may be perfect thorowly furnished unto all good works 2 Tim. iii. 16 17. Inspir'd purposely by this Spirit to be a way to guide us into all truth and goodness But this may all pretend to and every one turns it how he lists We must adde a second And the second is the Church for we must know this says St. Peter know it first too 2 Pet. i. 20. That no Scripture is of any private interpretation There are some things so hard to be understood both in St. Pauls Epistles and also other Scriptures says he that they that are unlearned and unstable wrest them unto their own destruction 2 Tim. iii. 16. and therefore presently his advice follows to beware least we be led away with that error the error as he calls it of the wicked and so fall from our own stedfastness ver 17. When men unlearned or ungrounded presume to be interpreters or even learned men to prefer their private senses before the received ones of the Church 't is never like to produce better The pillar and ground upon which truth stands and stays is the Church if St. Paul may be allowed the judge 1 Tim. iii. 16. The pillar and ground of truth In matters of discipline when a brother has done disorderly tell it to the Church says Christ St. Mat. 18. 17. and if he neglect to hear that let him be unto thee as a heathen man and as a Publican He is no Christian. In matters 2. of doubt and controversie send to the Church to Hierusalem to the Apostles and Elders there conven'd in Counsel and let them determine it so we find it done Acts xv 2 28. In a lawful and full assembly of the learned Fathers of the Church such shall be determined that 's the was to settle truth In matters 3. of Rites and Ceremonies the Spirit guides us also by the Church If any man seem to be contentious about them St. Pauls appeal is presently to the Churches Customs We have no such custom neither the Churches of God that 's answer enough full and sufficient thinks the Apostle 1 Cor. xi 16. If the Churches custom be for us then 't is good and true we think or speak or do If against us 't is all naught and wrong whatever purity or piety be pretended in it Nay so careful was the Apostle to preserve the publick Authority of the Church and beat down all private ways and fancies by which ways only Schism and Heresie creep in that he tells Timothy though a Bishop and one well read and exercised in the Scriptures from a child 2 Tim. iii. 14. of a form of sound words he would have even him hold fast to 2 Tim. i. 13. and the Romans he tells of a form of Doctrine to be obeyed Rom. 6. 17. so far was that great and eloquent Apostle from being against forms any forms of the Church though he could have prayed and preached ex tempore with the best had tongues and eloquence and the gift of interpretation to do it too so far from leaving truth to any private interpretation or sudden motion whatsoever Nor is this appeal to the Fathers any whit strange or in Christian Religion only first to be heard of it was Gods direction from the first For ask now says Moses of the days that are past that were before thee Deut. iv 32. Stand you in the ways and see and ask for the old paths where is the good way says God Ier. vi 16. As if he had said Look about and see and examine all the ways you can yet the old way that 's the good one For enquire I pray thee of the former Age and prepare thy self to the search of their Fathers for we are but of yesterday and know nothing Iob viii 8. See how slightly things of yesterday new interpretations new devices new guides are accounted of And indeed in it self 't is most ridiculous to think the custom and practice and order and interpretation of all times and Churches should be false and those of yesterday only true unless we can think the Spirit of truth has been fifteen or sixteen hundred years asleep and never wak'd till now of late or can imagine that Christ should found a Church and promise to be with it to the end of the World and then leave it presently to Antichrist to be guided by him for above fifteen hundred years together Nor can I see why the Spirit of truth should now of late only begin to move and stir except I should think he were awak'd or delighted with noise and fury Nor is it reasonable to conceive a few private Spirits neither holier nor wiser than others for ought appears nor arm'd with Miracles to confirm their Doctrines should be more guided by the Spirit of truth than the whole Church and succession of Christians and Christian Fathers especially wherein at any time they agree Yet 3. not always to go so high Thou leadest thy people like sheep says the Psalmist by the hand of Moses and Aaron Psal. lxxvii 20. Moses and Aaron were the Governours of the Church the one a Priest the other a Prophet by such God leads his People by their lawful Pastours and Teachers The one the Civil Governour is the cloud to cover them from the heat The other the Spiritual is the light to lead them in the way The first protects the other guides us and we are bid to obey them those especially that watch for our souls Heb. xiii 17. Such as labour in the Word and Doctrine 1 Tim. v. 17. By such as God sets over us in the Church to teach and guide us into truth we must be guided if we will come into it In things unlawful nor one nor other is to be obeyed In things indifferent they always are In things doubtful 't is our safest course to have recourse to them provided that they be not of Corahs company that they exalt not themselves against Moses and Aaron nor draw us to it If they do we may say to them as Moses did to those Ye take too much upon you you Sons of Levi. God leads his People like a flock in peace and unity and by the hands of Moses and Aaron Thus 3. the Spirit guides into all truth because the Spirit is God and God so guides You have heard the way and means the first part of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Spirits guiding The Second follows his act and motion 1. He leads or guides us only he does not drive us that 's not the way to plant truth by force and violence fire and fagots not the Spirits sure which is the Spirit of love 2. Yet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 there is we told you in it Some Act of the Spirit He moves and stirs up to it enlightens our understandings actuates our wills disposes ways and times occasions and opportunities to it that 's the reason we hear the truth more willingly at some time than other Paul
for the business of Christ. 3. Yet cloven they must be too 'T is not a single tongue will do it The Apostles were to preach to the world and in the world there were a world of tongues that they might therefore so preach as to be understood as many tongues were necessary to be given them as there were people with whom they were to deal Behold the greatness of Gods goodness here Tongues were divided for a curse at first lo he turns them into a blessing then they were sent to divide the world now they are given to unite it then they wrought confusion now they are given to unite it Thus God can turn our curses into blessings when he pleases And fit it is that we then should turn our tongues to his praise and glory This we may do with one tongue alone But they who would be Preachers and teach others had need of more Tongues though they come not now suddenly like the wind yet come they must as they can come by our industry and Gods blessing God would not have sent so many tongues if more then one had not been necessary for his work though not now perhaps to preach yet to understand surely what we preach 'T is a bold adventure to presume to the office of a Teacher with a single tongue He is not able to teach children to spell true that knows no more much less to spell the mysteries of the Gospel to men who understands not so much as that one tongue he speaks if he understand no more Unless we be wiser than Christ and his Holy Spirit we cannot think any sufficiently endued to preach them but such as have received the gift of tongues more then one or two the gift I say for though to speak with tongues be not given now miraculously as it was here yet given it is to us it is the gift still of the Holy Spirit as a blessing upon our labours But there are other tongues besides which come from this days mercy The tongue that speaks right things the tongue that comforts the afflicted soul the tongue that recals the wandring step the tongue that defends the fatherless and widow the tongue that pours it self out in prayers and praises the tongue that speaks continually of holy things the tongue that speaks no evil nor does no hurt the tongue that speaks nothing but a meek and humble and obedient spirit these are the tongues of the Holy Spirit and even from this day they have their rise these are for all orders and sorts of men and if those men who now take to themselves to be Teachers had but learnt to speak with these tongues they would have spoke to far better purpose and more to Gods acceptance than now they do in speaking as they do they had not thus blasphemed the Holy Spirit to entitle him to the extravagancy of their tongues Yet fire and tongues and tongues of fire are not all the wonders that this day produced These fell not only like a flash of Lightning upon the Apostles but they sate upon them or rather It sate upon them says the Text. All these tongues as divided and cloven as they were like so many flames or tongues of fire at top they were all united in one root below with one mouth Rom. xv 6. with one voice Chap. iv 24. they spake all but the same thing They are not the tongues of the Spirit that speak now one thing now another that agree not in the foundation at the least Nor is that fire of the Holy Ghosts enkindling that cannot sit for to the fire we may 2. refer this It. The holy flame is not like the fire of thorns that are always crackling making a noise it can sit quietly in the heart and on the lips and on the head sometimes in the one and sometimes on the other it sits upon the heads and singes not a hair it sits in the heart and scalds it not at all it sits upon the lips yet makes them not burst out into a heat the firy zeal that is so much cried up for spirit in the world is too unquiet too hot too raging to be of this days fire Yet 3. we may refer this It to the Holy Spirit it self That sate upon each of them too It sate first upon each of them as a crown of glory so St. Cyril The Apostles were the Crowns and Glory of the Churches and so this install'd them It sate 2. upon them as in a Chair of State to fix authority upon them to set them in their Chairs to give them power to govern and guide the Church It sate 3. upon them so to call into their mind the promise of their Master that he would send one to sit in counsel with them and be with them always to the end of the world for sitting is a posture to denote constancy establishment and continuance It sate 4. as it were to teach us to be setled and constant too to be establisht and grounded in our faith not to be wavering and carried about with every wind of doctrine There is no greater evidence against error then that it is not constant to it self no greater argument against these great pretended spirits then that they cannot sit know not where to fix are always moving as if the Psalmists curse had taken hold upon them as it does and will do without doubt upon all that take the houses of God in possession Psal. lxxxiii 12. that usurp upon the office or portion of the Church as if God had made them like a wheel and as stubble before the wind that can sit no where rest at nothing but turn about from one uncertainty to another The Holy Spirit is a Spirit that will sit still and be at peace continue and abide It sate 5. upon each to teach each of us peace and quiet in all our passions constancy and continuance in truth and goodness and a setled and composed behaviour in all conditions blow the winds never so high burn the fires of persecution never so hot against us It were well now if we could say as it follows next concerning the Apostles that we were filled with this Spirit that we were filled with the Holy Ghost that we might arrive at that point within our selves though we cannot now arrive at that particular in the Text. The only filling now that I have time to tell you of is that before us and 't is a good one the filling us with the body and bloud of Christ which is a signal filling us with the Spirit Go we will then about it so to fill our our souls The tongues and fire in the Text we may well apply to it we may have use of there For tongues are not to speak with only but tast with two O tast we then how good and gracious the Lord is there that vouchsafes so graciously to come under our roofs to come upon tongues And Tongues 2. are to help
that to others Good will towards men 3. But good will is not enough good works are graces let 's study to encrease and abound and to be rich in them 4. Yet Gratia is in St. Pauls stile in this Chapter ver 1. and elsewhere bounty and liberality to the poor rich in this grace especially we are to be 'T is the peculiar grace of Christmas hospitality and bounty to the poor 'T is the very grace St. Paul here provokes the Corinthians to by the example of those of Macedonia and Achaia ver 1. who to their power and beyond their power he bears them witness were not only willing to supply the necessities of the Saints but even entreated him and them to take it By the example 2. of Christ who both became himself poor that we might be the more compassionate to the poor now he was in the number and made us rich that we might have wherewith to shew our compassion to them Now surely if Christ be poor and put himself among them who would not give freely to them seeing he may chance even to give to Christ himself among them when he gives however what is given to any of them he owns it as to himself S. Mat. xxv 40. What ye dâ— to any of the least of these my brethren ye do it unto me And can any that pretends Christ be so wretchedly miserable as not to part with his mony upon this score Can any be so ungrateful as not to give him a little who gave them all shall he become poor for our sakes and we not shew our selves rich for his it were too little in reason not to make our selves poor again for him not to be as free to him as he to us Yet he will be contented with a little for his all that we should out of our abundance supply the want of his poor Members He is gracious Behold the grace of our Lord I in this too in complying with our infirmities not commanding us as he might to impoverish our selves with acts of mercy but to be only rich and abundant in them to which yet he promises more grace still the reward of glory Come ye blessed of my Father ye who supply and help my poor ones come inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world where ye that have followed me in my poverty or become poor for my sake or have been rich in bounty to the poor as it were to a kind of poverty shall then reign with me amidst all the riches of eternal Glory THE EIGHTH SERMON ON Christmas-Day PSAL. viii 4 5. What is man that thou art mindful of him and the Son of man that thou visitest him Thou madest him lower then the Angels to crown him with glory and worship BUT Lord What is man or the Son of man that thou didst this day visit him that thou this day crownedst him with that glory didst him that honour so we may begin to day for 't is a day of wonder of glory and worship to stand and wonder at Gods mercy to the sons of men and return him glory and worship for it For Lord what is man that the Son of God should become the Son of man to visit him that God should make him lower then the Angels who is so far above them that he might crown us who are so far below them with glory and honour equal to them or above them It was a strange mercy that God should make such a crum of dust as man to have dominion over the works of his own hands that he should put all things in subjection under his feet that he should make the Heavens the Moon and Stars for him and the Psalmist might very well gaze and startle at it But to make his Son such a thing of nought too such a Quid est that no body can tell what it is what to speak low enough to express it such a Novissimus hominum such an abject thing as man such a cast-away as abject man as the most abject man bring him below Angels below men and then raise him up to Glory again that he might raise up that vile thing called man together with him and restore the Dominion when he had lost it is so infinitely strange a mercy that 't is nearer to amazement than to wonder And indeed the Prophet here is in amaze and knows not what to say Both these mercies he saw here but he saw not how to speak them Gods mercy in mans Creation and Gods mercy in mans Redemption too What God made man at first and to what he exalted him when he had made him What God made his Son for man at last what he made him first and last lower then the Angels first higher then they at last that he might shew the wonders of his mercy to poor man both first and last But if David did not see both in the words he spake the Apostle did for to Christ he applies them Heb. ii 6 7. And that 's authority good enough for us to do so to bring it for a Christmas Text especially Christ himself applying the second verse Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength as spoken in relation to himself St. Matth. xxi 16. And that 's authority somewhat stronger Yet to omit nothing of Gods mercy to do right on all hands to Prophet and Apostle and Christ too we shall take them in both senses To refer them to man the plain letter with the whole design and context of the Psalm is sufficient reason To understand them yet of Christ he himself and his Apostle will bear us out And though the Text be full of wonder it is no wonder that it has two senses most of the old Testament and Prophesies have so a lower and a higher a literal and a more sublime sense Thus out of Egypt have I called my son Hos. xi i. Rachels weeping for her children Jer. xxxi 14. I have set my King upon my holy Hill of Sion Psal. ii 6. all applied to Christ or his business and affairs and yet spoken first to other purposes of Israel or David I should lose time to collect more places 'T is better I should tell you the sum of this that it is the Prophet Davids wonder at Gods dealing towards man and his dealing towards Christ that he should deal so highly mercifully towards man and so highly strangely towards Christ so mercifully with man as to remember him to visit him to make him but little lower then the Angels and crown him with glory and worship So strangely with Christ as to make him a Son of man and lower then the Angels first then afterward to crown him with glory and worship Things all to be highly wondered at And the Text best to be divided into Gods mercy and Davids wonder I. Gods mercy manifested here in three particulars 1. In his dealing with man What is man
to be left and what followed in them that we may learn how to bear our happiness the great favours of the Almighty the extraordinary dignations and discoveries of Christ and besides also all temporal felicities how to proportion them to others benefit as well as our own how so to regulate our judgments counsels expressions and affections upon any such occasions come they when they will upon us that we may safely say with St. Peter here in any of them Master it is good for us to be here let us now build Tabernacles this condition is good we now are in let us still be here and yet not incur St. Luke's censure that we know not what we say The Sum then both of the Text and Sermon will be but this St. Peter's and our common judgments advice affections and expressions in any kind of extraordinary content and happiness spiritual or temporal what they are usually they are we know not what and are therefore so branded here by the Evangelist that we may henceforth consider and know what judgments counsels affections and expressions pass from us in any such conditions before we pass them So that our work is to be this to examine all these in St. Peter's speech and shew you how far it may be said by any of us and how it must not and that in these Particulars 1. How far his judgment may pass that good it is to be here how we may say It is good for us to be here think and say so and how we may not 2. How far his advice is good to build Tabernacles how we may say Let us build three Tabernacles one for thee and one for Mose and one for Elias and how far it is not good to say so wherein we may not say so 3. How far his affections to his own or his Masters ease and safety and present glory may be allow'd how we are to rellish Moses and Elias their departing or desire their staying and how we may not as they departed Peter said unto Iesus as if he would needs be staying them that he might stay where now he was 4. How far expressions sudden and unwary such as for hast or passion and amazement slip sometimes from us as this did here from St. Peter may be born with how far we may be tolerated to say sometimes we know not what and when we may not be allowed it Not c. By this limiting and dividing the particulars of the speech and Text and giving the several ways and senses it may be spoken in we shall neither wrong St. Peter nor St. Luke but give both their due St. Peter's saying and St. Luke's censure his saying Master it is good for us to be here Let us build c. and that St. Peter's speech was not altogether to be disapproved and that yet notwithstanding some fault there was in it and that therefore St. Luke's censure just and St. Luke's saying upon it that he knew not what he said Say with St. Peter and say with St. Luke both and yet say well with both when we know what they both said and in what sense to say it St. Peter's authority will not in this point bear us out against St. Luke's but if we say it as St. Peter did with all the circumstances St. Luke will say of us what he said of him that we know not what we say But if we say the words as they may be said he will not say so Begin we then to sift the saying and the first part first Master It is good for us to be here St. Peter's judgment of the condition he was in and how we may judge and say so And it may be good to be so and good to say so good really in several senses a right judgment and a right saying For first This here was in the Mount a place of solitude and retirement a part by themselves says St. Mark ix 2. And 't is good sometimes times to retire our selves from the World and worldly business to think and meditate upon Heaven and heavenly things especially having lately tasted of those dainties that we may chew and rellish them nothing so good and convenient then presently as some retirement to sit down a little and bethink our selves of the sweetness we have so lately tasted the Covenant we have so lately renewed the resolutions we have so lately taken up and the ways to perform them 2. It was a high Mountain too says St. Matthew xvii 1. Nothing henceforth should serve our turn but high thoughts and resolutions we must do nothing mean after so high favours and dignations fix our thoughts set our affections now henceforward upon things above good to be here 3. It was the Holy Mountain too so styled ever since from the authority of St. Peter 2 Epist. i. 18. And 't is good to be holy better then to be high High contemplations of God and Heaven are not so good as holy conversations 'T is good indeed very good to be also in the holy Mount in holy places at holy work where Christ is to be seen or heard in beauty and glory in the Church at his Word and Sacraments 4. For into a Mountain to pray says our Evangelist ver 28. So To be here is to be here praying Christ went up to that purpose as he tells us there often went up to that purpose as we find it so it must needs be good nothing does us so much good at heart as praying It fills it with joy and gladness fills our mouths with good things fills our hands and our barns and our coffers all our filling comes from thus opening of our mouths Be we in sickness or be we in health be we in prosperity or be we in adversity be we full or be we empty nothing does us so much good in any of those conditions as our prayers Prayer Why in sickness it cheers us in health it strengthens us in prosperity it fastens us in adversity it comforts us in our fulness it keeps us from oppression in emptiness from fainting in all it does us some good or other 'T is good indeed to be here that is to be praying especially to give our selves to it to go aside on purpose for it to ascend the Mountain in it to go to it with raised thoughts and elevated attentions take good how you will for honest profitable or pleasant Prayer is all of them To be with Abraham in the Mount entitles us to be called with him for it The friends of God and there 's honestum honest even in the honourable sense To be with Moses in the Mount is profitable against Amâ—lek to beat down our Enemies To be here with St. Peter in the Mount gives us the most pleasant prospect that mortal eyes ever beheld or saw gives us a prospect of heavenly glory Bonum est esse hic 't is every way good thus being here 5. To be here is to be with Christ and Moses
own desires our goods and estates and repute and ease and quiet and life and all whensoever he pleases to call for it This is truly following Christ. And whatsoever else we have in St. Andrew following him as an Apostle is particular and concerns not any at all but those who by some signal outward visible Call are commanded to a more immediate attendance on their Master To thrust our selves into that without that ground is both impudence and presumption to follow our own proud hearts and giddy heads and not him that they here followed who followed him not either as Disciples or Apostles without good ground Let 's else examine it He came himself and publickly and professedly called them to him In secret he tells Pilate he had said nothing St. Iohn xviii 20. All the people could bear witness to his doings that his Followers might know for ever he would have none to enter into such offices without a solemn and publick calling To his Doctrine to be his Scholars and Disciples perhaps he will admit us in private or by night as he did Nicodemus or in the croud and multitude together but to be Apostles and Preachers of that Doctrine not without a publick and particular ordination and authority that shall equivalently say as he did to these Brothers in the verse before the Text Follow me and I will make you fishers of men Nay more St. Mark iii. 13 14. he picks them out that he calls Apostles does it with great solemnity Goes up into a mountain that was then as it were his Church and calls unto him whom he would not who would themselves And they came unto him they and none else And them he ordained the very word the Church uses still He ordained twelve that they should be with him and that he might send them forth to preach Lo here what a solemnity Christ makes of it of making Ministers who certainly had he intended any should make themselves or any Ministers but those Teachers and Preachers who from him and his Apostles derive their power the Bishops and Fathers of his Church would not with so much solemnity so ceremoniously so publickly so punctually have thus ordained those whom he intended should be in nearer attendance to him than others to whom he would commit the preaching of his Gospel and the dispensation of his Ordinances to the world This is not all They had another ground of their calling a second reason of their following They were enabled to it by a strange and sudden change within them whereby they found they could now already do what he called them to They were now become quite other men meerly spirituall no longer Seculars away with temporal business they minded worldly things no more but straightway to him without delay This inward Call though alone it be not sufficient yet joyn'd together with the outward is good ground indeed to follow Christ any whither soever And unless thus God either on a sudden or by time by extraordinary or ordinary means shall enable any man for his service and Ministry and by the outward power also call him to it he shall bear his sin that undertakes it whoever he be that he did not send he is one of those that God complains of that runs when he is not sent and though the pretence be to stay the falling Ark the Church from perishing for want of teaching his sin is Uzzahs that touches holy things without this double Commission Perez Vzzah is his place a breach he makes in the Church and God will one day break out upon him that thus breaks into the Church not by the door but some other way that neither being enabled within nor from without or within and not from without or without only and not from within whom God has not given both inward abilities and outward calling to the handling of his holy mysteries and dispensations They have a third ground yet why they leave their nets and 't is to follow Christ. They know and are assured who it is they do it for and why they do it It is the Messias it is the Christ says St. Andrew to his Brother Simon St. Iohn i. 41. And so stands the case they can no longer tend his business and their nets together This is the third time they were called we told you To the meer knowledge of him they were called first in that place of St. Iohn to a nearer familiarity St. Luke v. where though they leave their nets yet 't is only for a while but here being called to follow him to the Apostleship they wholly leave them altogether They saw his power before in the miraculous draught of fishes which made them leave their work for a time to follow him but now they feel it warm within them they cannot stay shall I say to draw up their nets or to cast them in though they were now casting and about it but straightway the word no sooner out of his mouth but they at his heels When we are sure it is Christ that calls that him we follow no hast too much no leaving too much no following too much for him For him if it be we may leave all without danger but if we be not sure it is it would do well to have a net to take to I speak this for that too many leave their nets their business their work and bestow themselves and theirs upon things that are not him nor his upon false Christs upon deceivers upon such as what ever shew they make will be found upon examination to seek their own and not Jesus Christ. 'T is fit we should look it be Christ indeed not our own ends not leave catching fishes to go lead silly women captive laden more with sins than ever St. Andrews Net with Fishes If it be for some new device of late which our Fathers have not known which Christs Church has not received some new sprung pattern in the Mount it is some New Christs not the old ones some false ones not the only true ones who being God blessed for ever is always like himself He that leaves any thing to follow those new calls or callers either to be a Teacher or a follower of them had better keep his nets though broken ones The Sum is we are to have good ground for what we do an And to begin with and a him to end in good authority to go upon and the right end to go to sufficient abilities and lawful authority to send us if it be as labourers into the Vineyard and a true Christ to serve with them good reason too 2. we must shew for all our actions in Christs Religion and Worship though we be but to follow only as Disciples just power to commend it and the infallible glory of Christ and his Church to design it to So our obedience to be ready sincere and upright when we can perform and are required it by Christ and those that under him have the
Common Service Every Magistrate that is every Governour of a Country every Maior of a City every Master of a Company every Father of a Family Some of these have their Statutes to be kept all of them their commands to be obeyed These are Secular Powers you have besides Spiritual such as take order for your Souls as the other for your Bodies and Estates your Bishops and Clergy Bishops are Fathers by their Title the Fathers of the Church so the first Christians so all since till this new unchristian Christianity started up Fathers in God 't is their stile however some of late Sons of Belial would make them Fathers in the Devil Antichrists perhaps that they might make them like themselves Strange Antichrists to whom Christ hath left the Governing of his Church these 1500 years 1. If you value them by their Antiquity they are Fathers for that their enemies being judges who would fain distinguish between their Offices and their Names that they might have some pretence to disobey them though more commonly they fill their mouth with scoffs and calumnies the language of the Devil than their books with the language of Antiquity truly understood 2. Fathers secondly for their Authority Time was when their Commands their Councils and Canons were Laws to Christians none of the least neither when their breach inferred the greatest punishment spiritual malediction 3. Fathers lastly for their tenderest Care over the tenderest part your Consciences Such who would quickly set all in order would you not listen too engagedly to by-respects Such whose commands you cannot complain of when you have examined them A hat a knee a reverent posture of the body are no such tyrannies as some please to fancy them You would do more in a great mans presence more for a small temporal encouragement A habit a Hood a Cap a Surplice a Name are wonderful things to trouble a devout Conscience You have more Ceremonies in your Companies and Corporations and you observe them strictly You will find it if you compare them If thus Fathers now their Precepts then certainly are to be obeyed Yet with this Rule ever both for them and all other inferiour Magistrates beside So far as they contradict not the Supreme Authority 'T is a rule in natural reason In two contrary commands the Superiours is to be obeyed Now to the King as Supreme we told you out of St. Peter to Rulers as sent by him that is as far as they are sent by him no further no further than their Commission from him Else Obedience can find no bounds nor Consciences no rest if the Supreme be not enough to terminate and guide all obedience into Your Father There is an argument in that word may make you obey him above all the world besides The tenderness of a Father Never could any challenge this name with greater justice never any so far condescended to his children to part with his own priviledges maintenance conveniences provision attendance He hath done as much for his Sons as the Rechabites for their Father left all even his houses for them lest by the insolence of some tumultuous spirits he should be forced to punish them What natural Father like this Father But whether he hath been used like a Father indeed you used him lately in your entertainment like a Conqueror and are justly honoured for it but whether by others like a Father let the affronts at his own Palace gate the sawcy Language in every rascal mouth the rebellious Sermons the seditious Libels cast abroad his own words where he is fain to proclaim to the world He is driven from you let these speak I say nothing Your Inferiour Magistrates have almost every where found disrespect And whether your Bishops and Clergy have been used like Fathers if the usage they have had of late the tumults about their houses the riots upon their Persons the daily insolencies the whole Clergy have met with in your streets never seen till now in a Civil Common-wealth in any ordered City upon the most contemptible men if the injuries done their Persons in the Churches at the very Altars once Sanctuaries against violence now thought the fittest places for it in the very administration of the Sacraments in their Pulpits both among you and abroad the Kingdom in a word so many slanderous malicious accusations without ground entertain'd with pleasure besides the blasphemies upon the whole Order if these cannot tell you after-ages will determine and in the interim let the world judge Our Fathers imperfections are not to be divulg'd though true much less false ones to be imposed upon them This is a reverence but due to Fathers 'T was cursedly done of Cham and he paid for it he and his with an everlasting curse to uncover his Fathers nakedness 'T was wretchedly done of Absalom to tell the people there was no man deputed of the King to hear them no justice in the Land and he thrived accordingly And let all the enemies of my Lord the King be as that young man is says Cushi Yet say we 't were well it were no worse How is all this made Religion too Oaths and Protestations intended certainly to better purposes abused to maintain rebellion and prophaneness Construed so in Pulpits and professed by their Scholars in the face of God and man pray God it go no higher and dare you after all this look for a blessing Alas you must lay by those thoughts till you have learned the Rechabites Lesson They used their Ionadab like a Father so reverenced his memory so preserved his name so obeyed him in all his several authorities so punctually so constantly so couragiously so sweetly so universally so sincerely so really so carefully with that contentedness without grumbling that humility without disputing that patience that readiness that full content of every Age Sex and Condition no weakness tenderness or priviledges pretended against it that God himself presently upon it promiseth a full reward Therefore thus saith the Lord of Hosts the God of Israel c. I am now at the Reward and 't is a full one full of 1. honour full of 2. proportions full of 3. blessings Full of 1. honour at the first Therefore thus as if their Obedience deserved it or God at least would seem so far to honour it He had promised length of life in the Commandment for it and God is not unjust It deserves therefore by the Covenant of his Promise yet by the interpretation of his mercy And 2. full of proportions it is Proportionable to the three Acts and Objects of Obedience You have obeyed your Father therefore you shall want no Sons there 's one You have kept his commandments therefore shall your Sons stand in them and by standing in them stand before God there 's a second You have kept all and done according to all that hath been commanded you fail'd in nothing therefore shall you have a reward all of you not a man of you fail for