Christ Joh 16. The world shall hate you and persecute you and shall put you out of their synagogues and shall kill you and in doing all this shall think they do God good service But saith he I will send you the comforter Christ knew well enough that among all these evils they should have no Comforter on earth and therefore promises to send them one from heaven And therefore when thy soul is placed in affliction never look after any earthly or sensual or creature comforts for they will prove poison to thy soul but only look for heavenly comforts such as the Spirit brings such as flow immediately from God for these are pure and sweet and unmixed and refreshing and supporting and satisfying and enduring comforts comforts that are able to make thee rejoyce not only in fulness but in wants not only among friends but in the midst of enemies not only in good report but in evil report not only in prosperity but in tribulations not only in life but in death they will make thee go singing to prison to the Cross to the grave they are mighty comforts infinitely stronger then all the sorrows of the flesh and hence it is that many Saints and Martyrs have gone cheerfully to the stake and sung in the very flames the comforts of God in their souls have strengthned them to this Thou that art a beleever and in union with Christ never doubt of this comfort in thy greatest sorrows When Christ had none to stand by him and comfort him God sent an Angel from heaven to do it And so when we are left alone in the world rather then we shall want comfort God will send us an Angel from heaven to comfort us yea the Spirit it self which is greater then all the Angels in heaven and we shall certainly be comforted by God when we are afflicted and tossed with tempest and not comforted by men Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours c. The Lord seeth the Church in its affliction without all comfort in the world and then the Lord comes and comforts it himself and this he doth by a promise They are the sweetest comforts that are brought to us in the promises The promises are the swadling-clothes of Christ they carry Christ wrapt up in them and Christ represented to the Church hath been the comfort of it in all its evils outward or inward And therefore whatever affliction takes hold on thee have recourse to the promises to draw thy comforts from Christ through them Oh how sweet is that life that is led in the promises a life led in the promises is the best life in the world Men that have estates in money or land depend on those things for their maintenance but a Christian may have little or nothing of these in the world but he hath a promise which is a thousand times better and makes his life more comfortable I am God All-sufficient and I will not fail thee nor forsake thee whereupon he comes to this resolution The Lord is my portion saith my soul I will trust in him Oh how sweet a life is this life that knows no cares nor fears nor troubles nor disquietments here saith a believer lies my estate and living and the lot of mine inheritance and this is a thousand times better and more certain estate then all the Mannors and Lordships in the Kingdom for my bread shall be given me my waters shall be sure The Lord is my shepheard and I shall not want no not then when the Lions the great men of the Kingdom to whom every poor man is a prey shall lack and sufferâ—hunger He that hath given me his own Nature and Spirit will not leave me destitute of food and clothing Take another instance A man feeling the bitterness of affliction to flesh and blood is ready to think Oh how shall I ever be able to suffer this or that or to part with my relations with my estate with my life and all that is near and dear unto me Why when a Christian lays hold on the promise God is faithful and will not suffer us to be tempted above that which we are able O saith a Christian God will never bring me to any temptation or trial but he will give me strength proportionable to it or above it and so lives satisfied with the truth and goodness and power of God And thus you see in these instances that a life led in the promises is the sweetest and best life when a man can draw all from God himself through a promise And this in general That God comforts his Church by a promise But to come more particularly to the words Behold I will lay thy stones with fair colours and lay thy foundations with Saphires Vers 12. And I will make thy windows of Agates and thy gates of Carbuncles and all thy borders of pleasant stones The promise relates to the Spiritual Church of the New Testament and this you shall observe is oft in Scripture compared to a building and that to a most stately sumptuous magnificent and glorious building as being all built of precious stones and so more glorious then the first Temple which was built up of common stones and it was prophesied that the glory of the second Temple should far exceed the glory of the first The first Temple was Solomons which was indeed filled with the outward presence of God but the second Temple is the humanity of Jesus Christ or the flesh of Christ both head and members this is the living Temple of the living God the Temple that God hath built by his Spirit for his own habitation wherein God dwels truly really spiritually and most neerly by the way of the most neer union whereby God and the creature are knit together and this spiritual Temple is more glorious then the first material one either according to the first edition of it by Solomon or the second edition of it by the Fathers in the dayes of Cyrus Darius and Artaxerxes Here then you see that the Lord promiseth to build up the Church of the New Testament with stones of fair colours with precious stones I will not stand to enquire particularly into the natures of the several stones here named for the Jews themselves do not fully agree about them It shall be sufficient for us to attain to the meaning of the Spirit in this place and that is this That the Spiritual Church of the New Testament is not to be built with common but with pretious stones Now the full sense of these words I shall give you forth in several particulars 1. You see here the matter of which the Church of the New Testament is made and that is not of common but of precious stones elect and precious stones and such are the faithful For 1. They have a more excellent nature then other men have for they are born of God and so partake of the nature of God and so in
against such a ministery know that they strive against more then a meer man they strive against power from on high against the greatest power that ever God put forth against the power of Christ himself and his eternal spirit and so they shall never be able to prevail against this power but shall surely sinke under it But to return from whence we have a little digressed 3. Without this power of the spirit as Ministers are not able to preach the Word nor to preach it powerfully so neither are they able to hold out in their ministry and to carry it on strongly against all opposition and contradiction Peter and John preached the Gospel but presently the Rulers and Elders and Scribes convented them and straightly threatned them and commanded them not to speak at all nor to teach in the name of Jesus And now if the Apostles had wanted this power of the spirit they would presently have been snibd and awed and would have sneaked away and you should have heard no more of them But they having received this power all the threatnings and scornings of the Rulers and Magistrates could not deterr them from the discharge of their office and that ministery they had received from Christ But though before they were fearful and trembling and daunted at the apprehension of the least danger yet now having received this power they are altogether undaunted and said to the Rulers and Elders whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more then unto God judge ye As if they should have said O ye Rulers and Elders of the people our case is a plain case wherein we are most willing that even your own selves should be Judges For we have received a command from God to preach the Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ and you forbid us to do that which God hath commanded us Now do you your selves be Judges who is fittest to be obeyed God or you the great and glorious God of heaven and earth or poor wretched men such as your selves Nay what God hath commanded us we must and will obey against all your threatnings and punishments and what ever you can say or do We cannot conceal but must publish what we have seen and known of our Lord Jesus Christ of his incarnation life death resurrection ascension kingdom glory and of that great redemption and salvation which he hath wrought and purchased for all the Elect of God Now I would to God that the unjust commands of all Magistrates and secular Powers whatsoever might be no otherwise obeyed then this unjust command of the Rulers was by Peter and John and that no man would dare to yield more obedience to the creature then to the Lord of all For no Princes or Magistrates in the world have any power to forbid the preaching of the everlasting Gospel which God hath commanded should be published to all Nations for the obedience of Faith I say they have no power at all to forbid the preaching of this Gospel or of any one truth of it though never so cross to their designs And if they should yet herein ought we to know no more obedience then Peter and John did here We ought to obey God and not them and to make known the whole minde of God though it be never so contrary to their minde After the example of Peter and John who having received this power of the Holy Spirit held on their Ministery against all the countermands and threatnings and punishments of the Magistrates Whereas without this power they had soon fainted and failed and had never been able to have gone through with it 4. Without this power of the Holy Spirit Ministers are not able to reprove the world For every man by nature seeks the amity of the world and no man by his good will would provoke the enmity of it against himself And therefore flesh and blood will never reprove the world of sin but allows it and countenances it in sin But now the Spirit when he is come he will reprove the world of sin When a man hath this power of the Spirit in him then presently he reproves and argues the world of sin and so by his ministery bids defiance to the whole world and provokes the whole world against himself And this no man either can do or dares do except he be first indued with this power of the Spirit coming on him And therefore saith Micah Cha. 3. vers 8. I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin The world of all other things cannot indure the reproof of sin and the declaration of its evil wayes And therefore it is exceedingly offended yea and extreamly rages against the faithful teachers of the Word with all sorts of punishments and persecutions as the examples of all the Prophets Apostles and faithful teachers of the Word of God in all ages do declare Yea and Christ himself testifies touching himself therefore the world hates me because I testifie of it that the works thereof are evil But now they that will connive at sin and flatter the world in its own wayes these are the onely men of reckoning and live in all worldly Honour and prosperity And all ages can witness that all Teachers are not of that strength and resolution to contemn the hatred and fury of the world Nay the most are quite overcome with the prosperity of this present life and with the desire of friends and riches and preferment and so wink at the sins of the world and are Ministers in whose mouths are no reproofs though the whole world lye in wickedness For thus they escape the rage and violence and obtain the favour and love of the men of this world And thus weak and unworthy are those men who are onely indued with their own Spirits But now saith Micah I am full of power by the Spirit of the Lord and of judgement and of might to declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin As if he should have said the power of the Spirit of the Lord dwelling in me puts forth its self two wayes in judgement and in fortitude 1. In judgement and this signifies the reproving and the condemning sin and wickedness as the Prophet himself explicates saying that I might declare unto Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin But seeing their being full of judgement doth not want danger but exposes a man to a thousand evils in as much as the world can indure nothing less then the reproof of sin therefore I am by the power of the Spirit not onely full of judgement but also Secondly full of Might and as the Spirit of judgement exposes me to danger so the Spirit of might inables me to contemn those dangers So that though the world because of the Spirit of judgement threatens never so many evils yet the
the Kingdom of God stands not in Presbytery or Independency but in righteousness and peace and joy in holy the Spirit and that if I saw any thing of God or Christ or the Spirit in any one I reckoned him as a brother not taking any such opinion into consideration and that the unity of Spirit and not of opinion is the bond of Peace in Christs Kingdom The man then pretended to be satisfied and to rejoyce in his satisfaction but since as is related hath shewed his stomach again but because he seems to be a Christian the Lord lay it it not to his charge And truly Reader it is a sad thing that ever these names of Presbyterians and Independents grew up to this height in the Church and that these Opinions should be reckoned more in a man then the presence and dwelling of God himself and the Spirit in him For my part I utterly disclaim all such distinctions of mans making and will allow of no distinction of men but what God himself hath made and that is this The world and they that are taken out of the world or The Church and they that are without and in the Church the children that are born after the flesh and the children that are born after the Spirit or which is all one carnal and spiritual Christians This distinction of men God hath made and this I do and must needs use though the world as it appears likes this worse then the other For the distinction of seeds in the Church is the true distinction and the more this is brought about by the Word and Spirit the more glorious will the Church be Now some spiritual Christians may be among those that are called Presbyterians and some among those that are called Independents and all these though called by different names are of one spiritual Church And again some carnal Christians may be among those that are called Independents and some among those that are called Presbyterians and all these though called by different names are of one carnal Church And therefore I could wish we had obtained such wisdom from God as to let the distinction and division of men lie onely there where God hath made it and not where flesh and blood hath made it and so shall the true spriritual Church be delivered from these distinctions of flesh and blood and be separated from the world and be gathered together in it self and be at unity with it self which will be Gods great glory and its own great strength comfort and happiness and the great terror and dread of all profane men and formalists Another thing which I finde my heart stirred up within me to do is to testifie to the world what I know in mine own experience touching the Army under the command of that most faithful and worthy General Sir Tho. Fairfax and that because I am not ignorant of the great undervaluing and despising and reproaching of it by many even of those whose blood runs warm in their veins and who enjoy all the comforts they have in the world through the faithfulness diligence activity labors hunger thirst cold weariness watchings marchings engagements stormings wounds and blood of these men instruments in the hand of God for the subduing that malignant power that rose up against the State and Saints of God yea instruments of Gods own chusing and calling forth to his foot for this great and glorious service which after-ages will wonder and stand amazed at as well as at the vile ingratitude of this age to such instruments as these for which God will not hold it guiltless This then for mine own part I am most confident on that there are as many gracious and godly Christians in it as in any gathering together of men in all the world again men full of faith and the Spirit and the admirable endowments of it More particularly there are these six things most remarkable in this despised Army 1. Their Unity which is admirable it being more the Unity of Christians then of men more a Unity in the Spirit then in the flesh in the Father and Son then in themselves And this hath been one great means of their great success they being all both in Counsel and Action but as one man The Lord hath taken them and knit them up in one bundle and so their Enemies could not break them but have been broken by them Many of their matters of greatest moment have been carried in Councel with that Unity that sometimes not so much as one hath contradicted 2. Their humility which hath been admirable as well as the former For after great and glorious Victories to the wonder of the Kingdom and of the World when Kings of the Army did flee apace and the men of might ran away as women I have never heard any of the worthy and godly Commanders or Officers ever to say I did this or that or to boast of his own counsel or his own strength or to attribute any thing to himself or any body else of what God had done but every one to say This was the Lords own doing and it is marvellous in our eyes and it was not our own sword or bowe but the Lords right hand and his arm and light of his countenance And they have been most willing to be nothing themselves that God might be all And this hath been one means to keep them humble because though God hath been much with them yet the world hath been much against them not for their own sakes who have done the work of the Kingdom faithfully and honestly but for Gods sake in them because there is more of God among these men then among other men therefore are they so maligned by many men For the world always most hates where there is most of God and you may have a shrewd guess wherethere is most of God by observing where the greatest hatred of the world lies 3. Their faith There are many in the Army men of great and precious faith through which they have wrought righteonsness obtained promises stopped the mouths of Lyons quenced the violence of fire escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong waxed valiant in fight turned to flight the Armies of the Aliens Through this faith they have pursued their Enemies and overtaken them and turned not again till they had consumed them they have beaten them small as the dust before the winde and cast them out as dirt in the Streets Through faith they have entered strong Cities and I can truly and particularly say let them that will needs be offended stumble and fall at it that Bristol among other places was conquered by faith more then by force it was conquered in the hearts of the godly by faith before ever they stretched forth a hand against it and they went not so much to storm it as to take it in the assurance of faith Through faith one of them hath chased ten and ten put an hundred
perceives the Name of God in the Sons of men and the nature of God in the natures of men then presently they fall a persecuting the Saints for this Name and Natures sake and he that strikes at God in his Saints would if he could strike at God in himself And therefore let the world take heed what they do in this point for while they persecute the Saints they are found fighters against God himself because God is one with them and they are one with God in Christ And let the Saints be admonished so to hide and retire themselves into God through Christ that whoever is an enemy to them and opposes them may rather be an enemy to God and oppose God then them they living and acting in God and not in themselves Now this affliction the Church meets with in the world is profitable for the Church it is good for it that it should be afflicted for the more it is afflicted in the flesh the more it thrives in the Spirit this affliction stirres us up to the exercise of our faith and prayer yea then is our faith most active and vigorous and our prayers most fervent till they fill the whole heavens again then are we most in the use of the Word then are we set off furthest from the world then do we keep closest to God then have we neerest intercourse and communion with him so that we could better want fire and water and the sun then want affliction which God out of his meer love through his over-ruling power and wisedome causes to work unto us for good So that we who are placed in the hand of Christ are set in such a condition wherein nothing can do us any harm for ever but evil it self must work good unto us But we proceed Tossed with Tempest Where we see that the Church is not onely afflicted but violently afflicted one wave comes against it after another as in a tempest and the more spiritual the Church is the more doth the world become as a raging sea against it because the more spiritual the Church is made it is set in the more contrariety to the world and the world to it The Psalmist describes this temper in the world against the Church They came upon me like a ramping and a roaring Lyon And again They came upon me to eat up my flesh as they would eat bread When the Saints have appeared in the Spirit and acted in the Spirit how violent and enraged hath the world been against them It would toss them as in a tempest from place to place from post to pillar as they say till it hath quite tost them out of the world Yea men naturally meek and moderate how fierce have they become against the Saints when there hath appeared any glorious discoveries of Christ in them For the enmity that is in the seed of the Serpent against the seed of the Woman will be still breaking forth And though it may for a time be covered under many moral vertues and a form of godliness yet when God leaves them to themselves and lets them act outwardly according to their inward principles how cruelly and maliciously and fiercely and desperately do they act against the Saints of God Yea there is not that enmity between Turk and Jew as there is between carnal Gospellers and spiritual Christians the former hating these and being angry against these to the very death And when ever the Lord shall suffer these to exercise their enmity against the Church then shall the Churches condition become such as it is here described afflicted and tossed with tempest And not comforted The Church of God in all the evil it meets withal in the world hath not one drop of comfort from the world it hath affliction tribulation persecution from the world but no comfort This we see in Christ the Head you know what he suffered in the world in the dayes of his flesh he was despised and rejected of men and so full of sorrows that he took his name from them and was called A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief At last out of meer envy and malice they apprehended him bound him buffeted him spit on him crucified him and all this would have been but a small matter to have suffered from the Heathen but he suffered all this from the onely visible Church of God in the World who put him to the most painful and shameful death of the Cross between two malefactors to bear the world in hand that he was the third and the chief And in all this evil he had no body to pitty him or have compassion on him but they laughed at him and derided him and mocked and jeered him but no body comforted him And as it was with Christ the Head so it is with Christ the body and members they in all the evils and woes and sorrows and oppositions and persecutions they have from the world have no body to comfort them or take compassion on them Refuge failed me saith David no man cared for my soul Lover and friend hast thou put far from me and mine acquaintance into darkness saith Heman Psal 88. 18. Brethren and Beloved ye that are partakers of the heavenly calling and of the divine nature if ever the Lord suffer the world to prevail against you to afflict you and toss you from one evil to another as in a tempest to reproach you throw you out of your comforts banish you imprison you c. you shall finde no body to comfort you no body will take notice of you or regard you or own you or pitty you or be so sensible of your condition as to say Alas my brother You must look for affliction in the World but you must look for no comfort there When God shall cast us into sorrows and sufferings let us not look for one worldly man to stand by us no not of those that now smile upon us and pretend friendship to us no norâ— yet of our neer relations but then that shall be fulfilled I was a stranger to my brethren an alien to my mothers children Nay yet further they that are weak or worldly Christians will stand aloof from thee and will be shye to own and countenance and encourage and comfort thee publikely The disciples of Christ when he was led to the Cross they all forsook him and fled and left him to tread the wineâ—press alone And so if you suffer in the righteousness and truth of God you shall find little comfort from men O thou afflicted tossed with tempest and not comforted Now this the Lord doth in much mercy to his Saints he leaves them destitute of earthly Comfort that they may look for heavenly he leaves them destitute of all comfort from men that they may look for comfort from God alone And therefore when thou art brought into such a case to be afflicted and not comforted lift up thy heart to God and expect all from him Saith
and not in the light of the Word which shows us clearly that it is as possible to reconcile Michael and the Devil as the Angels of both 2. Neither secondly do I finde any way in the World to reconcile all those together who are commonly called The visible Church seeing even among these there are two distinct sorts of children as Paul teacheth us one sort of those that are born after the flesh as Ishmael and Esau and another of those who are born after the spirit as Isaac and Jacob and there is as great enmity between these in the Church as between the former in the world for they that are born after the flesh are always persecuting them that are born after the spirit but never agreeing with them Now of these two sorts of Christians one makes up the body of Christ the other the body of Antichrist The spiritual children make up Christs true body as it is written He gave him to be the Head over all things to the Church which is his body for these being born of the Spirit do also partake of the Spirit and so are the true flesh of Christ as all that flesh is in which the Spirit dwels and these all worship God in the spirit and have no confidence in the flesh that is in no fleshly Forms Ceremonies or Worship The carnal children of the Church make up Antichrists true body For as Christs body consists of spiritual Christians so Antichrists of carnal For Antichrist sets up in the temple of God as well as Christ and as Christ get his body together of spiritual Christians so Antichrist gets his body together of carnal Christians and these have a form of Religion or godliness but they have no spirit or power in that form yea under the form of godliness they exercise the greater power of ungodliness And Christ and his Spirit and all their things are nowhere more opposed then by those in the Church who have the letter of the word but want the spirit of it being taught of men only and not of God So that all that part of Christianity that is destitute of the Spirit and hath the name only and not the anointing of Christians this makes up the body of Antichrist And now there can be no more agreement between these two bodies of Christ and of Antichrist that is between spiritual and carnal Christians then between Christ and Antichrist themselves the heads of these bodies And as I finde nothing in the word so neither do I propound any thing for an agreement here for to go about to reconcile there where the Father never intended nor the Son never undertook any reconciliation would not be a work of wisedom but of weakness So then the way of peace I shall speak of is between the children of peace touching whom God hath promised That he will give them one heart and one way and for whom Christ hath prayed That they all may be one as thou Father art in me and I in theâ— that they also may be one in us And these are the elect made faithful called to be Saints and sanctified through their calling and these are the true Church of God The peace then I seek by this Discourse is the peace of the true Church Wherefore I shall first declare the Church it self whose peace I seek and then after declare wherein this Churches true peace and unity lies and also how it may be preserved among themselves it being first wrought by Jesus Christ For the Church it self what I have learned touching it I shall speak plainly and something largely because the right understanding hereof is so absolutely necessary to our present business and yet there are very many and very great mistakes and mis apprehensions touching it even among the faithfull The right Church then is not the whole multitude of the people whether good or bad that joyn together in an outward form or way of worship for in this Church there are Whoremongers Idolaters Thieves Murderers and all sorts of wicked and unbelieving persons which are so far from being the Church of Christ that they are the very Synagogue of Satan and children of the Devil and therefore I shall not speak of this Church But the Church I shall speak of is the true Church of the New Testament which I say is not any outward or visible society gathered together into the consent or use of outward things forms ceremonies worship as the Churches of men are neither is it known by seeing or feeling or the help of any outward sense as the Society of Mercers or Drapers or the like but it is a Spiritual and Invisible Fellowship gathered together in the unity of faith hope and love and so into the unity of the Son and of the Father by the Spirit wherefore it is wholly hid from carnal eyes neither hath the world any knowledge or judgement of it This true Church is the Communion of Saints which is the communion believers have with one another not in the things of the world or in the things of men but in the things of God for as believers have their union in the Son and in the Father so in them also they have their communion and the communion they have with one another in God cannot be in their own things but in Gods things even in his light life righteousness wisdom truth love power peace joy c. This is the true Communion of Saints and this Communion of Saints is the true Church of God Now this true Church of God differs from the Churches of men in very many particulars as follows 1. Members come unto the Churches of men either of their own minds or else by the perswasion or by the forcing of others and so but after the will of man but none come to this true Church but from the drawing of God the Father and his own calling according to his own purpose 2. In the Churches of men members are admitted through an outward confession of doctrine but none are admitted into this true Church but through a new birth from God and his Spirit Joh. 3. Except a man be born again he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God which is the right Church of the New Testament For that which is born of the flesh is flesh and so remains without in the world but that which is born of the spirit is spirit and so hath entrance into the true Church 3. In the Churches of men there are more wicked then righteous but in this true Church of Christ the people are all righteous not one excepted as it is written Thy people shall be all righteous Isa 60. For they all have their iniquities forgiven them and they are all redeemed and washed with the blood of the Lamb. 4. In the Churches of men the people for the most part are onely taught of men who are their heads and leaders and whose judgements they depend on
much yet they are but sects and schismes and divisions and factions rent from the true Church of God for such men choose and frame to themselves some singular way of worship form order c. whereby they think they excell other Christians and so cause the simple and ignorant which are the multitude of people to follow them especially having countenance of worldly authority by which means both they and their followers depart from the true unity of the Church For when this seven-fold spiritual unity is neglected Christianity is torn in pieces into as many sects as the world and Devil please till there be no foot-steps left either of faith or love So that whatever these men pretend most certain it is that all confedracies in the Church of outward orders forms rites laws ceremonies disciplines which are necessarily enforced by the secular power seduced by the Ecclesiastical will never hold the Church together but all these are and have proved and will prove rather a wall of partition in the Church then a bond of union and if they seem to work union yet it is no other then the mingling clay and iron together which no pains nor art can perfectly compound For all peace and union in the Church knit by other bonds then are here named is no spiritual union neither will it stand And therefore dear Christians and believers seeing we have seven bonds of unity all of Gods own making to make us one let not diversity of forms and rites which are but sorry things of mans making separate and divide us but seeing each of these bonds are able to make us one how much one should all of them together make us And thus having shewed from the word how all Christians and believers are made one by God the next thing I shall aim at is to shew how they may continue one among themselves in reference to that communion they have with one another whilst they sojourn in this world flowing from the former union that so all darkness and mistakes which now even many believers are grievously inwrapped in may be dispelled and done away and we may live in this pure and perfect union with one another in God making all outward things subservient hereunto and none of them prejudicial And to this purpose I conceive we are 1. To know some things And 2. To do other things And both otherwise then yet we seem either to know or do them 1. To preserve our peace we have in Christ we must be instructed aright in the matter of the Churches GOVERNMENT because the mistake in this thing is so great a cause of controversie and division among us at this day For if the true Church hath its true government without any such forms and laws and power as is now so earnestly contended for there is no reason we should fall out and divide for these things Now the Government of the Church is twofold 1. There is that Government which God exercises immediatly by himself And 2. That Government which he exercises mediately and by the faithfull The first of these that is Gods immediate Government is also two fold 1. The Government of his speciall providence 2. The Government of his spiritual presence The first sort of Gods immediate Government of his Church is the Government of his special providence and this is a most strange wonderful and glorious Government This was that Government of God over the Church of Israel when he took his own Nation out of the midst of another Nation by temptations signs wonders by a strong hand and a stretched out arm and great terrours when he led them through the red Sea and through the wilderness in paths that were not trodden when he fed them with bread from heaven and water out of the Rocks when he suffered no man to do them wrong but reproved even Kings for their sake and through multitudes of enemies and oppositions led them into the Land of Canaan Thus God led that Church from bondage to liberty from tribulation to quietness from a sordid condition to honour and renown from a strange land to a land of inheritance and from slavery to a Kingdom And this was a glorious Government indeed standing in Gods immediate conduct from heaven far above all humane councels wisdom stratagems or any thing else of mans contriving and acting and this government of God is so far beyond all humane apprehensions that according to this it is said His way is the Sea and his path in the great waters and his footsteps are not known And is not this kinde of Gods government of the spiritual Church of the New Testament every whit as wonderful and glorious as was that of the visible Church of the Old Testament For though the beginning of it was small and low in the world yet did it receive encrease with the encrease of God and was preserved maintained and enlarged in the world notwithstanding all the rage and cruelties of the persecuting Heathen Emperours for three hundred years together and ever since God himself hath taken the conduct of this Church and hath carryed it through difficulties distresses reproaches prisons torments deaths to ease liberty comfort joy salvation glory life happiness and this hath been Gods glorious government of the Church hitherto And at this present time the Church of God wants not this government among all the troubles confusions wars and desolations of the Kingdom but God is now as near his true Church as ever and supports it and comforts it and guides it as a skilful Pilot in such sort that though the flouds lift up their voice and billows against it yet they cannot sink it For the Lord on high is mightier then the mighty waves of the Sea And so still even at this day the Lord leads his flock through the midst of Wolves and Lyons yea through the midst of Devils in admirable and invincible safety and gives them light in darkness councels in difficulties and success in all attempts above and beyond both all the power and all the expectation of the world Now note here that this kinde of government of the Church God doth not mannage according to the wisdom and thoughts no not of his very people but wholly according to the councel of his own will and the thoughts of his own heart doing things that they must not know yet but must know afterwards yea such things as for the present seem absurd and absolutely destructive And this is the usual way and order of Gods governing his Saints That of Luther on Gen. 39. is worth our minding here I saith he have often endevoured to prescribe certain wayes and methods to God which he should use in the governing of his Church Ah Lord said I I would have this to be thus done in this order with this event But God did altogether contrary to what I did desire Then again thought I why my councel is not differing
hath put on to deceive shall after a few years vanish away it shall return into the shape of its first beginning And therefore let us know whatever rules orders or humane inventions men do study and devise to govern their Churches by the true Church of Christ shall ever be known by the scepter and sword of the onely Gospel preached in it which is fully sufficient for the regiment of the Church else Christ were an imperfect Law-giver And all those that do affirm that the votes determinations rules and constitutions of Councels are better for the well ordering and governing the Church then the pure and naked word of the Gospel by the ministration of the Spirit in my judgement they speak blasphemously Let us now hear what Luther saith to this purpose Christians saith he ought to be governed by that word and no other whereby they are made Christians that is free from sin and this is only by the pure Gospel of God without the addition of Councels Doctors Fathers For what is it to govern Christians by that word which though they keep yet neither do they become Christians nor continue such nay they cease to be Christians and lose Christ And of this sort is every word besides the Gospel and salvation reigns in us not by the laws of men but by the power of Christ Farther they that are not Christians are to be restrained other ways then by the traditions of men for these are to be let alone and as Paul saith We are not to mingle with them There is the secular sword there is the Magistrate for these and it belongs to him to restrain those that are evil from evil deeds by the power of the sword But the Bishop or Overseer governs Christians without the sword only by the Word of God seeing it is certain they are not Christians except they be spontaneously good and such they are made by the force of the spirit of faith as Paul saith Rom. 8. As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the children of God What madness then is it to urge them that are willingly good with the Laws of the evil And yet saith he There are not a few light and vain men that think that the business of the Gospel is to be promoted with weapons and cuffes And the same Luther in his Epistle to the Christians and Preachers of Erphurd saith Consider in your minde with what sword I subdued the Papacy and the whole state of religious men who before were dreadful to all of whom it was said Who shall fight with the Beast that hath power to make war with the Saints and to overcome them And yet saith he I never touched them with so much as one of my fingers but Christ destroyed and overthrew all that detestable Kingdom by discovering their iniquities by the Spirit of his mouth that is by the Word of the Gospel In which passages of his besides what is spoken before it is apparent that there is no other instrument of the true Churches power but the word of the Gospel which is the only scepter and sword of Christs Kingdom 5. What the true Church can do by vertue of this power Now the true Church by the power it hath received from Christ can 1. Gather it self together when and as often as it pleaseth The company of Believers have power to gather themselves togeâ—ther for their mutual good instruction preservation edification and for the avoiding or preventing of evil and that without the consent or authority of any extrinsecal and forraign power whatever else Christ were not a sufficient founder of his Church And if every free Society not subjected to tyranny hath power in it self to congregate and come together as conveniency and necessity shall require as is evident in all civil Corporations and in all Fraternities and meetings of love much more hath the Church of Christ which is the freest Society in the world power to meet together into a communion of Saints though it be without and against the consent and authority of the powers of the world And thus the Disciples immediately after Christs resurrection though the People and Rulers were wholly set against them did often meet together among themselves though privately and Christ himself came and stood in the midst of them and finding them in that way of Communion said Peace be unto them And so by his own presence did both justifie and encourage such meetings And after the Apostles with other Believers to the number of an hundred and twenty met together in an upper room to pray and to choose an Apostle in the stead of Judas Act. 1. And at the day of Pentecost they all met again Act. 2. Though the Elders of the Church and Rulers of the state were utterly against their meetings And again Act. 4. Peter and John after the threatnings of the Rulers and the Jews went and met with their own company which was now mightily encreased by the Ministery of the Gospel and declared to them all things that God had done by them and the Rulers had done against them whereupon all of them joyned together in the praise of God for the success of the Gospel against the power of the world And again Act. 6. the Church of its own accord met together to chuse seven Deacons And a multitude of other instances might be produced By all which it appears that the Church of Believers hath power of it self to appoint its own meetings as conveniency or necessity shall require for the good of the Church And therefore none are to presume to deny the Church this power which it hath received from him that hath all power in heaven and in earth Neither ought the true Church to suffer this power to be taken from them which they have received from so good a hand but still to use their own Christian meetings though the Powers of the world never so much oppose them as the Apostles and Believers in their time began and as Believers after for 300 years continued notwithstanding the barbarous cruelties of the persecuting Emperours 2. As the Church of the faithful hath power from Christ to meet together so secondly to appoint its own outward orders For the Church whilst it dwels in flesh and bloud uses some external Rites by which it is neither sanctified in soul or body but they are things meerly of outward Order and decency And these things each Church or Communion of Saints may order by it self according to the wisedom of the Spirit so it observe these Rules 1. That they do all things in love seeing all Laws without love are tyranny and so whatsoever is not from and for love is not to be appointed and if it be it is again to be abolished seeing no Text of the Scripture it self if it build not up love is rightly interpreted 2. They are to do all things for peace and all
not travel with child for more are the children of the desolate then of the marryed wife saith the Lord. Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations Spare not lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles and make the desolate Cities to be inhabited So that there shall certainly be a most wonderful and numerous increase of the faithful in the Christian Church till they become as the stars of heaven and as the drops of the morning dew that cannot be told all of them assembled in the beauties of holiness And therefore let us not be overmuch troubled though at present we see in a numerous nation but few true children of the spiritual Church for God shall bless these few and bid them increase and multiply and replenish the earth so that though the Assemblies of the Saints be now but thin and one comes from this place and another from that to these Assemblies and in many and most places of the kingdom these few are fain to come together secretly for fear of the Jews that is the people of the letter yet through the pouring forth of the Spirit it shall come to pass at last that they shall come in flocks and as doves to their windows And it shall be said to the Church by the Lord Lift up thine eyes round about and behold all these gather themselves together and come to thee As I live saith the Lord thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament and binde them on thee as a bride doth c. till at last the Church shall say in her heart Who hath begotten me these seeing I have lost my children and am desolate a captive and removing to and fro and who hath brought up these Behold I was left alone these where had they been Yea these very promises are now in the very act of accomplishing among us for the spiritual Church hath received a very great increase within these few years and God hath many faithfull people in many places of this Kingdom and of this my self and many more in this Army are witnesses for having marched up and down the Kingdom to do the work of God and the Sate we have met with many Christians who have much Gospel light and which makes it the more strange in such places where there hath been no Gospel Ministery which hath put me in minde of that prophecy Isa 66. 8. Who hath heard such a thing who hath seen such things Shall the earth be made to bring forth in one day or shall a Nation be born at once For as soon as Sion travelled nay before she travelled she brought forth her children There was no outward Ministery of the Gospel to travel or take pains with them and yet Sion brings forth her children And one thing that is remarkable touching the increase of the Church at this day is this That where Christ sends the Ministration of the Spirit there many young people are brought in to Christ as being most free from the forms of the former age and from the Doctrines and Traditions of men taught and received instead of the pure and unmixed Word of God whereas many old professors who are wholly in the form prove the greatest enemies to the power of godliness and thus the first are the last and the last first Now this great and sudden increase of the faithful is that which doth so exceedingly trouble the World and makes them angry at the very heart For if they were but a few mean contemptible and inconsiderable persons whom they might easily suppress and destroy they would be pretty quiet but when they begin to increase in the land as Israel did in Egypt and notwithstanding all the burdens of their task-masters wherewith they are afflicted and grieved do yet increase abundantly and multiply and wax exceeding mighty till they begin to fill the land and when they consult to deal wisely with them lest they multiply too much do yet see them grow and multiply the more that they know not at what Countrey or City or Town or Village or Family to begin to suppress them this is that which doth so exceedingly vex and inrage the world and makes them even mad again as we see this day For the increase of the faithful as it is the glory of the Church so it is the grief and madness of the world But these men in vain attempt against this increase of the faithful as the Egyptians against the increase of the Israelites for none can hinder the increase of the Church but they that hinder God from pouring out his Spirit and according to the measure of God pouring forth the Spirit is and must be the increase of the Church in despite of all the opposition of the world And thus much touching the first promise of the Churches Increase Now in the words I read to you the Lord comes to another promise so that the Lord because of the Churches weakness addes one promise to another and these promises are nothing but the out goings and manifestations of his love throug the Word Christ But to look more neerly upon the words Vers 11. Oh thou afflicted Affliction in the world doth so inseparably attend the Church that the Church even takes its denomination from it Oh thou afflicted The condition of the Church is an afflicted condition For the Church being born of God and born of the Spirit is put into a direct contrariety to the world which is born of the flesh and is also of its father the devil And so the whole world is malignant against the faithful and spiritual Church and all that are not regenerate set their faces yea their hearts and their hands against the Saints and the unregenerate world is against the regenerate and the carnal world against the spiritual and the sinful world against the righteous and all the people and nations in the world are against that people and nation which the Apostle cals a holy nation and a peculiar people As the world cannot endure God in himself So neither can it endure God in the Saints and so the more God dwels in the Saints the more doth the world afflict the Saints for they oppose not the faithful for any thing of flesh and blood in them but because that flesh and blood of theirs is the habitation of God and the very presence of God himself is there as he saith I will dwell in them and walk in them Agreeable to this is that of Christ where he saith All this shall they do to you for my Names sake that is when the Name of Christ is called upon us and we are taken into his Name that is into his righteousness and life and truth and wisdom and holiness and into his Nature which comprehends all this then when the world