive luster or commendation from any inferior accession or acquisition from any thing that the vestra yours can signifie He that hath any consideration of the vestra yours in this work of a Pastor is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the mercenary hireling that Christ so prejudiceth with the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he flyes and he cares not for the sheep from no other topick of proof but only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because he is an hireling Joh. 10.13 And of what ill consequence 't was foreseen this would be in the Church you may conjecture by that one act of the administration of Gods providence in this behalf constantly observable through all ages That no Minister of Gods might be forc'd to such viler submissions driven out of that Apostolical generous ingenuity Freely have you received freely give into Gehazi's meanness and mercenariness selling and bartering that sacred function the gifts of the holy Ghost or the exercise of those gifts it is no doubt that Gods providence hath in all ages so liberally provided for endowing of the Church Among that people where he himself so immediately presided that saith Josephus it could not be called by the style of any other nation monarchy aristocracy but 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 neither administred by Kings or Senates but
receive such sinners as we the rooms within are like to be but poorly furnisht with guests the marriage feast will never be eaten unless the lame and cripples in the street or hospital be fetch 't in to fill the table But beloved the comforts with which the Devil furnisheth these men are if they were not meerly feigned and phantastical yet very beggarly and lamentable such as Achilles in Homer would have scorn'd only to be chief among the dead or Princes and eminent persons in Hell We must set our emulation higher than so somewhat above the ordinary pitch or mark Let our designs flie at the same white that the skilfullest marks-men in the army of Saints and Martyrs have aimed at before us that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the Church the religious exercisers and champions and trophe-bearers of this holy martial field have dealt in 'T is a poor boast to have out-gon Heathens and Turks in vertue and good works to be taller than the dwarfs as it were and Pygmies of the world we must not be thus content but outvy even the sons of Anak those tall giantly supererogatory undertakings of the proudest nay humblest Romanists O what a disgrace will it be for us Protestants at the dreadful day of doom O what an accession not only to our torments but our shame and indignation at our selves to see the expectation of meriting in a Papist nay the desire of being counted vertuous in a Heathen attended with a more pompous train of charitable magnificent deeds of constant magnanimous sayings than all our faith can shew or vouch for us Shall not the Romanist triumph and upbraid us in St. James his language Chap. ii 18 Thou hast faith and I have works and all that we can fetch out of St. Paul not able to stop his mouth from going on Shew me thy faith without thy works as our English reads it out of the Syriack and vulgar Latine and I will shew thee my faith by my works 'T will be but a nice distinction for thee then to say that works are to be separated from the act of justification when they are found separated à supposito from the person also But not to digress the Pharisee seems here pretty well provided No extortioner no adulterer guilty of no injustice And how many be there among you that cannot go thus far with the Pharisee Some vice or other perhaps there is that agrees not with your constitution or education drunkenness is not for one man's turn prodigality for anothers and I doubt not but that many of you are as forward as the Pharisee to thank God or rather require God to thank them that they are not given to such or such a vice But if you were to be required here to what the Pharisee undertakes if you were to be arraigned at that severe tribunal I say not concerning your thoughts and evil communications but even the gross actual nay habitual sins if a Jury or a rack were set to inquire into you throughly how many of you durst pretend to the Pharisees innocence and confidence that you are not extortioners unjust adulterers Nay how many be there that have all the Pharisees pride and censoriousness and all these other sins too into the vantage Certainly there is not one place in the Christian world that hath more reason to humble it self for two or all three of these vices than this City wherein you live I am sorry I have said this and I wish it were uncharitably spoken of me but though it will not become me to have thought it of you yet 't will concern you to suspect it of your selves that by acknowledging your guilts you may have them cancell'd and by judging your selves prevent being judged of the Lord. And here Saint Chrysostome's caution will come in very seasonably toward a conclusion of all that the Publicans sins be not preferr'd before the Pharisees works but only before his pride 'T is not his store of moral virtues that was like to prove the Pharisees undoing but his over-valuing them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Stoick appliable to this also 'T is not his innocence that hath so encumbred him all this while but his opinion of it The fasting and the tithing must not be cast away because the Pharisee was proud of them this were a furious discipline which would down with all violently that had ever been abused to idolatry or sin or with him in Plutarch that because Poetry had some ill consequences sometimes would have the Muses and their favourites dispatched into Epicurus his boat His counsel was more seasonable that to prevent drunkenness appointed them to mix water with their wine that the mad god might be allay'd with a tame sober one and that is the caution that I told you of that you abstract the Pharisees works from his pride and then borrow the Publicans humility from his works that you come to the Temple of God with all the provision a Pharisee can boast of and then lay it down all at the Publicans feet and take up his miserere his sighs his dejection his indignation at himself instead of it then shall you be fit to approach to that templum misericordiae which Gerson speaks of sine simulacro c. that had not a picture or image of a Saint in it no manner of ostentation or shew of works non sacrificiis sed gemitibus c. not to be visited with sacrifices but sighs not to be filled with triumphant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 songs of rejoycing and victories but with the calm and yet ravishing Rhetorick of the Publican 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Lord be merciful to me a sinner Even so O Lord deal thou with us according to thy mercies visit us with thy salvation draw us with thy mercies and enlighten us with thy spirit thy humbling spirit to season us with a sense of our sins and unworthiness thy sanctifying spirit to fill us here with all holy sincere requisite graces and in the spirit of thy power to accomplish us hereafter with that immarcessible crown of glory Now to him c. SERMON IX MATT. III. 3 Prepare ye the way of the Lord. THAT our Preface may afford some light to our proceeding that it may prepare the way and stand us in stead hereafter in our discourse of preparation we will imploy it to observe that natural progress and method of all things which consists in steps and degrees travelling on by those gifts which nature hath set them from one stage to another from a lower degree of perfection to an higher built upon this ground of nature that the first things are always least perfect yet absolutely necessary to the perfection of the last and in summ so much the more necessary by how much less perfect Thus is the foundation more necessary to an house than the walls and the
with their embraces but never take the condition of repentance and obedience this is not for their turn they abstract the cheap and profitable attributes of Christ his Priestly office of satisfaction and propitiation but never consider him as a King and so in a word lay hold of the estate before they have married the husband which they have yet no more right to than a meer stranger for the communicating the riches of a husband being but a consequence of marriage is therefore not yet made over till the marriage which is the taking of the husbands person be consummate And this I say is a second degree of infidelity somewhat more secret and less discernable when by an errour of the person by taking Christ the Saviour for Christ the Lord or his promises abstracted from his person we believe we shall be saved by him but deny to be ruled desire to enjoy all the priviledges but substract all the obedience of a Subject In the third place they which have accepted and received the true person of Christ as a Master as well as a Jesus they which have taken him on a resolved vow of performing this condition of homage and obedience are not in event as good as their engagements when they think the match is fast and past danger of recalling when they seem to have gotten a firm title to the promises and are in a manner entred upon the goods and estate of their Husband they do begin to break Covenant and either wholly substract or else divide their love they married him for his wealth and now they have that they are soon weary of his person they came with the Soul of an Harlot looking only what they should get by him and now they have many other old acquaintances they must needs keep League with their self denial their humility their vows of obedience were but arts and stratagems that want and necessity put them upon and now they have got their ends all those are soon out-dated they have Faith and so are justified and sure of their estate and so now they may sin securely there is no condemnation to them they are in Christ and all the sins nay all the Devils in the World shall never separate them And this is a sanctified religious piece of infidelity in men which think they have made sure of the main and so never think of the Consectaries they have Faith and so 't is no matter for good works the Lease is sealed the Wedding solemniz'd and then never dream or care for Covenants And these mens fate is like to be the same spiritually which we read of Samson's bodily strength he vowed the Vow of a Nazarite and as long as he kept unshaven no opposition could prevail against him but as soon as he broke his Vow when he had let his Mistress cut his Locks his strength departed from him All the promises and priviledges of our being in Christ are upon condition of our obedience and our Vow being broken the Devil and the Philistins within us will soon deprive us of our eyes and life Whatsoever livelihood we presume we have in Christ we are deceived we are still dead in trespasses and sins Thus do you see the three degrees of infidelity frequent amongst Christians 1. a not taking him at all 2. a mistaking of his person 3. a breaking off the Covenants now that you may abhor and fly from and get out of each of them by a lively Faith my next particular shall warn you the greatness of this sin and that first positively in its self it shall be very tolerable for that City Faith may be conceived in a threefold relation either to men the subjects of it and those Sinners or 2. to Christ and his sufferings the objects of it with all the effects remission of sins and Salvation attending it or 3. to God the Father the Author and Commander of it as the only condition annext to all his promises And consequently infidelity 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall be aggravated by these three depths or degrees each adding to its exceeding sinfulness As Faith respects its subject and that a sinful miserable one engaged and fixt in an unremediable necessity of sinning and suffering for ever so is it the only means upon Earth nay in the very counsel of God able to do us any help all the arts and spiritual Engins even in Heaven besides this are unprofitable Nay the second Covenant now being seal'd and God for ever having establisht the rule and method of it I say things thus standing God himself cannot be presum'd to have mercy upon any one but who is thus qualified it being the only foundation on which our Heaven is built the only ground we have to hope for any thing as is manifest by that place Heb. xi 1 being rightly weighed Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for where the Greek phrase 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies the ground or foundation of every of those things which can be the object of a Christians hope So that where no ground-work no building if no Faith no hope no possibility of Heaven If the Devil could have but stoln this Jewel out of the World he had shut up Heaven Gates eternally and had left it as empty of Saints as it is full of glory not capable of any flesh but what Christ's Hypostatical union brought thither And this is no more than I conceive the learned mean by necessitas medâ—i that Faith is necessary as a means i. e. there is no means besides of power either absolutely or ex hypothesi of it self or on supposition of Gods Covenant to bring us to Heaven Nothing is of force besides in reason to prepare or morally accommodate and God hath not promised to accept in mercy of any thing else For whereas the promises are sometimes made to repentance sometimes to obedience as whosoever repenteth shall be saved and the like you are to know that it is on this ground of the necessary union of these graces that where one of them is truly and sincerely there the rest are always in some degree there being no example of penitence or obedience in any subject which had not faith also For he that comes to God must believe that he is c. Heb. xi 6 And he that heartily believes he is and is a rewarder of them that seek him will not fail to search pursue and follow after him So that though the promises are made promiscuously to any one which hath either of these graces yet 't is upon supposal of the rest if it be made of Faith 't is in confidence that faith works by love Gal. v. 6 and as S. James enforces it is made perfect by works James ii 22 So that in the first place infidelity is sufficiently aggravated in respect of the subject it being a Catholick destroyer an intervenient that despoils him of all means all hope all possibility of Salvation
The three former are such as belong to men peculiarly rendred by the LXXII 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 talk and words and voices and though the last be ordinarily used for thunder yet taking it by analogy with the other two for an humane voice it may truly be said that the heavens have none of these But two other things there are which are fully equivalent if not superior to these and those do eminently belong to them What 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here signifies is a matter of some doubt It ordinarily denotes a line such as being joyned with a plumbet marks out any thing in architecture shews and directs what to do how to square the timber c. as well as words could do From hence also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Abenezra is found to signifie book-learning as when children learn one line after another And thus it may here be understood that the heavens direct men to the knowledge of God as evidently as a line directs the workman in architecture or again that the heavens are as it were the book to that they are compared Rev. 6.14 wherein God may be read by all the world and so the lines of that book or volume are the indications of a Deity that may there be read But beside this the word is in Arabick found to signifie vociferation or crying aloud see Mr. Pocock Miscel c. 4. p. 48. and to this the LXXII refer reading it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a loud voice which is more than 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voice by which they render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the former verse and generally in other places which is an evident proof that the LXXII did not here for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as it is ordinarily imagined for then in all reason they must have rendred it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 voices as in the verse immediately precedent they had done As for Capellus's conjecture that they deduced 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in Chaldee and Syriack signifies to declare and indeed is so used here v. 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sheweth knowledge there is no need of that only it may make it more probable that this sense of declaring or shewing belong'd originally to this word by the near affinity of this other word that signifies the same Mean while it is certain that the Apostle citing this place reads it as the LXXII did 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their shril or loud voice which notion of the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 may therefore deserve here to be preferr'd before that other of line which belongs to it in other places and is without any metaphore very really competible to the heavens as they comprehend the aerial regions in reference to the loud sounds of thunders that oft come from thence and declare the power of God Then for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is also attributed to the heavens that comes from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Piel to say or speak but this frequently not by words but by any other significative expressions So Prov. 6.13 He winketh with his eyes he speaketh with his feet he teacheth with his fingers the Hebrew hath 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such language as it seems the feet have which the LXXII render 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he signifies The same word signifies in Chaldee clamorem a cry or loud voice and so agrees also with the second notion of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for a loud voice And then we have the full and clear meaning of the place that though the heavens and firmament have neither speech nor words nor voice properly so called yet they have other ways of declaring and making known the attributes of God whereby they speak much louder than any speaker or teacher on earth can do This is literally true in respect of that loud noise and roaring of the thunder but much more so in respect of the wonderful order light influences c. of those heavenly bodies which so signally set out the power and wisdom of the Creator of them This being clearly the importance of the place the only remaining difficulty is how that which is thus spoken of the heavens and the loud voice and noise of them is applicable to the Apostles purpose to which it is cited Rom. 10.18 which is evidently to faith in Christ Christ v. 9. it being not obvious to discern how the thunder and other such language of the heavens do reveal or declare and preach that To this the answers may be 1. That as the faith of Christ is considered more generally for the acknowledgment of the one true God of heaven and earth in opposition to the gentile idolatry or moreover of the gratious goodness of God to men which we know was most illustriously revealed and sealed to us in Christ and so the belief of that is in effect the believing on Christ so this place of this Psalm directly belongs to it and accordingly such arguments as these are frequently used by the Apostles of Christ to induce that faith So Acts 14.16 17. God in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways nevertheless he left not himself without witness in that he did good and gave us rain from Heaven and fruitful seasons filling our hearts with food and gladness where it seems the rain and fruitful seasons were lookt on by the Apostle as testimonies and proofs not only of the Deity but also of the truth of that whole doctrine which now the Apostle was about to reveal to them and so no improper means of inducing this faith of Christ And so Rom. 1.20 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Gods works or doings in the world are lookt on as competent means to convince men of the divine essence and attributes and to render all idol-worshippers unexcuseable And it is not altogether improbable that the same Apostle which had oft used this argument to inforce beliefe might in that Tenth to the Romans in passing touch on it speaking v. 12. of the no difference betwixt Jew and Gentile both of them having assurance that if they sincerely serve and worship the true God now revealed in and by Christ they shall be saved and all the question being how they shall now thus call on him without beliefe believe without a Preacher the answer is given in the words of those places of Scripture which testifie this knowledge or beliefe to have been abundantly preached or revealed to them And then why may not this be one inferiour testimony of this kind to prove that all sort of men Jews and Heathens have heard i. e. had a competent measure of this knowledge of Gods great goodness toward men revealed to them that the Psalmist speaking of the glory of God those glorious attributes of power mercy and wisdom which are to be adored in him and expressing
or distress or suffering shall be for the remainder of time perpetual I call to mind thy former benefits to us and my hope is strengthened and despair ceaseth making this sadder part an introduction to the more chearful And so the Jewish Arab And when I say this is my dejection prostration and the space or duration of the plague or punishment of the most High I remember c. The Seventy Eighth PSALM MAschil of Asaph Paraphrase The seventy eighth Psalm is a reflexion on Gods various dealing his mixtures of mercies and punishments on the people of Israel from the time of their being in Egypt to Davids exaltation to the Kingdom It seems to have been composed by Asaph and set to the tune called Maschil See note on Psal 32. a. 1. Give ear O my people to my law incline your ears to the words of my mouth 2. I will open my mouth in a parable I will utter dark sayings of old Paraphrase 1 2. Let all the people of God give diligent attention to what I shall now deliver as to that which is designed for their special instruction and gathered out of the records of Gods providence toward his own people the Jews see note on Psal 49.6 that all that profess Godliness may be admonished thereby 3. Which we have heard and known and our Fathers have told us 4. We will not hide them from their children shewing to the generations to come the praises of the Lord and his strength and his wonderful works that he hath done Paraphrase 3 4. And the truth of the things being so undoubtedly certain as well as of weighty consideration either particularly known to us that now live or thought fit to be by tradition conveighed down to us by our ancestors I have all reason to communicate and propagate them to others to whom also our Fathers designed them as well as to us of this age that they might joyn with us in blessing and praising and magnifying the glorious attributes of God and the powerful and gracious acts that he hath wrought for us 5. For he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers that they should make them known to their children Paraphrase 5. For thus indeed did God himself appoint when he first revealed his will and laws unto the Jews by Moses laying it as an obligation on the parents to be strictly careful to â—nstruct their children to all posterity in the knowledge of them see Deut. 4.9 and 6.7 6. That the generation to come might know them even the children that should be born who should arise and declare them to their children Paraphrase 6. That not themselves only but even all their posterity those that were not then born should first learn them themselves and then diffuse and instil them into all others 7. That they might set their hope in God and not forget the works of God but keep his commandments Paraphrase 7. And that in order to the preserving and cherishing all parts of piety in them a chearful relyance and dependance on him that had thus demonstrated his readiness to succour them thanksgiving and praising of him for his works of power and mercy and a careful performance of all holy uniform obedience to his commands as to him that had wrought redemption for them and so purchased them to be his servants 8. And might not be as their fathers a stubborn and rebellious generation a generation that set not their heart aright and whose spirit was not stedfast with God Paraphrase 8. And to restrain them from transcribing their fathers copies who when they were thus strangely obliged by God were yet guilty of most vile provoking obstinacies unbeliefs and rebellions murmurings and downright Apostasies from his law by Idolatry c. would either never set themselves heartily to the ways of God or if they did presently relapst into foul transgressions 9. The children of Ephraim being armed and carrying bows turned back in the day of battel Paraphrase 9. Delaying in their performances with God as they did sometimes in their warlike engagements when they were just ready to fight and wanted nothing toward the doing it successfully they fainted in the very point of the assault and fled out of the field Thus the Ephramites appear to have done and consequently were defeated and assaulted by the Philistims 1 Chron. 7.21 And just thus did many other of these when any service was really to be performed to God any danger to be combated with and virtue of patience or faith or courage to be exercised then were they sure to falter and fall off shamefully 10. They kept not the Covenant of God and refused to walk in his law 11. And forgat his works and wonders which he had shewed them Paraphrase 10 11. And seldom or never made they good any constancy of obedience to him were still apt to murmur and distrust his promised assistance though ascertained to their faith by never so many wonderful experiments of his power and providence toward them would not go on in the way that God directed them but through fear and distrust fell into mutinies and quarrels with Moses and refused to be ruled or conducted by him 12. Marvelous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt in the field of Zoan Paraphrase 12. And this was a most hainous aggravated infidelity much heightned by the many works of wonder that God had afforded their fathers so lately in bringing them out of Egypt by a mighty hand and fearful prodigious judgments upon Pharaoh and his people 13. He divided the sea and caused them to pass through and he made the waters to stand as an heap Paraphrase 13. The conclusion of which was that he made the very sea recede and depart before them and stand still like a wall Exod. 14.22 or like a heap Exod. 15.8 see note on Psal 33. b. to secure them from all danger of approach and so carried them through the chanel as on dry ground and conducted them safe out of Egypt 14. In the day time also he led them with a cloud and all the night with a light of fire Paraphrase 14. To this end he set a lightsome cloud over their heads at once to overshadow and inviron them see note on 1 Cor. 10. a. and this cloud so disposed that in the night-time it afforded light to the Israelites though not to the Egyptians that followed them but made a clear separation between them Exod. 14.20 and in the day-time when they needed not its light it was yet visible over them and about them by this means miraculously directing and conducting them in their journeys 15. He clave the rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink as out of the great depths Paraphrase 15. And in their journeying in the wilderness when they wanted water he commanded Moses to strike a rock with his rod and by so doing there came
there were no Competition as it might be Chance so it might be Necessity too Thou art fain to be vertuous because thou canst be nothing else goodness must go for thy refuge but not thy choice were there no rival sin no competitor lust to pretend for thee 'T is therefore not only an act of wisdom but of goodness too observable in Gods wonderful dispensation of things under the Gospel to leave the Christian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the confines of two most distant people improveable into good and capable of evil like Erasmus's Picture at Rome or that vulgar Lie of Mahomet's Tomb at Aleppo betwixt two Load-stones 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Synesius calls it a stake between God on one side and all the Devils in Hell on t'other made up of a Canaanite and an Israelite a law in the members as well as a law in the mind or as Antoninus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 perswasions in the members many Topicks of Rhetorick many strong Allectives to evil in the lower carnal part of the man as well as invitations and obligations to good in the upper and spiritual Thus did God think fit to dispose it even in Paradise it self the flesh tempted with carnal objects even before the first sin had disordered that flesh A Palate for the sweetness of the Apple to please and an eye for the beauty to invite as well as an upper Masculine faculty a Reason for commands to awe and threats to deter yea and it seems in Heaven it self and the Angels there where is no flesh and blood that officina cupidinum shop or workhouse of desires yet even there is an inlet for Ambition though not for lust a liableness to the filthiness of the spirit though not of the flesh or else Lucifer had still stood Favourite could never have forfeited that state of bliss And so 't is ever since in this inferiour Orb of ours Behold I set before thee life and death blessing and cursing on one side all the joys of Heaven to ravish and enrap thee the mercies of Christ to draw thee with the cords of a man with the bands of love to force and violence thy love by loving thee first by setting thee a copy of that heavenly passion to transcribe but then withal death in the other scale death which it seems hath something amiable in it too it would not be so courted else a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Macarius styles it a gallantry of Hell a purple garment of darkness that such sholes of men and I tremble to think and say so large a quantity of baptized Christians are so ambitious of sell all that 's comfortable and valuable in this life to purchase it And were there not both these set before us by God life on one side and death on t'other blessing on one side and cursing on t'other a double canvass for thy soul a rivalry a competition and somewhat on both sides amiable to somewhat in thee life to the immortal death to the perishing part of thee blessing to the rational divine cursing to the bedlam brutish part of thee the man of God could not go on as he doth in that place Deut. 30.19 therefore chuse life that thou and thy sons may live Were there but one in our reach 't were necessity still and not choice and that most absolutely destructive of all judgment to come Hell might be our Fate but not our Wages our Destiny but not our Reward and Heaven any thing more truly than a Crown of righteousness A Piece of the Philosopher there hath been a long while in the world that hath had a great stroke in debauching the Divine that the Understanding doth necessarily and irresistibly move the Will that whatever hath once passed the judicium practicum got not only the assent of the Judgment that 't is true but the allowance also that 't is good and fit to be chosen cannot chuse but be desired and prosecuted by the Will from whence the Divine subsumes that where Faith is once entered though that but a Speculative I wish it were not sometimes but a Phantastical Faith there Works must and will infallibly follow I confess it were admirable news if this were true if all that knew these things were sure to do them if there were no such thing possible as Sin against Light Sin against Gospel Sin against Conscience if the lives of Believers could not prove infidel the actions of those that acknowledge God that make no doubt of the truth of Christianity could not avoid or escape being Godlike and Christian if 't were but a flash of S. Augustin's wit that the wicked Infidel believes contrary to Faith the wicked Believer lives contrary to it There were then but one care left a Christian to be catechiz'd aright which the Solifidian calls Faith or to be confident of his own Election which the Fiduciary calls Faith and then Quis separabit any thing else will be wrought in me by Christ or that any thing else will be unnecessary to be wrought Instead of this Pagan Principle that ties up all in the chains of inevitable Fate if it be examin'd give me leave to mention to you one Aphorism of Christian Philosophy which is but the interpretation of the competition that now I speak of that the Will is no more necessitated to obey the suggestions of Reason than of the Sensual Appetite of the upper than the lower Soul that 't is an indifferent middle Faculty able to chuse the evil and refuse the good or to satisfie the Philosophers importunity which resolves it impossible to chuse the evil unless under the appearance of good you may take it in a clearer notion able to chuse the pleasant and refuse the honest to chuse the sensual carnal and refuse the intellectual spiritual good And that you may see the ground of this observe that the whole Man is made up of three parts Spirit Soul and Body 1. The Body or Flesh lusting against the Spirit And 2. the Spirit again lusting against the Flesh Those two Extremes perfectly contrary one to the other in their appetites and therefore called by the Ancients 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 one the Masculine t'other the Feminine part one the Monarch in the Soul t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Commonalty one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Master t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Child one the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the voice and image of God in us t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the bestial part one the Man t'other the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the four-footed creatures in us And these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do or as the Greek 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so that you do not this is a consequent of that Contrariety you do not the thing that you would i. e. perhaps perfectly purely without some tack or mixture however I am sure not
you may see it Tit. 2.11 The grace of God that bringeth salvation to all men hath appeared 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Catholick salvifick grace be it Christ himself or the Gospel of Christ and the end of this Epiphany follows 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to discipline or to teach us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly and righteously the very vertues in this Text with the addition of one transcendent one and godly in this present world A strange catalogue of fundamentals one would think for Christ to ascend the cross to preach unto us We expect other manner of doctrines from him doctrines of liberty Jubilee and manumission as the merit and acquisition of his sufferings of security and protection from sin that a little carnality shall not hurt us of freeing us from this bondage to obediences at least from any judgment to come for such errors as these that flesh and blood makes so necessary and incorrigible We have generally a smoother scheme of Christianity than Salvian dream'd of in his Quid est fides nisi praeceptis Christi obedire What is is Faith but obedience to the commands of Christ The necessity of purifying or mortifying of lusts goes for an heresie of this nicer Age which must superadd works to faith our own obedience to the righteousness of Christ and so in Simon Magus his phrase homines in servitutem redigere make slaves of free-born men have them live as well as if Christ had never died for them The truth is the doctrine we have now in hand if believed and obey'd is so certainly destructive of the Devils kingdom and none other so certain but this that you cannot blame Satan and his instruments to cry it down as the vilest heresie in the world He may hope for some tolerable quarter from any other principles especially from those of the Solifidian and Fiduciary brave delicate inoffensive doctrines that have nothing in them contrary to passions and that gets them such zealous Advocates for by this divinity they have their lusts And though it pleases God by the power of his Grace to preserve some men that have imbibed these principles from those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Epiphaniuâ—'s phrase those streams of brimstone that naturally flow from such mines as these I mean from the pernicious and poysonous effects of them though some that conceive obedience unnecessary to justification live very strict and gracious lives in spight of all those advantages and encouragements to the contrary yet now God knows the truth is too grosly discovered the Gnosticks Divinity begins to revive a great deal of carnal I am sure of spiritual filthiness yea all the profaneness and villany in the world is now the most natural spawn of those infusions and to look no further than the glass and those foul selves which that reflects unto us The cause of God and the faith of Christ of which we are seriously such Champions is I fear as much dishonoured and renounced by our faithless apostate atheistical actions by our hellish oaths and imprecations that pultroon sin that second part of Aegyptian plague of frogs and lice and locusts the basest that ever had the honour to blast a Royal Army that casts us into such Epileptick fits such impure foamings at the mouth and will not be bound no not with chains in a word by our going on in such sins against which the denunciation is most punctual that they which do these things shall never enter into the kingdom of Heaven and yet flattering our selves that we shall not fail to enter as by all the species of infidelity all the Judaism and Mahometism and Barbarism in the world And therefore as it is the mercy of the Apostle thus to disabuse his besotted Corinthians know ye not and be not deceived neither Fornicators nor any of that bestial crew shall inherit the kingdom of heaven in thâ—si so is it the justice of his charity to make it a prime ingredient in an Apostolick Sermon scarce any other Article so necessary to be preached especially to a Felix whether as a Commander or as a Heathen or as one peculiarly guilty of those sins and that is the second part of the relative aspect of these words as they refer to the Auditory my next particular And 1. as Felix was an Eques Romanus Procurator of Judaea whose power gave him opportunities to be unjust and his splendid life temptations to incontinence no part of Christian Religion no Article of the Creed is so proper for his turn as the doctrine of the judgment to come for such sins as these that palliate vulgar cure of healing and not searching of wounds of preaching assurance of present pardon before reformation is wrought of solacing but not amending of sinners is not the method in Saint Pauls in Christs dispensatory 't is the scandal rather and reproach of Christianity in Julian 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 security and protection and place of confidence from Christ to the most polluted villain the defamation of Constantine in Zosimus that he turn'd Christian because he was guilty of such sins for which no other Religion allowed expiation No the only safe medicinal course is to apply corrosives and causticks the terrours of the Lord and the consuming fire of the Lord the judgment to come when any mortified flesh is to be gotten out and to accept the face of a Fâ—lix in this kind to withhold those saving medicines in civility to the person to whom they are to be adminisâ—â—ed and so suffer that sin upon my splendid Neighbour that my charity requires me to rebuke in any meaner person this is the unjustest rudeness in the world the most treacherous sensless compliance the most barbarous civility cruel mercy the telling him in effect that he is too great to be cured this saith Procopius is the saluting by the way which Elisha forbids Gehazi and Christ the Disciples the one when he went to cure the other to preach and 't is his observation there that such civilities 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 keep Preachers from working any miracles the gentle handling of the great mans sins is many times the damning of him and debauching all the neighbourhood The Lord be merciful to our whole Tribe for our uncharitable omissions in this matter And for once I may chance to deserve your pardon if I do not conceive the flatteringst addresses to you to be always the friendliest If in meer charity to some Auditors I imitate my Saviour and tell you of woes even under a Saviour of casting into utter darkness where the worm never dieth and the fire is not quenched with all the variations and exchange of accents three times repeated by our Saviour within four Verses of an horrendum est what a fearful thing it is to fall into Gods hands and be ground to powder by that fall if I bring out all those Topicks of so true and withall such amazing Rhetorick with
custom what indulgence in sin i. e. what Tophet what Hell shall be able to separate us from the love the favour the heaven of God He that hath Christ the Priest hath all he that believes in the sufferings hath Christ the Priest though not the King hath the faith though not the works i. e. the righteousness though not the Heathenish morality the Protestant Orthodox part though not the Popery the Antichristianism of a Christian and so is but the richer for that want hath the greater portion in the sufferings of Christ by the abundance of those sins he suffered for the more of the Priest is ours by how much the less of the King is discernible in us Having driven our unchristian lives to this principle this solemn conceit of ours that the Priestly office of Christ to which if rightly understood we owe all our salvation is nothing but the death of that Christ methinks 't were now possible to convince the secure Fiduciary of the error and sophistry of his former way to rob him of his beloved cheat now that we have prov'd so clear that Christ commenc'd his eternal Priesthood that on which all our blessedness depends from the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not till after his resurrection For Tell me O thou whom my soul loveth and mourneth and bleedeth for in secret thou carnal confident that hast wearied thy self in the greatness of thy way thy profane wild-goose chase of sin and yet hast not said there is no hope thou that wilt profane and be saved too riot and be saved too reconcile faction rebellion sacrilege oppression oaths carnality all the unchristian practices in the world the confutation of the whole Gospel with salvation Tell me I say what Christ it is thou wilt be tried or saved by by Christ the King I am confident thou wert never so impudent to venture thy rebellions to that cognizance Well it is Christ the Priest thou so dependest on and â—y Christ the Priest Why because he hath sacrificed himself for thee Now let me tell thee 1. That some have guest shrewdly that though Christ died for all the sinners and sins in the world yet his sufferings being but finite in duration though infinite in respect of the person of the sufferer will not prove a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a proportionable ransom for thy sins I mean the impenitent sinners sins in duration infinite being as they are undetermin'd uncut off by repentance Thou must return reform confess and forsake or else thou hast out-sinn'd the very sufferings of Christ out-spent that vast ransom out damn'd salvation it self that may be a conviction ad hominem perhaps and therefore I mention'd it in the first place But then 2. Thou art it seems all this while mistaken in thy Priest thou art it seems all for the Aaronical and hast not yet thought of the Melchisedech-Priest thou art all for the sacrificer and never dream'st of the blesser Thou layest all thy weight on the Cross of Christ and art ready to press it down to hell with thee with leaning onely but not crucifying one lust on it never thinkest of being risen with Christ the condition so indispensably necessary to give us claim to the benefit of his death and so in effect thou leavest Christ in the grave and thy self in that mournful case of the despairing Disciples speraveramus we had hoped but never look'st after a resurrection 'T was Saint Pauls saying If in this life only we have hope in Christ we were of all men most miserable I suppose it is in this life only not of us but of Christ on this earth for it is brought to prove Christs resurrection there and it follows immediately but now is Christ raised 1 Cor. 15.20 and if that be the sense of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there the this life of Christ contains also his death under it for both those together it is that must make up the opposite to the resurrection And then I shall enlarge the Apostles words though not sense If in the earthly life and death of Christ we had hope only a sad life and a contumelious death if there were no such thing as a resurrection to help bless us we were of all men the most miserable hadst thou no other Priest but the Sacrificer the mortal finite Aaronical-Priest nothing but the ransom of Christs death which though it be never so high a price is yet finally unavailable to many for whom it was paid he bought them that are damn'd for denying him 2 Pet. 2.1 the wilful sinner treads under foot the Son of God profanes the blood of the covenant by which he is sanctified Heb. 10.29 and so there 's destruction enough still behind for the impenitent wretch after all that Christ hath suffer'd for thee what forms of ejulation and lamentation were enough for thee Alas my Brother ah Lord or ah his glory what mourning or wailing were thy portion Tell me wilt thou be content to leave thy Father before he hath blessed thee Jacob would not do so with the Angel but would wrestle his thigh out of joynt rather than thus part with him and even the profane Esau will run and weep bitterly for it and then art thou more nice and tender than that smooth Jacob wretchless than that profane Esau if thou content'st thy self only to have brought Christ to the grave that state of curse and never look'st out for the blessing provided for thee in the resurrection Mistake me not I would not drive you from this Cross of Christ discourage you from that most necessary act of faith the apprehending the crucified Saviour No if my lot had fallen on a Good-friday I would have spent my whole hour on that one theme and known nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified Only my desire is that you will not allow one act of faith to turn Projector to get all the custom from the rest that you will permit Christ to live in you as well as to die for you to bless as well as to satisfie to rise again for your justification as well as to be delivered up for your offences that you will attend him at Galilee as well as at Golgotha think of the triumphant as well as the crucified Saviour the Melchisedech as well as the mortal Aaron-Priest And not only to think of his rising I must tell you but count of a work a mighty important necessary work that of turning in this Text to be wrought on us and in us by that resurrection now after the pardon impetrated by his passion I say not only to think of and believe him risen the Devil hath as much of that thought as frequent repeated acts of that belief as you and there is not such magick in that faith or phansie as to bear you to Heaven by meditating on his journey thither to elevate you by gazing on his ascension No that faith must be in our hearts too that
principle of action and practice they must open to him as the Tulip to the rising Sun or as the everlasting dores to that King of glory give him an alacrious hospitable reception as the friend to the friend as the diseased to the Physician deliver themselves up most willing Patients to all his blessing warming influences to all his medicinable saving methods that he may sanctifie and reform bless and turn live and reign in our hearts by faith and prove a Shlloh in the Criticks notion of the word from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fortunatus est the work of the Lord for which he raised him thrive and prosper in his hands We must rise with Christ as well as die with him doe as the bodies of the Saints that slept Mat. 28.53 arise and come out of our graves of sin go into the holy City and appear to many Our resurgere must be attended with an ire an ire of obedience Go and he goeth an ire of motion too an active stirring vital life not sit only or creep but go and walk and run the way of Gods commandments and then 2. we must have a term for that motion a matter for that obedience an ubi for that ire and that civitatem sanctam 1. the City and then the holy the life of the man the Citizen the Common-wealths man risen with Christ in every of these capacities and then the sanctam a superaddition of all sanctity of all that 's Christian and in all these notions we must ire and praire go before as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and so do that great act of charity attract others after us by exemplary lightsom actions apparere multis conduct the stray multitude to heaven That this is the benefit of Christs resurrection and that there is no faith or belief in this article to be counted of but that is thus improv'd thus evidenced is the special thing that I meant to perswade you from these words which I shall endeavour to do by reserving the remainder of the time for the third and last particular the interpretation of this Priestly office of Christ to which the resurrection instal'd him or wherein this blessing consists In turning c. For the equal dealing with which I conceive my self obliged to shew you these three things 1. What is meant by turning away every one from his iniquities 2. What the dependence is betwixt this and the resurrection of Christ 3. How this turning is an interpretation of blessing God having raised up his son Jesus sent him to bless us in turning c. For the first every syllable will be a hint of direction for this matter 1. Turn that one syllable is the best description of the great saving grace of repentance 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Athanasius's phrase the inverting the transposing or the turning of the soul and less than that wâ—â—â— not prove sufficient humbling and confessing and grieving and hating will not serve the turn these are but initial preparatives to that last hand but dull lines but liveless monagrams which that vital pencil in this Text that of turning must fill up The want of this one accomplishment is the ruining of all makes that vast Chasm as wide as that betwixt Dives and Abrahams bosom the sorrowing confessing self-hating if unreformed sinner may fry in Hell when none but the returning Prodigal can find admission to Heaven and that for the turning The manner of which will be worth the observing also the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 here is common to Christ and us but in a different power and sense he by way of efficience we of non-resistance active in Christ and but neutral in us he to turn us and then we to turn not to resist that power of his grace not to go on when he turns So in other phrases of Scripture he to draw and then we to run after him God to work in us both to will and to do and then we to work out our own salvation he to knock and we to open he to rouze the sleeper and we to awake and rise from the dead we to obey his grace but his grace most necessary thus to turn us or yet more plainly Christ to use all the means of turning us that can belong to God dealing with reasonable creatures and such as he means to crown or punish his call his promise his threats his grace preventing exciting assisting in a word all but violence and coaction which is destructive of all judgment to come and we not to resist to grieve to quench those blessing methods to turn when he will have us turn Then every one of you the extent of that grace consequent to that resurrection He is gone up on high hath led captivity captive and gave gifts unto men men indefinitely there and all flesh in the other prophecy I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and here every one of you i. e. primarily every one of you Jewes unto you first in the beginning of the Verse but then from them diffusively to all others The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 2.11 hath appeared unto all men 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. taking them all into the school of discipline teaching them to live soberly and justly and piously in this world and again every one this turning is indispensably necessary and therefore to every self flatterer O be not deceived c. and bring forth fruit c. and think not to say within your selves We have Abraham c. There is no dispensation for Abrahams Children for the elect for men of such and such perswasions no special priviledge for Favourites no Postern-gate or back stairs for some choice privado's all their prerogative is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 earlier grace or more grace and consequently so much the more obligation but then except you repent and return you shall all perish 3. From his iniquities Iniquities first and then his Iniquities not the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 every legal breach or declination the resurrection and grace of Christ will not thus return us to a Paradise on earth will not thus sublime us quite out of our frail sinner-state till our mortality be swallowed up with life but the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 villanies and wickednesses of the carnal man the wasting acts and noisome habits of an unsanctified life from these Christ died and rose that he might turn us There is not a more noxious mistake a more fatal piece of Stoicism amongst Christians than not to observe the different degrees and elevations of sin one of the first another of the second magnitude one ignis fatuus or false star differing from another in dishonour though not in glory some spots that are spots of sons that by a general repentance without particular victory over them by an habitual resolution to amend all that is amiss without actual getting out of these frailties are capable of Gods mercy in Christ reconcileable with a regenerate
and then what ever we do there the devil cannot approach us is the very hope of the hypocrite in Job and that hope as hypocritical as himself perisheth and vanisheth when he hath most rest to set upon it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Aristotle the debauch't young man can entertain himself with such daring courageous hopes as these 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but old age and death-beds are not of so good assurance There is but one principle I say of our perseverance to be depended on that of Christs daily intercession for the true humble disciple that his faith may not fail and that Intercession an act of power in Christ to give what he thus prayes for All power is given unto me and so in effect a doing and giving what ever is required on Gods part to the working of this blessed work upon our souls a concurrence an actual donation of minutely assistance to them that humbly wait and beg for it and that secondly receive it and make use of it when 't is given That double condition is indispensably required on our parts to the obtaining of this grace as you may see it in the Habenti dabitur the parable of the talent and Heb. 7.25 He is able to save them that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them the ability to save and deliver out of the tempters hand to give perseverance is explained by his continual intercession but that only to those that come unto God by him the pious disciple and true Christian the worshipper of God that doth his will that 1. begs and then doth not resist and grieve that Spirit of his as Heb. 5.9 he is authour of salvation to whom to all those that obey him he is able to save them as if Christ were not able to save any others to give any other perseverance as he could not do miracles in his own country because of their unbelief The truth is his decree and oath hath maniâ—leâ— him noâ— to work such miracles of mercies prodigies of perseverance for the profane impenitent the either spiritual or carnal presumer You see now the dependence betwixt the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on one side and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 on t'other the rising on one side and the blessing and turning on t'other I prâ—ceed to my last particular that the turning is but a periphrasis of blessing To bless us in turning c. And I would it were in my power instead of demonstrating to your brain to preach 〈◊〉 home to your affections to perswade you and convince you of this great truth the belief of which your felicity here and eternity hereafter so much depends on could you but acknowledge the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that there is any such thing as blessedness in a regenerate life discern this mystery of godliness the present joyous estate that lies folded up in the new creature 't is impossible you should be any longer in love with perishing There may be perhaps some smooth pleasant parts in sin that the beast about you may delight in some entertainment for that carnal brute but what a poor acquisition is that delight to tempt thee out of blessedness to rob thee of such inestimable treasures A piteous exchange this make the best of it but when that moment any joy is not to be had neither when there is so little so nothing even of transitory carnal pleasure in it then Return O Shunamite return let not the Prodigal out-wit thee out-thrive thee rise up in judgment against thee and condemn thee He after the exhausting not only of his patrimony but of his flesh a crest-fall'n degenerous Prodigal a kind of Lycanthropos Nebuchadnezzar but in worse company driven from men to swine which of all other creatures are unfittest to preach returning their ocular nerves saith Plutarch are so placed that they can never come to see Heaven 'till they are laid upon their backs yet even this guest of swine Prodigal can at last think fit to return to his Father O let this Prodigal turn Preacher as such sometimes when they have run out of all are wont to do I shall give him the Text on which I shall be confident he will be very rhetorical Return unto thy rest O my soul Again consider the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 what blessedness is and that may possibly work upon you Other excellencies there are that may set you out in the eyes of men generosity obligingness wisdom learning courage c. and every of these can be thought fit to be some sober mans Idol And yet the utmost that can belong to these is to be praise-worthy And then what proportion is there betwixt all these and one such heroick excellency of which the Philosopher can say praise is too poor a reward for them we count them blessed O then if there be any consolation in Christ any vertue any praise if any so noble a quality as ambition be left in you if any spark of that Vestal flame any aspiring to that which will ennoble and sublime your natures any design on blessedness behold and remember the turning in this Text nay if you are but so wel-natured as to wish a poor piteous accursed kingdom out of the jawes of so many hells and capable of some return toward blessedness again fulfil you my joy Away with those objections and prejudices we have to repentance that 't is a rugged thorny galling way a dull melancholy joyless state what ever you can miss what ever quarrel in it 't will be abundantly repair'd and satisfied in this one of blessedness send me all the torments and miseries of this malicious Age the inventions of wit and cruelty all the diseases that the Heathens fear had deified and in the midst of these a present instant blessedness and I shall certainly defie them all give me blessedness upon the rack upon the wheel and if you will suppose it possible in hell it self and I will never ask Father Abrahams favour or allay to those flames I shall not doubt but to enjoy that any thing that hath blessedness in it The very Heathens saith Saint Austine had a great design upon one treasure that they found they had lost used all means they could think would contribute toward the recovery of it and in that quest went at last saith he and gave their souls to the Devil to get purity for those souls 'T were then but reason that you would give your souls unto God to purchase it that you would set a turning a purifying when the same compendium renders you pure and blest together when the being happier than you were before is all that you pay to be so for ever I have tired you with preaching that that would have been more seasonable to have prayed for you that God having as on this day raised up his Son Jesus will vouchsafe to send him into every of our
perfect obedience that was the condition of the first covenant made in paradise when there was ability to perform it but a condition proportioned to our state sincerity in lieu of perfection repentance in exchange for innocence evangelical instead of legal righteousness believing in the heart i. e. cordial obedience to the whole Law of Christ impartial without hypocrisie or indulgence in any known sin persevering and constant without Apostasie or final defection and at last humble without boasting If you will come yet nearer to a full sight of it sometimes regeneration or new life is said to be the condition Except you be born again you can in no wise enter Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision but a new creature Sometimes holiness without which nemo Deum no man shall see the Lord Sometimes repentance in gross nay but except you repent sometimes in retail repentance divided into its parts he that confesseth and for saketh shall have mercy sometimes repentance alone but now commands all men every where to repent as if all duty were contained in that sometimes in conjunction with faith repent you and believe the Gospel sometimes faith sometimes love sometimes self-denial sometimes mercifulness sometimes hope but that an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a this hope that sets us a purifying every one of these when you meet them single goes for the only necessary the adequate condition of the Gospel to teach you to take them up all as you find them leave never an one neglected or despised lest that be the betraying of all the rest but make up one jewel of these so many lesser gems one body of these so many limbs one recipe compounded of so many ingredients which you may superscribe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Catholicon or the whole duty of man From this general proposition without the aid of any assumption we may conclude demonstratively enough promises of the Gospel are conditional promises therefore all confidence must take rise from duty Duty is the performance of that condition and to be confident without that is to conclude without promises and consequently to claim justification or pardon of sins before sanctification be begun in the heart to challenge right to heaven before repentance be rooted on earth to make faith the first grace and yet define that assurance of salvation to apply the merits of Christ to our selves the first thing we do and reckon of charity good works duty as fruits and effects to be produced at leisure when that faith comes to virility and strength of fructifying what is all or any of this but to charge God of perjury to tell him that impenitents have right to heaven which he swears have not or to forge a new lease of heaven and put it upon Christ the calmest style I can speak in is that it is the believing of a lie and so not faith but folly an easie cheatableness of heart and not confidence but presumption Hope a man may without actual performance of duty because he may amend hereafter though he do not now and so that possibility and that futurity may be ground of hope but then this hope must set us presently upon performance He that hath this hope purifies himself or else it is not that grace of hope but an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a youthful daringness of soul a tumour a disease a tympany of hope and if it swell farther than it purge if it put on confidence before holiness this hope may be interpreted desperation an hope that maketh ashamed an utter destitution of that hope which must bestead a Christian O let us be sure then our confidence our claims to heaven improve not above their proportion that we preserve this symmetry of the parts of grace that our hope be but commensurate to our sincerity our daringness to our duty A double confidence there is pro statu and Absolute pro statu when upon survey of my present constitution of soul I claim right in Christs promises for the present and doubt not but I shall be bless'd if I be found so doing Absolute when at the end of life and shutting in of the day I am able to make up my reckonings with S. Paul I have fought a good fight I have finished my course I have kept the faith henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness a crown of felicity I have done what I had to do and now 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is nothing behind but to receive my pay I have been too long upon the general consideration of the connexion between confidence and duty if it were an extravagance I hope 't was a pardonable one I descend with speed to the hypothesis the connexion betwixt this confidence and this performance claiming of temporal plenty upon giving of alms my last particular And that I shall give you clearly in this one proposition That alms-giving or mercifulness was never the wasting or lessening of any mans estate to himself or his posterity but rather the increasing of it If I have delivered a new doctrine that will not presently be believed an unusquisque non potest capere such as every auditor will not consent to I doubt not but there be plain texts of Scripture more than one which will assure any Christian of the truth of it Consider them at your leisure Psal 41.1 2. Ps 112. all to this purpose Pro. 11.25 12.9 19.17 and 28.27 Add to these the words of Christ Mar. 10.30 which though more generally delivered of any kind of parting with possessions for Christs sake are applied by S. Hier. to the words of Solomon Pro. 11.24 There is that scattereth and yet increaseth quia centuplum accipient in hoc tempore because saith he they receive an hundred fold in this world And that no man may have any scruple to interpose 't is set in as large and comprehensive a style as the art or covetous scrupulous wit of man could contrive for his own security There is no man who shall not All which being put together must to my understanding make it as clear to any that acknowledges these for Scripture as if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 daughter of voice were come back into the world again and God should call to a man out of heaven by name bid him relieve that poor man and he should never be the poorer for it 'T is not now to be expected of me in conscience having produced this kind of proof the express texts of Scripture to add any second to it I might else farther evidence it from examples not such as Moscus's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 will furnish you with for I know not of what authority they are nor yet from S. Hieroms observation who is said to have turned over histories on purpose and never found any merciful man which met not with some signal blessing in this world as the reward of that vertue but even by appealing to your selves and challenging any man here
strength Only thus much then It would be somewhat for your edification to try what you could do Certainly there is much more in a Christians power if he be not engaged in a habit of sin than we imagine though not for the performing of good yet for the inhibiting of evil And therefore bethinking our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Arrian That we are the sons of God 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let us not have too low and degenerous an opinion of our selves Do but endeavour resolutely and couragiously to repel temptations as often as they sollicite thee make use of all thy ordinary restraints improve thy natural fear and shamefac'dness thy Christian education tender disposition to the highest pitch do but hold sincerely as long as thou art able and though I will not say that all thy sins shall be confin'd to those two heads of original a branch of which are evil motions and of omission yet I will undertake that thou shalt have an easier burthen of actual commissions upon thy soul and that will prove a good ease for thee those are they that weigh it down into the deep that sink it desperateliest into that double Tophet of obduration and despair Final obduration being a just judgment of God on one that hath fill'd up the measure of his iniquities that hath told over all the hairs of his head and sands of the Sea in actual sins and a necessary consummation of that despair the first part the Prologue and Harbinger to that worm in Hell 'T were easie to shew how faith might afford a Christian sufficient guard and defence against the keenest weapon in the Devils armory and retort every stroke upon himself But because this is the Faith only of a Wife not as we now consider as a Woman at large but in a nearer obligation as a Spouse We shall more opportunely handle that in the next Part where we shall consider Indulgence in sin as the work of a whorish Woman where whoredom noting adultery presupposes wedlock and consists in unfaithfulness to the Husband the thing in the next place to be discovered The Work c. That Christ is offered by his Father to all the Church for an Husband that he waits and begs and sends presents to us all to accept of the proposal the whole Book of Canticles that Song of spiritual love that affectionate wooing Sonnet will demonstrate that every Christian accepts of this Match and is Sacramentally espoused to Christ at his Baptism his being call'd by the Husbands Name imports for that is the meaning of the phrase Isai iv 1 Let us be called by thy Name i. e. marry us That Faith is the only thing that makes up the Match and entitles us to his Name and Estate is observable both from many places of Scripture and by the opposition which is set betwixt a Christian and all others Jews and Infidels betwixt the Spouse and either the destitute Widow or barren Virgin the ground of which is only Faith So then every Christian at his Baptism being supposed a Believer and thereby espoused Sacramentally to Christ and so obliged to all the observances as partaker of all the priviledges of a Wife doth at every unchaste thought or adulterous motion offend against the fidelity promised in marriage by every actual breach of this faith is for the present guilty of Adultery but by indulgence in it is downright a whore i. e. either one that came to Christ with an unchaste adulterous love to gain somewhat not for any sincere affection to his person but insidious to his estate and having got that is soon weary of his person or else one that came to him with pure virgin thoughts resolving her self a perpetual captive to his love and never to be tyred with those beloved fetters of his embraces but in time meets with a more flattering amiable piece of beauty and is soon hurried after that and so forgetteth both her vows and love Thus shall you see an handsome modest maidenly Christian espoused to Christ at the Font and fully wedded by his Ring at Confirmation Nay come nearer yet to him and upon many solemn expressions of fidelity and obedience vouchsafed the seal of his very heart in the Sacrament of his Blood another that hath liv'd with him a long while in uniform constant loyalty noted by all the neighbourhood for an absolute Wife a grave solemn matronly Christian yet either upon the allurements of some fresh sprightful sin or the sollicitations of an old-acquaintance lust the insinuations of some wily intruder or a specious shew of a glorious glittering temptation or when these are all wanting upon the breaking out of an evil heart of unbelief which some outward restraints formerly kept in departing from the living God profess open neglect and despight against the Husband which before they so wooed and flattered and made love to 'T were long to number out to you and give you by tale a Catalogue of those defections and adulterous practices which Christians are ordinarily observed to be guilty of which whether they go so far as to make a divorce betwixt the soul and Christ or whether only to provoke him to jealousie whether by an intercision of Grace and Faith or by an interruption and suspension of the acts I will not now examine I will go no farther than the Text which censures it here as a piece of spiritual whoredom of treacherous unfaithful dealing to be light unconstant and false to Christ whose Spouse they are esteemed whose Name they bear and Estate they pretend title to And so indeed it is for what greater degree of unfaithfulness can be imagined What fouler breach of Matrimonial Covenan◠than to value every ordinary prostitute sin before the precious chastest embraces of an Husband and a Saviour to be caught and captivate with the meanest vanity upon earth when it appears in competition with all the treasures in Heaven Besides that spiritual Armor which Faith bestows on a Christian Eph. vi 16 sufficient to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked or as the Greek hath it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that wicked one the Devil methinks there is a kind of moral influence from Faith on any wise and prudent heart enough to enliven and animate and give it spirit against the force or threatnings of any the strongest temptation and to encourage him in the most crabbed uncouth disconsolate undertakings of godly obedience For what sin didst thou ever look upon with the fullest delight of all thy senses in the enjoying of which thy most covetous troublesome importunate lusts would all rest satisfied but one minute of Heaven truly represented to thy heart would infinitely out-weigh A Turk is so affected with the expectation of his carnal Paradise those Catholick everlasting Stews which he fancies to himself for heaven that he will scarce taste any wine all his life-time for fear of disabling and depriving him of his lust he will be very
to instruct you in its causes And first of the first wherein this Infidelity and to speak more plainly Perjury of formal Believers consists Though they say c. Since that rather phancy than Divinity of the Romanists Schoolmen and Casuists generally defining Faith to be a bare assent to the truth of Gods word seated only in the understanding was by the Protestant Divines banished out of the Schools as a faith for a Chamaeleon to be nourished with which can feed on air as a direct piece of Sorcery and Conjuring which will help you to remove Mountains only by thinking you are able briefly as a Chimaera or phantastical nothing fit to be sent to Limbo for a Present since I say this Magical Divinity which still possesses the Romanist and also a sort of men who would be thought most distant from them hath been exorcised and silenced and cast out of our Schools would I could say out of our hearts by the Reformation the nature of Faith hath been most admirably explained yet the seat or subject of it never clearly set down some confining it to the understanding others to the Will till at last it pitched upon the whole Soul the intellective nature For the Soul of man should it be partitioned into faculties as the grounds of our ordinary Philosophy would perswade us it would not be stately enough for so Royal a guest either room would be too pent and narrow to entertain at once so many graces as attend it Faith therefore that it may be received in state that it may have more freedom to exercise its Soveraignty hath required all partitions to be taken down that sitting in the whole Soul it may command and order the whole man is not in the brain sometimes as its gallery to recreate and contemplate at another in the heart as its parlour to feed or a closet to dispatch business but if it be truly that Royal Personage which we take it for it is repletive in the whole house at once as in one room and that a stately Palace which would be much disgraced and lose of its splendor by being cut into offices and accordingly this Royal Grace is an intire absolute Prince of a whole Nation not as a Tetrarch of Galilee a sharer of a Saxon Heptarchy and described to us as one single act though of great command and defined to be an assent and adherence to the goodness of the object which object is the whole Word of God and specially the promises of the Gospel So then to believe is not to acknowledge the truth of the Scripture and Articles of the Creed as vulgarly we use knowledge but to be affected with the goodness and Excellency of them as the most precious objects which the whole world could present to our choice to embrace them as the only desirable thing upon the earth and to be resolutely and uniformly inclined to express this affection of ours in our practice whensoever there shall be any competition betwixt them and our dearest delights For the object of our Faith is not meerly speculative somewhat to be understood only and assented to as true but chiefly moral a truth to be prosecuted with my desires through my whole Conversation to be valued above my-life and set up in my heart as the only Shrines I worship So that he that is never so resolutely sworn to the Scriptures believes all the Commands Prohibitions and Promises never so firmly if he doth not adhere to them in his practice and by particular application of them as a rule to guide him in all his actions express that he sets a true value on them if he do not this he is yet an Infidel all his Religion is but like the Beads-mans who whines over his Creed and Commandments over a threshold so many times a Week only as his task to deserve his Quarterage or to keep correspondence with his Patron Unless I see his belief exprest by uniform obedience I shall never imagin that he minded what he said The sincerity of his faith is always proportionable to the integrity of his life and so far is he to be accounted a Christian as he performs the obligation of it the promise of his Baptism Will any man say that Eve believed God's inhibition when she eat the forbidden fruit If she did she was of a strange intrepid resolution to run into the jaws of Hell and never boggle 'T is plain by the story that she heard God but believed the Serpent as may appear by her obedience the only evidence and measure of her Faith Yet can it not be thought that she that was so lately a Work of God's Omnipotence should now so soon distrust it and believe that he could not make good his threatnings The truth is this she saw clearly enough in her brain but had not sunk it down into her heart or perhaps she assented to it in the general but not as appliable to her present case This assent was like a Bird fluttering in the Chamber not yet confined to a Cage ready to escape at the first opening of the door or window as soon as she opens either ears or eyes to hearken to the Serpent or behold the Apple her former assent to God is vanish'd and all her faith bestowed upon the Devil It will not be Pelagianism to proceed and observe how the condition of every sin since this time hath been an imitation of that The same method in sin hath ever since been taken first to revolt from God and then to disobey first to become Infidels and then Sinners Every murmuring of the Israelites was a defection from the Faith of Israel and turning back to Egypt in their hearts Infidelity as it is the fountain from whence all Rebellion springs Faith being an adherence and every departure from the living God arising from an evil heart of unbelief Heb. iii. 12 so it is also the channel where it runs not any beginning or progress in sin without a concomitant degree of either weakness or want of faith So that Heathens or Hereticks are not the main enemies of Christ as the question de oppositis fidei is stated by the Romanists but the Hypocrite and Libertine he is the Heathen in grain an Heretick of Lucifer's own sect one that the Devil is better pleased with than all the Catalogue in Epiphanius or the Romish Calendar For this is it that Satan drives at an engine by which he hath framed us most like himself not when we doubt of the Doctrine of Christ for himself believes it fully no man can be more firmly resolved of it but when we heed it not in our lives when we cleave not to it in our hearts when instead of living by Faith Heb. x. 38 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we draw back and cowardly subduce our selves and forsake our Colours refusing to be martialled in his ranks or fight under his Banner Arian the Stoick Philosopher hath an excellent discourse concerning
to the promises of the Gospel but uniformly to the whole Word of God commands and threats as well as promises And this not in the brain or surface of the soul as the Romanist seats it but in the heart as regent of the hand and tongue in the concurrence of all the affections Where it is not only a working faith an obeying faith but even a work even obedience it self not only a victorious faith but even victory it self 1 Jo. v. 4. This is our victory even our faith to part with this as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is our only business is sure an unreasonable Thesis Any faith but this is a faith in the clouds or in the air the upper region of the soul the brain or at most but a piece of the heart a magical faith a piece of sorcery and conjuring that will teach men to remove Mountains only by thinking they are able but will never be taken by Christ for this faith upon the earth if it do walk here it is but as a Ghost 't is even pity but it were laid Let me beseech you meekly but if this would not prevail I would conjure you all in this behalf the silly weak Christian to fly from this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and call for some light of their lawful Pastors to find out the deceit and the more knowing illuminate Christian to examine sincerely and impartially by feeling and handling it throughly whether there be any true substance in it or no. The Pharisee looking upon himself superficially thought he had gone on on very good grounds very unquestionable terms that he was possest of a very fair estate he brought in an inventory of a many precious works I fast I tithe c. verse 12. hath no other Liturgies but thanksgivings no other sacrifice to bring into the temple but Eucharistical and yet how foully the man was mistaken God I thank c. The first thing I shall observe in the words is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the rational importance of them as they are part of a rhetorical Syllogism an example or parallel to shew that in the last days though men think that there is a great deal yet there is indeed like to be but little Faith upon the Earth And the issue from thence is the Pharisees flattering favourable misconceit of his own estate and the parallel line to that our premature deceivable perswasions of our selves that is ordinary among Christians The second thing is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the natural literal importance of the words and therein the concomitants or effects of those his misconceits 1. Pride 2. Censoriousness Pride noted by his speech I thank thee that I am not then his posture pluming up himself standing by himself he prayed as the Syriack set the words and many Greek copies some by making a comma after 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 others by reading 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 standing by himself as Beza renders it seorsim apart not as our English he stood and prayed thus with himself but as the words will likewise bear it he stood by himself thus this posture signifying a proud contemptuous behaviour whilest the Publican stood crouching humbly and tremblingly behind 2. Censoriousness and insinuating accusations of other mens persons even as this Publican To which we may add the occasion of all this seeing the Publican behind him i. e. comparing himself with notorious sinners he was thus proud and censorious And of these in their order as powerfully and effectually to your hearts as God shall enable me And first of the first the Pharisees favourable misconceits of himself and parallel to these our deceivable perswasions of our selves God I thank c. The black sin that hath dyed the Pharisees soul so deep as to become his characteristick inseparable property a kind of agnomen a perpetual accession to his name is hypocrisie The proper natural importance of which word signifies the personating or acting of a part putting on another habit than doth properly belong to him But by the liberty we ordinarily allow to words to enlarge themselves sometimes beyond their own territories to thrive and gain somewhat from their Neighbours it is come vulgarly to signify all that ambitious out-side or formality the colour and varnish of religion by which any man deceives either others or himself and accordingly there is a two-fold hypocrisie the first deceiving others the second himself That by which he imposeth upon others is the sin we commonly declame against under that name most fiercely sometime by just reason as having been circumvented by such glozes sometime in a natural zeal to truth preferring plain downright impiety before the same transfigured by a varnish Reatus impii pium nomen his being counted innocent is an accession to his guilt But then sometimes too under this odious name we may wound sincere and pure devotion as the primitive Christians were by the tyrants put in wild beasts skins that they may be torn in pieces men may be deterr'd from all the least appearance of purity for fear they should be counted hypocrites However this first sort of hypocrisie may deserve its seasonable reprehension this Parable in my Text doth not take it in but insists mainly upon the other that colour of piety by which a man deceives himself and cheats and glozes with his own soul That first sort were it not for some hurtful consequences might for ought I can gain-say pass for an innocent quality in a sinner For what great injury doth that man do to any other or himself what grand sin against God or the World by desiring to seem better than he is by labouring to conceal those sins in himself which could not be known without dishonour to God and scandal to his neighbour 'T was a Lawyer 's answer being questioned whether it were lawful for a Woman to take money for prostituting her self that indeed 't was a sin to prostitute her self but that being supposed as in some kingdoms it is permitted he thought 't was no great fault to get her living by it Not to justifie his opinion but apply it by accommodation In like manner arraign an hypocrite and muster up all the sins he hath committed in secret and all these I will acknowledge worthy of condemnation because sins Nay if his end of concealing them be to circumvent a well-believing Neighbour that shall be set upon his score also but for the desire it self of keeping his sin from the eyes of men so that he do not from the eyes of God and his Ministers upon occasion for a cautiousness in any one not to sin scandalously or on the house top take this by it self abstracted from the sin it belongs to and I cannot see why that should be either a part or aggravation of a sin There is nothing that deserves the tears yea and holy indignation of a godly soul more than the sight of an immodest boasting sinner that
the children of this mother may environ her like olive plants round about her table this perhaps you will count an high thing to shed the leaf but what think you of extirpation and rooting up even this you shall hear denounced and executed on those that cast a fair shadow either as on degenerous or unprofitable trees either for bad fruit or none at all Cut it down why cumbreth it the ground But to our purpose when St. Paul therefore resolves that nothing should ever separate him from the love of God Rom. viii sin is there left out of the catalogue be he never so possest of that inheritance for ought he knows this very confidence may root him out again His Brethren the Jews thought their estate as irreversible as the Pharisees here and upon as good grounds as he can pretend the very promise of God to Abrahams seed indefinitely and yet by that time this Parable was spoken they can bring him word of the repeal of that promise within a while seal'd and confirm'd by their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 their instant utter destruction a forerunner of which if not the cause was this confidence of their immutable estate It was a phancy of the Stoicks mention'd by Plutar. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that a wise man could do nothing amiss that all that he did was wise and vertuous And they that will have men saved and damned by a Stoical necessity now adays may borrow this phancy of the Stoicks also but Homer saith he and Euripides long since exploded it I am sure St. Paul will fairly give any man leave that takes himself to be in a good estate now to fear a bad before he die to expect a tempest in a calm or else he would not have been so earnest with him that thinks he stands to take heed lest he fall 1 Cor. x. 12 It was the confidence of a Turk i. e. a Stoick reviv'd in Nicetas Chon that said he knew they must overcome on now for ever as having got 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an habit of conquering and it was well if this assurance did not take the pains to lose it him again It is the Rhetorick of discreet Captains to their Soldiers in Thucydides and other Historians to exhort them to fight on comfortably and couragiously as having overcome in remembrance of their past victories as pawns and pledges of the future but 't is always on condition and presumptions of the same diligence and valour which formerly they shewed and the same military encouragements and munition the Fathers frequently furnish us with against our spiritual warfare but all rather to increase our diligence than security to set us to work on hope of success not to nourish us in idleness in hope of a victory If we should suffer the Devil from this proposition he will give his Angels charge that a child of his shall not dash his foot against a stone and then that assumption thou art the child of God to conclude that thou canst not hurt thy self with a fall he would straight back that with a Mitte te deorsum Cast thy self down to shew what thou canst do and then if thou hast not another scriptum est to rejoynder thou shalt not tempt then this confidence is tempting of God I know not how thou wilt be able to escape a precipice a bruise if not a breaking The Valentinian having resolved himself to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 spiritual confest indeed that other men must get some store of faith and works to help them to Heaven 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Iren. But they had no need of either because of their natural spiritualness that which is spiritual cannot part with its spiritual hypostasis what ever it do or suffer no more than gold by a sink can lose its lustre or the Sun-beams be defam'd by the dunghil they shine on They commit all manner of impurity saith he and yet they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 seeds of the election the seeds indeed deep set in the earth that take root downward but never bare fruit upward they never spring at all except it be towards Hell nor sprout out any branch or stalk of works unless it be of darkness These forsooth have grace 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as their proper possessions all others but to use and so it seemed for they of all others made no use of it There was another like fancy in the same Irenaeus of Marcus and his followers that by the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a form of baptizing that they had that they were become 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible to the judge then if ever they were apprehended 't were but calling to the mother of Heaven and she would send the helmet in Homer that they should presently vanish out of their hands Thus have men been befool'd by the Devil to believe that their sacred persons could excuse the foulest acts and as it was said of Cato even make crimes innocent thus have some gotten the art of sinning securely nay religiously as he that in our English History would put his Neighbours in a course to rebell legally But I hope all these fancies have nothing to do but fill up the Catalogues in Irenaeus and Epiphanius I trust they shall never be able to transplant themselves into our brains or hearts but pray God there be no credence of them scattered here and there among hasty ignorant overweening Christians A man shall sometimes meet abroad some reason to suspect it yet 't were pity to fear so far as to set to confute them There may be indeed a state and condition of Christians so well setled and riveted by Christ in grace that their estate may be comfortably believed immutable an election under oath perhaps that mentioned by the Psalmist I have sworn by my holiness I will not fail David for spiritual blessings are frequently in Scripture conveyed along with temporal But it is much to be doubted that those men that have boldness to believe this of themselves have not ballast enough of humility and fear to make it good Porphyry had so much Divinity in him as to observe that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 were the only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that perpetual washings and purgings and lustrations were the only means to defend or deliver from evil either to come or present the only Amulets and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the world 't is the rainbow in the Heaven reflected thither from a cloud of tears below that is Gods ingagement never again to drown the earth But then there must be also another bow in the heart that must promise for that that it shall not be like a deceitful bow go back again to folly never again be drowned with swinish bestial filthy lusts In the seventeenth of Exodus the Israelites prevailed against Amalek and that miraculously without any sensible means and verse 16. the promise is made for the future that the
first stone than the whole foundation because the walls are necessary only to the setting on of the roof not to the laying of the foundation the foundation necessary both to the walls and roof but not to the first stone because that may be laid without the whole foundation but the first stone necessary to all the rest and therefore of greatest and most absolute necessity The course of nature is delineated and express'd to us by the like proceedings and method of Arts and Sciences So those general principles that are most familiar to us are the poorest and yet most necessary rudiments required to any deeper speculation the first stage of the understanding in its peregrination or travel into those foreign parts of more hidden knowledg is usually very short and 't is most requisite it should be so for beginning at home with some 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and taking its rise at its own threshold thereby it advances the length and secures the success of the future voyage Thus in Politicks hath the body of Laws from some thin beginnings under Lycurgus Solâ—n Phaleas and the like by daily accessions and farther growth at last increased into a fair bulk every age perfecting somewhat and by that degree of perfection making the matter capable of a farther so that the very Politicks themselves as well as each Commonwealth have been observed to have their infancy youth and manhood the last of which is the only perfect state which yet this body had never attain'd to had it not been content to submit it self to the imperfection of the former Thus also in practical Philosophy there be some praeambula operationis some common precepts which must be instill'd into us to work a consistency in our tempers firm enough for the undertaking and performing all moral tasks One excellent one Aristole learnt from Plato in the second of the Ethicks 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a skill of ordering those two passions aright joy and sorrow an habit never to rejoyce or grieve but on just occasion which lesson we must conn perfectly when we are young and then with years an easie discipline will bring on vertue of its own accord Lastly in the transcendent knowledge of Metaphysicks which Aristotle would fain call wisdom 't is the Philosophers labour which they were very sedulous in to invent and set down rules to prepare us for that study the best that Aristotle hath is in the third of Metaph. to examine and inform our selves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which things are chiefly worth doubting of and searching after in which one thing if we would observe his counsel if we would learn to doubt only of those things which are worth our knowledge we should soon prove better Scholars than we are Jamblichus beyond all the rest most to the purpose prescribes retiredness and contempt of the World that so we might 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 even live and be nourished by the excursions of the mind towards God where indeed he speaks more like a Christian than a Pythagorean as if he had learnt Christ to deny himself and the world and follow him and intended to come to that pitch and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which St. Paul speaks of Gal. ii 20 The life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith c. But to conclude this praecognoscendum there be throughout all works of nature and imitations of art some imperfect grounds on which all perfection is built some common expressions with which the understanding is first signed some ground-colours without the laying on of which no perfect effigies or pourtraicture can be drawn Nay thus it is in some measure in spiritual matters also we are men before we are Christians there is a natural life and there is a spiritual life And as in the resurrection 1 Cor. xv 46 so also in the spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of the soul first that which is natural and after that which is spiritual and in the spiritual life there be also its periods the infancy the youth and virility of the spirit the first being most imperfect yet most necessary and preparing the way to the last perfection To bring all home to the business in hand thus did it not befit the Saviour of the World to come abruptly into it to put on fâ—esh as soon as flesh had put on sin the business was to be done by degrees and after it had been a long time in working for the final production of it the fulness of time was to be expected The Law had its time of paedagogy to declare it self and to be obeyed as his Vsher for many years and after all this he appears not in the World till his Baptist hath proclaimed him he makes not toward his Court till his Harbinger hath taken up the rooms He comes not to inhabit either in the greater or lesser Jewry the World or Man's heart till the Praecursor hath warn'd all to make ready for him and this is the voice of the Praecursor his Sermon and the words of my Text Prepare ye the way of the Lord. Instead of dividing the words I shall unite them and after I have construed them to you contrive that into one body which would not conveniently be dismembred 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifies to sit to prepare to make ready Ye are all those to whom Christ should ever come The ways of the Lord are whatsoever is capable of receiving of Christ or his Gospel peculiarly the hearts of the elect The form of speech imperative notes the whole complexum to be one single duty required of all the Baptists and my Auditors sub hac formâ that every man's heart must be prepared for the receiving of Christ or punctually to imitate the order of the words in my Text the preparation of the soul is required for Christ's birth in us For there is in every elect vessel a spiritual 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or mystical incarnation of Christ where the soul like Mary is first overshadowed by the Holy Ghost then conceives then carries in the womb grows big and at last falls into travail and brings forth Christ My Text goes not thus far to bring to the Birth neither will I. My discourse shall be happy if it may be his Baptist his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in your hearts to prepare them for his birth which I shall endeavour to do first by handling preparation in general 2. The preparation here specified of the soul 3. In order to Christs birth in us And first of preparation in general 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 prepare ye or make ready the necessity of this performance to any undertaking may appear by those several precedaneous methods in common life which have nothing in themselves to ingratiate them unto us but cost much toil and trouble yet notwithstanding are submitted to If the Earth would answer the Farmer 's expectation without any culture or husbandry he would never be so prodigal
us and conceive Christ and bring forth true and saying Fâ—ith in us let all the rest of our studies be ordered in a new course let us change both our method and our Tutor and having hitherto learnt God from our selves let us be better advised and learn our selves from God Let us all study all learning from the Spring or Fountain and make him our instructer who is the only Author worth our understanding and admit of no Interpreter on him but himself The knowledge of God shall be our Vision in Heaven O let it be our speculation on Earth Let it fill every conceit or phansie that we at any time adventure on It is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the last work in which all the promises all our possible designs are accomplished O let us in part anticipate that final revelation of him lest so sudden and so full a brightness of glory be too excellent for the Eyes of a Saint and labour to comprehend here where the whole comfort of our life is what we shall then possess And if all the stretches and cracking and torturing of our Souls will prevail the dissolving of all our spirits nay the sighing out of our last breath will do any thing let us join all this even that God hath given us in this real service to our selves and expire whilst we are about it in praying and beseeching and importuning and offering violence to that blessed spirit that he will fully enlighten and enflame us here with zeal as well as knowledge that he will fill us with his grace here and accomplish us with his glory hereafter Now to him that hath elected us hath created us and redeemed us c. SERMON XI MATTH X. 15 It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrha in the day of judgment than for that City THE whole new Covenant consists of these two words Christ and Faith Christ bestowed on Gods part Faith required on ours Christ the matter Faith the condition of the Covenant Now to bring or present this Faith before you as an object for your understandings to gaze at or to go farther to dissect and with the diligence of Anatomy instruct in every limb or joynt or excellency of it were but to recal you to your Catechism and to take pains to inform you in that which you are presum'd to know The greater danger of us is that we are behind in our practice that we know what Faith is but do not labour for it and therefore the seasonablest work will be on our affections to produce if it were possible this pretious vertue in our souls and to sink and press down that floating knowledge which is in most of our brains into a solid weighty effectual Faith that it may begin to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a work of faith which was formerly but a phansie dream and apparition To this purpose to work on your wills no Rhetorick so likely as that which is most sharp and terrible no such Physick for dead affections as Corrosives the consideration of the dismal hideous desperate estate of infidels here in my Text and that both in respect of the guilt of the sin and degree of the punishment proportioned to it and that above all other sinners in the World It shall be more c. Where you may briefly observe 1. the sin of infidelity set down by its subject that City which would not receive Christ being preach't unto it v. 14. 2. the greatness of this sin exprest by the punishment attending it and that either positively it shall go very sore with it and therefore it is to be esteemed a very great sin implyed in the whole Text or else comparatively being weighed with Sodom and Gomorrha in judgment it shall be more tolerable for them than it and therefore 't is not only a great sin but the greatest the most damning sin in the world And of these in order plainly and to your hearts rather than your brains presuming that you are now come with solemn serious thoughts to be edified not instructed much less pleased or humor'd And first of the first The sin of infidelity noted in the last words that City To pass by those which we cannot choose but meet with 1. a multitude of ignorant Infidels Pagans and Heathens 2. of knowing but not acknowledging Infidels as Turks and Jews We shall meet with another order of as great a latitude which will more nearly concern us a world of believing Infidels which know and acknowledge Christ the Gospel and the promises are as fairly mounted in the understanding part as you would wish but yet refuse and deny him in their hearts apply not a Command to themselves submit not to him nor desire to make themselves capable of those mercies which they see offered by Christ in the World and these are distinctly set down in the verse next before my Text Whosoever shall not receive you i. e. entertain the acceptable truth of Christ and the Gospel preached by you as 't is interpreted by the 40. verse He that receiveth you receiveth me i. e. believes on me as the word is most plainly used Mat. xi 14 If you will receive it i. e. if you will believe it this is Elias which was for to come And John i. 12 To as many as received him even to them that believe in his name For you are to know that Faith truly justifying is nothing in the World but the receiving of Christ Christ and his sufferings and full satisfaction was once on the Cross tender'd and is ever since by the Gospel and its Ministers offered to the world and nothing required of us but an hand and an heart to apprehend and receive and to as many as received him he gives power to become the sons of God John i. 12 So that Faith and Infidelity are not acts properly determined to the understanding but indeed to the whole Soul and most distinctly to the Will whole part it is to receive or repel to entertain or resist Christ and his promises the Author and Finisher of our salvation Now this receiving of Christ is the taking or accepting of the righteousness of Christ and so making it our own as Rom. i. 17 being rightly weighed will enforce Read and mark 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in it or by it the Gospel mentioned in the former verse 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the righteousness of God by Faith as Rom. iii. 22 i. e. the not legal but Evangelical righteousness which only God accepts directly set down Phil. iii. 9 That righteousness which is through Faith of Christ the righteousness which is of God by Faith 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 is revealed to Faith is declared that we might believe that finding no life or righteousness in our selves we may go out of our selves and lay hold on that which is offered us by Christ and this you will find to be the clearest meaning
it also necessary necessitate praecepti a thing which though we should be never the better for we are bound to perform So that though Faith were not able to save us yet infidelity would damn us it being amongst others a direct breach of a natural a moral nay an Evangelical Commandment And so much for the danger of infidelity considered positively in relation to the Subject whom it deprives of Heaven the Object Christ and his offers in the Gospel which it frustrates and lastly the Author and Commander of it God the Father whom it resists disobeys and scorns You will perhaps more feelingly be affected to the loathing of it if we proceed to the odious and dangerous condition of it above all other sins and breaches in the World which is my third part its comparative sinfulness It shall be more tolerable c. And this will appear if we consider it 1. in it self 2. in its consequences In it self it is fuller of guilt in its consequences fuller of danger than any ordinary breach of the moral Law In it self so it is 1. the greatest aversion from God in which aversion the School-men place the formalis ratio the very Essence of sin it is the perversest remotion and turning away of the Soul from God and getting as far as we can out of his sight or ken the forbidding of all manner of Commerce or spiritual Traffick or correspondence with God as may appear by that admirable place Heb. x. 38 The just shall live by faith but if any man draw back my soul hath no pleasure in him and verse 39. We are not of them which draw back unto perdition but of them that do believe to the saving of the Soul Where the phrase of drawing back oppos'd here to Faith and Believing is in the original 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a cowardly pusillanimous subducing of ones self a getting out of the way a not daring to meet or approach or accept of Christ when he is offered them the same with 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 among the Physicians a contraction of the Soul a shriveling of it up a sudden correption and depression of the mind such as the sight of some hideous danger is wont to produce so 2 Mac. vi 12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. to be discouraged and to forsake the Jewish Religion because of the calamities So is the word used of Peter Gal. ii 12 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. He withdrew and separated himself fearing those that were of the Circumcision The Infidel I say draws back withdraws and sneaks out of the way as if he were afraid of the mercies of his Saviour as if it were death to him to be so near salvation as if Christ coming to him with the mercies of the Gospel were the mortal'st enemy under Heaven and there were no such mischief to be done him as his conversion This indeed is an aversion in the highest degree when we fly and draw back from God when he comes to save us when the sight of a Saviour makes us take our heels Adam might well hide himself when God came to challenge him about his disobedience the guilty conscience being afraid of revenge may well slink out of his presence with Cain Gen. iv 16 But to tremble and quake at a proclamation of mercy when God draws with cords of a man Hos xi 4 a powerful phrase exprest in the next words with the bands of love when he loveth us and calls his Son out for us v. 1. then to be bent to backsliding in the 7. ver to draw back when he comes to embrace this is a stubbornness and contraction of the soul a crouching of it in a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that neither nature nor reason would be guilty of an aversion from God which no other sin can parallel and therefore of all other most intolerable in the first place 2. Infidelity gives God the lye and denies whatever God proclaims in the Gospel The reason or ground of any ones belief the objectum formale quo that by assenting to which I come to believe is Gods Veracity the Confidence that God speaks true the relying on his word is that which brings me to lay hold on Christ and therefore the Infidel is down right with God he will not take his word he 'll never be perswaded that these benefits of Christs death that are offered to all men can ever do him any good Let God call him to accept them he 'll never come his surly resolute carriage is in effect a contradicting of whatever God hath affirmed a direct thwarting a giving the lye to God and his Evangelists and this is an aggravation not to be mentioned without reverence or horror the most odious affront in the World the Lord be merciful to us in this matter Next this sin is a sin of the most dangerous consequences of any 1. It produces all other sins and that positively by doubting of his justice and so falling into adulteries blasphemies and the like in security and hope of impunity by distrusting of his providence and mercy and so flying to covetousness murmuring tempting subtlety all arts and stratagems of getting for our temporal estate and ordinary despair in our spiritual then privatively depriving us of that which is the mother and soul of our obedience and good Works I mean faith so that every thing for want of it is turned into sin and thereby depopulating the whole man making him nothing in the World but ruins and noysomness a confluence of all manner of sins without any concomitant degree of duty or obedience 2. It frustrates all good Exhortations and forbids all manner of superstructions which the Ministers are wont to labour for in moving us to charity and obedience and joy and hope and prayer by not having laid any foundation whereon these must be built any of these set or planted in any Infidel heart will soon wither they must have a stock of faith whereon to be grafted or else they are never likely to thrive As Galba's Wit was a good one but 't was unluckily placed ill-seated there was no good to be wrought by it The proudest of our works or merits the perfectest morality will stand but very weakly unless it be founded on that foundation whose corner stone is Christ Jesus 1. It leaves no place in the world for remedy he that is an Idolater a Sabbath-breaker or the like he that is arraigned at the law and found guilty at that Tribunal hath yet an Advocate in the Gospel a higher power to whom he may appeal to mitigate his sentence but he that hath sinned against the Gospel hath no farther to go he hath sinned against that which should have remitted all other sins and now he is come to an unremediable estate to a kind of hell or the grave of sin from whence there is no recovery There 's not a mercy to be fetch'd in
Soul bestows all life and motion on it and enables it to perform any work of nature Again the Body and Soul together considered in relation to somewhat above their power and activity are as impotent and motionless as before the Body without the Soul Set a man to remove a Mountain and he will heave perhaps to obey your command but in event will do no more towards the displacing of it than a stone in the street could do but now let an Omnipotent Power be annext to this man let a supernatural spirit be joined to this Soul and then will it be able to overcome the proudest stoutest difficulty in nature You have heard in the Primitive Church of a grain of Faith removing Mountains and believe me all Miracles are not yet out-dated The work of Regeneration the bestowing of a spiritual Life on one dead in trespasses and sins the making of a Carcass walk the natural old man to spring again and move spiritually is as great a miracle as that Now the Soul in that it produces life and motion the exercise of life in the body is called a principle that is a Spring or Fountain of Life because all comes from it in like manner that which moves this Soul and enables it to do that which naturally it could not that which gives it a new life which before it lived not furnisheth it with spiritual powers to quell and subdue all carnal affections which were before too hard for it this I say is called properly an inward principle and an inward because it is inwardly and secretly infused doth not only outwardly assist us as an auxiliary at a dead lift but is sown and planted in our hearts as a Soul to the Soul to elevate and enable it above it self hath its seat and palace in the regenerate heart and there exercises dominion executes judgment and that is commonly either by Prison or Banishment it either fetters or else expels all insolent rebellious lusts Now the new principle by which not the man but the new man the Christian lives is in a word the spirit of God which unites it self to the regenerate heart so that now he is said to be a godly man a spiritual man from the God from the Spirit as before a living reasonable man from the Soul from the reason that inform'd and ruled in him which is noted by that distinction in Scripture betwixt the regenerate and unregenerate exprest by a natural or animal and a spiritual man Those Creatures that have no Soul in them are called naturals having nothing but nature within to move them others which have a Soul animals or living Creatures by both which the unregenerate is signified indifferently because the Soul which he hath stands him in little stead his flesh rules all and then he is also called a carnal man for all his Soul he is but a lump of flesh and therefore whether you say he hath a Soul and so call him an animal or hath not a Soul and so call him a mere natural there is no great difference in it But now the regenerate man which hath more than a Soul Gods spirit to enliven him he is of another rank 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual man nay only he properly a Christian because he lives by Christ He lives yet not he but Christ liveth 〈◊〉 him Gal. ii 20 This being premised that now you know what this new Creature is he that lives and moves by a new principle all that is behind will be clearliest presented to you by resolving these four questions first whence it comes secondly where it lodges thirdly when it enters fourthly what works it performs there To the first whence it comes the answer is clear and punctual John iii. 3 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 from above from whence comes every good and especially every perfect gift James i. 17 but this most peculiarly by a several and more excellent way than any thing else Since Christs Ascension the Holy Ghost of all the persons in the Trinity is most frequently employed in the work of descending from Heaven and that by way of mission from the Father and the Son according to the promise of Christ John xv 26 The comforter whom I will send from the Father Now this spirit being present every where in its essence is said to come to us by communication of his gifts and so to be peculiarly resident in us as God is in the Church from which Analogy our Bodies are called the Temples of the Holy Ghost which is in us 1 Cor. vi 19 God sends then his spirit into our hearts and this I said by a peculiar manner not by way of emission as an Arrow sent out of a Bow which loses its union which it had with the Bow and is now fastned in the Butt or White nor properly by way of infusion as the Soul is in the Body infus'd from God yet so also that it is in a manner put into our hands and is so in the man's possession that hath it that it is neither in any mans else nor yet by any extraordinary tye annext to God from whom it came but by way of irradiation as a beam sent from the Sun that is in the air indeed and that substantially yet so as it is not separated from the Sun nay consists only in this that it is united to the Sun so that if it were possible for it to be cut off from the Sun it would desist to be it would illuminate no longer So that you must conceive these beams of Gods spirit at the same time in the Christians heart and in the spirit and so uniting that spirit to the heart as you may conceive by this proportion I have a Javelin or Spear in my hand if I would mischief any thing or drive it from me I dart it out of my hand at it from which Gods judgments are compared to shooting and lightning He hath bent his bow he hath sent forth his arrows he cast forth lightnings Psalm xviii 14 But if I like any thing that I meet with if I would have it to me I reach out my Spear and fasten in it but still hold the Spear in my hand and having pierc't it draw it to me Thus doth God reach forth his graces to us and as I may so say by keeping one end in his hand and fastning the other in us plucks and unites us to himself from which regeneration is ordinarily called an union with Christ and this union by a strong able band 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in Euseb his phrase which no man can cut asunder 'T is impossible to divide or cut a spirit and this Bond is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a spiritual one and that made St. Paul so confident That no creature should ever separate him Rom. viii 39 And this God does by way of emanation as a Loadstone sending out its effluvia or magnetick atomes draws the Iron to
is in its working not at its entring I may know that now I have the spirit better than at what time I came to it Vndiscernibly Gods supernatural agency interposes sometimes in the Mothers Womb as in John Baptist springing in Elizabeth at Maryes salutation Luke i. 41 and perhaps in Jeremy Jer. i. 5 Before thou camest out of the womb I sanctifyed thee and in Isaiah Isa xlix 5 The Lord that formed me from the womb to be his servant But this divine address attends most ordinarily till the time of our Baptism when the spirit accompanying the outward sign infuses it self into their hearts and there seats and plants it self and grows up with the reasonable Soul keeping even their most luxuriant years within bounds and as they come to an use of their reason to a more and more multiplying this habit of grace into holy spiritual acts of Faith and Obedience from which 't is ordinarily said that Infants baptized have habitual Faith as they may be also said to have habitual repentance and the habits of all other graces because they have the root and seed of those beauteous healthful Flowers which will actually flourish then when they come to years And this I say is so frequent to be performed at Baptism that ordinarily 't is not wrought without that means and in those means we may expect it as our Church doth in our Liturgy where she presumes at every Baptism that it hath pleased God to regenerate the infant by his holy Spirit And this may prove a solemn piece of comfort to some who suspect their state more than they need and think 't is impossible that they should be in a regenerate condition because they have not as yet found any such notable change in themselves as they see and observe in others These men may as well be jealous they are not men because they cannot remember when their Soul came to them if they can find the effects of spiritual life in themselves let them call it what they will a religious Education or a custom of well doing or an unacquaintedness with sin let them comfort themselves in their estate and be thankful to God who visited them thus betimes let it never trouble them that they were not once as bad as other men but rather acknowledge Gods mercy who hath prevented such a change and by uniting them to him in the Cradle hath educated and nursed them up in familiarity with the Spirit Lastly The spirit sometimes enters into our hearts upon occasional emergencies the sense of Gods judgments on our selves or others the reflexion on his mercies the reading good books falling into virtuous acquaintance but most eminently at and with the preaching of the Word and this by degrees as it seems to us but indeed at some one especial season or other which yet perhaps we are not able to discern and here indeed are we ordinarily to expect this guest if we have not yet found him here doth it love to be cherished and refreshed and warm'd within us if we have it for even it is the power of God unto salvation Rom. i. 16 The third condition in which this spirit comes into our hearts is as an inhabitant or House-Keeper The spirit saith Austin first is in us then dwells in us before it dwells it helps us to believe when it dwells it helps and perfects and improves our faith and accomplishes it with all other concomitant graces So I say here the Spirit is then said to inhabit and keep House in us not as soon as it is entertained and received but when it breaks forth into acts and declares it self before all men When men see our good works and glorify our Father Matth. v. 16 Before we were said to live in the spirit now to walk as you shall see the phrases used distinctly Gal. v. 25 To walk that is to go about conspicuously in the sight of all men breaking forth into works as the Sun after the dispersions of a mist or Cloud whereby all men see and acknowledge his Faith and Obedience and find their own evil ways reprehended and made manifest by his good as is noted in 13. verse All things that are reproved are made manifest by the light Semblable to which is that of the Atheists repining at the godly man Wisd ii 14 He is made to reprove our thoughts Thus is the third Quaere resolved also when this inward principle enters 1. It comes as an Harbenger in every outward restraint by which God keeps us from sinning 2. It enters as a guest in some season or other once for all In the Womb at Baptism at some Sermon sometimes at a notable tempest shaking and stirring us violently ordinarily and for the most part not to be discerned by us and lastly it comes and dwells with us and shews it self in its works yet that not at any set time after his Entrance not constantly without ever covering his Face but when and as often as it pleases and the flesh resisteth not To the last Quaere What works it performs the answer shall be brief every thing that may be called spiritual Faith Repentance Charity Hope Self-denial and the rest but these not promiscuously or in an heap altogether but by a wise dispensation in time and by degrees The Soul being enabled by this inward principle is equally disposed to the producing of all these and as occasions do occur doth actually perform and produce them so that in my conceit that question concerning the priority of Repentance or Faith is not either of such moment or difficulty as is by some Disputers pretended The Seeds of them both are at one time planted in the Soul and then there is no Faith in any Subject but there is Repentance also nor Repentance without Faith So that where it is said Without Faith 't is impossible to please God in any thing else 't is true but argues no necessary precedence of it before other graces for the habits of them all are of the same age in us and then also will it be as true that without Repentance or without Love Faith it self cannot please God for if it be truly acceptable â—aith there is both Repentance and Love in the same Womb to keep it Company Thus are we wont to say that only Faith justifieth but not Faith alone and the reason these promises in Scripture are made sometimes to one grace precisely sometimes to another is because they are all at once rooted in the man and in their habits chain'd together inseparably Faith saves every man that hath it and yet the believing'st man under Heaven shall not be saved without Charity Charity hides a multitude of sins and yet the charitablest man in the World shall never have his score cross't without Repentance A Catalogue of these fruits of the spirit you may at your leisure make up to your selves for your tryal out of the fifth to the Gal.
where else they dwell there So wallowing in the mire being a condition natural to the swine can never be extorted from them wash them rinse them purge them with Hyssop as soon as ever they meet with mire again they will into it Their Swinish nature hath such an influence on them that all care or art cannot forbid or hinder this effect of it So that a customary Sinner who hath as it were made lust a part of his nature hath incorporated prophaneness and grafted it into his affections can as hardly be rid of it as a subject of his property 't is possible for fear or want of opportunity sometime to keep him in and make him abstain the load-stone mayâ—ly quiet whilst no iron is within ken or it may be held by force in its presence but give it materials and leave to work and it draws incontinently So for all his temporary forbearance upon some either policy or necessity the habituate sinner hath not yet given over his habit Leave him to himself give him room and opportunity and he will hold no longer If he be once advanced to this pitch of sin to be walking after his own lusts he may possibly be driven back with a storm or thunder but he will hardly give over his walk hee 'l forward again as soon as ever the tempest is over Nay farther even when he wants objects and opportunities he will yet shew his condition he will betray the desire and good affection he bears to his old lusts his discourse or fashions argue him incontinently bent even when he is at the stanchest As Aristotle observes of the fearful man that even when no formidable object is near he falls into many frights so the voluptuous mans phancy is perpetually possest with the meditation of his own wayes when some disease or necessity will not let him walk In brief unless this second nature be quite taken out of him and another holy spiritual nature created in its room unless a stronger come and bind this Devil and dispossess him of it he hath small hopes of getting himself out of his Dominion and Tyranny there is a great deal more stir in the converting of one customary Sinner than of a thousand others 't is not to be accomplished without a kind of Death and Resurrection without a new Creation of another nature So that if we should judge of Gods actions by our own the spirit should seem to be put to more pains and trouble with this one habituate than in the ordinary business of converting many a tamer Sinner This is enough by the desperateness of the cure to move you to study some art some physick of prevention lest when it is grown upon you it be too late to enquire for remedies How should we dare to entertain and naturalize such an evil spirit within us which if ever he be ravisht out of us again cannot without tearing and torturing and rending even our whole nature in pieces If we must needs be sinful yet let us keep within a moderation let us not so follow the Devils works as to transubstantiate our selves into his nature let us not put off our manhood with our integrity and though we cannot be Saints let us keep our selves men 'T is a degree of innocence not to be extremely wicked and a piece of godliness not to be Atheists Our lust is an infinite thing said a Philosopher 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jambl. and he that walks after it hath an endless journey there is no hope that he that hath so far to go will ever have leisure to sit still And therefore I say if we must needs sin yet let us not engage our selves to sin for ever if our being men lays a necessity of sinning on us let our care to stay whilst it is possible for us prove that we do not sin like â—evils whose sin is their glory and their resolution peremptory never to give over sinning and so may ours seem and in all likelihood prove to be if we give our selves liberty to walk after our own lusts Secondly If our lusts be such dangerous paths to walk in and this in that very respect as they are our own in opposition to Gods commands if they are the straight direct way to Atheism nay Atheism it self then what care and circumspection is required at every setting down of our feet at every entrance on any action lest there be a Serpent in the way some piece of prophaneness in every enterprize we enter on of our selves How ought we to fear to suspect and balk any way that is our own For where it is Atheism to walk there surely 't is a sin to tread and where we have once ventured to tread we shall be shrewdly tempted to walk every step we have safely taken being an encouragement to a second Verebar omnia opera mea saith Job I feared all my works whatever action I could entitle my self to methought there was some danger in it I was afraid it was not right as it should be I should never be able to justify it This is an excellent tryal of all our serious deliberate actions to mark whether they are our own or no whether we went about them on our own heads without our warrant or directions from God if we did 't is much to be doubted there is some poyson some guilt in them some thing that deserves to be feared and fled from This very suspecting of our own wayes will aliene us from our own lusts will bend us nearer to God and never suffer us to dare to venture where he hath not secured us will join us as it were in an Engine to God himself where the lower Wheels never begin to move without the example and government of the higher If you can but perswade your self to fear your own wayes 't will be a good stop of your progress to Atheism I am confident the Devil will never get you to walk in your own lusts Thirdly If walking in our own lusts be direct Atheism what shall we think of them who make it a piece of Religion and holy policy to do so Beloved there be some learned Catechised Atheists who upon confidence of an absolute eternal predestination of every man in the World that shall ever possibly be saved set up their rest there and expect what God will do with them 'T is to no purpose to hope God will alter the decree they are resolved to leave all to God and if they perish they perish Mark with me is not this a Religious Atheism to attribute so much to God as to become careless of him so to depend as never to think on him and by granting his Decree in our understanding to deny his Godhead in our conversation He that lives negligently on confidence that his care may be spared that if there be any salvation for him God will work it out without his fear or trembling he that believes Gods election so absolute that himself
to God in a firm expectation of this state even in the midst of all manner of Worldly evils mentioned Isa viii 17 I will wait upon the Lord which hideth his face and I will look for him i. e. I will wait his leisure patiently for I am sure he will uncover his face And Job more plainly and vehemently Though he kill me yet will I trust in him So verbatim Rom. viii 25 then do we in patience wait for it and 2 Thes iii. 5 The patient waiting for Christ Fourthly As an effect of this patience a silence and acquiescence in the Will of God without any desire of hastning or altering any effect of it So Psa xxxvii 7 Rest in the Lord where the Hebrew hath it be silent to the Lord and wait patiently for him i. e. as the consequents interpret it quarrel not with God for any thing that happens according to his will but against thine as the prosperity of the wicked and the like Fifthly A confirmation of the mind as making our hope the anchor of our soul sure and stedfast Heb. vi 17 that we may thereby in patience possess our souls Luke xxi 19 And lastly a desire of sanctifying our selves according to that 1 Jo. iii. 3 Every man that hath this hope in him purifies himself even as Christ is pure These six effects briefly set down may be certain marks to you by which you may judge how just grounds your assurance stands on and whereby it is to be distinguished from presumption O Lord let the fulness of thy Holy Spirit overshadow us and encrease our weaker Faith into a richer measure of assurance and our more fearful hopes into a degree of full perswasion and certain expectation of those Visions that thou shalt reveal and that blest estate that thou shalt bestow upon us and lest our confidence may either be or seem but a presumption work in us those effects of patience of silence of joy of delight of confirmation of mind and above all a desire and ability of sanctifying our lives unto thee Thus have I with all possible haste made an end of these words and at this time out of the cadence of them observed to you the tenderness of St. Paul and every regenerate man at the least mention of a sin or Sinner illustrated by the opposite hardness of heart proved of soft tender parts of our body and made use of for a crisis or judgment of our estate and livelyhood in grace Secondly out of the words themselves we observed the necessity and method of aggravating our sins especially original sin against our selves which we made use of against those that are more quicksighted in other mens estates and guilts than their own Thirdly We closed all with that comfortable doctrine of assurance discussed to you in brief with six effects of it proposed for an Example to your care and imitation Now the God which hath created us redeemed called justified us will sanctifie in his time will prosper this his ordinance to that end will direct us by his grace to his glory To him be ascribed due the honour the praise the glory the dominion which through all ages of the world have been given to him that sitteth on the Throne to the Holy Spirit and to the Lamb for evermore DISSERTATIONES QUATUOR QVIBVS EPISCOPATUS JURA EX S. Scripturis Primaeva Antiquitate ADSTRVVNTVR Contra Sententiam D. BLONDELLI ET ALIORUM Quibus Praemittitur Dissertatio Prooemialis DE ANTICHRISTO De Mysterio Iniquitatis de Diotrephe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 de Gnosticis sub Apostolorum aevo se prodentibus AUTHORE Henrico Hammond S. S. Theol. Professore PRESBYTERO ANGLICANO LONDINI Typis Tho. Newcomb Impensis R. Royston Bibliopolae Sacrae Regiae Majestati ad Insigne Angeli in Amen-Corner R. Davis Bibliopolae Oxon. 1683. EPISTOLA AD Virum Integerrimum § 1. QUaeris à me vir Integerrime quid rei sit aut quid in excusationem nostram apud exteros obtendi possit quâ ratione aut quibus demum patrociniis propugnanda Gentis existimatio seu potius coeli hominumque invidia amolienda sit quòd cùm duo inter Reformatos magna nomina Claudius Salmasius David Blondellus Episcoporum ordinem tam strenuè prolixè invaserint universa apud nos literatorum natio quae satis novit non solùm fortunas famam suas verùm ipsum corporis Christi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cum dignitate istius ordinis conjuncta esse tam profundo interim silentio rem omnem permiserit ex torpore seu veterno suo quo jamdiu sepulta gens apud proximos eviluit nullâ hostium provocatione aut minis nullâ calamorum quasi arundinum apparatu nullo pugnantium celeusmate nullis triumphantium vel Io canentium 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 excitanda § 2. Nec certè dissimulaverim illud nobis expectandum fuisse ut qui res nostras per decennium utrique regimini tam saeculari quà m Ecclesiastico adeò improsperè succedentes Benignissimo Patre ob impietates Sacrilegia nostra sic jubente vel qui Genium Populi praecipuè literatorum apud Anglos ingenium è longinquo non suis sed aliorum oculis perlustraverint hanc nobis dicam impingerent § 3. Verùm cùm recognoverint viri boni rerùmque existimationum nostrarum 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 indagatores quà m non calamis hîc sed sclopetis non pacatis animorum sed ferocibus brachiorum impulsibus res universa gesta fuerit quà m nobis jamdiu nihil profuerint imò quà m miserandâ sorte obfuerint firmissimarum rationum momenta quibus contra populares contribules nostros districtis ensibus omnes controversiarum nodos discindere paratos nec syllogismis sed tormentis bellicisque omne genus machinis acropoles nostras impetentes Episcoporum Jura non indiligenter sed tamen frustra tuebamur Cùm rursus meminerint quemadmodum insula haec naturâ contra exteros munita eorum jamdiu formidinem abjecit à quibus toto Pelago divisa fuerit sic Ecclesiam Anglicanam quamvis cum Vniversâ Primitivâ Ecclesiâ cum aliis omnibus quibus ista non displicuit concordiam intimam sedulò colat 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 tamen jure gaudentem sub Monarchâ primùm Fidei Defensore ChristÃque in Regno ipsius Vicario dein salvis Regni juribus sub Primate suo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 suis privilegiis munitam suis columnis innixam nullique externo tribunali 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 causam suam coram transmarinis actoribus neutiquam dicendam censuisse nec quidem anxiè aut sollicitè curavisse quam de ipsâ utcunque asperam sententiam dissentientium unus aut alter injussus pronunciaverit Cùm denique in mentem revocaverint quantò magis in evolvendis quà m scribendis libris Doctores Professores nostri operas diligentiam suam exercuerint quà m obnixè